The Kubler-Ross model describes five stages in which persons deal with grief. Generally this model is attached to a tragedy of some kind: diagnosis of an illness, loss of a loved one, economic turmoil, etc. I was not raised in a religious family, and began flirting with the prospect of religious faith as early as sixth grade when I became friends with several evangelical Christians. During my freshman year of high school I experienced a profound conversion experience which radically altered my life. It would be easy to attempt to relegate this conversion experience as having simply “bad” or simply “good” consequences; however, to do so devalues the way in which my religious faith has shaped me as an individual. I digress. Nonetheless, it is important to know that my Christian faith pervaded every aspect of my life over the next seven years.

By no means was I a perfect Christian, I was never quite able to figure out how to acquiesce to the tenets of my own faith. Regardless, my faith was incredibly important to me. I belabor this point only to set the stage for this fact: when I realized that I could no longer intellectually assent to the system of belief which had shaped my entire life for seven years, it was very much tragic for me. Christians often refer to Jesus as their “best friend,” and while I am honest enough now to admit that at my most devout, my faith never received the attention it deserved, the figure of Jesus was always a very personal priority in my daily life. Thus, to experience a sudden paradigm shift to the magnitude of denying the very existence of the person of Jesus was much like discovering that one of my parents or closest friends had only existed in my mind.

Again, I digress. Returning to Kubler-Ross (who I brought up at least fifteen lines of text ago), my response to this ‘tragedy’ falls under three of the five stages, at least. For months I suppressed what my intellect and my intuition both told me: my God was no different than Allah, Krishna, Ra, or Zeus. In fact, during this stage I exhibited a renewed fervor in my religious devotion. After all, it was my own sin that led me to doubt, yes? Bible study and prayer consumed my time. Systematic theology and philosophy of religion became the choice of leisure reading for the greater part of last summer. In the end, however, my own denial caught up with me.

Next came anger. Somewhere in July I tested the waters and hinted that I was on the verge of walking away from Christianity. By August I made it public that I no longer considered myself to be a Christian. By September I was furious with my circumstance: a 21 year old college student who had built his very life on the foundation of Christian faith, came to reject that foundational structure of his life, and then found himself living in the midst of Christians for another long year. It seemed unbearable. Chapel. Christian kitsch—the cheesy music, the godawful (no pun intended) WWJD bracelets, and for heaven’s sake the T-shirts. Prayer at the beginning of every class. Fear of being “found out” by professors or employers who would surely react poorly.

It was as if a wool had been pulled away from my eyes and I perceived things in an entirely new light. It wasn’t chapel or the t-shirts that really made me angry. It was the deeper issues. The guilt that I saw people carrying around. The self-loathing for their inability to rid themselves of “sin” in their lives. The ever so subtle judgment of one another. “Well I just don’t understand how she drinks and says she is a Christian.” “Well I remember Jesus saying, ‘Judge not!’” Corporate Christianity seemed, at that point, to look very much like corporate America. Smiles on the outside, unbridled ambition and jealousy on the inside. During much of last fall, I found myself lashing out at any opportunity against the Christian faith. I craved the debates with Christian friends. I hungered to show them up.

Finally, I came to accept my situation. I came to realize that my former religious faith was a natural belief set to hold, and likewise the current religious faith of others is perfectly normal. Unfortunately, my “anger” phase caused me to burn bridges and had the unintended consequence of hurting many of those who I cared about the most.

It is interesting now that I no longer live among Christians, I am much more comfortable with myself and where my thoughts have landed on the issues surrounding faith. For most of my time now, it is a non issue. On the outside of the “Christian bubble,” faith or lack thereof simply does not matter to most people.

For an entire year I have struggled with the question of, “What next?” I have shared this question with many people in that time. If in fact, there is no god, there is much struggle and strife going on in the world for no reason. People carry around unnecessary guilt. Muslim extremists devote themselves to suicide missions for no real gain. Christian conservatives tout anti-gay propaganda without any real moral grounding. Wars have been, and are being, fought for a non-issue. What next, then? Do I dedicate my life to eradicating religion from the planet?

No. To do so would require becoming as dogmatic as those who I criticize. Sure, I will spar with theists in a debate. Definitely I will share my de-conversion with others. Certainly, I think that the world will be more safe when religion eventually does earn itself a place in the history classroom and nowhere else. On the other hand, I recognize that the world is infinitely complex. All actions carry with them a combination of good, bad, and neutral consequences (if we can even know what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ even mean!). I do not believe any transcendent being exists. And it inspires in me the need to understand with the problems that confront the world.

I am more committed now than ever to pursuing those issues that matter to me: preserving the environment, combating poverty and ending wars, expanding health care and protecting personal liberties. I am moved more now than when I was a Christian by an image of a starving child in Africa infected with AIDS. I am more committed now to understand how gun laws affect the safety of a poor family in the inner city. I am more determined now to see education flourish not onlin in America, but in the world. On the other hand, I recognize that there are others who are inspired to do the exact same things because of their religious faith. There are those who, before their religious conversion, would seek to serve only themselves. People are complex (therefore they require a designer… wait, wrong argument) and persons interacting in the global community are even more complex. Religious faith brings with it a muddy mix of good and bad. I don’t seek to eradicate faith, rather I seek to encourage those positive effects of religious faith and to mitigate the negative effects of religious faith.

As for me? I am happier now than I have ever been. I find myself with purpose and goals and confidence and comfort. I have done good things in life and I have done bad things in life. Jesus promised freedom from the bad, but only loaded more guilt on my shoulders. Now my mind is filled with clarity. I seek to correct those behaviors which I would consider to be “bad”—note: behaviors which I consider to be bad, based on empirical evidence and personal exploration; not behaviors which I consider to be bad because an ancient text arbitrarily says they are bad—I am free from the guilt that plagued me as a Christian.

A strange confession: from time to time I still enjoy listening to Christian music. It reminds me why I was attracted to Christianity in the first place. The narrative, presented from a certain perspective, really is beautiful (at least when it remains simple). A person is born into a slavery of sorts and is freed by one who is already free but sacrifices himself. Altruism and love are qualities which should be aspired to. For me, listening to the music that tells this story is kind of like reminiscing with an old friend. Ultimately, though, I walk away each time more certain about designating myself to be an atheist (well, at least to most people—thank you, Bertrand Russell). I envision a world in which education is valued, where healthcare is a right and not a privilege, where the world is cared for, where poverty (at least abject poverty as we know it today) is eliminated. This world that I envision for the future, not a utopia mind you, but a constantly improving society, is what gives me hope and fulfillment and joy.

- CarriedTheCross

The first question in round two will be presented first to "M" of the group blog Atheism is Dead representing Theism and that will be followed by a rejoinder from Leo who is from the group blog de-conversion and who will be representing Atheism.

"M", the first question is this, "Is Atheism more likely to be beneficial or detrimental to a society?" This is a question about the pragmatics of belief and is the other side of the coin from the question asked in round one.

M: I believe that the increasing number of individuals who begin to adopt Atheism may continue to live as they did before only due to the fact that they have been conditioned by the Theistic society before them. Under this sort of conditioning, absolute morals and objective values still play a large role within people’s lives. However, I do believe that as time goes by the essential foundation for those beliefs will soon dissolve in people’s minds and society will slowly dwindle.
Brian: Leo, your response?

Atheism is not a proscribed set of beliefs, and atheists are not a monolithic group of people. It’s rather like most religions in that way. We have tens of thousands of Christian denominations, Buddhist sects, Islamic sects. Even within each denomination or sect, individuals have differing beliefs or doctrines from one another and/or from the leaders of their church, synagogue, or what have you. In the same way there are numerous schools of atheistic thought, and any individual atheist will likely have his/her own particular views about gods, society, and morality. 

So to get anything like an answer to the question, “Is atheism beneficial or dangerous or to society?” we cannot look at atheism as a whole, since there is no cohesive whole to look at. We must try to break atheism up into types of atheism (or types of atheists) and consider them separately. Even with this approach we will have the problem of artificially demarcating groups that aren’t really homogenous.

Some general groups into which I think we can divide atheism are:
Militant (or evangelical) atheism
Antitheism
Laissez-faire atheism
Strong atheism
Weak atheism
Religious atheism
Default atheism
Practical atheism  

Of course others may propose different groups, and the ones I’ve used overlap and don’t have clear line of demarcation. But then any time you try to shoehorn people into groups it comes out a mess.

The first three groups are essentially classified by the actions of their members. 

Militant (evangelical) atheismis composed of atheists who actively try to spread atheism and to “de-convert” theists. Militant atheists tend to write books, harass evangelists, call talk shows, and so on. They have the mindset of, “We’re right. They’re wrong. And we need to set them straight.”

