In response to a post on another forum by a respected Christian believer, I wrote the following story. It's a fresher version of my deconversion out of religion about 8 years ago and it has a cleaner feel along with a more broad application.
Just some thoughts.
--Wag--
-----------------------------------------
I find it truly appealing that we as potential opposition can discuss religion without getting flaming mad at each other and remaining friends at the other end of such discussion. At least, I hope that's the case. I have a great deal of respect for you, Ron, and for others here who have been so patient and collected during these discussions of their beliefs.
I recall at about age 7 or 8 I was first taught about the flood and Noah's miraculous escape. That is my first memory of doubting religion. (I was only given a Mormon perspective of it but for that particular story, it was a fair and comparable version to that which is told by Judeo-Christian religions and sects everywhere.) I just couldn't see it. The world is a big place. How did ALL of the pairs of animals get on the ark? Was it really THAT big? Then, I read it a little closer and discovered that only the unclean animals were in pairs. The clean animals were sent seven pairs each! Talk about making the problem worse!
My boat of belief was really foundering. I asked my parents who said, "Have faith and in time, god will reveal the secret of that mystery to you." To me, though, faith meant searching for the answer and showing one's seriousness and devotion by doing so. I continued to ask around. One of my teachers at church suggested that the flood was regional and didn't encompass the entire earth, just the local area. That made a little sense but didn't quite jive with the written word as I understood it. I filed the idea away as a possibility for later reference.
I went back to my parents a couple of times. They didn't know the answers to my questions but wouldn't say so. After only a couple of rounds, they finally got frustrated (read that, "angry") with me and told me to keep my peace. I learned to keep my mouth shut and have a care when asking questions or challenging certain religious teachings of which I had doubt. There were several: The virgin birth (the Mormon answer to THAT is wild!!), the adventures of Moses, the miracles of Jesus and Paul, etc.
As I grew up and left home, I continued to wonder and ask questions here and there but the habit of my childhood was to accept everything on faith and to not challenge the teachings of my childhood. I really wanted to believe. I wanted to believe that god was ever present in my life. Indeed, Mormonism taught that you can actually KNOW by god's influence that he is there in our lives.
That, then, was always the critical test: Pray and know. Throughout my entire life for as long as I could remember, I had been doing exactly that: Praying to know. No answer had been forthcoming by the time I was 34 or so years old. Again, parents and teachers kept telling me that in god's due time, I would get my answers from the spirit of god. All around me though, friends and family were getting THEIR answers, where was mine?
I think any belief I might have had began to die a slow death as people suggested that perhaps I was too sinful and needed to repent. Suggestions began to come forth from people indicating that perhaps I was not reading the scriptures enough or not praying and fasting enough or that I had too many contentious relationships with people which were unresolved or that I wasn't paying my tithing diligently or . . . .
The list was pretty long but it boiled down to the idea that I was not righteous enough to get a testimony of the truth from god. I wanted it, though, and I struggled ever more and more all the time to get that answer.
Finally, at one point, a book I read cut it loose for me: It was NOT me that was the problem. God was there for the sinner, not the righteous and that if anyone deserved his spiritual testament it was me but not because of anything I was doing or not doing. Simply because I was one of his children. That book made it clear that Jesus was not waiting for me to do anything in particular except for one thing: To have faith.
If I had felt I ever had faith before, I was mistaken. At that moment, belief coupled with faith swelled in my heart and soul to the point that I believed with all my soul that I was going to be given my answers by god and Jesus right then and I immediately hit my knees in prayer, fully expecting to get the answer I had sought throughout my life.
Nothing.
I continued to pray. Still nothing. For an entire day, I was on my knees, praying to know, praying for greater faith and belief. It was not about Mormonism any more, it was about Jesus and about god. Still nothing. At the end of that day, I arose with a belief that there was no god. I hadn't expected god to speak to me with thunder and lightning. Indeed, I had no expectations on how he would answer my prayer. But I believed with all my heart that if god answered me, there would be no doubt remaining in my heart and soul about what god and Jesus were all about and what their intentions are for me.
