Reflections of a Former Christian

Since its inception some two thousand years ago, Christianity has propered by teaching of an omnimax Savior who, by grace and love, condescended from the heavenly throne that the wicked might turn from the ungodly path and drink of the cup of His salvation. I know many men, many good men, who will swear to the veracity of this story. I know many men who will die to defend the story of Paul, which is the story of the Christ, the Lamb of God. The story I tell is different however. My story brings into question the Gospel, as it has been promulgated by the almighty Orthodox Church.

Ever since my renouncement of the faith, rationalism has prodded me towards a more naturalistic worldview. One in which there is no august Father awaiting me with outstretched arms after I whisper my last breath, one in which there is no meaning to life, one in which the old ideals of justice, honor, hope, and love have been measured and found to be wanting, one in which life is exposed to be an exercise in futility.

The effects of my apostasy are of far greater importance to me than the causes and in any case, my decision (I continue to refer to it as a 'decision' when nothing could be further from the truth) has long been thrust aside, trampled upon and forgotten in the vain hope that He will leave me be. But He will not. God will not let me go. In the beginning, which was really the end, I was harrowed by Pascal's Wager. What if? I asked myself. Strangely enough, I was less worried about an eternity in Hades than I was at dying and having to look into the face of a God I had let down, a merciful God in whose face I had spit. To make the record clear, I never left Christianity because I wanted to. I have no better explanation for the most painful decision of my life other than "I simply lost the will to believe". Like an old coat which would no longer fit, my salvation simply drooped and slid and finally fell into a heap behind me. Never to be picked up again. I know I shall never believe again. But I wanted to. Oh, I yearned for Him in the beginning. Christianity plays tricks on the mind. Dreadful, dreadful tricks.

One of the primary concerns for me during my days as a new man was that of morality. I was bombarded with frightening thoughts which suggested that I was free - free of God's law and free of man's law. I realized that I could steal, or curse and swear, or become angry, or even kill in a blind rage without a whim. Without an overarching moral law for compass, it seemed that I could finally let go and do whatever the hell I wanted because I was going to die anyway. On one hand, this gave me a bold sense of empowerment and on the other, a chilling and unsettling fear. If I was to be honest to my self, I would have to refuse to be moral because it was "the right thing to do". My atheism/agnosticism (or whatever; I am not sure of what I believe) was founded squarely on reason and if reason was to substitue the old panacea, then my final task seemed to me inescapable. If I left religion because I knew nothing about it except what I was told, then I had no choice than to leave morality behind for the same reason; if I left religion because all it seemed to do (in retrospect) was make me feel good; then I had no choice than to leave morality behind for the same reason; if I had to leave religion because it was circular and illogical and groupthink, then I had no choice than to leave morality behind me for the same reason.

If I had to leave religion in order to be honest to myself, then it seemed to me, by reason, and in honesty, that morality was but a discomforting reminder of a dying want to be part of a herd.

I never have abandoned morality, just as I still can not find the strength to tell any of my family members and friends (at least the Christian ones) the truth - I have become the very thing they pity most. It is not that they will hate me, or get angry. It is rather that they will feel sorry for me and try to counsel me and pray for me and murmur this poison: God is beyond the wisdom and logic of man. They would do the things that I would have done. And so I keep my silence and I go to Church on Sundays and I sing praises to God in the car with my mother and I pray at family gatherings like a good Christian would. Except that I'm not.

It is this dilemma of logical consistency which prompts me to write as I have today. If the atheist is to be consistent with his rationalist mantra then he must be a nihilist. Nihilism is the corollary of atheism. If you have an "impulse to destroy" and you resist out of fear of the consequences, or because you have been taught that it is some nebulous thing called "wrong" then you have become inconsistent. How will you insist that reason is the last line against absurdities such as religion when morality is so inextricably linked to it? Can you keep your peace intellectually knowing that people are raised with moral teachings, that morality varies from society to society, that the general populace seldom questions the basic pillars of morality, that people who go against what a society arbitrarily deems "moral" are punished the way the society sees fit? Are these not the properties of the religion you have come to loathe, the one you have come to feel indifferent to, the followers of which you have come to feel sorry for? Are people too not raised with religion, does religion not vary from society to society, do the religious not rarely question the basic doctrines, only going as far as to tweak and modify them for personal comfort - just like people do with morality? Is it then reasonable to espouse morality and yet condemn religion? Will you call for the punishment of someone who commits a crime disagreeable with your moral codes and yet be OUTRAGED when the religious call for measures in concordance with their tenets? Is this reasonable? Does this seem logical to you?

