Brilliant!
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
An old prayer...a new prayer
This is a prayer that I wrote many years ago and prayed daily at the beginning of each prayer time.
Addressed daily to Jesus:
Much of that is honorable, except for the whole I-can't-do-it-without-you-God part.
So my new prayer would be, as Legion Regalis put it here: What Comforts You In Times Of Trouble?, "a cry to all that is".
My Prayer - A cry to all that is
Addressed daily to Jesus:
I seek...
Your will, Lord,
Your humility,
Your love for others,
Your exposure of my sin,
Your humility and your will, I can't pray these enough,
Humility in all things,
Everything I am capable of is only through you, Lord,
Patience, Lord, while I seek your will,
Your refining fire, Lord,
Patience, Lord,
Your will,
Humility,
Your walk, Lord,
Humility in my love for others,
Humility in my compassion and love for women,
Humility,
Humility,
Humility in my anticipation of what you have in store for me, Lord,
Humility in the work you give me,
To give glory to you in all I do!!
Humility in prayer, and my abilities,
The ability to pray instead of tear down.
Lord, help me to continue to pray, to seek awareness of your presence in humility and by your power, even, and especially when I feel well and happy, for all my well being and feelings regarding well being are a result of you.
Amen.
Much of that is honorable, except for the whole I-can't-do-it-without-you-God part.
So my new prayer would be, as Legion Regalis put it here: What Comforts You In Times Of Trouble?, "a cry to all that is".
My Prayer - A cry to all that is
I seek...
To be humble,
To love others,
To harm none,
To make well thought out decisions,
To be accountable for my words and actions,
To better myself,
To be patient,
To be focused,
To seek truth in all I do,
To walk a path true to myself.
So let it be.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Easter Dinner
My friend Rick asked me to Easter Dinner at his Mother's house. We had a very nice time. 1st time I've bowed my head for grace since my de-conversion. Rick and the family are going to church tomorrow. He invited me to go. He never responded to my de-conversion letter, but this dinner invitation was very nice. It's funny that I was always the more spiritual one between the two of us. Now he's inviting me to church. It's funny how some things change.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Religion talk at work
Today at work I had someone tell me that they thought that Britney Spears and her other lost celebrity types needed prayer. I just kind of looked at him and didn't react. Then I received an email from a co-worker. It was a chain letter type thing.
When you're down to nothing,
GOD is up to something!
Worry looks around,
Sorry looks back,
Faith looks up.
This angel is sent to you.
You must send her to 8 people including me.
In 8 minutes you will receive something you have
long awaited.
Have faith.
I ignored it. How do you respond to a benign thing like that? I don't think I would have responded even when I was a Christian.
It's going on three weeks since I came out about my Agnostic Atheism. Work has been slightly stressful, but other than that, I have never known such peace. I no longer have to struggle every day to believe in an imaginary God. Saying the God I believed in was imaginary doesn't mean that a real God can not exist. It just means that I do not hold to that belief any more and that I am still open to the idea of God.
I no longer have to believe in a book that damns people to hell for simply believing something other than what it teaches. I no longer have to hate the sin, but love the sinner. This phrase was used a lot in regard to the sin of homosexuality. Personally I think any sin that doesn't harm another person in some way is bullshit. Why the hell would God care if a man loves a man or a woman loves a woman? isn't it the love that is the important part? Every day I wonder at this world and find something new to love. The world is truly a wonderful place, especially when one casts off the false belief that it is a fallen world and all it's inhabitants are evil sinners doomed for hell unless they believe in Jesus in a certain way to be determined by each denomination. What a crock of shit.
When you're down to nothing,
GOD is up to something!
Worry looks around,
Sorry looks back,
Faith looks up.
This angel is sent to you.
You must send her to 8 people including me.
In 8 minutes you will receive something you have
long awaited.
Have faith.
I ignored it. How do you respond to a benign thing like that? I don't think I would have responded even when I was a Christian.
It's going on three weeks since I came out about my Agnostic Atheism. Work has been slightly stressful, but other than that, I have never known such peace. I no longer have to struggle every day to believe in an imaginary God. Saying the God I believed in was imaginary doesn't mean that a real God can not exist. It just means that I do not hold to that belief any more and that I am still open to the idea of God.
I no longer have to believe in a book that damns people to hell for simply believing something other than what it teaches. I no longer have to hate the sin, but love the sinner. This phrase was used a lot in regard to the sin of homosexuality. Personally I think any sin that doesn't harm another person in some way is bullshit. Why the hell would God care if a man loves a man or a woman loves a woman? isn't it the love that is the important part? Every day I wonder at this world and find something new to love. The world is truly a wonderful place, especially when one casts off the false belief that it is a fallen world and all it's inhabitants are evil sinners doomed for hell unless they believe in Jesus in a certain way to be determined by each denomination. What a crock of shit.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
A new description of my state of belief in God.
