highlights of a deconversion
For some unknown reason, I’ve been reminiscing lately about my awakening to atheism. It was almost 20 years ago and I have terrible memory, but I’d like to present the highlights.
alarm bell 1
I was a Good Christian with a Bible by my bedside to inspire Christianly thoughts before I laid my head down to go to sleep. I tended to avoid the crazy stories of the Old Testament and look for religious inspiration in the safe bosom of the New Testament. Lovely Jesus and all his chums spreading love and benevolence. It was this passage in Corinthians that ignited a confused concern:
Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.
This is clear. This is the New Testament. This is in the written Word of the good god God. I found this completely inconsistent with any ideas that any nice god speaking to any culture should be inspiring. Alarm bells were ringing that something was a bit fishy here.
alarm bell 2
With the concerns about the Bible floating around my head, I still continued as a Good Christian attending church. I started to find the idea of sitting watching a man telling me I’m bad for an hour every week rather odd. To be fair, that wasn’t always the main focus of the talking, but there would certainly be a significant chunk of prayer dedicated to the topic of how bad humans are and how humans need forgiveness and how the god God is wonderful. Was I really that bad? Did a nice god want to be told in an obsequious manner how great it is and begged forgiveness for behaviour? I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the messages. Standing up to sing songs to tell the god how great it is, in unison with other people at regular intervals also started to feel a little strange. It was dawning on me that church services are odd.
deconversion
I do my best thinking when I’m travelling. And the best form of travelling is by train. Train journeys are great. Long train journeys are amazing. I remember being on a train when I was about 20 and allowing, for the first time in my life, the thought that god did not exist. This was a huge step. It’s not a ‘what if God doesn’t exist’. It was a ‘God doesn’t exist!’. And yet I winced. I waited for my world to crumble. But life continued as normal. Yet different.
aftershock
There were several years of post-belief effects I can remember – like continuing to have automatic sharp intake of breath when someone took the name of my ex-lord God in vain. It can be a slow journey to remove and replace set thinking patterns that have developed all through childhood. And indeed I think it’s only in the last few years, almost 20 years later, that I am out the other side. I know this because it’s only in the last few years that I’m shocked when someone says they’ll pray for someone, or makes reference to their god’s plan in their life, or tells me an amazing coincidence in their life is the work of their deity. And when I say it’s like they’re telling me they prayed to a fairy, or a leprechaun has a plan for their life, or amazing coincidences are the work of of elves – I’m not joking. I’m not being facetious and I’m not trying to ridicule them to make a point. This is exactly how it reaches my brain.
time to share
I think my stories are rather mundane. But I would be delighted if you would like to share the alarm bells that rang for you, your deconversion moment and any aftershocks you have felt or may still be feeling. If you’re still a Christian, or a person of another religion, please feel free to share any wobbles you’ve had.
If you’d like, check out my fairly new blog where I share raw and honest truths about my own experience with faith, struggles, etc
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Neat pic, by the way!
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Thanks for commenting Lily – you have no idea how much I appreciate people complimenting my photos! Any wobble stories you’d like to share here?
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That pic is a beaut!
-Billy and the sparrow
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Thanks 🙂 Do you have a sparrow photo? With Billy?
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OH, I wish.
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Not trying to reconvert you or anything, just sharing what I’ve been thinking about….
That passage in Corinthians always bothered me. Like, a lot.
Then, just a few weeks ago, I learned that it’s a quotation. From the Corinthians. To Paul. Paul’s response to it?
“Was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. So, my friends, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking.”
Which made me feel a good deal better, all things considered.
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Thanks interesting. I was preparing for another laughable *your* interpretation rant. But I read it in context and your interpretation sounds pretty plausible. Poor Paul, I wonder if all his words were misunderstood – such a nice chap. It certainly begs the questions why have almost all Christians through time misinterpreted it? Please read Raut’s response below, he’s much more eloquent and factual than I could ever be, but he seems to share my point of view on pretty much everything. Invite him over to your blog too, it’s always great to get his input.
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From what I understand, there are context marks in the Greek indicating the start of a quotation. Plus, it makes more sense with the surrounding context. Paul had talked about women speaking in churches just three chapters before; it doesn’t make sense that he’d say the complete opposite thing.
It certainly begs the questions why have almost all Christians through time misinterpreted it?
Actually, women were being ordained as deacons in the Catholic Church all the way up through the 9th century. It’s surprising just how many things I always thought were “immutable church doctrine” (like the whole business with fornication I blogged about) are actually really recent departures from prior consensus.
I’ll definitely look at Raut’s response!
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You’re right, it does make much more sense of the surrounding context. What an odd error to slip through the translation net. Do you think any of the people who translated the Bible were biased?
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Oh, I’m sure that quite a few of the thousands of people who translated the Bible into various languages over the past 17 centuries or so had varying levels of bias. Thankfully, though, that doesn’t matter too much. We can reconstruct the original autographs to a high degree of accuracy, and we have a good enough grasp of ancient Greek and Hebrew to retranslate any time we want to check something. Heck, anybody with a concordance can check other uses of a given word if they want to be sure of a translation.
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I was sixteen when I said to myself one morning: “God does not exist.” That was thirty-two years ago, before atheism became somewhat more acceptable. The “born again” Christians at college eventually gave up on trying to convert me. That takes some doing! I still have a sense of the sacred, though–sort of a sacred humanism.
