Messages in the Sky

The initial inclination for me typically is to roll my eyes at the kind of stuff where Christians see messages in the sky specifically for them. Don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to ridicule anyone here, especially someone who is dealing with loss. But I often wonder if by embracing reality, I'm missing out on living in a perceived world in which people I loved who are now dead can communicate with me by making abstract patterns with tiny water droplets resting on condensation nuclei (read: cloud shapes).

Even when I was a Christian, this sort of folksy approach to religion completely eluded me. That's probably because I thought through this stuff when I was about six, not long after my grandfather died. Adults around me were talking about how my grandfather was looking down on me from heaven, but I had already concluded that wouldn't jibe with the religious paradigm from which I was working. Besides, six-year-old me much preferred the idea that grandpa was far, far away in some other dimension where he couldn't see me, particularly when I waited longer to seek out a bathroom than my disproportionately-undersized bladder could handle and accidentally pissed my pants. Fourteen-year-old me preferred the idea that my dead grandpa couldn't see me for different reasons.

Post-Apostasy Correspondence Saga: My Exchanges with Church Leaders

Warning: this post is long. Specifically it's about 26,000 words long or about 44 printed pages. I thought about breaking it up into a few different posts, but that wouldn't really fit my purpose. I'm mainly just looking for a place to dump this on my blog, so here it is. I apologize that after almost a year without posting I'm marking my return with something like this, but I had a recent, unexpected, and encouraging phone call from someone from my past that brought all these events to mind and prompted me to do it.

A few times on this blog I've alluded to the response my wife and I received from the PCA church we were active members of at the time of our deconversion. Outside of work and home, it was pretty much our world. I've also mentioned that not a single person from that church remained friends with us in any meaningful sense. At least one former good friend stated he would never set foot in my house or even meet with me in person until we repented. Others unfriended us on Facebook. A couple of my wife's friends seemed to be willing to at least correspond, but they said they needed some time first. That was three years ago.

I saved nearly all of the correspondence we received during that period. I've been hesitant to share much of it on this blog, but I recently had a conversation with someone who was privy to some of the things that were communicated to the congregation of the church by the session of elders in the aftermath of our departure. Based on that person's recollections, it would seem the elders told the congregation not to interact with us lest we poison them. In light of that unsurprising revelation, I've decided to publish the exchanges I had with the elders, the details of which they no doubt withheld from the congregants. I've redacted names and places. Mainly I'm excluding them so people performing Internet searches on those specific names won't end up getting linked here.

In retrospect, now three years removed from these exchanges, I think it was a mistake to allow the elders and the senior pastor in particular to control the narrative fully in the way we did. If I had to do it all over again, I might be tempted to avoid phone conversations, stick strictly to email interactions, and then cc everyone in the church directory on the entire exchange so they could see for themselves how it all went down. Something like that had briefly crossed my mind, but I never seriously considered it. At the time I didn't want to risk burning bridges, nor did I want to fit into the narrative of being out to deliberately hurt people. In the end, the elders were going to burn plenty of bridges for us so it didn't really matter.

Think of the Children

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Matthew 16:6 (KJV)

I've briefly mentioned my children before and the role they played in my apostasy and how my wife and I took very seriously what we understood to be our duty as parents to raise our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. We were intent on diligently teaching his commands to them, speaking of them when we sat in our house or walked by the way. Not only did we feel compelled by scriptural mandates and encouraged by our church's culture, we also had other, stronger motives to completely inundate them with Christian dogma.

For my wife's part, she had never felt her faith was authentically experienced. Any time she heard a sermon about what preachers would call "coattails Christianity" – an expression meant to convey the idea that one's relationship with God is vicarious and that one is attempting to ride the coattails of another, usually parents, into heaven – she would worry that she was one of those people. While she never doubted the existence of God and wholeheartedly believed the gospel message, she constantly doubted her salvation because the whole thing never felt real in the way others seemed to think it should. Things like prayer had to be forced and and did not come naturally. She felt she could never understand the Bible on her own when she read it, much less explain it to someone else.

My Sandcastle Faith

Source: Wikipedia

Neil Carter has a post over at the Recovering from Religion blog wherein he shares a snapshot of his personal journey from an old journal entry.* I think I kept a journal for about a minute when I was fourteen or fifteen and gave it up about the time I got my first job. I haven't looked at it in forever, but I'm sure it's filled with mostly angsty adolescent nonsense about girls I liked who didn't seem to like me back. Neil's journal entry reflects the thoughts of a contemplative twenty-nine-year-old father of three reflecting on the very nature of reality. Probably a bit more weighty by comparison.

