Facing the Morally Bad Future

[gomtuu77]

My Situation

I still haven't told a single friend face-to-face that I don't believe in God anymore. My reasons for this are pretty simple (or they used to be) and they're basically to do with the arguments that would inevitably follow about what the truth is. I don't want to engage in arguments with the people that I enjoy being with, but at the same time I want to start living and acting the way I actually see fit which I obviously can't without them noticing that I've changed.

I have started to think ahead in order to somewhat predict what would happen if I told everyone 100% that I have no faith and my reasons why. As the title of this thread suggests, I fear there is only one possible future and I have the gut feeling that it is also morally bad on my part. I'll explain further in hopes that you guys might be able to enlighten me on this thought. Maybe it can't be seen as entirely morally bad.

Possible Futures

If I sat down a friend and honestly told him I actually don't believe in God, I'm 100% confident that we won't simply get up and leave it at that. I'm sure that they will feel obliged to convince me to have faith again. So assuming that this is what would happen, let's fast-track to the end of the discussion at what the possible futures might be.

-I have been convinced-

I acknowledge this could be a possibility. Two things to consider here.

1. I'm okay with this because as a free thinker I naturally accept that any idea or claim can have truth to it. I just need the logical reasons for then believing it is in fact true.
   
2. A bit of a side note, but I have heard most of the apologetic arguments and definitely a lot more arguments against Christianity and the refutations to most apologetic arguments. I don't believe that their chances of converting me are very high at all.
   

This possible future can be seen as the morally good one overall because I implicitly gave my consent to be swayed by initiating the discussion. There wouldn't be anything wrong here between the two of us morally.

-I have (somewhat) convinced them-

Knowing the reasons for why I left, I know what it would take for me to convert back, and so far these reasons haven't been close to being refuted. With that said, I believe the most likely outcome will be this one where I have severely left them doubting, if not, deconverted. I'm almost confident that that is what would happen because I know they haven't been exposed to even the possible ideas about why Christianity might be wrong. These are things that we all see as the standard arguments here on forums (e.g. a Biblical Jesus most likely non-existent). So I believe on their first hearing of such reasons why I have no faith, there will be severe damage done.

This possible future seems like the one that is most likely and I fear that the repercussions will be very bad. I see it as morally bad because I know that some of my friends have horrific pasts and they need faith as a sort of cure. Regardless of whether Christianity is true or not, taking this away from them would do some brutal mental damage and irreparable scarring which I would be responsible for.


Where does this leave me? I don't think it's greedy of me to want to live the way I see fit now and act upon my true beliefs, but how can that be done without being immoral? Can it be said that taking away someone's faith is an immoral act?

Personally, were I to encounter a long-time "Christian" friend who no longer believed in God, my first thought would be to wonder whether they were ever truly a Christian at all. The Church is populated with all kinds of people that read their Bibles, attend church, and even teach Sunday school that aren't genuine regenerate believers. The fact that someone like this might ultimately decide to be honest with themselves and respond to their true nature rather than to God's call on their life wouldn't really surprise me at all. It would be disheartening and discouraging but not surprising.

I would probably be interested in their perspective and how they came to the conclusions they have. And yeah, I probably would say a few words, assuming I had something to say; in the hopes that they might rethink some perspective about which they are significantly mistaken. However, there is no way that I or anyone else would be able to argue that person back into the Kingdom. Salvation is something that is accomplished by God, not by man. In that context, if you are determined not to believe in God, there is very little that anyone can do, no matter how well intentioned they might be. Richard Weaver wrote a book called Ideas Have Consequences, in which he said something like this...

“Nothing good can come if the will is wrong, and to give evidence to him who loves not the truth, is only to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation.”

I suspect that this is as true now as it was then, ad I'm certain that it is true in your case as well. Someone who is more interested in the truth than anything else might be able to come to some useful conclusions, but typically, human beings don't like the truth. They'd rather conform the truth to their own predispositions than conform their own views and attitudes to the truth.