From an Atheist's Facebook Status Updates

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"I'm so sorry that Christians were so mean/didn't teach you the right gospel/didn't emphasize graceenough/weren't Christlike/didn't love you enough. I just want you to know, I'm a Christian and I'mnot like that/I don't preach that because I love people, and I just want to share the grace of Christwith you in love, man. Because I'm no better than you; when it comes down to it, we're all sinners.It's JESUS who saves us. If someone lied to you and said that Christians are better or didn't tell youenough about God's grace, I'm SO sorry."

First, you should know that, even though you're trying to stand out, nothing you said there isoriginal. You're doing the very thing you're apologizing for, and I've heard it many times before.

Second, you're assuming that I'm wrong, even though I obviously don't agree with you. Rather thanengage in honest discourse about Christianity, you just pity me in my assumed wrongness -- withoutany logic or proof behind your statements; nothing but your tears. I'm very sure I'm not wrong onChristianity, which means that I don't share in your pity for me not being a Christian anymore. Soyour pity, from my perspective, is a waste of time and it kinda frustrates me and pisses me off if youuse it to get me to "return" to Christianity.

I mean, I guess it's a bit better than heartless nothing. But what I REALLY want is for you to LISTENTO ME instead of having a funeral. Because I'm not attending it. Because I don't care how sorry forme you feel -- it doesn't make you RIGHT. And that's really what I care about. Because if you'regravely wrong, as it seems extremely clear to me you are, it doesn't matter how you frame it or cryabout it or apologize for it -- you're still conducting your life and influencing mine based on aprofoundly harmful delusion, and you need to change it up.

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"And then I thought ______. Isn't that amazing? I knew that thought had to come from somewhere

outside of me -- I mean, I KNOW I didn't think that on my own, because ______. So, I'm really thankfulto God for giving me that gracious moment of clarity."

1. You're the person who thinks that the thought is amazing. So, like, that's your own intelligenceworking to provide that self-compliment to the thought.

2. You seem to have a rather limited view of how your brain is allowed to work. I have thoughtsdawn on me all the time -- often there will be something I have been thinking about for a long time,and suddenly there's a random breakthrough. Doesn't mean the thought came from God, becauseoften it disagrees with Him. And if you think it came from Satan -- um, how do you know YOURthoughts didn't come from Satan, too? It's a hypothesis that you can just use to reject thoughts youdon't like and accept thoughts you like, without further argument.

3. Um...it sounds like you're saying, "Ladies and Gentlemen, my thought was so GENIUS that it camefrom GOD. You have your thoughts -- mine come from GOD." In other words, it sounds a lot likeyou're using God as a trumpet for your own opinion.

Learn a little honest humility and accept the thought as your own, gleaned from your ownexperience.

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"I know God's real, because he's worked in my life in miraculous ways. Let me tell you about whatGod's done for me..."

OK, great. You got that check in the mail for the EXACT right amount, right after you prayed. Yourcancer went away two days after the prayer session. You prayed for someone, and the next day theireczema vanished.

Awesome. You know what? I'm happy for you. Really, I am.

But I've heard from many other religious traditions, like the Christian Science church, whereamazing things have happened. I believe it. I've seen their tears and conviction. If you don't believeme, see for yourself. Go to any faith tradition where the people are remotely devout, and you'll hearamazing stories. Like the man in his seventies who doesn't believe in medicine and hasn't taken it aday in his life because he believes that he is a man JUST like Jesus Christ. Tears rolling down hischeeks and overwhelming sincerity. I mean...you'll see it. Guaranteed. Go ahead and try it, or Googleit.

So...if I think you're right, I have to believe that all these people are wrong...when they have thesame exact evidence you do.

You see the problem here? I can't simultaneously convert to 4200 different religions. I mean, arethey ALL right because amazing things happened?

Look, I'll be honest with you. I don't know. A lot of atheists are sure that it's just coincidence. I don'treally know what "coincidence" is...all I know is that it happened. The universe is weird -- maybesomething weird rearranged itself or something or other and people get what they want every nowand again and they call it a miracle. Or maybe it's just coincidence. But it can't be proof that the Godwho says that people who engage in same-sex sex are sinning is real, or that Buddhists go to hell, orany of the other views. I mean...that's invalidating all the other data from other people of other faith

traditions who trumpet the same stories.

