As someone I knew once said, life's thrown a few curveballs my way lately. I'm not even on my feet at the moment, I'm still laying on the ground in a dazed state after some truly insane things happened. I want to continue my series regarding the atheist position, but I do not have the capability to do so until some healing has occurred. Every experience changes a person, and I hope I come through this with more ability to put my thoughts into words with generosity, critical thought, and with my usual edge intact. Perhaps I'll start what I was saying over, or perhaps I'll pick up where I left off. It's anyone's guess at this point. However, I will be back to the topic of deconversion, post-christianity, and atheism in time, count on it. It is far, far too important to me.

Sometimes I think the whole world has gone mad, and I will do no one a favor writing while I feel this way. Until next time.

The Atheist Position, Part 2: Ethical Science

About 14 billion years ago, existence as we know it emerged from a reality beyond our comprehension.

About 9 billion years later, our planet formed through accretion from the solar nebula, and life began to emerge from inorganic matter.

That life changed, evolved, and the natural forces of the universe formed it into what we have today.

Consciousness emerged and we realized we didn't understand anything going on. So humanity invented gods.

Eventually, some decided that there is only one god, and they killed anyone who disagreed.

2,000 years ago, a teacher from this religion created a new one, which remains influential to this day.

1,400 years ago, another teacher created a religion out of the original monotheism, and it also remains influential.

When man created the gods, they fought conceptual (and some very, very real) wars until some said there was only one god. We are still fighting wars over which god is the correct one, intellectual and military wars. Is it Allah? Yahweh? Jesus? Is God Tri-Une? Is there only one undivided god? Are there actually many gods and El/Yahweh/Allah/Jesus is just one of them that happens to be claiming their religious writings are the correct ones?

Could humanity have invented religion out of tribal fear, and subsequently created all of the gods?

This doesn't even begin to delve into the way religious adherents fight amongst themselves, splintering into many other groups, all with their own god or gods. Among those that believe in Jesus, some say that god is ultimately sovereign and has destined all of history according to his good pleasure. Some say that god, though ultimately sovereign, chooses to allow real choice in the matter of who we serve and what we do, though ultimately he will torture us for eternity (or allow us to torture ourselves) if we do not love him. Still others do not believe god is totally sovereign, and is limited in power, though he is still the greatest possible being, or the god. This is only three of dozens of extremely nuanced views within the wide stream of Christian thought about one particular aspect of its' theology: God's sovereignty.

If there is one ultimately uniting force to all of these religious movements, it is that of power. Love god or go to hell and burn for eternity, serve my god or die, believe how I do or be ostracized, we are against you. To argue against such things is to be dangerous indeed, but danger is inescapable because no one will ever placate all religious groups. By nature, they are tribal.

When one speaks of Christianity, for instance, the discussion is not about one thing, but about thousands to millions. Every church, every sect or denomination, even every person represents a tribal religion, influential only through conformity and the power of people.

This is not theory, it is historical fact about the emergence of religion. Religion exists because we don't understand everything about reality, so dogma sits in the gaps of our knowledge and tells us this god exists that can't be disproven, and is a sort of primal cause for all that we don't fully understand. Ra, the god of the Sun, is a popular and well understood example. Because no one understood that the sun is a massive ball of plasma powered by fusion and giving off solar radiation to keep us alive, it was a supernatural force. Now we understand it all too well, but other things evade our knowledge, such as the nature of reality as multiple universes, dark matter's complete influence, miraculous occurrences within the human body, and any other unexplained or supernatural phenomenon you can think of.

If you think about it, supernatural refers only to that which we do not have complete knowledge of. Otherwise, it is purely natural. The sun is natural, even though it was presumed to be supernatural for millennia.

You see, you can and should argue scientific conclusions. Please disprove anything I've said about the nature of reality, or even about religion if you want. It does not change that tribal religion's primary driving force is dogmatic, and it is not the only way to think.

Where the religious mind is dogmatic, the scientific mind is questioning. While historically religion has demanded drastic action that must be justified, science has been asserting things about the nature of reality, such as the fact that the Earth revolves around our star.

Some say that religion picks up where science leaves off, that science can only go so far until religion has to take over, otherwise we will lack morality and kill each other. Even if we ignore the bloody and violent history of religion, especially those claiming to be the nature of peace, this argument still ignores the incompatibility of the two's approaches to reality

Tribal religion is spawned from dogma, which must be defended. This is war.

Science is spawned from questions, which lead to answers. This is knowledge.

You do not attack someone that disagrees with your scientific theory, you run tests. If you are disproven you have learned something, you aren't imprisoned or killed or ostracized. Your ego may be bruised, but in general, you do not stab someone that disagrees with your theory, you think better and you come up with a better theory.

