Agnosticism, Atheism, Christianity, Faith, God, Religion, Truth

Pandora’s Box

Nate

The other day I started thinking about what would have happened if I had stopped looking critically at Christianity after reading those articles that first made me question the Bible’s legitimacy. What if I had turned from them and decided to never look at anything else that might cause me to doubt my faith? If I had, I’m sure I’d still be a Christian today.

But would that really be good enough? Obviously, the things my faith were built upon weren’t solid enough to withstand scrutiny. So if I had maintained faith only by refusing to investigate my reasons, would that kind of faith be pleasing to God? I think that’s a question believers should consider. If that level of faith is good enough, we’re essentially saying, “oh, if only you hadn’t taken your faith so seriously!” But that seems crazy.

The alternative is that my faith might have been good enough until the day I ran across things that made me doubt. At that point, the only way to remain pleasing to God would be to investigate the claims and come out the other side with a stronger faith. Of course, that’s not how it worked out for me. If God’s real and Christianity’s true, then I think this view makes the most sense. However, it causes problems for those Christians who have refused to look at any evidence that might call their beliefs into question. I’ve had several tell me that they won’t read anything an atheist has written, or don’t want me to point out the passages that I found problematic because they don’t want to lose their faith. How does that make sense? If their faith is worth keeping — if it’s true — then further investigation should only support their beliefs, not call them into question.

I’m not trying to pick on Christians here, we can all be guilty of this from time to time. It’s essentially an extreme case of confirmation bias — one in which we realize we’re being biased and we even think of it as a good thing. In fact, it’s extremely dangerous, and if we feel ourselves thinking along those lines, it should be a red flag. What’s wrong with our current position if we have to hide from information in order to keep it?

And in the end, I’m glad I didn’t stop looking. The journey out wasn’t easy, but I feel like things make so much more sense with my current worldview. Even if I’m still wrong, I’m closer to the truth than I was before, because I’ve learned new information and corrected some past misunderstandings. That can only be a good thing.

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Published by Nate

329 thoughts on “Pandora’s Box”

  1. “I feel like I know Brandon and unkleE well enough by now to trust that they’re not being disingenuous.”

    One can be disingenuous, even with one’s self.

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  2. William, I’m actually not so sure I’m right. 🙂 I just think that the whole thing of worldviews isn’t as simple as a lot of us make it out to be. And I’m sure I even contradict myself sometimes by sometimes commenting as if it is simple. In fact maybe I’ll do that here:

    I don’t agree with the conclusions that Christians come to. My thoughts on God-belief are different than specific religions. God-belief itself doesn’t seem incredibly far-fetched, but I can’t get a good epistemic reason to validate a claim of belief in gods, so that’s why I am an atheist. As far as Christianity goes, one of the main things for me is that it just doesn’t seem to pass the Duck test – if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Things like virgin births, water into wine, walking on water, resurrections, atonement beliefs, sticks turning into snakes, animals talking, languages being sprung forth in one afternoon, etc. look like the mythologies of the other religions which I rejected while I was a Christian – and I rejected them mainly because they looked mythological and too far fetched to me. So that’s why I said that I agree with what you are writing. And I certainly have even more reasons than for rejecting Christian belief and many of them are similar to your reasons.

    The only thing that I’m trying to articulate is that things like the Duck test unfortunately aren’t all that simple. How can I measure the duck test mathematically? I don’t know how. Brandon and Eric have their own reasoning and evidence for why they think that some form of Christian belief does pass the duck test. While I disagree with them, with something as complex and nebulous as a worldview which has so many moving parts I’m afraid I just can’t claim superiority over others as easily as I would a mathematical proof.

