I really tried for years to hold onto my faith. I am sure that my religious friends and family are exceedingly disappointed with me. They should not be. This blog is just a collection of the various thoughts, niggles, quandaries, and conundrums that eventually led me away from faith. I never believed in Santa Claus, and I had the Tooth Fairy thing figured out by my 7th birthday (though I kept up the charade until all of my baby teeth had fallen out--didn't want to lose that gravy train). I had nagging doubts that persisted well into adolescence, but puberty was a pretty compelling distraction that kept me from thinking about these issues until the flood of reproductive hormones abated somewhat. Even after puberty, I remained firmly ensconced in Christianity because that was the demographic I had grown comfortable with. This is not to say that I did not try to believe; I wanted to be just like those of the faith for whom faith came so easily. I wanted to be able to say "look what God has done for me, isn't He great?" with the same level of sincerity as those I most admired, respected, and loved. I felt both hypocritical and guilty; the latter because I knew I didn't believe the words escaping my lips, and the former because I knew I was lying.
Christians who read this blog will probably casually dismiss me as having never "truly" been "saved." Setting aside for a moment that I don't believe that such a thing exists, and that Christianity is nothing more than a masquerade of piety, I wanted more than almost anything (except to find my soulmate, which was my #1 priority) to be just like them. I wanted to have the faith that "moves mountains." I sincerely wanted it. I went through the motions in the hopes that (in the words of my father) I could "fake it until I made it." I memorized Bible verses, volunteered at my church, tried to "witness" to people, and (at least in my adulthood) pursued friendships with others of my faith. This is not to say that I did not have lapses or that I was a perfect Christian or that I steadfastly pursued Christian ideals, by any means; my adolescence and religious adulthood were marked with vacillations between periods of faith pursuit and apathy, the latter usually due to frustration with not having found "my place in God's plan." The point is that I really wanted what I thought God wanted from me. I really wanted to plot my course in accordance with God's plan, and I envied those Christians for whom this act came so easily.
I was raised in an exceedingly religious home, thus I was never given a chance to discover "truth"--whatever that may be--for myself. Religious faith was mandatory in my father's home. We were made to go to church every Sunday, regardless of what else was going on. I was "saved" when I was about five or so. My mother more or less coaxed me through the prayer of salvation after explaining to me why I didn't want to go to hell. I ended up repeating this prayer about three more times in my childhood, the last of which was around 18, after which I elected to get baptized. I'd love to say that I believed there was no God even back then, but so strong was my father's faith that I can no more imagine a childhood not believing in God than a childhood without peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. Belief in God was a given in my household. I had reservations and issues (many of which I am addressing in this blog), but voicing them was usually met with BS explanations or can-kicking ("you'll understand when you're older"). My father's circle of Christian friends was also a very strong incentive to remain "in the flock." The people my father surrounded himself with were such that I had no desire to not be among them. Intentional or not, the environment of my childhood was very conducive to the brainwashing I received. I cannot imagine how much more difficult my childhood would have been if I had expressed disbelief; as it was, the questions I occasionally raised were oft met with frustration bordering on irritation.
Calvinism, which is the theology underlying my father's Christian--thus, my former--beliefs, relies exclusively upon the sovereignty of God with regards to salvation. In short, I grew up in the "once saved, always saved" school of eschatological thought. This meant that who was "saved" was ultimately up to God, best expressed in the verse "Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated." The alternative school, "earn your way to heaven," I believed was less consistent with the teachings within the Bible. This may be because I was brought up in the competing theology, but in Calvinism's defense, the theological "sovereignty of God" perspective sets Calvinist Christianity apart from not only Arminian (the "earn your way" camp) Christianity, but all other religious faiths (almost all religions are religions of works: Catholicism--confession, confirmation, etc.; Buddhism--chant, burn incense; islam--kill infidels in jihad). I believed my religious beliefs set me apart from other faiths because I believed that it was totally up to God whether or not I got to go to heaven. The problem was that I never felt "saved." Even as an innocent child, I felt that I was destined for the Lake of Fire. I thought that being "saved" should confer some sort of certitude upon me, yet it never did, ultimately leading me to believe that I was hell-bound anyway.
Being consigned to the furnace of hell left me free to explore the boundaries of my faith. This ultimately led to me seeking for answers to the questions that had plagued me for so long. I did read the "Case for..." series by Lee Stroebel, and this enabled me to remain in faith a little bit longer, but these books were exposed as being little more than sophistry (thanks to Dawkins and Harris), albeit well-crafted and sincere sophistry. I remained sort-of Christian for about two years after my faith really began to slide. Being the type of person to challenge the thoughts and beliefs of others just for the fun of it, I decided--in the hopes that I might rejuvenate my faith--that it was high time I read what antagonist authors might have to say about my beliefs. So I rounded up the usual suspects (Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris) and read what secular thinkers had to say about faith--Christianity in particular. I figured that if my faith were "true," then I would easily be able to demolish the arguments presented in any of those books, just as I had frequently demolished the arguments of the various Mormon and Jehovah's Witness missionaries that had been unfortunate enough to find my doorstep (somewhat ironically, I believed that my tearing down of other faiths strengthened mine). Besides, I had been arguing faith with my good atheist friend (he's a biophysicist now) for years, and we'd usually fought to a draw (only because I refused to accede to his points). I had also smashed up a rather petulant atheist recently, so I figured my faith could take the onslaught.
I first watched "Religulous," by Bill Maher. To this day I do not agree with much of Maher's politics, but I respect the treatment he gave the people in his movie. It was easy enough to calmly refute some of the points he made, since much of what he was saying was misrepresentation, but many of the people in the film made rather asinine statements. I remember feeling embarrassed that I shared these peoples' beliefs. I had grown embarrassed to tell people that I was Christian or express Christian beliefs, and I hadn't even noticed it happening. The beliefs I was supposed to hold sounded ridiculous to me coming out of the mouths of my fellow believers. Still, I wanted to rebuild my faith, so I tried to tear it down so God could rebuild it. I found that all three secular authors expressed the same concerns I'd had with my faith, if only considerably more vociferously. How could God expect mankind to "find" him if every clue he had supposedly left behind for us led us away from him? It makes no sense that God would give us a universe to explore and a mind to comprehend that universe, yet the more we use the latter to comprehend the former, the more we move away. Needless to say, I tore down my beliefs and was sorely disappointed to find that there was no God to rebuild them for me.
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