Like, We Are Never Getting Back Together. Like, Ever.

Photo credit: Clarence Ji / Foter CC BY

Who knew one could so readily find inspiration for a blog post about apostasy in the lyrics of a Taylor Swift breakup song? If the oft-repeated marketing slogan of "Christianity is a relationship" has any truth to it, then apostasy is a lot like a breakup. Maybe that's why I often find myself relating to the sentiment of breakup songs. Lines like "since you been gone, I can breathe for the first time," or "so often times it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key" resonate with my experience. I find this to be the case with the aforementioned T-Swizzle ditty.

Let me clarify a bit before I confuse the reader. See, on my end I hold open the possibility that some form of Christianity may indeed one day somehow seduce me to return. I admit that it seems highly unlikely, but I'm not ready to say "never." The brain is a very curious and often fickle organ, susceptible to all kinds of things. Injury, delusion, hallucination, chemical imbalance, narcotics, or any number of things can completely alter cognitive processes. Not to mention the growing list of cognitive errors everyone remains susceptible to. And who knows? Maybe some form of Christianity has it right and I will discover this and become convinced of its truth. Maybe I'll reach a point where it just doesn't matter to me whether or not it's true and I embrace some iteration of it. I consider all of those things possible. I'm talking about what the Bible says, and the Bible agrees with the sentiment expressed by Miss Swift.

The Convenience and Self-flattery of Apostasy

I suspect that the very existence of apostates might be a bit of an inconvenience for Christians. Not all apostates obviously. Many fit the preferred narrative quite well. These are the folks raised in the church who "go astray" some time around adolescence. It's easy to pick on these folks because their departure often coincides with a time in their lives when they begin questioning the legitimacy of the authority figures around them and rebelling. This also happens to be a time when their hormones begin strongly leading them to engage in thoughts and behaviors that are deemed "immoral" by most Christians. They make easy targets for dismissal.

I'm sure many of these teens really do just want to cast off the shackles of moral standards and do as they please. But there are doubtless others that sincerely wrestle with and reject the faith they were raised in because they realize how intellectually untenable it is. Once their access to things like the Internet become unfettered and they begin having contact with divergent views, this process is likely accelerated. For many their rejection of Christianity is a combination of factors and not merely a simplistic desire to "fornicate with impunity."

The Boxers of Christianity

Deanna, a guest poster over at Neil’s Godless in Dixie blog, has an excellent post up about the narcissism of preaching. She paints an all-too-common portrait of members of the clergy. I have trouble finding fault with it. My only counterpoint would be to suggest something I’m sure she’d have no problem admitting. That is that not all preachers completely fit that mold. Certainly some folks will be able to think of exceptions to many of the otherwise spot-on characterizations she puts forward. The take-away for me is that this particular career path undeniably shapes and attracts certain people that find great success, acclaim, honor and monetary gain as a reward for traits like narcissism and megalomania. Of course there are exceptions. There are probably some decent people in politics too. How does the system treat them, though? Who fares better?

Counting the Sunken Costs

"For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace."  - Luke 14:28-32

The Lucan Jesus makes a valid point here (although it doesn't really work within his larger point, but that's another story altogether). Before beginning an endeavor it is a good idea to perform an assessment and reasonably estimate whether or not you have the resources and ability to see it through. But what if you've already started building the tower and you realize it's pointless and a foolish waste of time? What if you've already attacked that king and now you realize that not only are you fighting a losing battle, but you're on the wrong side? Do you continue building? Do you keep fighting? Do you count the sunken costs?

But the foundation was good...unlike Christianity

 
After announcing my departure from Christianity a pastor remarked to me that he wouldn't be so quick to cast off a faith that he had spent over twenty years actively involved in without seriously examining "the most recent scholarship" produced by people within his particular iteration of Christianity. This was part of a pitch to stall and get me to invest incalculable time going through what turned out to be a ton of additional theological and apologetic material, or as he put it “enough reading for a semester at RTS [Reformed Theological Seminary].”

The Will to Believe and the Will to Know

During a recent car trip, my wife and I listened to Seth Andrews interview Dale McGowan about secular parenting on his podcast. At some point the subject of Santa Claus came up and the question was put to McGowan about whether or not chilren should be taught this myth. Some in the secular community advocate very strongly against teaching kids any myth as fact. McGowan, however, recommends it in the case of Santa because it's a myth that kids will eventually find their way out of and can serve as a powerful life lesson.

