After my post where I recaptured my student's response over the atheist bus advertisements, I received a surge of attention from various atheist websites and bloggers. With this very small window of attention at my disposal, I could think of no better message to send to so many atheists, than this:
I am sorry.
I am sorry for the oppression: mental, emotional, physical, legal, and spiritual (if you will permit me to use the word in a non-offensive way) that my faith community has put you through.
I am sorry that you have been hunted, persecuted, fought, hastily and unfairly treated. I am sorry that you were never listened to.
I am sorry that I never took the time to listen to your stories, or cared enough to see how my story was impacting you. I am sorry that I allowed my faith to control politics in a way that self destructed government, and imposed upon your, and others', rights.
I am sorry that when you asked me for a reason for my faith, I gave you nothing but ignorant platitudes. I am sorry that when I gave you my best reasons for God, I betrayed the very fabric of his mystery by attempting to capture him in theology, doctrine, and systems.
I am sorry that I have so profoundly misrepresented the man described by the four gospels in the New Testament, I am sorry that I have failed you.
I am sorry that you have to see religious relics every where you go, I am sorry that you have been afforded no voice in the public.
I am sorry that my best attempts to care for you have only botched things up incredibly, I am sorry that when you needed me the most I was cold to you.
I am sorry that I have created a noticeable (please, I mean no harm in saying this) cynicism within you. I am sorry that I have so poorly dialoged with you.
I am sorry that this small post will never make up for the literal thousands of years that the religious have oppressed the non-religious. I am sorry that your honest and straightforward pursuit of truth has been scorned at every turn by those who seem more deluded with their own superiority, than awestruck with having discovered the reality of a thing called "God".
I am sorry that my testimony is unconvincing, as it is laden with hate, cruelty, bigotry, arrogance, and failure.
I am sorry for the crusades. I am sorry for the inquisition. I am sorry for the witch trials. I am sorry for the way we treated Darwin, Galileo, Copernicus, and an infinity of others. I am sorry that we have stifled growth, progress, and human discovery.
I am sorry that we have built monuments to the wealthy instead of homes for the poor, provided temples to the unseen instead of food for the starving, robes for the rulers instead of clothes for the naked. I am sorry that we have used religion as an excuse for wickedness.
I am sorry for the Holocaust. I am sorry for the use of religion to justify violence. I am sorry for 9/11.
I am sorry for the countless people who have been murdered in the middle east due to our blind ignorance, I am sorry for eagerness to take life, instead of preserve it.
I am sorry that I have manipulated, controlled, beguiled, lied, killed, raped, stolen, and blasphemed to maintain my hold on power. I am sorry, that when you needed me most to follow the claims of my Religion, as they are truly presented, I did not.
With perhaps only seconds left of this extraordinary attention my small blog has received, let me say this: I cannot begin to tell you how profoundly sorry I am for the treachery those representing my faith have caused. Had you no other reason not to believe in a deity of some kind, the actions of those who claim to have discovered that deity would be enough to dissuade you, and for that we...I...can only feel ashamed.
I have no ulterior motive here, no secret plan to covert all of you reading this to my wonderful great way of thinking. I wouldn't dare extinguish the richness, the vibrance of your voices that have been so long kept from the ears of the world. I only hope, that somehow despite the anger, despite the betrayal, despite the tyranny I have done to you, you may hear through all that these final words, and know that I mean them with all my heart: I am, I really am, sorry, though I know that alone will never be enough to make up for what I have done.
This apology is overdue.
37 comments:
Jim, did you do any of these things that you apologise for?
Even if he didn't commit these acts, isn't taking others' sins onto yourself one of the tenets of Christianity?
Jason has a good question. Unless you've personally done these things there's no reason for you to apologize. I haven't looked through your blog thoroughly - just the post linked to by Hemant and this one - but judging from the former, it seems you're doing your best to teach people not to do the things you just apologized for, and for that, I say thank you.
The part that I wish I'd hear more often:
'I am sorry that your honest and straightforward pursuit of truth has been scorned at every turn by those who seem more deluded with their own superiority, than awestruck with having discovered the reality of a thing called "God".'
