I value open-mindedness over most other things. When I was going through my deconversion and having frequent religious discussions with my family, I often felt that they weren’t being open-minded. I know that it’s hard (perhaps impossible) to judge how open-minded someone else is being, so I hesitate to even pass that kind of judgment. At the same time, it’s not like they were answering the problems I brought up with actual solutions — it mostly centered on how arrogant I was to question “God’s word.” On top of that, they never read any of the books or articles that I asked them to — I don’t think they even read all of the stuff I personally wrote to them.
It was the seeming lack of open-mindedness that shocked me most, in many ways. During my time as a Christian, I tried to be as open-minded as possible. I was part of a strict denomination that thought most other Christians were wrong, so I often had discussions with my Christian friends to try to help them see “the truth.” In those discussions, I often admitted that I could be wrong:
Either I’m wrong, or you’re wrong, or we’re both wrong. We can’t both be right…
I firmly believed (based on Matthew 7) that as long as I was searching for the truth, I would find it. Also, if what I believed about Christianity was true, then more study would only bear that out. In other words, I had nothing to fear by discussing and examining Christianity with those who disagreed with me. If they could show me where I was wrong, then that was good! It would mean that I had believed the wrong thing, but learning that would give me the opportunity to correct it and be more pleasing to God.
Now that I have come out of Christianity, I still feel just as strongly about the merits of open-mindedness. Recently, someone suggested that I read In His Image, by William Jennings Bryan (which I’m now doing), but when he gave me the suggestion, he then backpedaled and said I might not like the book because it supports Christianity. I was disappointed by that statement. I told him that I don’t read things based on whether or not I will agree with them — I take religion very seriously, because all religion is an effort to explain reality. If this book by WJB can provide some arguments I haven’t considered before, or answer some of my questions about Christianity, then I want to know that!
But now for the admission. Now for the part that I haven’t been able to say to my family yet: I don’t see any way that I’ll ever believe Christianity again. On the surface, that may seem like it runs counter toward my goal of being open-minded, but it really doesn’t. The fact is, I’ve just seen too much. “I once was blind, but now I see.” The fact is, the Bible can’t fix its problems because it’s a closed document. No more material is going in or out of it. Nor is God going to speak to me directly or perform some miracle to overcome my skepticism. We’re stuck with what we’ve got.
We’re left with a god that’s supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, and loves us all, yet we still have evil in the world. He remains hidden from us, but supposedly wants a relationship with us. He supposedly left us a message, but no one can agree on what it says, and its books look pretty much like all the other things that were being written at the time. As this post said:
Let’s face it – I may still be open to the idea of being convinced on the matter, but this is a genie that’s not going to go back into the bottle easily. I can’t unlearn what I’ve found; I can’t simply deny the truth that I’ve been able to discover without the fear of uprooting my faith. To ask me to believe again would be to take on the herculean task of not only providing sufficient evidence but also dealing with all of the logical and evidential problems or to ask me to knowingly deceive myself – and I’m not sure I’m willing to do that for anyone.
I am still an open-minded person. But I also know enough about Christianity now to know what it is and what it isn’t. I didn’t lose my faith by forgetting things, but by learning things. And if I had known years ago what I know now, I never would have been a Christian in the first place.
Finding Truth 
In my vain attempts to hold an intelligent conversation with What’s his name, I may have inadvertently left the impression that atheists have no beliefs – that couldn’t be further from the truth. These, I BELIEVE are some of those:
AN ATHEIST BELIEVES:
We should love our fellow man, instead of an invisible god.
A hospital should be built instead of a church; a deed should be done instead of a prayer said.
Heaven is something we should create here on earth; we should strive for an involvement in life, and not an escape into death.
We can get no help through prayer, but we must find within ourselves inner strength and conviction
Disease should be cured, poverty vanquished, and war eliminated.
We should be good to each other because it’s the right thing to do, not because we fear being punished.
We are keepers of our own lives, we are responsible for ourselves.
Superstition should be rejected; facts should be chosen over faith.
Time spent in church should instead be spent pursuing worthwhile endeavors.
