Tag Archives: Agnostic

Why I am Agnostic on the God Question

A commenter on Ken Ham’s Facebook page stated:

Interesting how one billboard says: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. Notice the word “probably” : ) …and we thought they knew for sure!

Why do many Christians think atheists are certain there is no God?

One reason is that we tend to speak in absolutes when we talk about God. As a blogger, I don’t have the time or energy to modify everything I write about the Gods with nuanced words so it “seems” that I am certain there is NO God.

It is like the word Christian. When I write about Christians and Christianity, I am almost always referring to Fundamentalist oriented Evangelicalism. People who frequent this blog know this, but the newbie who finds this blog via a web search does not know this. As a result, they will often think that I am painting all Christians with the same brush. (and I need to do a better job at being clear about WHO I am writing about)

So it is with atheists and their talk about God.

I am an atheist and an agnostic. I live my day-to-day life as an atheist. The only time God enters my thinking is when I am writing a blog post or working on a book project.

When I first deconverted I called myself an agnostic. But, I got tired of having to constantly explain myself, so I decided to call myself an atheist. Even then, many people do not really understand what it means to be an atheist. (please read my post The A Word)

When it comes to the God question, no one can be absolutely sure there is no God. Anyone who says they are absolutely certain there is no God is stating something that can not be proved.(no more than the Christian can prove there is a God)

At best, atheists are agnostic on the God question. Based on the available evidence it is unlikely a God exists. It is all about probabilities. Is it probable a God exists? From my seat in the pew, I say No.

An atheist can, however, be atheistic towards the current panoply of Gods worshipped by humans. It is one thing to say, I am not certain a God exists and a whole other thing to say, the Christian God, as revealed in the Christian Bible, does not exist.

Perhaps there IS a God and that God has not yet revealed itself to us. Perhaps there is a divine energy that we can not see and know. We simply can’t and don’t know for certain and we need to be honest about not knowing for certain. Of course, the same could be said of those who believe there is a God. They can’t know for certain either.

Some atheists deride agnostics as people who are cowards, people who still have religious sympathies. I don’t think this is a true assessment of agnostics. The agnostic is a still open to new evidence. They are willing to consider any new study, find, or evidence that comes to light. However, the hardcore, there are NO NO NO NO NO God, atheist has closed their mind and is not much different from a closed-minded Fundamentalist Christian. Both have their minds made up.

Some people suggest that science will give us the answer to the God question some day. Science will some day answer the origin question. Perhaps. But, until then, I intend to continue to be agnostic when it comes to God. It will take a lot more evidence than is currently available for me to state with great certainty, there is NO God.

Let me end this post with the words of Clarence Darrow:

An agnostic is a doubter. The word is generally applied to those who doubt the verity of accepted religious creeds of faiths. Everyone is an agnostic as to the beliefs or creeds they do not accept. Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds, and the Protestants are agnostic to the Catholic creed. Any one who thinks is an agnostic about something, otherwise he must believe that he is possessed of all knowledge. And the proper place for such a person is in the madhouse or the home for the feeble-minded. In a popular way, in the western world, an agnostic is one who doubts or disbelieves the main tenets of the Christian faith.

I would say that belief in at least three tenets is necessary to the faith of a Christian: a belief in God, a belief in immortality, and a belief in a supernatural book. Various Christian sects require much more, but it is difficult to imagine that one could be a Christian, under any intelligent meaning of the word, with less. Yet there are some people who claim to be Christians who do not accept the literal interpretation of all the Bible, and who give more credence to some portions of the book than to others.

I am an agnostic as to the question of God. I think that it is impossible for the human mind to believe in an object or thing unless it can form a mental picture of such object or thing. Since man ceased to worship openly an anthropomorphic God and talked vaguely and not intelligently about some force in the universe, higher than man, that is responsible for the existence of man and the universe, he cannot be said to believe in God. One cannot believe in a force excepting as a force that pervades matter and is not an individual entity. To believe in a thing, an image of the thing must be stamped on the mind. If one is asked if he believes in such an animal as a camel, there immediately arises in his mind an image of the camel. This image has come from experience or knowledge of the animal gathered in some way or other. No such image comes, or can come, with the idea of a God who is described as a force.

