A good start to 2011, our back doors lock is broken, the head gasket on my car has gone and the heating engineer has told us our boiler needs replacing! I think I need a drink!
On the bright side I did order a new lens for my camera, a sigma 18-250mm. I've been after one for ages. Thankfully it was ordered before all the unexpected expenses. I feel guilty but I'm sure I will get over it!
Wednesday 12 January 2011
Sunday 2 January 2011
Some Background.
I feel I should make it clear from the start that I have no problem with people holding religious beliefs. I have met many wonderful people who are religious in one form or another, as well as some who were thoroughly unpleasant. I have met people who's lives have been turned around by their religious experience, were in others it seems to feed there psychological problems. I feel in some ways my time within the church has improved me.
The reason for these posts is more a way for me to get my head around the changes I have been through and not to try to prove everyone else wrong or try to damage other peoples faith. If there is one thing I have learnt it is that there are few absolutes in life. I am quite open to the possibility of my views changing again in the future.
I hope I may attract readers from all worldviews, whether militant atheist, fundamentalist Christian, or any of the many shades of gray in between. I hope I will learn something from everyone.
So, where to begin?
My parents are religious people of the "hatch, match and dispatch" type. They describe themselves as Christian, but only attend church for those all important family events. Neither has any real knowledge of theology and I have never seen either read a bible at any time. My father was for many years a Freemason, which does take some of its ideas from scripture. My mother has a fascination with mediums, psychics and the like.
I converted to evangelical Christianity shortly after my brother did and began to attend a local Nazarene chapel. I was very shy and withdrawn and lacked confidence so I think that the feeling that I was part of something so big had an obvious attraction. Suddenly I had gone from being a quiet kid who got bullied a lot to someone who was friends with God! Sadly I still got bullied a lot but I did start to get more confident.
I got involved with the local Youth for Christ group and even got involved in street evangelism. I joined a Christian rock band, the other members were Pentecostals and and much more extreme than my church. They even got me into speaking in tongues, arguably the lowliest of the gifts of the Holy Spirit but so much easier than anything useful like words of knowledge or healing the sick!
I even became quite keen on training as a Pastor and visited the Nazarene College to see what I thought of it. Luckily it put me off!
The cracks in my faith started to appear quite early, but i plowed on regardless, I suppose I was scared to let go of what I thought I had gained and also scared of possible judgment if I was wrong.
My main problem was with the central theme of our beliefs. That God had created us perfect and that we had supposedly rebelled as a species and now deserved eternal punishment in hell unless we repented and believed in the Jesus that the evangelical church believed in.
I remember reading a letter in a bible study booklet that I had been given. It was written by a young girl of around 8yrs who was scared that her parents would got to hell because they weren't Christians. It really upset me at the time (and still does now, maybe Dawkins does have a point about religion being child abuse) and it seemed so wrong that a loving God could be that cruel.
Another time I listened to a sermon by a more moderate Nazarene Pastor who talked about the old argument of what happens to people in distant tribes who have never heard the gospel. Many I had met said they would go to hell unless we went and converted them, something that did not fit with any definition of a just deity I could think of. But this Pastor said they would got to heaven, by default if you like. I spoke to him after and asked why we bothered sending missionaries to convert them if they were already going to heaven and weren't we actually making it more likely that they would go to hell, as many would reject our message. It seemed this had never occurred to him, but rather than giving him pause for thought he just laughed at me.
Once I was stopped by a street preacher who asked me if I wanted to hear the good news. "Its OK" I said "I'm a Christian already" to which he replied "Do you speak in tongues?" I told him I didn't, by this time I had left behind that fad. "Then your not a Christian!" he told me. I asked him where the bible said that and he admitted it didn't but every time someone became a Christian in the New Testament they spoke in tongues. I pointed out that Paul had said "Do all speak in tongues, do all prophesy" his obvious point was that no they don't. At this point he appeared to become bored with talking to someone who had half a clue what they were talking about and went to find someone else to annoy.
I was beginning to realise how varied peoples beliefs were and how absolutely certain they were that there view was the only true one. I also realised this was true of other religions as well, and who was I to say they were wrong?
Other things worried me, the churches attitude to homosexuals, how can you condemn someone for the way they were made? My certainty that I had been miraculously saved from a car accident when I was eight (the car I was in flipped over and I was thrown out onto the motorway and the car landed on top of me, I suffered some bruising and have a blind spot in one eye as a souvenir!) when so many others die, surely God didn't love me more than them?
It took many years for me to finally reach the point were I totally rejected religion.
It was a quote from Gene Rodenberry that finally made me realise I was not alone in my reasoning.
He said "We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes."
This summed up all I had been thinking in one simple sentence. As I continued read other atheists quotes and articles I was amazed to discover that nothing I had been struggling with was unique to me.
When I finally realised that I know longer believed in god I was surprised at how easy it was to let go and how much happier I am without it.
I do sometimes get that nagging "what if I'm wrong?" feeling, but as I have already said asked it just as often as a Christian. The only difference is that when I asked it as a Christian I struggled to find a satisfactory answer, now I find it easy to think through my doubts and reject those doubts.
