New Old Member

[agricola]

I've moved the last three posts (Lerk and me) over to Old Paths Reconsidered - they are added to the discussion thread 'How to have a non-literalist faith'.

If interested, please continue the information there! Remember that 'welcome' threads are typically frozen after a few days, since these are intended to be purely 'hi, here's me' and 'hi, welcome' rather than discussions.

[Letmethink]

Hello, all! I've been here before. My user name would have been either "Two" or "MisterTwo." I can't seem to find the log-in for that account and it may be that I don't have the old email address any more, or else I haven't been on since the board moved.

So, since you won't remember me anyway, I originally signed up for this board when I was still a member of "The Church" and really hoping to effect some changes. I believe there was a second board for those still "in" so I participated over there more often.

Then, almost 6 years ago, I was sitting in church one morning and the preacher read a couple of verses from Genesis 3. I read the whole chapter and it hit me that there was no "Satan" in the chapter, only an actual snake. Once I realized that, I started finding all of the things in the Bible that were not what I had been taught, were historically inaccurate, or actually contradicted other passages.

Since I knew now that fundamentalist Christianity was wrong, I figured I had one very important thing to try to understand: Is liberal Christianity correct, or is it actually all bogus.

With fundamentalist Christianity (the way I've always seen it) the entire Bible has to be 100% consistent and true, or it isn't worth the paper it's written on. That's what I'd always heard in "the Church". "If you can find one error, then the Bible can't be trusted!" is what I'd always heard.

But I know that most mainline denominations don't operate that way, so I wondered whether becoming an Episcopalian or Lutheran might be the thing to do. I explored that for about a month, but I really couldn't shake my fundamentalist upbringing in that regard. If the book begins with myths, then at what point was I to start believing it? Looks like Abraham and Moses are just legend, since it seems Israel was never in Egypt. Maybe the real stuff starts with Saul? Oh, but Daniel is a book written during Persian rule, about a legendary figure who would have lived under Babylonian rule... historical fiction with an apocalyptic message!

Ultimately I decided that none of it was really believable. The way I put it is that the Bible is a book of myths, legends, and embellished history, but none of it is evidence that there are any such things as gods, spirits, demons, or that the human mind is anything other than an emergent property stemming from memories and the senses, not something that lives on after the body dies. I now believe that all religions are simply assertions based on mere speculation, memes that develop and evolve over time as people speculate more and attempt to resolve logical contradictions. I am an atheist.

But I'm a closet atheist, and still attend a non-institutional Church of Christ. (I refuse to use a little-c on "church.") I have one son who has deconverted, and the other one is a preacher. I was outed some time ago (atheist son's father-in-law called the elders at my church and told them about my blog!) and figured out really quickly that that was going to cause problems with the preacher son. I couldn't figure out how bad the problems would be, so I "went forward" and confessed, and took down the blog I'd been writing. I did not say, in my confession, that I believed. I just said I would study and try to find my way back. I even did an email study with a mainline CoC preacher, but I didn't find my way back!

In my long talk with my believing son he agreed that perhaps Moses believed that the other gods were real but that Jehovah was superior, but he ended up saying "just tell me that you believe that Jesus is the son of God." So I said "yes." (Hopefully he'll experience some cognitive dissonance whenever he reads Numbers 28 (ESV) in the future.)

I took myself off of the duty list for services. I go on Sunday mornings even when my wife doesn't make it. When she isn't there, I read books on my phone. When she's there, I use the Bible on my phone. Sunday nights and Wednesday nights I only go if she goes. (She has health problems so she misses a lot.)

Anyway, that's my life now! My sons seem to not be talking to each other. But we still have relationships with both of them, and they're both married and have children. Atheist son's wife is still a believer but they aren't doing Church of Christ. My main outlets when Christianity is driving me crazy are podcasts (which I listen to on my commute) and Patheos/Nonreligious, especially the "Roll to Disbelieve" blog.

I realize that we have a mix of believers and non-believers on this board, perhaps mostly believers. I'm not a sarcastic person and would never be rude to people who don't believe the same things I do. I was a believer until I was 52 years old, so I know where people are coming from.

I look forward to spending time here.

Welcome Lerk. I haven’t been active here in the past few months, but I am a sympathizer with you, and an unbeliever. I won’t rehash all my background, but if you search posts by my username you’ll get a flavor of my background. The short of it is I was a full fledged active “member of the Church” (the non-instutional variety) until I deconverted in my 30s. I am the sole member of my family of origin who has “lost their way.”

I am glad this forum exists. It gets a lot of discussion going that might not happen in the typical settings of typical Christian.