Man has always speculated upon the origin of the universe, including himself. I feel, with Herbert Spencer, that whether the universe had an origin– and if it had– what the origin is will never be known by man. The Christian says that the universe could not make itself; that there must have been some higher power to call it into being. Christians have been obsessed for many years by Paley’s argument that if a person passing through a desert should find a watch and examine its spring, its hands, its case and its crystal, he would at once be satisfied that some intelligent being capable of design had made the watch. No doubt this is true. No civilized man would question that someone made the watch. The reason he would not doubt it is because he is familiar with watches and other appliances made by man. The savage was once unfamiliar with a watch and would have had no idea upon the subject. There are plenty of crystals and rocks of natural formation that are as intricate as a watch, but even to intelligent man they carry no implication that some intelligent power must have made them. They carry no such implication because no one has any knowledge or experience of someone having made these natural objects which everywhere abound.

To say that God made the universe gives us no explanation of the beginnings of things. If we are told that God made the universe, the question immediately arises: Who made God? Did he always exist, or was there some power back of that? Did he create matter out of nothing, or is his existence coextensive with matter? The problem is still there. What is the origin of it all? If, on the other hand, one says that the universe was not made by God, that it always existed, he has the same difficulty to confront. To say that the universe was here last year, or millions of years ago, does not explain its origin. This is still a mystery. As to the question of the origin of things, man can only wonder and doubt and guess…

Ken Ham Changes his Mind About Atheists

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ken_ham

Ken Ham, a Fundamentalist Christian, founder of Answers in Genesis and The Creation Museum, often blames atheists/agnostics/humanists/secularists for what he sees as the moral decline of the United States.

Evidently Ham has changed his mind about who to blame for the sorry mess he thinks the United States is in. In a March 20, 2013 blog post, Ham writes:

Yes, I believe America is under judgment. Romans chapter 1 is being played out right before our eyes. And whose fault is it?

I claim it is largely the fault of the church, including even many conservative, evangelical pastors who have compromised by adding the ideas of millions of years, evolution, or both to the Bible—or who say it doesn’t matter (even though they may preach the gospel powerfully).

Yes sir, CHRISTIANS, especially EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS are to blame for the moral decline of the United States. I wonder if Ham will go back and retract all the things he said about atheists/agnostics/humanists/secularists being the reason for the moral decline of the United States?

Thank you Ken for putting the blame where it belongs! Smile

From Fundamentalism to Agnosticism, A Guest Post

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This guest post was written by Sheldon Cooper. He is a former fundamentalist, and works in the warehouse industry in the St. Louis area. He talks about his past life, and current beliefs at his blog, Ramblings of Sheldon. If you are wondering, yes, the blogging name does come from the character on the TV show The Big Bang Theory. If you are on Google +, feel free to add him to your circles.

I think any former fundamentalist out there that is reading this post will know what I am talking about when I say that there’s usually regrets that you have when you give up your former beliefs. You wonder sometimes why you didn’t give it up sooner than you did (or how you could have possibly believed it in the first place).

I have my moments like this sometimes, and recently I’ve been having my regrets about introducing myself to the teachings of John Piper. It was in the last years of my time in fundamentalism, and John Piper was rather popular in the Southern Baptist circles I was in (and is still popular there).

I was a confused, doubting young fundamentalist, who had a lot of questions, and started talking about those questions to a man that I considered my spiritual mentor (I’ll call him Mike). He was a big John Piper fan, very obsessed with his teachings (and also a big fan of John MacArthur and Paul Washer as well), and he had been getting his Sunday School class, which I was a part of at the time into Piper’s teachings.

Piper’s teachings sounded great to someone in my position, and since I have had depression for most of my life, his concept of “Christian hedonism” (odd name, I know) sounded great. It’s an old concept, but the way he presents it, that we can know the greatest heights of joy if we do everything that pleases god, sounds appealing. It sounds so positive and life affirming to someone who is used to living in fundamentalism all their life.

I did have my questions about him, and some disagreements, his extreme Calvinism troubled me, and I had a lot of questions (and long discussion with Mike, the spiritual mentor) about Piper’s accompanying views on god’s sovereignty All in all, though, I found his views interesting, and even read some of his books.

