From: hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Dialogue on Faith, Certainty, ex-Christians [was Re: The Light]
Date: 30 Aug 92 16:50:53 GMT
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <1992Aug30.092541.515@en.ecn.purdue.edu>, muehlhau@en.ecn.purdue.edu (John Muehlhausen) writes:
> Sean,
> 
>    What I am going to say will sound strange, but it is true.  There is no
> such thing as an ex-Christian.  If you claim to be one, then I hold that you
> never were a Christian to start with. 

This is a position I am fairly familiar with. It is the standard Christian
explanation for people losing faith. However, let's go on. This is an 
interesting new thread.

>    I am interested to know if any of the following were a part of your
> "Christian" life (please to not get mad at the quotes, I am not trying to be
> obnoxious...)
> 
>    Did you accept that God exists and that Jesus is the way to Him in your 
>    heart, mind, and soul?

I believed with what I thought was an unshakeable conviction. I used to pray,
and feel that I was indeed in contact with Jesus. I used to be boggled by
evolutionary biology, amazed at the blindness of anyone who could believe that
the world was not the product of a divine intelligence. I was not an expert on
theology, but I was a sincere and passionate believer. 

I remember my first encounter with an atheist. I was shocked when a friend
revealed to me that he was an atheist. We argued for hours, and I laughed
to think that anyone could not believe in God. I pitied that poor man. I
walked away from the conversation shaking my head in amazement. 

I used to be disgusted by the "Twice a year" Christians around me, and I 
prayed for and yearned for as complete a communion with God as possible. It
seemed a pleasure for me to obey his commandments. Want more autobiography?
Just ask...:)

>    Did you make it a point to get time with Him daily (or more often) in
>    prayer and Bible study?

My attempts to get closer to God took the form of straining to be aware of Him
at all times, if you know what I mean. I didn't want to be in touch with him
only daily, or twice a day, etc. I wanted to LIVE in his presence. My parents
were in fact a bit worried by what they felt was my "obsession" with religion. 
I won't say I was 100% turned to God at all times. But it was always like a
an undercurrent of yearning in everything I did - to become more aware, more
attuned to God and his purposes.

>    Did you look for Him in your circumstances and surroundings and keep Him
>    in mind at all times?  Asking for his guidance throughout the day?
> 

Oops. I guess I answered this one already.
     
>    Did you give your life to Him, regardless of where He might tell you to go
>    or what He might tell you to do?

I longed to give my life to him...this I think was one of the things that
began to undermine my faith. I burned to give my life to Him..but there didn't
seem to be anyone to take it! 

>    Did you get plenty of fellowship with other people who are trying to be
>    more Christ-like?

I have tried to "fellowship" with Christians many times in my life. Of many
denominations, including Pentecostal, Catholic, Mormon, United Church of
Canada.  This was a bad move, I think :-) because the other Christians I met
always repelled me strongly. They seemed so full of self-love, and so empty
of the kind of yearning for closeness to the Divine that was my prime
motivation in life. They seemed to have no interest in God except as a means
for gratifying their own egos and desire for pleasure (spiritual). This was
univerally true, everywhere I went. I have read of Christians with whom I feel
I could "fellowship" even today: Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, the
early Gnostics and Thomasites. Where are the people like that now? Gone - or
few and far between. I feel no fellowship at all with the majority of
Christians, who want to use God the way a junkie uses heroin.  

>    The objective question to ask of this is "why should I think this is any
> different than brainwashing oneself with any given philosophy?" 
> I cannot
> give an objective answer.  All I can give is that I do realize this and am
> capable of looking at my beliefs objectively,

Do you really think so?  What does that mean? It means you judge them in the
light of your experience. What is the organizing ideology of your experience?
Catholic-derived Christianity. So, you're going to judge Catholic-derived
Christianity in the light of Catholic-derived Christianity. Do you think this
is likely to lead to true understanding? If I judge Marxism in the light of
Marxism, am I likely to find difficulties?
 
> but there is something
> more to this particular one.  It is real.  Assuming that you are right, what
> have I lost by living this way? 

What you will have lost (if Sean-centred solipsism is not the true state of 
the universe) is connection with your experiential existence, having abandoned
it in favor of an imagination-based life. Strictly speaking, you will have 
abandoned the Divine in favor of it's shadow. However, let's not get into that
one right now!  

> What would you lose by trusting in Jesus for
> your salvation? 