So, Christian, I'm not necessarily trying to take your beautiful story away. But I don't see why itcompels me to think that my neighbor, with his amazing story, is going to spend eternity in hell, andit doesn't seem proof that your particular God is real. Weird things occur and happen in the universeall the time, and "I don't know" is a better conclusion than an irrational one that simply ignores whatpeople claim they went through.

My two cents.

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One mistake a lot of Christians make is that Atheists have to have a kind of really strong faith thatthere is no God. Having faith in God takes a lot of effort, so Christians think that being an atheistwould require the same effort.

It doesn't. It's like...if you believe really, really, really hard about something tremendouslyimpossible, and then you find out it's not true. Like Santa Claus -- you see your Dad putting thepresents under the tree, and that's it. It doesn't take a lot of effort, at least after you get used to theidea, to give up the belief Santa Claus doesn't exist. Same with God.

And then you learn something. You learn that if Santa Claus doesn't exist, maybe other thingsfantastical things don't exist, either. You learn it's healthy to be skeptical. It doesn't take a lot ofclosing your eyes and trying; it's just a natural thing you learn through trial and error. Kinda samething with disbelief in God. It's not something you necessarily have to hold onto tightly; faith infantastic things simply loses its virtue.

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I watched an interview of Jim Carrey late last night. He was serious the whole time, and a bitinsecure as he talked about the history of his depression. He said that he got off Prozac when herealized that he didn't have answers and might never get answers, and that was OK. His views wereones I didn't agree with, but at the center of it was a kind of resigned "I don't know. But that's OK."The interviewer expressed surprise at his candidness. Jim Carrey looked back at him and said, "Ionly act in the movies."

And I've been thinking ever since about how many things I don't know, and how that's OK. I don'thave to have faith, and that's probably the most bewildering, exciting, serious/hilarious, andbeautiful part of my life at the moment.

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I often get told by Christians that my problem is that I focused too much on Christians, and notenough on God.

What they don't know is that I really, really, really tried to focus more on God than on people.

But the more I focused on God, the more I realized how much people had to do with propping upChristianity, and the more I realized that if I didn't focus on people and instead focused on God, Ididn't need the picture of God that people were trying so hard to sell me.

When I least needed that picture, I became an atheist. So I guess you could say that Goddeconverted me.

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I've noticed, nowadays, that when someone says, "God said so and so, and if you don't obey God, XYZwill happen," I hear "God" as "my imaginary friend." No sense in getting offended; that's my honestreaction, and if you want to talk about offense, I'm probably equally offended that you call yourimaginary friend "God" -- not just as a name, but as a title -- and seek to make demands on me.

Just so you know. I mean, the phrases don't have the same ring to them.

"Prove my imaginary friend doesn't exist."

"My imaginary friend says gay marriage is wrong."

"You are lost if you don't worship my imaginary friend."

"Why do you hate my imaginary friend so much?"

"My imaginary friend deserves respect."

"If you don't believe in my imaginary friend, why does it matter to you that I do?"

"I love my imaginary friend more than you."

"What is wrong with your heart that you don't love my imaginary friend?"

"I'm going to talk to my imaginary friend about you."

"You need to stop rebelling against my imaginary friend."

"My imaginary friend loves you! Give him your life...or you'll be tormented forever."

And so on. I'm not just putting you on or trying to be offensive (although if I am, that would be ahappy accident, because some times that's what it takes for sense to break through). It really soundslike that to me. Might explain some of my reactions.

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I was thinking about the universe....it could be messy. I mean...maybe the big bang didn't havesurvival as its main objective. Maybe it just kinda is. And it's not (just?) about forcing survival of thefittest (as everything survives in one form or another), but some parts of it interact with other partsof it, and the parts change form, and it's all a big messy process, but it can't be reduced down to apurpose or a single characteristic any more than the big bang could, and none of us are any moredetermined than the big bang or anything that came before it (if anything did, includingtimelessness), and we're all just kinda interacting with each other, creating the world that creates usbecause we're all part of the same thing. We may just be trying to figure out how it "works," butwe're all part of the same thing, constantly changing and adjusting, simultaneously acting on andbeing acting upon as one process, and as irreducible as the big bang to a certain purpose or plan orought or reason or method.

I mean, some things experientially have predictable causes and effects in my perspective. But thebottom line seems to be that I'm just here as I've been here for eternity, enjoying my own ride aswell as I can.

Or, that's one painting in the gallery I like looking at.

 Last updated on November 25, 2013

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