No, it's not mine (though maybe a blog entry on that might be worth doing, that way I can just link people to here rather than recount it every time), but I found this account quite touching and, whilst not particularly similar to mine in context, at least similar in a couple of meaningful ways.
It's an exceedingly difficult thing, deconverting. Escaping the intellectual and philosophical shackles that you have had manacled to you since your brain began its formative learning. A religious worldview, even of a liberal bent, relies on a certain way of thinking. It prizes axioms which are unsupportable, but with little or no reason to discard these axioms you're very unlikely to reject the current paradigm. Many very intelligent and thoughtful people remain religious, but never manage to critique their own fundamental basis of understanding. It's never considered that there can't be a God. The Bible (and indeed many scriptures, albeit less so for the Eastern traditions [not Orthodox Christianity, I mean Buddhism etc.]) holds up unquestioning faith as a virtue. A few quotes to put this in context:
"Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense and understanding" - Luther
Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed - John 20:29
"Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He takes the wise in their own craftiness" - 1 Corinthians 3:18-19
"For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the intelligence of the intelligent I will rejectFor it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the intelligence of the intelligent I will reject" - 1 Corinthians 1:19
The Bible, and Christianity in its ancient and modern manifestations, has often been anti-intellectual. The very fall of Mankind, paralleled in the myth of Prometheus, was caused by Satan or perhaps Lucifer (not necessarily the same bloke as Satan, incidentally. I tend to choose to label the tempter in Eden as Lucifer given that he is the "morning-star", the bringer of light - enlightenment and knowledge) came about because Adam gained knowledge of the world, of good and evil and the difference. Genesis indicates to us that our entire, supposedly miserable, existence in this, supposedly fallen, world rather than Paradise in union with God is because we took a bite of a forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge and gained understanding. We were not meant to be thinkers, that much is clear. The legacy of this line of thinking makes itself apparent time and time again, especially in the Paulist Epistles. Worldly knowledge, intellect and wisdom is to be shunned. All we need is God and an understanding of how to appease him. Matters of the spirit trump anything else and we should be in this world not of it. Our time here is merely temporal, a stop-over before the eternity of bliss in union with our savior Jesus Christ. You needn't worry yourself with learning or understanding. Learn the gospel. Spread it. But for goodness' sake don't broaden your mind and your horizons to such a degree that you might forget the Great Commission. Don't allow your mind to become clouded by worldly mortal knowledge, that grave error which we once made and which separated us from God. A mistake only to be rectified by Jesus' triumphant second coming.
Thankfully, the most-part of British Christianity has moved away from this backwards mythology in the same way that they abhor the Old Testament and disavow its relevance to their New Covenant with Christ. Eden didn't really happen, they say, it was just a metaphor, designed to teach us fundamental truths about the Nature of Man and his relationship with God. Certainly, this is what the majority of Judaic scholars would agree with. Sadly, in America, many developing countries and amongst the more extremely Evangelical (a shame that the idea of carrying out evangelism has been conflated with being a narrow-minded literalist, but it's their choice not mine) sects present in the UK and other more "progressive" societies this mindset still prevails. Bronze-Age myths and imperatives hold more sway than the desire for freedom of thought and conscience ever could. There is nothing wrong with Theism per se - if you adhere to an evidence-based worldview and find that there is evidence for your belief, fine. The issue comes when people blindly (whether or not they realise it) swallow this empty tripe so willingly. and unquestioningly. That said, Theism itself, even if one is evidence-driven, is not truly acceptable. I cannot help but feel that my more "rational" theist colleagues either compartmentalise belief or give it special dispensation in terms of the rigour of evidence required. If sound evidence existed which would persuade a truly impartial judge to say that Theism (specifically Christianity in this case) was correct, then practically every Atheist (certainly the ones who held to evidence-based beliefs) would no longer be Atheist. The fact of the matter is that reasons to believe are simply not up to scratch if one is brutally honest.
That said, I have digressed enormously from what was just a link to someone else's deconversion. I added in a couple of salient quotes. Then I decided to contextualise the quotes in the broader historical background of Christian thought. And somehow I ended up here. Apologies for the rambling. As said earlier, perhaps when I have a moment I will speak, yet again, of my path away from "The Faith", but I found that this woman's story was all the more fascinating. Even at my peak of fervour and devoutness I was never a "fundamentalist" - I was pro-science, liberal and generally one of those very nice easy-going Christians - I believed I had a relationship with Jesus Christ and could feel God talking to me (or so I thought) but I was never a blind follower of literalism and archaic tradition. She, however, was, and this makes her tale all the more compelling and, ultimately, hopeful.
Originally taken from:
http://www.richarddawkins.net/convertsCorner
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