Nothing, really. But that is not what you want. You want me to fill my head
24 hours a day with dogma and self-projected illusion. If all that was required
was that I trust in Jesus for my salvation, I could do that easily. I would
have a certain amount of doubt as to whether or not I was right to do so, 
but I could do it. As it stands now, I think it is impossible to have 
certainty about our lives without deception. How do you know that you 
aren't a butterfly sleeping in a field somewhere and that your life to date
isn't just a butterfly's sweet summer dream? How do you know that every thought
you have isn't placed there by Satan himself? You don't...but you go on as if 
you did. That is how I know you are deluding yourself. Certainty is always
delusion, because certainty is impossible. 

> I cannot think of anything that is worth having in the first
> place.  I know you are thinking that you would be believing a lie, and for
> that reason it would have no meaning. 

We cannot KNOW anything for sure about the ultimate nature of our lives, so
belief in Jesus is as acceptable to me as any other belief. But belief for
me means humility - humility that acknowledges that one really has NO IDEA
whether or not one's belief is correct. That kind of belief is all that's
posible for the honest man - but Christianity won't accept that. It's not
good enough. That is how I know it's delusion. 
 
> Tell me what evidence you have (major
> stuff here, not pidly crap) that the Christian God does not exist.  Personal
> testimonies count extra. :-)

I have no evidence. There is lots of evidence that Christianity arose 
in the same way as any other ideology, but this does not rule out the
possiblility of God's influence. I do not say that God does not exist (indeed,
in a Gnostic sort of way, I would certainly agree that he does),  but
Catholic-derived Christianity has turned Him into a comic-book figure. It is
this comic-book figure that repels me. I cannot fill my mind with this nonsense
any longer - God only is when the mind is not filled with images. This 
understanding of God is in direct variance with Catholic-derived Christianity,
which is why I am unable to join their happy ranks. 

> 
> In article <1992Aug29.155355.7212@ac.dal.ca> hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:
> 
>>Ok, sure. Alas, looks like an old mythology to me...and my former belief in
>>it (I see know) occurred because ANY unfalsifiable system looks true if you
>>accept it's initial premises. Which I did, attributing feelings which have
>>no connection to Yahweh to just such a mythological figure.
> 
> For me it looks true as you are saying, but more than that I know its true
> and it is true.
> 

See? Certainty. Sorry, comrade. Certainty is always delusory. 

>>> But that is just darkness.
>> 
>>So says this unfalsifiable dogma, which I used to hold also. I'm sure it seems
>>true to you at the moment.
> 
> Please try and shake me - I am a sensible person.

You seem like a good fellow. I could try and shake your faith, I could try
and convince you that the atheistic world view makes more sense, and to me
it does make more sense than Catholic-derived Christianity. However - I 
would be serving you better if I could encourage you to take a look at 
what you are doing in being so sure of yourself. You are worshipping an image;
maybe God is real, but you are not worshipping Him. Only the "poor in spirit"
can do that, and right now your spirit is very full of other people's images.
Jesus said: "Become passers-by." That means pass by everything - even your
images of God. Only when you have passed by everything, and there is nothing
left, does God become apparent.  I guess I would rather get you to take a
closer look at what Christianity IS and could be, rather than get you 
to become a scientific materialist. 

> 
>>> But this is light!
>>
>>Yes, I know it feels good. I know it is intellectually satisfying, 
>>(if you don't ask TOO many questions - every intellectually active Christian
>>ends up a heretic. - Hartigan's law. )
>>
>>I know it makes life more bearable. I know it provides stimulation, that it
>>provides companionship, that it allows one to make sense out of the chaos of
>>experience.  But, if you are a human being like me, it is self-deception to
>>be as sure about it as you are, comrade. Honest Christians are virtually
>>indistinguishable from honest atheists. Their most noticeable quality
>                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>is humility. 
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> Bingo.

It is quite possible that you are a very virtuous person. However, if I may
say so, intellectual humilty is not exactly radiating from your words like
sunshine. 

>>> But that's nothing compared to this!
>>
>>That is true. But some of us prefer an honest nothing, or an honest ambiguity,
>>to a false certainty.
> 
> Why are you so sure it is false?  

I am not _sure_ that Catholic-derived Christianity is false, rather, it is clear
to me that the kind of certainty you claim is based on delusion. 

> The only thing you can prove is that you
> can't prove it.  So we have two ways of thinking that are unprovable but
> cohesive.  One gives meaning to life and the other doesn't.

