My holiday reading was Godless: How An Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists by Dan Barker. I had travelled a similar journey (albeit in a less publicised way). Having made the change from being an evangelical leader, preacher, counsellor, and author (for over 30 years) to an unashamed, blogging atheist, I thought it would be interesting to read the human story. I wondered how far Barker’s experience would parallel my own, and if his analysis of his change would help me see my own in a new perspective. I am really glad that I read through to the end of the book.
The book is divided into four sections: his life as a believer; his loss of faith; more detailed reasons for rejecting Christianity; his present work for the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF).
His faith didn’t disappear overnight, and I could certainly identify with the agony of the period where he felt so hypocritical. On the outside everything was OK and everybody was looking to him for Christian leadership and teaching, but on the inside the certainty of his faith was shifting dramatically. And once the faith had really disappeared, his experience certainly shed light on my own clinging to a pretence for so long. Not only was I clinging to a culture and people that I had known for most of my adult life, but I was also clinging to a public reputation that I had established. In our cases, faith wasn’t just a private matter, but it also came with a history, a community, and an important identity. The faith was private, but the ‘ baggage’ was public and, in some ways, was more ‘psychologically sticky’.
Once he had decided to ‘come out’ as an atheist and resign his Christian employment, he sent out over 50 letters to people just to inform them of the change. It was both amusing and painful to see some of the replies he received. Although some people have remained good friends, many tried to cope with the rejection of his faith (and of their faith) by saying the following kinds of things. You must be rejecting your faith because: you dislike authority; or, you want to live a sinful life; or, you like stiring up trouble; or, you are arrogant; or, you have been badly hurt by Christians; or, you are disappointed that your prayers haven’t been answered; or, you are an angry person; or, you have been seduced by scientists; or, you don’t know the meaning of love; or, you never were a real Christian in the first place.
Whatever the truth, or falsehood of those statements, Barker makes the telling point that they are all addressed at attacking the person, and not one of them seriously tries to understand or get to grips with the reasons he gave for no longer believing in the bible or the god of the bible. Barker lost his faith when he started to read and question what he had been given. But nobody in his associates were willing to engage in a debate with him about historical accuracy, textual criticism. or contradictions. To use his supposedly god-given brain meant that he was evil. I certainly have shared the same sense of disappointment and frustration at the unwillingness of believers to engage in a debate using reason and fact to consider claims of truth.
At this point, the book really started to take off for me. Barker spends some considerable time explaining in detail why he is an atheist. I found it refreshing to be reminded of familiar things and compelling to be taken in detail into areas that I hadn’t yet faced up to myself.
Examples of the familiar:
- Numbers don’t mean anything by themselves. Claiming that Christianity must be true because so many people believe it is pointless. Millions of people may be wrong (and have been in the past). And if numbers validates truth, what about the millions of people who believe in religions that are opposed to Christianity (Islam and Judaism, for example).
- Personal experience doesn’t prove anything. It is well documented that we create meaning by interpreting personal experiences, but those interpretations can be wrong, and we can have experiences caused by a whole range of things. Saying: “It must be true because I have experienced it!” can easily by countered by: “I have had an experience that proves that it isn’t true!”
As a believer I often used the books of Josh McDowell to argue the case for Christianity, especially on the historicity of Jesus, and on the proofs of the Resurrection. Barker carefully drives a coach and horses through this kind of material. What I found particularly sad is that many liberal Christians would also agree with Barker about the intellectual inadequacy of the evangelical case. The material has been around for years, but I, and many others, were far too willing to accept second-hand knowledge and not look at the foundation for it.
Examples of material that I personally found compelling, new, and challenging:
- There is no external historical confirmation for the New Testament stories, and the stories themselves are contradictory. Barker takes us through the references to Jesus in the later secular historians and shows the paucity of the evidence. The reference to Jesus in Josephus (so loved by evangelicals) magically appears in versions of Josephus two centuries after Josephus is supposed to have written it. The historical Jesus is far more a shadowy figure than evangelicals would have us believe.