This next part is the most important part of my story:
I stood up from those prayers with greater doubt than I had ever had before. For a brief moment, I was angry. Angry at my life, my parents, my religion, my religious teachers, the rest of my family; pretty much everyone I had trusted throughout my life.
That anger lasted for the blink of an eye. In the next blink of an eye, I became an atheist and all of my anger dissappeared. Why be angry at a god who isn't there? The feeling of peace that washed over me was the spiritual experience I had been seeking all of my life. The description of it matched what I had always had taught would happen to me by true believers, both within my childhood religion of Mormonism and by those who had taught me from a true Christian faith. (Yes, I do know the difference! :D)
THAT was the spiritual experience I had sought for so very long. All of my anger, my guilt and my fears were gone and ever have been since that time about 8 years ago. The feeling is barely describable and at that time was when I realized that I had been chasing someone else's dream.
I went on a crusade. There was a short time there when I went on the attack and was truly militant toward religions of all types but especially Mormonism and Christianity. I said quite a few hurtful things to people though fortunately, it was possible to work to repair that damage. My tirade lasted for about three months or so.
One day I was reading a book by Carl Sagan and getting heated up about a lot of things he was saying. Two thirds of the way through it, I realized all at once that I was becoming again what I thought I had left behind. I realized I was becoming dogmatic and chauvenistic about my atheism more than I had been about religion!!!
I consider myself very fortunate that I was able to stop and realize that the most important thing in life is our loved ones. Our friends and our families are our highest priority and other people come very close to that priority as well, just because they are all human beings. (No, it doesn't mean we become indisciriminately open to people without thought and with only emotiion but that's a subject for another time.)
In other words, what life is all about is the people around us. How we treat people in this life is the most important aspect of what we will ever do. Indeed, that belief is also taught by many religions.
I also realized at that point that open-mindedness is a critical factor. I resolved to stay open-minded about the things people try to teach me. (Again, that does not mean that we have to indiscriminately take in everything and incorporate it. It could drive a man crazy.) It did mean, however, that any well-conceived teaching was well-worth consideration. Not the ramblings of mindless idiots, don't get me wrong. I don't believe that all Christians are fools at all. I do run into Christian fools from time to time but I run into just as many atheist fools, Buddhist fools, Wiccan fools, etc. etc.
By the same token, there are just as many intelligent people within all of these beliefs to whom it is well worth the time it takes to listen.
I spent about two years taking in various teachings from a lot of different people, many who are preachers and teachers within their religions. They are devoted followers or practitioners and deserving of the respect of any of us. They have yet to be convincing to me, however. As we talk, they have yet to move me.
Still, I keep my eyes open. I no longer spend time looking under the rocks and in the holes. I no longer go out into the field seeking answers. But I watch. I listen and I carefully consider the possibility that there COULD be a god and there COULD be a sacrifice that was made for me by Jesus.
There have been many comments made here on this board and elsewhere which serve to keep my mind open on the subject of the existence of god. I still read to see where they go and how they approach. To see if there is the possibility that I'm wrong and they are right. Thus far, as I said, I'm still unconvinced but rest assured, I'm not switched off to the possibilities! There is still a chance, at least in my mind, that perhaps some day someone will say something that changes my mind.
Until that day comes, however, I remain an atheist. However, I am still devoted to the idea that people are the most important aspect of our lives and that all peope deserve a fair shot. Of course, I go off from time to time but not as much as I used to and I surely work to keep that from happening as much as I possibly can.
Beyond this point, my story will become a ramble so I sign off from writing this now. There is more, of course, and there are always more questions from religious adherents and I'm always open to answering those beliefs in the full expectation that open-mindedness is something that is needful for all of us.