Not exactly. We do have two ways of thinking here - one that acknowledges it's
own limitations and one that doesn't. Christianity can give meaning to life,
but if you are honest, it is a _tentative_ meaning. Your claims of certainty
reveal that your faith is based on self-projected images, not on God.
Although you may, in fact, have "had contact" with what I am calling "God,"
you have idealized that experience into a false ideology, if this is the case.
 
> Tips the scales,
> don't it... :-)  Can you say that you are as certain that I am wrong as I am
> that you are wrong? 

I can say that you are currently deluded (probably not intentionally). This
does not mean that the mythology you are using to delude yourself is false.

> I think all that you can _honestly_ say is that you don't know.

With regard to the truth-claims of Catholic-derived Christianity, you are 
correct.

> From what is external that is all I can conclude as well.  I
> have an unfair advantage though - I can (and do) claim that God has shown
> Himself to (and come to live in) my soul.  That evidence cannot be refuted.

The fact that you are so sure of yourself indicates to me that even if God
does live in your soul, you do not worship him, but rather an image of your own 
creation.

> But having the Holy Spirit living in you is not myth.  It is now and real
> and, like I said, undeniable. 

How do you know that whatever is happening to you is the Holy Spirit? You 
cannot be sure of this. 
 
> I cannot reject God.  It would be like
> rejecting the fact that I exist.  It would be a terrible lie to myself
> because it would go against what I _know_, whether I want that knowledge or
> not!

It is possible that you cannot reject experience X which you have had/are 
having, but the interpretation you put on it is far from undeniable. 
                          

>>> This is incredible!  Everyone should see this!
>>
>>I have, comrade.  Your enthusiasm is admirable, but also a bit alarming.
>>Remember the enthusiastic Hitlerjugend? "Sieg HEIL!" Wheee! What fun!
> 
> Have you?  Obviously you have not seen what I have.

*laugh* I remember saying things like that. The world just keeps turning
around...

> 
>>> But this is IT!  What you've got is nothing!
>>
>>What I have is what's left after you abandon an imaginative view of life.
>>All you have is life itself. IF you call that nothing, comrade, I wish you
>>good luck.
> 
> It is nothing.  We, of ourselves, are nothing.  80 years is nothing.  Human
> achievement is nothing.  Read Ecclesiastes.

Eccleiastes is a beautiful little book, but it is a meditation on life by one
man in a certain mood, not the definitive description of human existence.

>>>    YOU ARROGANT CLOSED-MINDED @*#*!!

[other purported "atheist" rantings deleted]

>>This passage demonstrates almost total ignorance of the position of the
>>ex-Christian.  To all Christians: you know FAR less about us than we do 
>>about you. We were once as you are now. You have yet to join our
>>illustrious :-) ranks - you don't know us at all. 
> 
> How is that?  I can honestly call myself an ex-atheist... Of course that
> ideology _does_ make allowances for disagreement.  And here I am!

Everybody is an ex-atheist. We are all born atheists (lacking belief in God
or gods) until Mom and Dad and the local Sunday School teacher get to work.
So movement from atheism to Christianity is something every Christian
experiences.  However, to lose one's faith irrevocably in Catholic-derived
Christianity is something you have not done yet, comrade, as I'm sure you
would agree. Christianity is something I (for example) have passed through.
You have not done this (yet?) so obviously our perspective on the faith is
not available to you except second-hand. On the other hand, your perspective
on the faith is something I remember very well. 

>>>    WOW!
>>>    WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG!
>>> 
>>>    HEY!  TAKE A LOOK AT THIS!
>>
>>Yes, hard-headed Christianity is, strictly speaking, a "branch of the bourgeois
>>narcotics trade," as Brecht once said of the popular theatre. I know it's
>>lots of fun. After all, I used to play too. 
> 
> If it was a game, even in retrospect, then you were not a Christian.
> 

*laugh* Spoken like a True Believer. No, it wasn't a game while I played it, 
it was life and death. I understand your seriousness. Please forgive my levity.
All I meant was that it is an artificial situation which we embrace in
pursuit of pleasure, i.e. a game, in one sense of the word. 

I eagerly await your comments on the above. If you could, could you talk more
about what it is actually like to have "Christ living in you?" 
For example, tell me what feelings/experiences you have to which you give the
name "Christ in you." Distinguish between those experiences and others, if you
could. I would like to know more about this startling claim. Also "The Holy
Spirit," "God" etc.  What experiences do you give those names to?


> John M.

Sean Hartigan
hartigan@ac.dal.ca

"Every thought is also a prison; every heaven is also a prison."