- Barker also shows that the resurrection narratives are contradictory and inconsistent. He frequently challenges believers to write a simple narrative of the resurrection, using every simple detail from the New Testament, without omitting a single detail.
Both atheists and believers could learn from this book. Sadly, I know that very few of the latter will dare to read it. It deserves a wide readership amongst believers, not least because of Barker’s authority. He knew Christianity form the inside. He knows the bible inside out and can quote chapter and verse. Being a charismatic he knew about religious experience in a big way. Yet, despite that knowledge, the edifice started to crumble when he began to think outside the box of his culture and do the kind of thinking that has helped civilization move forward for millions of years.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of Dan Barker. He seems very.. self involved. I subscribe to his podcast, American Freethought Radio, and pretty much every episode has some new song that he has written and sung in some terrible manner. It all seems like public masturbation to me. And don’t get me started on the stunts the FFRF pulled in Washington recently. All that being said, I think Mr. Barker’s story is an important one to tell and to be heard.
Really interesting blog. I enjoyed reading it. I feel like I am on the cusp of something.
In my present personal crisis I have tried to rely on myself and my judgment and brain alone, rather than talking to the silent imagination. It is hard though. I confess I have slipped one or two quick words to the Almighty? in, like:
“please if you are there help me now, this is your one big chance to make me change my mind”
I haven’t wanted to pray for fear of being a betrayal to my new feeling but I have to confess after a 23 yr history of Christianity old habits do die hard.
I have tired to block out any desire to formally pray but then, some Christians would say in my present crisis, now so serious and acute, is God’s way of making me crumble and fall back into his Kingdom. I can’t do it without him.
I am trying to resist this. Only today, I would have had an opportunity to say to my close work colleaque re: my new found atheism but couldn’t. Her words would have been
” well, no wonder you are in this mess then”!
I have found my own husband so astounded and sorry that I am still lossing or have lost my faith, that he has openly declared he does not want me to lose it and wishes to show me the spiritual haven of the new hospital chapel, which apparently has such an atmosphere of God that he thinks that is all I need to be persuaded.
I would like to read this book and feel you have been honest and brave to say what you have here.
I commend you for it.
I may seem a little “wishy washy” in my thinking at present with reference to faith, but you knowing me as well as you do, I am sure you can forgive my present state of mind on this subject
Sisyphus Fragment
“Personally, I’m not a big fan of Dan Barker. He seems very.. self involved.”
Ha, I wouldn’t expect anything less from a musician. An artist is an artist with the particular personality perks regardless of religiosity or lack there of.
Athinkingman,
Great review! Thank you for writing it. I may read Barker’s book after I finish my English Literature immersion.
But my concern is what else is there then, aThinking Man?
I havent read godless, but if god does not exist in any form, and this is all there is, what a god forsaken life we all lead and when we die. . . doh!
According to Wikipedia …Atheism, as an explicit position, can be either the affirmation of the nonexistence of gods,[1] or the rejection of theism.[2] It is also[3] defined more broadly as an absence of belief in deities, or nontheism.[4]
Many self-described atheists are skeptical of all supernatural beings and cite a lack of empirical evidence for the existence of deities. Others argue for atheism on philosophical, social or historical grounds. Although many self-described atheists tend toward secular philosophies such as humanism[5] and naturalism,[6] there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere;[7] and some religions, such as Jainism and Buddhism, do not require belief in a personal god.
aThinking man, do you fit into one of the above categories?
Wikipedia’s explanation is enough to send me reaching for the Ibrupofen.
athinkingman, you are quite correct, I cannot prove that Jesus is God, lived in Palestine, died, rose went back to heaven and is ready to return, I cannot prove anything about my faith.