The doubts about Christianity itself didn’t go away though, and in time, I would end becoming an agnostic, albeit an undercover agnostic (check out the Undercover Agnostic series on my blog to see more of what I mean by this), and I would end up distancing myself somewhat from Mike after a bizarre incident where his wife said to their Sunday School class, (and told the class that he wanted her to tell them this), that he had cheated on her. When I mentioned this to him later, and asked him about it, they both denied it, and complained about people “spreading rumors” about them (yes, this actually happened, I wish I was making it up, I had a lot of respect for him).

Life went on, we parted ways for the most part, and I ended up becoming an agnostic. It turns out that my doubts weren’t just a passing phase, it’s been three years since I quit believing in Christianity. It had been a while since I had even heard of John Piper again, but when an old blog post of his, talking about his views on women in the military started resurfacing on various atheist blogs, I was surprised at what I didn’t know about John Piper.

He’s even more into the idea of complementarianism than I would have ever thought he was, and this would have repulsed me, even as a fundamentalist. Even then, I believed in gender equality (supporting equality in other areas, such as gay rights, well, I didn’t get around that until after leaving Christianity). Here’s what John Piper says about women in the military:

If I were the last man on the planet to think so, I would want the honor of saying no woman should go before me into combat to defend my country. A man who endorses women in combat is not pro-woman; he’s a wimp. He should be ashamed.

For most of history, in most cultures, he would have been utterly scorned as a coward to promote such an idea. Part of the meaning of manhood as God created us is the sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of our women.

Well, I guess according to John Piper, I’m a “wimp” then…….

I’ve never had a problem, even during my fundamentalist days of believing that women were just as capable as men. Perhaps that came from being raised by a stay at home mom that was also very (how should I put this?) strong willed.

His post gets even more ludicrous:

Suppose, I said, a couple of you students, Jason and Sarah, were walking to McDonald’s after dark. And suppose a man with a knife jumped out of the bushes and threatened you. And suppose Jason knows that Sarah has a black belt in karate and could probably disarm the assailant better than he could.

Should he step back and tell her to do it? No. He should step in front of her and be ready to lay down his life to protect her, irrespective of competency. It is written on his soul. That is what manhood does.

This statement defies common sense in so many different ways. Instead of letting Sarah step forward, because she knows hand to hand combat, and could disarm the attacker more easily than Jason, who has no such experience, he would rather Jason go ahead and try to fight him.

Most people would say that Sarah should go after the attacker, because if she does there is a greater possibility that both of their lives will be saved. He would much rather let his outdated views on gender and chivalry cost both the students in this example their lives than to let Sarah use her wealth of experience and training in this area.

I love what blogger Joe Sands of Incongruous Circumspection said in the title to his response to John Piper: John Piper Wants to be Murdered . I think what is very telling about the example with the students is that he said “irrespective of competency”. He’s saying that even when a woman has the training and skills, she shouldn’t be allowed to use them.
That’s the problem with this kind of thinking, people who ascribe to complementarian ideas think that they are showing respect for women, by putting them on a pedestal like this, but I see this kind of view as degrading to women.

In his example of the two young lovers being confronted by someone with a knife, he is saying that even though the woman has proven herself capable of doing something (in this case hand to hand combat), by what she has learned through training, and proven by experience, she should still not be allowed to put those skills into practice.
It’s saying that even though you have proven yourself capable, we won’t allow you to act as though you are equal.

If I had known what I know about John Piper now, I wouldn’t have considered his views so appealing. I feel foolish now for not fully knowing what he believed, and not digging deeper. Even as a fundamentalist, I would have disagreed with him on gender issues. I guess it’s one of those regrets I’ll learn from and move on.

There’s much I have learned from that time in my life, and I think sometimes I’ve learned some valuable lessons from it. In some ways, it’s helped me now that I am an agnostic. I can understand the beliefs, the mentality, the culture more than most of the population can. It’s because I’ve believed the same beliefs, repeated the same lines and arguments, and lived a life similar to them.