This is, IMO, the primary root of the cynicism you've observed. It's true: many atheists are wary and suspicious of theists' motives, having been burned over and over again by insults and evangelism attempts and alienation. Atheists in the US fear losing their jobs, their friendships, their reputations if they reveal their lack of religious belief. Many of us have come to expect negative reactions and dehumanization as par for the course.
Echoing others, but. . . While I appreciate this heartfelt post, I'm not sure why you should apologize for things that you haven't done.
I hope the responses to your original post haven't given you the impression that all atheists are full of seething rage at all theists. I did appreciate your student's response, and the progress your class has made, with your help, in viewing other perspectives. I had just wanted to say that I still felt something wasn't right, even in the good student's response. But I'm not mad at all theists, for everything theists have done, any more than I'm mad at all white people, for everything white people have done.
P.S. And I kind of like seeing religious relics. :)
too little, too late.
I wanted to comment quickly to clear up the first few questions here. In the post I was using a little bit of artistic licence, speaking of myself in more plural terms, as a representative of the group. Imagine if you were apologizing as an American, for all the things your country has done. At some point it is best to put it in the first person and own it, instead of apologizing for what others have done, because eventually that becomes smug and selfsatisfying. Further, if one hasn't stopped something from happening they may feel personally guilty for the thing itself.
As far as the historical things go, those are a part of my faith's story. Times when my family mistreated yours. Not sure how many of you agree with inherited guilt, but I know for me the feeling is very real.
My hope though is that readers of this post will feel a measure of peace for having read it. I'm sorry if my writing style served to distract more than provide a picture of penitence.
Are you sorry you believed that eyewitnesses saw Jesus taking off into the sky on his way to Heaven, and then disappearing into a cloud?
Are you sorry you believed Jesus walked on water, simply because an old book said he did?
Steven, perhaps you could explain why he should be sorry for believing something different than you?
I do not wish to mock your intent but I must echo the comments of others.
I feel no apology is necessary from you or any other particular religious person (I do not even narrow the scope of my statement to Christians). In fact your apology makes me feel neither satisfaction nor anger.
What I would welcome is a statement of intent to investigate the basis of reasoning for those who do not share your beliefs. I believe I can say that most un-religious individuals do not feel threatened by your religious belief or have a particular desire to remove it from you. It is the threat of the loss of human rights promoted by fundamentalist Christian organizations which prompts things like the bus ads.
Restricting the rights and freedoms of men to believe as they choose is anti-American. We must not stand idly by while any group attempts to remove the freedoms of any other.
People should be sorry about believing myths just because they read a story in an old book.
It is not a case of 'believing different from me'. It is a case of being willing to beleive superstition on insufficient evidence.
In the spirit in which it's given, thank you for your apologies.
Don't let the responses of Hybridelephant and Steven Carr get to you. Trust me, there are more non-theists happy to extend a hand than such responses would have you believe.
@ Stephen Carr
We get it, you're an atheist as well. Can you try to show a little tact to one of the few theists that actually practices what his religion preaches?
Just like atheists don't like being told that we're pitied by theists, I would imagine that constantly having your personal beliefs called myths gets old after a while.
@ Penitent
Thank you for the thought in your post. While it isn't necessary, it is nice. You're good people.
I appreciate the intent of the post, however I really don't feel a need for an apology. Rather than an apology for past wrongs, I would much rather theists make a concerted effort to improve things in the future. No one can undue harm that has been done, but we can all work to prevent those wrongs from being repeated in the future. We do have a responsibility to stand up and speak out when we see a wrong committed. Let's never be complacent.
With all these expression of regreat at not listening to atheists, it can only be a matter of time before the author invites (say) John Loftus to write a guest post for the blog on why he became an atheist, or ask John to answer questions from the students about why he became an atheist.
PENITENT
I am sorry that when you needed me the most I was cold to you.
CARR
You think I need you?
I am sorry you believe what you do.
Jim, I appreciate the courage and patience it takes to post a statement like this, and then to face the various responses ranging from conditional acceptance, puzzlement, suspicion, resentment, and reproach.
