Actually it was this issue that had a fairly important impact on my decision to drop theism entirely. While I had been quite the hardcore fundie in the early 90s, then by the mid 90s I basically put all my religious questions in a closet for a couple years. During that time, I read up on some philosophy and theology and found myself in I suppose what could be loosely termed a "liberal" Christian (I was into Pseudo-Dionysus, Eckhart, John of the Cross, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, Tillich, Simone Weil, Thomas Merton, Karen Armstrong, as well as Plotinus, Buber, A.J. Heschel, and eastern philosophies). This was more than a mere casual flirtation with these theologians and mystics during that time in my life.
I had reasoned to myself that the truth of the Bible was not in supposed literal events (many of which I didn't believe actually had occurred). I reasoned to myself that the "truth" of the Bible was told metaphorically. I used to make the analogy of the Bible with Aesop's fables: If people read Aesop really believing that foxes, crows and ducks really can talk, then they have missed the truths that Aesop was illustrating in a creative way.
With such a principle in earnest, I naturally took many more Bible passages "metaphorically," beginning with Eden. But as time went on, I found myself believing more and more of it was not to be taken literally, including much of the "New" Testament. Eventually I found myself believing everything i the Bible was not to be taken literally except one thing which I superstitiously (and subconsciously) had been afraid to touch: the resurrection of Jesus (oddly enough, even as a Christian, I was never much concerned with any afterlife). It was on Easter of 2000 that I began questioning this as well, with the four rather different accounts and some oddities about it that never did make sense to me. Now even the resurrection was a metaphor for a "new life" in the here and now. Don't ask me now what that all meant to me at the time. But I believed that the apostles never actually met a resurrected Jesus, but rather they recognized him in everyone (which therefore also became a basis for a sort of ethics for me at the time).
This might sound fine in the abstract, but I found myself having more difficulties with which ever church I would attend, constantly having to re-interpret what other Christians said in my head in order to mean what it meant to me. As a result, I found myself cut off even more from people. There was no principle stated anywhere exactly where the metaphorical line ends, but I found myself rejecting practically ALL of it. At which point I began to wonder what was the point of such mental gymnastics. I read Walter Kaufmann's Critique of Philosophy and Religion and The Faith of a Heretic. In those books, Kaufmann dealt not with literalists (which are admittedly, easy targets), but rather with theologians like Bultmann and Tillich. It helped also to put another nail in the coffin for me.
A year later, in early 2001, I ironically had experienced a sort of anti-epiphany. At the time, I lived out in the country and I often would spend quiet moments out there alone. It suddenly struck me, ironically in a way I could almost describe as a mystical experience, that there was no god. There was just a pure irreductible IS-- but this was not even a transcendent "god beyond god" of the mystics-- there was no "ground of being," there was just "being." I can only say that experienced something I later called "metaphysical aphasia"-- all theological language and "meaning" was beyond my reach, nor did I want it. It was something alien to me.
I let everything go that day: the Bible, "god," Jesus, and all my metaphysical meanderings. It was the most liberating experience of my life and from that day onward I was able to accept TO MYSELF that I was in fact an atheist and there was nothing wrong with that.
And all began because I took certain Bible passages "metaphorically." I'm sure fundamentalists will take this as a "see? I told you its a slippery slope to hell!"
I had reasoned to myself that the truth of the Bible was not in supposed literal events (many of which I didn't believe actually had occurred). I reasoned to myself that the "truth" of the Bible was told metaphorically. I used to make the analogy of the Bible with Aesop's fables: If people read Aesop really believing that foxes, crows and ducks really can talk, then they have missed the truths that Aesop was illustrating in a creative way.
With such a principle in earnest, I naturally took many more Bible passages "metaphorically," beginning with Eden. But as time went on, I found myself believing more and more of it was not to be taken literally, including much of the "New" Testament. Eventually I found myself believing everything i the Bible was not to be taken literally except one thing which I superstitiously (and subconsciously) had been afraid to touch: the resurrection of Jesus (oddly enough, even as a Christian, I was never much concerned with any afterlife). It was on Easter of 2000 that I began questioning this as well, with the four rather different accounts and some oddities about it that never did make sense to me. Now even the resurrection was a metaphor for a "new life" in the here and now. Don't ask me now what that all meant to me at the time. But I believed that the apostles never actually met a resurrected Jesus, but rather they recognized him in everyone (which therefore also became a basis for a sort of ethics for me at the time).
This might sound fine in the abstract, but I found myself having more difficulties with which ever church I would attend, constantly having to re-interpret what other Christians said in my head in order to mean what it meant to me. As a result, I found myself cut off even more from people. There was no principle stated anywhere exactly where the metaphorical line ends, but I found myself rejecting practically ALL of it. At which point I began to wonder what was the point of such mental gymnastics. I read Walter Kaufmann's Critique of Philosophy and Religion and The Faith of a Heretic. In those books, Kaufmann dealt not with literalists (which are admittedly, easy targets), but rather with theologians like Bultmann and Tillich. It helped also to put another nail in the coffin for me.
A year later, in early 2001, I ironically had experienced a sort of anti-epiphany. At the time, I lived out in the country and I often would spend quiet moments out there alone. It suddenly struck me, ironically in a way I could almost describe as a mystical experience, that there was no god. There was just a pure irreductible IS-- but this was not even a transcendent "god beyond god" of the mystics-- there was no "ground of being," there was just "being." I can only say that experienced something I later called "metaphysical aphasia"-- all theological language and "meaning" was beyond my reach, nor did I want it. It was something alien to me.
I let everything go that day: the Bible, "god," Jesus, and all my metaphysical meanderings. It was the most liberating experience of my life and from that day onward I was able to accept TO MYSELF that I was in fact an atheist and there was nothing wrong with that.
And all began because I took certain Bible passages "metaphorically." I'm sure fundamentalists will take this as a "see? I told you its a slippery slope to hell!"
“Society is not a disease, it is a disaster. What a stupid miracle that one can live in it.” ~ E.M. Cioran