I understand that world and it’s culture in ways that someone without experience can never fully understand (I’m sure many former fundamentalists know that feeling). It’s given me more understanding, and patience, because I remember who I once was, and what I sounded like. That doesn’t mean I still don’t get frustrated with fundamentalists, but I know where they are coming from in life, and that helps in trying to have discussions and debates with them. It’s one thing that I don’t regret about my past experiences, but there’s still much more that I will have to learn to move on from.

Never Underestimate the Power of Jesus

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Often, atheists and agnostics grossly underestimate the power of Jesus. I am sure that some of you are already thinking or saying out loud, Bruce, are you nuts? Have you renounced atheism and become a follower of Jesus again? We don’t underestimate the power of Jesus because he doesn’t exist. End of story!

But, he does exist and I think many atheists and agnostics forget this. In our desire to rid the world of the damaging effects of religion we often forget that Jesus is alive and well.

Now, the Jesus who is alive and well is not an actual, physical living human being and neither is he an actual, physical God or Son of God. The Jesus who was born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago is dead. The Jesus who, for thirty-three years, walked the roads of Palestine is dead. The Jesus spoken of in the Bible is dead. We know that dead people do not come back from the grave. We know that once a person is dead they stay dead. Jesus is dead and there is no chance that he is coming back from the dead.

But, Jesus is alive and well in the myths and beliefs of millions of Christians. In the mythical Jesus people find comfort, meaning, and hope. In the mythical Jesus people find what they think is lacking in their lives, and quite frankly atheists and agnostics don’t have anything to offer when it comes to what Jesus can offer a person.

But, Bruce, believing in Jesus is irrational. Believing in Jesus is as rational as believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. Totally correct, but this doesn’t matter.

When suffering and loss come our way, our rationality does not do us much good. When our lives are in a heap of ashes, knowing the proofs for God not existing does nothing to comfort us. When we are struggling to keep from drowning, the books written by Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, provide no help. All our rational, well-thought-out arguments do little for us when we are at those moments in life where the most precious thing to us is our next breath.

In these times we look for comfort and hope. We look to those who love us and who are willing to do anything for us. In these times our intellectual prowess does not matter. What we desperately want and need is a hand to hold on to, someone who will tell is it is going to be all-right.

But, Bruce, shit happens and we are all going to die in the end. Atheists and agnostics don’t need sentimentality. Surely, we can face what comes our way with a rugged resolve, knowing we are right. Perhaps.

But is knowing we are right the most important thing? Is drawing our last breath knowing we were right about religion, God, Jesus, and the Bible really the grand objective?

Forget for a moment what you know about the Bible. Forget what you know about its teachings. If you were once a Christian, forget your experience in the church. Think for a moment about the essence of the Christian religion. What is the one thing that matters more than anything else? What is the one thing that allows millions of people to live in a state of cognitive dissonance? What is the one thing that allows Christians to shut off all the criticisms of Christianity and allows them to continue believing?

One word…Jesus.

The mythical Jesus, the Jesus of legend, the Jesus that is preached in countless Christian churches all over the world, this Jesus is the one thing that matters above all else.

Why is this? What is it about Jesus that millions of people will abandon rational thinking for? There is no proof for what the Bible teaches on most anything. Few of the events in the Bible have any historical proof. Why does Jesus have such power over people?

Jesus offers salvation. Jesus offers friendship, love and compassion. Countless drug addicts and alcoholics have abandoned their addictions because of Jesus. Gang members have forsaken their violent ways and thieves have turned to gainful means of employment all because of Jesus. Only the most hardheaded and blind among atheists and agnostics would deny the fact that, for millions of people, Jesus makes a qualitative difference in their life.

In Jesus, millions of people find meaning, purpose, and direction. In Jesus, they find the strength to suffer and to die. This Jesus promised to never leave them or forsake them and no matter how hard we try to show that Jesus is AWOL in the lives of Christians, they still believe he is that friend that sticks closer than a brother.

I am sure there is some psychological or neurological explanation for why this is so, but such explanations have little value. People believe what they believe and that is all that matters.

My wife’s parents are in their seventies. They are now on the short side of life and it is unlikely that both of them will still be living ten or fifteen years from now. When they die I will mourn their death. I love them dearly. I will grieve over the loss of two people I have known most of my adult life. Good people. Loving people. Caring people. And yes, devout, fundamentalist Christians.