Leaving the Santa Claus Fan Club

A few days ago I was (virtually) introduced to fellow ex-Christian blogger Neil over at Godless in Dixie. Our backgrounds share a bit of similarity and I liked his blog so much I've added it to my list of "Some Sites I Like" in the column over to the right. That should be worth at least two or three extra hits a quarter for him, based on the traffic I experience here. Admittedly, I've found myself getting miffed at a couple of things he's written because, quite frankly, I wish I had written them.

Computer Brains

I was reading a post about thoughtcrime as it relates to Christianity over at A Counter Apologist's blog when it dawned on me that one of my favorite Christian rock bands had engaged in some unintentional irony related to this issue back in the day.

First some background.

It seems obvious that CCM is highly derivative, and the Christian rock band Petra was certainly no exception. In 1984 (the year, not the book) the young people were all tuning in to keyboard-driven techno pop, so there was a natural inclination for a Christian rock band like Petra to veer away from their rock roots and produce a techno pop album. 1985's Beat the System was that album. It was the first ever CCM recording I was introduced to outside of Amy Grant, Keith Green and Truth.

Q & A for the curious

For the benefit of those who may know me, I’ve prepared this little Q & A to address what I think might be some common questions people will have.

You obviously don’t believe the Bible is the word of God anymore. Why not?

Probably for some of the same reasons you don’t believe the Book of Mormon, Bhagavad Gita and the Quran are the word of God. That is to say, they all appear to me to be of human origin and make truth claims that are either internally inconsistent or run contrary to empirical observation. It may not seem abundantly obvious from your perspective that the Bible is internally inconsistent and makes truth claims counter to reality, but it is from my perspective along with the perspective of millions of other people. I’ll be happy to demonstrate this or point out other sources that do, but in all likelihood you won’t accept that evidence any more than a devout Mormon, Hindu or Muslim would accept your evidence pointing out the inconsistencies and things contrary to fact in their holy texts either.

I know you may look at the Bible as I used to and see all these wonderful and miraculous things that prove to you that God inspired it. You might point out all the supposedly fulfilled prophecies or the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead or how wonderful and wise so many of the Bible’s verses appear that seem to reflect its divine origins. These would, of course, be similar to the evidences put forward by adherents of other holy texts. Additionally, there are plenty of good reasons why none of those things are particularly compelling from my perspective anymore. I’ll be discussing why I don’t find them compelling as this blog progresses. I also understand that you will likely write off my objections as resulting from my being blinded by Satan and/or not having the Holy Spirit inside of me. If that’s the case, you really can’t blame me, can you?

So do you believe in evolution and the big bang and all that stuff?
I wouldn't say I "believe in" evolutionary theory or big bang cosmology. Rather I'd say I understand them to be the best explanations currently available for the formation of the detectible universe and the diversity of life on earth. I would also say similar things about germ theory being the best explanation for infectious disease and gravitational theory being the best explanation for why physical bodies are attracted to one another.

My lack of belief in the claims of Christianity is not bound up with any of these theories, however. So please don't try to refute germ theory thinking that if you do its absence will automatically lead me to assume the Biblical explanation that disease is caused by demon possession. Likewise, please don't assume that somehow falsifying the mountain of evidence in favor of evolutionary theory will lead me to posit six days of creation by the god of the Bible in its absence. Note that even if there were such a thing as "Intelligent Design" that would only give credence to deism, and from a practical standpoint deism is just as consequential as atheism or agnosticism.

Do you even believe in God anymore? Are you an atheist or what?

I don’t believe in the god of the Bible. That is to say, if a god or gods exist, I’m pretty sure it’s not the one(s) described in the Bible (or the Koran either for that matter). Beyond that I really couldn’t say for sure. I acknowledge that there could be either an evil, incompetent or ambivalent god or gods that exist, so I remain open to maltheism and deism on a philosophical level. I suppose that makes me an agnostic. However, since both maltheism and deism would be irrelevant to how I choose to go on about my existence, on a practical level I’m an atheist. As such, I’m fine with being labeled either agnostic or atheist.

Didn’t you feel the presence of God?

Well, I certainly felt something. I felt that when I prayed, God was listening. At times I experienced varying degrees of joy and exaltation while engaged in both public worship and during personal quiet times. I even had moments where I thought I was gaining clarity or insight on some spiritual matters. I certainly had moments where I felt like God had actually answered my prayers.

