Can I get a witness?

[closetatheist]

First time poster - I have been lirking here for a week or two. I have attended Protestant church all of my life. My wife was raised Catholic but we have gone to Protestant churches for many years. I have had many doubts about Christianity for a long time. I have come to the opinion that there may be a God or higher beings, but if God or such beings do exist, they are either indifferent to our existence or rarely intervene in human affairs and they certainly would not need or want the ritual worship of such inferior beings as humans. The bible essentially spans around 2000 years from the time of Moses through the new testament. It just seems strange to me that no obvious communication from God would be evident in the next 2000 years. Anyway, I have expressed my doubts to my wife from time to time, I have never gone as far as saying I am no longer a Christian or refused to go to church with her. We have a young daughter, and I do appreciate the community that is the church, and think it would be hard to replace (especially where I live). I think that I do believe in the moral values of the christian faith - I am probably more conservative than most who post here. Just wondering if there are many more out there like me, who go to church and adhere to christian morals, but really don't believe.

[Alter]

I send my kids to religious school. But when they ask me if god is real, I tell them it's just like a myth or a legend. People *want* to believe in the concept, because it answers all the unanswered questions for them. But it's better to answer those questions for yourself. Also, all the talk about god comes from people, and people aren't always right. The idea in the first place came from people who thought the earth was flat, for goodness sake!

When the younger one asks if god is real, my wife says "God is a spirit." It pretty much leaves the door open for "spirits aren't real" later on.

We stick with religious school because the traditions are nice, and so are the friends.

[Jakanapes]

Don't go to church, but you need to define christian morals...

and then explain why they're considered specifically christian morals...

They can range quite a bit. From it being moral to torture non-believers to it being moral to engage in charitable acts. :rolleyes:

Sounds like you might just be a deist. It's not a bad club, including the likes of Thomas Jefferson...


Howdy and welcome!

[closetatheist]

By christian morals, I guess I would mean the ten commandments, leaving out the parts about God, graven images and such. Or as I believe Christ said - do unto others as you would have them do unto you (or something like that).

[Chamaeleon]

By christian morals, I guess I would mean the ten commandments, leaving out the parts about God, graven images and such. Or as I believe Christ said - do unto others as you would have them do unto you (or something like that).
Little rules like that make a cohesive society a little easier to maintain. You get the nice behaviour towards others, and for the god-related items you get a little bit of religious reinforcement along the way (perhaps a job-security function put in place by early priests?)

[Julian]

By christian morals, I guess I would mean the ten commandments, leaving out the parts about God, graven images and such. Or as I believe Christ said - do unto others as you would have them do unto you (or something like that).
Those are hardly christian morals since they were around long before christianity and judaism existed. Also note that those morals that you like are in a book that thinks that rape and murder are just fine. Provided they are done by jews. :rolleyes:

Welcome to IIDB, BTW. :wave:

Julian

[closetatheist]

When I said christian morals, it was only as a reference point as to where my values come from. I said nothing about christian morals being exclusively christian or originating with christianity. Many faiths share many of the same morals. As far as the old testament goes, a lot of christians rationalize that the new testament supersedes the old and so they disgard many of the more primitive stories. That is not my viewpoint, but many would rationalize it in that manner.

[Jakanapes]

By christian morals, I guess I would mean the ten commandments, leaving out the parts about God, graven images and such. Or as I believe Christ said - do unto others as you would have them do unto you (or something like that).


OK, which 10 commandments? The Protestant, Catholic or Jewish versions?

And the Golden Rule: Do unto others are you would have them do unto you....

hardly can be confined to Christianity:

http://www.teachingvalues.com/goldenrule.html

[closetatheist]

See my last post - I was not claiming christian morals exclusively for christians. I think some people need to lighten up a little bit. When I posted orginally, I was more interested in knowing if there are others like me who more or less pretend to belong/believe for the benefit of family and people we love.

[Face]

Don't worry; you'll find all sorts here. A lot of us have escaped from various strict belief systems and have often struggled for personal meaning and understanding of the world around us and, as such, can often get really involved in discussions about how we should live, what we believe, and how we should act. In other words, there's debate, but we're all friends about it.

Welcome to the board; I recommend the Lounge as a great place to warm up to our fellow members and maybe find a few posters of like mind to yourself.

