Sunday School

[physeterParticipant]

I don’t know what to say, Belle. You know? We can argue all week long about evidence for and against a god, but I’m just really sorry that the secular organizations didn’t back you up the way you needed. I’m sorry you were let down, and I hope your church supports you better than the atheists did.

I feel like your making two very separate, almost contradictory claims here, and I can totally agree with one while disagreeing with the other.

You’re saying that atheism didn’t work for you, and that’s why you’ve returned to Christianity. And I acknowledge that. Atheism does indeed trail behind faith when it comes to providing support structures. Along with that, you said the evidence you found was personal; and I certainly don’t know what you’ve experienced. All I know is your personal evidence is not universally applicable. But then you change direction and say yes, there IS evidence out there, objective evidence, that your god exists…and now I think you’re making a leap that’s completely unwarranted.

//For weeks I wanted to go to atheist events but never could because I had a kid and they didn’t offer childcare. I have a VERY difficult son to raise … I just couldn’t find the support I needed … nothing works. Being an atheist single mother is quite frankly…lonely and impossible….I don’t have family or really close friends here. I have nothing and no one. So I NEEDED to be part of a community. //

The need for community is one thing atheists don’t do as well as faith. And I need to acknowledge my own privilege here too. I’m a white man with no kids. Maybe the only reason I’ve been able to become an atheist is because of my privilege. Around here, all the support groups are Christianity-based. If I was homeless, or living in poverty, or trying to recover from drug or alcohol addiction, I would have to turn to Christian groups. And maybe I’d become a Christian just out of necessity.

What you’re describing is common, unfortunately. I’m in a number of other non-religious or liberal-religious groups, and one thing I hear members complaining about is the loss of that community support.

“I miss the ‘certainty’ and the sense of belonging so much,” one of them recently said. “As a single person with no family and fairly new to a community where I’ve had difficulty making friends (because I used to make them all through church), there has never been a lonelier, more isolated time in my life.”

Another responded, “when I moved to *** I tried so hard to make church work because that is the only way I knew to build community but after 3 years, I finally quit trying. I do not fit into the evangelical world anymore and the “friends” I made were not true friends once they learned my views on things didn’t fit the small evangelical box. So now, I spend most of my time alone…”

But I don’t think the difficulty is evidence for the truth or falseness of religion.

//If it’s “The truth” then why are women under a more severe hardship to embrace it? That to me is not truth.//

Unfortunately truth is often a severe hardship to embrace, and women often have less privilege in society so the hardship hits them even more. A woman living in a strict Muslim country that required the full face veil would probably have a more difficult time standing up against that strain of Islam than a man would. Not because “the truth” is against women, but because that society is against women, and makes it harder for them.

Why is Christianity better than atheism at building community? Because they’ve been doing it longer. For so long, and even somewhat today, admitting you are an atheist is sort of like admitting you’re a dangerous criminal; people don’t want to have anything to do with you. It wasn’t so long ago that you could lose a job or lose all your friends if they found out you didn’t believe in their god. Christianity has been the ONLY accepted outlet for “good” for so many years. I think humanists are trying to catch up, but it’s just a struggle. Unfortunately, what’s easy isn’t always the same as what’s true.

[physeterParticipant]

What do I mean by contradiction? I mean one minute you seem to acknowledge that your conversion was driven by what you needed, not by external evidence; but the next minute you seem to believe evidence is there for ALL of us to see, and we just must be willfully ignoring it.

You say, “… I can’t capture him like a butterfly and put him under a microscope for you.”

But then you say, “…There’s lots of evidence out there…this book might be one you can sink your teeth into,” and give a book that purports to show evidence for your god based on DNA.

You keep referring back to that discussion about what would count as evidence, and you keep asserting that Reg wouldn’t give you a straight answer. But he DID. I read that discussion. You asked what would count as evidence. Reg said that the question is incoherent and can’t be answered unless a better definition of “god” is provided. Why? Because every Christian believes something different about God. The catholics believe one thing, the baptists another, and a liberal Methodist has a radically different idea of God than a conservative Methodist. The question simply can’t be answered without a better definition of god.

Also, I think part of your frustration is you have evidence which you think is good enough, but the rest of us don’t accept it. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t accept any evidence, though.

[Dang MartinParticipant]

That’s the thing about Atheism; that it offers virtually nothing.

There is no guiding rule book, because there are no rules or things to believe. It’s just people not believing in gods, and nothing more.

There is no church-type thing, although that might be neat for some. It’s hard to get people together based on something they don’t believe, or something they don’t do. Let’s get together because we don’t collect stamps.

While Christians enjoy the community aspects of their faith, and are able to be very open about it, Atheists have typically had to keep it under wraps, until recently. I remember being told that I needed to keep my mouth shut, if I knew what was good for me… or else.

As for evidence, I am convinced that there is no evidence. We have no evidence of any Supernatural beings, places, or activity in the natural world. As some would say about Supernatural things, they just ain’t natural.

I’m open to being wrong, but I think the likelihood at this stage in the History of Mankind is rather small, as to be insignificant.

So if you say that you sincerely believe, with all of your heart, that your god is with you, watching over you, answering your prayers, protecting your community, then there’s really nothing I can say about that.

What gets me to open my mouth is a few other things, one being when I’m told that I’m a sinner, that I’m evil, that I’m lesser, or that I’m non-human, because I do not believe. That’s a problem.

The other thing is when someone makes a declaration that there is EVIDENCE that their god factually exists. There is none. The bible is not evidence, it is the claim.

I think that Christians who need evidence are those who do not find faith to be enough. It’s as if they want validation for what they believe. That’s what church is for. It reinforces what you believe every week, as it excludes those who do not believe as you believe, be they Atheists, non-Christians who have other faith, or even other Christians who have a faith that clashes or is otherwise different.

If your faith needs validation, then you won’t find it here. You will find it in church.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by  Dang Martin.

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