If that does not have moral implications, I don't know what does.

Our universe is on the order of 13.77 billion years old, and it is possible that there is a god that is the primal cause of this existence. However, this possibility only exists because we do not understand something. Lack of understanding does not constitute assertions about god, it constitutes questions. You can claim things, or you can ask questions.

The current god has become the primal cause and the personal god. More and more we keep finding out, through questioning, that things seem to all have natural explanations. More and more, our god is not the one that takes care of us, he's a creator and an inner voice. He must be let into our minds and souls and we must lose all of our self esteem and only esteem god because he simply cannot exist anywhere else but the beginning of our universe and the gaps in our knowledge.

When a person's conscience is given to them by god, anything can be justified. One need not ask questions or read history or participate in discussion when they simply need to read a holy book and allow their inner voice (holy spirit, conscience, intuitive perception of reality, whatever) to tell them what is right. Faith communities can work in this context only so far as groupthink goes, and anyone not part of that groupthink is ostracized by the offended group.

When a person's conscience is a product of their thinking, their doubts, their questions, and their continued research into the nature of reality, they are learning from others all the time, approaching others for more reasoning, more perspective, and they rejoice when they've been wrong, because they've learned something new.

No person is truly a scientific creature, and no person is truly a tribal creature. Rachel Evans, a popular Evangelical voice (http://rachelheldevans.com/ if you wanna check it out), possesses a keenly scientific way of thinking, but she claims Evangelical Christianity regardless of this. This creates a unique dissonance that I find very enjoyable to read, not to mention her incredible compassion and attention to morality.

Likewise, one need only look so far as the popular atheist voice to find that they are far from bereft of tribalistic thinking. The Christians are the enemy for the atheist in America, and a lot of them are very angry about it. Though I find the moral outrage good, and though I am also angry, it is dangerous to bring one's dogmatic thinking with them when leaving religion, lest one become angry at everyone and everything instead of coming to productive and natural conclusions through thought and dialog.

Regardless, there is a correct way to think, and that way is scientific, not tribal. This way is correct because the consequences of scientific thinking are life and knowledge, and the consequences of tribal thinking are death and war. The well-being of life must be furthered by our approach to life, because we are the most highly evolved beings on this planet.

Besides these consequences making scientific thinking the moral choice, true knowledge is, in and of itself, an end that we should all move toward for its' own sake.

God is dead, but we continue to create him wherever there are gaps, wherever there is dogma, and whenever we feel psychological pressure that requires relief. We create our god, and our god continually recreates us in his image.

The human mind is far from being fully understood, as are some very key things about existence itself. We can continue to create god in those gaps, ignore what understanding there is and assert god in spite of evidence, or we can continue to ask questions and find god, if he does truly exist.

I assert that the correct position is to ask questions, lose one's need to be right and control others, one's tribal nature, and begin to think scientifically about our reality and its' history, and it is correct because it is by nature compassionate and reasonable and in touch with reality.

The Atheist Position, Part 1: Definition

I've pondered a good bit over how to start saying what it is that I have to say next, and I've found that, as always, a direct approach is the most beneficial and, furthermore, the most necessary. I've always found that people are going to be mad about one's choices, especially if they are well thought out and without regard to sentiment or subjective experience. So, the question is, what sort of decision is this, and how have I come to it?

A cursory reading of the early days of this blog will tell you that I was a Christian and furthermore, regardless of what type of Christian I was or whether my beliefs fell in line with any definition of the word "Christian," I really and truly believed in the Christian God, and I had a lot to say because of it. One of my first posts was regarding the concept of Virginity and why I believe it is a bad concept. For a Christian to post that is risky indeed, and I paid for it.

Regardless, this blog has never been about maintaining the status quo. Cognitive dissonance, by its' very nature, is uncomfortable. When you are in a state such as this, your beliefs and your ideas are all thrown into chaos by realizations regarding how reality actually is. In other words, it is a rude awakening. This is what I've sought all my life, and I think I've finally found dissonance that has me overwhelmed.

What I really wish to address here is how I could go from being a theist and, indeed, a strongly believing Christian, to being an atheist. I've gone over and over this, and the answer is not at all a small nor a simple one. However, if you stick with me, I will endeavor to explain as completely as possible how such a thing could happen to the beliefs of a person like me, and why I'm sure that a reasonable approach to reality will lead people to agree with me.

I hope none of you take any of this personally. I still love all of you, and I wish to continue in dialog about philosophy, mythology, science, and to maintain the personal relationships I have with you. It grieves me every time personal differences come between me and another person, because I think anything short of direct disrespect can be looked past. I mean do direct disrespect to any of you, but I will criticize your religion. I criticize not out of anger or because I enjoy pissing people off, but because I must criticize that which I find to be worthy of its' sting.

