Occam's Razor

I present to you a YouTube video by Evid3nc3. Here, he explains his de-conversion experience within the context of Occam's Razor.

I can relate to his experience very much.




If you watch it, feel free to post your reactions to this video.

History Lesson

My most boring moments in school usually involved history class. I generally hated history.

I would perk up during the chapter about the American Revolution, though. I always thought it was awesome how those guys came together and formed a government that has lasted until today.

Out of all my life, I had only two high school history teachers who kept my attention. Otherwise, history was a drag from grade school through college.

B O R I N G.

Then, September 11th came. Current events suddenly became very important to me.

Then, the Shock and Awe came. Immediately, my mind went back to Desert Storm.

Seeing many of the same faces in G.W. Bush's administration that were in G.H. Bush's administration was suspicious in my opinion. Oh well . . .

But that's when I realized history was very important, yet I hardly knew any of it.

Then, I realized that I knew even less history when I started to explore my faith.

I've learned a lot of history since my deconversion. I share the new things that I've learned with other people. And generally, they never knew such events happened.

I was like that, too. But once you learn about an actual historic event, you cannot unlearn it.

If history is boring for you, it is not because history sucks. You're bored only because the thread of life has not woven your personal present into important past events. A good history teacher tries to do this for you. A poor history teacher only feeds you dates.

Think about it. Challenge your preconceived notions.

Know your history.

Passion Against the Christ

Now that I have labeled myself as an atheist, I'm beginning to see how colorful and amalgamated my new cohorts truly are.

I see many who have deep passion for action and change. Brimming with ideas on how to make society become more accepting of our non-belief, many atheists wield an unfettered openness and fearlessness. I see people anxious to go "head to head" against the status quo concerning the negative views theists generally have against atheists.

I believe these sentiments are noble and worthy; I privately watch such atheists with admiration and envy.

I also see many who are passive and quite. Change is desired, but prudence restricts their openness. A sensitivity is there amid a simmering passion for change. Caution is on the lips of such an atheist. This type of non-believer constantly reiterates the fact that we need to evaluate our activism before we try to change the world around us.

I am one of the latter types. I'm still in the closet, peeking through the crack I've made in the door frame. I want to come out, but too many people are watching me. I don't want to ruin important relationships that are too meaningful to me. I'm flexible enough to accept any changes they might make, but perhaps they wouldn't know what to do with me. We're simply not at the same level of tolerance.

I'm not referring to the casual acquaintance or even the stranger on the street. I don't mind if these people know about my non-belief. Rather, I refer to family members which I love deeply; loved ones that may only have a few precious years left in my life. Should I become open before such people, I would lose them long before necessary. I also have close friends that would perhaps feel betrayed should I ever come out in an open, fearless, and brazen fashion.

And then, there is my place of employment. One never knows how Christian employers my treat an apostate atheist.

Hey -- I gotta eat.

So, I keep quite -- except around a few select people and within the medium of this blog.

I think nearly all atheists can agree that we want more acceptance from the religious world. We want to know that we can be open and expressive about our non-belief without the backlash of possible discrimination.

We want others to realize that we atheists do not have horns on our heads and a pointy tail. We are not amoral by default. We're not imps of the devil.

In light of this, we must also be careful that we remember that religion in and of itself is not always the problem. Intolerance is the problem. Yes, religion easily fuels intolerance. In many cases, religion even creates intolerance.

But the religious have a right to enjoy and express their beliefs just as we as atheists desire the same rights to free expression of non-belief.

I've noticed that many people who possess high mental acumen in a particular subject matter -- or overall -- have a tendency to be impatient with those who do not share their mental gift.

Have you ever talked on the phone with a tech support representative who was gruff and terse? Usually this is because they do not want to spend time helping anyone with such elementary things as double-clicking. Geeks generally do not want to help someone figure out a problem which, in their minds, has such a painfully obvious solution. Either that or they were busy being geeks and didn't want to be bothered by your support call.

This seems to happen in any facet of life.

I think the same happens between many atheists and theists. The logic that convinces one to become an atheist becomes so apparent and obvious. At the very least, all the faiths of our time are mythological at best. So, should god truly exist and the atheist were mistaken, god would still probably be far more understanding at our mistake than his alleged followers would ever be. After all, shouldn't god actually transcend humanity? Isn't that the whole idea of being a deity?

So, I think many atheists become impatient with theists. Why can't the religious zealot open his or her eyes and see? Can't theists see the abuse? Why don't they see the hurt? Don't they see the obvious mythological elements to their beliefs?

No, they don't. Because they are brainwashed.

I was brainwashed, too. At my earliest memories, I was Christian. Family members have told me that I tried to witness to people when I was very young. My devotion to Christ spans beyond my own memories.

Can you imagine the difficulty in deprogramming this mindset? Impacting such a phenomena takes time -- and the results happen at a pace of one person at a time in many cases.

But, to imply that the religious are totally devoid of reasoning is dangerous. I wouldn't be writing this blog today if that statement were true for every religious person.

