Still a Christian - ask me questions/tell me about yourselves

[speedyj1992]

I've had this back and forth journey with religion, OP. I consider myself spiritual, now. No religious affiliations to speak of, but open minded in the sense that I likely fall into the agnostic category, now. What led you to identify as an atheist? I didn't read the entire thread, sorry. I'm hoping for the cliff notes.

No need to apologize, this thread has gotten a lot longer than I would have initially guessed at. Actually, no one on this thread has asked me that, so congratulations on being the first. When I was 13 and rebellious, I had a hard time understanding why God didn't work for me, and in the Christian Science church, there wasn't really an answer, and my mom didn't give me a sufficient answer, so I started questioning other things that didn't get me answers. Instead of thinking the issue was within that particular religion (and I'd love to explain in a separate post why Christian Science and Christianity are completely different), I thought it was an issue with God.

That's the cliff notes version - I'd love to go more into detail if you'd be willing to hear.

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I wonder if speedy will preach to his patients. Is that in your plan speedy?

You mean as an occupational therapist? No, that wouldn't be professional, unless that happens to be something that comes up (and it actually does, and even has in my experience, since spirituality is a big part with how a lot of people live their lives, and people turn to that in times of crisis), but the question of how Christians should behave in a workplace is an interesting one. There are Christians that try and use their faith as an excuse to not do the work they should, and the pastor at my main church is bi-vocational (which I find is actually pretty common, at least in the southern California area, likely due to the rent around here being just bonkers high). He has said he's had to fire Christian employees based on this before, which is of course frustrating, and I do believe biblically we are called to be good citizens and reflect our faith in different ways in different areas. The way I reflect my faith in my work should be different than how I reflect it at home, or taking public transit.

Does that help answer your question?

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Hello new guy.  I tend to take people on their word until they give me reason to doubt them.  That doesn't mean I'll take it on your word that gawd exists, mind you.  Empirical claims require evidence.  But I do believe that you believe in something you're calling a god.  May not be what everyone would call a god, but if you say so, I'll believe that you believe in what you think a god is.  Got it.

I also believe you thought you might be an atheist when you realized just how bad the kool aid was in the church you were raised in.  I think you thought you were an atheist for the same reason so many theists assume to be our reason, that you were angry at god.  That might have been true for you, and it might be true for some others who currently think they're atheists.  But certainly is not the reason for me or for the vast majority of the folks here on this site.

Now you're a believer again.  Happy for you if it makes you happy.  Why not?  It's your life, have it your way.  But we've had so many apologist missionaries come through here claiming to have been an atheist before becoming saved.  It gets tiresome.  But you're still in your grace period with me.  If you say you were, you were.  What's next?  Still interested in posting here if you can't advertise your youtube channel?  If so, let me know and if you really want me to tell you something about me, I will.

I think at this point, I'm hardly a "new guy", but yes, to answer your question about me still posting in here if I can't advertise my channel - I've been able to advertise it in terms of number of posts for at least a week and haven't. So yes, I'm still interested in being around here. With that in mind, tell me about what you do and how you got to this board (yes, including how you came to the point of atheism).

I would go so far as to say that having doubts and leaving a church does not make one an atheist. Just someone having a crisis of faith. I think he's being honest, but total misunderstandings like this is why people assume actual atheists are also simply having a crisis of faith.

I am sure they exist, but I have yet to meet anyone, online or in person, who claims to have gone from religion to atheism and back again. There are a couple of regulars here, even, and when questioned, they admit to confusion, anger and doubt. Never utter and complete reasoned lack of belief.
I do think there are people who are raised without any belief who can be converted, because they didnt reason their way into it, it was just at a default setting.

Anyway, welcome to the OP.
My only question is, why are you here?

I've never quite thought of it as a "crisis of faith", but that's an interesting point. Still, I'm not sure I agree, and here's my reasoning - my experience with people who have a crisis of faith is that it's a shorter experience. This was an experience that lasted at least four years (depending on how you look at my path back to God, there was no one moment for me like there was for some people). And I recently met someone who claimed to be an atheist for two DECADES, whose dad went through the same cycle of Christian-atheist for even longer until literally just about a month before he died. My question to you is if you would consider those longer periods crises of faith or actual atheist periods as they described? Because to me, "crisis of faith" is not being sure if God exists - atheism is being sure God doesn't exist and believing that.

To answer why I'm here - there's a lot of hostility in the world, and much of it doesn't make great sense to me because I come from a very diverse family, politically and religiously. Yes, I understand that family connections are different, but the fact is that we have some extremely liberal democrats in my family who are able to be very loving towards some highly conservative family members in other parts of my family (I firmly fall into neither category, if you were curious). I have friends with whom we don't agree on some very big subjects, and I know it's possible to build bonds with people you don't agree with because people are not their points. So tl;dr, I'm just trying to point out how people are people, and how we should try and get along despite having differences because I know it's possible, and hostility generally doesn't do anyone any good.