[AspenMama]

I think some people need to lighten up a little bit.
Well, you might want to keep in mind that after numerous admonishments from Christians saying that atheists have no morals-- there will indeed be a bit of sensitivity to the statement that you abide by or believe in Christian morals-- which many of us find repugnant in the more bible thumping variety. To put forth the statement you believe in basic human morals and being good to one another for no other reason than it is the best way to live and get along in a happy society-- is an empowering statement to atheists. It attributes being moral to something else besides what many of us see as the chains of religious dogma.

As to the other part of your post, I've never found comfort in a church culture, so I have nothing positive to relate there.

[fr8trainman]

Hi closetatheist, nice to have you here. Is it hard being in the closet, or are you comfortable where you are right now?

Have you decided how you're going to deal w/ your daughter's skeptical questions as she gets older? How does your wife react to your doubt?

You wrote in part: "...I have come to the opinion that there may be a God or higher beings, but if God or such beings do exist, they are either indifferent to our existence or rarely intervene in human affairs and they certainly would not need or want the ritual worship of such inferior beings as humans...."

You sound more like an agnostic, or deist maybe. Or perhaps you're just recognizing possibilities in spite of their unlikelyness...I often refer to myself as an agnostic-atheist for this reason. Though I don't believe there is anything mystical/super out there.

I reckon if the 10 commandments -god (the 5 commandments?), + the golden rule are a measure of Christian values, I fit too--as would most atheists, a lot of hundu, buddhists, and others. Nothing worng with that, those values are pretty sensible & universal. I like to remind believers that Lack of faith doesn't mean lack of ethics--we unbelievers live ethics every day. I'm open about not believing, and am not afraid to mention it to my co-workers and family if a related topic comes up. I don't go out of my way to preach my lack-of-supernatural-faith either. I like being living proof that an atheist can be a moral, friendly and dependable person others can look up to and rely on.

I'd be interested in hearing more about your sitation.




Stay Safe,

fr8trainman

[JohNeo]

:wave:

Welcome!

<snip> I have come to the opinion that there may be a God or higher beings, but if God or such beings do exist, they are either indifferent to our existence or rarely intervene in human affairs and they certainly would not need or want the ritual worship of such inferior beings as humans.

Hehehe, sounds like you're still recovering from the Christian doctrine. The more time you spend here, you'll feel a little better about humans. :) Of course I am picking up a little sarcasm here...

It just seems strange to me that no obvious communication from God would be evident in the next 2000 years.


Well, there are different ways of looking at it. Either it's a crazy homeless person on the street claiming to be the son of god, or it's a power-intoxicated charismatic church leader; in either case they're full of it. Christians of the Catholic strain love to claim that Jesus was sent here as a one-time fulfillment of OT prophecy and for some reason only the apostles and their successors could pass along the story...like once Jesus died, god could no longer communicate with his people. But of course there have been the occasional random miracles... :rolleyes:


Anyway, I have expressed my doubts to my wife from time to time, I have never gone as far as saying I am no longer a Christian or refused to go to church with her.


You may not have to refuse to go to church with her, if it is time you enjoy spending together. If it makes you feel uncomfortable though, you owe it to yourself to tell her or find other things to do on Sunday mornings. There are several threads in the Secular Lifestyle forum that have covered this topic...see if you can run a search.

If it ever comes to it, you might be able to just ask her something rhetorical like "so what sense does it make that one has to be a Christian to be a good person?" or something similar. You might slowly express your skepticism about the claims made in the Apostle's Creed or Nicene Creed etc. One way I broached the topic with some friends was saying that I think it is unfair and insulting to one's intelligence to be forced to believe in something that seems so mythological just to be in God's good graces.



We have a young daughter, and I do appreciate the community that is the church, and think it would be hard to replace (especially where I live). I think that I do believe in the moral values of the christian faith - I am probably more conservative than most who post here. Just wondering if there are many more out there like me, who go to church and adhere to christian morals, but really don't believe.

I think the idea of "Christian" moral values has been pretty well covered, but I would strongly encourage you to do some research on the logic and philosophies of morality aside from the Christian perspective. The better you can understand that morality exists for logical reasons, the better an argument you can make to refute someone who tries to tell you that morality has supernatural properties.