They believe that Jesus is with them through thick and thin. Jesus has been their constant guide for over fifty years. According to them, Jesus has worked countless miracles for them. To them, Jesus is as much a part of their lives as the air they breathe.

I could point out to them all the times that Jesus wasn’t there for them. Where was Jesus when they miscarried? Where was Jesus when their daughter was killed in a motorcycle accident? Their life is filled with examples where Jesus was nowhere to be found. He seems to always be around when they need a hundred dollars but nowhere to be found when faced with job loss and sickness. Yet, they still steadfastly believe.

Is it my place to expose their fraudulent Jesus? Is it my place to point out all the places that their friends Jesus was no friend at all? Perhaps I should buy them Bart Ehrman’s books for Christmas so they can know the truth about the Bible and Jesus?

Why would I want to do this? Would their life be better without Jesus?

I can’t think of any way their life would be better without Jesus. Their whole existence and being is invested in Jesus and they are trusting him to be there when they are dying and to carry them home to their reward in Heaven.

None of this is true BUT it doesn’t matter.

All that matters is what Jesus means to them and what value he adds to their lives. If this Jesus gives their lives meaning, purpose, and direction, I have no right to disabuse them of their beliefs. If this Jesus gives them peace and comfort…who am I to take that away from them?

Sometimes, we as atheists and agnostics, in our zeal to rid the world of the evil of Christian fundamentalism, forget that most Christians are not theocrats trying to take over America. They have sincerely-held beliefs and, for them, Jesus adds value to their lives. Yes, we must battle Christian fundamentalists who want to turn American into a Christian theocracy. Yes, we must battle attempts to teach creationism as science in the public schools. Yes, we must battle attempts to codify Christian morals and ethics as the law of the land. We must battle any and all attempts to lessen the individual liberty we have to believe or not believe. But, beyond these things, it is not our place to rid the world of beliefs we think are silly or anti-intellectual.

We must remember, for those of us who are bloggers, that the Christians that come to our blogs to debate, evangelize, and attack are not typical Christians. Zealots deserve all that we give them and I have little tolerance for such people. But…I must never forget that most Christians are not like the zealots. Most Christians are like my wife’s parents…who love Jesus and who want to live a good life.

All human beings want a life that has meaning and purpose. We want to be loved and we want to know our life mattered. In the end, we all die and we will soon be forgotten by all but those who loved us. Let’s be careful, in our zeal to rid the world of all the evils associated with religion, that we don’t lose those we love, that we don’t trade being right for those who will be there for us when we draw our last breath.

Does Everything Happen for a Reason?

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The Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Muslim and Mormon, along with many “spiritual” people, believe EVERYTHING happens for a reason. They all believe that God or the Universe or some sort of divine energy/consciousness orchestrates our lives and that nothing happens by chance or accident.

According to people who think like this, everything that happens in our lives is part of a bigger purpose or plan. No matter what happens to us, it happened because it was meant to happen.

According to this way of thinking…the irresponsible, dumb-ass, youthful driver who pulled out to pass a slow-moving truck on a double yellow line and missed hitting Polly and I head on by a few feet was acting according to some greater purpose or plan. If he had hit us, our death would have happened for a reason.

As I think back through my life, my Mom’s suicide at age 54, my Dad’s death from surgery complications at age 49, my sister-in-law’s death from a motorcycle accident, my wife’s favorite uncle’s death at age 51 from a rare heart virus, my wife’s younger cousin’s recent death from myasthenia gravis…all of these all-to-soon tragic deaths had no positive effect on those left behind and their deaths certainly, outside of releasing several of them from pain, had no positive effect for them.

As I look at the world I see pain and suffering. I see hunger and thirst. I see violence and deprivation. I see poverty, animal abuse, and environmental degradation. Yet, I am told these things happen for a reason. Pray tell, what is the bigger purpose or plan for these things? What reason could there be for children starving, women being raped, and families having no means of support?

A week or so ago a horrific, violent storm ripped though NW Ohio. People and animals were killed, buildings and trees were destroyed, and millions of people were left without electricity for days, all during a time when temperatures were setting new historic highs. Again, what is the bigger purpose or plan for these things?

