Over 10 years ago at a church retreat I accepted the Lord, Jesus Christ, as my God and savior. I was baptized at the Westside Baptist Church soon after. Years later, I look back on this part of my life in an entirely different light and wonder what led me to that conclusion. The earliest religious experiences I remember were from my childhood, perhaps as young as five or six years old. I don't remember going to church with my parents that young, but instead, it was my father's parents who brought us with them on those Sunday mornings. To be honest, I did not enjoy those days. I don't remember ever protesting however, perhaps because I loved my grandparents too much to upset them. My mother's parents also brought us to church later on, but I don't think we attended Sunday school so it wasn't as boring to me. Then, in my teens, my brother started going to church with friends... on his own. That was kind of surprising to me since I think we both thought church was boring when we were young. I started going too because it sounded fun. It was. I made friends in my youth group and eventually went on the retreat. I thought it was the right thing to do. My friends were Christians, my family was Christian, it must have been right. After all, if you're not saved, you will go to Hell.
A small turning point in my life was at my Mom's church (not the same church my friends attended) when I was about 18. During a Sunday school lesson, my "teacher" had the audacity to suggest that the bible should not be taken literally. It did contain moral lessons worthy of following, but it was ultimately infallible since it was written by many people, and translated by many more people. And let's face it, some of the things in the old testament were not the best things to teach your kids. Maybe this was the seed which led me to seek truth in my life after so many years of following other's idea of the truth. I had had my doubts in the past, but I didn't want to disappoint anyone- especially God. At the time, I was aware of the existence of other religions, but that was about it. In my world civilization class a few years later though, I learned about our earliest history. I learned about our cultures and religions and began to see flaws in my beliefs. First of all, my religion was not the first. In fact, the religion my religion came from was not the first either. So what made mine the right one? I had no answer.
Fast forward several years and I was no longer attending church. I lived on my own and had very different friends. I had a friend that described himself as agnostic. I had never even heard the term before, so he explained it to me. He didn't believe in god because there wasn't enough evidence to support the idea. At that time, I still believed so we didn't really get into it. (I was never the preachy type of Christian.) I also had gay friends. They were really not that different from my other friends, except for the bigotry they experienced. I felt sympathy for them in their struggle for equal marital rights, despite what the church says about it. I started to think that church wasn't really for me, but I still felt that there must be a God. The world was just too complex and amazing to be random chance.
I found the atheist community about a year ago. Despite what I had previously thought, these were perfectly normal people who just had a different view from my Christian family and friends. They were not all evil heathens. I realize now that I am and always have been an atheist. I was never fully convinced, but I was always afraid that I might be wrong. What I had learned about Hell and the devil scared me into doing what I thought I had to do to be a good person, to please my family and to go to Heaven.
"Free thinking" or just joining in on the only one view point you surround yourself with every day? You my friend have just been conned.
ReplyDeleteYou have listened to these podcast who no doubt only talk positive about atheist views, surrounded yourself with people who are not Christians, and enabled yourself to have a fast-one pulled over on you by a person that I would not call a Sunday School teacher. A person that would come week in and week out to "teach" something they didn't believe in would either be a crazy, a person with a personal agenda against Christianity with an obvious bias against it, or just a flat out liar. In any of the cases would you really be able to believe them?
Like I said you have allowed yourself to hear one side for 10 years and have drank the cool aid. You are no better than the news when they are somewhere other than New England, or California, or somewhere leftist like that, and grab the biggest hick they can find. You don't bother to grab the normal person that will tell the audience a true straightforward explanation of what happened, no you go to find the hick that just wants to get on camera and is willing to sensationalize and exaggerate the story.
This is obvious by your posting of photos of people holding those signs who are obviously not what most main stream Christianity agrees with. I am so sick and tired of leftist liars grabbing a few odd balls and using them as THE "Typical Christian"......what a utterly despicable lie.
Do I consider all gays to be hate filled and dangerous because many of them in California have burned down churches and damaged buildings and attacked people for merely being a Christian in lieu of that proposition 8 bill a few years back.....no! Even beyond that....still no? I can see that those gays are a radical extreme and not the general rule.
If you don't want to man up and actually do some independent investigation that is fine. If you don't want to have the knowledge of hordes of archeological evidence that has been found that completely 100% backs up the Bible, that is fine.