I have no objection to your intention or to the content of your list of grievous acts. I only am curious about why, having acknowledged all these atrocious things which your religion has and still continues to perpetrate, you continue to be active in practicing and promoting that religion. I know that it can be unwise to use one's self as a standard to judge other's choices, but I certainly would not be a part of any institution that had done such reprehensible things.
The usual arguments I have heard about the good of Christianity outweighing the bad don't convince me, because the bad is clearly not a part that is necessary to accomplish the good. Nor do the arguments about Christians not being perfect convince me, because they do not address the very facile way their religion makes it so easy, tempting and justifiable for them to abuse those who are different. It is a device that makes it extremely easy and likely for good people to do evil things.
I guess I'm one of the puzzled ones. I'm puzzled by a man who can so clearly see the damage his religion has done, but who is not so revolted by it that he does not repudiate it completely.
Perhaps you are hoping to change things from the inside? Or do you put up with it for your personal spiritual benefit? Or what?
Finally, I'm wondering about what is so often left unfinished at the end of an apology, and that is the amend. Which of any of these injuries you have listed are you able and willing to mend? Since you are apologizing personally and for the abuses of your colleagues, how far are you willing to go to stop your colleagues from continuing to abuse others? It is one thing to see injustice, and another to stop injustice. It is one thing to stop your own unjust practices, and another to stop those of your brethren.
Steve,
I am no skeptic, but I'm finding it hard to believe you belong to any group that goes by the title "friendly".
Why are you so eager to read through my good intent and find offensive things? I'm beginning to think you would see meanness in a warshak test and scream at the therapist (not to imply that you need therapy).
By "wasn't there for you when you needed me" I meant that I wasn't there for you in a human way, to be sincere, to be understanding of your thoughts and feelings, I let you down by ignoring you or harassing you without cause...you know...that thing you are doing to me now?
I'm sorry that Christians have left you so calloused that even a heart-felt apology falls short of any satisfaction you seem to seek. But maybe you should take yourself a little less seriously, after all.
"A bird is active, because a bird is soft. A stone is helpless, because a stone is hard. The stone must by its own nature go downwards, because hardness is weakness. The bird can of its nature go upwards, because fragility is force. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light."
-G.K. Chesterton
Richard,
Thanks for your thoughts, and for your candid questions. I hope I can answer them as honestly as you asked them.
I stay with my faith because it is bigger than any group of people. It isn't the Christians I live for; it’s the man whose name we brand ourselves with. Jesus to me is a person I feel I have a special responsibility to, an obligation to, and yes, a love for.
The history of the movement begun by Jesus is surrounded in shame and scandal, and like any movement it has its fair share of victories and goodness, but regardless of its history I do not live for it alone, but for the person who began it.
Christianity is not the savior, nor is it the thing I will defend; it is just a group of people. People in groups tend to think they have a monopoly on truth, and then they use it in their fight to the top of the marketplace of ideas, it’s tragic. To use any truth like this is to abuse it.
You also asked what I am willing to do to make amends, how I can put my apology into action. To be honest it’s something I am learning how to do every day. Learning peace, kindness, and charity, is to unlearn pride, ruthlessness, and bigotry. The transformation is happening, and I promise you that it colors most of my actions, not only the words I wrote you in the blog. I’m learning to express my love for Jesus in constructive, and meaningful ways, which in my humble opinion, is the way it was always meant to be. Part of expressing that love, is to protect, or heal, those who have been hurt in Jesus’ name. I do what I can from the inside, trying to educate people to see their faith as a deep expression of humility, instead of a march to the palace of world power.
We have a long way to go Richard, and I have a longer way than most. I know what I was able to write here doesn’t go far to satisfy your questions, but maybe I will elaborate a bit more sometime, if your still reading.
Thanks,
-Jim
I take it that you will not be offering John Loftus as guest post on your blog to explain why he became an atheist, or offering him the chance to answer questions from your students about why he became an atheist.