Hey, I'm a little on the conservative side on a lot of issues. Most on IIDB don't seem to be, but as long as you aren't a fan of Pat Robertson, you'll find like minds in here. :)

I attend church sporadically because it is still a part of my social life, and because it has only been about 9 months since I finally decided to stop fooling myself and I called myself deist, then agnostic, and finally atheist. But I have found other things to do on Sundays and I have also managed to grow some of my friendships with fellow churchgoers, only we do things not related to church. :)

Anyway, I hope that you can "come out" sometime soon, if that's what you want to do, and doing so won't cause a strain on your marriage. Just let your wife know that you can still respect her beliefs, but you just can't accept it. You might be pleasantly surprised at how she might take it. Hell, you might even take her with you...it's been known to happen. :thumbs:

Good luck,


JohNeo

[Lola]

Hello Closetatheist,
Welcome! I'm new to this site, too, but I'll share a very good resource I heard about from Angrillori and Sensei Meela (both posters on this site). I'm reading a book they both suggested called Losing Faith in Faith by Dan Barker, which I think is informative (it's fast reading, too). You can purchase this book (and others) through the Infidels library, which helps support this site. I did! :thumbs:

Have you perused the atheists' testimony sticky thread? It's in this forum: "Secular Lifestyle." I tried to provide the link but couldn't get them to work... :huh:
Good luck, closetatheist. :wave:

Kind regards,
Lola

[closetatheist]

Thanks to all that have welcomed me here. I guess a better moniker for myself would have been closetdeist or agnostic. I'm not ready to say that there is no possibility of a God or higher being(s) or of an afterlife - I just don't buy the bible version. My wife is a strong believer (she grew up in a strong Catholic family) and she and my daughter have a lot of friends at the church. We attend a Presbyterian church now. I feel some guilt now because my wife agreed to switch to a protestant church because of my problems with the Catholic Church 9 years ago. I do enjoy some of the socializing at the church but mostly I think I am wasting my time - thinking of many things I would rather do on a Sunday morning. My wife knows I have doubts but if I were to renounce Christianity altogether and tell her I no longer believe it would cause a big rift in our marriage and she would blame me if our daughter followed my path. Therefore, I have chosen to wait until my daughter is older (she is 11 now, not sure what age that would be) to stop the pretense altogether because I don't want to put my daughter through the trouble it would create between my wife and I at this time.

[JohNeo]

You should just be able to go to church whenever you feel like it. If you feel like socializing, go. If you want to watch a movie, read, fish, golf or whatever you're into, do that. It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing arrangement.

Perhaps your wife is happier being in the Presbyterian church and you at least helped her anyway. At least she's not so fervently Catholic that she can be cool enough to switch denominations. I'm atheist, but I have more respect for a Christian who do the "lateral move."

Anyway, I never knew my dad was agnostic until last summer when I "came out" to him as atheist. It did not surprise me, because he always seemed skeptical about organized religion and the bible, he was pretty casual about attending church, and he's pretty much a scientific rationalist type anyway. So I was 31 before I really knew, and it didn't kill him to keep that from me. And he never steered me away from the church anyway--I tried hard to be religious before finally admitting that I had no knowledge of God beyond what they taught in church and the bible, and then I decided on my own that I had no interest in trying to find god any other way.

I don't know if you really have to announce your atheism/agnosticism per se, but if your daughter asks you--and it may be a while before she does so--I would suggest that you be honest and just let her know that you and her mother don't see things the same way but you respect each other, and you respect her whether or not she believes. To me that's better than lying outright.

JohNeo

By the way, I might suggest reading Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith or Atheism: A Very Short Introduction by Julian Baggini.

[Never]

I guess a better moniker for myself would have been closetdeist or agnostic.

You could just pronounce your user id differently.

How about close - ta - theist :D

Welcome to II

[Atheos]

Welcome to II, Closetatheist. :thumbs:

You'll find just about every flavor of non-believer (and many believers) in these forums. I happen to be one of many here who gave up on christianity after being devout for many years. I was once a fundamentalist christian preacher. I preached for an aggregate total of over 16 years. Now I'm what's called a "weak atheist".

I, too, hide my atheism from certain people. Primarily I hide it from my mother (and I hid it from my father until his death).

-Atheos