*If this is the wrong place, my sincere appolgise to the mods. Please move to the appropriate location*
First off let me clarify that I do not want this to turn into a religious debate thread. I only wish to outline the struggle that lead me to first question, and then to renounce, my Christian beliefs. If any of this offends you it is not intentional, although I am not sorry about it.
I was born and raised in a Christian household. My mother was, and still is to this very day, a committed Christian woman. I spent my Sundays at church in various Sunday school programs. I was taught the basic Christian doctrines at this time and prided myself in excelling in them as well. Any question which may compromise such beliefs was met with utter hostility, and I was told it was better not to ask them at all. How dare reason stand in the way of faith. I was told these two were diametrically opposed, unless it validated religious principles. However, more on that later.
As I grew older I morphed, or shall I say evolved, into quite the little intellectual. I enjoyed reading and debating. Not to sound too conceded, but I was keener at these things compared to other people of my age. This may be derived from the fact that most of my peers were too involved with sports, skirt chasing, and the like to worry about what is look at as trivial at that age. Nevertheless, my faith never wavered. Even when my actions overtly conflicted with the “morality” of the Bible I still held fast to them and bitterly opposed any opposition. I went to church because I was forced to by my parents. I didn’t want to praise the god I still gave my unwavering allegiance too. This is America. To be godless was anti-nationalist, and would possibly even make you a communist. Can’t have that, now can we?
I graduated high school and moved to college. After two years of classes my grades were not satisfactory to say the least. I drifted from major to major not sure of what I wanted to pursue, which made me not take my classes to seriously. This was also during my hardcore wow phase; there possibly could be a correlation there to explore in another thread. Then something remarkable happened. My head knowledge of faith which was actively ideal once again morphed into an emotional one. I rediscovered my love for god. I dropped the classes I was in, and within 5 months was enrolled in a seminary type internship at the megachurch I attended.
I spent a year of my life there (also five thousand dollars I might add). Eighty to one-hundred hours a week we spent running the church operations, conferences, services, special events, and the like. However, my favorite day and the one I excelled at the most was class day. Here we learned the ins and outs of Christian doctrine. To this day I believe I can quote the Bible and defend the Christian faith better than most believers. There was one remarkable thing missing in this whole ordeal. Everything we learned was under the presumption that the Bible was the true and inerrant word of god, Jesus of Nazareth was a real person, and the stories in the both the new and old testaments were factual, historical, and scientific. I believe I now know the reason why we never covered such topics. If you proved that any of those three things were indeed false the rest would soon follow. The foundations of Christianity are akin to the old tale of humpty-dumpty. Not just in historical validity, but spirit as well. One small gust of reason and the shattering would be monumental.
I graduated the program with more questions than I had when I started. I was told by a close friend at the time, who was a devote Christian, to stop all my questioning. “You won’t reach God through logic, “ he said. “I have had friends who did the same thing and they stopped believing”. I wanted the truth. You do not stop searching just because you might not like what you do not find. The hunt continued.
I stopped studying doctrine, and instead focused my attention on the fundamentals. What is the evidence that points to the inerrancy of Scripture? What is the historical proof to point to the divinity, if even the existence, of Christ? How did the universe originate, along with the species on the Earth? I started to listen to debates and lectures by the opposing “faction”, such as: Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and the like. What I have learned and discovered is so vast that I do not have the time nor energy to write here. I can simply say this; there is an irreconcilable difference between reality, reason, and the Bible. Even the moral teachings of the Bible are founded in immorality. We are not here because of divine creation. Our purpose in life is not given to us, but we make it ourself. Our life is not meaningless, we create our own meaning.
As I am about to head to class I will end this with a quote by Hitchens. I will gladly answer any question I am able to. Also, excuse me if this comes out a bit choppy and rant-like. I am writing down my thoughts as I have them. In no way is this supposed to convince people to challenge their beliefs, but rather detail my own journey as of late.
[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Christopher Hitchens[/font][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']: Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years. Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks "That's enough of that. It's time to intervene," and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person. Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either. It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy. And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true
PS: To those who will say,” You were never a true Christian to begin with.” I sincerely disagree, and you have no authority by which to make that accusation. I felt the “holy spirit”. I had experiences just like every other person who believes. I knew the doctrines both in my head and heart.