After all, you have already made a heart-felt apology for not listening to atheists. There is no need to go the extra mile after that and actually invite them to speak,
@Steve
If you will provide John's contact information, I would be happy to see if he'd be willing. Click the "email me" link on the main page to send me his info.
I hope you see why I'm willing to do this, I'm sure this guy is quite capable of making my faith seem trite and silly, but I'm willing to feel that pain if it will serve any measure of relationship building.
Honestly I'd be more interested in hearing your story, if you'd be willing to share it. Maybe the best thing isn't for you to drag John in here, but for you to just share what's happened in your life, why you are not a theist, and why specifically you are angry beyond reconciliation.
I'm really not meaning to provoke you Steve, I'm genuinely interested in hearing you, because you seem really eager for that sort of story to be heard.
Please consider it.
-Jim
John Loftus can be contacted at
johnwloftus@verizon.net
As far as my story goes, I see no reason not to share it.
I am an atheist, since about the age of 8, and am interested in Christianity and the history of the early Christian church,
@Steve
I wrote to John and invited him to share, I'll let you know if I get a response and what exactly that is.
In the meantime I'd like to invite you to share more of your story. 8 years old seems young to have made a firm decision that lasts the rest of your life, what made you so decisive? Did your family come from a religious background? What has life been like for you as you stand by your convictions? Tell me more.
-Jim
I wasn't 'decisive' at 8. That probably came later at school, where everybody got religious education lessons.
I went to Sunday School up to about 9, which mostly involved colouring in pictures.
I read lots of books when I was young, the Bible, Greek myths, Norse myths, Russian fairy tales anything.
Later in life, some Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door. Out of curiosity I looked again at my Bible.
Of course, I had been given my own Bible at school, as all UK schoolchildren were.
I had read bits of it since then, and I looked at Luke and Acts and suddenly realised they had been written by the same person.
I thought I had made an exciting discovery, but I quickly realised that other people must have spotted that to.
Still, it did put the idea in my head that human beings with human motives had witten these books. Before, I had no idea why anybody would want to write such books.
Certainly nothing in my years of religous education lessons at school had led me to understand why anybody would want to write a Biblical book.
But now at least I had a human motive to go on. The guy wanted to write a sequel.
As I now realised that you could find out things about the Bible and who wrote it and why, and as I now realised that it might be fun to find out, I decided to learn more.
And the rest is history.
Well this is certainly an interesting post. I don't see how Steven Carr gets around so much. He's almost ubiquitous. As an atheist he's a force to be reckoned with.
I do honestly appreciate the heartfelt tones expressed. I think they are honest ones. It's hard to know what to say except don't do it again. Don't do it any more. But with such a superstitious outlook it's hard to believe Christians will stop.
Just today I received about seven comments on my blog which I did not publish and I dare not print here. He said everything but refrained from threatening me physical harm. No, he didn't threaten me. He just called me a bunch of cuss words and said he'll never stop bothering me. he's a stalker. They say you can tell how famous a person is by how many stalkers he has. Well, I have one. Woooo Hoooo!
Why is he doing this? Because he thinks I am personally attacking a friend of his--an invisible imaginary friend--Jesus (he's dead you know). He takes my arguments personally, you see. I fear he would be the very kind of person who, if he had the political power, would light the fire that burned me at the stake.
Granted YOU never did that, nor were you involved in the horrendus deeds of the past, but you can do something about it today.
You can get behind the separation of church and state. Many believers support this separation, and I do as an atheist. I am as much opposed to having an atheist litmus test for political office as I am a religious test, etc.
The second thing you can do it to renounce religion. I know that's the toughest thing to do, but that's what Carr is suggesting. But how can you renounce religion since it's so ingrained in you, probably from birth? Maybe you can't. But you owe it to yourself to read the best critiques of that which you believe. I read scores of Christian books. Have you read atheist literature? I dare say you should even seek to disconfirm that which you believe. Why not? If it's true then you shouldn't have any fear to read opposing views. But alas, Christian won't usually do this.
According to people who have read my book, what I wrote is considered by them to be the best antidote to the sickness of Christianity (this is just a metaphor so don't get upset). One scholar said that I did for the 21st century what David Fredrick Strauss and Thomas Paine did for the 18th and 19th centuries. If you know who they are that's quite a compliment. I don't claim this to be true, of course, but that's what people are saying about it.