As Polly and I drove home from SE Indiana we saw widespread devastation from what some describe as the worst drought in decades. We saw fields where farmers had already cut down their corn to use as silage. Again, what is the bigger purpose or plan for these things?

All across the world war rages on. My own country has troops stationed all over the world and is currently waging war in Afghanistan. U.S troops, bombs, and bullets are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths of innocent civilian men, women, and children. Again, what is the bigger purpose or plan for these things?

It is not enough to say that God has a perfect plan and we must not question him. I not only question this God, I charge him with gross negligence and malfeasance. Any human acting as this God does would be considered a manic, cruel, serial-abuser of his fellow human beings. Such a God we would or should not want as family or a friend, yet billions claim this God as their friends, confidant, family member and lover.

I prefer the agnostic, atheist, deist way of looking at life. Shit happens. Good and bad happens to one and all, and often what comes our way has no purpose or reason. It just h-a-p-p-e-n-s.

This does not mean that I can not learn from the bad things that happen in my life. My own physical debility and life of pain has been quite instructive. My past experiences have indeed helped to make me into the man I am today. (good and bad) But to suggest that God or the universe or some divine energy/consciousness is behind how my life has turned out? I reject any such notion…I gladly embrace what my life is and all that helped to make it what it is, but I have no place in my life for some sort of divine puppeteer pulling the strings of my life. Four years ago, I reached up and cut the puppeteer’s strings and from that day forward my life has been my own. My life is an admixture of my own choices, the choices of others, genetics, and random events and circumstances. I need no other explanation, I need no God to make my life more palatable. It is what it is until it isn’t.

How a Non-Christian Found it Necessary to Leave Christianity

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Guest Post by Paul Sunstone who blogs at Sunstone’s Café

My mother, who was a Christian, intentionally raised my brothers and me as agnostics.

You see, mom had a theory: Questions such as whether God exists, whether Jesus is our lord and savior, whether there is a heaven and hell — all such questions were far too important to be decided by little boys according to her. Hence, she strictly forbid us reaching any conclusions about religious matters until we were able to reason as adults. As a consequence, I grew up resisting — for the most part — the temptation to arrive at any firm conclusions regarding religion.

Of course, it is almost impossible to grow up in a society that is 80% Christian without unconsciously adopting many of the views and assumptions of your Christian friends and neighbors. Looking back, I think I adopted so many Christian views and assumptions that I might have been fairly labeled a Christian in all but a handful of ways.

For instance: I neither believed in nor disbelieved in god, but — like any good Christian — I thought the question of god’s existence was crucially important. More over, the god I neither believed in nor disbelieved in was very much like the God of the Christians. In those and in a hundred other ways, I was more or less a Christian — without being aware of myself as such.

Consequently, I can look back now and see how I have spent a lot of my life freeing myself from Christianity. And one way I’ve freed myself from Christianity is by freeing myself from the Christian notion of self-sacrifice.

Growing up, I was taught that a good person was, among other things, self-sacrificing and even self-effacing; that he or she not only did what was beneficial to others, but did it for little or no reward of any kind. Unfortunately, that was one of the things about Christianity that I took to heart. And for so long as I took it to heart, I could not understand what it meant to be true to myself.

The notion of being true to myself sounded suspicious to me. If you were busy being true to yourself, weren’t you by necessity neglecting other people? The people you should be sacrificing yourself for? Being true to yourself just didn’t make much sense to me, so I never really investigated it.

When I finally did get around to examining the idea — which was not until mid-life — I discovered that it had a lot more going for it than I had imagined. As I learned how to apply it,. I found it gave me a richer sense of purpose and meaning than I had suspected it would.

I think an important key to understanding what it means to be true to yourself is to grasp that our beliefs are not what we most need to be true to. Of course, beliefs are of crucial importance in Christianity. After all, whether you spend eternity in heaven or hell largely seems to depend on your beliefs. But that prejudice can be misleading for beliefs are of much less importance to being true to oneself. Beliefs come and go. If we make a reasonable effort to have true beliefs, then we are almost certainly required to change and update our beliefs as we gather new information. For that and other reasons, it is risky to make them paramount.

