deconversion

I'm reading The Atheist Way: Living Well  Without God and enjoying it.  I really like Eric's argument on how to have meaning for my life.

I make it.

That's a big deal for a former christian. Since I spent most of my adult life trying to find/follow the "will of god", it was both frightening and exhilarating to read that it is simply up to me. Whatever I want to do. Whatever satisfies me.

Huh?

I can do whatever I want? Whatever I enjoy? Yep.

It took me several weeks to get my head around this. Slowly it began to dawn on me what Eric was saying. I'm still not sure I can explain it, but fear has given way to excitement.

Instead of thinking, "I've always wanted to..." I can think, "I think I'll do..."

Now the hard part is focusing. I have wide and varied interests, so narrowing "the purpose of my life" down to something managable will be a task. This is important to me because I'm 50 years old and 5 years away from retirement eligibility. So I'll be 55 and retired, now what? That's why I'm thinking about this. Since men in my family live till their late 70s or into their 80s, I have plenty of time to do something else. I want to go back to college and (finally) get a degree, but in what?

Sometimes I think I'm too old for this! 

What to do? What to do?

So I read about half of Letter to A Christian Nation.

Does Mr. Harris honestly think he is going to get a Christian to seriously consider his argument?

I can't imagine reconsidering a fundamental belief when I'm told that very belief is responsible for all the ills of the world. I think one would get defensive and begin arguing the book rather than considering it's point.

He started out so well. Pointing out that there is no reason for an atheist to seriously consider christianity just like there is no reason for a christian to seriously consider islam. But, after that, the attacks begin.

Sorry, Mr. Harris. I think you could have done a much better job.

I'm once again trying to read Darwin's Ghost.

God! Somebody shoot me!

I haven't read anything this dry since the begats in I Kings. (Wait for it. There! Now you get it!)

I'm almost to the point that I would rather be a creationist than have to read any more of this book.

Somebody help me! Isn't there a, how shall I say it, more enjoyable (dare I say, "entertaining") way to learn about evolution? When I can actually focus on what the particular chapter I'm reading is about, I get it.

But getting there...ARRRGGGG!

Imagine that you wake up and find yourself seated at a table where a very complex card game is in progress.  You are dealt a hand of cards and told to play.  It soon dawns on you that you are expected to know all the rules of this game, all its nuances, without ever having been taught this game.  Nor are you allowed to ask.  Asking is an infraction of the rules, and any infraction is dealt with by scorn, ostracism, and other forms of abuse.  You watch the other players, only to find that the rules appear to vary depending on who they are.  There are secret deals being done under the table all the time, deals that don't include you, but involve you.   One thing you can be sure of is that the rules constantly change without warning.  A play or move that you thought was all right, and had been allowed to continue as being all right, suddenly becomes wrong.  "Others may--you cannot."  You try and try to make some sense of the game but get nowhere.  It is all your fault.  You are the one with the problem.  So you go to leave only to find out that you are in the Hotel California--there is no leaving the game.  You have to play, even though as the game continues you have this sickening feeling that you will never ever succeed in understanding it.

You get up from the table and make your way to the restroom.  Here you meet someone who hasn't the faintest clue as to your plight and wouldn't begin to understand it if you could find the words to tell them.   Someone who is free to leave the game at any time.   They see that you are distressed and they start telling you about an invisible Person in the sky who loves you and cares for you and that if only you would accept this Person into your heart, everything would go fine for you.  The reason that you are having trouble is because you are resisting this Person.  This Person has put this trouble into your life because He wants you to be close to Him.  What can you say?  You know that this person is wrong in their assessment of the situation but what can you say?  At any rate, you are desperate to escape this situation which was not of your own doing (but which you learn was created by this all-powerful Person), so you agree.  And you make your way back to the table.

But do things go any better from this point on?  No!  In some ways they become even worse.  Somehow this invisible Person has become interwoven with the rules of the game, and you are told that you did not accept Him in the right way, or you never really accepted Him, or that you are asking too much of Him, that He does not work that way.  You are told on one hand that you can't play the game without this Invisible Partner; on the other hand, you are told that you cannot play the game with this Invisible Partner.  No matter what you do, you are wrong.  And there is no way out.

Welcome to the world of Asperger's.