The problem with those experiences is that people of many different religions all have similar experiences. They can’t all be right. Additionally, all of those experiences can be explained by human psychology. Quite simply they could all be traced back to mental functions common in virtually all human beings cross culturally.

Aren't you just making yourself into a god?
Well, if you view independent decision-making as a god-like trait and think that self-determination and personal responsibility are forms of self-worship, then I suppose I am. If every time I prayed I was really just talking to myself, then apparently I've been pretending I'm a god for quite awhile. I just didn't realize it before.

All kidding aside, no. I don't think I'm a god. If anything I feel I have an even greater grasp of just how insignificant I am compared to the enormity of the universe and the vast expanse of time.

What if you’re wrong? Aren't you afraid you'll burn in hell?

Well, what if you’re wrong? What if the Muslims are right and Allah is going to torture you in Jahannam (the Muslim version of hell) for all eternity for rejecting the teachings of Muhammad? What if the Zoroastrians are right and their god, Ahura Mazda, is going to cast you into purgation in molten metal? What if people of other sects of Christianity are right and you either haven’t believed correctly or didn’t do enough good works? What if your own faith isn’t sincere enough and even though you’ve picked the right religious belief, as it turns out you don’t really believe? What if you’ve just convinced yourself that you believe, but at the final judgement Jesus ends up saying to you, “Depart from me, I never knew you” and you are cast into the Lake of Fire for all eternity?

Do you worry about those things? Perhaps you do from time to time, but I’m betting that most of the time you don’t. You may even find the notion that those things might actually happen to you after you die rather absurd. And yet millions of other people on this planet believe with just as much sincerity as you do that one of those things will indeed be your fate because you don’t believe the things they do or practice religion the way they do.

The reality is that everyone runs the risk of being wrong. None of us can just on a whim change the fact that we simply don’t believe these other things. I can’t make myself have faith in the god of the Bible in order to avoid the possibility of spending eternity in hell any more than you could make yourself have faith in the god of the Quran to avoid the possibility of spending eternity in Jahannam (assuming you are not already a Muslim, of course). Do you think you could make yourself believe in Zeus? How about Vishnu? You may have believed in them when you were a kid, but could you make yourself believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy again? Of course not. You have no control over that because that's not how belief works. Dorothy can't just ignore the man behind the curtain.

Perhaps you think I'm gambling with my soul and should just bet on Christianity and believe it (or go on pretending I believe) just in case. The problem is this discounts all the other virtually infinite possibilities of what kind of god(s) might exist and what he/she/they might want from me in order to grant me a pleasant afterlife and avoid some kind of eternal torture. Not to mention that wouldn't be genuine faith and certainly wouldn’t pass muster according to most people’s understanding of the kind of "saving faith" the god of the Bible demands. It amazes me how many people who are having doubts will simply cling to Pascal’s Wager when even Pascal himself seems to have understood its limitations. I suggest as an alternative the agnostic atheism wager.

What about morality? You always seemed like a decent fellow.

I don’t really plan on changing much in that respect. Believe it or not there are moral and ethical systems that exist apart from the Christian religion. I don’t plan on going on any shooting sprees or hanging out at strip clubs or neglecting my children or cheating on my taxes any time soon. I’m now OK with some stuff you may find objectionable like gays getting married and such, but in all likelihood you and I most likely still share many of the same basic, common values we always have. I’m quite certain that if you stop and think about it, you personally know or have known several other people who are nonreligious and yet seem to be fine, upstanding and trustworthy people. I’d like to think you could place me in that category now as well.
  
Since you don't believe there is an afterlife, aren't you sad, depressed and hopeless now?
Not really. I was a bit disappointed at first. Perhaps this isn't the best analogy, but imagine you're a kid going for a ride and you've been told you're on the way to Disney World only you find out you're really just going for a ride and that's it. Of course you're going to be disappointed. Someone gave you false expectations. Maybe if you had been told all along that you were just going for a ride, you'd have spent more time trying to make the ride better for you and others and just enjoying the ride. You would have spent less time thinking about and preparing yourself for Disney World. Additionally, you might be a bit angry with the people [or culture or institution] responsible for giving you the impression you were going somewhere that you weren't.