I do feel vulnerable when confronted with everything that descredits my faith, I find it impossible to have an intellectual arguement about my personal faith and why I love Jesus, its so excitingly irrational, to be a believer.
I would rather live one day on the edge as a believer than a lifetime as a rational intellectual atheist, who seem to me to be about as exciting as accountants when compared to astronauts.
Accountants are rational human beings, who can justify everything they do in black and white, everything adds up.
They can prove every last dollar, look at the columns, there it is every last jot and shekel accounted for.
Astronauts on the other hand are completely bonkers, putting their faith and life in the hands of mad rocket scientists, to boldly go where no one has bodily gone before, strapped into a bomb, that could turn them into star dust.
Who would you rather talk to, given the choice. Hahahahah!
Let me put things thisaway - why even my wife cannot even explain what on earth led her to marry me, I’ve begged and pleaded with her to explain rationally, to produce facts, figures, historical accuracy, she could even call her mother as her witness, but now, she hasnt got a shred of evidence as to why she washes my socks, irons my shirts so good heartedly without any proof of this thing called love.
I cannot explain how and why I fell in love with her, why after more than 30 years of marriage we stick with each other despite farting and snoring in bed most of the time and arguing over silly little things.
It dont make sense to anyone else, but it has given both of us a great big security blanket over the years, what gives anybody the right to judge us and decide that in fact we should split.
Don’t these politically correct accountants have any idea that its called love, for living without her is like somebody just switched off the oxygen pipe.
If I cant explain my marriage to somebody who I can see and feel and run away from sometimes, how can I explain my great love for somebody I havent met, but hope to shortly?
If its all a fairy story it makes us happy and makes our life worthwhile, if any lonely old accountants out there have any better suggestions about how wonderful our lives would become if we turned atheist and argued historicity all day long, please let us know asap, would it make us happy, as we dont have too many years left?
I want to be an astronaut when I grow up.
I read this book recently too and had mixed feelings about it. Sisyphus mentioned Barker’s apparent self-involvement. I got that feeling during some of the autobiographical sections of the book: “I played at this concert, yada yada yada, then I made this recording, yada yada yada…” I started skimming that stuff, as it began feeling like, in Yogi Berra’s immortal words, “deja vu all over again.”
On the other hand, I liked much of the material regarding Barker’s reasons for being an atheist. It wasn’t new to me, but he explained it in compelling ways.
TBTW, this phrase of yours really resonated with me: “The faith was private, but the ‘ baggage’ was public and, in some ways, was more ‘psychologically sticky’.” Don’t I know it!
Sisyphus Fragment and the chaplain
Yes, I know what you mean. I too started to get irritated by it. I felt there was a real stylistic difference between the beginning of the book (Hemingway on a bad day and on an ego trip) and the later chapters. Perhaps you could defend it by saying that he wanted/needed to establish his former Christian credentials. I was glad I stuck it out to the latter two thirds.
onethoughtfulwoman
I continue to follow your journey with interest. I make two observations. Such a journey can take time to complete. And if it is to be completed, it requires the courage to stand alone and apart from the approval of others (and of course, from the approval of a non-existent god).
Lorena
If you do get round to reading it, I would be interested to hear what you make of it, especially since the personality of Dan Barker does seem quite as attractive as his arguments. I know you wouldn’t hold back
Littleoldme
Briefly three points:
1) As Barker and I have noted, you are doing what Christians tend to do. You avoid the serious debate and frustratingly refuse to engage with the historical, textual, and contradictory material. Do that, and prove us wrong, and then we can have the discussion.
2) You draw a false dichotomy between accountants and astronauts, and in so doing reveal you don’t really understand atheists. You have created something to knock down, but few atheists would identify with what you have created. You tend to assume that atheists can’t have imagination or enjoy beauty or appreciate wonder. Of course they can. And astronauts are scientists who wonder in a universe governed by scientific laws and reason. Astronauts wouldn’t dream of believing in invisible friends. They know too much.