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That sounds like a very random enlightenment! No alarm bells or anything?
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LOL! No alarm bells, just a feeling I’d suppressed for some time prior to admitting it to myself. Actually stating my atheism aloud was both uncomfortable and strangely liberating.
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Definitely, I felt the same way.
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Through 2009 I realised I was more and more atheist, and I admitted to myself in February 2010 that I did not believe in God. And a day or so later, I walked into a parish church and was overwhelmed by the holiness of it, so that I was brought to my knees.
I do not think that this is me finding comforting lies more acceptable than bracing truth, but me finding a way in which I can explain to myself my reality, what reality feels like. If I label certain experiences “spiritual”, I can be uncertain about what those actually mean.
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That was a short-lived atheism! I guess we’re all looking for something that makes sense to us.
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I was attacked by a kangaroo an hour after my First Holy Communion. 9 years old and i was an agnostic. I wrote a post on that fateful day. http://thesuperstitiousnakedape.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/losing-my-religion-4/
The Augustinian priests in my secondary school were (i suspect) silent atheists. They never pushed it. They didn’t even attend the only “get to know Christianity” class we ever had. it was hosted (as a one-off exercise) by one of our English teachers. The entire thing quickly became an utter debacle as a friend and i bypassed Christianity and started challenging the existence of all gods. It happened completely by accident. certainly wasn’t planned. soon everyone was in on it. the poor thing left the room crying.
It just always seemed so silly to me.
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*7 years old, sorry.
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Excellent! Nothing mundane about that story. Just read the post and I urge any lurkers who haven’t seen it to read it. ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS!!
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Violet,
I have been where you are. I never completely rejected God, but my intellectual side (and the fact that I am a woman) made it hard to make a marriage of the Bible and faith and church and God.
I am considered something of a heretic by fundamentalist Christians, but then, so was Jesus and Martin Luther and John Calvin. I consider myself a “thinking” Christian. Jesus was deep (not that I am comparing myself to Jesus. Remember, that got John Lennon in a lot of trouble). In fact, I think Jesus had a lot to say to those “legalistic” Christians who did not apply a deeper thinking to scripture. Those people are never going to listen to you (or me), at least not in any meaningful way. Note: There are other Christians who I consider to be “thinking” Christians who do not agree with me on many issues.
Jesus came and told the Pharisees that they had it all wrong, yet they were following what the scriptures said to do. Clearly, there was the “spirit” of the law that they did not get and they did not allow the law to “adapt” and “change” according to the needs of society. They attacked Jesus on all sides and tried to trip him up with scripture. “Don’t do anything on the Sabbath!” Jesus responded with the equivalent of, “that’s stupid. Do you think God doesn’t want you to help people (or animals) just because it is the Sabbath?” And that was one of the ten commandments. What did the Pharisees do? They conspired to have Jesus crucified. Things are not much different today. People fight about much more obscure things in the scriptures.
That Corinthians passage is all Paul. Paul and I would have gone round and round about a lot of what he said, especially as it relates to women. Keep in mind that the Bible is full of stories about strong women who did awesome things. The fact that those stories made it into scripture despite the patriarchal society in which they were penned should tell you that there were probably plenty of women doing great things.
Jesus did exist. His existence and the great things he did are recorded by non-Christian Jewish historians like Josephus.
We are reading the Bible now but it was written in a time where customs and societal norms are completely different than they are now. Does that make God unreal? That is one of the questions everyone must ask themselves and ponder upon.
If you were to speak to a class of 3rd graders, and you were there to try and explain something like sex education, would you use the same examples and visual aids as you would if presenting the material to 12th graders? And if you did present the same material to 12th graders, they would probably be saying, “this is stupid. This is not relevant.” Perhaps they would even decide that sex education was not real. This isn’t the best analogy, but hopefully you can extrapolate. Jesus was a heretic to the Pharisees and to many other Jews, but He still had to speak in the language of the times. There is only so much new stuff you can present to people who are set in their ways. Imagine if women had marched for the right to vote while topless. We’d still be banned from the ballot box. This is why I think it is important that Jesus boiled down the gospel into “Love God and love your neighbor”.
Keep in mind that the New Testament was written during the lifetimes of the disciples that worked with Jesus or very near to it. These disciples were persecuted, many of them killed, for sticking to what they said they saw, heard, and experienced first hand. David Koresh and Jim Jones had a lot of followers, and many of them died (most by force) but few, if any, survivors of these cults has recorded either contemporaneously or years after the fact that these men were “real” prophets.
I find it interesting that it is commonplace to denounce the Christian God, but not so much time is spent denouncing the gods of other religions; many of which practice pretty despicable acts in the name of their religion. I find that negative backlash as it relates to non-Christian religions is toward the individuals and not the religion itself or their gods. Just a thought.
There are plenty of religions out there which have nothing to do with God or any god. We are all looking for answers. Some of us believe we have found them and others believe we are deluded. That used to bother me, but not anymore (well, not most of the time, anyway). I think that I have reached the conclusion that it is not my job to change anyone’s mind about God. I do believe, however, that I’m responsible for not chasing anyone away because I act like an idiot and say that I’m excused because God told me it is OK to act that way.
Love your pictures and enjoy reading your blog.