Check it out.
My personal story is included in the first chapter.
I think that what you have written is a beautiful, humble acknowledgment of our shared history. I dare say that many of the commentators here lack your humility--it is as if their anger keeps them from actually hearing what you are writing or at least keeps them from understanding what you are doing in writing your apology. If Carr and others cannot notice the difference between your attitude, your tone--YOU--and the Theists who have angered them so, well, they must not be as rational and perceptive as they so pride themselves in being.
John,
Thank you so much for obliging my request and coming here to comment, I appreciate your thoughts and insights.
Let me first say that I'm sorry that somebody from my brood is harassing you, you seem like a profound person and I'm sure you don't deserve it. I'm sure you also understand the human element to it though, how a person clings desperately to what makes sense to them, what defines them, and strikes at anybody who may seem to threaten that; I pity the man who stalks you, and again I am sorry.
Since people are sharing their stories maybe I will step up to the plate as well. I was an atheist for years, and a vocal one. I made it a point to engage theists as often as I could because I felt religion was a disease of the mind, a fictitious blanket that makes one man holy and another unclean. I saw it as an elitist system, medieval and handed down from the eons of mysticism and fanaticism that I had hoped modernity would escape. Suffice it to say, I was dedicated to the cause of destroying religion, not merely having my own view.
Later I would delve into postmodern philosophers, people like Focault, Lyotard, Derrida, and later Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, who became an incredible influence on my thinking. I began to hear them say, and find myself agreeing, that the enlightenment and modernity attempted a run at absolute truth. Hyper-confidence, they seemed to collectively explain, had soured the human mind in almost every respective area. Religion had attempted to form systems, then killed all those who were outside of their "final and full" recipe of thought. Science did the same as technology and study became the harbinger of death and destruction. Einstein’s nuclear bomb, Hitler’s proof of the inferiority of Jews, were rooted in systems of science that reached what seemed to be absolutes. Objective truth it seemed was being discovered at every turn: economic systems, philosophies, physical science, the list goes on and on.
Postmodern philosophy taught me that while reason and logic were incredible servants, they, like fire, were poor masters. Reason was a vehicle, a car, that could take a man most anywhere he wanted to go, but could be controlled to push into any direction at all. Objective, full final, absolute truth, seemed to not really exist. I would see these theories validated in courtrooms where each lawyer made a perfect case that seemed flawless, but could be believed only when one wanted to believe it. In journalism when a news group would post the facts as one way, and another would post the same facts in a completely different way. Truth, it became apparent, was flexible and fluid.
My life up to that point had been lived on the promise of human possibility, the great dream of human potential, the search for absolute truth. Suddenly it had dawned on me though, that this absolute truth couldn't be discovered and taught, for how could objective purity be served with unclean, subjective hands. It was a fallacy. It was around this point that I considered the potential of God. With the system of reason failing me, with all the philosophies of men becoming trivial suggestions at best, I wondered if there might be a God out there after all, if man could be so lucky.
Much to the chagrin of my friends I began to pick up biblical texts and consider them openly. I chose those because of all the religions I had refuted over the years, the Christian one I knew had the most credibility, though still it had very little. Anyway I read about Jesus, and marveled at how his stories were told. Even if the stories were false, that a person could weave a tale about a character who is so dangerous and yet so graceful, so loving and yet so clever, was beyond anything I had before imagined. I considered the impact these stories had over so many years of human history, how by simply following the example of this Jesus, Christians had really accomplished so much. I also began to wonder how it was that Christians seemed to me to be such a poisonous people, when their Jesus seemed so much better than all that, so much gentler.