As cole grey once said, when you point a finger at someone else, four fingers point back at you.

(Well, actually, it's three, but who's counting?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

)


Thanks for your time.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

But there is one important thing I must share with the Christians before I finish. I think I have said this before but not many have realized the implications. At the time that I realized that the faith I had held on to was slipping right through my fingers, I cried out to God for help. My plea to God was earnest, for I was genuinely confused and seemed to be spiralling uncontrollably into some unforeseen darkness. A drowning man who cries out for help is earnest. But time and time again all I heard was silence. And my frantic, pathetic voice whimpering for some glimmer of hope, a lifeline. FUCK! SOMETHING! But apparently, the God who we hear loves us and wants to save us from our unbelief, who will carry us when we fail, He just let me go. This is not to complain at God or rant just for the sake of it; there is a deeper motive. I wish one day for Christians on thei forum and elsewhere to understand that their God neglected - no, failed - to fulfill His most basic promise. Why?

In an apologetic attempt to exonerate God, I expect you will accuse me of not trusting enough, or not having patience, or not listening closesly for 'God's voice', or even for having too zealously rooted my faith in the unworkable doctrine of sola scriptura. But at least, in future conversations, do not pretend that I did not entreat God's deaf ears for as long as my dwindling faith would hold out. What does this tell you about God and His promises?

"And it shall come to pass
That whoever calls on the name of the LORD
Shall be saved."

- Acts 2:21


Just a little something extra to think about.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Your story is beautiful.
Someday you might actually learn what believing in God means, for yourself, and not through other people's interpretations.
If not, perhaps it will have to wait until you die.
Life is shit (a lot of the time), but hopefully God provides some love for you, and you don't have to pretend to get it.
Also, if you deserve some pity, accept it, if you don't deserve it (and you are strong enough to see it this way), be glad someone cares about you, or, if they are just going through the motions, pity them, they deserve it.

Sorry, for the didactic crap, I couldn't help but be moved by your description of the pretense you are going through, as I think masks can be very painful, I know I hate mine.


P.S. Did I really screw up that old saw? Hahahaha, that made me laugh (the part about what you said I said, Ha, I am a real dumbass). Anyway, I never was very good at seeing the trees.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

SouthStar,

No, no and ... no.

Your dilemma exists only if you "inextricably" link morality with religion. Morality is, in fact, a built-in set of survival guidelines that come with your genetic code (and the code of many other creatures). We humans have interpreted this sense of right and wrong as being handed down by god when the opposite is true. We have posited our own innate sense of good and evil onto the gods we've created.

Do you like your friends and family? Why? Why don't you steal from them, destroy their property, hit them when they do things you don't like, etc? Because of your religious teachings? Nonsense. You don't because it feels wrong, and that's good enough. Morality dosen't require reason.

As a communal species individual humans can't survive without the group. If you go on about seriously pissing off the tribe you will be rejected, and most likely die, thus leaving far fewer offspring than your cooperative peers.

This is a very simplistic description of the origin of "moral" values in groups but there are tons of books and you can find lots of information on the web. There are known mechanisms for group selection and kin selection in addition to individual selection. God is moral because we are moral. Not the other way around. Research the morality of other species including apes, dolphins, elephants, etc. You will find recognizable morality in many non-human species.

 

Superluminal - "We have posited our own innate sense of good and evil onto the gods we've created."

wrong.
If this were true, why are we so often at odds with the morals of those Gods? Perhaps this was true of the greek gods or norse gods, they were more like us.

 

cole,

It's not that simple. Group selection describes the way that groups with certain survival strategies evolve. From groups that are at each others throats all the time (and kill each other off or are wiped out by other groups who are more coordinated and less obsessed with in-fighting) to groups that are so complacent as to be wiped out by the least agressive attackers. The balance is somewhere in between.

You must cooperate but you also must produce enough dominant/agressive individuals (leaders) to defend yourselves. This tension is reflected in many of the stories of the gods of many cultures.

 

Wow, SouthStar, you are a person who I don't recognise. I have cycles where I return to these forums under a different name, cause in this space names are important, and in the time I have been away from here I have changed.

Looks like you managed to change in here, but are not yet able to change outwardly. Good luck with that, I hope when the truth comes to light you aren't patronised too much by those around you that love you, but know no other way.

