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 
Thanks to everyone so far for all the great comments!
silenceofmind, why don’t we start from a different angle: I know you believe that Christianity is the one true religion, but do you also accept that it’s possible you could be wrong about that?
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silenceofmind, BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
You crack me up.
you said – “God doesn’t act the way you think he should has nothing to do with whether he exists or not.” I was only using something that god supposedly said, and applying it back to him. And that was just one instance. So, god has higher standards for man than he does for himself? If my logic is flawed, please show me. telling me it’s flawed is only doing the job half way. You don’t want to be lazy do you? show me.
“You are using the same logical fallacies that I defined” Which are what? Maybe we’re all missing your point because you’re not presenting it clearly.
“And what if a child accused his father of not measuring up to the child’s expectations and then declared that his father no longer existed.” well, if that father never showed himself to his child, never spoke or wrote anything directly to that child, the child may start to believe his father either doesn’t love him, or he may even begin to wonder if he has a father. In fact, I’m surprised someone as logical and reasonable as yourself didn’t realize that on your own.
“Atheism is such an intellectual plague. Yet people deliberately choose it.” and again, I’m agnostic, but as plague-some as atheism is, it must be telling that it is so much more sensible that being christian.
This is funny – your exchanges. They’re funny because you run around like a child screaming that everyone is stupid, but wont stay still long enough to answer the questions given to you.
You’re just fun.
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@Silence of mind.
You make the classic apologist error by presupposing your ‘God’ and then proceeding from there, without offering any evidence whatsoever.
And as usual, your very CHRISTIAN argument is disingenuous.
Nate has been at pains from the very beginning to explain his reason for leaving Christianity is primarily because of the fallacious nature of the Bible.
And this is where we find the person you claim is God – Jesus.
So, before you (or any Christian for that matter) go off like a bottle of pop it is incumbent on you to demonstrate the veracity of the Christian claim. Namely: Yeshua is divine and the creator of the universe.
And please quote your sources.
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“All you and your atheist brethren can do is make declarations of personal opinion and then declare them to be true.”
AHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I nearly shat myself…. that’s all you’ve been doing…. this is too much. Do you have a tour planned, because I’m buying tickets.
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Howie,
You did it again. You stated clearly that style is what impresses you not ideas.
More is to be gained and more satisfaction attained, trying to think through the great ideas that have intrigued mankind since forever.
Style is chasing the wind. It’s vanity.
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silenceofmind, you gonna answer some real questions or just antagonize Howie about style and vanity?
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William,
I am not to blame for the other fellows. They are responsible for themselves.
And if you are cleaning cake out of your underwear as you say, why then you need someone to be responsible for you it sounds like.
In any case, every gathering of atheists I’ve ever experienced turns into a village idiot convention.
So I will bid this place adieu.
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silenceofmind,
Part of me wonders if you’re just pretending to be a Christian, because out of everyone on this thread, you’ve done more to further the cause of skeptics. Any Christians struggling with doubts that come upon this discussion in the future will be propelled away from Christianity much more quickly because of you. You’ve been asked specific questions repeatedly, but have refused to answer. Instead, you seem more interested in spouting insults while claiming to have the moral high ground. It’s baffling.
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Now, silenceofmind… dont go putting words in my mouth or cake in my pants.
Your name is appropriate. and still no attempt at providing real answers. you’ll be missed.
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Nate-
You asked a question of silenceofmind, way back before about 90% of this silliness. I’ve been thinking about it a bit, and thought I’d bring it back up.
I have a couple thoughts here. Is it always right for the father to intervene in this situation? Are there ever circumstances where letting them battle it out is productive? Another thought: how do we know the father is never intervening? There are a lot of bad things in this world – there are also a lot of bad things in this world that are stopped before they’re allowed to happen. I remember after the rash of recent shootings there were a couple articles pointing out other events in which the potential shooter was stopped prior to the shooting. In these cases I think many would laud the heroism of the individual stopping the shooter. So, if we attribute the latter situation completely to human heroism, why can we not attribute the former situation completely to human evil? Alternatively, if we blame God for not stopping the shooting in the former situation, can we not also give Him the credit for stopping the shooting in the latter situation? And, if there are some instances where God stops something and some instances where he doesn’t, does that not lead us back to the first couple questions I asked about there being reasonable considerations for not stopping evil/violence at times? Just because we don’t know the reason for something doesn’t mean a reason can’t exist. People under my supervision may never know the reason I make certain decisions (in personnel decisions, I cannot share that information with anyone I supervise). They may even protest the decision, or try to start a union because they believe I’m making terrible decisions. They may also get a very one-sided story from the “victim”, and choose to believe that as reality. However, because they can’t know my reasoning, and can’t see things from my perspective, and even may be led astray by another person’s explanation does not mean that I am evil or that I do not exist.
Anyway, two cents.
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YES! The quote worked. Thanks!
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“So, if we attribute the latter situation completely to human heroism, why can we not attribute the former situation completely to human evil?”
Most of us here do that very thing.
But being a father, if two of children were fighting and hurting each other, i would intervene. wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t let one of your children hurt another one of your children if you could prevent it.