One final disclaimer before I get started: This is not about my emotions, my experiences, my anger, or anything other than my informed opinion. Though I am all too aware of intuition and emotion's influence on the thoughts that one has, I believe the only way to explain what I mean is to reason with you, the reader, and invite you to follow my line of reasoning to the end. This will take us through many emotional issues, and you can expect a few rabbit trails into the emotional or experiential, but our main path in exploring this is one of a simple question: What is true? I choose to do this because I've never been primarily concerned with anything else when it comes to these things, and I don't believe that an exploration of my emotional state is necessary or beneficial at this time.

Very well then, on with it! The best place to start here is the question of what is true. This quickly became an overwhelming concern of mine in college when I came to reason that the Bible is not the cornerstone of truth.

Long story short, through countless hours of research, reasoning, and discovery, I concluded that the Bible is a legendary text, like many others, with an unbelievable amount of historic and scientific flaws. It has historically been used to justify many, many things, and modern society has come to see some of those things as evil, and some as good. Regardless of the fact that the Crusades seemed to be a good idea with Biblical grounding, we have come to realize that they were a terrible stain on an already filthy church history. Combine this with the reality that Jesus is not a unique historical or mythical figure, the Bible is not a book that has stood the test of time but one that has been revised over and over with time, and the many, many errors present in the book if you consider even other historical documents of the same age, and you come to a point of either accepting the book regardless of what you must conclude, or you come to a point of it being a flawed book. This is where I came to, the point of the Bible being a flawed but inspired text, and with it communicating who God is and the saving message clearly, but nothing else. A rather tenuous position that was open to so much criticism that a good portion of my college doubted my status as a Christian, but one that my faith and my reason demanded of me. In other words, I was concerned with both what I must believe and with what I had come to conclude by research and reasoning.

This is not new to anyone who's tried to do Philosophy or Theology in the context of a faith community. In fact, it is a relatively common struggle to those steeped in religion. Does faith or reason win out in the end?

For me, this question was already answered with another I'd been asking: What is true?

If my faith was to survive, then my reason must not disprove it. What I discover about reality, scientifically and philosophically, must not conflict with my faith. If it did, then my faith would be destroyed. There was only one choice, as far as I was concerned, when it comes to this sort of thing. Because I truly believed, however, my assertion was a little different. "If our faith is true then we have nothing to fear from science or from philosophy or thinking well. In fact, it is our calling to think better than any, for we know reality as it is!"

I could never understand why this made my fellow Christians uneasy. Why were they not agreeing when it was so obvious? Why did my nature as a doubter and one who asks questions make people uncomfortable and make me socially ostracized so many times? Did these people not have confidence in the truth of their beliefs?

I'm not one to portray myself as one of pure faith or as superior to anyone else, and I never have been. I've always been desperately aware of my own flaws of character and issues, even if they're ones that don't actually exist. However, in this case, I do believe that I demonstrably had such blind faith that I believed that science, philosophy, and reality itself would bend to the faith I so passionately held onto, and that if my beliefs needed to change it would be because I realized I was getting closer to understanding who God is and what reality is.

As it turns out, the more I discovered about the nature of reality, the farther and farther I moved from being what anyone would term a "Christian." I came to conclude that Evolution was the method by which humans have come to exist, and that church authority did not have any more power than any other political or religious force in history. I studied psychology and became a student of the human mind, only to come to the stark realization that humanity is vastly and scarily capable of self-delusion, many times without realizing it. The state of medicine, archeology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and history had led me to vastly differing conclusions than those asserted by the people that tell me one God created reality and me along with it, and I was made to love him.

What's disturbing about this is not that science lead me away from faith, but that it very nearly didn't. You see, the more I learned, the more I believed that I was discovering things that humanity is meant to discover, and God exists in the gaps between my knowledge, or perhaps He exists somehow through this knowledge, as a primal cause of the universe.

The real problem at this point becomes one of presupposition. I presume that God exists, and so no matter what evidence comes my way about how reality works, no matter what new data comes to light about the people that have historically told us that the Christian God exists, and no matter how little evidence there is for a God existing, one can choose to believe what one wants to. The "God of the Gaps" can survive almost anything scientific or historic thrown at it, but one problem still remains that I had yet to realize.