Instead of praying, we should stand up and do something. We have only one life, and it should not be wasted on our knees.
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And if anyone wants to start their day with a pledge, let it be something like this:
I pledge allegiance to the Earth,
and all the life that it supports.
One planet, in our care, irreplaceable,
with sustenance and respect for all.
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And if you HAVE to follow a leader, make it Jerry Springer, who closes his show with his only commandment: “Be good to yourselves, and each other.”
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Archaeo,
I don’t think you realize that you just pledged your allegiance to a rock.
Proof again that atheism produces mental retardation.
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I’ve been gone 3 days and am really bummed I missed out on all of the fireworks. 😦
There have been 231 comments in 3 days ~! (give or take) It looks like the apologists have retained the crown for substituting mudslinging for facts while the atheists retained the crown for reasoning skills. The tie breaker goes to the atheists however since they kept their cool and let Ark “The Hammer” do their pounding (when needed) for them. This blog needs its own reality tv show.
You can’t just make this stuff up. 🙂 Nate, I think you out did yourself choosing this topic. Well done !
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silenceofmind,
Two questions:
1) How would you go about deciding which manuscripts were divinely inspired? For instance, The Shepherd of Hermas was once considered divinely inspired by the early church fathers, but now it’s not. The decision-making process seems kind of subjective and arbitrary to me.
2) Why do you claim the Jews had Jesus murdered? Wasn’t it the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate who had Jesus crucified?
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Ron,
What literature comprised holy scripture was decided by Church councils which were composed of the Church bishops who as part of their position as bishop had ecclesiastical authority to make such decisions.
Consequently, I as an individual, wouldn’t dream of making a determination as to what literature is divinely inspired or not.
I don’t make the claim that the Jews had Jesus murdered. It’s in the Bible for all to see. The Gospels are very clear that the Jewish establishment wanted Jesus dead.
And clearly Pilot knew he was being used by the Jews to do their dirty work. He everything he could to wash his hands of the entire affair.
To get himself off the hook, he gave the Jews a choice between a criminal Barabbas and Jesus.
The Jews chose to free Barabbas and have Jesus crucified.
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What gave the Catholic bishops authority for such a task?
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Interestingly, Yeshua was also Bar Abbbas first name – Bar Abbas, meaning, “son of Abbas” – the other Yeshua was Yeshua Bar Yusef (son of Joseph). What, you were expecting Yeshua Bar Yahweh?
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I thought I’d made a graceful exit, but if IT’s back, I may have to reconsider. Nan, I left a message on your website and on your Twitter account – just sayin’ —
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Nate,
It’s all there in the Bible. Jesus picked the Apostles. He gave them his divine authority and established the Church.
With Jesus’ authority the Apostles hand picked helpers and successors and transferred their authority to them.
That is part of tradition, the handing down, that made the Catholic Church so powerful, united and always one Church, like Jesus commanded in the Gospel of John.
Christian tradition remained unbroken until the Reformation. After that Christianity was split into a billion pieces and essentially destroyed.
For as Jesus said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
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But that authority is recorded in the Bible… which was put together by the bishops.
So the bishops had the authority to put the Bible together, and they got that authority from the Bible. Do you not see that as circular? What other, external evidence to you have to support that notion?
Thanks
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By the way, SOM, I appreciate that your recent comments have dealt strictly with information and have been couched in a patient tone. I’ll endeavor to show the same toward you. Thanks 🙂
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Nate, you seem to be looking for answers from Si outside of his Bible – it’s a bit odd for an atheist, or even an agnostic, to expect a miracle, which is what it would take for Si to come up with some actual evidence.
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Well, just trying to understand his thought process. I was a biblical-literalist when I was a Christian. Didn’t worry about external sources, because I had the infallible and inerrant word of God! So when I finally realized that I had no such thing, my faith ebbed away fairly quickly.
But I know that many other Christians have their faith based on different things than mine had been on. That’s what I’m hoping to get from SOM. If the Catholic Church is his authority, I would like to know why they are his authority. Has God spoken to him directly? Etc…
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“You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Dinn,” I gave up on him long ago.