This type of atheism can be dangerous for a few reasons. Militant atheists often insult theists and regard them as being dupes. Militant atheists are often arrogant and they tend to upset people unnecessarily. All of this tends to foster ill will, misunderstandings, and closed minds (on both sides of the debate). I can’t see how any of this is beneficial, and it’s the sort of thing that wouldn’t have to try too hard to lead to fistfights or worse. 

Antitheismis basically militant atheism on steroids; complete with the bad temper. Antitheists regard all religions as evil, and dangerous. Many antitheists would even be happy to pass laws against religions. It doesn’t take a lot of deep, reflective thinking to see that such an extreme position is dangerous. No theist is going to put up with being called evil, or with being outlawed. Thankfully antitheists are a rather small minority.

Laissez-faire atheism takes the position of, “I’ll be an atheist. You believe whatever you like.” They don’t tend to evangelize, and if you evangelize them, they may just say they aren’t interested, or they may engage the conversation just to see where it goes. But they’re not apt to get very worked up over debates and such. 

This position surely isn’t dangerous, and it might just be beneficial.  I’m of the opinion that when people discuss differences of belief in a manner of polite interest and are willing to allow others to believe as they please, it fosters understanding and goodwill. And frankly, if you do want to convince someone to adopt your beliefs, bonhomie will usually take you further than vehemence.

The next two types of atheism are more philosophical classes. 

Strong atheismpositively asserts that there is/are no God/gods, whether of the supreme, monotheistic type, or lesser, polytheistic types. Strong atheists are generally antisupernaturalists too. Strong atheists are the sorts who are more likely to be militant or antitheist, with the attendant dangers I mentioned before. But there are certainly strong, laissez-faire atheists.

Weak atheismencompasses agnosticism. Its adherents are of the opinion that there is/are no God/gods, but they don’t hold the position dogmatically. Some may even think that some sort of great being or force exists, but that it does not interact with humanity in any discernable way. Weak atheists tend to have laissez-faire attitudes toward theists. But there certainly are evangelical, weak atheists. Generally speaking though, the laissez-faire attitudes of weak atheists tend, to make them pretty peaceable; which I think is a good thing. 

Now I come to the last three classes, which don’t really group together, but hey, I already said grouping people always comes out a mess.

Religious atheism is not an oxymoron. There are a number of religions that don’t include deities. Jainism, Buddhism, and Confucianism all fit in this category, though there are subsects that have incorporated various deities. I’ll not try to assess the benefits or dangers of those religions since that’s a whole ‘nother essay or three.

Default atheism is the position of those who don’t really think much about religious or philosophical matters, but for all intents and purposes don’t believe in any deity. You find these people quite commonly. They don’t get into religious discussions much, and they really just want to get on with their lives for the most part. Default atheists by and large tend to do their jobs, take care of their families, enjoy their weekends, and don’t do much to rock any proverbial boats. They are pretty harmless, and are generally beneficial in that they are steady workers and such. 

Practical atheism is my own term for those who, regardless of what they may claim to believe, live unaffected by any belief. Practical atheists may claim to believe almost anything, and you can find them occupying church pews all over the world. They are certainly a hard to identify group, but they do have one unifying characteristic. No matter what they claim to believe, they live like there is/are no God/gods. Should their religion tell them to be honest, or hard working, or to tithe, it matters not a whit. They are only in it for lip service, socializing, and appearance. There is of course a more common word for practical atheists... hypocrites. 

Are practical atheists beneficial? Well they do have jobs and they do spend money, so that’s dandy for the economy. Are practical atheists harmful? Somehow hypocrisy always seems to have a negative impact. It seems to give rise to fraud, church and business abuses, rebellious children, power grabs, and a host of other social ills. On balance I have to think of practical atheists as more dangerous than beneficial.

So what’s the tally now?

Militant atheism – can be dangerous
Antitheism – likely to be dangerous
Laissez-faire atheism – perhaps beneficial
Strong atheism – possibly dangerous
Weak atheism – likely beneficial on balance
Religious atheism – no judgment
Default atheism – probably beneficial or at least neutral
Practical atheism –on balance, dangerous  

That’s beneficial three, dangerous four. But you know, I’m gonna take a point off the dangerous side because it belongs not to a group of open atheists, but rather to a group composed in large part of religious hypocrites.

By this far-from-scientific analysis, atheism comes out kinda neutral. And frankly, given that atheists are a minority in most countries, they can’t really have too much influence anyway. (Unless you believe in the “Great, world-wide, atheist conspiracy”.) 

But there is one “atheist” subgroup that does worry me a bit. Practical atheists (read that ‘hypocrites’) are plentiful, and they make any group associated with them look bad. I give them my strongest condemnation. Hey! Didn’t some guy in the Bible take a similar view of them? (I think his initials were J.C.)

Brian: The next question is, "Do Atheist tend to be more progressive thinkers that Theist? For instance, are they more likely to uphold modern concepts like the seperation of church and state? Are they more likely to support causes like embryo stem cell research because ideas like a "soul" are less likely to interfere. Leo?

Leo: I would have to answer yes to this. Surveys, exit polls, and the like consistently show that atheists and agnostics are quite dedicated to separation of church and state, sometimes to a rather fanatical degree. They are also more likely to be in the progressive or liberal camp on ideas such as embryonic stem cell research, abortion, et cetra.

There seem to be various reasons for this tendency. First, certainly the idea of the “soul” is not likely to enter the thinking of most atheists, though some do believe in the “soul”. Second, Atheists who were formerly of the fundamentalist stripe generally tend to polarize away from everything they formerly believed. Thus they tend to end up becoming politically liberal. Finally, since there is a tendency toward the left among atheists and agnostics (for whatever reasons), an atheist would have to run counter to his/her peer group to be conservative. Most people just don’t do that. (And believe me, as a rather conservative individual, I know how strongly my fellow atheists/agnostics react to conservative ideology.)

Brian: M?

M: I don’t think Atheists are progressive at all in their thinking because there ultimately is nothing to be progressive about. Within a materialist and even more detailed evolutionary paradigm, there is nothing progressive or absolutists about anyone’s morality. I believe that Atheists do tend to uphold such modern concepts as embryo cell research, but whether this is good or not depends on a standard from which to progress.

I believe that Atheists tend to fall in line with a quote by G.K. Chesterton:

“Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.”

Brian: As "M" lets that answer hang in the air we will move on to the next question. M, you are first this time. The question is this, "If the United States became a predominetly Atheistic nation in the next twenty-years would this help or hurt foreign relations?"

M: I think it would hurt foreign relations since most countries are not Atheistic. In fact, even Europe is becoming less and less Atheistic as Theists (primarily Muslims) are starting to move in. I don’t believe Atheists really have a good grasp, much less a good argument as to why they should be having foreign relations to begin with. They cannot connect with religious persons on the same level because one rejects the essential foundations that the other upholds.

Brian: Leo?

Leo:  I’d say probably not, though it could happen. Again basing this on examples from nations that have already gone down this path:

(1) England, Denmark, France, Holland, Sweden, to name just a few, are all countries with a substantial atheist/agnostic percentage in their population. Yet they do not suffer from terrible foreign relations. (OK. Insert jokes about France here.....)

(2) The former Soviet Union was avowedly atheist and had truly terrible foreign relations.

(3) China, with a somewhat atheistic leadership, has had lousy foreign relations, but is now slowly improving.

(4) Much of the Middle East has lousy foreign relations though they are quite theistic.

I don’t really think that atheism, or theism, is the critical issue in foreign relations. I think a nation needs to base its foreign relations in a desire to seek mutual advantages, to seek to maintain peace, and in a desire for mutual understanding. Such bases need not depend on religion, and in fact some religions could be detrimental to such goals.

Brian: Leo, "Does Atheism eventually lead to a more or less tolerant society?" And on that note, "How important is it to practice tolerance?"

Leo: To the first question I can again say with confidence, “yes/no/maybe/that depends”. I’ve seen atheists who are quite tolerant. But I’ve also seen atheists who are thoroughly intolerant, e.g. the ‘antitheists’ mentioned earlier. I don’t think it’s the particular position one takes relative to religion that makes one tolerant or intolerant. Personal arrogance seems to be the greatest wellspring of intolerance, and there’s certainly no shortage of that on either side of the theistic fence.

How important is tolerance? That varies from issue to issue. There’s certainly no room for intolerance of people based on their race or sex. By contrast, we can all be justly intolerant of incompetence. So tolerance must be applied in varying degrees according to the domain of interest. Generally I prefer generous tolerance to be practiced over a wide range of domains, while intolerance is reserved for those domains where it is truly necessary. I wish there were clear guidelines to establish those domains, but alas there are not. 

Brian: "M", same question.