The problem is Epistemology, or the way one relates to knowledge. You see, when you orient yourself to reality in such a way that truth acts on you, then you gain the ability to change your mind, should it become necessary. The "God of the Gaps" concept fails this Epistemic orientation spectacularly, for a few simple reasons. Firstly, if God must exist regardless of what one is discovering, then we are talking about asserting a truth claim, rather than discovering or reasoning to a truth claim. By its' very nature, this assertion is at the very least uncomfortable when accompanied by the way we understand reality as beginning in a large explosive event that lead to the formation of our universe and eventually our planet, which in its' cooling state began to generate organic matter that gave rise to life, gradually evolving to our present state.

This picture of reality not only has a pile of evidence and explains a whole laundry list of things about how our universe works, but it is something that I grew up being taught to be hostile toward, likely because it is scary to the mind that actually believes their faith can be deconstructed by such things (which it can and should be).

The real problem, however, is that when we have to believe in the "God of the Gaps," we are asserting a particular type of God. The type most commonly asserted in the nation I live is the Christian God. This is a problem because if we accept current scientific and historic data, God had nothing to do with the creation of the universe (or at the very least had very little to do with it beyond some sort of initial spark, AKA the Deistic God), and He's had nothing to do with reality henceforward, unless His objective has been to confuse us with differing legends regarding the God claim and fossils, all of which have much more readily available explanations.

To accept the "God of the Gaps" is to think badly, but one may do so at this point and be a Deist, if one wishes. At the very least, this god has nothing to do with the religions that exist today, and certainly nothing to do with any sort of Abrahamic religion, the exclusive market on monotheistic religions. The only other option is to ignore what we know about reality and put one's philosophical head in the sand, practicing the science of knowledge no more, and choosing one's own delusion over what is really true. Some days I wish this were an option for me, for it would be far less costly than where I've chosen to go. But I can be no other than who I am.

I'm not an atheist because I'm angry, I'm angry because I'm an atheist. It makes me angry that I've been lied to about science for the majority of my life, that I've been given false hope and poisonous fear when I should have grown up learning and wondering and being amazed at the way things are. It makes me angry that I have a degree polluted by religious thinking, when I could've studied something useful. But then, one can be angry about these things and change nothing whatsoever.

I choose to allow that to exist where it will, and to confine my pursuit of truth to the facts. I wish, and have always wished, to be proven wrong where I am wrong. I was wrong about Christianity being true, and it was proven to me by science, by philosophy, and by history. I plan on going into these things all separately, but for now, I wish to lay down a definition of what I mean when I say I am an atheist.

Atheism - The conclusion that there is a lack of evidence for a tenable belief in god or gods.

This is the only definition I wish for you to think of in my writings. I may fit the "angry atheist" paradigm at times, but I do not believe that it is necessary to be angry to be an atheist. It is, however, necessary to understand theism to be an atheist. Atheism, by its' very nature, is an opposite conclusion to theism. Theism says that there is a god or gods, atheism says that there is not.

Atheism has been associated with being a political force, at times. I do not have any interest, at this time, in making what I write or what my life represents political. Indeed, atheism is simply a statement regarding gods. Politically, I would align more as a secular humanist at this point, but one need not be a secular humanist to be an atheist. One need only come to the conclusion that gods do not exist.

Atheism is not a religion, it is a philosophical orientation. A religion is a specific belief system, and it says specific things. It is, in many ways, much much more specific than a philosophical orientation. One being a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu is not a philosophical orientation, it is an alignment with a political religious force. In their cases, however, their philosophical orientation includes a type of theism, or an acceptance of gods or a god existing. Atheism is merely the opposite, the philosophical orientation that there are no gods. Whether Atheism has been used as a religion in our society is not something I wish to address at this point, because if I spent my blog posts addressing what every group does with the terms I use, I'd have a very different, and what I would consider to be a pointless, blog.

To reiterate and conclude what I have to say at this point: Atheism is a position I came to over a period of about 7 years of questioning, reasoning, and research. Atheism simply means that one has concluded that there is a lack of evidence for a tenable belief in god or gods. Atheism is a conclusion I came to by science, history, philosophy, and Cognitive Dissonance. More on these soon.

An Introduction: On Anger, and the Pursuit of Truth

My dear readers:

It has been a wild ride here lately. I've had a lot of changes coming for me, most of which have been a long time coming. I cannot properly express to you how much so many things have grieved me lately. I am a man consumed in sorrow and in joy all at once, feeling the necessity to make changes for no other reason than my pursuit of truth, and my pursuit of being happy in life. I take this to mean that I am being who I am correctly. However, I think that this has not been the norm for me for a long time. Allow me to explain why.

As much as I try to keep this blog impersonal, I must address something publicly that may or may not be relevant to you. It has been asserted that I am a very angry person lately. This is not the first time I have been told this, and I doubt it will be the last. However, this time presents an opportunity to explain some things.