In a discussion with my new friend Joel, on Ray Comfort's Challenge Post, I've been thinking of the correct way to state my current belief about God. So, drum roll please...
I no longer believe in God as I once conceived of him when I was a Christian. I am an Agnostic Atheist.
I know at times I have mistakenly said I never believed in God and that was just me trying to come to terms with what I now believe. As much thought as has gone into my statements and into the letter I sent out, I still made some semantic errors. Please forgive the confusion.
I no longer believe in God as I once conceived of him when I was a Christian. I am an Agnostic Atheist.
I know at times I have mistakenly said I never believed in God and that was just me trying to come to terms with what I now believe. As much thought as has gone into my statements and into the letter I sent out, I still made some semantic errors. Please forgive the confusion.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Well, since I'm out.
Since I sent my letter to my family and friends and posted in in multiple places on the web, I feel free to identify myself. I am Mike aka Monolith The Merely Adequate (TMA). My real blog is merelyadequate.net, but I will still post all my doubts here. I suppose I should change the blog description to reflect my being a born again Atheist. Please note that all the posts posted by Questioning Christian, except for the last one, were posted when I was still a Christian.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Why I No Longer Consider Myself a Christian, or Even a Theist
I finally posted this on my real blog.
Why I No Longer Consider Myself a Christian, or Even a Theist.
Dear Friends and Family,
This is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever written, as I know all of you will take this in different ways, and it may actually offend some of you, and this is definitely not my wish. If you are receiving this letter it is because you are someone who is important to me and I want to be honest with you about what I am thinking and feeling, and most importantly what I no longer believe and part of the reasons why. I know some of you will be shocked and even hurt by this letter, and I assure you that is not my intention. That is one of the reasons this letter is so difficult to write. I wanted to write this letter because my faith was always so much a part of who I was to some people. My realization that I have never actually believed in God is something that it is important for me to share with you.
I no longer believe in God, the Father Almighty, or that he is Creator of heaven and earth, nor in Jesus Christ.
Jesus the man may or may not have existed, but I do not believe that he was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
I do not believe he descended into hell or that the third day He arose again from the dead.
I do not believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting, at least not in the biblical sense.
Yes, the above mostly came from the apostle’s creed, it seemed like a good way to get it all out of the way. I also do not believe that the bible is the word of God.
Do I absolutely know that God doesn’t exist? Of course not! I would have to be omniscient to declare such a thing, and I’m barely aware of my surroundings when I get wrapped up in something, I’m far from all seeing! Am I open to the idea of God? Sure! I respect one’s right to believe or disbelieve as one chooses. I guess the next part of this letter should explain why I don’t believe anymore.
I’ve been a Christian for more than 25 years, and a Bible believing biblical literalist for more than 15 of them. I used to read the Bible daily, I still do read it quite frequently, and no, not with a critical eye, but still seeking truth in it. I used to be quite the apologist, even to the point of my friends jokingly dubbing me the ninja theologian. One thing that was always lacking was a concrete feeling of God’s presence. I had lots of warm, tingly feelings that I attributed to God, but never anything real. There was never a single moment of my prayers where I felt like I was praying to anything more than the ceiling or the sky. Sure, I reasoned through a lot of problems with my internal dialogue, and sometimes things came to pass, but sometimes they didn’t. Yes, I know there are lots of arguments for why some prayers are answered and some or not. Trust me, I know most of them and probably even made up a few. You see, I always had to do repetitive things to make God seem more real to me. Constant prayer, surrounding myself with Christian music, going to Bible study and church, even putting scripture and faith words on my walls to keep the thought of God ever present in my mind. Even with all of these things, putting on the armor of God as Ephesians says to, I still never truly experienced the presence of God. Now I have acknowledged all of the arguments in my mind against God, particularly against the God of the Bible, but the biggest one, and the only one I will reveal in this letter is this: Why if God is the omnipotent, non temporally bound, omniscient creator of the universe do I have to practice all the time to make myself believe in him? I don’t have to do that to make me believe in any of you. Heck, I don’t have to do that to make myself believe in people I’ve never met!