"Only ignorance! only ignorance! how can you talk about only ignorance? Don't you know that it is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness?--and which does the most mischief heaven only knows. If people can say 'Oh! I did not know, I did not mean any harm, they think it is all right."--from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell Well, it is over. The Springers have been found not guilty of first-degree murder in the death of their daughter Calista (see my blog The Island of Misfit Toys). I am not surprised, since under Michigan law, to prove first-degree murder you have to prove intent to kill, and I do not believe (as did the jury) that this was the case. They were found guilty of torture and first-degree child abuse, and could spend the rest of their lives in prison. But then again, who knows. The appeals could drag on forever. This was clearly not an easy case to decide. Despite all the glowing mush often written about the joys of having one of God's mismade little angels in the family, the sad truth is that these children often bring out the worst in people, especially a family that may not be all that stable to begin with. And this seems to be the case here. No, the Springers didn't mean to murder their daughter, but she does seem to have been made the scapegoat of the family and she paid a very heavy price for having the problems that she did. Which brings up the old old question of a loving God. Presumably Calista, no matter how intellectually impaired she was, had been introduced to the concept of a Jesus who loves the little children, all the little children of the world, because according to the paper, their church "rallied" around the Springers right after the fire that took her life. Did she cry out to that Jesus as the choking smoke closed in, knowing there was no way she could get free of that chain. And did that Jesus come to her in the end? Or was she so drugged that mercifully she did not know what was happening (apparently the lab found abnormally high levels of Benedryl in her blood)? I am surprised that the prosecution did not go for a charge of negligent homicide or manslaughter, which I think would have been far more easy to prove. After all, this clearly seems to be a case of "only ignorance"--they didn't know that chaining her like that would endanger her, they didn't mean any harm. Or did they? Either way, it no longer matters. One troublesome child has left this earth to cause trouble no more. And we can all go on our way.

I went to my neurologist last Monday for my MRI reading and...I don't have migraines. I have a F---ed up neck.

He showed me the pictures (that was fascinating) and I could clearly see that my cervical L2 - L5 (the neck for the uninitiated like me) weren't lined up with the rest of my disks. L3 was so far out that it was causing my spine to indent! I didn't have the gumption to ask the doc if the amazing thing was that I wasn't in more pain more often.

I start physical therapy tomorrow, but I'm not really holding out much hope for that. If my neck has been this messed up for this many years (30), I can't imagine that a month of PT is going to make it all better.

My doc gave me some muscle relaxers to take when I get "headaches" or a stiff neck/shoulders. Yawn. It works ok for the neck, but it doesn't do squat for the pain!

On top of all of this, he scheduled me to come back next week to get a test to see if I have any nerve damage! Nerve damage? That thought never crossed my mind!

Now, in keeping with my rants on this board:

Begin Rant---

Can someone please tell me why an all-knowing, all-powerful god didn't:
A) heal me or B) at least tell me what was going on for the last 30 fucking years that I've been living in pain and taking the wrong medicine!

Not that I'm bitter. Not at all. Thank you, Jesus! Bullshiiiiiittttt!

---End rant

In reading another blog about converstion between athiesm and catholicism (http://www.conversiondiary.com/) and learned this little tidbit from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation."

Basically, it is the opinion of the catholic church that if you have never heard about Jesus or even God, it's not your fault and you can still go to heaven. If you are a sincere and good person, that's good enough for God. Initially, I was relieved to read something like that. The idea that God could send someone to eternal punishment for something they were completely ignorant of had always struck me as globally unfair, but this bit of theology raises an interesting question: why evangelize? If everyone who is ignorant of God and a relatively good person will go to heaven, why risk telling them the truth? Then they might decide they don't agree with what you've said, but since they now have information, they will be held responsible for it. Why not just let everyone die in their ignorance and end up in heaven? The only argument I can think of is that those in ignorance will miss out on knowing God in this lifetime and doing his work, but that doesn't seem to be much of a problem in light of eternity. If a person can just make it into heaven, they have millions of years to foster a relationship with God, do his work and most likely have relationships with others around them. If its true that "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." (James 4:14b), then just a few years of knowing God on earth hardly seem worth the risk.

I've talked about my friend and how he doesn't understand my deconversion and how he sent me a magazine article that he thought would win me back.

I think he was stunned when I shredded the article (I was nice!) and sent it back with my "comments".  I posted part of his last reply about trusting the word, etc and some of you have commented on it. Thanks.

I've been out of town for a few days and have had some time to think about what to do and I just don't know. So I'm asking your advice.

While my friend and I are still on speaking terms as far as I know, we are at an impasse. I am no longer a Christian. I have what I believe to be valid reasons to at the very least, doubt the veracity of the bible. My friend is a believer and based on his last couple of emails, is not willing to even consider the possibility that what I have concluded is correct.

So, where do I go from here? His social life is wrapped up in his belief system. This of course makes it difficult because I am no longer part of that system.

I'm at a loss.

