*Matthew enters*

[Autumnlicious]

No more remarkable than all the "ex-Christian atheists" here, dude.

Touché.

1. Nihilism vs. Realism

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I was unable to be a consistent nihilist. I had constructed a valueless world with no good or evil, beauty or ugliness, meaning or significance. Yet in the way I lived, I passively campaigned for the existence of these things daily by my attempts to live a good life, my awareness of my moral failings, my arguments against injustice, my desire to make beautiful music. Actively, however, I was unable to acknowledge the reality of these things because my nihilism was derived, not from intuition or observation, but from my commitment to naturalism.

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Boy, this is annoying how often this damn bit pops up...

The world does not have intrinsic properties like good, evil, etc, anymore than an electron is "beautiful." The "beauty" one sees is a product of that fleshy, fatty acid loving lump inside your skull. Fact that you feel or think something is beautiful when others don't should be self-explanatory; your brain is doing exactly what is expected to do - be it keeping track of social connections or ascribing a presence to a persistent story told from a mere few thousand years ago.

Nothing has inherent meaning - one must ascribe a meaning to something (or not). You choose to campaign for certain mutations of meaning in things because it is currently an aspect of yourself.

2. Naturalism vs. Reason

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I was equally unable to be a consistent naturalist. My naturalism was basically an extrapolation from unguided evolution, viewing the world as a closed system of matter and energy acting on matter and energy. This had the fortunate consequence of ruling out any possibility of God from my world. I very much shared the view of atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel when he said that: "I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that."

Conflicting with this was (what I would now call) my "epistemology of metaphysics" - or simply, how I thought I knew that naturalism was true. Fundamental to this was Darwin's question: "Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" I found no good counter to this question, and yet my belief in naturalism had to depend on trusting the capacity of my mind to come to true conclusions about metaphysics.

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And yet you trust in the capacity of the tales told by a clan of goatherders and "improved" by the committee, I mean council, of Nicea. Charming.

3. My misconceptions about God vs. The Biblical Conception of God

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Having being brought to church by my mum as a youngster, I had some knowledge (albeit patchy and distorted) of Christian theology. I had many facile arguments against the Christian God, but when challenged to defend them based on what the Bible said I was, more often than not, completely flummoxed and exposed as simply applying my assumptions.

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Ignorance is a bitch, isn't it?

4. My doubts vs. My doubts about my doubts

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I had built up plenty of obstacles in between myself and Christianity, about the existence of God, the accuracy of the New Testament's portrayal of Jesus, the historicity of the Resurrection, and so on. But when I examined the foundations of these doubts with the same vigour as I used to defend them, I found that my arguments did not hold water without assuming the falsity of Christianity. In every area I was begging the question, ultimately stemming from my desires against accepting it and holding on the naturalist, nihilist universe I had made for myself.

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So, tell me, have you knowledge on the existence of God in a provable fashion, and if not, why should your system (God) hold any more validity than some monkeys Darwinian (hi!) convictions?