Believing in Belief

By Monk ~

"The big trial of belief is that you must find a way to believe when you no longer believe that you CAN now believe, or ever could have believed, that it is possible to even believe in belief, let alone believe in the object of your belief."

I wrote that over four years ago, the first time I tried on the atheist hat. Faith has never come easy to me...my innate curiosity and reason rebel too strongly...but I am still trapped by christianity. I liked being an atheist...I was even a "militant" atheist "on line," but I quickly "backslid" into very "Fundamentalist" christianity (read: Church of Christ denomination) in real life with much fear and trembling, literally. The only outward signs of disbelief being not attending services for a year or so. The time wasn't right yet, apparently. I wasn't brave enough or strong enough to stand on my own. Family and friend pressure was still too great. Not only did I return to christianity with my tail between my legs, but I went back with new fervor! I even became one of the teachers of the congregation. I still teach. Even as an atheist (though no one knows that I am). How ironic is that? It's cowardly...that's what it is! The fervor and belief quickly dissipated again, and I was stuck teaching when I no longer believed. That is justice in my book. Due punishment for my cowardly hypocrisy, my willful cognitive dissonance, my shameless sacrificing of the truth and evidence just to keep from upsetting others. Maybe one day I'll be able to completely break free. The hold is strong. I need help, but there's none around me like me. Unlike many, I know my family would still love me, but that just makes it worse. Disappointing people is one of my greatest fears. And it's made me a neurotic mess. In other words, the perfect mixture for a "fearing" christian.

Why does everything respect god(s) so much? I live in the heart of the bible-thumping South. NO ONE openly proclaims disbelief in god...that's worse than saying you're homosexual! I kid you not...I know several people who have openly admitted homosexuality, and people are mostly fine with it. But even HINT that you don't believe in god and see what you get...

I can't stand it anymore. Something has to give. I feel like I'm on the threshold of a breakdown, but I'm still too cowardly to get off this insane ride. It's a sad state of affairs when a human being would rather have a mental breakdown than be true to himself.

I hate going to church. I hate being brow-beat. I hate brow-beating others. I hate listening to bigoted speech. I hate hearing snide remarks about people who have chosen to live differently than christians. I hate the hate! I want out! Christianity is everywhere, and I want to get away from it forever!. Even my spell check is telling me the lower case "christ" and "christianity" was misspelled. There it is again! WTF? Why does everything respect god(s) so much?

Thank you for listening. I know the good people of this site will offer good advice and encouragement, if the web master is gracious enough to post this. I only wish I were strong enough and brave enough to follow it. But I'm not. Thanks to all of you for being you.

Comments

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~ S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden – Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~ A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins Accepting Christ as Savior Frequently reading the Bible Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules) Attending church services Partaking of the Lord’s Supper Tithing Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc. Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro

Search This Blog