Ultimately I would consider myself a nihilist. However, this is problematic. I cannot escape the fact that I have been brought up in a pseudo-Christian paradigm, and that the values I respect have stemmed directly or indirectly from something to which I have no faith in.

I found it a bit rough accepting that I didn't have any purpose, but at the same time I realised I could do something about this- make my own purpose. That includes acting towards people how I would want them to act towards me. I realise that some of this can still be seen as something imparted on me by religion, but I have weighed up pretty much everything I believe in, and have not discarded the things I value just because they might have something to do with religion.

If that makes me inconsistent, so be it. I don't think people can live without goals or a purpose. Otherwise, what would be the point? Once again, good luck to you, it must've been extremely hard to come to the point you are at. I understand that for people who believe and have always believed, that the core of their being is made up by by this belief. For you, this core was cracked beyond reconciliation, and a whole re-evaluation of yourself, a very painful one, resulted. Just keep changing man. I don't rule out the possibility that I might some day believe in ghosts or gods, even though I highly doubt this would happen, the monopoly I have on knowledge is non-existent. What I believe now will never be the same as what I believed yesterday or what I will believe tomorrow.

staples

 

SS, you're a very intelligent person, and also very young right? My advice to you is to give yourself a break about not knowing all of the secrets of the universe as of yet and just relax. And please listen to me...someone who has waited and waited and about gone nuts waiting...IT'S WORTH IT. You do not have to die to experience the open arms of Christ. Whatever you do, stay sincere and humble, and keep your heart and mind open. God knows your heart and hears your every word. If you want the truth, God will find the perfect way to show it to you. Demand it from Him, but at the same time, I'm sorry to say it, but be patient. And have some fun while you're waiting! God is not going to let you slip through the cracks...He's all about you. Have some faith that if He is who He says He is, that He will take care of you, and give it a minute.

And, I wondered why you feel like you have to be such a fraud in regards to your religion? What are you accomplishing by being dishonest? Are your intentions to spare your family the worry or spare yourself the scorn or both? Don't you think it's best to be honest no matter what? I do. I can't see anyone who actually knows Christ wanting to force His doctrine onto someone else, even a family member. They should know it doesn't work that way. Hey SS, maybe when you are born again and experience the love of Christ for yourself, you can witness to your family, and they can get to know Him too. Until then, it wouldn't kill ya to think about growing some figurative balls. I mean, religious freedom is something a lot of men and women have died for.

 

Lori,

Holy Crap! (sorry)

You, lady, are my kind of christian. Want to be president? I'd vote for you.


SL - Dyed-in-the-wool atheist

 

The Let's-assume-God-was-the-devil switch. God is our Creator - we have that innate sense of morality because He created us with it. We share his nature that way; He judges us according to it. If an angel did come down to earth and ordered a different morality, or a different gospel, we may be sure it's not from God. The whole point of God's revelation was that we could know and recognize Him in us, and find ourselves in Him.

Deut. 29:29
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.​

If God wanted us to have a different morality He would have given different laws, and made our consciences conform to those laws. But the God who condemned Cain for killing his brother is the same God we know today.

Your argument supposes a nonbiblical god of human projection, and a sovereign and uncreated humanity. That's a faith, from which superluminal's doctrine comes: "Morality doesn't require reason". If you feel like killing your brother, then it's genetically determined, and it's what is actually "right" (and only unfortunate for you that the rest of the family or society don't agree).

That only means our consciences are able to convinct us, despite any lies we are told. It convicts us of some absolute standard. But to rely only on our consciences has never worked historically. Without God, it's a compass without any true North, pointing to any magnetic source persuasive enough.

 

South Star:

Wow, powerful writing, and any person with an ounce of empathy can feel your anguish.

Panthenism may be sonmething worth a look at.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Where does one start?

Southstar i have been here off and on for a few years now. I remember you when you where the fundi "defender of the faith".

I never considered you to be my Brother in Jesus because you did not follow Jesus. You followed the teachings of theologians, you followed a Jesus of their creation. You where very confident in the basic belief that you could dispel the unbelief of others by just explaining The scriptures to them to dispel their ignorance.

You did not just believe in "Sola Scriptura" You made the great mistake of believing you had the understanding and wisdom to take the scripture and explain the apparent contradictions in it. You see you saw yourself as special, a somebody is the faith. Like a great moses figure standing upon high with a bible in one hand dispelling all the opponents of God with perfect wisdom.

