*I been told some of this post sounds fairly arrogant. Wasn't my intention, but in the spirit of the late Hitchens, I will take his advice of not worrying about being called such*
I was born and raised in a Christian household. My mother was, and still is to this very day, a committed Christian woman. I spent my Sundays at church in various Sunday school programs. I was taught the basic Christian doctrines at this time and prided myself in excelling in them as well. Any question which may compromise such beliefs was met with utter hostility, and I was told it was better not to ask them at all. How dare reason stand in the way of faith. I was told these two were diametrically opposed, unless it validated religious principles. However, more on that later.
As I grew older I morphed, or shall I say evolved, into quite the little intellectual. I enjoyed reading and debating. Not to sound too conceited but I was more keen at these things compared to other people of my age. This may be derived from the fact that most of my peers were too involved with sports, skirt chasing, and the like to worry about what is look at as trivial at that age. Nevertheless, my faith never wavered. Even when my actions overtly conflicted with the “morality” of the Bible I still held fast to them and bitterly opposed any opposition. I went to church because I was forced to by my parents. I didn’t want to praise the god I still gave my unwavering allegiance too. This is America. To be godless was anti-nationalist, and would possibly even make you a communist. Can’t have that, now can we?
I graduated high school and moved to college. After two years of classes my grades were not satisfactory to say the least. I drifted from major to major not sure of what I wanted to pursue, which made me not take my classes to seriously. This was also during my hardcore wow phase; there possibly could be a correlation there to explore in another thread. Then something remarkable happened. My head knowledge of faith which was actively ideal once again morphed into an emotional one. I rediscovered my love for god. I dropped the classes I was in, and within 5 months was enrolled in a seminary type internship at the megachurch I attended.
I spent a year of my life there (also five thousand dollars I might add). Eighty to one-hundred hours a week we spent running the church operations, conferences, services, special events, and the like. However, my favorite day and the one I excelled at the most was class day. Here we learned the ins and outs of Christian doctrine. To this day I believe I can quote the Bible and defend the Christian faith better than most believers. There was one remarkable thing missing in this whole ordeal. Everything we learned was under the presumption that the Bible was the true and inerrant word of god, Jesus of Nazareth was a real person, and the stories in the both the new and old testaments were factual, historical, and scientific. I believe I now know the reason why we worked under such assumptions without first learning if they were indeed correct. If you proved that any of those three things were indeed false the rest would soon follow. The foundations of Christianity are akin to the old tale of humpty-dumpty. Not just in historical validity, but spirit as well. One small gust of reason and the shattering would be monumental.
I graduated the program with more questions than I had when I started. I was told by a close friend at the time, who was a devote Christian, to stop all my questioning. “You won’t reach God through logic, “ he said. “I have had friends who did the same thing and they stopped believing”. I wanted the truth. You do not stop searching just because you might not like what you do not find. The hunt continued.
I stopped studying doctrine, and instead focused my attention on the fundamentals. What is the evidence that points to the inerrancy of Scripture? What is the historical proof to point to the divinity, if even the existence, of Christ? How did the universe originate, along with the species on the Earth? I started to listen to debates and lectures by the opposing “faction”, such as: Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the like. What I have learned and discovered is so vast that I do not have the time nor energy to write here. I can simply say this; there is an irreconcilable difference between reality, reason, and the Bible. Even the moral teachings of the Bible are founded in immorality. We are not here because of divine creation. Our purpose in life is not given to us, but we make it ourself. Our life is not meaningless, we create our own meaning.
Ever since this discovery I have had the best times of my life. Freedom is truly freedom, not some bastardized version of being a serf of an totaltarian being. I have been able to enjoy the basic pleasure of life without the guilt of sin. I appreciate my fellow humans more. I realize the literal "oneness" with the rest of the cosmos, which is in itself awe inspiring. I could go on, but I am filled with a passion and zeal which would rival even the most staunch evangelical. Life is great my friends. Glad to be part of free-thinker community.
