RE: I am a Christian Atheist... what? Help.
May 2, 2015 at 9:27 am
(This post was last modified: May 2, 2015 at 9:33 am by Hatshepsut.)
Well, if Jesus is a god (which I think is true), then he's pretty tough, and unlikely to get so uptight over denial & doubt issues as Christians fear he is. If the Holy Ghost is drawing you nearer to God, then good. I don't put too much stock in "feeling" things; I don't usually feel a lot of excitement in connection with my devotions. In fact, I think Christianity as religion has always been in a distorted state, never presenting an honest theology to followers. It's been manipulated for fun, politics, and profit from the day after the angel rolled back the stone capping Jesus' tomb.
Which is why I don't subscribe to human-controlled religion anymore. Unfortunately, atheism is really another human-controlled belief system, or should I say family of allied belief systems for accuracy, so we never entirely escape. Social control within atheism is extremely lax, however: perhaps just a scolding from Bill Maher on TV.
As an atheist you'll be expected to go full bore and develop a snide, snarky attitude toward your former religion and the ridiculous stories in its holy texts. Learn science well, particularly the big bang cosmology and Darwinian evolution. But never "believe" in these latter items; the slogan of atheism is We Make No Claims. Instead, merely assert their truth is established by the Self-Correcting Scientific Method. Nothing less will do on this site, which after all carries the venerable image of a Lithium atom on its masthead. I like atheism as a counterweight to religious authority, though. The Hierarchy gets so Stuffy it needs its balloon popped from time to time. Visit the RationalWiki for more details.
Jokes aside, best wishes to you. I don't know how to resolve your issue, that is, how you "know" that Jesus is not a god, particularly if you "knew" this in the past but don't "know" it now. I don't fully know what it means to "know" something, or how this differs from "believing" or "feeling." Of course I don't believe either of the two creation narratives in Genesis or the Noah Ark story faithfully represent any event in the natural world, if modern standards of historiography and science are to be applied to them. There's no geologic evidence for a global flood in recent time, no reason to think our planet condensed in six days, or that its date of formation is less than 4 or 5 billion years past. Oddly, these silly issues hijack all the airtime in theist-atheist contretemps. In the end, whether Jesus is a god doesn't depend on what we think; it's either "true" or it's not.
I like some Christian music. I like Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" and Bach's St. John Passion best. I doubt you're in danger of going insane within the next 24 hours or so. Again, best of luck fall into your hat!
Which is why I don't subscribe to human-controlled religion anymore. Unfortunately, atheism is really another human-controlled belief system, or should I say family of allied belief systems for accuracy, so we never entirely escape. Social control within atheism is extremely lax, however: perhaps just a scolding from Bill Maher on TV.
As an atheist you'll be expected to go full bore and develop a snide, snarky attitude toward your former religion and the ridiculous stories in its holy texts. Learn science well, particularly the big bang cosmology and Darwinian evolution. But never "believe" in these latter items; the slogan of atheism is We Make No Claims. Instead, merely assert their truth is established by the Self-Correcting Scientific Method. Nothing less will do on this site, which after all carries the venerable image of a Lithium atom on its masthead. I like atheism as a counterweight to religious authority, though. The Hierarchy gets so Stuffy it needs its balloon popped from time to time. Visit the RationalWiki for more details.
Jokes aside, best wishes to you. I don't know how to resolve your issue, that is, how you "know" that Jesus is not a god, particularly if you "knew" this in the past but don't "know" it now. I don't fully know what it means to "know" something, or how this differs from "believing" or "feeling." Of course I don't believe either of the two creation narratives in Genesis or the Noah Ark story faithfully represent any event in the natural world, if modern standards of historiography and science are to be applied to them. There's no geologic evidence for a global flood in recent time, no reason to think our planet condensed in six days, or that its date of formation is less than 4 or 5 billion years past. Oddly, these silly issues hijack all the airtime in theist-atheist contretemps. In the end, whether Jesus is a god doesn't depend on what we think; it's either "true" or it's not.
I like some Christian music. I like Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" and Bach's St. John Passion best. I doubt you're in danger of going insane within the next 24 hours or so. Again, best of luck fall into your hat!