M: That’s difficult to answer because it would appear that Atheism leads to less tolerance if we look at the 20^th century data pragmatically. Now, many Atheists may say that Atheism is not the cause of something because it is merely a rejection of something else, but if there are natural consequences to rejecting that something else then we could positively conclude that this question holds some relevance.

I think it does.

We’ve never seen a purely Atheistic world, so it’s difficult to determine if there would be more or less tolerance. I’m trying to be a little careful with this assertion since we only have data from the last century. We could say Communism was the real issue or other such totalitarian states, but we have yet to see a Communists state NOT influenced by Atheists or a totalitarian regime that did as much damage as those under Atheists influence.

Does this suggest that Atheists are bad people? Of course not. It just suggests that there appears to be a massive change in perspective towards human value and life in general when Atheists are in power. Whether this is “good” or “bad” is determined by your worldview.

I think it is extremely important to practice tolerance for the sake of truth and for the value of human life.

Brian: The following will be our last and final question for round two. Round three will merely be closing statements from our two debaters. Since the last round included the question, "What would our nation look like if Theism faded away a century from now?", we must ask the same question about Atheism.

With that we ask, "What would our nation look like if Atheism faded away in the same time span and an official state religion took over as well--whether Christianity, Islam, or so forth?" "M" first; Leo, final word.

M: I don’t think we’d see much difference than what we see today. Atheists and their Atheism aren’t the balancing factor in the world today. They are a blip on the radar.

Leo: Once again I can only try to conjecture from examples found in history and in the world today.

Societies with strong theistic groundings have often been problematic at best. Cromwell’s Puritan England is something most of us would have hated to live in. The days of powerful Catholic rule in many parts of Europe were hardly any more fun. The Hindu kingdom of Nepal vigorously, sometimes viciously, suppresses religious freedom and is rather isolationist. And of course we’re all hearing almost daily about the ugliness of fundamentalist Islam in Iraq, Iran, etc.

On the other side of the coin though, Muslim Spain, in the early part of the second millennium, was a bastion of academia, free trade, and even religious freedom. The early US colony of Pennsylvania, though founded and lead mostly by Quakers, enjoyed much religious freedom and was one of the early centers of anti slavery sentiment.

So a US guided by, “a particular theistic understanding” could go many ways. I’d be loathe to have the US run by fundamentalism of any stripe. By the same token, I don’t think I’d like the country being run by liberal Anglicans (or Orthodox, or Lutherans, or whatever), I rather like the US with its current pluralism of religion, ideology, race, etc.  I can’t say just what the US would be like as a theistic state, but I fear that it might not be the “land of the free”.

Brian: Thank you Leo. And thank you "M". Readers, this is your chance to participate. Let the commenting begin. The next time we hear from Leo and "M" will be their final statements.

But in that very anxiety before loss and our own deaths, in the duty to self-create, in our loneliness and vulnerability, lies our salvation – for in forsaking the illusions we wish we could believe about life, we find we are truly able to see life, for the first time. And what we see is breathtaking: the stunning preciousness of life, and the indescribable beauty of the world and of those around us. All we have to do is face our fears, make our peace with the uncertainty and “groundlessness” of our lives, give up on the fantasy that someone, somewhere will recognize our own specialness enough to swoop in and save us from life’s pain. Then, and only then, can we really begin to live.

Posts in this series:

• Existentialism: An Introduction
• Existentialism: Themes and Defenses
• Existentialism: Death and Isolation
• Existentialism: Freedom and Responsibility
• Existentialism: The Search for Meaning

- Richard

Somewhere around 14 or 15 years of age I realized that the religion I’d been brought up with was largely dead, worthless, and meaningless, so I stopped going to church. That lasted about four or five years. During that time my parents somehow started taking the faith more seriously. When I was 19 they asked me if I'd like to come along to church with them. They had a good reason. The preacher, they told me, was a very good speaker who made sense and was logical. Now a sensible, logical, interesting, skilled speaker in a church was a whole new concept to me. I just had to see it to believe it. So I went.

Sure enough, the man lived up to his reputation. In fact I was so interested that I went back a few times. Then my parents told me there was a youth group full of interesting, intelligent, lively guys and gals my age. So I went there too. And they lived up to their billing.

With time and study and being around Christians a lot, I began to learn about the faith and to grow in it and to like it. It wasn't all smooth sailing. I went to bars more than a few times. During my first college semester away from home I stopped going to church or studying the Bible entirely. Then I got into another group of dynamic, growing, dedicated, young people. This new group helped me learn to study the Bible systematically and to develop a full theology that affected all of my life. In essence I learned then that the faith had to be practiced every day, not just Sunday.

Leap ahead several years. I’d been a dedicated evangelical/ fundamentalist/ non-denominational type Christian for many years. I’d marry a woman of similar stripe, and we were raising kids in the faith. But the wife and I had began to see the bankruptcy of the evy/fundy way. The process happened over at least 7 or 8 years and involved great amounts of study. Perhaps the single, best starting point was the book "Evangelical Is Not Enough" by Thomas Howard. Reading that book brought into focus all the problems we were trying to identify and qualify. Rather than virtually reproduce it here, I'd suggest you just read it. It's actually a pretty short book. (A note that Howard ends the book as an Anglican but he went on soon afterward to become a very orthodox Catholic.) Some of the most notable things that chased us out of Protestantism were: shallow worship, the lack of standards or cohesiveness in the Church globally, the madhouse of interpretations, and to no small extent the widespread Calvinism amongst evy/fundy types.

Once we'd identified the problems with the evy/fundy Church - and by extension most of Protestantism - and started to grasp the significance of tradition and liturgy, we went to older, liturgical churches to learn more about liturgy first hand. It took us a bit over a year to really focus on the Eastern Orthodox Church (EOC). Frankly they just seemed too much like the Alien Mother Ship. But once we did go there and get to know the people, it was like finding the home we didn't know existed.

The EOC has been growing a lot over the past couple decades. This stems from a lot of people learning that evy/fundyism really isn't enough. Some other old, traditional, liturgical churches have also received a growth boost from that; notably the Catholics.

In case it’s of interest to anyone, here are just a few of the books that were significant in our path out of evy/fundyism. All are fairly short, and would give a good idea of what path we followed.

• "Evangelical Is Not Enough" by Thomas Howard
• "For the Life of the World" by Alexander Schmemmann
• "Becoming Orthodox" by Peter Gilquist

We found our way to the Eastern Orthodox Church (EOC) because our study of history showed us that it was the church with the best claim to an historically consistent tie all the way back to the first century. We were also drawn because of its deep and ancient liturgical understanding.

All seemed well then. We loved the EOC and its services. And we loved the neat people in our parish. So what happened to make it all fall apart in less than 2 years? ... Heck it was still going well as of the summer of 2006, so it really all fell apart in a lot less than 6 months. It was such a whirlwind that I actually find it hard to recall it all now.

As a result of diligent prayer having no impact on a lady in our church who was diagnosed with metal illness, I began an exercise to carefully sift through 25 years of praying. Not just my praying, but others’ praying too. And I realized that no prayer had ever been answered, in a clear, unmistakable way, so far as I was aware.

I also started to look at the lives of Christians compared to the rest of the world. Very few differences could be found between Christians and non-Christians.

In short, I couldn’t find anything to indicate any substantive reality behind the Faith. No changes in the lives of believers compared with non-believers, no miracles, no answers to prayer. Nothing.

Another core issue centered around God himself. When you look through the Bible, you don’t see God hiding. He’s quite visible in many ways. Pardon me then if I expected that the same God ought to be similarly visible today. But of course He isn’t.

In addition, since any descriptor of God is meaningless, we must worship, “We know not what.” How could I have any relationship to that which I could not even vaguely define? How could I believe in something that I could not even grasp at an elementary level? How could I sensibly embrace the nonsensical?

So I was facing a mountain of skepticism and evidence that I’d accumulated. Then came the critical question for me. Would I accept what I now saw as the truth, or would I push it away? I couldn’t push it away, so I was stuck. In an ironic twist, I found myself in a version of Martin Luther’s position: “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

Over a number of weeks I slowly let go of the Faith and could no longer believe. Fortunately, once I accepted this new life, it was fairly easy to build a life without an “invisible friend”. The future isn’t frightening and life goes on.

- LeoPardus

(written on September 22 2007)

The tension we face is that, perhaps alone among the animals, we seem to hunger for meaning, we want to be told our lives serve a larger purpose – but they don’t. Yalom notes Camus’ observation: human beings are meaning-seeking animals in a universe that is meaning-neutral. There is no grand design to the world and hence, no meaning “out there” to be discovered. Yet we seem constituted, as creatures, to seek meaning anyway. Camus calls this state of affairs “absurd”, and it’s not hard to see why.