I have been a person of faith for as long as I can remember. A lot of the reason I started on this path is because I was terrified of the divine being I was told about from a very young age throwing me into hell to burn and be tortured and alone for eternity. I still have panic episodes over this deeply engrained fear, for whatever reason. However, over time my faith became something I was very militant about, and something I became extremely passionate about. Even now, I can discuss Christian theology and spirituality with anyone that wants to.

Christianity has made me very angry for years. I used to be angry when people would attack my beliefs, and I used to be angry when people told me I wasn't really a Christian. As it turns out, the second group may have been correct all along. I became a very liberal Christian in college, and the reason I did is because Christian theology had become untenable. I looked at this book I'd been told to believe, I looked at history, I looked at alternate views, and I looked at my own reasoning. I then concluded that the Bible is a legendary text and nothing more, and that God is something separate from the religion of Christianity, even though I still believed in Jesus.

Understandably, a lot of people told me that I had watered down my faith, that I had taken all of its' "teeth" away from it. I had a professor at my college tell me publicly that I did not care about the truth because of my views, and any support I received from authority figures was very tentative, as most of them were either trying to save me, and the rest were trying to explain me. Very rarely was I straight up asked about things, and I was told it was because I'm a very intimidating person. This is perhaps true.

I was raised to be angry because I was raised in fear, which turned to militancy, which turned to feeling stepped on and excluded, which turned into resentment. It is not a good position to be in, and it has affected me more than I can possibly estimate. I can spend my time blaming people, but in the end, I blame the system. Christianity cannot escape its' abuses, and this is a very inflammatory view It is possible that all of my anger has become an issue lately merely because of my change of beliefs, so allow me to be blunt.

Yes, I am no longer a Christian, and yes, Christianity does make me angry. I am sure a lot of you feel like your beliefs are being attacked, but let me assure you: I never intend to attack someone's personal beliefs. If I stepped over that line, I am sorry. I endeavor to be objective when discussing these things, and sometimes my passion gets the best of me. There is a reason I tend not to say anything when certain things come up: I tend to go too far, and then everyone gets intimidated by my passion and my reasoning. I tend to be very transparent about these things, and it is my gift to people. I think that most people deserve the truth from me. I am very sorry if my anger has gotten involved and this has all gotten out of hand.

However, it is very important to me that you all understand one thing just as much. I have not made the decision not to be a Christian lately for any other reason than that I do not believe it is true. When I look at Evolution and the origin of biological life, when I look at sociology, history, psychology, archaeology, anthropology and when I really really think and read and research and question and conclude, I do not believe that Christianity is anything more than another historical religion that happens to be involved with the politics and culture of the country I live in.

I would not have decided to publicly leave the faith I grew up in for any other reason than that I do not think it is true. I have paid for it dearly by doing so, and I will continue to do so with friendships, the deterioration of my relationships with people that are religious, and with a lot of misunderstanding. I have paid for it with my mental and emotional state lately, and I have paid for it with my health. I will probably continue paying for it with some of these things, though I believe that the best thing for me to do at this point is to move on and live well, because I also believe that I am right and that I am living rightly.

This is an invitation to anyone that runs across this blog. I don't care if what you have to say is that you hate everything I am doing and think I'm wrong: I want to have conversations. I will not back down from my position without a very good reason, but if you give me a good reason to do so and I am convinced that it is the truth, I will in a second. Surely I have proven that by now, and I hope that I have proven that I respect other people, even if I've never done so perfectly.

Though I do hope you all understand how grieved I am that my relationships with some of you have suffered for the direction I've gone lately, I must make one thing perfectly clear.

I am right to be angry. I am not just angry, I am furiously enraged at the religion I grew up in, because I feel it is unjust, abusive, psychologically destructive, culturally and historically anachronistic, morally offensive, and a historical and political nightmare. What I have gone through is nothing compared to so many people that have been on the other end of religion in general, and I am grateful that the most I have to deal with is some odd emotional things and some awkward conversations with people. This is something that I feel even those that are a part of Christianity still can agree with, even if they are still "believers." Many would say that Christian history is bloody and it is an indication of man's "fallen" state. Where we differ is that I do not agree with that explanation, nor do I place the same trust in the historic Christian church as they do.

What you must understand is that anger is not an emotion that I feel toward Christians. My family's faith is still Christianity, with me being the sole exception. This could make me feel very alone, but I still love them very much, and they still love me very much. I respect many Christians I know very much, and believe they are very smart and educated people. Though I would not disagree with them if I didn't think I was right, this does not mean that I'm going to be hostile or degrading. That's not the person I have ever been, and though I've never been perfect in my goals to respect others, I try my best to do so, regardless of my position on issues, and I expect the same respect from people in discussions. I can no longer tolerate the imposed self-degradation I'm expected to take on in the name of being moral or holy.