I’ve been listening to Christian music while writing this; in fact I’ve been listening to it quite a bit recently. Some of it still moves me. God of Wonders gets me every time; I’ve been singing it for weeks. There Is A Redeemer is another one, especially Keith Green singing it. A proper singing of Holy, Holy, Holy or Be Thou My Vision can give me chills. I still get emotional thinking of Rosalyn Pratt’s version of Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee, I don’t have the recording anymore, but it was amazing. You see, it’s not that I want to run and hide from God, or that I want to not believe in him, it’s just that I don’t. I’m not writing this to try and convert anyone to my way of thinking. There was a time when I wanted to convert everyone to Christianity, but gradually my thinking changed over the years, thinking that God must be much bigger than any concept we could ever have of him, and certainly he could reach through the bounds of religion and touch anyone at any point in their life. I always believed that Jesus was the only way to heaven, just that he could meet people on their terms. The thing I was always ignoring, is that God was never tangible to me, at least not in the way other people are, or even inanimate objects. The warm fuzzies were, but I think even the most faithful would admit that emotion and feelings are not enough.
One of my best friends, and a receiver of this letter, told me a story once about a crisis of faith. Forgive me if I tell it wrong. He was looking out his bedroom window and spied a moth fluttering about across the street. He prayed, “God, if you are real, then make that moth fly over to my window.” Sure enough, the moth fluttered around quite a bit and gradually made it’s way across the street, right up to his window. I’ve been praying for years for God to please make himself more real to me, and at times I got the tingles, but I’ve gotten those from McDonald’s commercials too, and I certainly don’t worship the golden arches.
I don't know if this letter will come as a surprise to any of you. Maybe you could tell I was heading to this way of thinking, but I didn't really see it coming. I knew my thoughts were changing, but never thought they would end up here. At one time my faith in the Bible and Christianity was so strong, but even then I had awful questions and really feel that I was making excuses for God and the Bible. All of what I have written is open to discussion and I welcome any questions you may have. I will still attend church from time to time, and will gladly participate in any sort of gathering with religious or spiritual themes. I will not be taking communion out of respect for the practice. Most churches ask that you believe to partake and since I do not, I will not.
Lastly, I am not sad, depressed, angry, or in any other way distressed. Quite to the contrary, I am happy and feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my chest. I never had a miraculous, emotional conversion to Christianity, but this feeling may be what it’s like if you do. I feel like my eyes have been opened and now I can truly appreciate people for who they are and life and the world for what they are. I’m not going to run off and live a life of immoral debauchery. In fact some of the atheists I know are incredibly moral people and I respect them every bit as much as I do those who I previously called my brothers and sisters in Christ. As I reach the end of the letter I still have the urge to sign off with “God Bless” or some such thing, but that would be ridiculous given my lack of belief. I sincerely apologize if this letter causes you distress, but I had to write it, to be honest to both you and myself. This may seem like I came to this decision overnight, but I assure you it is the result of many years of study, prayer (unanswered), and meditation. I have no idea where my life's journey will take me. If a deity reveals him or herself to me I will not ignore them. I just know now that none have ever truly done so for me before.
Wishing you many blessings, regardless of their source.
Mike
For now Agnostic/Atheist
Sites I frequent:
http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/manufall.html
http://ffrf.org/
http://www.beliefnet.com
Why I No Longer Consider Myself a Christian, or Even a Theist.
Dear Friends and Family,
This is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever written, as I know all of you will take this in different ways, and it may actually offend some of you, and this is definitely not my wish. If you are receiving this letter it is because you are someone who is important to me and I want to be honest with you about what I am thinking and feeling, and most importantly what I no longer believe and part of the reasons why. I know some of you will be shocked and even hurt by this letter, and I assure you that is not my intention. That is one of the reasons this letter is so difficult to write. I wanted to write this letter because my faith was always so much a part of who I was to some people. My realization that I have never actually believed in God is something that it is important for me to share with you.
I no longer believe in God, the Father Almighty, or that he is Creator of heaven and earth, nor in Jesus Christ.
Jesus the man may or may not have existed, but I do not believe that he was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
I do not believe he descended into hell or that the third day He arose again from the dead.
I do not believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting, at least not in the biblical sense.
Yes, the above mostly came from the apostle’s creed, it seemed like a good way to get it all out of the way. I also do not believe that the bible is the word of God.
Do I absolutely know that God doesn’t exist? Of course not! I would have to be omniscient to declare such a thing, and I’m barely aware of my surroundings when I get wrapped up in something, I’m far from all seeing! Am I open to the idea of God? Sure! I respect one’s right to believe or disbelieve as one chooses. I guess the next part of this letter should explain why I don’t believe anymore.