I was born and raised in a Christian household. My mother was, and still is to this very day, a committed Christian woman. I spent my Sundays at church in various Sunday school programs. I was taught the basic Christian doctrines at this time and prided myself in excelling in them as well. Any question which may compromise such beliefs was met with utter hostility, and I was told it was better not to ask them at all. How dare reason stand in the way of faith. I was told these two were diametrically opposed, unless it validated religious principles. However, more on that later.
As I grew older I morphed, or shall I say evolved, into quite the little intellectual. I enjoyed reading and debating. Not to sound too conceited but I was more keen at these things compared to other people of my age. This may be derived from the fact that most of my peers were too involved with sports, skirt chasing, and the like to worry about what is look at as trivial at that age. Nevertheless, my faith never wavered. Even when my actions overtly conflicted with the “morality” of the Bible I still held fast to them and bitterly opposed any opposition. I went to church because I was forced to by my parents. I didn’t want to praise the god I still gave my unwavering allegiance too. This is America. To be godless was anti-nationalist, and would possibly even make you a communist. Can’t have that, now can we?
I graduated high school and moved to college. After two years of classes my grades were not satisfactory to say the least. I drifted from major to major not sure of what I wanted to pursue, which made me not take my classes to seriously. This was also during my hardcore wow phase; there possibly could be a correlation there to explore in another thread. Then something remarkable happened. My head knowledge of faith which was actively ideal once again morphed into an emotional one. I rediscovered my love for god. I dropped the classes I was in, and within 5 months was enrolled in a seminary type internship at the megachurch I attended.
I spent a year of my life there (also five thousand dollars I might add). Eighty to one-hundred hours a week we spent running the church operations, conferences, services, special events, and the like. However, my favorite day and the one I excelled at the most was class day. Here we learned the ins and outs of Christian doctrine. To this day I believe I can quote the Bible and defend the Christian faith better than most believers. There was one remarkable thing missing in this whole ordeal. Everything we learned was under the presumption that the Bible was the true and inerrant word of god, Jesus of Nazareth was a real person, and the stories in the both the new and old testaments were factual, historical, and scientific. I believe I now know the reason why we worked under such assumptions without first learning if they were indeed correct. If you proved that any of those three things were indeed false the rest would soon follow. The foundations of Christianity are akin to the old tale of humpty-dumpty. Not just in historical validity, but spirit as well. One small gust of reason and the shattering would be monumental.
I graduated the program with more questions than I had when I started. I was told by a close friend at the time, who was a devote Christian, to stop all my questioning. “You won’t reach God through logic, “ he said. “I have had friends who did the same thing and they stopped believing”. I wanted the truth. You do not stop searching just because you might not like what you do not find. The hunt continued.
I stopped studying doctrine, and instead focused my attention on the fundamentals. What is the evidence that points to the inerrancy of Scripture? What is the historical proof to point to the divinity, if even the existence, of Christ? How did the universe originate, along with the species on the Earth? I started to listen to debates and lectures by the opposing “faction”, such as: Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the like. What I have learned and discovered is so vast that I do not have the time nor energy to write here. I can simply say this; there is an irreconcilable difference between reality, reason, and the Bible. Even the moral teachings of the Bible are founded in immorality. We are not here because of divine creation. Our purpose in life is not given to us, but we make it ourself. Our life is not meaningless, we create our own meaning.
Ever since this discovery I have had the best times of my life. Freedom is truly freedom, not some bastardized version of being a serf of an totaltarian being. I have been able to enjoy the basic pleasure of life without the guilt of sin. I appreciate my fellow humans more. I realize the literal "oneness" with the rest of the cosmos, which is in itself awe inspiring. I could go on, but I am filled with a passion and zeal which would rival even the most staunch evangelical. Life is great my friends. Glad to be part of free-thinker community.
Welcome to the forum!
