Thanks for the responses, guys. My mother called yesterday and briefly hinted at the incident from last week, saying that they just wanted what was best for me. I didn't really comment on that remark on the phone, not wishing to dredge all that up again, but I wrote a letter that contains a good bit of what I originally wrote here that I'm planning to send shortly. Here are the last two paragraphs:
I doubt anything I say will completely silence the back and forth, but maybe this is a start.
Quote:... Over the course of several years, I made a concerted effort to get closer to the truth with no regard for whether my conclusions would be favorable to me or not. I have actually put in the time and research to study the validity of the Bible, its claims, the authenticity of the gospel texts, the historicity of Jesus, human ethics, evolution by natural selection, astrophysics and other areas. I have read books by former pastors who are now non-believers, and I have read books from former nonbelievers who are now believers. I have read most of what C.S. Lewis had to say on the matter and many other Christian works, and I'm familiar with most of the Christian "thinkers" that Lee Strobel references in his books, like William Lane Craig and Habermas. I have read and studied and thought over and over and over. I hope it's beginning to sink in how much of my time I have devoted to this topic.
I have made a reasonable conclusion based on these studies. I'm sorry if that conclusion is upsetting for you, but it was not made out of anger or resentment over anyone or anything or over any circumstance, and it was certainly not made lightly. It was never my intention to hurt anyone, but belief is not something a person can just "turn on" to make someone else feel better. I have my own reasoning mind, and my own critical thinking skills and have tried to use them carefully. I neither seek to personally compel anyone to think as I do or argue with anyone on these matters. I hope the same courtesy will be extended to me. I have specific, concrete reasons for believing as I do and write about some of them on my blog from time to time. I'm willing to share them in person if you are interested, but I have no interest in doing so unsolicited. What's best for me, then, as my own individual is to have the liberty to believe as I see fit. If I don't have that freedom, I don't have anything.
I doubt anything I say will completely silence the back and forth, but maybe this is a start.
Our Daily Train blog at jeremystyron.com
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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