My best,
--Wag--
Monday, December 25, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
This morning, I got an e-mail from a Christian friend of mine who was contemplating the idea that if god has such a beautiful plan of salvation via Christ's sacrifice, why did He make it so much of a hassle to show that it is fact? There are questions about how and why and wherefore, etc. etc. Challenges do not fall easily by the wayside.
His e-mail was his experience in overcoming doubts raised in his mind.
At least, that's what I think he was trying to say in his article. Without posting his exact commentary, that should give you adequate context for my reply, copied below.
--Wag--
------------------------------
I'm not 100% sure I get what you're trying to say, but I appreciate the effort. It seems almost that you're worried about the mechanism of establishing truth. Almost as if to say, "IF god could have done this at all, why leave any doubt about it?"
There are two kinds of people in the world (don't you just hate that statement?!!): One type questions everything, another type questions nothing. For some, it's good enough that the Bible says it. For others, no statement of any kind is good enough, it has to be seen with their own eyes. The two extremes are both faulty.
There are, of course, every degree of people in between. These are the ones with whom we take an interest.
These people are the reason we have science. People want to learn how things work. Sometimes, so much so, that they will buck the current trends in order to establish the facts and truths they discover. Galileo was an example of this. Prior to him, the general belief about the earth was that all planets and the sun and moon all orbited the earth. Galileo proved conclusively that in order for that to be true, the planets would have to have a kind of spiral orbit and even that concept was not fully workable. Finally, he broke the mold and discovered that the planets orbited the sun and the moon did, in fact, orbit the earth.
Pretty major accomplishment in his day but even more so because as a result, he was roundly persecuted by the church until later, others proved that he was correct. The church had to back off eventually but not before they went to great lengths to castigate Galileo, et al. I rather suspect that Galileo and his associates would have had to suggest that they were seeking to know the wonders of God's creation in order to avoid a righteous lynch mob but I digress a small degree!
So what is truth, really? How does "truth" compare to "fact?" Remember, Indiana Jones in, "Raiders of the Lost Ark?" He tells his archaeology class, "In archaeology, we deal with fact, not truth. If you want to talk about truth, the philosophy class is down the hall."
It's a salient point. Fact can be demonstrated with repeatable tests. For example, 2+2=4. A fact. We can test it over and over and over again and get the same answer. Every person on the planet can reproduce the result the exact same way every time. That's science. It doesn't always work, though. Science has it's failings, to be sure but it grows over time. More and more facts are discovered all the time because of the innate curiosities of scientists and their overwhelming drive to see things as they really are. Vision is increased over time and they can see more and more and more. That they often raise more questions in their answers is merely an assurance that science will continue to invfluence our lives
Truth, on the other hand, is centered very squarely on the foundation of Perception. How I see something may differ from how you see something. Given the same set of facts, we may both draw conclusions and opinions which differ mightily from each other. As we explain and write and speak of our thoughts on the subject, we may actually cause greater variation of thought as time progresses rather than actually coming to closer agreement on the topics. Othes who listen to us may choose sides or further muddy the waters with their own opinions. Two types of people, remember?!
Fact, you can't debate. Yes, there are fossils in the earth. Yes, they are hundreds of thousands or millions or even several billion years old. We can't debate that these are facts, nor can we dismiss them out of hand and ignore them. They are there in our faces. What we can still debate in the absence of additional facts, however, is how the fossils got there. That's where truth comes in. It may occur to me to believe that it's all evidence of evolution, in spite of missing facts. You, on the other hand, may see it as evidence of the might of god, also in spite of missing facts. We either argue about the truth or go our separate ways, content that we have the truth of the matter firmly in hand.
We both do exactly that, each convinced of the efficacy of our respective truths. However, the next blast of fact may dislodge our grip on truth fairly readily if we are open-minded. On the other hand, either of us my cling to that truth forever and shelter it, guarding it from all assault and variation if we, in fact, decide that no other outer influence may sway us from the truth. Dogma, blind chauvenism and unchallenged loyalty may prevent us from revising our truths when it is appropriate.
