Sunday, August 20, 2006

Inaugural Address

This blog has a very particular mission, which is why I've decided to spend its first post describing it.

As an introduction: I am a 20-something Canadian University student raised in a fundamentalist, evangelical tradition. Which is to say, I believed in the literal and inherently truth of every word of the Bible. And for me, this formed the basis of faith. As the song goes, Jesus loves me because the Bible tells me so. As soon as the Bible was ignored, it seemed to me, Christianity could become anything it liked and most of the resulting amorphism was kind of creepy.

I was a believer of the most serious type. The sort of Bible Bashing, Bush voter that most Canadians only learn about from the Jon Stewart show. Most of my dearest friends are Christian. My social life revolves around Christian Youth Groups. I was even the leader of a Christian student group. Faith was everything upon which I built my person. It was (is) everything upon which others built my person; I honestly believe there is a good chance my mother would literally, die, if she were to hear of my lapse.

Sometime in March, I lost my faith, with very little ado, as one might lose a dry cleaning ticket. For sometime, a number of things had been haunting me:

a.) The feeling that my prayers were mutterings to myself and the wall. There is no rational behind this, only a sense.
b.) Distress with the fact that Christianity as I had learned to practice it differed greatly from the diversity of practice that probably makes up the majority of believers (tongue-speaking, self flagellation, booty-shaking Sunday services to name but a few such manifestations.)
c.) Finding out that my Grandma is a better of a religious nutbar whoe believes some passing strange, and very superstitious things. And then realizing that my faith was taught to me by my mother, and her faith to her by her mother.
d.) The striking unfairness of a 15 year old boy, in whose language the Gospel has never been translated, dyeing of malaria and going directly to Hell. The ludicrousness of all the millions of souls perishing to eternal torment between the death of Jesus and the missionary movement is a bit much to swallow.

But none of these are Why I Lost My Faith (TM), my faith left me on its own, I just realized it wasn't really there anymore.

Now please believe me, I wish it still was. My life made a lot more sense and had much more meaning when I really thought the Creator of the universe a.) existed and b.) intended to give me eternal life. I spend a lot of time now terrified by death. Or furiously frustrated by my inability to know anything.

I've created this blog as a last gasp attempt to restore my faith. I'm going to post my doubts one by one, and ask Christian internet users to refute them and return me to the flock. This is not me trying to disprove Christianity. This is me begging the Church to bring me back through reason.

Ready? Lets Start.

2 Comments:

At 8:05 PM, Blogger Rodney said...

Welcome to the Church of Reason. Have no fear. You have gained much more than you have lost.

"I’ve never understood how God could expect His creatures to pick the one true religion by faith— it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe." -Robert A. Heinlein

 
At 7:44 PM, Blogger FaithFader said...

I disagree Rodney. What could be better than certainty in immortality? Even if you die and spend eternity in nonexistence I still think its a beautiful way to live. You just cant live that way if you dont believe.

 

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