One can deal with this dilemma by seeking ready-made meanings in a system, such as fundamentalism, and there are few things about such totalizing ideologies more seductive than this aspect of them. How sweet the thrill in playing a part of the Greatest Story Ever Told! The Master of the Universe wants you! No greater antidote to the fear of a meaningless, "wasted" life has ever been devised. In a global, mass society such as ours, it is no wonder fundamentalism is on the rise.

But this solution, as before, is an evasion. Remember that fundamentalism, like religion in medieval Europe, is a "system" in the sense we are describing: a complete set of answers for all of life's human problems. And like any system, submersion of the self in that system will tend to result in alienation from oneself. It is, effectively, cutting oneself off from the only place where meaning is to be had: one’s own experiential, flesh-and-blood life. Trying to view your life from the vantage point of a system is to abstract yourself from your life, to look at it in the third person. But it is only in the first-person that your life “comes alive” and truly matters to you. This is a slippery concept, so let me expand.

There is an old Zen Buddhist koan, an insoluble puzzle students are supposed to meditate on, wherein a disciple asks a Master, “What is Zen?” The Master says nothing but points at the moon. This, I think, is not unlike the idea that existentialists are trying to impart. Zen is not the finger, is not the gesture, is not the word “moon” – it is the immediate experience of seeing the moon oneself. To give any “answer”, in words or any other symbol, to “What is Zen” is to go astray, because Zen is unmediated first-person experience itself, and all symbols are, by definition, abstractions. In other words, there is no substitute for actually living. Learning about life, studying life, adopting an abstract meaning about what life is all about (be it religious or secular), is not the same as living your life. Those things can, like the Master’s finger, help point you to life and to creating your own meaning-experience (just like existentialist philosophy itself), but at some point study and musing must cease, and commitment in life must begin.

Or, to switch examples, consider the difference between someone who knows all about love, who has mastered all the best neurochemical, psychological, sociological, cultural, literary, poetic, and religious ideas about love – yet has never, in fact, actually loved. Meaning, Yalom argues with the existentialists, is had only by throwing oneself into life, by participating in life, not by obsessing over what a system says about life. He writes, “On this point most Western theological and atheist existential systems agree: it is good and right to immerse oneself in the stream of life.” (p. 431, italics original). Thus, to seek meaning by taking refuge in a system -- an abstraction -- is to lose precisely that which alone has the power to create meaning.

This is not to say that meaning cannot be created within, or using, religion. Indeed many existentialists were quite religious. But they tend to agree on the notion of what is sometimes called “subjective truth” – referring, essentially, not to the correspondence of thought with reality (objective truth), but to the way ideas or thought are lived, and thereby “become alive”. Truth, for the existentialists, must be appropriated, otherwise it is dead and meaningless. Saying true things about the world may be useful for some purposes, but does not and cannot create meaning unless it is made one’s own. Or, to say it another way, truth for you is that in which you fully immerse yourself. In so doing, it becomes your reality.

Yalom then goes on, very helpfully, to survey the sorts of activities that empirically do seem to create meaning for human beings. They include altruism, devotion to a cause, creativity, what he calls the “hedonistic” solution (i.e., fully tasting and experiencing all life has to offer), self-actualization/self-fulfillment (complete development of one’s potential), immersion in the life cycle, and self-transcendence (“striving toward something outside or above oneself”). All these things are concrete ways in which people can and do nurture meaning in their own lives – when they stop abstracting themselves out of their lives. So what, then, is the existentialist “answer” to our need for meaning in life?

Quit worrying about what it all means, and go live your life.

- Richard

Freedom/responsibility - Just as we are, each of us, our own parent, so too are we the author of our lives. No better term exists for the description of the rock-bottom responsibility – an unavoidable responsibility – each of us has to create our lives. I am the author of my life. I write my life in the first-person; I do not “find” it in the third-person. I am responsible for my decisions. I constitute my world, no matter what my circumstances, no matter what I am given; if nothing else I am still responsible for my attitude toward my life.

It may sound odd but how, really, could it be otherwise? For any proffered external basis for valuation and decision-making – such as “you should do x because x is reasonable” or the pragmatic “you should do x because it helps you achieve your goals” – it always can be asked: “and why should I care about that?” Even the justification “You should do x because God says so” (and even assuming I agree that God does in fact say so) requires something further – after all, why should I care what God says? Existentialists argue: because you make a choice to. There is no other answer. No matter what standard you adopt as a basis for decision-making, you are responsible for having made the choice to assume that standard. Responsibility is irreducible; there is no getting around this.

Existentialism argues that the world does not contain values. In other words, it was easy to believe, in Christian medieval Europe, that God imbued our life and the world with meaning and value and purpose. If one forgot what it was, it could always be re-discovered by examining the world. Existentialism denies this is possible. The world is neutral. Nature is neutral. It is neither good nor bad, friendly nor hostile, purposeful nor purposeless. The world is just matter in motion; it does not tell you what is good or what goals should be pursued. It, therefore, has no value at all but what we put in it. “Nothing in the world has significance except by virtue of one’s own creation. There are no rules, no ethical systems, no values; there is no external referent whatsoever; there is no grand design in the universe.” (p. 221) Therefore, we are entirely responsible for what values we create – there is no deferring to nature or to God, no passing of the buck. Whatever we find, we put there, and thus we are responsible for it.

As before, this is a terrifying experience when it is really encountered. To accept full authorship, without evasion or denial, is difficult because it means there is nowhere to turn, no one to blame. “No ass to kick, no heart to appeal to” runs an old line that got stuck in my head somewhere (I haven’t been able to source it), and that perfectly describes this condition.

Fundamentalist Christianity wishes to avoid this responsibility in spades, and here is where I find it most destructive, and most disingenuous. That theology heavily emphasizes personal responsibility – indeed, preaches responsibility as a high moral virtue – but at the same time, I suggest that it undermines personal responsibility utterly. For not only does it teach that no one is competent to run his or her own life, not only does it teach it is sinful even to try, it teaches that the correct response of creature to Creator is one of abject submission. One is to empty one’s will, and thus has only the most infinitesimal responsibility of doing what one is told. This is what evangelical Christian responsibility amounts to: following orders. Never mind that they have also chosen what they will consider to be the orders in the first place. The outsourcing of responsibility is thus shot through the entire theology, and this has, as always, a cost.

For truly accepting responsibility for one’s life, rather than ducking it or lying to oneself about it, is simultaneously liberating and empowering, according to the existentialists. It amounts to what psychotherapists call an “internal locus of control” – the sense of being in charge of one’s life, oneself, rather than constantly looking outward for instructions and rescue (God), or blame (Satan, or human sin). It means we are constantly in the act of self-creation. No matter what givens I have – matter what life hands me – it is I, and I alone, who is responsible for what I do with it. This means, of course, that change is an ever-present potential within each of us, at every moment – if we have the courage to use it. I can always change my life by changing myself. I am, fully, the author of my life – and I can change the plot anytime.

- Richard

Death - Yalom writes:

“It is one of life’s most self-evident truths that everything fades, that we fear the fading, and that we must live, nonetheless, in the face of the fading, in the face of fear.” (p. 30).

Existentialists often speak of this in terms of “finitude.” Finitude means an awareness that we are vulnerable creatures, with limited abilities and power to shape the world, and that we are subject to the passing of time and the loss that it brings – including, ultimately, death. Thus, it follows that grief is an intrinsic part of life – and the sweeter the living, the deeper the grief at its inevitable passing. The term “finitude” also includes death anxiety proper: a bedrock awareness that I, myself, and all those I care about, and all the things that matter to me, will not last forever. My life, all my cares, all my projects will eventually cease.

Yalom suggest we are all intrinsically aware of our finitude, though it is frightening and we often push it aside. Nevertheless, he says, there are “hints” of death that pervade our experience, if we allow ourselves to see them; they are encountered all throughout our lives. When a toddler first learns to feed herself with a spoon, and thus no longer needs to be fed, the toddler’s parent may feel a twinge of sadness at the inevitable passing of time: a phase of his child’s life has passed and will never come again. When that same parent realizes the there are some pains in life he can never shield his children from, despite his overwhelming love for them, he encounters his own limitation, his own finitude. Life itself, if we allow it, makes us aware of death. This means, conversely – and crucially for our purposes – that if one is frightened enough of death to try to keep that death-awareness from consciousness, one must, in a way, avoid life itself.

And this is exactly what fundamentalist Christianity does, I suggest. It teaches, quite explicitly, that we do not die. If we are Christians, we go to experience eternal bliss with God. The victory over death is deeply embedded in their theology. Here, then, are those “solutions” to this problem of death, mentioned in part II: fundamentalist Christians believe and tell themselves that they are Special (they are the elect, and they alone will live in Heaven) and will be Rescued from death through faith in Jesus. The most basic of human fears has thereby been fully conquered. There is not even any disguise or duplicity here; Christians are quite unabashed in teaching that their religion is the only one that has the “answer” to death. Indeed, they generally trumpet it as an unrivaled advantage of their system.