I found myself agreeing with Ghandi, I truly respected this Christ, but his Christians were so unlike him. I wondered if the postmodern's critique could also be used on the Christians, I wondered if there wasn't a time when they were more noble, when their story was more believable, when they were more like their Jesus. I read Eusebius' "History of the Church" and found myself overwhelmed by the accounts of martyrs. Men drug from their homes and murdered in front of their children, women raped in the streets and burned at the stake, all without so much as uttering a word of anger or regret, they were so convinced of their God's reality that they gladly obeyed him, even unto death. I was awestruck by the character of these people, by the way they had refused to hate and had so readily accepted death in the name of their faith. Only one other person’s story seemed to compare in my mind, Jesus' whom I had read about only months earlier.
In a moment that defies logic, I did feel myself overwhelmed by emotion and confusion. What to atheists would be referred to as a moment of weakness, and to Christians as a moment of strength, collided in my mind in one instant and I found myself speaking to this Jesus, as if he were only inches from my face. Of course no bright light filled the room, no angels with harps surrounded me, it was only me, in my silence, despite all the neurons in my brain fighting it, having a religious experience.
Over time I began to hide the shame of my religiosity, my new found sympathy and understanding of those who so adamantly followed Christ. It was as if he were real, but I was terrified to admit it, because I was sure it was only a feeling, and it would soon pass. But still it lingered, like a splinter in my mind (to borrow a phrase from Morpheus), until finally I had to consider it as a reality.
Eventually I wondered if God himself might not be the absolute truth. If somehow, as Kierkegaard put it, God was just absurd enough to actually exist. It defied my understandings of reality, and the Christian story, with Jesus somehow coexisting as God and man, was laughable on most every level. But still these ideas persisted, until finally I wondered if things might seem different from the other side of that line. I wondered if I might let myself believe these things, for even a moment, that they might make perfect sense without my having to disregard my logic and reason.
Its difficult to explain, but I did at some point take a “leap of faith”, what to atheists and materialists is a plunge from rationality, felt to me like a freeing of my mind. I honestly felt like Neo in the Matrix, waking up from a world of brainwaves and electrons to find an organic world of senses and stinging eyes. It was poetic, which made it all the more real.
I know what a story like this sounds like on the other side of that line. I know what it sounds like when somebody says they abandoned their logic, they sound like a fool. Maybe I am, I suppose. Maybe religion is nothing more than that opiate that dulls my wit and keeps me complacent, but I have never thought so much, felt so much, or realized things more fully, than when I stopped worshipping logic which led nowhere in the end, and began worshipping this Jesus, who defied my logic at every turn, and yet seemed so impeccably real.
I don’t count on anybody in this board understanding me at this point, and I’m sure most will be upset and assume I’m trying to convert everybody, but that’s really not the case. I’m trying to honor your stories with my own, be willing to be honest in a room full of conversation and mutual respect, by asserting my own sincerity and conviction. In the way I mean it, it’s the highest compliment I could give you.
Anyway, I’m sure I’ve risked all by sharing this story. Imagine yourself in a room full of strangers, with whom you have tried to make friends, but a few of them mistrust you and think you diseased. I suppose that’s how I feel, a little frightened about what people will say in response to this, but glad that I dared to befriend this group by sharing who I am as equally as they have shared themselves with me.
Thanks for reading John, I really do appreciate you joining the conversation.
Thanks to everybody who has been so kind to me, I hope I can show you a different sort of Christian who is not so intent on watching the world burn, but instead on saving it from anybody who would intend to burn it, even if those be other Christians.
Peace be with you.
-Jim
Jim,
That's a remarkable story. Perhaps it should have been a blog post.
As you fear, I can see a lot of points to take issue with. I will spare you that though.
My take on your revelation, or conversion, is that logic didn't find you happiness and that belief in a higher power did. Good for you. There are many people for whom I consider religion to be more of a curse than a blessing but for those that truly benefit from belief it cannot be condemned.
We all want to be happy and, hopefully, we all want to get along peacefully. If everyone accepted that different people can have different ways of thinking, and that it was good that it is so, we'd all get along much better.
Wow! I would never have guessed that Penitent had been one of those atheists that Christians 'hunted, persecuted , fought, hastily and unfairly treated, and never listened to'
No wonder Penitent converted to Christianity after the persecution he endured as an atheist - the sort of persecution he so eloquently apologises for in his blog post.