3) You say your faith (which you accept has not real basis) isn’t harming anyone. I disagree. Leaving aside the millions that have been slaughtered because they believed in their version of an invisible friend, I think it is naive, patronising, and dishonest to encourage people to believe a lie. I think human beings are worthy of knowing the truth and to pretend otherwise insults their humanity.
Hey big boy thanks for taking the time to reply to my tonque in cheek article, you put forward some very interesting points, firstly I will take on the challenge, then, as if struck by an arrow of fun I will put aside our difference and celebrate our new found relationship thanks to your mind blowing blog.
My personal faith, what helps me personally live my life and helps me make it through that night hasnt harmed anyone to date.
I dont ram it down anybodys throat, I share it when asked, and I replied to your blog because you are asking people to share their thoughts.
I havent killed anyone who disbelieves with my faith, I try to love my enemies, you see my faith is very simple, like doing unto others what you would want them to do for you, loving your enemy, or pretending to, hahahaha, that kind of good stuff, the sort of stuff a good atheist would do.
I can only take responsibility for my actions not the actions of those true and heroic followers of gentle Jesus meek and mild who put true faith into practice by burning anyone who happens to believe differently to the stake, flattening cities ( I am being satirical here) Oh yes millions have eaten alive by true believers of Jesus…on come on, they were eaten by a load of selfish bastards, wolves in sheeps clothing is the word I am looking for.
Do you in turn take responsibility for the actions of Chairman Mao, Attila the Hun, Ghengis Khan, the Caesars, Adolf Hitler, Robert Mugabe, the Kymer Rouge etc - none of them being practicising Christians I think you would agree, and probably responsible for the biggest losses of life the planet has seen?
People are a greedy bunch ready to kill anyone for personal gain, whether its invading a country or stealing from Woolworths.
I do find those people patronising, naive and dishonest who encourage people to believe the lie that there is no God.
I think human beings are worthy of knowing the truth and to pretend otherwise insults their humanity - so you know the truth do you, ok, then what is truth?
Of course there are boring Christians and boring atheists, I wrote my piece to provoke a reaction, come on, I suppose its hard to convey a sence of humour via blogs unless you are a comedy writer, but it was mostly said tonque in cheek.
My aim in life is to point people to Jesus, how am I going to live a Christlike life if I put people down and not think the best of them, I think you are wonderful !!!
I am not avoiding any issues really, I am agreeing with you that its impossible to prove the existence of God full stop.
I dont want to prove you wrong or right, you have free will to choose to do whatever you want and believe whatever you want, I recall that famous saying about disagreeing vehemently but defending the right of anyone to say what they want.
Thats me buddy, I will defend your right to stand up to false and fake Christians, and if you think Jesus never existed or was a fake, well go right ahead, be my guest.
Jesus dont need anyone to defend Him, have you watched the Terminator version on You Tube of Arnie trying to help Jesus avoid being crucified, its a reall belter.
Arnie keeps machine gunning Judas at the last supper, but Jesus keeps healing him !!!
Hey, I must correct you regarding Astronauts all being atheists…..some of them do believe in invisible friends, by the way, one of the astronuts happened to quote Genesis while in outer space and a great number are believers in Jesus.
Surely you dont believe they landed on the moon, I’ve watched Capricorn One and its all a fake by athiests politicians who are frightened that God could be found on the Moon if the landings went ahead.
The whole of the blogosphere is peopled by invisible friends, so dont knock invisible friends, they are better than visible friends, they wont let you down, keep in contact, you dont need a mobile phone to contact them and their secretaries never say they have gone away when you call them for help.
Long live invisible friends, they dont go for serious debate and they laugh are your jokes rather then go in for some boring long debate about dichotomies and labotomies, relax buddy, reverting back to atheism has effected your sense of fun!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=L_UDgYm7Nrg
this is the Terminator version of the Greatest Story Every Told, I was telling you about in my last little epistle, its a real hoot guy, please report back !!!