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I have never had a deconversion as I am an atheist in the third generation. So to that I have nohting to add. I have come to understand some things I formerly took as truths as not such, though.
As physicsandwhiskey mentioned, there is a new understanding of the Bible, that absolves women from the 2000 year long tradition of silence in the church. This is how the Lutheran church in Finland and Sweden have come to interprete the Bible at least, hence there are even women priests today. In opposition to them there are conservative religious people who do not embrace that logic. However, this new development is not relevant to the question. As even if all the Christian denominations chose to follow this new logic, or even if it would reveal wich sect is the true follower of Christ, why were all those sincere Christians deluded this way for so long? Either the Christian god is misogynic, or all the people who believe the Bible says women should be silent in church have misinterpreted the Bible, or this god is just disinterrested in people, or it does not exist. Or perhaps this Christian god is actually evil and has deluded people in such a way (and many others) deliberately. Wich is it? What else in the Bible is misinterpreted and how is it possible, that we continuously misinterprete word of the creator of the universe? How is it even possible, that the one contact this god alledgedly has had with humanity is over and over misinterpreted? Sounds like a pretty feeble attempt to contact humanity, from such a powerfull entity, or more like just a book by superstitious primitive culture.
I salute you cindy0803 for being a heretic in the eyes of the crazed fundies, who take the book literally. Wich ever version of it they happen to have. I am told, being a “thinking christian” and reading the Bible through are the first steps in deconversion. But even if you do not become an atheist, it is important that we good people who do not base our morality on the literal interpretation of some old texts, but on the actual needs of the society today, stand in opposition to the most looney demands these fanatics have. However good their interpretations of some old book are.
I agree with you that Jesus was a radical. If he really existed and was not just an imaginary character, it is obvious that he was the victim of religious violence, similar to the kind his sincere adherents have committed after him for generations, without him ever intervening.
Sources like Josephus do not confirm the existance of Jesus. Josephus was not an actual contemporary to Jesus and neither was Tacitus. Neither of them write anything about Jesus, or his actions, but only refer to the cult of followers of this man who had alledgedly executed. There are no contemporary sources about Jesus outside the Bible. This does not necessarily mean he did not exist, but even if he had external contemporary sources, we do not have any reason to believe any of the miracles, including the resurrection, ever happened. Tacitus, for example, claims there were dog headed people beyond Sarmatia, but even though he is a sound historian (unlike the Gosple writers), and there are plenty of other sources wich claim the same, we do not think there were any. Do we?
The ancient Hebrew were a primitive culture, but they were not simpletons, or little children. They were adulst just as capable as anyone of us to understand what is right and what is wrong for the very same reasons as we do. If a god wanted them to act in a certain way he could have told them to and explain why, instead of coming up with a totally unethical behaviour code of arbitrary commands, as the Bible claims. The most absurd Biblical laws are about segregation between the Hebrews and their neighbours. The do not indicate a god giving high moral standards, but theocrates handing out rules, wich increases their power. Just what to expect from a religious text written by men, not gods.
The reasons you run into more critique of the Christian concept of a god, is you come from a Chirstian culture, your language is of a traditionally Christian culture, Christianity is the major religion in secular first world countries where criticism of religion is allowed (not because Christians are traditionally less violent towards critics, but because Christian wars against each other have forced our western culture to adopt freedom of religion as a necessity) and finally because it is absurd to argue against religious violence. What is there to argue? We condemn it, but when anyone says that it is OK for other people to suffer, because a god demands it, they are being totally unethical. This, by the way, applies not only to people who cause actual physical harm, but also to Christians who believe other people are deserving eternal torment in hell for disbelieving their god.
“Love your neighbour”, or the golden rule of treat others as you would want to be treated in their position, is a very good advice. It was not invented by Jesus. It is something everyone of us should be able to concieve through our very natural ability to have empathy and logic on how any society is made to function, wether or not a god backs this statement up. It was presented by many philosophers before Jesus, like Laozi and Buddha, and many after him, but as I said it is a natural assumption and that is why it resonates within us so well, if we are not total sociopaths. The part about love for a god, is totally arbitrary and serves no actual purpose, other than it sets a higher authority over us, for a demagogue to appeal to when he wants us to act in a way our natural empathy would not allow us to.
We should keep looking for the truths, and not stop at any one, wich claims to have all the answers, especially since the final answer to any question is just, that the explanation is mysterious, or beyond our grasp of understanding.
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Rautakky,
You have said a lot and I certainly do not mean to marginalize any one part because I don’t address it; nor am I trying to avoid it. There is just not enough space to say all that is important, and honestly, I don’t know if I’m up to the challenge. I can say this, there is anger driving some of your words (not toward me) and I understand it and I stand beside you in much of what you said. I will defend your right to NOT believe, to the death if I have to (at least I hope I have that courage).
I do want to clear up that I wasn’t saying that the Hebrews were equivalent to idiots or children relative to the size of their brains. Surely they must take responsibility for their rigidity just as Christians must take responsibility for their rigidity today. Anyway, I did say that my analogy wasn’t the best. But you must admit that many of their ideas were based on backwards thinking that has evolved over the centuries.
