I have decided to join the Atheist Republic. Just very recently, I started calling myself an atheist again. I realized that I don't have any belief in any kind of deity. I was an atheist for several years but started experimenting with liberal religions but I am finding liberal religions to be unsatisfying. It wasn't until recently I realized that I was "chasing phantoms" and I came to the conclusion that I was being silly. I started reading a book by a former minister turned atheist, titled Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief that made me realize if any god wanted me to believe in him/her/it, then such a being could've revealed her/him/itself to me. The last straw came very recently when a coworker who I had a crush on told me that she was taken. It hurt. I thought she might have been an interesting match for me. I thought about all of the people in this world who are hurting, in pain, and I realized that the hurt I felt was the tip of the iceberg. And what did any divine being do for them? What is any divine being doing for them?
A bit about me: I am nearly 40 years old. I grew up in a Christian family, the son of a minister, and I became an on-fire, born-again, fundamentalist at age 14 and renounced my faith a decade later after I became convinced that the Bible is not the word of any divine being. I didn't become an atheist right away or overnight. It took a while. I became a deist because I loved deism. I eventually became an agnostic and finally an atheist. However, I found Secular Humanism unsatisfying and realizing that I never gave liberal religions and even liberal theism a chance, I experimented with liberal religions. I was a Unitarian Universalist for three years until the death of a kid, the son of a good friend of mine, died of a brain tumor. If any deity was out there, why wasn't this boy healed? I even prayed for this boy, on the off-chance that there might be a divine healing of some sort. When my liberal faith was killed, I left the UU church. I started attending a progressive United Methodist Church but I am considering quitting that, too.
I have to say that I am not joyful or particularly thrilled at being an atheist but I feel it's the only honest position for me to take. I would love for there to be a divine being who loves us and willed us unto existence but if there's no evidence or cogent arguments for such a being, and I come to that conclusion, I have to be honest about it. If any divine being exists, I want to know why there is evil and suffering. Why do innocent people suffer? If any divine being exists, why doesn't that divine being persuade people so thoroughly that it's impossible to disbelieve? So, I am an atheist again. I am not an antitheist and I don't detest all religion. I am not angry at religion and I have made peace with my past. I treat believers and other theists with respect if they show respect first. Otherwise, I avoid them and shun them if necessary.
Thanks for reading,
Matthew
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