Thanks for the reply on this to me. Having read what I wrote yesterday it is clear to me that you feel my journey into a sound atheist position is still on-going. To be honest, I think you are right on this one and are being understanding and sympathetic towards this feeling.
I have read with interest the comments and banter from littleold me. I liked what he says about the complexities and mysteries surounding any relationship, never mind the one with God.
I suppose what he may be saying is that it is very easy to dissect everything with rational explanation. Sometimes we feel and do because we simply do, that is all.
I don’t think atheists are non-imaginative beings and I love the questioning mind. Too many Christians believe this or that because the Bible told them to believe this or that, or to take a moral position on something because that is what the Bible says: no questions asked.
All I am saying is that I am now asking and will keep asking for an explanation.
My questions are these: Well, I have many. These are just two.
Why would God create himself, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who sees all the days ordained before one of them cme to be; to be a catalyst -because he exists, for so many to suffer, die and perish in his name? Some God that.
Why would he create life then for another planet to blast into ours to extinguish it and for an ice sheet to cover the earth with a cold blanket, exstinguishing all life form that exsisted at that time?
I don’t understand.
This is my position at this time, that is all I am saying.
Good questions, onethoughtful woman, and they are well answered by Forrest Gump, things happen, bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people.
Sounds fair enought to me, so whats the alternative, we never get born, no human life exists? We dont get the freedom to do what we want, we sit around in a garden of eden being nice and eating fruit all day, I think paradise would be totally boring, especially if we never die and we have to put up with a partner and friends who get on our wicks, being able to live for eternity must have some drawbacks.
Ok, then, give us your alternatives to the world as we know it, please describe in detail a world that athiests would approve of and how it would work in practice?
If there is no God, then life really is a terrible joke, in that we all have a thought that there MIGHT be a God.
If there isnt, and there isnt heaven when we die, then truly its not fair. If on the other hand there is a heaven, then at least the best is yet to come.
If atheists are right there is nothing to come, we all live a pointless life, we die a terrible pointless death and there is nothing to look forward to.
One thoughtful woman, nature is part of what occurs, ice sheets are part of the universe, galaxies are created, explode, suns are created and implode, I suggest you go watch Forrest Gump, he knows the answers to your question,
We may not be able to change the course of ice sheets or help the suffering of war torn countries, but we can keep our own backyard in order, help homeless people, give money to charity, work for nothing in a cancer hospice, be a good friend to somebody going through divorse.
A half empty glass is half full, so always look on the bright side of life, its still a wonderful world sang Armstrong and he even described some terrible things that happen, but thats life, sister, get on with it.
I probably shouldn’t comment here because I have never believed in God nor do I want to. I have always simply thought that things happen - some of them are good and some less good, and I think your attitude to life can influence to a degree how much good or bad happens but most of it is down to chance.
I suppose the things that occurred to me - as someone who has no religious beliefs and someone who does not mix with anyone who does - is that it is so alien to my world. If I said to anyone in my circle of friends “of course I don’t believe in God” they would not have a big response but that is because I have surrounded myself, without intending to, with people who feel similarly to me. Subconsciously I have kept away from the “god squad” and yet I am unsure why.
But I do understand the public/private thing. I know it is not the same, but in some ways I think my sexuality journey had some similarities. My sexuality is a private matter but like yours it became a public journey, where everyone I knew (and I lived in a heterosexual world in the same way you lived in a Christian one) had a view on it, on what had caused me to be gay, assumed it would be a passing phase etc. I never asked them to take a view, I just wanted to be honest with them about how I felt. And yet it seemed to change the way they saw me as a person - and that was very difficult to handle.
Interesting comments though. I am rather against being under a banner of any sort - which is why I never refer to myself as an atheist (which I suppose I am, I just never give personal religion or lack of it any thought - unless I come here!) in the same way that I never call myself a lesbian. But yes, I know that these labels are needed - they are just not me.
