Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and experiences. That has been useful to learn from and I will try to bear those things in mind in the future.
It is interesting that so many of the respondents previously professed Christian faith before turning form it. I'd be interested to know how widely that trend is reflected in society, or whether it is a feature of the demographic make-up of this forum. I have a long-standing interest in atheism, and several times have come close to going that way myself. I thought that it might be appropriate to explain here why I haven't done so. It's not particularly a response to the things written above, though some of my thoughts do touch on issues raised above.
I grew up in a fairly conservative Christian background. As a person who likes to think a lot and ask a lot of questions, I have sometimes struggled with the uncritical acceptance of some things by many Christians, and occasionally arguments put forward that seem if not blatantly dishonest then at the very least intellectually incompetent. Fortunately for me I have always had some wise mentors with whom I can actually have the serious discussions, get proper answers, and raise my questions without fear of being branded a heretic or an apostate, but I have had to learn to keep my mouth shut a lot of the time around most Christians, either because their reaction to my thoughts and questions would be hostile or because it would unsettle them so much it would be unkind to share them.
I am sorry to hear that.
Moreover, as I have grown and thought more, I have come to reject a number of the things that many Christians seem to rely on. The inerrancy of scripture seems to be something that you can only conclude by presupposing it from the start, making it an unfalsifiable and therefore essentially meaningless claim. Some of the key doctrines I was always taught (like substitutionary atonement, and the existence of a soul that lives on when we die), I found I struggled to justify from scripture, and definitely couldn't reach a conclusion that Christians had to believe them, yet questioning them seemed heretical to most in my church. Many Christians seem to be driven by someone else's theology rather than by what the Bible actually says. Moreover, one by one I dismantled the classic arguments for the existence of God - cosmological, teleological, moral - as I found that they just didn't prove what they were claimed to prove.
Even as a believer, I never found the classic arguments convincing either.
So I found myself, a few years ago, being very close to being ready to ditch it all and becoming an atheist. I said to God, "There isn't enough evidence that you even exist, so I'm just not sure I can believe in you any more." But I felt him responding to me saying, "Oh, that's nice."
It seemed an odd response. Shouldn't God be more bothered about letting his faithful children be sure he is there? But as I thought more, I realised that this had to be God's response. I was trying to put God in a box, to make him my pet, to control him, by deciding for myself what he has to do in order for me to believe in him. That's a phenomenally arrogant thing to do. If God is God, then I need to let him be God and not seek to usurp his position.
That's an interesting position to take. Forgive me if I've misunderstood, but are you suggesting that it is God, rather than human beings, who takes the lead in this relationship; that human beings cannot force him to form a relationship with anyone by means of indoctrination or contrived arguments?
Secondly, I realised that although I really couldn't prove my faith, to ditch it all and become an atheist would imply that I had enough evidence to prove the atheist position. But I really don't.
Generally, the atheist position is simply a lack of belief. Generally, it's the theist who shoulders the burden of proof, having claimed that there is a God with certain qualities. As such, you don't have to "prove" atheism to be an atheist; you merely need to be lacking in theism.
Acknowledging that the teleological argument is insufficient to prove God's existence is a very long way from considering that the evidence supports all things having come about by natural processes, for example. In fact, I still find that pretty implausible; the evidence for evolution is very much lacking, for example. Conceding that I don't know for certain that natural explanations are impossible is only a tiny step towards concluding that they are probable.
I recommend examining the evidence for evolution closely; it's more than abundant.
Thirdly, I realised that, in my search for truth, the truth is that if atheism is true then truth doesn't matter. If atheism is true then all that matters is whatever matters to me.
Where did you get that idea from? Why would truth not matter if God doesn't exist? This seems to come from your theism; in particular, the assumption that truth can only matter if a deity exists. As you may have gleaned from our responses, atheists don't share this assumption. It matters what's true, whether a deity exists or not.
And truth matters to me if God exists because ultimately I believe that I will be happier by believing the truth and following God's way. But if there is no God, I'm not at all sure that being right will make my life any better or happier or more successful. In general, I see that the people in the world who are really committed to truth tend to suffer for it. Worth it if there's a world to come; probably not if this is all there is.