I plan on making a series of posts in the next few weeks regarding my "deconversion" from Christianity, because I believe a lot of my regular readers are stunned and confused or angry about the seeming suddenness with which I have changed. It is important to me that you all understand where I'm coming from, and why things have ended up this way, and what my thoughts are.

Lastly, I wish to extend one final sentiment. Regardless of what one believes or how one deals with life, I believe we can all respect each other. It is my hope that the future of humanity is full of that respect, and that we can continue to grow together and leave behind all of that that would get in the way of truth and of love.

There Comes a Day.

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways." - 1 Corinthians 13:11

I always liked this statement.

I write today to commemorate and appreciate what I've learned growing up how I have. I've spoken a lot lately about how I've been traumatized by religion when growing up and how I've moved away from faith, but another part of my journey lately has been recognizing the good that came from this subculture, for it is just as true.

Without Christianity, I would not have made the friends I have. Without Christianity, I would not have ended up the person I am today. Without Christianity, I would not have the unique and powerful perspective I've ended up with, nor would I be able to do what I will do in the future. For this, I am grateful, among a thousand other things. I can still debate theology with the best theologian out there and stalemate them at best, and that is something I take pride in. Not because I find theology to be true, but because I find it to have been a useful tool for abstract thought and for the development of a very unique sort of logic.

God, as a concept, is wondrously fascinating to me. Growing up, I went through phases of what I believed about god. I believed in his sovereignty and his absolute deterministic control in high school, and it's intriguing to note that I was also more rejected and alone than I ever have been in my life during that time. I needed control, I needed someone who could give me a measure of control, who could assure me that everything would be okay, and if that meant I affirmed that infant deaths resulted in more souls in hell, then so be it. Horrifying, but where my soul was is still apparent.

I then became intrigued with god as a lover. When things got better in my life, I began to be intrigued by these notions of god as a pursuer, god as a gentleman, god as not necessarily a father or even male, but genderless and transcendent, sublime and complete and still wanted me regardless. I was no longer looking for security, I was looking for love. Yet, in my pursuit I found these people broken by something, refusing to be great out of "humility" or some such concept. Time after time, my soul would not resonate with the people I met, and I often felt that they did not believe in the same god I did.

"We shape our god, and our god shapes us." Rob Bell could not be more right about this. Truly, every experience I have had of god, every spiritual experience has been a resonation with humanity or a realization of some greater reality that I was not conscious of previously.

I am sure conservative Christians would read what I write as "he never believed in god to begin with, we should save him by bringing him to our one true expression of Christianity." I've never been a person to conform to a group, and the more right a group thinks they are, the more questions I ask. The more authoritative a leadership figure is, the less I care about what they are saying. Truly, I have a "rebellious spirit."

This is a good thing. People aren't created to be lead, they exist to be what they are, no matter how scary that is to people that are afraid or lonely. Nothing can stand in the way of the truth.

At some point, one must call a concept what it is. There is no doubt in my mind that two things are true.

1. There is more to humanity than biology, more to life than the surface of what people deal with every day, and there is something that transcends what we as humans know through current science. We must push forward with every aspect of philosophy, every science and every art, to understand more and come up with more questions.

2. In the context of church and political history, scientific discovery, and the nature of the "supernatural" (anything beyond our current understanding), if there is a god, he is nothing like the one in any major religion. This is because we shape our god, and when a lot of people choose to shape god the same way, we end up with a religious movement that, if it lasts, will become an established religion. This is nothing more than a psychological phenomenon combined with our adolescence as a race, and none of it proves a god.

I am, without a doubt, an atheist. I would term myself agnostic as well, because I do not think our race has come to a point of making definitive statements about whether an ultimate deity exists, or even whether there are higher developed life forms which can be considered deities exist.

I also know that I will spend a good portion of my life studying the concept of god and learning more about it, studying humanity and learning more about our race's psychological makeup, and making a combination of the two. Like I said, Christianity has put me on this path, and for that I am grateful.

Christianity has also lead me to the example of Christ, at once a beneficial and a harmful role model. When I was a child, this shaped me a great deal, and I still respect Jesus as an intriguing and beneficial figure, though not necessarily a historical one by any means. However, my idolization of the hero archetype must now become an intrigued study, for I am no longer a child.

I am a man, and my former ways are cast off. How terrifying, and what a great adventure.