Littleoldme has indeed fallen into the clichéd trap that Christians invariably do, i.e. avoid serious debate when confronted by logical argument supported by evidence. However, I do not wish to be too damning, and perhaps even as an atheist, offer some hope, albeit born from observation and science.
I would like to draw attention to the fact that the very existence of our universe relies upon a Law of Nature which is so precise that to have occurred by pure chance certainly defies rational explanation. I should point out that this is not simply my interpretation, but one shared by many respected scientists. I refer to that which is known as the Cosmological Constant, an anti-gravity force which exists in space itself and has been verified by, analysis and evidence.
Indeed, Cosmologists have calculated this force to be accurate to 1 part in 10 to the power of 120. If it wasn’t this finely tuned, quite literally our universe would be so radically different from the one that we know, that we simply could not have evolved! This contradiction arrived at by science and not religious conjecture points to intelligent design rather than chance and by implication a designer!
There is an explanation growing in popularity which as an atheist I draw comfort from, and that is our universe is not unique and is in fact just one universe amongst many. This would make our Cosmological Constant not so unique which would in turn mean that there are numerous universes each with their own Laws of Nature behaving completely differently to our own.
Unfortunately whilst offering elegant explanation, we have no way of knowing if this is true, and so at this point in time along our evolutionary scale, the explanation offered requires a leap of faith perhaps as profound as any religious belief!
Reluctant Blogger
Your parallel with the issue of your sexuality is perfect. I think that, although the substance is different, we really do understand each other. To some extent, it is the public baggage rather than the private issue which causes the problem.
Indy Palmer
Thanks for dropping by and adding to the debate. I also agree with your observation: Littleoldme has indeed fallen into the clichéd trap that Christians invariably do, i.e. avoid serious debate when confronted by logical argument supported by evidence.
athinkingman has also fallen into a cliched trap that atheists invariably do, of failing to reply to what a Christian has stated.
I have written reams and reams and reams of what I think about matters, but not once have you bothered to reply from your high horse.
You stated that no astronauts believed in invisible friends, as you deprecatingly put my faith.
I stated that many astronauts do believe in God, ie an invisible friend, but you have not bother to reply.
I have made a number of serious points, but so far, you have not made a single reply apart from saying ironically that I am avoiding serious debate.
I wrote the following……
Ok, then, give us your alternatives to the world as we know it, please describe in detail a world that athiests would approve of and how it would work in practice?
You cannot get more serious than this.
Please thinking man, do some serious thinking and tell me what a kind of world would be an atheists paradise, would people have the freedom of choice, how would it run, how would it work.
You blame God for all the worlds woes and then say, rather seriously, that in fact He does not exist.
You cannot have it both ways, brother!
You said that so much blood is on the hands of religious people and when I named eight blood thirty tyrants who are not christians like Ghegis Khan, Attilla the Hun, Stalin, Hitler, Chairman Mao, you have failed to come back to say that I was right, that wars are caused by selfish, blood thirsty human beings whether they are atheists, unbelievers, christians or what ever.
No reply to a serious point, you have not relplied to one single point I have put, probably because you like all politicians and champagne socialists you never reply to the question put.
Please give this some serious thought, I would like you to go into great details outlining how you would have the world if it was created by a committe of atheists.
Heres a serious debate, I bet you dont continue it, but merely keep up your boring tirade about me not being serious.
I am deadly serious, what kind of world would you want and how would you limit, for instance man’s greed and lust for blood and war?
How would you solve the problem that we all will eventually die? And what about my serious point that if you are right then no matter what happens we die into oblivion, so what is the point of life anyway? Answer that one too.
You are the one who needs to take things seriously and stop being so judgemental, yes judgemental, I havent heard a good word from you thanking me for joining this debate, you really dont care, all you want to do is to make a fool of me and my beliefs in Jesus, you put every Christian in a box and laugh at them, God help us if you were God.
glad i lead a simple life and i am not into god or politics
things happen, bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people.