Remember the Island of Misfit Toys from "Rudoph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"?  For those who somehow haven't seen the Christmas special, the Island was where all the toys that didn't make the grade at Santa's workshop were sent.  Rudolph and his friends feel so sorry for these rejected toys that they decide to include them in Santa's bag so that they too can have a home.  So they do so, and presumably everyone lives happily ever after.

But I always wondered what happened the next morning when children found these malfunctioning and mismade toys under the tree?  Were they delighted?  Somehow I don't think so.  Maybe the toys were better off on their island after all.  

This week in a small town not far from where I live, a jury is deciding the fate of the Springers, whose 16-year-old daughter Calista died in a house fire in 2008.  The details are enough to turn one's stomach.  Calista was found dead of smoke inhalation, chained to her bed by a dog chain that firemen had to cut in order to free her.   The Springers said they had to chain her because she wandered at night.  But the fire broke out in the morning while her legally blind stepmother was vaccuuming downstairs and her stepsisters had already gone to school.  Calista, who was described as having an autistic spectrum disorder, and an IQ of 74, was allegedly being homeschooled.   According to her parents, she was taken out of school because the school was more intent on educating her than socializing her.   According to the school, she was removed by her parents because school personnel (and others) made too many complaints to Child Protective Services.  Michigan has one of the most lenient homeschooling laws in the nation.  Anyone can homeschool and there is no follow-up by authorities to see if that is indeed happening.  A perfect set-up if you want to hide child abuse.  Predictably, the home-schooling crowd does not want this to change.  When an area businessman said that he did not like to hire people who were homeschooled, because in his experience, they lacked critical skills in dealing with people from diverse backgrounds, he was jumped on and called a bigot.

I do not know how the jury will rule in this case.  The state is pressing for first-degree murder and child torture, which means that the Springers fully intended for Calista to die.  Everyone seems to agree that the fire itself was an accident.  Personally I think the state is making a mistake and it is very possible that the Springers will get off.  The jury has been out several days now.

What especially disturbs me about this case, is that there for the grace of God, or good luck, or whatever, go I.  When it came time for the defense to take the stand, this poor dead girl was demonized, called a liar and dangerous to herself and others.  An expert, who never met Calista, testified that "these children" are "emotional vampires" who suck the energy out of those around them.  Having been one of "these children" myself, I greatly object to this characterization.  No, the Springers may not have set out to kill Calista, but it sure sounds a whole lot like "good riddance to bad rubbish."

So what is to be done with us "misfit toys" who are admittedly not easy to raise?  Would euthanizing us shortly after diagnosis be the kinder thing?  We could call it parental choice or some such euphemism.  After all, what happened in that Centerville bedroom was nobody's business, was it?

Well, I wrote to my friend who never responded to my critique of the article he sent me.

He wrote back right away, begging off saying he had been very busy. I believe him, I know how busy he is.

But... he asked something that just seems incredulous to me now:

"I question why you need to have evidence for proof of things told in the Word?  What has happened to faith in things you can't see, believing in things that you can't touch?  Even Yeshua said blessed are those who believe and who have not seen.  To me the whole thing about faith in the God of the Bible s trusting in something you cannot prove.
I guess the difference between you and I is that I don't need the hard evidence to continue my faith in the God of the Bible.  I'm sure that seems crazy to you now, trusting in something you can't see or prove, but that is where I am."

Now, this guy is not an idiot. The main reason I talked with him is I thought that he would contemplate what I said. Obviously not.

But, this reply did a couple of things for me:
1) It confirmed that I am no longer a christian because my reaction to his statements was, "You've got to be f--ing kidding! You need NO evidence whatsoever about the bible? You just believe it?" I am still in shock. His statement about seeming crazy to me is an understatement, to say the least!

2) It showed me what true believers are and made me think that maybe I never was one. My reasoning is, if my friend's attitude is typical of a true believer, I never fit them mold. I always ASSUMED that there was reasonable evidence to support the bible. I don't recall ever being of a mind that said it didn't matter if I could prove it or not, I would believe it. I'm too much a sceptic for that.

So the reason for my apostasy is simple. I was never a TRUE believer as defined by my friend's attitude. And, once I investigated my assumptions, I found them to be wrong. There is no support for the bible. I'm too much a realist to say, "Well, I don't care if there is evidence that validates the bible or not, I'm going to believe it anyway". I just can't go there.

That was my "Ah ha!" My friend inadvertently made me realize that I am truly a deconvert. This isn't some phase I'm going through, I'm done with christianity and religion in general. I can't go back because I know too much. And it seems that I can't go back because I think.

I wish I could, life would be so much simpler.