But if the existentialists are right, this is a Pyrrhic victory, because death is not a problem; it is the very key to truly living life. Awareness of our finitude, Yalom argues, is absolutely critical to our full appreciation of and immersion in life. An awareness of death actually saves us. How? Because knowing that we will one day die injects an intensity, and poignancy, a sweetness, and even an urgency into life that cannot be had any other way. It makes us realize that we must live now, that life cannot be indefinitely postponed. It makes us realize that life must be appreciated now, tasted in its fullness and drunk deeply of now, because it may not last. Awareness of death makes plain what is truly important in life, and what is not; in Yalom’s phrase, it “trivializes the trivial.” And it can embolden us by teaching us that we can face our worst fears and emerge strengthened.

Thus, by letting go of the fantasy that death can somehow be beaten, cheated, or deferred, then those fantasies can no longer siphon off our energies, and we can appreciate the here-and-now that we do have. In relinquishing an idealized future, we can immerse ourselves in a real present. Awareness of the reality of death saves us because it teaches us to appreciate life.

Isolation - We are ultimately alone, the existentialists taught. What does that mean? Yalom explains:

“To the extent that one is responsible for one’s life, one is alone. Responsibility implies authorship; to be aware of one’s authorship means to forsake the belief that there is another who creates and guards one.” (p. 357)

Thus, though we may have friends, though we may have deeply intimate relationships, even the most intimate of relationships can only be so close. There is an “unbridgeable gulf” between me and every other person. No one can, essentially, get inside my own skull, except me. In the end, we each die alone. No one can die with us or for us. That’s what it means to be alone.

This is a source of anxiety, writes Yalom, because it makes us feel lonely (of course) as well as helpless and frightened – overwhelmed at the responsibility of being one’s own parent, and of having no savior. To be truly aware that no one is out there to take care of me is a deeply frightening realization. But, Yalom insists, it must be done, it must be borne, to some degree at least, “resolutely.” Why? Because there is a steep cost involved in not doing so. If we do not have a savior and cannot tolerate the loneliness, we will very often look for one – someone to save us from our loneliness. We will often try to use those around us to assuage our fears, rather than enjoying intimacy with them for who they are. But that is a hopeless task, because it can’t be done – no one can, in fact, save us from our aloneness. Thus we miss out on what intimacy is possible in the desperate pursuit of an illusion, of what isn’t possible.

Yalom writes:

“If we fail to develop the inner strength, the sense of personal worth and firm identity that enables us to face existential isolation, to say ‘so be it,’ and to take anxiety into ourselves, then we will struggle in oblique ways to find safety.” (p. 373-374)

That “safety” can be found in many ways, which Yalom goes on to develop, but among them, for our purposes, is conformity to a group. It is the attempt to assuage one’s isolation anxiety by submerging the self in the larger identity of a Special group, a group destined to be Rescued: for our example, fundamentalist Christians.

This can have far reaching consequences. Fundamentalist Christians trade in their self for a solid group identity, and thereby try to avoid the terror of isolation. But as with everything, there is a price to be paid for this. Isolation, after all, is the result of individuation, of becoming yourself, of standing out. To trade this in for group identity is to lose yourself. If you doubt this, ask yourself: were you really able to be yourself, fully and unreservedly, when you were a fundamentalist? Did you not find that there were many aspects of yourself (perhaps you are still discovering them!) that were simply denied their right to be, by the group, and thus had to be shoved aside? Many deconverts report that we only truly found out who we were once we left the faith, and here’s why: our relationship with the group was characterized by need. We needed the comfort of conformity to avoid feeling alone, and we were willing to trade away part of ourselves to get it.

So here, again, we find the same theme: only by letting go of what isn’t and cannot be, are we free to appreciate what is. Facing the hard truths about life as a human subject is our salvation.

Next time, we will continue our examination of existentialist by looking at the concept of responsibility.

- Richard

We will begin by looking at some of the themes that emerge in existentialist thought, and see how they can help make some sense of many of the features of fundamentalist Christianity. My thesis is this: fundamentalism is a response to these basic human (which is to say, existential) “givens” in life. It is a way to assuage some of the most difficult and vexing anxiety that comes part-and-parcel with being human. But in doing so, it separates the believer from full participation in life. It is, in the end, life-denying, not life-enhancing.

My guiding text will be Dr. Irvin Yalom’s wonderful 1980 Existential Psychotherapy. Yalom is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and writer working at Stanford who has written extensively on the intersection of existentialist thought and psychotherapy – a topic that could comprise a book in itself. Yalom’s book has become a classic in the field. His clarity and lucidity in representing existentialist concepts and placing them in a psychological context (for, really, where else could they be placed?) has no equal. It is relatively non-technical and I highly recommend it to the interested reader.

Yalom divides his work along four “themes” that were predominant within existentialist writing: death, isolation, responsibility, and meaning. These “themes” became the focus of study among the existentialists because they believed them to be universal emotional experiences, intrinsic to being a human subject. These are, in other words, the basic building blocks of human experience: we are all aware, on some level, that our life and all our projects will one day cease (death), we are aware that we are ultimately alone (isolation), we are aware that we are free to choose our lives and create ourselves (responsibility), and we know that the meaning of our lives will not be given to us, and thus we must create it (meaning).

Existentialism has sometimes been accused of being morbid, but there is a reason for all this focus on death and anxiety and loneliness, and this is critical to understand. The existentialists thought these experiences were so important and so worth struggling with because, though they are always painful, they are nonetheless (to borrow from religious language) our salvation. Facing all these things directly is precisely that which has the power to make us feel alive, to make life worth living. Why? Because once you strip away the illusions of life (all the fanciful stories we tell ourselves to shield ourselves from these painful realities), once you accept what life is not and cannot be, then and only then are you free to appreciate what truly is and can be.

So, here, then, is one motif to watch for as we look at these “themes”: when you let go of illusions about what you wish life was, but isn’t, you can re-focus your energy on appreciating what it is, and thereby live life more fully.

One other thing to pay attention to as we go through Yalom’s themes: there are two ways that fundamentalist belief typically responds to and “solves” each of these “problems”. One, there is a belief in personal Specialness – “These rules will not apply to me. These are universal aspects of other people’s lives, but I will escape this fate”. The other, belief in a Rescuer – someone who will shield the believer from the pain and anxiety he would otherwise have to face.

These defenses, I should add, are not unique to Christianity or Christians. Indeed, Yalom himself gives many examples of them, drawn from his experience as a psychotherapist treating people from all walks of life. His contention is that these defenses are quite widespread (albeit often unconscious) and represent common human ways to stave off existential anxiety. They are not the exclusive purview of religion, and I should further point out that my use of Yalom’s model, in applying it to fundamentalism, is my own idea, not his; his target is broader.

But I contend that in fundamentalism these two defenses, especially, have received deep and powerful elaboration and institutionalization. And thus, in a sense, can be seen to both effectively bind anxiety – yet also keep the believer in a state of suspended animation, separated from the only thing that can really bring him awake to the real world, and to his true “salvation”.

So, keep these themes and defenses in mind as we look at Yalom’s treatment of existential psychology in more detail. Next time, we begin at the end, with death.

- Richard

From time to time there has been interest on this discussion board in existentialist ideas as they pertain to fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity. Since existentialist philosophy was extremely important to me during the course of my own de-conversion, I thought I would take this opportunity to expand on this issue.

This post will serve as part I, a brief overview of existentialism, which many people have only a cursory familiarity with. This will help orient us to the more specific discussion of fundamentalism from an existentialist perspective, in future installments.

Existentialism was a philosophy that flourished during the early part of the twentieth century. It typically is thought to include such thinkers as Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, in the late 19th century, and later individuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, and Martin Heidegger. (There is, of note, no universal agreement as to who was an “existentialist” and many of those individuals listed specifically rejected the label.)

It is difficult to encapsulate what, exactly, existentialism was about, in part because it was in many ways more of a broad intellectual “mood” than an organized philosophy. But even more, the resistance to encapsulation and easy summary is half the point of what existentialism is trying to say. It can be approached a number of ways, but the one that makes the most sense to me is through religion, because that was my own experience. In simplest terms, existentialism asserts that many people live in a state of illusion about life, illusions that buffer them from some hard, painful truths about being human. Existentialism takes note of this and then asks: once you strip away these illusions, what’s left? What does human life consist of, in itself? Some background may help.