If you don't want to actually pick up and read the Bible and see stories that, yes, were written by many different people, but then fail to see that they must have come from One Holy God, as proven by its consistency and its prophecies of which many have been backed up by historians as taking place after the Bible was written, that is fine.
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ReplyDeleteIf you truly want to follow the religion of Atheism, yes religion, than you may as well go kill your neighbors, your dog, and heck, even your wife. What's stopping you? If there is no God than why not do whatever you want? There is no real consequence is there? Ooooooo, are you only afraid because you might go to jail? Who cares....if we are just a small speck in time and space than why does that matter......seriously!
ReplyDeleteEvery argument for you "becoming" an Atheist has no real search for knowledge, and certainly no foundation of truth. It is all circumstantial and listening to only what you "want" to believe and not to what people are actually doing or saying.
Would I ever treat you differently NO. Do I still love you, YES, as I always will.
But if you want to Demonize Christians, and ESPECIALLY the few that you have in your family than that just plain sucks.
See you started out as a person who did not believe in God, as did your brother, as does everyone (that is part of free will). But through many years of seeking the truth, and many painful experiences to fight against it he found the truth.
You seemed to "see the truth" later on, but it seems that you are just a leaf, blowing in the wind of what ever is most convenient to your situation and the people around you.
It is ok to believe in the people that you care for, and NOBODY does that better than you. It is one of your great qualities, only seeing the best in people. But it is a shame to not apply the "Best in everybody" to everyone and ONLY apply it to the people you want to, again as shown by you posting that picture of those people holding those anti-gay posters like that is what Christianity is, instead of what they really are.....a very confused, incorrect, very small segment of the Christian population. Does Christianity agree with the gay lifestyle, no. But not any more than it does, or should agree with being a drunk, gambling, stealing, or even things like gluttony or lying.
Just so you know, I will reach out to your future child and tell them all the wonderful truths about God and show him/her all the lies you leftist spew out to try to marginalize and conceal the truth in a logical, reason filled, and rational discussion.
ReplyDeleteI would hope that we would be able to have this same conversation, one filled with questions, positive banter back and forth, and an overall civil exchange of ideas, but that is not the Atheist way.
But at either rate, I will offer up the invitation for this aforementioned conversation, you know who I am, and I hope that this indeed can take place soon.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post. I feel like I need to make a few things clear before proceeding. First of all, the picture was just an example of what indoctrinating your children into a faith can do. Do I think all Christians think in this way? Of course not. I know that there are many loving and friendly people within the Christian community. I'm sure the members of Westboro Baptist Church are very nice people too... if you believe what they believe. I could have used a picture of a teenaged suicide bomber instead, but that probably wouldn't upset you. Second, atheism is not a religion. You yourself said "you started out as a person who did not believe in God, as did your brother, as does everyone". The default state for everyone is atheism. If you define a religion as a view, then okay, we can call it a religion.
ReplyDeleteSurrounding myself with the one view point? Drinking the cool-aid? Conned? Almost all of my friends and family are religious. I am surrounded by religious influence in my life every single day. I live in a Christian nation. To escape this view was rejecting the cool-aid that everyone seems to like. It took years to come to the conclusion that I have arrived at. For you to claim that I was "conned" is insulting. I have seen both sides of the argument. I have debated with a friend for months now, and I am not convinced. "I would hope that we would be able to have this same conversation, one filled with questions, positive banter back and forth, and an overall civil exchange of ideas, but that is not the Atheist way." It's funny you would say this. You obviously don't know many atheists. Check out some videos on youtube, some religious or atheist groups on facebook, and forums. You will see arguments from both sides. Not all of the exchanges are civil (and that goes for both sides by the way), but there are good conversations to be found.
I'm curious. If you grew up in a world without religion, without a bible, and with no knowledge of any deity, would you have come to the same conclusion? I also wonder if you would be a psychopathic killer if you didn't have God, since you seem to think I would.
"If you don't want to man up and actually do some independent investigation that is fine. If you don't want to have the knowledge of hordes of archeological evidence that has been found that completely 100% backs up the Bible, that is fine."
That is something we can discuss here. Religion makes a claim, therefore it is up to those who believe to provide the evidence.
As far as my children go, I know you will try to "reach out" to them, but I only ask that you don't present it as "the one and only truth". My wife and I agree that teaching them about as many religions as we can is the best way for them to learn, instead of forcing one over another upon them. Not that I plan to, but would you mind if I reached out to your children about atheism when they are old enough to understand?
