ghormenghast (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ghormenghast) wrote,@ 2009-03-06 19:10:00 |
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Thoughts on religion Part 1
This post is part of an ongoing dialogue that started over on Facebook. Hence the Facebook references. If you're on Facebook read it over there.
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Some of you may have noticed a few days back an exchange between my friend and OU classmate Nick Morgenstern and myself in the comments of a note he had posted - That discussion grew slightly heated, and Nick chose to remove it from his Facebook, but a couple days ago, I received a very polite inquiry from Nick in email, where he is asking me sincere questions about my previous faith. Those that know me well know that I am pretty open about my personal journeys and keep very few secrets. Either that, or I just like to talk about myself :D
After consulting with Nick, I have decided to post the answers to his questions in public. I offer it here for your interest. Dialogue is a good thing, and I especially think dialogue about the nature of faith or lack thereof is a good thing. So feel free to reply if you wish. I will, however, ask that people keep it civil. We are all friends here, with honest differences of opinion.
Nick had a lot of questions, and I have a lot of answers... so many, in fact, that I'm going to have to break this up into chunks. This is Part One.. Enjoy.
Briefly some background - as most of you know, I am an atheist, but that hasn't always been the case. I was raised in a mostly non-practicing "christian" household until I was about 14, when I went through a religious conversion. I really enjoyed my time in the church. It was valuable to me in some ways. The fellowship was nice. Feelings of belonging, of making a difference are always good. I embraced my new religion with relish. I was extremely zealous and active in the life of my church. Church was Sunday 10am and 7pm, Wednesday 7pm, and youth group Thursday nights. I was also a member of my high school's Christian Club, and had very serious thoughts about becoming a missionary (missions were a very prominent ministry at my church). Over time, though, I began noticing interesting and disturbing patterns of behavior emerging. I started to perceive the puppet's strings, and out of pure curiosity began asking the "wrong" sorts of questions. In a fundamentalist church, such impertinence is strongly discouraged. Why were certain topics of discussion taboo? Why were the church leaders so insistent that I only have Christian friends? Why was study ABOUT the Bible (as opposed to studying the texts) so frowned upon? How was Christianity actually different from any other cult when there are so many similarities? - The answers I found (or didn't find, as the case may be) proved to be very telling. The scathing reactions I received to my inquiries were a shock, and those planted the first real seeds of doubt in me. I quickly realized that they could not or would not provide what I was seeking. After moving to Arkansas briefly in 1980, I chose not to renew my association with my church when I returned to Florida. I spent several years in my early 20's still considering myself a Christian, although I only went to church to take my Grandmother to hers, a mainline Presbyterian congregation. Over time, I came to notice a lot of the same control systems there. Was this simply endemic to Christianity? This piqued my interest and I began to dig...and dig more. I read the Bible and other religious works. I also read extensively in history and the physical sciences, evolution and the creation/evolution debates. All are important in understanding modern Christianity. By my mid-twenties I had renounced literalist and fundamentalist beliefs forever as each fundamentalist tenet in turn proved itself ridiculously unfeasible. From the creation story, to Noah's ark, to the contradictions of Jesus, each thread I unravelled made the comforting sweater of my religion look more and more threadbare and inadequate - I still believed in a supreme power, but was no longer comfortable with the label of "Christian" - Perhaps "uncomfortably deist" would be an accurate description.- But the digging didn't stop there. Nowdays, I have no pretentions to having any belief in gods. The evidence of such simply isn't there. The digging, as always, is on-going, but I look at the array of puzzle pieces in front of me assembled over many years, at various times of my life, and it doesn't look too good for God.
Coming up: Guns, Gays, and Designer babies! Sounds like a party! :D
This post is part of an ongoing dialogue that started over on Facebook. Hence the Facebook references. If you're on Facebook read it over there.
----------
Some of you may have noticed a few days back an exchange between my friend and OU classmate Nick Morgenstern and myself in the comments of a note he had posted - That discussion grew slightly heated, and Nick chose to remove it from his Facebook, but a couple days ago, I received a very polite inquiry from Nick in email, where he is asking me sincere questions about my previous faith. Those that know me well know that I am pretty open about my personal journeys and keep very few secrets. Either that, or I just like to talk about myself :D
After consulting with Nick, I have decided to post the answers to his questions in public. I offer it here for your interest. Dialogue is a good thing, and I especially think dialogue about the nature of faith or lack thereof is a good thing. So feel free to reply if you wish. I will, however, ask that people keep it civil. We are all friends here, with honest differences of opinion.
Nick had a lot of questions, and I have a lot of answers... so many, in fact, that I'm going to have to break this up into chunks. This is Part One.. Enjoy.
Briefly some background - as most of you know, I am an atheist, but that hasn't always been the case. I was raised in a mostly non-practicing "christian" household until I was about 14, when I went through a religious conversion. I really enjoyed my time in the church. It was valuable to me in some ways. The fellowship was nice. Feelings of belonging, of making a difference are always good. I embraced my new religion with relish. I was extremely zealous and active in the life of my church. Church was Sunday 10am and 7pm, Wednesday 7pm, and youth group Thursday nights. I was also a member of my high school's Christian Club, and had very serious thoughts about becoming a missionary (missions were a very prominent ministry at my church). Over time, though, I began noticing interesting and disturbing patterns of behavior emerging. I started to perceive the puppet's strings, and out of pure curiosity began asking the "wrong" sorts of questions. In a fundamentalist church, such impertinence is strongly discouraged. Why were certain topics of discussion taboo? Why were the church leaders so insistent that I only have Christian friends? Why was study ABOUT the Bible (as opposed to studying the texts) so frowned upon? How was Christianity actually different from any other cult when there are so many similarities? - The answers I found (or didn't find, as the case may be) proved to be very telling. The scathing reactions I received to my inquiries were a shock, and those planted the first real seeds of doubt in me. I quickly realized that they could not or would not provide what I was seeking. After moving to Arkansas briefly in 1980, I chose not to renew my association with my church when I returned to Florida. I spent several years in my early 20's still considering myself a Christian, although I only went to church to take my Grandmother to hers, a mainline Presbyterian congregation. Over time, I came to notice a lot of the same control systems there. Was this simply endemic to Christianity? This piqued my interest and I began to dig...and dig more. I read the Bible and other religious works. I also read extensively in history and the physical sciences, evolution and the creation/evolution debates. All are important in understanding modern Christianity. By my mid-twenties I had renounced literalist and fundamentalist beliefs forever as each fundamentalist tenet in turn proved itself ridiculously unfeasible. From the creation story, to Noah's ark, to the contradictions of Jesus, each thread I unravelled made the comforting sweater of my religion look more and more threadbare and inadequate - I still believed in a supreme power, but was no longer comfortable with the label of "Christian" - Perhaps "uncomfortably deist" would be an accurate description.- But the digging didn't stop there. Nowdays, I have no pretentions to having any belief in gods. The evidence of such simply isn't there. The digging, as always, is on-going, but I look at the array of puzzle pieces in front of me assembled over many years, at various times of my life, and it doesn't look too good for God.
Coming up: Guns, Gays, and Designer babies! Sounds like a party! :D