Right! So why do we need to invent a God to explain it all. Can’t we just accept that we are vulnerable living things and are, often, not the masters of our own destiny?
Life is life. Trying to explain away whatever is bound to happen regardless of faith is a fruitless exercise.
Littleoldme,
You’ve asked “what kind of world would atheists approve of?”. Well, I’d approve of a world with religious freedom. That’d be nice.
Atheists don’t “hate God” or any gods, because we don’t believe in any gods. Many of us don’t like some of the negative influences that religion can have. While it can have some positive influences, many atheists do not hesitate to point out the negative ones. It’s human religion which atheists are criticizing, not “god(s)” that we don’t have enough evidence to believe in.
By the way, Hitler referred to God numerous times in Mein Kampf. Fail; he probably was a Christian — at least that’s what he claimed. As for the communists you listed, communism’s major problem is that it is often as dogmatic as religion. If communism were less like religion - less dogmatic - far fewer atrocities would’ve been committed in its name. I’ve seen enough straw men to last the rest of my life. I do agree with you that atrocities are committed because of humans; most things done by Christians should not resort to Christianity as an explanation. However, it is silly to say that ideology has no influence on human actions.
It’s impossible for me to speak for all atheists or even any other atheists, but I don’t want the world to be dominated by a committee of ANYONE; I’d rather people thought for themselves, and came to their own conclusions.
No one is trying to make a fool of you. You’re the one making claims. Back them up: the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. You tell us how your belief system accounts for evil in this world. Yes, you told us that “stuff happens”. Well, that’s my explanation, too, and it doesn’t require the intervention of the supernatural. Keep trying.
This review is fascinating. Thanks for sharing.
Faith for me isn’t simply a private matter, yet I did not come to it through the Christian culture, through a particular geographic community, or with an important identity. It’s kinda funny that, actually, I was a Christian for about six or seven years before I actually became part of a specific church institution or organization about two years ago—and that not without a great amount of trepidation (oh, how I LOATHED religious institutions and the preaching ilk–no offense meant to any specific preachers…at least not yet).
I also recognize some of those responses… It is easy to become a target when you refuse to accept the status quo simply because it is the status quo. And a questioner or a critic stands out more clearly than an obedience follower. But I must admit, I do kinda dislike authority. I’m my own person and have always been and I won’t follow someone or agree with someone just because they happen to hold a position. I find Martin Luther abominable, but I do highly respect the fact that he stood up to his leaders and told them he was going to follow his conscience to whatever end. And I applaud those who does likewise—even if their conscience leads them in a completely different direction than my own (such as atheism). We are each responsible and have a duty to ourselves—I believe that because I believe in the God of the Jewish and Christian scriptures—and no one has the right or the place to take over or take away that responsibility and duty.
It is interesting that Barker lost his faith when he started reading and questioning… That is, for me, where faith began. I stumbled into faith after years of studying and questioning and searching. I studied philosophy, mythology, religion, folklore, and evolution in college as well as reading all the major religious tomes from the Qur’an to the Bhagavad Gita to the Satanic Bible. I even met with and talked to as many representatives of various beliefs and philosophies as I could from atheists to Wiccans to Pentecostal tongue-babblers (who I somehow fell in with!…perhaps because it was so strange and intriguing and fueled my need to question and to know).
