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Reply It was Rant Wednesday. Agnostics claim either that it is not possible to have absolute or certain knowledge of the existence or nonexistence of God or gods; or, alternatively, that while individual certainty may be possible, they personally have no knowledge. Agnosticism in both cases involves some form of skepticism
wiki Atheism, as a philosophical view, is the position that either affirms the nonexistence of gods[1] or rejects theism.[2] When defined more broadly, atheism is the absence of belief in deities,[3] alternatively called nontheism.[4] Although atheism is often equated with irreligion, some religious philosophies, such as secular theology and some varieties of Theravada Buddhism, also lack belief in a personal god.
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In both cases I was dead on but with a bit of a ranty-core. This is what happens when I miss lunch to type rants on atheism. Before my conversion I was more of a nihilist as a logical being who followed things to their obvious logical ends. As I started out, I was a staunch "christian" (note the little "c") as I was taught that the Bible was the only source of truth - I think I was 8. Then I started learning about science, dinosaurs, and geology and found an obvious issue - if God created everything, what role does "evolution play" and if God didn't create everything why do I need a Savior if death came before man via natural selection? I went back to my sources and asked for help in combining what seemed to me to be two totally separate subjects and was told by my pastor "we, in the ELCA, don't like to tell people what to believe and leave it up to you to make your own mind up". To me, it was exactly what I figured it would be - a cop out. They failed to give a good answer to what I thought was easily going to be resolved. Instead I had to either try to combine two things that didn't mix or toss one out.
I tried theistic evolution for a while but I could never get over the theme of the two Adams and the two gardens in the Bible. The Bible, for a book written over thousands of years by many different authors, has a very distinct style and theme to it which constantly probes you to think more and more about it's core message. There's not one single thing that is the same every time you read it. If I read a manual or a good book by secular authors I get the same theme and message every time I read but with the Bible it's as if there's something new for me all the time. I even tried reading the same chapter for a week straight and every time there was something new and interesting I was taking away from it. Anyway, I'm shifting my focus here - back to my history:
Theistic evolution didn't mix well - there were too many things I had to give up from either side and, as an appeaser (at the time) I didn't want to hold onto something that I couldn't justify so I tossed the only thing that didn't make sense - my faith in God. At this point I was about 14. Now I see why that was so easy - I had been a false convert. I was buying into the "your best life now" philosophy that gives you nothing but a warm feeling and an empty soul. Any feelings that you have to drum up in yourself are not real feelings to begin with and, above all, why do I care what my feelings say when I'm searching for truth?
Long story short, 6 years later - 14 class 1 felonies, 13 class 1 misdemeanors (all on one charge), 3 dead friends, one killed during a robbery attempt, 4 run-ins with the possibility of my own death including a stabbing, a shooting, and my heart stopping by itself twice - I decided to try drugs. I wasn't very bright. 4 years of that led me to a place where suicide was an outstanding option and, as my religion of non-religion taught me, I may as well just do whatever I want to get what I want because when I die there's nothing to fear. That's when it happened. I can't explain it, but let's just say that the fog that I was under somehow lifted for a few minutes. In that few minutes I was able to see a lot of things I couldn't see when I was in my own head. Suddenly, things started to line up. I saw that there was a particular purpose for my life, that there has been a constant thread that was always pervasive enough to bring me around before I was caught or killed, and almost like watching your life through a movie camera, I saw that there was something better for me but that I had to turn from myself to get there.
Not willing to drop myself at the time (I had grown accustomed to doing things my way) I blew it off but I left open the option and started to clean myself up. I found my wife, got married, and thought I was doing really well. Granted, I wasn't actually doing anything at all - I had started going to church, even got baptized but it was all for the Gospel of Ian. It had nothing to do with God or Christ. I was very much my own man and intended to keep control of my life as long as possible. That led me to entertain the thoughts of cheating on my wife (even if I never actually did it), leaving my family to go and DJ professionally, and never caring about their lives or their outcomes - only myself. 4 more years, and I had only become so enamored with myself that I was spending all my time away from my family and at work where I thought I was accepted and loved. We had swapped churches a few times but I never gave up the keys to my life. I started to notice that my kids never even noticed when I came home. I had become a roommate in my own house - totally outside of my own mind and outside of my own family. Realizing what needed to happen, I then quit my job to move us to Denver thinking the change in location would renew my relationship with my family.
[.. continued below ..]
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My wife and I had become good friends with some guys online that I played counter strike with. We all played together and it was a great time - we had a lot of fun. Some of the guys came out for work, and we all hung out a few times. Then someone new showed up. I had helped to get him into our counter strike clan and I thought he was a good friend. Unfortunately, he had been talking to my wife a lot more than I thought - a lot more than I knew anyway. He was trying to console her by replacing me with himself. Enough kind words and telling her what she wanted to hear and she started to believe him more than me. It finally clicked for me one afternoon when he was there. Granted, he was in town on business but it was clear to me what was going on. Like before, the fog had been lifted.
In that one moment, I saw what was going on. I saw the fruits of my own self-centered behavior. My children were more accepting of this stranger in my own house than of their own father and I had become the man that I hated, all in the interest of my own love for myself. Worse, my wife had hated the man that I had become.
It was that night that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do to resolve my problem. I wasn't outside of killing him - I knew I could do it and I knew that it would be worth it to me to be rid of the situation but I knew that there was something else that was stopping me. There was a new thought in my head - something that was prompting me to do something radical - something that was not entirely foreign to me but that was there in a new way to me. It was something that I never wanted but I had run out of ideas and was short on options and suddenly, I wanted to be with my family more than I wanted to be with myself.
That night I did the radical thing. That night I literally got on my knees and apologized to God for everything that I had ever done against Him. I saw my life for what it was and for what I wanted it to be and knew that all of my plans were garbage compared to what I had before me. I also knew that there was a good chance that anything I did was too late. I consigned myself to the fact that I had lost my family. I gave that and everything else to God. Everything that I had, even things that I didn't know were sins were coming out of me in a teary prayer that left me gasping for air as it came out. I laid my soul bare before God and stood back to accept defeat. I told God that no matter if I lost my family that I'd trust Him to get me through it. Not the fake prayers that I had uttered amid alcohol poisoning or recovering from drug induced comas but I had literally seen that my life was exactly as it was. I had nothing to offer and gave it all anyway.
That night I collapsed in my bed as a broken and humiliated man. The next morning I woke up with a real purpose in my life. I can't explain it any other way than to say that it's not a fake feeling or some psychosomatic response to a deprived state of being - I honestly woke up with purpose. I was a servant leader and I knew what I needed to do. As my wife puts it, "(I) went to bed the same asshole she's known for the last 7 years, but (I) woke up as the man she married".
That's transformational. That's wholly reconstructive. That's a metamorphosis that I could never have created on my own.
People say that there's no proof of God and that if you place your faith in that kind of thing you're obviously suffering from some mental deficiency - but I have all the proof I need. My children love me, my wife loves me, and my God loves me.
I don't want proof. I am proof.
That may be one of the scariest comments I've ever heard regarding faith.
That is the most genuine statement I've heard.
I said a similar thing the other day when one of the Awana boys was asking about Baptism. He did this of his own accord and is only in the 4th grade. With his reaction and genuine nature I told Amy I wish that everyone who doesn't believe in God should work in Children's Ministries. Then last night I talked to him about Baptism more and explained to him what it symbolized and what it would be showing those around him and his face just literally lit up, it was amazing!
It makes me want to praise Him for his grace in our lives. What a kind and loving God.