From: sbuckley@fraser.sfu.ca (Stephen Buckley)
Subject: Re: Why I am an atheist/Christian (orig. poster speaks)
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 07:25:45 GMT

hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:

>In article <sbuckley.714784479@sfu.ca>, sbuckley@fraser.sfu.ca (Stephen Buckley) writes:
>> 
>>   funny about this.  same thing happened to me.  a couple months after
>> deciding to turn to jesus, i climbed a mountain and spent an isolated weekend
>> looking for some sign/indication that it was actually happening.  i came
>> back without any indication.  when telling a christian friend of mine, she
>> just laughed at me.  she asked what i was expecting to see, and i 
>> basically responded that i was looking for a two-by-four over the head,
>> eureka! experience on the level of a burning bush.  then i began to laugh.
>> sometimes we're just looking for confirmation in ways that god isn't
>> offering confirmation.  since that mountain experience, i've found the
>> truth of it all, mainly in the healing in my soul from a darkened depressed
>> place to a healthy, god-filled place.  after stopping trying to get god
>             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>Could you explain what you mean by this? Try not to use religious language,
>if possible. I find that Christians often don't seem to be real people
>because they never talk in experiential terms. It's always "God did this,
>God did that, God filled my soul..."  These are interpretations. But tell
>me what you experienced, and let me try to see if I see the hand of the
>Divine in it. Do you understand why this is important?

  well.  good question.  god in me is the conviction and the wisdom and 
guidance in my heart that is the spirit [trinity v.3] while in prayer,
listening to my minister's sermon or the words of a friend in
conversation, reading the bible, reading another book, looking at
canada geese flying past my apartment window, during these times
and many others, something goes "ding" inside my heart.  a phrase from
my minister's mouth as he's speaking to almost 200 of us will answer
something that's been in my mind that week or often that very moment.
these "coincidences" happen up to a dozen times during an average sermon.
this is the spirit in the heart perking up my ears at just the right point
in the sermon or in conversation with a friend, or when i'm looking 
through the bible for insight, i'll find something small somewhere that
just happens to speak *exactly* to what i'm suffering over.  these
coincidences are huge spiritual interventions in life that come from
me turning to god for wisdom when i need it.

  christians often don't seem to speak like real people in conversation
with non-believers for fear of persecution.  strange, but let me explain.
i'm sitting with a group of people who are curious about my experience--
a relatively rare event because most conversations i have with people
revolve around them slamming me and my hideous, repulsive, intolerant
beliefs.  so when i get at least semi-sincere queries, it's easy to
couch my words in christian cliches and scripture because the words
are eternal, from god and full of solace in an environment of interrogation
that is rarely free of stress and tension.  it's like a kind of moat and
castle wall to keep out those who could turn at any moment [often 
friends] and take something personal i say in my words, experientially,
and turn me into a hateful intolerant bigot.  we've all seen this happen
no matter what our perspective.  so christians can sometimes couch their
words in god's for protection.  but if yer close, really close, to a
christian where there's trust and compassion in your relationship, ask
them to be sincere and descriptive and they just might, if they feel
they can trust you and not feel threatened.
>            
>> to prove himself to me, and i could only do this when i became exhausted in
>> trying, i just said "o.k., it's true, i'll believe tho i've seen no 
>> evidence in my life, show me in YOUR ways."  and then everything changed.
>> really, it did.  and i don't think abandoning family, friends
>> and possessions will show you jesus.  but you need to have faith based on
>> no evidence for the evidence to come into your heart--a contention that
>> merits the highest ridicule in this newsgroup, i know, but it's still
>> true.
>> 

>This is indeed a remarkable statement, but paradoxically, it does not 
>alienate this atheist.  Christianity seems to me to be a wreck from an
>evidential point of view. The only thing that can salvage it is a faith
>that "the Lord works in mysterious ways."   A note for Christians - 
>come on like human beings! Not like people with a direct hot-line to heaven.com.
>I think a rationally-based Christianity is possible only for the 
>intellectually-challenged, but posts like Mr. Buckley's indicate that
>Christians ARE human beings after all!

  thanks for the compliment.  it means a lot.  the lord works in mysterious
ways, only in one context.  the normal ways that meaning is conveyed in
our world [logical, linear thot, art] are what we see as normal and 
intelligible.  but divine spiritual intervention often look like coincidences
that happen to have god's fingerprints on them, fingerprints that are 
recognizable if god's spirit is in us to help us see them.  the wisdom
i get from god is no longer mysterious because i now expect it in certain
places, but in comparison to this world, it'll always be mysterious.

>This comment gives me some idea of HOW a person can be a Christian - it has
>a ring of truth. Of course, it doesn't change things a lot for me, 
>but it does make me see that Christianity is as valid an approach to life
>as atheism. 

  and i hope for you a more valid approach.