Jim, you may be a different sort of a Christian, and that's good. Your story is moving, but as you predicted I think it's delusional. Just imagine someone who is a Buddhist saying the same things and you'll know what I think of it.
You sound just like my friend Matt.
In my opinion Christianity is wildly improbable to me. If I understand you correctly you're not trying to evangelize me. But what if you tried? What would you say to me? How would you argue? What would you defend?
Would you like to defend the existence of the social Trinitarian God (versus an anti-social Trinitarian God) of the Bible (which had a long process of formation and of borrowing material from others) who never began to exist and will never cease to exist (even though everything we experience has a beginning and an end), who never learned any new truths, who does not think (for thinking demands weighing temporal alternatives), who is not free with respect to deciding his own nature, who revealed himself through a poor medium (history) in a poor era (ancient times), who condemns all of humanity for the sins of the first human pair, who commanded genocide, who allows intense suffering in this world (yet does not follow the same moral code he commands believers to follow), whose Son (the 2nd person of the trinity) became incarnate in Jesus (even though no one has ever made sense of a person who is 100% man and 100% divine) to be punished for our sins (even though there is no correlation between punishment and forgiveness) who subsequently bodily arose from the dead (even though the believer in miracles has an almost impossible double-burden of proof here) and now lives embodied forever in a “spiritual” human body to return in the future, who will return to earth in the parousia (even though the NT is clear that the end of all kingdoms and the establishment of God's kingdom was to be in their generation), who sent the 3rd person of the trinity to lead his followers into "all truth" (yet fails in every generation to do this), who will also judge us based upon what conclusions we reach about the existence of this God and what he has done (paralleling the ancient barbaric thought police), and who will reward believers by taking away their freedom and punish the dammed by letting them retain their freedom?
Interesting hypothesis, if so. This is such a large claim. The larger the claim is, the harder it is to defend it.
Cheers.
BTW: As others have said, if you want to actually test your faith read my book. You may think you've heard it all. I don't think you have. Prove me wrong.
Einstein’s nuclear bomb, Hitler’s proof of the inferiority of Jews, were rooted in systems of science that reached what seemed to be absolutes.
Hold it right there.
No. Shame on you.
@ Robin
I meant that the perception of these things, which were supported by scientific facts, were touted as objective truths, when they are now clearly subjective truths.
Using these sorts of examples I was making the point that I had begun to think logic and reason were more tools at human disposal then they were guides to real hard capital T truth.
I wasn't endorsing either of these, re-read it with the above explanation and it will make more sense.
John's post, above, demonstrates to me that you can have a firm grasp of historical fact and of misplaced dogma of the historical church, yet be completely blind to the heart of the matter. The reason that Jim remains a Christian, despite his knowledge of the terrible injustices done under that banner in the past and present is because the Truth of what Jesus teaches--not how those teachings have been misrepresented and misinterpreted by others--is bigger than his reason can understand. Now, I am speaking for Jim without authorization, here, but I am really expressing my own experience of Christ. Reason and historical fact simply cannot undermine the direct experience of grace in a human life. You can deconstruct the history of the church (so much of it heinous) and argue and seethe, but you can't chop up the truth that I experience; this is why people who seek to follow after Jesus (not fundamentalist "Christians," full of fear and hatred) keep returning to peace, even when challenged. This is also why we come to an impasse when rational atheists demand that we subject our spiritual beliefs to their reason. Reason is smaller than our experiences, so will never digest the complete truth.
Know, though, that Christians like Jim will not destroy in our God's name, and will seek to be respectful and loving, even to people who respond to them with venom. If you want a world without persecution and abuse of power, where you are free to believe or not, Jim would be a good candidate to help you get there; if, however, you want a world where everyone believes as you do--or as you don't!--you will not likely convert someone who has experienced the grace of all things through the teaching of Jesus. No matter how smart you might be, you won't find satisfaction in your efforts until your efforts are truly tempered in respect and love (even for Christians!). Good luck, though.
David R, thanks for expressing what Christians maintain very well.
