MediocrityInAction
January 8, 2005, 03:43 PM
In a Google search of my username, I came across this statement I'ds posted to a random website and then concurrently forgotten about some time ago. What do people think about it, and resultantly, what kind of atheist am I?
V# re: Reasons to reject Christianity
MediocrityInAction
I found this link by way of ChristianForums, and as such do not know the context I'm posting into. But nevertheless, I think I'll take the oportunity to state the reasons I cannot accept Christianity.
To tell the truth, it all boils down to Original Sin. Unlike the majority of atheists, my worldview totally accepts the concept of Original Sin. I see Humanity as being essentially flawed. We are a base, depraved race. We are incapable of intrinsic happiness due to our essentially flawed nature. We cannot achieve perfection because our very makeup rebels against it. We are essentially a flawed race, and as such, our achievements, no matter how far-reaching or profound, are nothing compared to the perfection we could theoretically achieve.
When I think of it, I could have split two ways. I could have clung to the beneficial elements of Human nature and accepted the Christian ideal of Salvation. In one way, I'm a prime example of the kind of person likely to accept the salvation of God as a solution to the essential imperfection of Human existence (it is here that I set myself apart from the much-lauded Humanist movement much associated with mainstream atheism. I don't accept that humanity has any internal redeeming value which negates the need for external redemption.). The problem is that I don't see any reason why Humanity deserves any kind of superior redemption. I see Humanity as surviving on its own flaws and merits, and essentially being doomed in the grand scale of things. We have no internal or external merit, and hence we are nothing, and will amount to nothing. There is no grand scheme, and we attribute individually nothing to it.
For me, the lifo of an atheist is essentially meaningless. I essentially have the whole connotations of Origional Sin without the Christian possibility of external redemption available to Christians. That is what I have been forced to learn to live with.
My name is Thomas Cooper, and I have no hope. That is what I live with, and the only thing I can live with. I hope this testimony brings you some understanding of my perspective.
[edit: admittedly, it is a bit melodramatic, but I was in a rather unique frame of mind at the time.
V# re: Reasons to reject Christianity
MediocrityInAction
I found this link by way of ChristianForums, and as such do not know the context I'm posting into. But nevertheless, I think I'll take the oportunity to state the reasons I cannot accept Christianity.
To tell the truth, it all boils down to Original Sin. Unlike the majority of atheists, my worldview totally accepts the concept of Original Sin. I see Humanity as being essentially flawed. We are a base, depraved race. We are incapable of intrinsic happiness due to our essentially flawed nature. We cannot achieve perfection because our very makeup rebels against it. We are essentially a flawed race, and as such, our achievements, no matter how far-reaching or profound, are nothing compared to the perfection we could theoretically achieve.
When I think of it, I could have split two ways. I could have clung to the beneficial elements of Human nature and accepted the Christian ideal of Salvation. In one way, I'm a prime example of the kind of person likely to accept the salvation of God as a solution to the essential imperfection of Human existence (it is here that I set myself apart from the much-lauded Humanist movement much associated with mainstream atheism. I don't accept that humanity has any internal redeeming value which negates the need for external redemption.). The problem is that I don't see any reason why Humanity deserves any kind of superior redemption. I see Humanity as surviving on its own flaws and merits, and essentially being doomed in the grand scale of things. We have no internal or external merit, and hence we are nothing, and will amount to nothing. There is no grand scheme, and we attribute individually nothing to it.
For me, the lifo of an atheist is essentially meaningless. I essentially have the whole connotations of Origional Sin without the Christian possibility of external redemption available to Christians. That is what I have been forced to learn to live with.
My name is Thomas Cooper, and I have no hope. That is what I live with, and the only thing I can live with. I hope this testimony brings you some understanding of my perspective.
[edit: admittedly, it is a bit melodramatic, but I was in a rather unique frame of mind at the time.