These comments are quite depressing.
ReplyDeleteYes! God gave us morals! If he didn't, why aren't we killing each other?
I hate to poke it where it's tender, but the answer is evolution, or - change over time.
There might have been species of animals that killed each other. But they died. Because the thing that eats them, or their food, was not killing members of it's own species. Naturally, providing them with an... extreme advantage.
In fact, have you ever seen animals flip out and revert to this barbarian state that is implied, rampaging, killing, pillaging everything in their wake? No! It's made up! It doesn't even exist! In order for males and females to mate, there has to be social interaction. If your young require rearing, there is even more social interaction. Any time there is social interaction, you will inevitably have some sort of system for interaction. Morals! it is really that simple.
The thing about god responding to you. I know what it feels like, you see the oddities and irregularities in every day events. In opportunities and interactions with people. It's like god is talking to you. Frankly, books have been written on why people allow themselves to attribute these to... to Jesus. Or Buddha, or whomever. It's because you do not examine your thoughts, your everyday judgments, that you get into a cycle of remembering the hits, and ignoring the misses.
Some people say you've been tricked! I heard pulled a fast one on you. Wow. Do you people not realize that is was done to you? The people who convinced you that Jesus did X or Y, really believe what they taught you. They are still wrong! Did a being create the universe with the explicit purpose of creating life, just so that we could experience existence? Maybe. But the earth is obviously not 6k years old, and humans were not created from clay. So much in the bible is immoral. Yet it is somehow championed as the source of all morality.
If you want to be a theist, awesome! There isn't a damn thing an atheist can say to you, to argue against a simple theist position. But please! Don't be silly. The bible, and every other religious text are simply a creation of man. Written by people, for whatever reason.
In order for you to exist, your parents had to meet, and conceive you exactly when, where, and the way you did.
Would you exist if a different sperm fertilized that egg? Well, this had to happen like, millions of times. Your grandfather dropped a teacup, you don't exist, your father breaks his ankle playing football, your never born. All the way back - to the very first cell. No! To the creation of this very universe itself. If every particle, had not interacted perfectly, from the time of the big bang, some 14 billion years ago - you would not be here!. Earth would of not been created, the moon would of never formed, the dinosaurs might of dodged the bullet, anything! The chances of YOU being created, are literally infinite, incalculable. The greatest lottery every devised.
@the first post by the annonymous and opaque AOL guy;
ReplyDeleteYeah, "fast-one pulled over on you". Puleeze.
"...because many of them in California have burned down churches and damaged buildings and attacked people for merely being a Christian in lieu of that proposition 8 bill"
(yawn) You'll need to provide sources for this claim, mmkay. I am not aware of these hate-filled-gays of which you speak.
Welcome aboard Chris! You may not have more answers provided for you at the end of the day, but I think you'll find more peace and certainty in how you live life!
ReplyDeleteAs for anonymous xtians spewing bigotry on teh interwebs, you'll only help sway more people sitting on the fence away from your nonsense.
It is hard to give up on something when you have been told it is the only right way to live you life. I have been through the same thing too Chris. I was always told it is easier to fall out of faith then to stay in it. Apparently, who said that never exoerienced the wrestling match that happens in you head when going through this.
ReplyDeleteAnd finally. No atheist don't kill other people or commit crimes, because it is WRONG. Are you suggesting you don't simply because God told you not to? That you WOULD go on a killing spree if you didn't have God?
Chris -
ReplyDeleteI applaud your courage in "coming out" as an atheist. One of the more difficult things you will discover is the ability of your family and friends to rationalize a belief system. The hardest part of reality is actually accepting the fact that it's reality. No wishing or rationality is going to change the simple fact that the universe really doesn't care about us.
That's the bad news - realizing the universe doesn't care about us. The good news? The universe doesn't care about us. It doesn't care if we live or die. It doesn't care about mankind existing or not existing. "Why", do you ask, "is that good news?"
Because you no longer have to accept dogma over facts. You no longer have to look at the world around you and not question. You can see the universe and ask "Why can't we?"
As an atheist you will be ridiculed about your "lack of morality." This is a joke, because as most of us who have read the bible realize that if our morality came from that little book, there would be a lot more bloodshed and destruction going on... To those of you who do question your morality, I always have a stock reply handy. "If the only way of being able to help your friends, family, neighbors, and humanity is your belief in an unproven afterlife or a belief in an unproven supermagic man, then by all means YOU need to keep believing..."