You want to argue that there can be no God (not just my God but any god) because God would not let bad things happen, encourage bad things, smite people, allow suffering, etc. (I am simplifying here). I can think of nothing better or worse (a contradiction, no?) of being created by a God that set up everything so that I never had to work, or worry, or fight. Yes, I would love to know that my daughter will never have the misfortune of getting cancer or being killed in an automobile accident, but I would hate to live in a world where I would never have a thought of my own that could potentially make any difference. EVER. Wouldn’t I have to exchange free will and a feeling of usefulness and purpose for the other? That is the equivalent of a benevolent Zeus. At some point, the cogs in the brain start to smoke and you realize you have to step back so that you don’t completely cause it to seize up.
It is possible that God decided to send Jesus when He did because things had reached a point where it needed to happen; perhaps we have reached or will reach that point again.
You feel more comfortable believing that there is no God and that we are here by accident rather than design. My scientific brain rejects that also, but it does not make me consider you an idiot or misguided or evil. I love that “cyclone through the junkyard producing a Boeing 747” analogy. I just don’t buy it.
You say we should keep looking for the truth, but would you consider a truth that suggested we might actually be a divine creation?
I would like to believe that I am always looking for the truth. The fact that I try and do that through prayer and the “personal” study of scripture as well as science, math and nature should not make my attempts contemptible by either Atheists or Christian fundamentalists. But if it does, I am not going to despair. I truly try and love and respect every individual.
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@ Cindy.
When you have a few moments, Cindy, please pop over, I’d appreciate your input on this post.
http://attaleuntold.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/a-call-to-all-religious-folk-from-the-ark/
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Thanks Raut, love it all! I’ve directed physicsandwhiskey down here, don’t know if you two have met before.
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Hey, thanks for your really in-depth response!
There is a new understanding of the Bible, that absolves women from the 2000 year long tradition of silence in the church.
I’ve recently been coming to learn that this “tradition of silence” (and other stupid views on women and sexuality) may not be quite 2000 years old. Like I said here, the whole business with demonizing “fornication” is a really recent thing.
even if all the Christian denominations chose to follow this new logic, or even if it would reveal wich sect is the true follower of Christ, why were all those sincere Christians deluded this way for so long?
I’m curious to know what you mean about “revealing which sect is the true follower of Christ”. The majority of Christian churches (Roman Catholics included) all agree that there is no “true” church in the sense of an exclusive claim to salvation; some groups may be more or less on-point when it comes to social issues and church structure, but “true” Christianity transcends any one group. That’s been the consensus of the vast majority of Christians through most of history.
Why were all those sincere Christians deluded this way for so long?
Because human beings are susceptible to suggestion and prone to discrimination.
But remember that women speaking in churches is not a new thing. Both the gospels and the Pauline epistles reflect a major role for women in the creation and growth of the early church. During the patristic age (a result of merging the highly chauvinistic Roman family structure with a more stringently organized Christianity), early church fathers like Tertullian and Origen seized on passages like these (which, being highly specific to the church at Corinth, hadn’t been broadly discussed as much before) as evidence for a patristic Christianity. The discrimination ball got rolling and gained a lot of momentum in a very short amount of time.
After Rome fell, this view began to weaken. Marian devotion and female sainthood became more acceptable, and convents were established so that women could move away from the “get married and make babies” mindset and actually begin to acquire literacy and learning. Women founded monasteries, initiated church reforms, and continued to take a more active role in ministry. The 14th-century Saint Catherine of Sienna was even declared a Doctor of the Church for her contributions to doctrine.
At what was arguably the height of female influence in the church, we got the Reformation. While it did a great deal of good in many ways, it also had some nasty effects; Protestant opposition to monasteries and convents again restricted women to a mother-and-wife role within the church. Certain major sects like the Quakers and the Pentecostal Holiness movements pushed back against this, but on a whole chauvinism gained a pretty firm standing in Protestantism during the Reformation. Meanwhile, female influence in the Roman and Anglican churches continued to grow; the British Monarch has always been the Supreme Governor of the Church of England whether male or female.
What else in the Bible is misinterpreted and how is it possible, that we continuously misinterprete word of the creator of the universe?
We should also keep in mind that all this squabble about “interpretations” really only arose in the past few centuries due to fundamentalist literalism. It’s quite recent.
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Pysicsandwhiskey you wrote: “The majority of Christian churches (Roman Catholics included) all agree that there is no “true” church in the sense of an exclusive claim to salvation; some groups may be more or less on-point when it comes to social issues and church structure, but “true” Christianity transcends any one group. That’s been the consensus of the vast majority of Christians through most of history.”
No, it has not been so. Have you not heard of the destruction of Gnostics? Or the crusades against Orthodox, Albigens and Hussites for example? What about the 30-years war? Most of the history of Christianity has been killing infidel Christians. It is no longer a word much used in Christendom, but the reason for freedom of religion is not because Christians traditionally like to acknowledge the other sects, it is because it was found to be a necessity after centuries of war and decades of total destruction. To stop such horrors as the destruction of Magdeburg to ever take place again for such an arbitrary reason as different denomination in the faith.
Make no mistake, the people who participated these crusades and holy wars against other Christians were sure the other part would go to hell. Leader of the Albigens crusade Simon de Montfort was famous for saying that he did not care wether his victims were the Cathars, or good Catholics, because his god would know how to sort them out in the afterlife.