I am of the opinion that, instead of focusing on what we believe — and then trying to be true to those beliefs — we should focus more on our talents. And then try to turn those talents into socially responsible skills. In my experience, that brings the richest and most lasting sense of meaning and purpose.

There’s a saying (often mistakenly attributed to Aristotle) that goes something like this: “At the crossroads where your talents and skills meet the needs of the world, there lies your well-being or happiness”. To illustrate, imagine someone with a talent or gift for music. By turning that talent into musical skills, he or she is being true to themselves. Then, by using their skills to meet the needs of the world for music, they increase their chances of finding some measure of happiness. Yet, in my experience, even if they do not meet the needs of the world, even if they keep their music to themselves, they are likely to find happiness and a sense of well-being simply in turning their talent into skills.

I do not hold Christianity entirely responsible for my not having discovered the rewards of being true to myself until mid-life. I think there were other factors involved as well. But I believe Christianity — at least to the extent it made me suspicious of being true to myself — impeded my progress in that direction.

There have been several other ways in which I believe my life has improved as I’ve freed myself from the Christian ideas and assumptions I unwittingly adopted while growing up. But that is by no means to say I think of Christianity as an evil that must be abolished. Rather, it’s just that in my own case I have discovered — time and again — that it is a poor fit for me.

The A Word

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(repost)

Not THAT A word.

This one…

Atheist.

Richard Dawkins writes:

Let us consider the appropriateness or otherwise of someone (call him ‘Philo’) describing himself as a theist, atheist or agnostic. I would suggest that if Philo estimates the various plausibilities to be such that on the evidence before him the probability of theism comes out near to one he should describe himself as a theist and if it comes out near zero he should call himself an atheist, and if it comes out somewhere in the middle he should call himself an agnostic. There are no strict rules about this classification because the borderlines are vague. If need be, like a middle-aged man who is not sure whether to call himself bald or not bald, he should explain himself more fully

For a long time I labeled myself as an agnostic. Agnostic was a safe word for me. A good place to hide and heal.

People, particularly Christian people, were willing to give me some space, the benefit of the doubt , when I said I was an agnostic. Perhaps they thought agnosticism was just a temporary state. Perhaps they thought I was riding the fence and would, in time, come back to them.

It is time for me to come out of hiding and own up to the truth that I am an atheist.

Practically, I live my day to day life as an atheist. (but then so do many Christians) I don’t pray to a deity. I don’t study a religious text. I don’t check in with God before I do something. I live my life in such a way that God never enters the picture.

Richard Dawkins aptly describes my view:

I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.

I have learned that most people misunderstand atheism. They think atheism is akin to Satan worship. Oh my God, you don’t believe in God! For some reason people believe the worst about atheists. They have no reason to so so. Atheists are like many groups of people, diverse and resistant to stereotype.

For me, the God question is about probabilities. Can I state with certainty there is no God? (using the word God in a generic sense) Of course not. But, I can not make an absolute statement about anything. I don’t possess complete, absolute knowledge of anything. Even if there was proof of the existence of a god how would I determine which god is the real God? Humans believe in a plethora of gods. Which god is the true God?

Atheists are skeptics. Claims of certainty, like the claims of Christianity, are viewed with suspicion. The Atheist says “prove it.” Appeals to faith or the supernatural have no effect on atheists.

When I told people I was an agnostic I often had to explain what that meant. By labeling myself as an atheist I no longer have to explain myself. When I say I am an atheist people know I don’t believe in God. Of course, calling myself an atheist brings a whole new set of cultural and social problems that I have to deal with.

I am the same Bruce, just with a different label.

The Reason Rally and My Letter to the Defiance Crescent-News About It

For the Christian It’s Not about the Evidence

The Way Forward

Featuring the Writing of Bruce Gerencser

Tag Archives: Agnostic

Why I am Agnostic on the God Question

Ken Ham Changes his Mind About Atheists

From Fundamentalism to Agnosticism, A Guest Post

Never Underestimate the Power of Jesus

Does Everything Happen for a Reason?

How a Non-Christian Found it Necessary to Leave Christianity

The A Word

The Reason Rally and My Letter to the Defiance Crescent-News About It

For the Christian It’s Not about the Evidence

Certainty

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