First off let me clarify that I do not want this to turn into a religious debate thread. I only wish to outline the struggle that lead me to first question, and then to renounce, my Christian beliefs. If any of this offends you it is not intentional, although I am not sorry about it.
I was born and raised in a Christian household. My mother was, and still is to this very day, a committed Christian woman. I spent my Sundays at church in various Sunday school programs. I was taught the basic Christian doctrines at this time and prided myself in excelling in them as well. Any question which may compromise such beliefs was met with utter hostility, and I was told it was better not to ask them at all. How dare reason stand in the way of faith. I was told these two were diametrically opposed, unless it validated religious principles. However, more on that later.
As I grew older I morphed, or shall I say evolved, into quite the little intellectual. I enjoyed reading and debating. Not to sound too conceded, but I was keener at these things compared to other people of my age. This may be derived from the fact that most of my peers were too involved with sports, skirt chasing, and the like to worry about what is look at as trivial at that age. Nevertheless, my faith never wavered. Even when my actions overtly conflicted with the “morality” of the Bible I still held fast to them and bitterly opposed any opposition. I went to church because I was forced to by my parents. I didn’t want to praise the god I still gave my unwavering allegiance too. This is America. To be godless was anti-nationalist, and would possibly even make you a communist. Can’t have that, now can we?
I graduated high school and moved to college. After two years of classes my grades were not satisfactory to say the least. I drifted from major to major not sure of what I wanted to pursue, which made me not take my classes to seriously. This was also during my hardcore wow phase; there possibly could be a correlation there to explore in another thread. Then something remarkable happened. My head knowledge of faith which was actively ideal once again morphed into an emotional one. I rediscovered my love for god. I dropped the classes I was in, and within 5 months was enrolled in a seminary type internship at the megachurch I attended.
I spent a year of my life there (also five thousand dollars I might add). Eighty to one-hundred hours a week we spent running the church operations, conferences, services, special events, and the like. However, my favorite day and the one I excelled at the most was class day. Here we learned the ins and outs of Christian doctrine. To this day I believe I can quote the Bible and defend the Christian faith better than most believers. There was one remarkable thing missing in this whole ordeal. Everything we learned was under the presumption that the Bible was the true and inerrant word of god, Jesus of Nazareth was a real person, and the stories in the both the new and old testaments were factual, historical, and scientific. I believe I now know the reason why we never covered such topics. If you proved that any of those three things were indeed false the rest would soon follow. The foundations of Christianity are akin to the old tale of humpty-dumpty. Not just in historical validity, but spirit as well. One small gust of reason and the shattering would be monumental.
I graduated the program with more questions than I had when I started. I was told by a close friend at the time, who was a devote Christian, to stop all my questioning. “You won’t reach God through logic, “ he said. “I have had friends who did the same thing and they stopped believing”. I wanted the truth. You do not stop searching just because you might not like what you do not find. The hunt continued.
I stopped studying doctrine, and instead focused my attention on the fundamentals. What is the evidence that points to the inerrancy of Scripture? What is the historical proof to point to the divinity, if even the existence, of Christ? How did the universe originate, along with the species on the Earth? I started to listen to debates and lectures by the opposing “faction”, such as: Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and the like. What I have learned and discovered is so vast that I do not have the time nor energy to write here. I can simply say this; there is an irreconcilable difference between reality, reason, and the Bible. Even the moral teachings of the Bible are founded in immorality. We are not here because of divine creation. Our purpose in life is not given to us, but we make it ourself. Our life is not meaningless, we create our own meaning.
As I am about to head to class I will end this with a quote by Hitchens. I will gladly answer any question I am able to. Also, excuse me if this comes out a bit choppy and rant-like. I am writing down my thoughts as I have them. In no way is this supposed to convince people to challenge their beliefs, but rather detail my own journey as of late.
[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Christopher Hitchens[/font][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']: Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years. Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks "That's enough of that. It's time to intervene," and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person. Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either. It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy. And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true
PS: To those who will say,” You were never a true Christian to begin with.” I sincerely disagree, and you have no authority by which to make that accusation. I felt the “holy spirit”. I had experiences just like every other person who believes. I knew the doctrines both in my head and heart.