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Nate,
The Bible was compiled by the bishops, not written by them.
Huge difference. And huge differences are completely opaque to atheists if they don’t support the atheist worldview.
Again, an example of the unattenuated bias that rules the atheist mind.
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SOM, don’t forget in addition to Bishops compiling the books which is very important though you don’t seem to think so, they also used “Redactors” to stitch it all together. That meant leaving out some scripture and adding in some of their own in order to make it flow.
Nate was trying to be complimentary of you a few comments ago but you decided to start hurling hand granades again. “unattenuated bias”
When you get challanged with a serious question you don’t have a good answer for , you start attacking people personally . You even attacked Josh , a fellow christian.
This really reduces the validity and sincerity of your arguements. Just my opinion .
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kcchief1,
So what?
All written material is subject to interpretation.
And the people who possess knowledge of the original meaning of Jesus teachings are the only ones who can most accurately interpret the true meaning of scripture.
Jesus took great pains to teach the Gospel through word and action. He wrote nothing. And Christianity was going gangbusters for decades before any scripture was ever written.
That means the essential meaning of Jesus’ Gospel is not in scripture, it is in Tradition. In fact, scripture is a written form of tradition.
And that makes it vulnerable to misinterpretation and redefinition by people who come along later having no idea whatsoever of Scripture’s original meaning.
But it is Tradition that imparts the original meaning to scripture. Consequently, without Tradition, there is no way to know the true meaning of scripture.
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kcchief1,
Atheists’ unattenuated bias is obvious to everyone but atheists.
Stating an obvious fact is only a grenade to people like atheists for whom facts are only important if they support atheist dogma.
When the facts don’t work, atheists issue speech and behavioral standards that everyone but themselves must follow.
I have been harping on the phenomenon of how atheists suffer from the same intellectual maladies that the they see in postmodern Christians.
Because of atheist bias you people have been self-righteously snickering at the irony of my comments.
It’s ironic because you don’t see the blank in your own eye.
You aren’t blinded by science. You are blinded by bias.
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SOM,
I’m going to leave all the polemic aside and just focus on the core of what you’re saying.
First of all, I know the bishops assembled the Bible — that’s precisely what I’m talking about. Why should we trust the decisions they made?
But this does not describe the bishops. They lived centuries after Christ died…
And I’m sure you’re aware that the traditions concerning him were all over the place. In a relatively brief period of time, there were countless views of who Jesus was, what he did, how he died, what happened after his death, whether or not he was a physical being, etc. It’s true that Constantine and the bishops worked to compile the Bible, but they did it to support their own agenda. How do we know their agenda was the right one?
Ultimately, I’d like to know why you think anything in Christianity is true. Surely it’s not just because it’s survived so long. If that’s your only criteria, then in Christ’s time, you would have held onto Judaism, or Greek mythology. I’m sure you can see that that would have been a mistake… so why do you believe?
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Since this is Sunday morning, and no one but Si is in church, I thought you might all enjoy a short video – wish I could simply upload it, but sadly, WordPress doesn’t allow for this – don’t worry about popcorn, it’s too short for that.
If god created the universe, as Si would likely attest, who or what created god? Darkmatter 2525, who produces some really good work, has an answer to that burning question:
Enjoy —
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Boy, was I
wro– not entirely correct! WordPress DOES allow for that! Sorry, WordPress!LikeLike
Archaeo,
If you have to ask who created God, than you don’t have the mental capacity to hang out with the big boys.
To be an atheist means that you don’t have the capacity to follow cause and effect backwards into the past until you arrive at the First Cause.
But I’ve seen atheists pretend that they could just so they wouldn’t look stupid in front of a bunch of Christians who had earned engineering degrees.
The Christians could always flush the fakers out because not a one of them could ever figure out the definition of the world “first,” and how that made not being created a fundamental attribute of God.
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Brilliant video! I’ve thought the same thing for a while about the claim of omniscience — “you don’t know what you don’t know…”
SOM,
I’d still love it if you could answer my earlier questions…
Thanks
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