You've decided to believe in one less God than Christians. You already rejected Zeus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Shiva. What's adding one more "don't believe in it" god to a list that already has thousands of entries?
ReplyDelete"you may as well go kill your neighbors, your dog, and heck, even your wife. What's stopping you?"
Apparently the only thing keeping de7f967a-d76d-11e0-8e29-000bcdcb2996 from going on a killing spree is the fear of an eternal spanking by a divine father figure.
You do not need to believe in a particular religion to realize that murder is wrong.
"If you truly want to follow the religion of Atheism, yes religion"
Atheism is no more a religion than "Not believing in Zeus" is a religion.
I love it.....all of you people fell perfectly into a nice little trap.....taking things out of context, not "examining your own thoughts" to use your own words. Perhaps you should really go beyond that and include things like "what was the reality that surrounded this situation?". Yes, people having a dream about me telling them about God one night and them running to me, pulling me out of a crowd of people in the market and asking me to tell me about their dream and asking me to tell them about their dream........yes, that is all circumstance, oddities, irregularities.
ReplyDeleteYou Atheist have the greatest faith of all.....I applaud you. You think of Christians, or even other people of different "religions" as "Faith people", but in fact you are the greatest of faith.
You can have belief system that is based on huge gaps in your so called "evidence" of evolution, no real guess on how life could have even started, and give no purpose to life in general. But then in the next breath you claim to value life and people when in reality you are the worst enemy of humankind and I do not need to digress.
This is a pointless argument because you claim reason and understanding but you do not allow a healthy discussion or debate because you immediately dismiss something if it can't be measured, observed, or evaluated.....there is no room for the unexplainable, the intangibles, the supernatural.
My point with "kill your neighbors, your dog, and heck, even your wife" was not to actually to do it, and Noooo that is not my only reason for not killing (although it is yet another good reason not to), it was simply to point out that there are rights and wrongs and your love for your wife "Chris Jackson" is not something that can be measured, observed, or evaluated (I know you will argue this too....whaahhh).
But my question to all of you atheist would be do you really love?....then show it! No group has ever loved, saved from death, or fought for human rights like Christians. Are the perfect, no. Have they not spoken up sometimes when they should have (like these times), yes. But if you claim to be a "higher" group, and one of "great reason"......THEN SHOW IT!! Make the world a better place and stop dividing, spreading hate, and turning others on each other.
And since you will get confused with your "higher reasoning" I need to fix that first paragraph.
ReplyDelete"Yes, people having a dream about me telling them about God one night and them running to me, pulling me out of a crowd of people in the market and asking me to tell me about their dream and asking me to tell them about God........yes, that is all circumstance, oddities, irregularities."
"My point with "kill your neighbors, your dog, and heck, even your wife" was not to actually to do it, and Noooo that is not my only reason for not killing (although it is yet another good reason not to), it was simply to point out that there are rights and wrongs and your love for your wife"
ReplyDeleteThere are rights and wrongs, sure. Moral judgements do not come solely from religion though. I really don't understand why any religious person makes this claim; as if morals would not exist without belief. We see evidence of a "moral system" in nature too. So don't tell me monkeys believe in God.
Thank you all for your comments and support. I'm sorry for taking so long to reply, but I like to make sure my replies are on subject, make sense, and address any and all claims or arguments brought up. (Not to mention spelling and grammatical corrections.)
ReplyDeleteTo my outspoken critic:
Thank you again for taking the time to comment on my blog. I afraid I don't agree with what you are saying though. Allow me to address everything you are claiming:
You can have belief system that is based on huge gaps in your so called "evidence" of evolution, no real guess on how life could have even started, and give no purpose to life in general. But then in the next breath you claim to value life and people when in reality you are the worst enemy of humankind and I do not need to digress.
Evolution is a scientific theory which explains the gradual transition of single-celled organisms to the species we have today. It is based on observable evidence in the natural world. Darwin's book was titled The Origin of Species, not The Origin of Life. (FYI: The origin of life on Earth is the science known as abiogenesis.). Furthermore, evolution is no more of a belief system than believing the theory of gravity. I'm not going to go into too much debate at this time because I'm not making a claim for evolution. I am rejecting the idea of creationism because it is a claim which lacks evidence. How about giving me some of that evidence I asked for in my first reply?