For almost a thousand years in Western history, European civilization was dominated by Christianity. The Church was the most powerful social institution, and the life of any given individual was totally enveloped, from birth until death, in the Church. The Christian church provided comfort, guidance, reassurance, purpose, community, and explanations for life. Importantly, the meaning of one’s life was pre-established and handed down: one’s goal, one’s telos, was to lead a Christian life, according to Christian ideals, and prepare for the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Obedience to God was the goal, and submission to God’s guidance was an unqualified good.

Thus, medieval Christianity can be understood to have been a “system”: an organized and explicit set of goals, ideals, values, and prescriptions for what life means and how to live a good life as a human being. If you had questions or were uncertain about some issue in life, you consulted the “system” (through, perhaps, the priest) to get your answer. Christianity told you how to live and provided the meaning of life and the answers in life. (Other “systems” followed the decline of Christianity in the West, such as Enlightenment rationality and Marxism, but here I will focus only on the former.)

It was Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th century who first heralded the problem, as science and Enlightenment ideals advanced, society became more secular, and religious belief began to wane. If meaning and purpose and guidance are bound up in Christianity, and Christianity is starting to fade as the uncontested center of the Western psyche, he asked, what will happen to us? How will we find meaning, and where will we get our values? All values – all that was thought important – were “grounded” in the Christian system. What if the system fails?

Existentialism grew out of such questions and, in effect, responded by rejecting not only the Christian system (this included Christian existentialists! ), it rejected all such “systems”. It explicitly rejected the view that life can be “systematized” according to some predetermined meaning, be it religious or secular. Existentialists believed that life was too messy, complicated, grey, and uncertain to ever fit into any tidy, pre-made intellectual or cultural scheme. Existentialists believed that all such systems attempted to provide easy answers, which were really evasions, for the often painful truths about human life. These truths must be faced if life is to be experienced as worthwhile.

Existentialism relies on basic idea: meaning in life is to be created (not found) only through engagement in life, through immersion in the particular, nitty-gritty, warts-and-all details of one’s own individual life. To try to live one’s life in conformity to an abstract ideal, especially if that ideal has been passively absorbed from one’s culture, can only lead to a meaningless, superficial alienation from oneself. “Meaning” cannot be had in the abstract: there is no “Meaning Of Life”, in general, to be taught and recited. There is only the meaning of my life and your life that is created by living life. Knowledge of, or conformity to, abstract ideals is not enough to create meaning. These truths are matters of the most intense human passion, and must be chosen and lived, not grasped. Meaning is found in living life, not in understanding life.

Existentialism also rejected the rosy optimism usually characteristic of systems, such as of Christianity (and Enlightenment), that all human problems have solutions. It taught that there are certain givens in human life: that every one of us will die, for example, and that fact is a cause for sorrow, and it is a loss that cannot be removed. It taught that we are all responsible for our own lives, and that no one has all the answers or perfect guidance to give us about how to live it. Life cannot be made clean, clear, and simple, for the existentialists: we all must muddle through, doing the best we can. And no one, not the Church, not the Bible, and not our own reason, can make everything okay for us. (And this, incidentally, is why existentialism resists easy summary – to summarize the existentialist “prescription”, so to speak, would be to create just that very system it says can’t work.)

Existentialists thus taught us to face, and indeed embrace, these existential “givens” in life, and to learn to live both courageously (because it is scary to live without the comfort of predetermined meanings handed to us) and joyfully (because it is also sad to give up those comforts). But those comforts are illusions, say the existentialists, and human maturity is to recognize this and learn to live a good life anyway. Life without illusions, life made one’s own by living it rather than by playing some role, and an affirmation of life despite all its pains and sorrows: that is what existentialism was about.

Thus, with this background, we can begin to look at how evangelical Christianity can be seen against this understanding, and look at what the alternative might be.

- Richard

One example of twentieth century Christian martyrs is the missionary Jim Elliot and his four co-workers Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and Nate Saint. There were two recent movies made telling their story: End of the Spear and the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor. In 1956, these five men felt called to share the gospel with the Auca Indians of Ecuador, a violent indigenous people group who had never had friendly contact with the outside world. After a promising brief encounter including an airplane ride for one of the Waodoni (Auca) nicknamed George, they made plans to actually visit the tribe. During their journey they were ambushed and speared to death by ten Waodoni (Auca) men.

The thing that is astounding to me about this story is the reaction of their families. Two years later the wife and sister of two of the murdered missionaries, Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint, went to live with and minister to the same people who had killed the ones they loved. Even now, the son of one of the missionaries killed, along with his family, live with the tribe. His children now call one of the elders of the tribe "grandfather," even though he is the same one who killed their real grandfather.

Reflecting on these stories got me thinking. What would I die for? Or to what or for whom would I sacrifice my life? What about you?

And secondly, is this kind of forgiveness possible outside of divine intervention?

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. - Jim Elliot

- rfogue (Rachel)

Are de-cons open to returning to the faith or is that impossible?

Here are a few of the responses from d-C contributors and readers:

I try to remain open to returning to my old faith, but am seeing less and less possibility as time goes on and searches prove unfruitful.
- Quester

I’m open to learning new things and changing my mind. However, after studying and seeking for over 40 years, I really doubt that I will suddenly discover that God is real. - writerdd

Sort of like asking Christians if they are open to new religions, is it not? Only in this case we are people who have at least admitted that we are capable of changing our minds on the subject. The problem is that this question implies that this was a conscious decision on our parts. For myself, and most here, it isn’t. If the evidence in support of whatever version of Christianity is strong enough, I am sure I would accept it - as a former apologeticist, I have only found that it fails in every historical and philosophical aspect known to myself. - TheApostate

“With God all things are possible.” That’s not totally tongue-in-cheek. If there is a god, and if he can show me he’s real, I would love to believe again. I’d be back “in the fold” in a moment if God would really act as he often did in the Bible. (Healings, epiphanies, prophecies, etc) But as long as there is NO activity or other evidence of existence on God’s part, I cannot believe. - LeoPardus

No, it is not impossible - but it is very highly unlikely. I have read - and still read - plenty of apologetic books. But I have also read plenty of other books that show how these Christian apologetics really cheat with facts and logic - I don’t know if it willful or not, but … and I hate to sound condescending, but I can see right through most of it. I do not engage online much anymore, but I am asking more and more questions of my old Christian friends. I have asked God countless times to give me a reason to hang on to belief. I figure if God wants me to believe, he knows how to do it. Maybe someday he will!! But until that day comes, I cannot build my faith based on the personal experience of others. - HeIsSailing

It would be like returning to an abusive ex.

- The Nerd

If I am honest, I still hold on to a single thread of my faith now. But I hope to cut that thread soon because its based solely in fear. - WalkingAway

Impossible. I could see myself attending a church for social reasons (e. g., a UU church or an ethical society)
- blueollie

It is very very unlikely that I will return to belief. I am as sure as Richard Dawkins about this. However it is possible to use brainwashing techniques like or other immoral and covert methods to take me back to where I was. But that won’t last long, I will still crawl back on feet with the crutches of reason and morality. (One of the evangelical leaders of the catholic “cult” my mom’s part of, tried to threaten me of using his political powers to get me identified as medically insane and tried other immoral ways to get me back into faith, but I crawled back into atheism within a month.) - edwinhere

At this point I cannot see myself re-believing. I would need evidence, and at this point I do not see any forthcoming.
- Nick

I don’t know how to answer this one. If I had good reasons to, of course. But I don’t, so I don’t see any reason to. It’s possible, but not unless there’s a reason to. - Bad

It is impossible for me to return to mainstream Christianity. There would be a possibility for some of the more esoteric paths. Of course those are not considered Christian by most, so not sure it would still be possible. But then again, I am not technically an Atheist either since I do believe in a creative force, that we are all a part of. - dancingmoogle

I’m not planning to return to that particular faith or any similar.

- Clair

I could never return to the faith the way things are now, but if there was to be some sort of extraordinary evidence that made doubting the existence of god require more faith and denial of more facts than belief in god does now, then sure, I would believe again. - orDover

Short of the Rapture actually occurring, I don’t see myself ever returning. (But I could be mistaken!) - Ubi Dubium

I’m definitely open to returning. But I need a reason to return. “Feelings” and mundane miracles aren’t God. I can’t believe in a God that only chooses to reveal himself in ways that non-believers experience with the same frequency. Given that after 23 years of belief I can find no evidence of a real God, I don’t really expect to find it now. - SnugglyBuffalo

I spent several years looking for even the slightest reason to stay and my ultimate goal was to find the truth. If I find that I have reached this decision in error…of course I would return. - finallyhappy

That depends on what you mean by “faith.” If you mean a belief in the Christian God, then yes, I am open to that, if given sufficient evidence. If you mean “faith” as a method of thinking, then no. Faith is a broken way of thinking. This can be easily demonstrated. - SavageBeginner

I would return in a moment, given my extensive involvement in the church. However, I can’t do so until I see a reason to believe in it over any other religious system. - Bob

I can’t currently imagine anything that would make me return to Christianity, or any other religion. - Stephen P.