Sure, it sucks coming to the realization that there probably isn't an afterlife where I'll get to see my dead loved-ones and continue my existence, but I'm still young enough that I'd rather be honest about reality than persist in a comfortable delusion all while dragging others into that delusion with me. And yeah, I'm kind of pissed that I spent so long believing what amounts to a giant load of bullcrap. On the plus side, though, it's nice to know that most of the people who've ever lived probably aren't headed for eternal torment in hell after all. How's that for good news?

We're all going to die. But we're the lucky ones because we got to live. Trillions of potential human beings will never get that chance. On top of that we are part of the universe that is able to think about itself. That's pretty awesome and exciting in and of itself. I'd like to try to make the most of that. As Rush says all I can really do is take my chances and "roll the bones."

How did this happen?

It seems strange that people like my wife and me with our upbringing and levels of participation in the church would just up and leave the faith, doesn’t it? Usually when I’d heard about other people leaving their faith it’s around the time they leave home for the first time and go off to college or get out on their own. It’s not usually people in their mid-thirties who’ve gotten married, settled into a career and had kids. This, of course, has only served to increase the level of shock that people close to us have felt.

It wasn’t something we went looking for. There was no tragic event that made us angry with God. There was no immoral behavior we wanted to engage in and needed to find a way out so we could quiet our guilty consciences and happily pursue it. There were no religious leaders in our church engaged in hypocritical behavior that made us sour to Christianity. This has made it really hard for people to categorize our apostasy. Several still continue to offer their unsolicited guesses about our motives, fearing the obvious: that we simply found the claims of Christianity to be false.

My Christian Credentials

Up until fairly recently I’ve believed the basic tenets of Christianity for as long as I can remember. Growing up, there was never really any doubt that the Christian god existed, that Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again, that people had eternal souls that either went to heaven or hell after death, and that the Protestant Bible was the word of God and was absolutely true. Church attendance may have been sporadic at times, but the aforementioned doctrines were always a given.

At six years old on Easter Sunday, after viewing some sort of dramatic choir presentation in a church, I had some kind of emotional reaction and began sobbing uncontrollably where I sat. I don’t really remember much about it now, quite frankly. I remember being really upset that Jesus had to suffer and die and understanding that I was somehow responsible for that because of some stuff I had done. I don’t recall if I prayed a prayer and asked Jesus into my heart or not at the behest of some pastor or other adult, but I assume I did. The details are fuzzy, but since we’re now 30 years removed from those events it probably doesn’t matter.

About this blog

Here’s a short explanation for those who may not know. I used to believe the claims of Christianity. I don’t anymore. That’s probably going to need to be unpacked a bit further since “Christianity” is such a loaded word and often means different things to different people. Even the word “believe” is probably going to present some difficulty for people [many will say I never really believed]. For now, that’s an adequate enough way to express things.

If you know me personally and you’re just now finding out about this, depending on how well you know me, that information may be kind of shocking. I suspect word has traveled well enough by now and that most people who know me well have already heard either directly or through someone else. If you’re just now finding out…surprise! I’m an apostate.

So what am I trying to do with this blog? Well, there are a few things. For one, I’m mainly looking to record some of my reflections on 20+ years of active involvement in Christianity and share my thoughts about theology and the Bible. Also, I’d like to have a place where I can present my side of the story. I’m sure some people have wondered things about me since they heard about my “deconversion” from Christianity. Hopefully this will help clear some things up. Additionally, I’m looking for this to be a repository I can point people toward if or when they have specific questions for me about various subjects. A final stated purpose is to challenge others who may have seen or are beginning to see the cracks in Christian dogma and would just like to see what another side has to say.

A word of warning: as Dan Dennett says, “There is no polite way to suggest to someone that they have devoted their life to a folly.” For many that’s exactly what I’m going to be doing either directly or indirectly. If you are a committed Christian belonging to a conservative, Evangelical denomination, you’re not going to like what I write on this blog. You’re going to find it offensive and be quite put off by it. If you’re a family member of mine who has strong views about religion, you’ll very likely find it painful to read. But if you think you can handle it, stick around.

Basically, this blog is just one guy’s attempt to explain his departure from the Christian faith. As with most blogs, the narcissism will be abundant and the posts will likely become less frequent over time. There will be occasional attempts at humor; many of those attempts will fail and most will be considered offensive. Feel free to comment, but know that the comments will be moderated before they are published. This is, after all, my blog. Anonymous critical comments will be prejudged as cowardly, but hey, don’t let that stop you.

Still curious?

Read about my background here.
Read about why I left Christianity here.
See where I answer some questions here.

 I stopped believin', although Journey told me "don't"