Now your fall from your former religion came when you came to the blinding reality that you could not dispel all those seeming contradictions or answer all the challenges to your religion. You see Southstar no Christian knows or understands everything about God nor can they answer every question. That’s where Faith comes in Southstar. Not the blind faith of understanding nothing and believing everything. No but the faith of understanding many things but having faith over a few things. You see we "Christians" need a portion of Faith in God for the things we cannot understand because God has given no one full understanding. But you Southstar Had No Faith. You did not need any because Your religion was Sola scriptura + I Can answer all, I know all. You see your Pride in being someone special caused you to give up on your former religion when you discovered that you could no longer be that all knowing sage on the hill.

So what did you do? You took the road you have taken now. Now you seek to be someone special but now you want to be the all-wise athiest on the hill, using your intellectual powers to destroy the faith of the blind Christians to save them from mind control. You see Southstar your still the same old southstar that you where when you where the "defender of the faith" Then you sought to be a five Star general in Gods Army and receive the adulation of the underlings in your religion. You still seek the rank of 5 Star general and the recognition of your peers, The only thing that has changed is the Army you have joined.

As the Word Says "Pride cometh before destruction". You know that God will spew out someone who is bearing false witness to His will. You believed in God, But you had no Faith and you bore false witness to His will. Your religion was bound to fall away because it was built on the thoughts of man, You never followed the Messiah Jesus you followed an interpretation of Jesus.

Being spewed out of a false religion is not the end if one is meek enough to start again and search for God anew. Its a blessing to the meek to see their false religion fall down. But for the intelligent ones who seek the approval and esteem of men?

Your young Southstar. I do not know what will happen to you or what your state will be upon your death. I hope you can get over your need to be considered someone special. I hope your life leads you to the understanding that there is no peace without the Love Of The Truth. It would be better if you abandoned your pride by yourself. But know this if God loves you and you do not abandon your pride then He will break you and bring you down. like Jonah He will take away your intellect He will do what is needed to destroy your pride.

All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

Thanks for the kind words cole grey. They shame me. Right now I'm talking online to my friend. She asked me whether or not I went to church. I told her that I did not, but rather held my own service at home.

I've been sleeping the whole morning.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

...


Not having to wake up on Sunday mornings is divine!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

This seems cowardly to me but it serves us best. I think during a particularly fierce argument I shall explode and scream it and hurry out the door and never be seen again. After much introspection, I have come to discover that atheism is no more superior to theism than a fork is superior to a spoon. Hopefully we can get to answer some of the problems with morality I have come across during the course of this thread. Don't worry about that extra finger.. polydactyly is all the rage these days.

 

superluminal, your explanation is a wee bit romantic I think.

Let's talk about the good old Aztecs and their moral system.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Do you still insist that when they "felt" that sacrificing humans to the gods was a good thing, that was also "innate"?

Hope not.

(I don't think I need to repeat myself to you since you know what the counterargument is)

But more importantly:
Have you seen any feral children lately who exhibit the REMOTEST semblance of morality?

 

Hello James R,

I know my post must have been a little vague so I'll clarify here since you misread the gist.
- I don't recognize the existence of God/god/gods..

With that being said, what I meant was that there is no basis for being obligated or making someone obligated to you, or my, or anyone else's subjective moral system - period. This holds with or without the existence of God.

What I tried to say originally was that at least God gives some incentive for following the morality of the society we are born in (heaven, money, whatever). Outside of this, when we adhere truly and non hypocritically to touted rationalism, there is no sound reason, there is no non-circular logic which can justify forcing someone else to follow morality or adhering personally to morality. (Of course, we can always have the "If you don't like it, get out of society" and "It's good to be moral because it's the right thing to do" sort of 'rebuttals'). The basic premise I have is that morality, like religion, is imbibed from one's society.

superluminal has already begun to insist morality comes innately but I have provided quite a few counterexamples on thescienceforums. If you agree with him, I'll relist them here (in the hope that sci doesn't go down again).

I would not.

Why? Because I have been raised to believe otherwise. Let me give you a parallel in real life:

Recall the Bible toting Christians who ignore verses which sanction stoning witches, genocide, slavery, etc. This is quite analogous to my ignoring the God in your scenario; the reason why Christians do so is the same: the verses are 'overlooked' because Christians have been raised to see things such as stoning witches, genocide, and slavery as immoral. If you don't believe me, you can look back one half century to the heyday of slavery in America. Did Christians not use the Bible to justify the morality of slavery? Something tells me if those slaveholders were to be born in modern society, they would by the same token use the Bible to condemn slavery as immoral. Contrary to what they say, Christians really don't look to the Bible for moral guidance.