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  3. I just wrote this on ColorStorm’s blog, William, to someone who asked how a perfect god could create an imperfect world, and it seems in keeping with what you’re saying here:

    I think I can explain that, David – you see, their god has these “mysterious ways” that he works in, and you just have to trust that this god, concocted by desert nomads, who believed the earth was a flat disk, covered by a dome, and that the sun revolved around it – knows what he’s doing, and that anything that might “look” like a mistake to the untrained eye, is actually part of a brilliant master-plan that we will never understand until after we die. They call it “faith.” The first step in acquiring faith requires that all sense of logic be thrown out of the window. As Mark Twain once so aptly put it, “Faith is believin’ what you know ain’t so.“

    BTW – watch what you say about Kermit! Kermie and I are tight —

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  5. In talking with Eric for instance I’ve gotten the feeling that he intellectually comes to his conclusions using facts, evidence and reason and this gives him about a 95% (a number he wrote on my blog a while ago) personal confidence level of his conclusions (note the key word “personal”).

    Unklee’s ‘facts’ are largely a sham and built upon a primary presupposition: his god exists, now let’s build a house around this ‘fact’.

    The fact that no Christian is able to demonstrate how their god, the character, Jesus of Nazareth is also the creator deity of the universe is evidence enough of their disingenuous approach to their religion/faith.

    People such as Unklee and Brandon are perfect examples of the cherry-pickers that are rife in every religion.

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  7. “archaeopteryx1
    December 18, 2014 at 11:25 am
    “And now we helped Obama and Castro make up. Canadians eh?”

    You think I don’t see through your plan? You’re not fooling ME! You lull us into a false sense of security by being terminally “nice,” then it’s, “RELEASE THE SASQUATCH!“

    👿

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  9. Well, I was going to comment from the Christian perspective on some of this, but then I got all distracted by all the falling snow on Nate’s blog. Ya know though, if I steer them just right, I can make a few little flake fall like a comet through Ark’s avatar head, so it’s not a total loss, heheh!

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  11. Pingback: Pandora’s Box? Red Pill, Blue Pill? | Life After 40

  13. this a.m., fox and friends did a segment on how a Satanist group has put up a xmas display, outraging xtians. F&F seem to believe that a religion has to meet certain criteria to be a real religion and Satanism just doesn’t cut it as real..

    weeeellll, if jeezzuuusss is truly “real”, then the only other “real” religion would be Satanism.

    duh!

    then, they did a segment on a billboard with santa holding an AK47, which they loved. you know, guns and Christianity, that’s what our country is founded on. LOL

    honestly, I can’t tell the christians from the Satanists anymore. they all look the same to me.

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  16. Thanks Logan. I thought your post was great.

    Man, Taylors are great! I learned on a Fender acoustic that I still have. It’s actually a great little guitar. Still has a good sound, and the action on it is probably the best I’ve ever played on an acoustic. Right now, I mostly play an Alvarez acoustic with a cutaway and a built in pickup. And I have a Les Paul that I really enjoy. It’s a ’93 or ’94 model, but it’s a reissue of a 1960 model. I don’t get to play it much though, because my amp needs some work. And honestly, with work and young kids, I just don’t make enough time for it right now. I hope to really get back into it one day though.

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  18. Nate,

    I’m glad you kept searching.

    I did the same when problems arose for me. I guess the difference between you and I is that the faith inside me managed to stay strong while I dumped the church’s version of what that faith ‘has to’ look like. Deep down I have always believed there is a God (way before I drank the Kool-aid), but I doubt my version of who or what that is resembles anything the churches of today say He is.

    I’m much more satisfied now with the tension of mystery. I know that I really don’t know all that much, and that’s ok.

    Meanwhile, I will applaud your continued journey deeper into truth.

    -C

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  19. Well said, Judah. I keep baby-stepping my way to where you seem to be at. So much mystery. The more I try to explain the more I realize I really have no clue!
    🙂

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  20. BTW, I do LOVE that it is snowing on your blog, Nate! I wish it was snowing up by me right now. White Christmas is the way for me!

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  21. “White Christmas is the way for me!” – Speedo on the beach with a Maitai is the way for me! To each his own —

    M/C, Josh —

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  23. Happy holidays to you too, Josh!

    And JudahFirst — thanks for the comment! It’s great to hear from you again.

    I’m glad you’ve gotten to a good place in your journey as well. I think the common bond among truth seekers is not where we end up, but the journey we each take. Some people never bother to go on the journey at all, and I think it’s hard for us to identify with them. But people who ask and think about the tough questions have a certain comaraderie, even when we disagree on the end point.

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