Not going to happen. At least not the Christian faith. I never say never in terms of what I may believe down the road, but Christianity has pretty much killed any desire I would have to go back. - SarahC

No. Why? Because after researching and learning many other religions, I have found that 99% of them are all the same with the same basic principles. It doesn’t matter which one you belong to, that is like having 6 different colored t-shirts of the same kind…doesn’t matter, there are only minor differences. - Sandy

Can you provide reliable evidence, or even a sound logical argument that doesn’t just prove that a god “isn’t impossible?” Even then, is that god worthy of worship? - Steve

I’ve always been open to returning to the faith, just as soon as someone could produce ANY evidence whatsoever that it’s not just a big dog-and-pony show in the land of make believe. But let’s be honest… that’s never going to happen. - Randy Hunt

As such, I am more and more coming to the position, like Sam Harris, that religion itself requires deconstruction. The whole system is flawed and really should just be pulled apart. Depth and meaning, or sacredness and spirituality, can still flow through the culture without the necessity for institutions to administer it. I was never really into institutional religion even through my Christian years. I viewed my simple faith and pentecostal experiences to be superior to the extra baggage that seemed to be carried in other traditions. Still, that did not make me irreligious, just skeptical of the validity of the other forms. As I moved through my deconstruction process, I have tried to remain as open-minded as possible to the potential good that could still exist in the religious traditions, particularly Christianity. Unfortunately, it seems the negatives far outweigh the positives when it comes to the contribution that religion makes today.

I guess the most pertinent question to ask is, how useful is religion? What is religion’s contribution to the world? Some would say the benevolence, such as aid organizations that are currently supporting Burma and China in their recent disasters. Others might say that they have a tremendous unifying power, bringing people together under a system and banner that makes for effective community. These things may be true, but do they outweigh the pathologies? The institutional religions by-and-large hold on to archaic and imperialistic beliefs about the world and reality that more than counter any aid effort, instead leading to death and destruction. Christians might say, granted this may be true for Islam, even for Judaism, but not for Christianity with its peace-loving Saviour. Putting the historical argument of the Crusades aside, I have to again side with Harris in the thought that irrational beliefs, such as those promoted in the Left Behind series, do impact foreign policy, and are cited as motivators for war. Why should we consider the word of one person writing over 1,000 years ago (Augustine) to be definitive in the cause of launching a ‘just war’? Moderate believers who promote tolerance within their own traditions are condoning beliefs that lead to senseless violence.

So, is there a reasonable faith? There might be, so long as the beliefs in question are held lightly and are open to question. I would suggest that faith must be progressive for it to be reasonable. In other words, it must be open to change and correction. There is no room for reason and arrogance to coincide, whether believer or atheist. Willful ignorance should be challenged wherever it exists, without the necessity to resort to pettiness.

These stories have shown that there are a number of ways of supporting Christians who make steps towards de-conversion, but in almost every single case it appears that the doubt that led to de-conversion came from within the individual.

Here’s the only story I found among the one hundred and seventeen I examined that credited de-conversion to the specific intervention of an atheist:

I ran into a very good friend and told him the story of my conversion. He was not critical, but kept asking questions about why I took to this religion and specifically required that I put things in my own words instead of mouthing what I had been told. He made me think! and that’s all it took.

We can tell people that there are alternatives to Christianity, and for many people who chafe at the stupidity of religion yet are unable to properly express it, this is liberating. We can raise questions about the dogma, hypocrisy, or the illogical beliefs of religion, but most people who cited these as factors, raised the questions themselves.

In addition, we must defend science and rationalism from attacks, especially in education. As we saw from earlier examples, fundamentalist Christians have to wage war on science. They have correctly identified that their beliefs either need to accommodate a rational understanding of reality, or they have to destroy or discredit rational identity in the eyes of their followers.

However, as atheists, we delude ourselves if we think that we have some kind of role in “shaking up” peoples faith even though we can provide the resources to support people trapped in the religious paradigm. Ultimately a person has to liberate themselves from religion, it is not for us to assume the role of atheist proselytes.

- Originally published by Kieran Bennett, reprinted with permission.

Then my 24 yr. old daughter fell in love with an atheist. I love my children more than anything. I want the best for them. My daughter has had her share of downers in her young life. Chronic illness, depression, numerous failures, disappointment in people and especially in boyfriends. This man is everything she has wanted. He is kind, responsible, honest, hard working, treats her wonderfully, encourages her to be her best, and really loves her. We’ve always told our children that the most important thing when looking for a mate is to be sure they are a Christian. The funny thing is that he has better values than most Christian guys she has dated.

At first, my reaction was terror. I live in the South where admitted atheists are a scary oddity. What to do…Should I call all our Christian friends and have a prayer vigil asking God to take this infidel out of my daughter’s life? Do I beg her to break up with him? Do I fear for her soul? Do I grieve for her? Surprisingly, I felt happy and excited for her. What was wrong with me? How could I be happy for her? ...

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Here is what he found:

1. Dissatisfaction with the answers to simple questions proffered by the religion was the most common reason cited for de-conversion amongst the sample (14.89%).
2. The realisation that religious dogma contradicted observable reality was the second most an equally common reason for de-conversion cited within the sample (also at 14.89%).
3. 12.76% of the de-converted Christians in the sample spoke about realising the contradictions within the dogma itself.
4. For 10.63% of people in the sample, reading the bible was significant in ending their faith.
5. Only 8.51% of people in the sample attributed their de-conversion to the hypocrisy of the church.
6. In another 8.51% of the de-conversion stories, people tried to speak to god and they now credit god’s lack of an answer for their de-conversion
7. And finally, stumbling across the realisation that many religions were just like theirs caused deep doubts for 8.5% of the sample he read.

Here are the links to the series (not in the same order as above):

• Answer the damn question Mr. Priest!
• Logical Problems with the Dogma
• The Bible Killed My Faith
• The Hypocritical Churches
• The Problem of Other Religions
• Stand Back, I’m going to try SCIENCE!
• Where are you Jesus?

NOTE: Feel free to copy this post to your personal blog if you wish to link to the series.

“One day, I was praying and suddenly it struck me that I was talking to myself.”

The following examples are from the 8.51% of the de-conversion stories, amongst the sample I read, in which people tried to speak to god, and they now credit god’s lack of an answer for their de-conversion.

“Being very eager to please, I would often beg Jesus to save me. Expecting trumpets and angels, or at the very least a pat on the head, and getting nothing, I think I just eventually realised god wasn’t going to answer.”

For some the experience of god failing to answer their prayers as promised was a highly distressing experience:

In high school, I gradually started to question more, but did not get satisfactory answers. My prayers for clarity and a stronger faith went unanswered. Why would God let my faith slip? That was the question that haunted me for years.

Others simply felt ridiculous:

I got older, I realized that I was supposed to be getting more out of it. Or some people, apparently, were. So, I tried praying on my own. At no point did I ever feel anything other than stupid for doing that — the way a person might feel if they attempted to hold a conversation with a doorknob!

Or perhaps disappointed:

I remember when I was very young and I heard for the first time that “whatsoever ye ask for, ye shall receive” line. I prayed really long and hard one night for a pony. I awoke and looked out my bedroom window, fully expecting to see a pony waiting for me in the yard. That was my first “clue.”

Religionists will make all form of excuses for the failure of prayer, but the fact is that a religion that centres around talking to god makes the implicit promise that god is listening. Prayer is important to many Christians, and undermining it might seem tempting to many activist atheists. However, once again it seems that people who came to these sorts of realisations did so on their own accord.

- Originally published by Kieran Bennett, reprinted with permission.

There is something very important about the nature of this debate that must be taken into consideration: we are not asking our debaters to defend the "truth" of their position, but the pragmatics of it. For some this may be irrelevant, but since this is a politics and society blog we believe that it is the best fit for what we are trying to do here at the Political Inquirer. Readers, if you would like to push our debaters to discuss topics not related to the main debate feel free to leave a comment. Let us begin the first round:

Question one is this: "Can you please explain why you believe that Theism is beneficial or detrimental/dangerous to society in general? Leo, since "M" when first last time, you can begin today. Give us your summary.

LEO: I am quite convinced that Theism, in its myriad forms, has been a benefit and a detriment to human society. Let me provide a few examples on both sides:
Benefits
1. Oberlin, Harvard, and Princeton are just a few of the top schools founded, funded, and headed by Christians, and with Christian ideals.
2. Churches have funded and founded many health care establishments.
3. Many churches are truly marvelous at caring for their members.
4. The Christian faith has inspired beautiful works of art, classics of literature, glorious music, and majestic prodigies of architecture.

