RagingRev

The following is a letter I recently wrote to the editor of my local newspaper, the Dodge County News. I am not sure if it will be published in the edition that should be coming off the presses right now, but I do expect it should be included in next weeks edition. I have included in my salutation that I am a fiscal conservative Atheist and included my website, hoping to get some feedback from the local folks but I am actually quite nervous about it. See, I am out about my lack of belief…I don’t do anything to hide it and if someone asks me anything about religion I am more than glad to let it be known that I am indeed an Atheist. I have not, however, made an uninvited public statement as of yet which is why I know that members of my family and the family of my wife may be surprised to know of this and it may be a shock to them. Therefore, before I post this letter, let me just explain a few things:

Disclaimer

1. I did not choose to be an Atheist, I simply chose to think critically about my religious beliefs and it led me to this place, I am not making an effort not to believe, I simply find it impossible to continue belief in any god especially the god of Christianity.
2. This is not the fault of anyone, it has nothing to do with a less than perfect (though it had it’s high points, don’t get me wrong) family life or any sort of trauma over the problems that my family has had.
3. I do not hate the religious, I respect those that wish to continue believing. I have no intention of fighting the religious establishment in this town publicly. I just want to see common sense used when political rallies are held and false pretenses are used to attract participants. I still believe in the freedom to believe in whatever god or gods you please so long as your belief does not drive you to harm other people, I would fight to keep that freedom for everyone if there was ever an attempt to take it away.
4. My morals have not changed, there are no black robed satanic rituals occurring at my home nor any wild orgies. I still love my wife and am wholly dedicated to my marriage.
5. None of my opinions, views, beliefs, or lack of beliefs are necessarily shared by my wife. She believes whatever she wants to believe and I have not made any effort to stop her from believing in god. Please don’t apply any words that you read here to my wife because they simply are not her statements. If you want to know about her beliefs or disbelief you will have to ask her though she doesn’t seem too very inclined to discuss those things with a whole lot of people.

If you came here after reading my letter please feel free to comment in the comments section, I will not censor any views so long as there are no threats made against myself or my family. Sometimes people do irrational things in the name of god and I know that %99.9999 of you would never do anything to harm another person, but for that individual that cannot tolerate questioning his/her beliefs people like me on occasion fear the repercussions of not participating in the status quo. I love my fellow man, I care about this country, and I worry about it’s future – this is why I wrote this and why I continue my blog in the way that I do.

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Recently I put one of my infamous controversial Facebook statuses up that garnered a bit of a response. Some of the responses got me thinking about the subject matter of this post. Here is the status I put up that day:

I rejoice when others doubt the myth and misery of Christianity. I know the pain that pursuing the non-existent can cause a person and it makes me glad when someone escapes it!

I was inspired to put this up when I got to thinking about the rejoicing I would do when I was able to successfully share the “gospel” of Christ with someone and how glad that would make me. I remembered Luke 15:10 which states, “Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” (KJV) and began thinking about all of the trouble, confusion, and pain that comes with living in the Christian faith.

One of the responses I received was from a local youth pastor of one of the larger Baptist churches in our small town. I’ve met this fellow before, but we really don’t know each other in any way beyond that of a passing acquaintance, he is good at what he does and has always come off as a very nice guy so I am in no way attempting to start beef with him – this is just something I have heard before that I wanted to take the opportunity to address for the edification of my Atheist and Christian friends. Here is what he said:

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Let’s face it, the New Atheism is a major movement now. We have our prophets telling people to “come out” of our Atheistic closets, Atheist conventions happening, and even Atheist Apologists defending the science of evolution against the fantastic ideas of “Creation Science”. We have gone from an unheard minority to a powerful force in the world and our numbers are growing. Only time will tell what our movement may  become, but one thing is for certain, we are here to stay.

I come  from an evangelical Christian background where my main goal in life other than “seeking gods face” was to “lead people to Jesus” . Maybe this is just me, but for some odd reason, I feel just as urged to spread the “gospel” of Atheism as I did to spread the “godspell” of Christ. I can’t fully explain it, but I imagine it comes from my desire to see people freed from the bonds of religious servitude, indoctrination, and guilt…I feel free and I want others to feel free. I suspect many of my peers feel much the same way, which explains at least in part why there are so many Atheist bloggers popping up and so many Atheists joining religious discussion forums and talking about religion so openly (Some trolling and others trying to be productive members of the forums).  Even if they don’t admit it, my Atheist peers want to leave their mark on this world in an attempt to improve it to the best of our ability, seeing as how we only have one life and no eternal life to look forward to we often attempt to make the most of what we do have rather than hoping for something after we die.

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As I was making my daily rounds the other day on Facebook the status of one of my friends caught my eye. Because Facebook and especially statuses are incredibly bad places to hold sensible debates I have decided to post the comments that occured after that. If it is hard to follow I am sorry, but I truly hope that the participants might join in and begin commenting here in order to continue hashing this out…now that we have Intense Debate installed at RagingRev these sorts of things should be MUCH easier to facilitate. 

note!: I am changing the names of anyone that may not want to be identified…Just stuff I am making up

as you can see, it’s long, but I hope it will be worth it and I truly hope those involved will join in on the comments. Note also that I did remove a small side conversation and one other part but they were not important…we are at over 5000 words here.