And I’m not talking scrapes and bruises, but serious injury. Although, if they were playing rough and were beginning to accidentally harm one another doing that, I’d intervene.
If i had control of the weather, and a tornado was blowing through an empty field, then okay. Plowing through an elementary school? I’d definitely stop it – I’d at least prevent the children from harm. Wouldnt you?
Now, if we’re talking about ants then i wouldnt care. let it role through, If we’re talking about roaches? Shoot, I’d purposely wipe them out. But if god thinks of us as pests, what then?
But i dont blame god. If he exists, he’s not that in control.
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William-
You’re deliberately created scenarios in which I’d have to be heartless to say I wouldn’t step in. That’s not the point of my question. What I’m asking is whether we can imagine scenarios in which we would not intervene. If we can, then we cannot make blanket statements that one should always intervene because it depends on the situation. Then, it would follow that, if we have situations in which we would not stop violence or harm for various reasons, some reasons could certainly exist for God to not intervene. That’s all I’m saying. I’m looking to put in an element of doubt into the blanket thought.
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Nate, I have seen someone similar to silenceofmind over on John Z’s blog. They might be one and the same. I am now referring to them as Christianazi’s . They swoop in, spew their vitriol and vanish. Oh, and they never bother answering any of our questions. 🙂 . They attack then go hide in the christian blogs like terrorists attack then go hide amongst innocent civilians.
At least apologists hang in there and mix it up. There ! I said something nice about unkleE. 🙂
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But josh, these are the scenarios we’re talking about and what i took nate’s original question to include (nate, correct me if i’m wrong).
The fact that you realize how heartless anyone would have to be in order to sit idly by when they have the power to do something means you’re reaching a better understanding of “the problem of evil,” because god supposedly has that power always, yet does not intervene… even though you and I would if we could.
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I think Christianity has a hard enough time with the problems in the bible before they really get too deep into the problem of evil. so many problems…
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@kcchief
”At least apologists hang in there and mix it up. There ! I said something nice about unkleE. :-)”
You are probably feeling light headed….best go lie down for a bit.
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William-
Yeah, I hear you. The problem is we are only thinking of situations in which we know all the variables. In an example it’s easy to create that. In real-world situations, especially ones in which we’re not remotely involved, we cannot possibly know all the variables (including impacts that may or may not be felt by others). There’s just no way to say that we can properly assess the situation to come to a conclusion on how to act/not act.
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@Ark, I don’t know what got into me . I did lay down and now I feel much better. 🙂
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fair enough. then I am only referring to the situations we do know about. The problem still exists, whether we say some of the time or all of the time.
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@josh, “In real-world situations, especially ones in which we’re not remotely involved, we cannot possibly know all the variables (including impacts that may or may not be felt by others)”
I get your Christian perspective on this , but does this mean the legal system including all courts and juries should be abolished using the same reasoning ? Because they can’t possibly know all the variables ?
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The problem does exist, from our perspective. I’m just saying it’s possible that God has reasons for not intervening we know nothing about. You may think you know all the variables and all the possible impacts of a given situation, but we can’t know that. Plus, I think talking about God intervening has all kinds of impact on free will as well. Maybe God could have created beings that never disobey, but it seems he didn’t for a reason. So, why would He create beings who could disobey (for whatever reason He has for doing that), then intervene to stop anything bad from happening between them? It seems you can’t have a God who is willing to risk creating free, sentient beings who also would then stop those beings from doing anything harmfull to themselves or others. That seems contradictory.
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“I get your Christian perspective on this , but does this mean the legal system including all courts and juries should be abolished using the same reasoning ? Because they can’t possibly know all the variables ?”
Not sure I’d go so far as to say it should be abolished. However, I think we can agree that, for all the good the legal system might do, it also fails much more often than any of us would like. It’s imperfect. Because it’s run by humans. We can’t ever be certain we’ve gathered every piece of evidence possible for a criminal trial, but we think we can operate the entirety of the world and history better than God (if He exists :)).
There are problems that need to be talked about with my worldview, I get that. There are also glaring problems with the opposing view that need to be addressed as well.
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Nate,
It seems utterly unlike he’s pretending, because he has a good grasp of the Roman Catholic Natural Law tradition.
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ignorantianescia — point taken 🙂
Josh,
I understand the point you’re making; however, it’s not a real argument. We can easily explain evil in the world if the Christian god doesn’t exist, because there’s nothing to make us think he intervenes in the kinds of situations we’re talking about. Obviously, he didn’t intervene at Sandy Hook elementary, or when the tsunami hit Myanmar. Granted, there are times when horrible things could happen (like the Times Square shoe bomber), but the attempt is thwarted. However, they’re never stopped in any way that seems miraculous. So the world operates as though God doesn’t exist.
So your argument is that God might be intervening and we just don’t know it. And when he doesn’t intervene, he probably has good reason. I suppose such an argument is technically possible, but it seems very unlikely. There is no evidence to support that claim, whereas the evidence on the other side is rather compelling.
This is why even guys like unkleE admit to being bothered by the problem of evil. Christianity has no satisfactory explanation for it, as alluded to in the title of Bart Ehrman’s book on the subject, God’s Problem.
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