The squabble about misinterpretation is an ancient problem. Was not the great schism between the eastern and western churches a result of interpretation? Was it not their interpretation of the scripture that deserved the Albigenses to be destroyed by a crusade? What about Jan Huss was he not burned alive for his interpretation of the scripture? Was it not the different Bible interpretations that led to wars between the Roman church and the Protestants? Yes, there definately were more mundane reasons, but the interpretations were the “casus belli” and for them thousands and thousands of god fearing good Christians died for, fighting against the infidels and heretics. No god ever appeared to tell people they were wrong about their interpretations wether it be a fundamental difference, or “just a technicality” like women being silent.
Yes, you are absolutely right, that there were mighty women even during the middle ages. There is this misunderstanding about the middle ages, that the church ruled over everything in those days, when it actually did not. Kings and queens fought over power against the church bishops and cardinals. Sometimes even an archibishop got murdered like Thomas Becket for instance. The church had a lot more power, than it has in the secular culture today (that is why we do not burn heretics anymore), but it did not have power over every little aspect of life and as any human social construct it had to fight for it. For example the church had strictly banned tournaments in the 12th century and declared, that any man who died in one, would go directly to hell, but no tournament was ever cancelled as a result. The pope got a lot of angry letters from knights and thats all. The ban was only lifted in the 16th century when the sport was going out of fashion anyway.
One of my favourite philosophers was a medieval woman called Christin de Pisan, who wrote quite well about equality. She said that the problem is not that men and women do different jobs, but that what ever women do, it is valued as less, than what men do. And I think that is still the main problem.
The point being, however, that people believe their scripture interpretation in good faith and with all sincerety, but what they get from their Bible is totally culturally relativist and no god ever appears anywhere to set their massive misunderstandings straight, even though alledgedly this same god seems to find time to cure people from cancer and the odd athletes foot.
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Hey, thanks for your reply!
When I said that the squabble over “interpretation” was a recent one, I was referring to the typical verse-by-verse prooftext-driven arguments characterizing fundamentalism today. This approach is the offspring of fundamentalist literalism, something that only arose in the past few centuries.
Were there disputes — often bloody — over doctrine in the centuries prior? Yes and no. Yes, there were disputes…but it wasn’t about doctrine or the “literal interpretation” of a particular passage. Not ultimately. The disputes were about authority and politics and power. Jan Hus was not burned for improperly interpreting the Bible, but for challenging Rome’s authority as the sole source of interpretation and doctrine. When Luther was called before the Diet of Worms, he maintained that the scriptures compelled his views. This was denounced, not because he was “wrongly” interpreting them, but because he dared to interpret them at all (as opposed to simply leaving such matters to the Papacy). Johann Eck, the de facto prosecutor at the Diet, had this to say:
It was this view—that interpretation was EVIL and the Church’s authority must be absolute—that led to the wars and burnings and such various abuses. These were political and power-hungry conflicts; the “literal interpretation” approach we’re so familiar with had nothing to do with it.
You mention the Cathars….funny that you should. Pope Eugene III and Pope Innocent III both attempted to resolve the dispute between Catharism and Roman Christianity by diplomatic and academic means, hosting debates and convening councils. It was only when papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was murdered by Count Raymond VI, a Cathar leader, that outrage and political upheaval sparked the Albigensian Crusade. Was the Crusade thereby justified? Certainly not…but it was clearly a political measure, not a doctrinal measure or one provoked by “inaccurate interpretations” as one might suppose.
You say,
No god ever appears anywhere to set their massive misunderstandings straight.
Are you sure? Today, an overwhelming majority of Christians worldwide espouse complementary and noncontradictory views of salvation and orthodoxy, despite coming from a broad range of independent traditions. Looks like the “massive” misunderstandings have been worked out, even if some of the minor points are still being disputed here and there.
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Oh, now I see what you mean. But it does not change my point.
Yes, I am pretty sure, that no gods have ever appeared anywhere to set any of the massive misunderstandings of men about their gods right. Despite the fact, that for example Christian denominations have come closer to each other in terms of not going on wild rampages to kill the infidels and heretics any more, there is no evidence that this is the result of divine forces at play. In fact, in comparrison how eagerly Christians used to declare, that their god wanted the other sort of Christians to be annihilated, the modern Christians have not made -not to my knowledge at least – any declarations of any divine interventions, or even revelations about the non-violence towards the other sects. It is only the secularism seeping in to the western culture wich is a manifested reason for their peacefullness toward each other.
One could argue, that since there is divine influence behind every action of men, that this development of pacification between the Christian sects is a result of a god at play, but that sets the ever more so important free will argument of Christians, at a very questionable light. Since I think I have debunked that one, I would rather argue, that as far as we have evidence, it is a natural social and cultural development.
I do not see the Christianity of today as having worked out their massive misunderstandings, it is only, that our modern social morals would not accept religion as an acceptable reason for killing other people. Even the representatives of completeley different religions, let alone different denominations within Christendom. This is not by any means just a social phenomenon Christians agree upon, but a modern cultural phenomenon in most forms of society and in most forms of religions. Correct?
This is something verifiable, unlike any unsubstantiated assertions, that the peacefullness of the modern Christians is drawn from the divine interventions from their god to stop them from killing each other. However, the higher literacy of the common people might have benefited the issue by enabling them to make their own minds about what the Bible teaches, rather than relying on the powerhungry demagogues. But that is a totally secular development also. And the fact that so many generations have lived under the Christian church illiterate, even though their god’s only attempt at contacting humanity was by through a book tells tons about the church philosophy, but also about the alledged god.