If atheists are to do much good in changing how the religious sees us, we will have to be tolerant, patient, and understanding. We can't simply reduce the theists and religious to "dummies" or "idiots" all the time. Name calling and being belligerent won't help -- even if many religious people are that way towards us. Theists need patient help over time before they can have any hope of overcoming the hurdles of their own bias concerning their faith and their misguided feelings towards the atheist. This change must come in small doses. A little here, a little there.

So be patient with anyone who doesn't see eye to eye with you -- regardless of what you believe. Be patient with anyone who hasn't arrived to where you are yet.

Be mindful that your impatience may undermine your passion for activism and change. Your zeal for tolerance may produce the very intolerance you despise.

Leaving the Sandbox

So . . . what kind of Christian was I and why did I leave my faith?

The process didn't happen over night. This de-conversion took place gradually over the course of two years in all.

I was raised Baptist during my early childhood and adolescence. During my late teenage years, I followed after the Pentecostal persuasion until my de-conversion. While I'm not over the hill yet, I'm no spring chicken, either. So, I spent many years in tight adherence to Pentecostalism. After years of mindlessly following the tenets of my faith, I started to question the traditions that didn't seem Biblically founded. Some traditions even seemed contradictory to the Biblical writings! At that point, I wanted to weed out those things that were from people and nurture those things found in God's Word.

I hungered for authentic Christianity and determined I'd search for it. I wanted to live out what the Bible taught instead of just following what people said. My goal was to strengthen my faith and make my faith true. Little did I know my endeavor was the beginning of the end of my Christian faith.

How can that be?! How can a Pentecostal zealot even walk away from the Faith? Doesn't the speaking in tongues experience validate the Biblical writings? Tongues, man! Why, that's experiencing the miraculous, right?

Again – little did I know I was headed for where I am now. My search was to come closer to God. My honest desire was to be real and earnest concerning my faith in Christ. I would fast and pray often. I would read my Bible and attend church quite regularly. Yes, I had moments where I got off track, but I was involved and dedicated. I committed my life to Jesus Christ.

Unequivocally, I was a strong Christian.

That's why I wanted to better understand my faith. Once I realized the Jewish roots of Christianity, I became fascinated by the early church. I wanted my faith to look more like the way the early church behaved. One year, I wanted to celebrate Good Friday by having the Lord's Supper in the way that the first century believers might have done. Then, I was going to do an intense Bible study from Good Friday into Passover. That's when I noticed in this specific year Easter Sunday fell out of sync with Passover; I did not see Passover in the same month as Easter that year. Why?! After all, Passover is the foreshadowing of Christ's blood being shed for sin, right? How could Passover ever be out of sync with Easter?

Church tradition has a slightly different schedule from Passover's schedule because the church wanted to make sure Easter always fell in a certain range of weeks each year -- regardless of whether Passover fit the schedule or not. So . . . now and then . . . Passover and Easter get out of sync.

Inevitably, other questions started to surface. Why did we file down the aisles for a small wafer and tiny cup of grape juice or a tiny gulp of wine during Communion? The Lord's Supper was clearly a meal where believers ate a Passover-like meal together to commemorate the death and Resurrection of Christ. The Apostle Paul's description of Communion in I Corinthians 11 strongly suggest that the early church had Communion as a meal. The Last Supper was most likely one of many smaller ceremonial meals that Jews had leading up to the main Passover celebration.

So, why are we doing it so differently?

A deep passion rose up in me about these things. Ideas about how we could practice our faith more like the early church started bubbling out of me. But my ideas and my passion started making other Christians around me a little nervous. Pointing out the Jewishness of the Christian faith seemed unsettling for other Christians. “Don't rock the boat” formed on people's expressions when I started bringing up these type issues. Or else, eyes would just glaze over out of disinterest. Or, my ideas just were not making much sense.

Not my fault Passover and Easter get out of sync from time to time.

Oh well . . . why does it matter? Just don't worry about it.

So, that's what I tried to do.

Then, other odd issues started to come up. Why did I have to pay tithes, again? If the Law of Moses was fulfilled in Christ and I'm not to keep the law to receive or maintain my salvation – why do I have to perform the Jewish law of tithing?

Isn't that like going back to circumcision?

Boy, I really got dirty looks for that idea! But, why should I get dirty looks? I'm trying to live under “grace”. I'm still trying to live my life by the rules the Apostles and Jesus left us in the New Testament. I'm still trying to take Old Testament writings and learn from them and apply their meaning within the dispensation of grace. What's wrong with that? The book of Galatians really comes to mind right now. Basically, Paul is asking a group of Gentile believers why they are letting pockets of Jewish Christians insist they must practice parts of Judaism to be fully Christian.

Sounds like tithes would fit into that category quite nicely.

But, discovering these things didn't shake my faith. Nor did the lack of concern from other Christians.

What did happen, however, was this – I left my little mental sandbox for the first time. I was actually believing in Jesus Christ because the Biblical text said to do so; I had started placing my trust in the Bible. So, I left the sandbox of tradition to allow my faith to be molded by the Biblical text – not people's opinions.

So, if my faith was growing so strong, why did I lose it? Because, leaving the status quo trained my mind to accept new ideas. This laid the foundation for me realizing that dangerous possibility: maybe something other than my beliefs were true-- making me totally wrong about my core beliefs.