I'm sure I'm not the only person who is offended when someone says I don't give any purpose to life. I value my life, and the lives of those around me greatly. I remember having this conversation with my wife when we were talking about our religious beliefs. I told her that I don't believe in an afterlife, and that I wanted to make our lives as good as I can because it is probably all we have. If anything I would say that my life is more meaningful because I am living it for myself and those around me. I'm not trying to score brownie points for a supernatural being or punishing myself mentally with the fear of hell for my mistakes.
This is a pointless argument because you claim reason and understanding but you do not allow a healthy discussion or debate because you immediately dismiss something if it can't be measured, observed, or evaluated.....there is no room for the unexplainable, the intangibles, the supernatural.
I am allowing for healthy discussion and debate right now actually. I participate in conversations such as this almost every week too. I wouldn't say I immediately dismiss all things that cannot be measured, observed, or evaluated though- but I have to admit that I often have an initial "knee-jerk reaction" from time to time when I hear of something that is completely out there. As for the unexplainable, it depends on how you are using it. If you use it as a starting point for research, then you are essentially doing what science has been attempting for years. If you are using it in the same way as you might use intangibles and the supernatural - something that cannot be explained and that we should not attempt to explain - then no, there is no room in my mind for such nonsense. If I argue that there is a purple dragon in my basement that only I can see, touch, hear and smell, I would like to see you prove me 100% wrong.
My point with "kill your neighbors, your dog, and heck, even your wife" was not to actually to do it, and Noooo that is not my only reason for not killing (although it is yet another good reason not to), it was simply to point out that there are rights and wrongs and your love for your wife "Chris Jackson" is not something that can be measured, observed, or evaluated (I know you will argue this too....whaahhh).
ReplyDeleteI don't think I, or anyone else here, has argued that there are no rights or wrongs. I have to say that I still don't understand your point in your comment. I'm sorry you don't want to discuss the difference between evidence for "Chris Jackson" and evidence for God, but I just want to say that belief in something is subjective. For example, if I wanted to prove that Hell, Michigan was an actual place, I could show you a map and pictures online and that would probably be enough evidence to say that it exists. It would be much harder to prove that Hell is real when there is no evidence in the physical world. The greater the claim, the greater the evidence is required.
But my question to all of you atheist would be do you really love?....then show it! No group has ever loved, saved from death, or fought for human rights like Christians. Are the perfect, no. Have they not spoken up sometimes when they should have (like these times), yes. But if you claim to be a "higher" group, and one of "great reason"......THEN SHOW IT!! Make the world a better place and stop dividing, spreading hate, and turning others on each other.
I have a few problems with this statement. There is a broad spectrum of people in the atheist community as well as the theist community from the most docile, nonchalant, to the extreme fundamentalists. I never claimed that atheists were "higher", implying that we are better in any way. Allow me to make the assumption that in your version of a perfect world, everyone would be one religion (then they wouldn't be divided, would they?). Unfortunately, that will probably never happen. Like you, Muslims have their miracles too and their belief is just as strong. Buddhists don't worship gods, but instead attempt to find transcendence from the never-ending cycle of reincarnation. Heck, even Christians are divided (i.e. the Westboro types, Catholics, Lutherans, and Unitarians). In my version of a perfect world, no one would be indoctrinated into any religion. People would be free to choose any (or no religion) despite where they live and what their parents believe. If you think that giving people the freedom of choice in religion is hateful and "turning others on each other", then we clearly cannot see eye to eye on what freedom really is.
As for the "miracle" you experienced- you assumed correctly. Although I wouldn't say it is that odd. We live in a country which is predominately Christian, and even more, predominately theistic. (I would be more amazed if he had asked you about Vishnu for example.) The fact that it was you- and not someone like me- is also not that miraculous. I've had the feeling of déjà vu before too, but I have a basic understanding of how our minds work as well. No one can predict the future, specifically at least. Chances are that you looked similar to the person he dreamed about; and it was close enough that in his mind you were the exact person he dreamed of. Even if you accept this as a miracle and proof that God is working, what about miracles that happen to people of other faiths? I would not be surprised if the exact same story was told to me by a Muslim.
PS My wife and I are still a little upset by your comment about killing her, so we would really like a clarification on what you meant by posting that. As if that idea has ever, or will ever cross my mind.
ReplyDelete