Ever more massive misunderstandings and new lines are drawn all the time. Partly as a result of the higher literacy rate and evolving sciences. As you referred to the modern division between scientifically informed Christians and Biblical literalists for example. This division is not between the old sects, but within them across the board. It is a division line that seems to divide the modern Christians in such fundamental questions and interpretations of the Bible as how much of the book is just metaphorical. A very big intepretation issue wich – I am pretty sure – no god is going to appear to explain.
As I said, there were other more mundane reasons, like the authority of the church, you mention, at play every time the Christians have set them selves against each other at war, but the common Christian drawn to these conflicts and violent deeds was often enough lured in, by appealing to not the authority of a particular sect, but the god himself. Is a soul of an illiterate person who killed an infidel in the middle ages destined for hell, or for heaven, as the person himself most propably had “good reasons” to believe?
Yes, I know about the discussions between Cathars and the Roman church. It was basicly to deal with this problem, that the inquisition was first set up. And I know it was not the unethical torture device, it was later known, in the beginning. The first inquisitors thought they could persuade the Cathars by appealing to the scripture, because they honestly thought it could be intelligently interpreted only one way, but the Cathars beat them to the punch by arguing their case very convincingly, and only then did the pope decided, that the heresy was really dangerous and ordered their annihilation. But we have no reason to think, that the pope did not act in good faith to protect the mankind from the lies of a devil. And same applies to the crusaders. To put it simple. As far as I know, no god appeared to tell anyone in those days wether the Cathars were right, or wrong about him. But the Catholics who won were eager to tell each other and sincerely believe, that their victory in war was an indication of their god’s will. Was it?
As allways, I should ad, that I might be mistaken, and that I am perfectly willing to change my perspective, if a good case of evidence could be presented to counter my view. 😉
Sorry about the long ramblings, wich really have nothing to do with the topic at hand.
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Despite the fact that Christian denominations have come closer to each other in terms of not going on wild rampages to kill the infidels and heretics any more, there is no evidence that this is the result of divine forces at play. I do not see the Christianity of today as having worked out their massive misunderstandings, it is only, that our modern social morals would not accept religion as an acceptable reason for killing other people.
That’s not exactly what I was saying. Sure, Christian denominations have come to a consensus on not killing each other off, but they’ve also come to a consensus on what constitutes orthodoxy. The former can be explained by the encroachment of western culture, but the latter can’t. Denominations thrive on distinctions; why would they independently maintain the same broad definition of orthodoxy?
As you referred to the modern division between scientifically informed Christians and Biblical literalists for example. This division is not between the old sects, but within them across the board. It is a division line that seems to divide the modern Christians in such fundamental questions and interpretations of the Bible as how much of the book is just metaphorical.
Fundamentalist literalism should be seen for what it is — a product of the last few centuries that hasn’t ever maintained a plurality position, much less a majority. And even the fundies still agree on the sphere of basic orthodoxy I mentioned above.
they honestly thought it could be intelligently interpreted only one way, but the Cathars beat them to the punch by arguing their case very convincingly, and only then did the pope decided, that the heresy was really dangerous and ordered their annihilation.
As I pointed out, the violence only started after a papal legate was murdered by the Cathars.
Thanks for continuing to discuss!
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Hey, this is an interresting conversation and you make good points. Of course I want to continue. 🙂 Thanks to yourself. Alltough this has very little to do with the actual topic, and I very much doubt, that even if the first “alarm bell” for violetwisp – as this discussion ensued from that – was proven to have been a moot point (and I argue it is a solid point), it would not much change her disposition at the over all issue.
Anyway, the orthodoxy you mention, could very well be the result of the western cultural development. Certainly there is nothing otherworldly about it, or even anything very exeptional.
If you mean modern ecumenical orthodoxy, or that the common ground of Christianity has been brought up as a supposedly uniform tradition in modern times, there are plenty of cultural reasons for the churches to emphasize such, after centuries of war between them.
Modern humanism has more effect on Christianity, than Christianity has on humanism. I do not claim it is a one way street, but the traffic is rather one sided. You see humanist ideals are very much the same wether the humanist is a Christian, Shintoan, Taoist, Buddhist, Atheist, or what ever. Freedom of religion has released all sorts of humanist ideals, but also competing world views on Christendom (like Teosophia, Agnosticism and Atheism) and even new religions, like Mormonism, or Scientology and Whicca. So, there is the need for modernization of ideals to market them better in all old religions, as an intentional need and a subconscious change in cultural values.
Globalisation has an effect on all cultural phenomenons, including Christianity. Of course the different Christian churchess feel a need to have ecumeny, seek and claim orthodoxy, since, all sorts of other religions (new and old) have emerged to the market. This is an ancient tradition, because of all the other religions Christianity has come to contact with over the many centuries.
The old way of dealing with competing ideas by simply killing the other people is out, not because of the message of love by Jesus, but because of the necessity of freedom of religion.
Any new claims of orthodoxy between Christians in this light is not very likely a result of divine intervention at any point, but the natural result of culture. For the age old reason, that there is strength in unity. Because the wars and bickering between the Christian sects has been seen even within the churches as demining to the common cause.
