Agnosticism, Atheism, Christianity, Creationism, Culture, Evolution, Faith, God, Intelligent Design, Religion, Truth

8 Year Anniversary!

Nate

So today marks 8 years that I’ve been doing this blog. That’s a pretty big milestone! I had two posts on November 14, 2006, and I thought it would be fun to repost them here (along with a little commentary).

Here’s the first:

Well, this is the first official post of my new blog. Don’t expect much, though. I’m hoping to turn this into a weekly thing with posts centering around religion – specifically, “Christianity.”

Wish me luck… 🙂

So that was innocuous enough. Now here’s post number 2:

If you’ve spent much time perusing your Bible, you’ve probably stumbled across passages dealing with the “mystery” (and most likely, these were passages written by Paul).  In Ephesians 3, Paul spends time revealing the mystery to us: that the Gentiles now have access to salvation!  Wrapped up in this mystery is God’s entire plan of salvation – salvation for all!  But why is it called a “mystery?”  And should it still be “mysterious” to us today?

I think 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 best explains the way in which Christ’s gospel was/is a mystery.  As vs 18 says:

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

We can see from this passage that God’s plan of salvation makes no sense to those who refuse to believe it, but to those of us who accept it, it’s brilliant!  Verse 21 goes on to say:

21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

See, because the world is so “wise,” it views the concept of God as foolishness.  They have been blinded by their own pretensions.  For the Jews and Greeks of the day, it wasn’t that they didn’t believe in the supernatural; it wasn’t that they didn’t believe in deities.  Their problem was that they thought they already knew what God would do.  The Jews already had a fixed idea of what the Messiah would be, so when Christ appeared and didn’t lead them to victory against the Romans, they refused to accept him.  The Greeks didn’t accept Christ because they couldn’t conceive of a god allowing himself to be put to death by his own creation.  And because they already had things “figured out,” they missed their chance.

Today, people do the same thing.  They would rather put faith in scientific theories that have not been proven.  They would rather believe that all of the order we see in our universe (the fragile food chain, vast differences throughout the animal and plant kingdoms, the very specific orbits of planets, etc) was created through a giant explosion (something that, in all practical applications, has only been shown to destroy, not create).  Have they been blinded by their own “wisdom?”

Too often, even those who profess to be religious only listen to their own ideas about what God wants.  Many times they view the Bible as a collection of stories or suggestions, and not the “wisdom of God that leads to salvation” that 1 Corinthians purports it to be.  How is that different from what the Jews and Greeks were condemned for?

Throughout the Bible, passages talk about truth and understanding.  I firmly believe that God gave us understanding and intellect for a reason.  We are supposed to be able to understand God’s message for us.  It’s not supposed to be “mysterious” any longer.  It’s not supposed to be some “better felt than told” experience.  No, God’s word is supposed to be powerful and undeniable.  It’s supposed to move us and touch us in a way that nothing else can.  But for it to do that, we have to read it, study it, know it.

It’s a little painful to read through that. I cringe when I read how badly I understood things about evolution and the Big Bang back then, or when I alluded to non-Christians as just being those who “refuse to believe it”. It’s kind of funny, but I was guilty of the same thing I was accusing others of. I thought I had the answers, but I had never taken time to really examine any other point of view.

The one decent thing from the post that serves as a bit of foreshadowing about where I would eventually wind up is the last paragraph. You can see that while I was firmly ensnared in Christianity, I believed that it was not supposed to be utterly mysterious. It was supposed to be consistent and “undeniable.” It took a while, but I finally realized that Christianity just didn’t deliver in that regard.

Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this little jaunt down memory lane. Someone suggested to me recently that I should think about doing this kind of review with more of my old posts. I’ve been considering it… Thoughts?

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Published by Nate

342 thoughts on “8 Year Anniversary!”

  2. Gratitude is a powerful feeling to have. This is going to sound weird, but I am grateful for the ability to be grateful. I am also thankful for humility. I wonder, do Christians, and did any of you ex-Christians, think that atheists lack the capacity for gratitude, humility, selflessness, etc? I get so tired of Kathy’s “you people”. People who have come to know me first, and then found out I was an atheist, sometimes make comments like, “…but you’re so nice…”

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  3. Thanks for the encouragement everyone.

    Nate, I left the fundamentalist Baptists and evangelicals because I never had the same intense emotions (feeling Jesus) that they seemed to have. I thought that there must be something wrong with me or just that God didn’t want to “speak to me”, “move me”, or “lead me” like he did everyone else. It was emotionally devastating at the time, but it turns out that I wasn’t the one with the problem. I was the sane one! I was hearing nothing (normal) while they were hearing voices (not normal).

    After leaving evangelicalism I spent most of my later 20’s and most of my 30’s as unchurched but still a theist. I would occasionally attend a liberal Lutheran or Episcopalian church. I liked the “show” (liturgy) and the fact that I could have a relationship (off and on) with God with no threat of “hell fire and damnation”. It felt good when I was in the mood for it, like at Christmas.

