First off, the series on why I’m an Atheist isn’t over. Future posts in the series will not be labeled as “Why I’m an Atheist, Part x – xxxxxxx” since I haven’t worked out how I’m going to cover the last three years this I may not be using part numbers. Instead I’ll be abbreviating it to “WIAx – xxxxx” or “WIA – xxxxxx.”

Today I’m responding to a few critical comments that I’ve received both directly to the blog and on Facebook. Since there is some overlap and comments that address several points, I’ll be responding to summaries and excerpts.

The accusation has been made that my walk with Christ was based on emotion. This was made by two people who claimed to have read all four parts of the series that have been posted so far.

I’ll start with outlining some of my credentials again. I graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Theology with minors in History and Biblical Languages and spent a year in the Seventh-day Adventist Theological seminary in the New Testament Honors Track. I have written numerous papers (8-20 pages each) that range from apologetics to exegesis. I have read many books from authors such as C.S. Lewis, E.G. White, John Stott, Bruce Metzger, and many others. I have studied quite a bit of the New Testament in the original Greek. I have done pastoral work during summers, served as the men’s resident hall chaplain, and taught adult and youth sabbath school classes. The issues that caused me to loose my faith were the product of years of study. I rejected Christianity based on my study of the Bible. To say that my walk with Jesus, as a whole, was based on emotion is completely baseless (unless you view religion to be purely emotional).

It is true that by the time I had reached a high level of cognitive dissonance that my Christian experience amounted to emotion. That is because intellectually speaking I did not believe. Since I hadn’t reached a point where I was ready to call it quits, I hung on to the only thing I had left. If you haven faced the prospects of trying to find a job with a Theology degree and a year of Seminary on your resume and leaving your community to start a new life in a world that you are not prepared to face then you can’t understand, I guess I failed to express the fear and uncertainty that produces.

If it seems like I spent an inordinate amount of time focusing on the emotional issues, it was because I didn’t want to have people level some of the charges that I have heard before, namely that I simply studied my way out of the church and the cliche “you just have to believe.” I did study my way out of the church, but there was more to it than that and I tried to “just believe.”

The seminary professors that I talked to about my doubts, onces that I knew had faced at least some of them themselves, had advised that I slow down my study so as to dig deeper. Based on the study I had done and my knowledge of the methodologies and disciplines required for that kind of study I couldn’t see it as being worth the investment of time and debt.

During my course of study I was taught evangelistic and apologetic methods. Evangelism is designed to exploit existing emotional needs and at times to create them, then offer a solution to it. Apologetics are designed rationally interact with the intellect. I never cared much for evangelism in it’s common form, but I was a big fan of apologetics because it promised an offer to meet my needs, a promise that wasn’t meant.

“I feel sorry that you don’t know God, but I see him in everything , everyday..Maybe your looking so hard, your over looking whats right in front of your face.”

I could just as easily say that I’m sorry that you do “know” God. I see causality and chance in everything, something that makes it easy to understand the world around me and brings me great comfort.

I looked so hard for things to support my faith that for so long I overlooked the evidence that was right in front of my face, the evidence that eventually led me to where I am now.

“as for being a hipocrite do u think that all christians are perfect ,we are human and going to fall even minute by minute sometimes.”

I know full well that Christians are not perfect, all you have to do is look at the news headlines about pastors and their scandals to see that. To the author of this comment and to anybody reading, If you want to be taken seriously, then please have the respect to write in complete sentences, with proper punctuation and capitalization, and actually spelling out words. Almost everybody will occasionally write “your” instead of “you’re” and have a comma or period in the wrong place, that’s easy to overlook, but come on.

As far as the content of that horribly written statement, Merriam-Webster defines hypocrite as:

1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

I was preaching a message I didn’t believe. Both definitions of hypocrite applied to me.

“Satan has u right where he wants u.”

There were quite a few times that I wondered if Satan was the source of my doubts. This was prolonged the process of my deconversion by allowing a suspension of disbelief, the same phenomenon that allows people to enjoy movies.Eventually I had to consider whether the doubts were from Satan or because there was a problem with the premise I was doubting.

Let’s look at how Satan fits into things. If you see something that supports your faith then it’s from God, but if you see something that questions your faith then it’s from Satan. If this is the case then I have to say that Satan did a damn good job. The geological column is set up almost perfectly with it’s corresponding fossil record with ratios of radioactive isotopes allowing for consistent dating. Satan must have had fun tweaking with the DNA of millions of species so as to produce a rate of genomic differences that perfectly follows that which is predicted by evolutionary theory. He must have put in an extensive search to ensure that he could destroy all outside support for the authority of the Bible. If you are right, then bravo Satan.

“Did u ever discuse any of this with ur parents ?”

I may have discussed some of the earlier issues with them, but I’m not sure. My memory is good, but not good enough to remember every conversation I had seven years ago. About six to eight weeks after where the last post leaves off I did “come out” as a non-theist. That went as good as you can expect any conversation where you are coming out to a conservative Christian parent as something they find abhorrent and evil, and I wasn’t even an atheist yet.

Alright, that sums up the comment responses for now, depending on the situation I will either be replying directly to the comment or including them in a post as I have done this time. I have a few more posts in the works. While I am finishing the current series I will also get started on secular political topics, the first of which you can find in a few days.

Thanks for reading.