Here is what it said:

Erich’s Status:  It’s Atheist Day! (The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”)

Bill says:

I am an atheist, but I am not a fool. Your statement is exactly backwards, because who is the bigger fool? One who uses logic and reason to define their way, or one who blindly believes in superstition, (faith)? Now, I don’t go around calling all of my religious friends “fools,” but you seem to have no problem dishing out such an insult.

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My ole budy Guy Vestal over at HeresyToday.org has decided to start an old fashioned mailing list for Religious discussion. I am going to be helping him moderate it and we want people from every religious background to join up…so please…do so…it should be lot’s of fun!

To join just go HERE and fill out the info. We are looking for anyone from any background…Wiccans, Christians, Zebras, Atheists, Theosophists, Raelians, etc etc etc…

Pastor Guy recently responded to my request for some inspiration, his original topic starter was the inability to prove that emotions exist in the human race. I have to say that guy may be confused as to just what human emotions are other than chemical reactions in the body/brain but they seem to be pretty well set in stone to me- so that’s one worm I won’t bite. However, when I asked Guy in a private email to explain his contention a little more clearly he left a little quip at the end of the email that made my knee jerk just a bit. Pastor Guy knows how to get a rise out of me (Which is why he might just be the resident smart ass here at RagingRev- a title I think he may gladly accept).

So, what did Guy say?

…could my statement of “Dormant Christian” to describe you be a worthy topic?

What an interesting position…”Dormant Christian”! Guy is proposing that because I was at one time a devoted Christian (Saved, if you will) then technically I am still a Christian. Guy evidently ascribes to the doctrine of “Once Saved , Always Saved”…if you aren’t familiar with that, its one of those small controversial doctrines that Christians like to debate and argue over. When I was a Christian my position was strangely similar to Guy’s, however I was not very solid on it…it wasn’t considered cardinal in my life but I always WANTED to believe something like that. Now though, I have to look at it from the outside…and it’s just one of those things that you don’t think about until you hear it or read it like I did when Guy said that…it kind of…caught me off guard.

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Last night I was doing…something, hell if I can remember, and I stumbled upon Yahoo! Answers and decided to answer a question regarding why one should or should not believe in god. Well, I gave an answer to that question and then browsed around for more interesting questions and before you know it I was addicted.

Since my account is still at level one I am limited to 20 answers per day but I find myself checking for new questions to answer and it drives me crazy. Go sign up it really is a lot of fun

Here is how it works:

Someone asks a question. Anyone with an answer writes up an answer for the question. Anyone that reads the questions can give the answer a thumbs up or down. The asker can either choose which answer is best and it gets featured at the top of the page, or the thumbs up eventually make something the best answer…Answers get you 2 points, questions take away 5 points, best answers give you 10 points and a thumbs up gets you 1 point.

It is rather addictive, thought I would share, if you join add me to your buddy list on my Profile

Anticipate some downtime tommorow on the blog, Wordpress 2.7 should be releasing tommorow. In the mean time I would like to have anyone that reads this blog comment below with answers to the following questions:

1: What is your belief system? Atheist, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan etc etc…be as detailed as you like, even tell us why if you wish. You dont have to be a frequent commenter to answer.

2: How much do you think your environment growing up had to do with the eventual embrace of your current faith? IE: Did your Christian parents likely influence you in your current beliefs? etc

thanks

A short one here…first of all, we have our debate and our topic picked out, look for that real soon…this one should be fun for both sides.

Now…i have been frequenting a forum called “Christian Doctrine Discussion” for about 3 weeks now…its a tiny forum and I started going there because a friend said they were open minded—boy was I wrong. I just got banned last night, no warning given…nor a reason..and the last message addressed to me is by Rick, the administrator saying:

And preferably not to RevOxley_501 who wants to convert you into believing the devils scam.

The context was that a Christian was struggling and being encouraged to find someone to talk to…i told him that I certainly understood the doubts he was enduring as well as anyone there…that post has been deleted.

Thought i would share that with you, since I was nothing but kind at that place and tried to understand everyone’s point of view…Christian love is once again invisible and unseen.

Think I was probably rude?  here are all my posts—I may have shown some confusion as some really hard to understand English, but I think I was more than respectful. What do you think?

Well anyway, Rick was supposed to be compiling evidence for me that the Bible was trustworthy as a source…he said the Holy Spirit told him he could—i guess the Holy Spirit changed his mind?

So , for the christians—here is a tip, if an ex-Christian comes up to your forum one day…talk to him, he might be a nice guy…im over my bitter stage I think…maybe you can learn from him, and him from you…give us a chance, and at least pretend to love us.

Alright guys…i knew it was coming…but its official…i dont know what to blog about…i mean, trust me, there are PLENTY of silly things going on in the world of the religious…but I want to blog from the heart here….so i need some help.  I want you guys to comment here and give me topics that interest you…from technology, religion, apologetics, atheism, books, science, politics, conspiracy, 911 truth, or the occult…if it is in my realm of understanding i would be glad to answer any questions or blog about any topic you can provide. Im just stuck and I need inspiration…and im tired of hearing about McCain, Obama, and the Financial Crisis.