However, it is too late. For the Christian god, that is. Because even, if it could be argued, that it is some divine intervention, that finally caused ecumeny between all the different denominations of Christianity, it still fals under the category of: why did their god change his mind about this? Did this god idly by watch the different sects of Christianity murder each other all honestly believing they were doing the handy work of this very same god, untill some humanists came along to call this mad? What happened? Was their god busy elswhere, or in some mood swing for few hundred years, but then got better? Why did it take generations and a secularism, before the different sects could be forced to find a common ground?
If you mean a form of “orthodoxy” of religion remaining from the early Christians and not modern ecumeny between them, then that is obvious. Is it not? It does need any supernatural explanations. It is a typical cultural phenomenon. All the Christian sects rely on one book. Different versions of it, but yet it is the Bible and these sects are not islands. They are aware of the different interpretations of it. Remaining in one cultural tradition is natural to such conservative movements as religions.
Fundamentalism is basicly allways a radical revival attempt to come back to the core beliefs of any religion. A form of neo-conservatism (now there is a contradiction in terms). Sometimes this is found from the core book and tenets of the religion, but after all is said and done fundamentalism and even literalism is only a particular type of eclectivism. However, if fundamentalist radicals become big political movements, then the traditional line of the same religion, is under pressure to renew and surprice, surprice, that change is often to the same direction the fundies have taken. Religions depend on the true believers, and fundamentalist movements often appeal to that crowd. This causes problems within the establishment, as most of it’s adherents are often only culturally religious and more secular in their views, but no religion can depend on the secular alone. Hence, when within a religion or a wider aspect of culture there is a change to some direction, often the entire society follows that movement for a while, but extremist views rarely remain in focus of the majority of any population for many generations.
By the way, the murder of the papal legate was of no consequense. It may have been the final straw to begin the conflict, but to the common crusader, or Cathar warrior, the legate was not about what the war was fought for. It was about doing the will of the god, in destroying the herecy, killing the heretics and about surviving to the next day. The millions who gave their lives in WWI did not die for the Arch duke of Austria.
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Thanks Cindy, it’s interesting to read your view on things, and I’ve really enjoyed the thoughtful posts I’ve read on your blog. I spend a lot of time in discussions with Christians who take what I view as a discriminatory or harmful interpretation of the Bible and attempt to encourage others to do the same. I don’t believe any gods exist but I don’t know much about other gods and cultures to begin to have a meaningful conversation with people from other religions. So I think it’s a cultural norm to take issue with the discrimination arising from the religious form of expression you know best – not a specific assault on Christianity.
I think you misread Raut. I’ve never sensed an ounce of anger in his words, and can’t see anything he wrote there that suggests anything other than a balanced analysis of the facts from his standpoint. Where did you read anger?
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Perhaps anger was not the right word, but frustration. It was just an overall feeling that Raut had an iron in the fire; perhaps he has been persecuted or someone in his family has. He was quite cordial (and I hate talking like this like Raut can’t read this; sorry, Raut). But maybe I was just projecting my anger and frustration onto him. 🙂
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Perhaps knowing he’s writing in his second language helps, he has some quirky turns of phrase that I personally love and find very expressive, but people used to a mono-cultural style of communication (don’t know if that’s you) could misinterpret it. It’s always difficult to guess these things in Blogland. Who knows, maybe he’s furious and I’m projecting calm onto him. What do you say, Raut? (Always makes me wonder how people read me!!)
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Cindy 0803 I am sorry that my expression of English language lead anyone to believe I am angry. I really am not. Anger is a bad advisor, but sometimes necessary one. Not here though. I do not believe it was the hate, anger or frustration of either of us, rather the problem of trying to fit a lot of thought in a short space. The necessity of short expression may give out a cynical, but unintended tone. In addition my nation is known to be emotionless. Or rather that we do not express emotions very much. That is a cultural thing.
You do not seem angry or frustrated person to me, rather someone who wants to believe in the right things for all the right reasons. We are all on a quest for trurt here, exept perhaps people who think they have found it from the pages of an old book and throw philosophical quotes from it like they were angry insults. You and I, nor our host violetwisp are not that sort of people.
Cindy 0803 I am gratefull for your willingness to put your life in line for my freedom from religion. I have actually – sort of – returned the favour allready. When I was in the military I gave a solemn promise to protect the legal rights of people and order of my country, wich includes freedom of religion. (they do not take vows from us non-believers, wich is funny because is it not in the Bible that you Christians should never make oaths?) So, if you were here and your freedom of religion was obstructed, I would be more than compelled to fight for your right. Yes, it is a value I would fight to defend and a cause I could die for.
I am sorry that you missed my point (propably because I am writing in my second language), wich was exactly that the laws and rules in the Bible are a result of the primitive nature of the ancient Hebrew culture. A god could have set their moral and legal rules not to reflect all the other similar contemporary laws, but at least some humanly achievable higher morals, but there is no indiciation of anything as such in the Bible, wich leads me to think it was just a man made set of laws, wich was backed up by a divine command, so people would not question it in fear of divine retribution. Arbitrary commands are a very dangerous means of making moral decisions, but if the alledged god is as powerful as claims are, then that god would also have had the means to make people understand what is right and why.