It goes both ways, though. At times, we may actually devoid ourselves of truth AND fact by failing to test the things in which we believe. That little collection of truths we hold in our hands. Granted, you can't always run around testing everything which comes our way against our individual handfuls of truths. We don't have time. However, we do have the catalog of truths in our minds and various instances of fact may raise questions about those truths if we allow them to do so. Nothing wrong with it either way. As we expose our truths to scrutiny, we find that healthy truths will flourish and grow and unhealthy truths can be easily discarded without further question.
A difficulty arises when someone approaches us with an assertion of truth. Is he using fact or truth to support his position? Often, truth is camoflaged as fact. It takes a degree of discernment to tell the difference. Avowals of, "He said, She said," or, "I saw it in an article," are sometimes used to support various assertions. Still, we can and should take the time to review and suggest that it be studied and discussed further in order to discover whether or not the statement is factual or not and whether or not the truth, OUR truth, needs to be redefined or refreshed.
Fact is discovered. Truth is created and destroyed.
Which brings us back to the beginnning of the thought. The Bible says it, is it true? Who cares? Is it factual, is the question. The original documents are available. Do the say what interpretation says they say? Yes, they do. Were they inspired by god or insanity? Were the stories faith-promoting folktales and legends or were they historically factual? Depending on the document, it could be a little of both. COULD be. Some of them, we don't know for sure. Some of them we do. Does a statement of fact make another unproven statement a fact also because the two are contained within the same cover? No. Each must stand on its own. Did Babylon conquer Israel about 600BC? Yup. Did they steal the ark of the covenant from the temple? We don't know.
Did Jesus get crucified? The bible says so. Is it fact? Does the secular record say? Josephus seems to think so, if I recall correctly. Was anyone resurrected from the dead? Facts outside the Bible do not support that assertion. We don't know if it's fact or not. Using the Bible as evidence, however, we can suggest it as truth to some and they will accept it as truth in their own hearts. Lacking supporting fact, they can use another agent of truth called "faith."
Faith can be a tricky thing. Grounded faith would propel us to act with the belief that something good will come of that act. Believing I can make a million bucks, I may act in faith by investing in the stock market and will do so with research and intelligence to maximize my chances of success.
There are those, however, who will cry, "Faith!" in prayer for the succor of the destitute and yet, they will not bring a sack of groceries to solve the immediate problem. By the same token, these same will sit in church regularly and frequently, all the while using faith to cover and protect their truths from the assault of fact. True faith would take truth and hold it to the candle of fact in order to assure oneself that the truth is well-grounded and can bear scrutiny.
I think lack of scrutiny is a failing among many, scientists and religionists both. Scientists, however, do have the means to test each other in many cases. Religionists . . . . What do they use to test each other? Assertions of fact? Very often not. Very often, only the Bible is used and the isolationist nature of the tome renders it too subjective for adequate testing. Opinion abounds as to beliefs, truths, religions and faiths. The claim that any one religion or sect could be a sole repository of truth becomes highly questionable at best and laughable at worst.
Who's going to win? The man who will ask questions. The man who will seek for answers at every possible turn. The man who is willing to understand that not everything WILL have an answer and that some truths must stand without scrutiny, simply because the truths cannot be tested against fact. It is the man who is willing to reassess his truths as often as possible and add new ones while disposing of those which are moldy and full of decay.
Truth is a good thing because it gives us a beautiful world in which to live outside the cold sterility of fact. Fact, however, is a good thing because it gives us the ability to check that the colors of our truths will still appease the eye.
If you believe in god and you search for answers from his good graces, you may find that there are missing facts. Until such time as god chooses to provide, it's possible to use faith to shore up truths in spite of absent facts. It may, however, cause you to doubt the efficacy of a god and that's okay. So long as the faiths used to support truths are not so exclusionary that we cannot see the light of additional information which may give us reason to conclude that perhaps we at least need to reassess the efficacy of our personal handful of truths.