This seems to me like a very material utilitarian calculation: "Is the truth of any benefit
to me? If God doesn't exist, then it probably doesn't benefit
me." Perhaps it won't benefit you materially, but what about intellectually, morally, and spiritually? What about the benefit
to others?
Fourthly, I realised that there is no particular reason why the default position for an agnostic (which is what I had now become) should be atheism rather than Christianity. To assume that it is is to assume that it's basically better to be an atheist in this life, but since God exists then we have to live as Christians for the sake of the next life (a Pascal's Wager kind of position). But I realised I don't believe that at all. Even if I could know for certain that God didn't exist, I think the teachings of Jesus are a better guide for life than anything any atheist has ever come up with. And I think that if we all followed Jesus then the world would be a much better place than by following modern secular philosophies and moralities.
I think our ethics has advanced considerably since the time of Jesus. There are probably some kernels of moral truth to be gained from religion, but the remainder is simply an intellectual wasteland that we would be better off abandoning.
Fifthly, while (as has been pointed out above) there is nothing stopping an atheist from living morally, and I have to concede that many of them seem to do a better job of it than many Christians, nevertheless Christianity gives a far more logical basis for morality than does atheism. The Christian who acts immorally is being inconsistent with what they say they believe; the atheist who acts immorally isn't -
Morality and immorality are neither consistent nor inconsistent with atheism, since atheism makes no intrinsic moral claims.
in fact, there is no logical basis for 'morality' in atheism. At best, 'morality' is a set of rules by which I live in society because if I treat other people well then I'll probably have a better life. But if I were to get into a position of absolute power, where I could kill the groups I don't like with impunity, and enable the people I like to prosper, not only would there be nothing 'wrong' with that (because there is no right or wrong) but it would actually make a lot more sense than tying myself back with moral strictures.
Atheism does not necessarily imply moral nihilism and theism doesn't necessarily provide a basis for morality.
So I had to conclude that the morality that atheists may follow is actually a morality whose philosophical basis lies in religion (usually Christianity).
My moral thinking is not based on religious concerns. The basis for morality in religion is God's say so. I don't say "That is wrong because God said so." I most frequently say something to the effect of "That is wrong because it needlessly causes harm to someone else."
Sixthly, I also realised that there are many other good things that I would be giving up if I left Christianity, with no obvious replacement. The community aspect of the church is one very big one. As a person who is not naturally good at making friends, in the church I am immediately able to become part of a social group with generally kind and friendly people who will genuinely care for and look out for each other, something that I have rarely seen and never really experienced in the secular world. And there are many other social and educational gains that I have received through having grown up in the church, that I see people outside the church either lacking or struggling to get, and that I would want my children to have and other people's children to have. So that's another good reason to stay.
Interpersonal experiences vary among those who deconvert. Some are forced to sever social ties with once close friends. Others form new relationships that they find just as fulfilling as their former church friendships. Others maintain a close friendship with people from their former church.
So, all in all, the reasons to leave are really bad reasons. They depend on an arrogance of me pretending that I can know enough to solve the universe's big questions;
On the contrary! It requires humility to admit that you
don't know enough to answer the universe's big questions, not arrogance.
they depend on a selfishness that values my own rights above the need to help others;
In what way? You can still help others and care for them. Religion isn't required for that.
they depend on a commitment to truth that really doesn't matter if there is no God,
Again, that's an assumption that seems to come from your theology. You have committed yourself to the view that the only way for truth to matter is for a deity to exist.
I don't want to go as far as saying that every atheist must be arrogant and selfish and deluded in their belief that they are being truthful and moral; but I am pretty sure that I would be if I became an atheist, and I do see those traits in a lot of atheists. I see them in many Christians as well, because we are all sinners in need of a saviour, but the difference with Christianity is that it recognises these things as faults and seeks to deal with them, while atheism has a tendency to prize them as virtues.
Did you see my response to your questions? I listed curiosity, openness to learning, and epistemic humility as virtues, not arrogance, selfishness, and delusion. I know of no atheist who prizes the later as virtues.