    I married in my forties and with my first child the old fundamentalist fears of Hellfire and Damnation came back. It was one thing to send myself to Hell, but to send my beautiful kids to hell was unthinkable. Since I like liturgy, I chose High Church orthodox Lutheranism: If you are going to be a fundamentalist Christian, it’s the best option, in my opinion. You can dance, go to movies, drink a lot of good German beer at the church Oktoberfest, and as long as you are baptized, believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and don’t willfully live in ongoing sin (like having sex outside of traditional marriage), you get into heaven. No worrying about Purgatory or if you REALLY prayed the Sinner’s Prayer correctly. If you have been baptized and you aren’t committing ongoing sin, you have nothing to worry about. Just make sure you go to Church at least once a month and take the Holy Sacrament a couple times per year, at a minimum.

    I loved being orthodox Lutheran. It was great…until I found out the whole Christian religion is nothing but an ancient superstition, based on a lot of assumptions, second century hearsay, and ignorant superstition.

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  4. Hi “Neuron”:

    Could you post the link to the article you mentioned about me? I am MOSTLY over my fear of hell, so I would be curious to read your research article on fear.

    Thanks!

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  5. Hi Gary, as per your request

    http://victorianeuronotes.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/how-i-overcame-fear-using-mental-training-techniques/

    I can’t remember if I wrote this post before or after I learned about your deconversion. Just so there isn’t any confusion, there’s an image following your quote, then another quote from a research source. In other words it’s a followup to your quote.

    If you are uncomfortable with your quote being in my post, I understand, and will remove it at your request. 🙂

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  6. “It’s always good to be thankful … no matter what day of the year.” – as long as we thank people, not deities.

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  7. “People who have come to know me first, and then found out I was an atheist, sometimes make comments like, ‘…but you’re so nice…’”

    I NEVER say that!

    I’m lying, you’re one of the nicest people I know, you spread kindness wherever you go.

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  8. “I was the sane one! I was hearing nothing (normal) while they were hearing voices (not normal).” – Sort of like being the last living cell in a dead body — (to be read in a Boris Karloff voice!)

    Gary, you’ve found a home! I’ve been living here for a year now, and they’re not tired of me yet! (crickets?)

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  11. “I like to think that if I ever make it over there I’ll be able to track you and Ryan down.”

    Hi Nate, I missed this before because i was travelling. I am actually in your country right now, but not your state. I’m in Houston staying with family, which I think is quite a way from your neck of the woods.

    I’d love to meet you if you ever came to Australia. I live in Sydney and Ryan in Adelaide, so to see both of us you’d need an extra 2 hour internal flight or about 15 hours on the road.

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  12. Hi gliese,

    I recently had someone tell me that “you (I) pulled the rug right out from under them” referring to my change in beliefs commonly known as apostasy. She’s still struggling with understanding how that happens and with the “atheist” label. Sometimes I get grilled (not in an ugly way) as she tries to dig deeper. When I say I’m an agnostic atheist well she’s relieved. That agnostic label covers a multitude of sins. 😉

    Most Christians I’ve spoken with deflect anything I say because it doesn’t measure up to what they have known of me all these years. To them I’m still a Christian.

    The thing about the “you people” thing is this; even in Kathy’s world there is a group or several groups that would put Kathy in the “you people” category as well. In my experience the “us vs. them” issues was rampant within the context of Christianity itself. In their efforts to nail down any sort of unity they kill one another, both literally (heresy trials etc.) and figuratively (the walking wounded.) I tend to think that Christians throughout history and even in today’s modern world spend way too much time trying to save people that are already saved. 🙂

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  13. NeuroVictoria: […]”I’d say that it will not rank near the top, but at the top, primarily because it has generally been women who were the primary caregivers of children and that cruel guild placed upon women does have a direct effect on her offspring. Childbirth and motherhood was cursed by a so called loving god.

    There are scars. What Christianity did to my psyche as a woman was nothing short of psychological abuse. I put my full trust in the god of Christianity, and when I became devout, I did not realize, as I “grew” in the faith, that I’d be going from the frying pan into the fire. I’m so glad I’m free from that hell.[…]

    I agree fully.

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  16. Dear Neuronotes,

    I’m am so sorry to hear of the loss of your husband. And people think that Christians only believed in demons and goblins in the Middle Ages! Very, very sad.

    Thank you for sharing the “fear” information with me. I will study it this weekend. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

    Gary

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  20. Matt and his lovely wife are still quite alive and well, Powell, he just hasn’t posted anything for a while.

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  21. Surprisingly, Paul, I’m thankful for Kathy – she’s a constant source of amusement! As are you, but without the ridiculous part.

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  24. From that post that powellpowers referenced over at Thoughts from a Sandwich:

    Christians typically* utilize the “any logical possibility” method when attempting to resolve a perceived conflict, whereas the skeptic utilizes “more likely than not” method when doing so. Therefore when a skeptic raises a conflict, it is a conflict under the “more likely than not” standard of proof. The Christian responds with “No—here is a logically possible way whereby there is no conflict,” thereby eliminating the conflict under the “any logical possibility” standard of proof. Each is frustrated with the other, as the skeptic cannot understand why the Christian does not consider it a conflict (because it is under the skeptic’s method.) The Christian cannot understand why the skeptic sees the contradiction (because it is not under the Christian’s method.)

    So round and round the conversation goes with never an end in sight. And there never will be.

    *I say “typically” but in actuality I have only encountered one (1) Christian EVER who used anything but “any logical possibility.” And even that fellow backed away, eventually succumbing back to “any logical possibility.” So really, the better word would be “exclusively” rather than “typically.” DagoodS

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