At least, I think so.
:-)
--Wag--
His e-mail was his experience in overcoming doubts raised in his mind.
At least, that's what I think he was trying to say in his article. Without posting his exact commentary, that should give you adequate context for my reply, copied below.
--Wag--
------------------------------
I'm not 100% sure I get what you're trying to say, but I appreciate the effort. It seems almost that you're worried about the mechanism of establishing truth. Almost as if to say, "IF god could have done this at all, why leave any doubt about it?"
There are two kinds of people in the world (don't you just hate that statement?!!): One type questions everything, another type questions nothing. For some, it's good enough that the Bible says it. For others, no statement of any kind is good enough, it has to be seen with their own eyes. The two extremes are both faulty.
There are, of course, every degree of people in between. These are the ones with whom we take an interest.
These people are the reason we have science. People want to learn how things work. Sometimes, so much so, that they will buck the current trends in order to establish the facts and truths they discover. Galileo was an example of this. Prior to him, the general belief about the earth was that all planets and the sun and moon all orbited the earth. Galileo proved conclusively that in order for that to be true, the planets would have to have a kind of spiral orbit and even that concept was not fully workable. Finally, he broke the mold and discovered that the planets orbited the sun and the moon did, in fact, orbit the earth.
Pretty major accomplishment in his day but even more so because as a result, he was roundly persecuted by the church until later, others proved that he was correct. The church had to back off eventually but not before they went to great lengths to castigate Galileo, et al. I rather suspect that Galileo and his associates would have had to suggest that they were seeking to know the wonders of God's creation in order to avoid a righteous lynch mob but I digress a small degree!
So what is truth, really? How does "truth" compare to "fact?" Remember, Indiana Jones in, "Raiders of the Lost Ark?" He tells his archaeology class, "In archaeology, we deal with fact, not truth. If you want to talk about truth, the philosophy class is down the hall."
It's a salient point. Fact can be demonstrated with repeatable tests. For example, 2+2=4. A fact. We can test it over and over and over again and get the same answer. Every person on the planet can reproduce the result the exact same way every time. That's science. It doesn't always work, though. Science has it's failings, to be sure but it grows over time. More and more facts are discovered all the time because of the innate curiosities of scientists and their overwhelming drive to see things as they really are. Vision is increased over time and they can see more and more and more. That they often raise more questions in their answers is merely an assurance that science will continue to invfluence our lives
Truth, on the other hand, is centered very squarely on the foundation of Perception. How I see something may differ from how you see something. Given the same set of facts, we may both draw conclusions and opinions which differ mightily from each other. As we explain and write and speak of our thoughts on the subject, we may actually cause greater variation of thought as time progresses rather than actually coming to closer agreement on the topics. Othes who listen to us may choose sides or further muddy the waters with their own opinions. Two types of people, remember?!
Fact, you can't debate. Yes, there are fossils in the earth. Yes, they are hundreds of thousands or millions or even several billion years old. We can't debate that these are facts, nor can we dismiss them out of hand and ignore them. They are there in our faces. What we can still debate in the absence of additional facts, however, is how the fossils got there. That's where truth comes in. It may occur to me to believe that it's all evidence of evolution, in spite of missing facts. You, on the other hand, may see it as evidence of the might of god, also in spite of missing facts. We either argue about the truth or go our separate ways, content that we have the truth of the matter firmly in hand.
We both do exactly that, each convinced of the efficacy of our respective truths. However, the next blast of fact may dislodge our grip on truth fairly readily if we are open-minded. On the other hand, either of us my cling to that truth forever and shelter it, guarding it from all assault and variation if we, in fact, decide that no other outer influence may sway us from the truth. Dogma, blind chauvenism and unchallenged loyalty may prevent us from revising our truths when it is appropriate.