Detriments
1. Religion has been the caused of many wars, pogroms. et cetra.
2. Religious leaders have been known to justify murder of the grounds of blasphemy.
3. There have been plenty of instances of ill people ceasing to take medication prescribed to them by doctors, and dying as a result. Some Theist have died because they refused blood transfusions on religious grounds.
4. Religious believers have been known to ostracize, and in some cases even murder, their children rather than allow them to become atheist or marry someone from a different religion.
5. Religious motivations have been behind the destruction of many works of art, book, and so forth.

Let's face it: Theism is just too big and too varied to condemn or venerate en masse. Even narrowed down to Christianity, Islam, et cetra. It's just too big for blanket praise or condemnation.

For me, I can only look at individuals, and sometimes tightly described circumscribed groups, and assess them based on principles of basic, human decency. Principles like: Do they help people in need? Do they follow the maxim of, "first do no harm"? Do they try to live the "Golden Rule"? Can they allow others to believe something different without condemning or attacking them (i.e. Evangelism is fine; sword-point evangelism is not). Any Theist or Theistic group that lives by such principles is probably beneficial. Any Theist or Theistic group that does not, we can all probably do without.

BRIAN: Thank you for your response. "M", same question.

"M": I believe that Theism--the belief that there is a personal, transcendent, omni-characteristic Deity--is ultimately a benefit for society. I believe that this concept allows human beings to construct foundational truths about morality, rationality, government, human nature, and it also gives people objective purpose and motivation. I do not believe that Theism is a detriment to society; rather I believe that willful ignorance is a detriment to society, in so much as those that display this sort of character only wish to follow their own desires and warp certain beliefs to those desires. I do not believe that beliefs have control over people--somewhat like the concept of a parasite "meme"--rather, that many people choose what they wish to believe based on the desires that they have (whether good or bad).

And while I may believe that people are subjective about what they consider to be true, I do not believe that truth is subjective. I do believe that there are objective methods to finding truth and that there are such things as objective good and evil. Simply put: human beings will do with themselves as they will.

BRIAN: Thank you "M". "M" here is the second question, "Is it possible for someone from a Theistic worldview to pragmatically uphold the concept of the separation of religion and state?"

"M": Yes, it is possible. Some specific forms of Theism even argue for the separation of religion from government. For instance, early Christians during the medieval synthesis of Greek thought and Christianity, known as the period of Scholasticism, began the very concept of tolerantia (now known as tolerance, obviously) during a time when Church and State were not separate, which may shock some people to know.

Even Muslim theologians later took on this concept when interpreting the Qu'ran and develop their nations by it. Do I believe that religion should be entirely excluded from the State, and vice-versa? No. I also believe that theocratic governments can be just as tolerant and non-theocratic governments and that both can be equally tyrannical.

A society can have a theocratic system without having to impose all its regulations on non-believing citizens. There is also a point where a society need not be tolerant of all sorts of actions: child sacrifice and cannibalism are two examples of foreign cultural practices that need not be adopted.

BRIAN: Leo, your turn.

LEO: Yes, it is. Of course, whether any given Theist would do well at this depends upon their particular theology and upon their interpretation of "separation of religion and state". A Theist who thinks the country ought to be run by "Bible/Qu'ran/Dialects/Et Cetra" is certainly not going to do a good job of upholding separation, nor would someone who insists that "separation of religion and state" is not a constitutional concept.

On the other hand, a Theist who looks to his faith as a guide to decency and morality, and who recognizes plurality and religious freedom as good and necessary, could do a fine job balancing personal faith and public services.

BRIAN: Leo, on the same note, "Is it necessary in a society like the United States, which is both religious in nature and pluralistic in practice, for a politician to reflect these values? OR put another way: do Theist make better political representatives in America because they best represent the views of the American public?"

LEO: I don't know that it is necessary, but it is a nice benefit if a politician can at least acknowledge and value plurality and the place of religion in a country. And it is necessary for political bodies (e.g. Congress) to reflect the society they represent. Failure of representation is the sort of thing that leads to civil unrest and even rebellion.

As regards who makes better representatives, I don't think any individual can be a really good representative of a pluralistic society. The best an individual can do in that vein is to safeguard freedom and plurality of religion, opinion, et cetra. But in the larger picture, many representatives, of varying religions, can represent a pluralistic society. So I am all in favor of Theist in Congress. And I wouldn't mind seeing a few Atheist/Agnostics in there as well. A pluralistic society needs a pluralistic government.

BRIAN: Well put, Leo. "M", your response?

"M": I think it is necessary for two reasons: (1) Theist are better politicians in this scenario because they understand and represent the majority that they help guide and rule. (2) Theist have a better understanding of "absolutes" and the foundation for laws.

 Now, many may ask me why I believe that an Atheist is not as good in this position. Though it may appear that I am contradicting myself, I believe that an Atheist can make just-as-good a politician as any Theist as regards to moral quality as well as how one leads the country. Why do I not consider this to be a contradiction? Because I believe that an Atheist can only do so if they have been raised in a Theistic society where they have been culturally conditioned with such beliefs to begin with, such as absolute moral laws, objective purpose, et cetra. I do not believe that a purely Atheistic society, which has never been influences by Theism, can provide these foundational benefits.

BRIAN:Thank you "M". That was very Vox Day-ish. Our fourth question is this, "Does Theism eventually lead to good or bad foreign policy? Does the common bond of belief in a god or gods make foreign policy better or worse? Or is Theism dangerous to foreign policy because it could cause conflict between, for example, a predominately Christian country and a predominately Islamic country?" Back to you "M".

"M": I think that Theism, in general, is no problem at all. I believe that people who share common ground can certainly find solutions at a faster rate, if not an easier one. As I stated before, I think people and their willful ignorance are the true dangers to the world.

Brian: Leo?

Leo: An understanding of the beliefs in other lands is indispensable to good foreign policy. So if one's faith fosters a respect and an appreciation for the beliefs and practices of others, that should be a good thing for international relations. Conversely, if one's personal theology is superior-istic, or condescending toward other faiths, and that faith largely informs one's foreign policy, then that foreign policy is going to have nothing but headaches and fire fights.

BRIAN: Final question:Let me present a hypothetical situation: Let us say that one-hundred years fron now the idea of god has faded away regarding the thinking and practice of the American people. What does this society look like? Does it reflect progress, digress, chaos, or something else? Give me your picture of a post-god American society. Leo, you go first.

Leo: This is really tough; such futuristic scenarios are usually the purview of science fiction writers.

I think the only way to even approach this is to look at other societies that have already gone a ways down that road. France, Denmark, Holland, and Sweden all have long, full, "Christian" pasts, and all of them now have very low church attendance and a low percentage of believers (according to surveys). How do they look?

France, Denmark, and Sweden have a substantial welfare system and centralized health care. Personal health measures are generally good in all four above-mentioned countries. Life expectancy, personal wealth, and home ownership are high in all four. Denmark and Sweden have quite low crime rates. Holland and France have slightly higher, though still low, crime rates. Teenage sexual activity is variously reported, but seems to run no higher than the United States. The number of teenage abortions per 1000 is low in all four countries and lower than the US.

To be sure, there are many parameters to look at in attempting to assess other countries and compare them to the US. But it's really not possible to make the case that the more "godless" countries are in a moral freefall or otherwise descending into chaos.

I don't really know what a "post-Christian" US would look like. No one does. But based on the history of other modern nations that appear to be a good deal further down the "post-Christian" road, I am quite comfortable that the visions of dystopia held out by some are not likely at all to come to pass. By the same token, the visions of utopia held out by others are equally unrealistic.

BRIAN: Very well-said. Thank you Leo for your participation and we look forward to hearing more from you in round two as well as in the comments section below if you do decide to participate there. "M", final word.

"M": This is a very heavy question that requires a very heavy answer. I will try to summarize it here: I believe that a godless society, with no prior influence of Theism, and no acceptance of the idea cannot survive. I believe that such a society reflects digress and ultimately chaos that will lead to self-destruction. Why do I believe this?

I believe this because a godless society cannot justify any of the foundational truths that Theism provides, nor can it leech from other Theisticsocieties (presuming there are not at the time) for those truths. We have never truly seen a godless society before, but we have seen what self-proclaimed Atheisticsocietieshave led to, such as the adoption of pseudo-religious dogmas and rituals for the sake of ordering the masses (SovietUnion). We have also seen what the total annihilation of religion can do to society, such as during portions of the French Revolution and many of the WWII and post-war Atheistic States.

BRIAN:That is all for round one. Thank you "M", thank you again Leo. We will hear from both of you again next Thursday and Friday right here at PoliticalInquirer.com. Until next week, readers, please leave comments and let the discussion continue.