Hellfire

I've been on a wonderful and terrible and entirely necessary journey lately, grappling with my transition away from faith. I've wanted to skip to the end of it for a while, to be at the point where I can say I'm well again, but I have to journey through some very painful and very rewarding territory to get there. I haven't written here for a while because of this, and because life has been insane and awesome and beautiful and exciting lately, and admittedly a little terrifying.

I was raised to fear. One of my most fundamental emotions is that of being afraid, and it's one I have struggled against for my entire life. I've dealt with crippling social anxiety over being afraid of rejection from people, and I've been afraid of failing or, perhaps more commonly, of succeeding. I've been afraid that I will be crushed by those I trust. None of these fears are unwarranted, as the way I grew up contained a lot of very intense experiences involving all of those things. I've even been taught (somehow) that every good thing is a trap that is designed to make you hope, after which it will crush you, and that cynicism is the way to live, with no faith in people, even if they give you every reason to believe in them.

All of this is terrible, and I'm still processing most of it. However, there was one fear I was taught specifically growing up that I have been grappling with for the past few months.

I fear what will happen to me after my death. Ever since I've transitioned to faithlessness, I've had haunting memories resurface of vivid descriptions of hell. There is fire everywhere, unquenchable fire that burns you eternally, and it never stops. There is smoke and sulfur, to the extent that the very air you're breathing is poison, but you are not allowed to die, and you are not allowed to go into shock or lose consciousness to escape your torment. You are separated from God, the ultimate authority/parental/guardian figure and the meaning of life, the only source of security for you, and he does not want you. You did not accept him in your 100 (or so) years of life, so he will leave you in agony for eternity.

The entire notion, I've come to feel for many years, is absurd. The logic I grew up with, "That's what the Bible says," even before losing my faith seemed entirely hollow and meaningless. How could something so implausible be true?

Yet, when you are told something when you are 6-7 years old, these thoughts don't enter your head. All you can think about is how terrible it is, how much you want to be good and you want God to love you, and how you want to live forever in heaven with him and with angels and all good things and where there is no pain. You make decisions based on the fact that you are terrified over something you have just begun to understand, yet it takes over your brain. It inundates you, and you grow up with it. You learn to hate or love or be angry or vengeful or kind and compassionate based on the things you come to believe.

I learned fear, and I learned that most of the human race will be tormented for eternity because of their lack of belief in Christ. How could I trust these people? How could I believe anyone when they don't have a moral center, when they don't have a god to please? Isn't morality simply a toss up if someone doesn't believe in God?

I had emotions, open-mindedness, charity, sexuality, philosophy, science, other cultures, and humanity demonized for me, and I was told that all of my answers lie in a book I tried to read every day and fell asleep doing so. I did not want to go to hell, so I became a fighter against anything that could threaten my and other peoples' faith. I did confrontational evangelism on the streets of Costa Rica as recent as 9 years ago because I thought it was my duty, my way of keeping people from endless torture for eternity.

Eventually, it came to be framed a different way. In recent years, I stopped believing in a literal hell after I studied the Bible and church history and could only find a solid source for this theology in Dante's Divine Comedy and in a very specific and literal reading of what is admitted to be some of the most metaphorical parts of the Bible by all but the strongest literalists.

It stopped being about not burning for eternity, and it started being about being in God's Kingdom. I reframed the horrifying vision I'd been taught growing up with one of eternal glory in God's presence, and began speaking of how God courts humanity and is a gentleman, so he will not force man to choose him. Hell became less about eternal pain and torment and more about man choosing himself over God, and living with the consequences of that choice. For this portrayal, see CS Lewis' "The Great Divorce," a beautifully written myth regarding the heaven/hell reality. Heaven became the only place where anything is real and about people being larger and more, and hell became about people shrinking into themselves and becoming small and petty and never going anywhere.

Like all theology, it's about people.

Sadly, however, this is only a more palatable version of hell. For instead of flames, there is only cold loneliness. Instead of endless conscious suffering, there is eternal emptiness. Instead of God throwing you there, you choose it yourself, whether you realize it or not. In some ways, this version of hell is more horrifying, because it's something you can no longer be angry at God about, and just as terrible.

"But Daniel, is the question not whether it's horrifying or not, but whether it's true?"

Hell is simply inseparable from Christian theology. I've run from this notion for years, and in many ways, I can understand why people get so angry over a book like Rob Bell's "Love Wins." When the doctrine of hell is threatened, the mythology of Christianity loses its' teeth, and fear is no longer a weapon in its' arsenal. Or, to put it another way, what is the point of getting saved if you're being saved from nothing? Does this not make Christ's torture and death meaningless? Meaningless indeed.