It goes both ways, though. At times, we may actually devoid ourselves of truth AND fact by failing to test the things in which we believe. That little collection of truths we hold in our hands. Granted, you can't always run around testing everything which comes our way against our individual handfuls of truths. We don't have time. However, we do have the catalog of truths in our minds and various instances of fact may raise questions about those truths if we allow them to do so. Nothing wrong with it either way. As we expose our truths to scrutiny, we find that healthy truths will flourish and grow and unhealthy truths can be easily discarded without further question.
A difficulty arises when someone approaches us with an assertion of truth. Is he using fact or truth to support his position? Often, truth is camoflaged as fact. It takes a degree of discernment to tell the difference. Avowals of, "He said, She said," or, "I saw it in an article," are sometimes used to support various assertions. Still, we can and should take the time to review and suggest that it be studied and discussed further in order to discover whether or not the statement is factual or not and whether or not the truth, OUR truth, needs to be redefined or refreshed.
Fact is discovered. Truth is created and destroyed.
Which brings us back to the beginnning of the thought. The Bible says it, is it true? Who cares? Is it factual, is the question. The original documents are available. Do the say what interpretation says they say? Yes, they do. Were they inspired by god or insanity? Were the stories faith-promoting folktales and legends or were they historically factual? Depending on the document, it could be a little of both. COULD be. Some of them, we don't know for sure. Some of them we do. Does a statement of fact make another unproven statement a fact also because the two are contained within the same cover? No. Each must stand on its own. Did Babylon conquer Israel about 600BC? Yup. Did they steal the ark of the covenant from the temple? We don't know.
Did Jesus get crucified? The bible says so. Is it fact? Does the secular record say? Josephus seems to think so, if I recall correctly. Was anyone resurrected from the dead? Facts outside the Bible do not support that assertion. We don't know if it's fact or not. Using the Bible as evidence, however, we can suggest it as truth to some and they will accept it as truth in their own hearts. Lacking supporting fact, they can use another agent of truth called "faith."
Faith can be a tricky thing. Grounded faith would propel us to act with the belief that something good will come of that act. Believing I can make a million bucks, I may act in faith by investing in the stock market and will do so with research and intelligence to maximize my chances of success.
There are those, however, who will cry, "Faith!" in prayer for the succor of the destitute and yet, they will not bring a sack of groceries to solve the immediate problem. By the same token, these same will sit in church regularly and frequently, all the while using faith to cover and protect their truths from the assault of fact. True faith would take truth and hold it to the candle of fact in order to assure oneself that the truth is well-grounded and can bear scrutiny.
I think lack of scrutiny is a failing among many, scientists and religionists both. Scientists, however, do have the means to test each other in many cases. Religionists . . . . What do they use to test each other? Assertions of fact? Very often not. Very often, only the Bible is used and the isolationist nature of the tome renders it too subjective for adequate testing. Opinion abounds as to beliefs, truths, religions and faiths. The claim that any one religion or sect could be a sole repository of truth becomes highly questionable at best and laughable at worst.
Who's going to win? The man who will ask questions. The man who will seek for answers at every possible turn. The man who is willing to understand that not everything WILL have an answer and that some truths must stand without scrutiny, simply because the truths cannot be tested against fact. It is the man who is willing to reassess his truths as often as possible and add new ones while disposing of those which are moldy and full of decay.
Truth is a good thing because it gives us a beautiful world in which to live outside the cold sterility of fact. Fact, however, is a good thing because it gives us the ability to check that the colors of our truths will still appease the eye.
If you believe in god and you search for answers from his good graces, you may find that there are missing facts. Until such time as god chooses to provide, it's possible to use faith to shore up truths in spite of absent facts. It may, however, cause you to doubt the efficacy of a god and that's okay. So long as the faiths used to support truths are not so exclusionary that we cannot see the light of additional information which may give us reason to conclude that perhaps we at least need to reassess the efficacy of our personal handful of truths.
At least, I think so.
:-)
--Wag--
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