The free will argument is moot, because if evil, harm and not having direct knowledge about a god (exept interpretations of an old book and emotional connection to something unsubstantial) are preconceptions for free will, then this means there is no free will in heaven. Just obidient praise robots. Right? Polio has nothing to do with any sort of free will, but it exists. Did a god mean for it to exist? To me it seems the entire illogical claim about free will has been set up by the demagogues who wish to excuse their god and to prolong faith in that god, beyond logic. Does god value the free will of the dictator more than the free will of his victims? Surely the free will of any victim of any murder would be to continue living? Just as surely as the free will of the murderer is to kill the victim. I can see, how the free will argument is appealing, if you wish to apologize for your god, but it is not a valid one. I am sorry.
We live in a natural world we are able to observe around us. Every day human ability to evaluate the observable universe gets better. But the ancient Hebrew and all the other primitive cultures did not have our capabilities, what they observed was the indifference of nature to the human individual, and made up gods to bargain with, so that the natural catastrophies, diseases, or anything else bad would not befall them. Why else did they think the sacrificial smoke of animals was pleasing to their gods? Just like in the Bible.
Perhaps there was a god that sent Jesus, but what was the purpose of that exercise, exactly? Did mankind become any different after Jesus? No, it did not. Did Jesus represent some higher understanding of morals? Well perhaps he did to the Jews, but I would say that the Greek philosophers had achieved even higher echelon in that and the followers of Christ made it sure, the Greek philosophers and their visions of society were downtrotten during the dark ages.
I do not feel more comfortable to think there is no god, than that there is. I have never thought there is one, or many. So, it would be very hard for me to know how it feels like to think there is one (the topic was about deconversion to wich I still have nothing to add). I can set myself in the position of someone who thinks so, but I really do not know, nor do I know how to feel how comfortable that is. I thought this is a rational question, not about feelings. To me a god and gods in general are equal suggestions to dragons and fairies. Interresting cultural concepts, traditions and fiction, but nothing more.
If by the 747 analogy you are referring to the idea that such a complex machine could not exist without an intelligence to pre-design it, then to that I would have to explain how evolution works. It is not by mere chance that complex living organisms come together, but it is more than likely that simple organisms come together by mere chance, given enough time and ever changing conditions. Amino acids are found in the most inhospitable places all around space and it took literally billions of years for them to form the first simple organisms. Simple organisms form more complex organisms as this gives them the edge in the competition for survival. Social skills like give a nother edge and so forth. A lot of things happen by accident. Most events in the world are mere chances, but we do not enjoy that thought because that reality makes our feeling of safety less, by presenting the fact that we nor any benevolent force is not actually in controll. But that realization of not being protected or in total controll also makes us more able to face the ever changing reality and hardships it offers us. Only intelligence we have ever encountered recides and is totally dependable of a physical brain and neural synapses within. Spirits and gods are inventions and explanations by people who had no idea how neural synapses function, or that they even exist.
Yes, I have considered the divine creator as a possible reason to the existance of everything, but I have found it wanting. And for that thought crime, wich is not an active choise on my part, millions of Christians are ready to accept it as justified, that I should suffer for an eternity. Do they love me as their neighbour? I have never done anything to harm them.
I hope you do not think me of deserving eternal torment as promised in the Bible by many interpretations. 😉
Oh yes, not I, nor my family have been persecuted for atheism. Not directly at least. But I know a lot of people have been. However, I do not feel any particular frustration, just a bit of sadness for the victims of religions, who most often are not the atheists, but the religious people themselves.
Sorry about the long reply, but Cindy 0803 brought up a lot of interresting and important points, and I tried to analyze them from my perspective as honestly as I could.
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I think I am in Pending…again….
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Maybe not…
Great photo. It has been nicked.
I was born an atheist, pretty much. So nothing really came as that much of a shock. Other than the bit about the daughters bonking their dad in he OT. Gross…
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That’s a shame, I was looking forward to extracting you from my Spam Tin and making a cheeky comment. You like the bee on the Mexican woolly sage? Thank you! 🙂
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It looks super on the desktop.
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Probably when was about 10 I asked our vicar whether there really only was one god. He said yes. How about the other billion people (the world was smaller then) like Muslims and Hindus? The answer was that they were heathens and sinners praying to the wrong God and they would not go to heaven. I could never believe in that God ever since. If God is love, as I would have liked to believe, then that angry selfish intolerant god God couldn’t be it. God has become a concept to me, not a reality. I guess I’m an atheist in real terms but not in conceptual terms 🙂
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genetic, the same thought passed through my had as a kid. My best friend was an Anglican, myself a catholic. Apparently he was going to hell and I thought that idea abhorrent.
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Of course, great point! It’s got to be the number one reason for questioning. The idea that the majority of the humanity is ‘wrong’ for not having been born in Christian culture is absurd. I think as soon as people start travelling beyond the odd package holiday, it becomes impossible to accept. I also think that’s why America is such a Christian stronghold – most of its citizens tend to stay put, and there’s a kind of insular, blinkered approach to the rest of the world.
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I quite agree with that!
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my friend, my story is quite long to rewrite it here, but if you allow me to indulge you the story of my conversion is here and all I can add is I haven’t looked back. My pen grows sharper by the day and my wit in equal measure.
I think it is a good thing to hear this stories of how we got to where we are now.
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