I was 7 when I first learned to fear in the name of hell, and even though I no longer consider myself a Christian, the entire notion still chills me at the most basic level. Because even though I haven't believed in hell per se for years, I am now one of the people that preachers ranted about when I was young. I am a secular humanist, someone who believes homosexuals and women and all people regardless of how different they are are equals. I don't believe in the Bible and I understand the evidence for Evolution and the origin of life. I think the entire notion of hell and scaring people into line with it is absurd.

Yet still, there is a fear that takes hold of my heart when I even think about it. What if I am wrong? What if I will burn for eternity because I've allowed philosophy and my lack of Christian morality and my own desire to do what I want to delude me from the truth presented in Scripture?

Scripture, which I don't believe in and is historically the product of a religion that cannot be trusted. Morality, which is demonstrably not from an ancient book and obviously not confined to a single creed, especially considering how bloody and politically cut-throat church history is. Philosophy, which is an inescapable part of life, as natural to humanity as breathing. The entire notion that I will somehow burn in hell is absurd, but fear makes me take it seriously, and it's 27 years of it that I have to somehow come to terms with.

Like I said, this journey has been wonderful and painful and rewarding and entirely necessary. Be who you are, be intelligent, think critically, and have compassion. Do not let fear dictate your choices.

The Strength of Greatness, Vis-à-vis Love

How small is a person, and how vast is the truth of our existence, not to mention all of reality itself? We live on a planet that has been around for 4.54 billion years in a universe that is 13.75 (or so) billion years old, with an observable size of approximately 46 billion light years, and it is expanding, possibly into infinity or other universes. We have only begun to comprehend our own reality, our own universe, and it is now theorized that our universe is only one part of reality. We live only a fraction of that time, and even our planet is a tiny, tiny fraction of the totality of our universe, let alone existence.

On this planet, we kill each other over petty things. We speak of men that lived hundreds or thousands of years ago, become angry at others for not aligning with their teachings, and kill each other. We don't get the smallest bit of our small planet when or how we want it, so we kill the people there and take it. We disagree about things like love, a connection with another person that is both inexplicable and beautiful, and kill or do violence to others because of that. We don't like how other people conduct themselves or we quarrel over how to divide the resources of our speck of cosmic dust, so we kill each other, do violence to each other, and make other peoples' lives miserable. The worst part is that we developed this way.

Tribal division is ancient and has its' roots in our subconscious. We want to own things, control things and have power, even if in the vastness of the universe the power and control and wealth we do gain are less than meaningless. We create subgroups and fragment ourselves, compete and kill and alienate ourselves from others, but compared to the vastness of the universe, we are all right next to each other. We are all we have, and we are on the verge of annihilating ourselves from the universe instead of discovering new ways to extend our race's life and influence and meaning.

We have evolved beyond this. It is unstable and unnecessary to get into petty squabbles over stupid things like other peoples' choices (so long as they don't harm others) when we could be encouraging people to find meaning and love and to do great things. We raise our children to hate and be divisive and viciously competitive when we could be  encouraging curiosity, discovery, companionship, and respect. We get angry over mythological theory, territorial conflict, ideological problems, and matters of pride, yet we cannot take the time to understand another person's perspective or to appreciate how diverse and fascinating reality is.

Feelings are a window into who a person is, and every person is their own universe. Every person has a world that can be observed, all flowing from that spark of energy that makes them unique. Whether it is a product of instinct and sentient thought and emergent consciousness or whether it's some higher spiritual form of reality that people exist on as well as what we can easily see, every person is a unique exploration of humanity. All are fragments of light, and the more we learn the more we illuminate the fullness of the experience that is humanity.

People should be loved, because love creates a greater meaning out of the lesser meanings that are individuals. It is a step toward greatness, and it is why that connection between two people that truly love each other is so beautiful. They become greater than the sum of their parts. It is also why that connection can become terrifying or damaging. People can be run over and hurt and damaged very easily when they love, and they must eventually rise back out of the ashes of their pain, which is a very difficult thing to do. So difficult, in fact, that some people remain in the ashes, constantly grieving and living in the past instead of building on it, reaching for the heights of who they are as a person, and regaining the ability to take the risk that is loving.

Humanity is small indeed, but each of us are deeper than an ocean, even if we don't realize it. I choose to be an explorer, and to allow myself to love and be loved, allow for the possibility of pain, and allow for the possibility of greatness, with those individuals I meet who are like me. Anyone can choose this, but they must recognize the necessity of connection and respect being balanced. They must recognize that people are who they are, and they must lose their intentions that take away from that greatness. Power-hunger, pettiness, jealousy, the perceived need to control others, selfishness, lust and greed will only destroy those that go after those things. Live a great life, move beyond yourself.