"There
has been some confusion and more than a few requests for explanation
about what is going on with my core beliefs. Some time last week, I
realized that I could no longer call myself a skeptic. After fifteen
years away from Christianity, most of which was spent as an atheist with
an active, busy intent on destroying the faith, I returned to a church
(with a real intention of going for worship) last Sunday. Although I
know I may struggle with doubt for the rest of my life, my life as an
atheist is over.
The primary motivator in my change of
heart from a Christ-hater to a card-carrying Disciples of Christ member
was apologetic arguments for God's existence. Those interested in these
arguments may pursue them in the comments section, but I don't want to
muddle this explanation up with formal philosophical proofs. Briefly, I
grew tired of the lack of explanation for: the existence of the
universe, moral values and duties, objective human worth, consciousness
and will, and many other topics. The only valid foundation for many of
those ideas is a personal, immaterial, unchanging and unchangeable
entity. As I fought so desperately to come up with refutations of these
arguments - even going out of my way to personally meet many of their
originators, defenders, and opponents - I realized that I could not
answer them no matter how many long nights I spent hitting the books.
The months of study rolled on to years, and eventually I found an
increasing comfort around my God-believing enemies and a growing
discontent and even anger at my atheist friends' inability to kill off
these fleas in debate and in writing, an anger that gave birth to my
first feeling of separateness from skepticism after reading comments
related to a definitively refuted version of the Christ Myth theory, the
idea that Jesus Christ never even existed as a person at all. Line
after line after line of people hating Christianity and laughing at its
"lie," when solid scholarship refuting their idea was ignored
completely. It showed that the motive of bashing and hating Christianity
for some skeptics wasn't based in reason and "free thinking" at all,
although it would be unfair to lump many of my more intellectually
rigorous and mentally cool skeptic friends in this way.
As
time went on, I reverted the path I traced after giving up Christianity
so long ago: I went from atheist to agnostic to … gulp … *leaning* in
the direction of God, to finally accepting that he very well could
exist, and then to coming out and admitting (quietly) He did exist.
After considering Deism (the belief in a God who abandons His creation),
Islam, Hinduism (yes, Krishna, don't laugh), Baha'i, and even Jainism
briefly, I have decided to select Christianity due to its superior model
for human evil and its reconciliation, coupled with the belief that God
interacted with man directly and face-to-face and had *the* crucial
role in this reconciliation. This, of course, doesn't prove that
Christianity is absolutely true (although I can prove that God exists),
but rather reflects my recognition that Christianity is exactly what I
would expect to be the case given that God exists.
There
are problems that I have with adopting any specific layout of
Christianity, which explains my current attendance at what many of you
may consider to be a very liberal denomination in the Disciples of
Christ. Their aim is to unify all believers in the essentials, while
leaving nonessential beliefs (however important) up to the member to
decide. The essentials are about all I can honestly grasp at this
moment. At its philosophical core, I prefer the Reformed (Calvinist)
tradition, perhaps by a long shot, but there are many very serious
practical issues I can't resolve. Conversely, Catholicism is a practical
Godsend (pardon the term) but I have problems with their philosophy.
And I don't agree with many political issues of either of those branches
or the majority of Christian branches in general. I have a long way to
go and I know the many problems religion has in general and that
Christianity has in specific, but they do not exceed the fatal problems
in skepticism.
I understand that this may confuse and even
upset many of the friends I've had for a long time, both in my personal
life and in the years-long journey I've made as a skeptic-to-believer.
Christianity is not without its critics, and given the absolutely
shameful way many "Christians" have treated homosexuals, drug addicts,
people of other faiths (and of no faith) and races, and even people of
different Christian denomination, and given the often intellectually
embarrassing way we've handled science and philosophy, I would not blame
you for a second if you did not want to associate with me based on the
track record of those who claim to believe similarly to what I believe
now. I am the same Darrin as I was before, a math teacher, a storm
chaser, D&D gamer, drunk philosopher, a lover of beer that's too
strong and spice that's too hot, and all the rest of it. I just hope to
be a little cleaner, more honest, more Christ-like. I won't throw the
Bible at you and I won't preach to you with wild eyes and a million mile
stare about how you shouldn't be gay or how you should focus on what
Hitch calls the "eternal theme park." This is all the evangelism you'll
get from me (unless you ask after I've had too much Guinness) and I do
hope it's quite enough to motivate you to study the evidence for God's
existence yourself and to read the Bible without the predetermined idea
of tearing it apart. Come over to the dark side; we have tea and
cookies.
-Darrin
P.S. Although I am loath to
bring it up because I hate to take the focus off of my brother and
niece, I would be dishonest to not acknowledge the fact that I have lost
my wonderful mother and my brother's beautiful young wife in the span
of ten months. I've also managed to settle down and get married in the
midst of all of that, meaning I've commenced a family life on my own, an
idea that probably seems ludicrous for those of you who've known me for
any length of time. Many of you would, understandably, wonder if such
things have upset me to the point of dropping all I knew and following
some guy who two thousand years ago said "follow me." I've reflected
deeply about this very thing and wondered if this is all reactionary,
but all of my study of God's existence and all of my existential woe
predates even my mom's heart attack two years ago. The events of the
past year served only to highlight the pressing need to address my
changing ideas, rather than being the cause of them."