Some believers will no doubt argue that as a christian my doubts were caused by the devil and I have been fooled by him and that now my doubts are the "still, small voice of God". It amazes me how weak and powerless they feel their God is compared to the Devil!
So, that is essentially the story so far. I have rambled a bit and there is much more I could have written, but I think I have covered most of the main points. I will be interested to see what reaction this gets.
The reason for these posts is more a way for me to get my head around the changes I have been through and not to try to prove everyone else wrong or try to damage other peoples faith. If there is one thing I have learnt it is that there are few absolutes in life. I am quite open to the possibility of my views changing again in the future.
I hope I may attract readers from all worldviews, whether militant atheist, fundamentalist Christian, or any of the many shades of gray in between. I hope I will learn something from everyone.
So, where to begin?
My parents are religious people of the "hatch, match and dispatch" type. They describe themselves as Christian, but only attend church for those all important family events. Neither has any real knowledge of theology and I have never seen either read a bible at any time. My father was for many years a Freemason, which does take some of its ideas from scripture. My mother has a fascination with mediums, psychics and the like.
I converted to evangelical Christianity shortly after my brother did and began to attend a local Nazarene chapel. I was very shy and withdrawn and lacked confidence so I think that the feeling that I was part of something so big had an obvious attraction. Suddenly I had gone from being a quiet kid who got bullied a lot to someone who was friends with God! Sadly I still got bullied a lot but I did start to get more confident.
I got involved with the local Youth for Christ group and even got involved in street evangelism. I joined a Christian rock band, the other members were Pentecostals and and much more extreme than my church. They even got me into speaking in tongues, arguably the lowliest of the gifts of the Holy Spirit but so much easier than anything useful like words of knowledge or healing the sick!
I even became quite keen on training as a Pastor and visited the Nazarene College to see what I thought of it. Luckily it put me off!
The cracks in my faith started to appear quite early, but i plowed on regardless, I suppose I was scared to let go of what I thought I had gained and also scared of possible judgment if I was wrong.
My main problem was with the central theme of our beliefs. That God had created us perfect and that we had supposedly rebelled as a species and now deserved eternal punishment in hell unless we repented and believed in the Jesus that the evangelical church believed in.
I remember reading a letter in a bible study booklet that I had been given. It was written by a young girl of around 8yrs who was scared that her parents would got to hell because they weren't Christians. It really upset me at the time (and still does now, maybe Dawkins does have a point about religion being child abuse) and it seemed so wrong that a loving God could be that cruel.
Another time I listened to a sermon by a more moderate Nazarene Pastor who talked about the old argument of what happens to people in distant tribes who have never heard the gospel. Many I had met said they would go to hell unless we went and converted them, something that did not fit with any definition of a just deity I could think of. But this Pastor said they would got to heaven, by default if you like. I spoke to him after and asked why we bothered sending missionaries to convert them if they were already going to heaven and weren't we actually making it more likely that they would go to hell, as many would reject our message. It seemed this had never occurred to him, but rather than giving him pause for thought he just laughed at me.
Once I was stopped by a street preacher who asked me if I wanted to hear the good news. "Its OK" I said "I'm a Christian already" to which he replied "Do you speak in tongues?" I told him I didn't, by this time I had left behind that fad. "Then your not a Christian!" he told me. I asked him where the bible said that and he admitted it didn't but every time someone became a Christian in the New Testament they spoke in tongues. I pointed out that Paul had said "Do all speak in tongues, do all prophesy" his obvious point was that no they don't. At this point he appeared to become bored with talking to someone who had half a clue what they were talking about and went to find someone else to annoy.
I was beginning to realise how varied peoples beliefs were and how absolutely certain they were that there view was the only true one. I also realised this was true of other religions as well, and who was I to say they were wrong?
Other things worried me, the churches attitude to homosexuals, how can you condemn someone for the way they were made? My certainty that I had been miraculously saved from a car accident when I was eight (the car I was in flipped over and I was thrown out onto the motorway and the car landed on top of me, I suffered some bruising and have a blind spot in one eye as a souvenir!) when so many others die, surely God didn't love me more than them?
It took many years for me to finally reach the point were I totally rejected religion.
It was a quote from Gene Rodenberry that finally made me realise I was not alone in my reasoning.
He said "We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes."
This summed up all I had been thinking in one simple sentence. As I continued read other atheists quotes and articles I was amazed to discover that nothing I had been struggling with was unique to me.
When I finally realised that I know longer believed in god I was surprised at how easy it was to let go and how much happier I am without it.
I do sometimes get that nagging "what if I'm wrong?" feeling, but as I have already said asked it just as often as a Christian. The only difference is that when I asked it as a Christian I struggled to find a satisfactory answer, now I find it easy to think through my doubts and reject those doubts.
Some believers will no doubt argue that as a christian my doubts were caused by the devil and I have been fooled by him and that now my doubts are the "still, small voice of God". It amazes me how weak and powerless they feel their God is compared to the Devil!
So, that is essentially the story so far. I have rambled a bit and there is much more I could have written, but I think I have covered most of the main points. I will be interested to see what reaction this gets.
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