I just find them to be operating on double standards far too often. In every other area of their lives they depend on reason and evidence. Christian detectives to historians to chemists to archaeologists to whether or not their wife is cheating on them, they all look for evidence and they seek to follow reason.
But not here. On this issue they actually are forced to denigrate reason, like you just did, and denigrate science. I have likewise heard them praise the revivals going on right now among the peoples in Asia and Africa too. Those Christian explosions are being embraces by an overwhelming superstitious people who are Pentecostals. They believe miracles are taking place right before their eyes much like the people in Biblical times thought. But these things are NOT taking place among the industrialized nations. Why? Because it takes a superstitious outlook on life in the first place to embrace them. Experience rules and most of our experiences are either self-generated or interpreted by us to be what the observer thinks of them. I've even heard Christians say that although science provides evidence against faith they go on to argue that the science of tomorrow might support fatih. The problem here is that faith is decisive for them. They must reject the findings of present day science when that's all we have to go on. Maybe science will show otherwise in the future, but that's a very slim hope given what we know from science today.
Did you read the link I provided about my friend Matt? What if in his dream his dad said Mormonism or Islam is true? Then what? Should he believe what he heard in a dream? Hardly.
"Jim remains a Christian, despite his knowledge of the terrible injustices done under that banner in the past and present is because the Truth of what Jesus teaches"
Jesus reportedly taught a philosophy of life that could very well be practiced without requiring any belief in a god. In fact much of what he taught had been previously taught by Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha) and most Buddhists do not believe in a god.
The arguments that science makes claims about absolutes or that reason alone cannot allow you to find satisfaction are just nonsense. Choosing to ignore what makes sense and putting all your problems on someone else is just cowardly.
I recant my previous comment entirely. I was foolishly trying to be nice and find the middle ground but there cannot be a middle ground. Delusion only fosters delusion in others.
@ John
I think your right about how much Christians rely on reason, but the fact that they might see it as a tool and not the scope of all possibility isn't a denigration upon them, its just a perspective.
Also, I think science is starting to show us that the tangible is not always the most real. Quantum physics, the new understandings of relativity in space-time, these are showing us that science itself may be a suggestion, as the material world around us may not be frozen in constants.
Pretty exciting stuff if you ask me. I know I just went a bit off topic, but yes I think science can at times point to the idea of faith not being so far off. They are not polar opposites in my opinion.
@ David
Thanks for being so friendly Dave, I appreciate your heart on this. In a moment of humor though, when I read the end of your last post I felt like I might use it in an infomercial if I run for president =).
"Elect Jim, he will rebuild this mess of a world." Haha, I'm not sure I've got things so figured out as all that, I honestly try to follow Jesus as best I can, but even that is riddled in folly.
Its important that we realize that the sincere efforts of a lot of people can lead to treacherous things. The crusades came trying to honor Jesus, the atom bomb came trying to stop the Japanese, the Holocaust came trying to cleanse Europe---reminds me of that verse "our greatest works are like filthy rags", it would seem to describe all of humanity at times.
@ The Room
I really do appreciate this conversation, and I appreciate the back and forth. My hope is that Christianity will change for the better, abandon a lot of the trappings of modernity that poisoned its charitable spirit, and recapture the will to follow Jesus in a very humble way. I think that is something that, theist or atheist, we can all agree would be best for the world. Whatever happens one thing I know for sure, as John said, we must be certain that the things I have apologized for stop, and do not happen ever again.
It will be a while before such things are realized across the board of Christianity, as with any group of people ideas take a while to bubble up and become valuable, but I promise everybody here that part of my apology to all atheists, part of my penance, will be to continue to take issue with the way things are currently done, and how abominable that can often be.
Regarding the OP:
Hello! I'm an atheist, found this website via the Friendly Atheist post. And I'd like to say, thank you very, very much for that post. It reflects a spirit that I honestly don't see very much among Christian websites, and I'm very glad to.
Of course, saying "sorry" can also mean you sympathise with a person's problems, without necessarily accepting blame for them. Which is what I was thinking of, especially when I read "I am sorry that you have to see religious relics every where you go, I am sorry that you have been afforded no voice in the public."
So again, thank you very much.
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