Moving On

My backstory is now complete.

To sum up, I left Christianity (and religion in general) because:

• Considering the millions of gods throughout human history, it is impossible to know which one(s) to follow. We have no way of knowing that the god of the bible is THE TRUE god.
• Considering the hundreds of thousands of religions throughout human history, it is impossible to claim that Christianity is THE TRUE religion, simply because the "evidence" of authenticity Christianity offers is shared by thousands of other beliefs (prophecy, morality, miracles, power of prayer, longevity, proliferation, etc.), and that all of these are supported purely by confirmation bias and anecdote.
• Considering the thousands of contradictory variants of Christianity, it is impossible to know which teaches THE TRUE interpretation of the religion, and thus impossible to know which denomination(s) to follow.
• The bible is (among other issues) riddled with contradictions and was compiled in its present form, not from divine inspiration, but from political machination and religious domination.
• Too many Christians, who have a great deal of media exposure, are often caught up in scandalous, hypocritical, or otherwise unbefitting behaviors. This is contradictory to the morals they seek to impose upon others.
• Too many Christians hold -- and act upon -- a negative bias against those who do not follow exactly the same beliefs; this can range from atheists to Buddhists to Christians of other denominations.

If there really is a god who cares about his creation's life, belief, worship, and eternal destination, he certainly has an odd way of showing it: he is completely absent and is completely complicit in the bullet points I've listed. That’s not being a god -- that's just being a jerk.

80% of the people in the United States claim some sort of religious belief and 76% claim some form of Christianity. Being agnostic / atheist can be a lonely path at times since it is virtually guaranteed that the overwhelming majority of all daily interactions will be with religious folk who take religion for granted and just assume that everyone believes. People are taken aback when they find out that you don’t follow their religion -- doubly so when they find out you don’t follow any religion!

Currently I am working my way through "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, and I have to admit that a lot of what he presents sounds, to a recent deconvert, rather dubious. But then I remind myself that what I used to believe -- the creation account of Genesis -- is even more dubious and directly contradicts a lot of science. It is therefore no mystery that 60% of the United States believes in evolution by either natural or supernatural means.

Now that more of the people around me are starting to discover my "godless heathen ways," I am beginning to hear the inevitable counter-arguments that I've been dreading. The first argument almost always used by Christians against atheists or agnostics is that of morality: to them it is a foundational premise (made popular by C. S. Lewis) that all morality must come from a god (and so, logically as the arguments progress, the Christian attempts to show that all morality comes from the Christian god).

Please indulge me for a moment, I wish to make a point before moving on.

The argument about morality used to intimidate me, but now I know better. Morality has developed in thousands of religions and thousands of cultures over thousands of years. Sometimes it develops with a god in mind, sometimes without.

Religious adherents claim that god ingrained a moral code in our genes, so that all of us ultimately know right from wrong. From an evolutionary standpoint, this actually may not be far from accurate (except for the god part); our moral code may be part of our genes' need for preservation and propagation.

As an agnostic, I am certainly willing to concede that perhaps some god out in the cosmos put something somewhere in our genetic structure to create the aforementioned needs, and thus give birth to a moral code. But religion? It would become comical if it weren't so tragic: religions are responsible for a huge portion of history’s destruction, death, suffering, and misery.

Oh so very moral, isn't it?

All religions claim that their holy books are the utmost in ethics. Christianity is no exception, regardless if its adherents honestly think that its morals are somehow superior to any other religion's. There is, however, one area of morality that Christianity does excel at: cherry-picking what morals to follow. And here is the pinnacle in hypocrisy: that by deciding for themselves which of their god's moral rules to apply and which to discard, they are in effect claiming that they have wisdom greater than god! Suddenly "god's ways are higher" becomes: "I will decide which of god's ways are higher."

To add insult to injury, there is this:

"You are using your own moral intuitions to decide that the bible is the appropriate guarantor of your moral intuitions." - Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

How very circular of religious folk, and I'm ashamed that I used to think like this. But at any rate, I feel that is a nice way to sum up my little rant on Christian morality.

Moving on...

Over the last few months, I have been on a reading frenzy. In February and March, I read Guy Harrison's books "50 Popular Beliefs that People Think Are True" and "50 Simple Questions for Every Christian." These were my starting point, and I wholeheartedly recommend them for any Christian who is struggling with trying to find truth.

I followed those up with:

• "Did Jesus Exist?" by Bart Ehrman (provides a lot of evidence for the historical man named Jesus)
• "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris (a lot of great points and questions for Christians)
• "Jesus, Interrupted" by Bart Ehrman (shows discrepancies in the bible, helps one understand that each book must be taken as its own point of view, not as part of a narrative)
• "The Atheist Camel Chronicles" by Bart Centre (a compilation of blog posts from 2008-2009 which makes many good points  against religion and Christianity in particular)
• "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins (discusses how genes have had a hand in certain levels of morality)

I highly recommend these books to anyone who is honestly pursuing the truth around Christianity -- whether just curious, or trying to find a way out, or trying to justify your recent deconversion.

Until next Monday,

Frank