Hi everyone.
My brief religious story is as follows: grew up in a nominal Protestant family. Was a searching, angst-ridden, teen in the 80's, listening to Morrisey and Robert Smith, and didn't believe in the religion, such as it was, of my parents. I was a goth before we knew that name, and an atheist.
I studied French literature in high school and fancied myself an existentialist - "l'enfer c'est les autres", as well as a materialist (though I probably didn't know that term).
I met some Christians in college and became a believer. I won't go into details here, but it was a long process that resulted in the conclusion that the existence of God cannot be proven one way or the other. In the end, it was personal experience that convinced me. As such, religious belief, or faith, has always been subjective and personal in my mind. This did not stop me from trying to convince others to try it for themselves, but I've always thought that rational arguments cannot ultimately decide the matter. Belief (or non-belief) in God is super-rational - not irrational, just beyond the power of reason alone to justify.
At least that had been my idea until I started The God Delusion (by Dawkins, but I assume everyone here knows that). As I read it, I'm going through a refinement of my beliefs, and to my surprise, I find that it is not at all clear that I will remain a theist. I've been a Christian for 25 years, and have amassed what appeared to be an immovable body of personal experience that confirms not only the existence of God, but his identity as the Trinity of Christianity.
What I'm hoping to find here is some people with whom I can discuss Dawkins in particular, and atheism in general. I would be especially interested to talk to any Christians who read The God Delusion with an open mind and became atheists (or level 6 agnostic/atheists) as a result.
Becoming an atheist would be nothing short of devastating to my current life. I've been married for 20 years, we are Roman Catholic (though we were Protestant for the first 16 yrs, and I was actually a pastor for 10 of those... but that's another story) and have 8 children - who go to Catholic school with nuns and all the rest.
Lastly, I'm in a mid-life crisis (whatever that is exactly), of which this question is but a part. As such, part of me hopes that there is no God. The silver lining of the devastation of becoming an atheist is that it is the only way I can imagine out of the misery of facing the rest of my life in voluntary self-denial and deprivation for the sake of my family and my soul.
This troubles me because, as I look back to when I was a teenage atheist, it was the great desire for God to exist, that had welled up in me over many months, that finally pushed me over the edge into belief. I won't say that I believed because I wanted it to be true, but almost. Inasmuch as that was a mistake, I don't want to repeat it. I'm an empiricist and a mathematician (I teach community college math for a living now). The problem with being human is that I am unable to completely separate my cognitive and affective intelligences, let alone experiences.
So I'm here to see what, if anything, other people may have done with all this.
Thanks for reading!
My brief religious story is as follows: grew up in a nominal Protestant family. Was a searching, angst-ridden, teen in the 80's, listening to Morrisey and Robert Smith, and didn't believe in the religion, such as it was, of my parents. I was a goth before we knew that name, and an atheist.
I studied French literature in high school and fancied myself an existentialist - "l'enfer c'est les autres", as well as a materialist (though I probably didn't know that term).
I met some Christians in college and became a believer. I won't go into details here, but it was a long process that resulted in the conclusion that the existence of God cannot be proven one way or the other. In the end, it was personal experience that convinced me. As such, religious belief, or faith, has always been subjective and personal in my mind. This did not stop me from trying to convince others to try it for themselves, but I've always thought that rational arguments cannot ultimately decide the matter. Belief (or non-belief) in God is super-rational - not irrational, just beyond the power of reason alone to justify.
At least that had been my idea until I started The God Delusion (by Dawkins, but I assume everyone here knows that). As I read it, I'm going through a refinement of my beliefs, and to my surprise, I find that it is not at all clear that I will remain a theist. I've been a Christian for 25 years, and have amassed what appeared to be an immovable body of personal experience that confirms not only the existence of God, but his identity as the Trinity of Christianity.
What I'm hoping to find here is some people with whom I can discuss Dawkins in particular, and atheism in general. I would be especially interested to talk to any Christians who read The God Delusion with an open mind and became atheists (or level 6 agnostic/atheists) as a result.
Becoming an atheist would be nothing short of devastating to my current life. I've been married for 20 years, we are Roman Catholic (though we were Protestant for the first 16 yrs, and I was actually a pastor for 10 of those... but that's another story) and have 8 children - who go to Catholic school with nuns and all the rest.
Lastly, I'm in a mid-life crisis (whatever that is exactly), of which this question is but a part. As such, part of me hopes that there is no God. The silver lining of the devastation of becoming an atheist is that it is the only way I can imagine out of the misery of facing the rest of my life in voluntary self-denial and deprivation for the sake of my family and my soul.
This troubles me because, as I look back to when I was a teenage atheist, it was the great desire for God to exist, that had welled up in me over many months, that finally pushed me over the edge into belief. I won't say that I believed because I wanted it to be true, but almost. Inasmuch as that was a mistake, I don't want to repeat it. I'm an empiricist and a mathematician (I teach community college math for a living now). The problem with being human is that I am unable to completely separate my cognitive and affective intelligences, let alone experiences.
So I'm here to see what, if anything, other people may have done with all this.
Thanks for reading!