I’ve been a Christian for more than 25 years, and a Bible believing biblical literalist for more than 15 of them. I used to read the Bible daily, I still do read it quite frequently, and no, not with a critical eye, but still seeking truth in it. I used to be quite the apologist, even to the point of my friends jokingly dubbing me the ninja theologian. One thing that was always lacking was a concrete feeling of God’s presence. I had lots of warm, tingly feelings that I attributed to God, but never anything real. There was never a single moment of my prayers where I felt like I was praying to anything more than the ceiling or the sky. Sure, I reasoned through a lot of problems with my internal dialogue, and sometimes things came to pass, but sometimes they didn’t. Yes, I know there are lots of arguments for why some prayers are answered and some or not. Trust me, I know most of them and probably even made up a few. You see, I always had to do repetitive things to make God seem more real to me. Constant prayer, surrounding myself with Christian music, going to Bible study and church, even putting scripture and faith words on my walls to keep the thought of God ever present in my mind. Even with all of these things, putting on the armor of God as Ephesians says to, I still never truly experienced the presence of God. Now I have acknowledged all of the arguments in my mind against God, particularly against the God of the Bible, but the biggest one, and the only one I will reveal in this letter is this: Why if God is the omnipotent, non temporally bound, omniscient creator of the universe do I have to practice all the time to make myself believe in him? I don’t have to do that to make me believe in any of you. Heck, I don’t have to do that to make myself believe in people I’ve never met!
I’ve been listening to Christian music while writing this; in fact I’ve been listening to it quite a bit recently. Some of it still moves me. God of Wonders gets me every time; I’ve been singing it for weeks. There Is A Redeemer is another one, especially Keith Green singing it. A proper singing of Holy, Holy, Holy or Be Thou My Vision can give me chills. I still get emotional thinking of Rosalyn Pratt’s version of Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee, I don’t have the recording anymore, but it was amazing. You see, it’s not that I want to run and hide from God, or that I want to not believe in him, it’s just that I don’t. I’m not writing this to try and convert anyone to my way of thinking. There was a time when I wanted to convert everyone to Christianity, but gradually my thinking changed over the years, thinking that God must be much bigger than any concept we could ever have of him, and certainly he could reach through the bounds of religion and touch anyone at any point in their life. I always believed that Jesus was the only way to heaven, just that he could meet people on their terms. The thing I was always ignoring, is that God was never tangible to me, at least not in the way other people are, or even inanimate objects. The warm fuzzies were, but I think even the most faithful would admit that emotion and feelings are not enough.
One of my best friends, and a receiver of this letter, told me a story once about a crisis of faith. Forgive me if I tell it wrong. He was looking out his bedroom window and spied a moth fluttering about across the street. He prayed, “God, if you are real, then make that moth fly over to my window.” Sure enough, the moth fluttered around quite a bit and gradually made it’s way across the street, right up to his window. I’ve been praying for years for God to please make himself more real to me, and at times I got the tingles, but I’ve gotten those from McDonald’s commercials too, and I certainly don’t worship the golden arches.
I don't know if this letter will come as a surprise to any of you. Maybe you could tell I was heading to this way of thinking, but I didn't really see it coming. I knew my thoughts were changing, but never thought they would end up here. At one time my faith in the Bible and Christianity was so strong, but even then I had awful questions and really feel that I was making excuses for God and the Bible. All of what I have written is open to discussion and I welcome any questions you may have. I will still attend church from time to time, and will gladly participate in any sort of gathering with religious or spiritual themes. I will not be taking communion out of respect for the practice. Most churches ask that you believe to partake and since I do not, I will not.
Lastly, I am not sad, depressed, angry, or in any other way distressed. Quite to the contrary, I am happy and feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my chest. I never had a miraculous, emotional conversion to Christianity, but this feeling may be what it’s like if you do. I feel like my eyes have been opened and now I can truly appreciate people for who they are and life and the world for what they are. I’m not going to run off and live a life of immoral debauchery. In fact some of the atheists I know are incredibly moral people and I respect them every bit as much as I do those who I previously called my brothers and sisters in Christ. As I reach the end of the letter I still have the urge to sign off with “God Bless” or some such thing, but that would be ridiculous given my lack of belief. I sincerely apologize if this letter causes you distress, but I had to write it, to be honest to both you and myself. This may seem like I came to this decision overnight, but I assure you it is the result of many years of study, prayer (unanswered), and meditation. I have no idea where my life's journey will take me. If a deity reveals him or herself to me I will not ignore them. I just know now that none have ever truly done so for me before.
Wishing you many blessings, regardless of their source.
Mike
For now Agnostic/Atheist
Sites I frequent:
http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/manufall.html
http://ffrf.org/
http://www.beliefnet.com
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