Now for those who insist that morality is "innate", we must ask why the Hebrews did not see stoning witches as 'immoral', or pillaging and plundering as immoral, or slaveholding as immoral. The answer is clearly evident: they were raised in a society which taught otherwise. But to insist that morality is innate only opens a new can of worms. To insist that morality is innate is to indulge in the same sort of superstition.

I said this originally and I will restate here:
If we say that morality is innate because "all" societies had their own moral codes, then that is NO DIFFERENT to the 'logic' which says God exists because "all" societies have believed in some form of God. I gave a broad listing of some of the other similarities between morality and religion, NOT to show that one derived from the other, but to demonstrate very clearly that the "logic" by which we reject the latter compels us - in the same vein - to reject the former. I also have a few good counter-examples to show why morality cannot be innate but I did not give them here since you did not give that defense explicitly.


EDIT: I'll get to everyone else a little later on in the day. It's nice to have a change from the usual we see in the forum.

P.S. I'm not that young!

 

I've never seen any feral children!? And if I did, I would expect all sorts of abnormal behavior from a social animal raised without the benefit of species-specific parenting and interaction. Remember, we're talking about group selection here which involves the interaction of individuals. It's not simple or romantic.

And I said it was a simplistic rendition of a complex issue (group selection). Yet the principle holds. In fact Aztec sacrifices fit pretty well. They generally used slaves and conquered enemies (those generally not of thier group in other words). Similar to the way we think it's been Ok and in fact moral throughout history to kill enemies over abstract ideas. Like terrritorial boundaries. Or religious preference. Right? Hell, the Aztecs were appealing to their GODS for their very existence in a hostile environment.

P.S. It's not my explanation. It happens to be mainstream evolutionary thinking.

 

For what it's worth South Star, I have found that to live in the world of someone elses morals is to tend to live in a state of self fraud. I tend to believe that it is only my own evolved morals that are important to me and really don't give a sh*t about someoe elses.
Things like the bible and other moral resources are only that ....a resource and you take on what you deem to be most successful in the long haul for your self and discard the rest.

The reason we aspire to the so called 'good', I feel, is because it is the most successful for us because it is most successful for others. This thought is premised on the undenialble fact that so called 'evil' is essentially self destructive and counter productive to ones success. Evil being defined not by the bible or any other artifact but by our own sense of wanting self improvement and sustainable success by way of evolution.
[Fortunately we have learned not to make human sacrifices to please the Gods....hmmmm..well most of us any way...being essentially counter productive and futile]
However it would be immoral to ourselves to reject the potential guidance and advice that various resources offer as this is taking the hard road unecessarilly.
For example I find the bible to be quite inspirational in many aspects as I do other resources such as poetry and music.

I get the impression from your thread starter that you are tending to look for outer support for your own inner integrity. In doing this you are reliquishing your own self to the control of others and as you have found this leads to a loss of self identity in knowing who you are and what you are as you are only a reflection of all that you allow to control your opinion.

The obvious suggestion is that you strive for your own self determined morality with the success of your own self as the motivation. Keeping in mind that "good" breeds "good and "evil" breeds "evil" [evil being defined as self destructive and counter productive to ones own relationship existence.]
And in doing so become the free thinking, self determined and self standing individual that you seem to be desparately and most impotantly, honestly searching for.

 

§outh§tar,

Hope this helps. 'Good' and 'Evil' are subjective man-made concepts (as you
are well aware of) and they can actually be defined objectively in a manner
that aligns to the way they are used in modern language.

People and soceities have various tolerances for behavior. These tolerances
span the gambit between altruistism, exploitation, and absence... I
consequently know of no example that falls outside this 'box'. By definition
then, 'Good' and 'Evil' are labels that individuals and soceity place on
behavorial tolerance ('Good' being desireable and 'Evil' being undesireable).

 

Hello crunchycat,

There have been a lot of responses so far but no one has come forward to give answers to the questions I posed at the end of my post. Please answer them for me.
I thank you for your input, but it is not satisfactory to only know what morality is; it is better to know what to do with it. Is it reasonable to do the things I asked about?