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Author Topic:   Get Over Your Fear of Atheism
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 1 of 2 (392599)
04-01-2007 1:57 PM


For Faith and Belief.
Every now and then, the religious just lay it out for all to see. From a proposed new topic:
mpb1 writes:
Several months ago, with the help of a number of forumers at TheologyWeb, I went from YEC to OEC to "confused OEC / theistic evolutionist," and nearly lost my faith altogether. I considered the possibility of becoming an atheist, and realized I'd rather be a (potentially) self-deluded follower of Christ, than to walk away from the faith.
It's difficult to imagine how a scientific theory could lead someone to a loss of faith, given the backbends religion, with the infinite flexibility of a belief system based on wishful thinking, is capable of. Nonetheless I think the last sentence really lays it out - MPB1 genuinely chose to delude himself rather than accept atheism.
I guess I'd like to know - why? As an atheist I can assure you - the water's fine. Giving up religion didn't turn my world upside down or leave me drifting in the wind. Drifting in the wind was what I was doing in religion, when I had "committed my life to Christ" and "turned the wheel over to God", as it were. I discovered, though, that when you "turn the wheel over to God", there's nobody in the driver's seat.
Realizing that I was the one who had to steer - that I had to make a decision about what my life would be like and what I would become - gave me purpose where before I was aimless.
Atheism - what's to fear, MBP1? It seems like you're spending a lot of time trying to twist the Bible into some kind of framework that superficially matches the scientific consensus; the problem is that you're trying to hit a moving target. As the consensus evolves and changes in the light of new information and evidence, you'll just wind up having to twist the Bible again.
Does that strike you as an intellectually fulfilling endeavor? For that matter, go back to when you just decided what you wanted to believe - when you knowingly chose self-deception over what you suspected was true.
How can that be a path to truth? How can wishful thinking lead to the truth?
I'm not great at writing OP's; I'm a reactionary rather than proactionary thinker, I guess. And the way I reacted to your post was that it struck me how much your narrative sounded like a gay person struggling in the closet. "I don't want to come out!" he says to himself. "It's so much easier if people think I'm straight. Maybe I can convince myself that I'm not gay if I just try hard enough."
I'm not gay myself, but I've come to understand what a truly crippling thing the closet is. It's crippling not to accept what you know to be true about yourself. It's crippling to reject a truth because you're afraid of what your spouse, or your children, or your community will think about you.
When I read what you wrote there I wanted to reach out to you. It's clear that you have suspicions about atheism but also a great fear of what it means to become one of America's most hated and feared minorities. It's not easy because other people don't make it easy. But it doesn't mean that your kids won't grow up in a moral framework (and you should rethink your enthusiasm about trying to brainwash your kids in a faith you suspect isn't true.) It doesn't mean your spouse will abandon you. It doesn't mean you'll stop finding fellowship with your community and peers.
I envision this as a thread where what it means to live as an atheist can be explored, and what, if anything, is lost or gained when the choice is made to abandon self-deception and embrace atheism. I feel that gaining a better understanding of what's real is worth it, and I don't recall losing anything in the choice that hadn't slipped away from me long before.

AdminNosy
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Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 2 of 2 (392617)
04-01-2007 3:31 PM


Thread copied to the Get Over Your Fear of Atheism thread in the Faith and Belief forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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