“Numbers don’t mean anything by themselves.” So true. If anything, the probability is that the majority is wrong because it is easier to introduce and accept error than otherwise. Speaking in terms of numbers, for every variable that is correct, there are a great variety more variables that are not. I remember a certain Palestinian Jew saying something like that… “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction . . . strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”(Matthew 7:13, 14, KJV) So what’s the chance a religion has things right? No likely. Of course, that saying has a more historically specific and defined meaning than that, but one of the things that I found so compelling about Christianity in contradistinction to other things I was reading was its insistence on an almost inherently errant way of humanity—that the world was stumbling around in darkness. This seemed to confirm some of the thoughts I was starting to form about humanity (although I, by no means, believed then or believe now in original sin or total depravity) and yet it also seemed like a very non-human kind of answer. If there was a natural inclination in humanity, it was to think itself okay or to deny its error or its darkness. I felt that if there were such a thing as a “divine” or “non-human” message, it would have to be different than a human message and suggest something unlikely of humanity to suggest. So this, I thought, was a promising, non-human kind of suggestion from which to begin looking for a god that wasn’t simply created by humans.
In a very different sense, though, the idea that numbers don’t mean anything by themselves is also a reason why I believe in a “god”—because meaning is not inherent in the system. It has to come from somewhere outside. A number doesn’t mean a number simply because it is a number. In linguistics, it is the idea of the “code” and “meaning.” A code does not communicate anything. There also has to be a meaning in order for the code to make sense. In nature, there are various systems of meaning and none of them are inherent or necessary to nature. Whether we are speaking about human personality or the human genome or other systems of meaning, we are speaking about something that has to be applied to the code because it isn’t natural to or inherent to the code. There is no reason in and of itself why the atom SHOULD operate as it does or why the cell communicates as it does instead of not doing so. This even goes for the realm of morals and ethics as well—in nature there is no difference between cruelty and non-cruelty except that, perhaps, sometimes what doesn’t further survival falls away over the long haul. And to say that cruelty or non-cruelty means something other than that is simply absurd, naturally speaking. The application of meaning conditioned upon something outside the system is necessary in order to go beyond that. I used to torture animals. I only thought otherwise when I got older because my society would have done something to me for it (although there was always the possibility of torture in secrecy and another society would not have prevented me from continuing). The only reason I would never do that now is because of my faith—because I now have a reason to believe that there is something more, a meaning, that lies outside the system and makes cruelty cruel.
“Personal experience doesn’t prove anything.” So very right! And yet without a god in the picture, personal experience is the only things one has! I NEEDED personal experience in order to substantiate myself. But it only drove me further and further into existential despair. It is numbing to look over my high school and college journals… I had a phrase I repeated night after night on every page in which I was trying to find some kind of bearing and foundation for my existence: ”today I weep, I’m all alone.” It didn’t take me long to realize that I couldn’t base myself on myself and that the only way my humanity wasn’t going to disappear into non-humanity was if there was something outside my humanity that made it human. That was what led me to start studying philosophy and religion and such. My favorite thinkers and artists “escaped” the absurdity through various methods such as insanity, suicide, psychic drugs, etc—the only reason I didn’t follow them to those ends is because of the faith that I began following.
Ah, you listened to what Josh McDowell had to say? No wonder you got so messed up (no offense meant towards yourself—I wouldn’t mind if JM got offended though).
I agree that a lot of that “material” are indeed compelling and challenging. They were the sorts of things I immediately found myself faced with as a person who wasn’t already a believer. And it seemed that somehow, a lot of those people who did believe had found some shortcut or way around those challenges. Fortunately or unfortunately, I had to begin on the road without the shortcuts. I think I’d rather say fortunately.
One thing is certain—I am a very different person than I was or would be because of my faith…which is something that, I think, makes you and I very different. I think you said somewhere that when you left the faith, it didn’t really make that much difference in your life. It is hard to me to understand how that could be possible, but I know that it is true—I am so different than most of my other Christian friends and I’d daresay many of the Christians I’ve known might not be much different if they left the faith either.
Shalom.
PS - I am reminded of a saying in some parts of Christianity that I think is eminently silly: faith seeking understanding… It’s the other way around IMO. The only way to faith is through understanding–that’s the only kind of faith I know and the only one I see in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. If there’s no reason to believe, belief should be abandoned. Period. How can belief come before reason?