Around the time of my graduation from college I took a vow. This was not something I shared with other people…..I didn’t really hear any cool kids talking about taking vows and I suspected that maybe they didn’t do it very often. That’s a joke….but it was a deeply personal decision for me and not something I wanted to talk openly about. My vow was simple: I would not date any girls until I figured out what I believed about certain fundamental issues. The first obvious issue was understanding how the scientific evidence for evolution affected my view of the Bible and the way in which it was interpreted. However, by this time I was vaguely realizing that there might be very large beliefs at stake (not Christianity itself, I didn’t seriously question that until much later). I worried that marrying someone from my religious background before I had time to figure out what I believed could spell trouble down the road. There was no way I could just “forget” about these problems now….they must be faced. To be honest, there was no great sacrifice in my vow. Girls weren’t exactly lining up. But there were a few interests along the way which were scrupulously avoided. In the end, my period of re-examining beliefs lasted about 5 years and led to a complete loss of faith. I will give a general overview in the following paragraphs and more detailed topics can be included in later posts or other parts of the website.
The first issue was evolution and Biblical interpretation. One question was “how complete is the evidence for evolution and how strong are the arguments against it?” I remember laying out a range of books in a line to show a friend the project I was embarking upon. On one end of the line was Ken Ham (evolution is an atheistic invention to subvert Christianity), followed by some books inserting God into various points in the evolutionary process (intelligent design style), all the way through Christian biologists who accepted secular evolutionary theory and worked their faith around it (in the vein of Francis Collins). I may have even had a Richard Dawkins book at this point (atheistic evolution), but its hard to remember since I avoided reading all atheist books until the very end of my journey. I had that Dawkins book for years and didn’t really read it until I had already changed my beliefs. To be brief, the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. I read whole textbooks on the subject which filled in the missing pieces I hadn’t yet picked up in college. Everything made sense together and made sense of the physical evidence. On the other hand, the anti-evolutionists repeated over and over that the implications of belief in evolution were bad (that doesn’t address whether it’s true), gave Biblical evidence (maybe your interpretation is wrong?), or attacked small areas of evolutionary theory that were still unclear (ok…..but how do you explain the massive number of facts that ARE clear?). There was no contest. But this left the next big question of how the Bible should be interpreted.
Around this time, I started post-graduate studies in biology. This led to several moves around the country and associated changes in home churches. This wasn’t a major problem since I could always find a church with similar beliefs in the area in which I was living. But it is interesting that this occurred at the same time that my questions were deepening. No matter how hard you try, it takes time to build meaningful relationships and make a new community feel like home. I have no doubt that my journey to atheism would have been more difficult if I had stayed within one community. The constant reinforcement and strong relationships make it difficult to consider alternative beliefs.
At the same time, I began to really know some atheists for the first time in my life. I had briefly known a few before that fit all the stereotypes of atheists discussed in religious contexts…..they didn’t bother me. But here were honorable, thoughtful, friendly atheists leading purposeful lives. I liked many of them. However my religious beliefs taught that Jesus was the only way to eternal life, and these people would be lost if they didn’t find Him. I had the responsibility to do whatever I could to aid that process. This situation set up an uncomfortable pressure in my life. I hated the use of any kind of pushiness in discussing God with people, opting instead for the “friendship evangelism” style where religious beliefs come up in conversation once you really get to know someone and they can see how you live. The trouble was that these people seemed to be doing alright. They had struggles and successes in their lives similar to myself and other Christians I knew. It wasn’t clear that they were felt any need for change. At this time, I was also reading apologetic books covering the evidence for Christianity. I remember a particularly jarring moment while reading “The handbook of Christian apologetics” by Peter Kreeft. There was a list of the top 10 arguments for belief in God and I eagerly worked my way through them. Here were some points that I could bring up in any future discussions about religion. I carefully placed a check mark if it seemed a strong argument and a negative sign if it seemed weak. But in the end, I had only a couple check mark squiggles (meaning that the argument was probably only convincing if you already believed in God) and one check mark. That one checked argument was the argument from personal experience. I did have lots of personal experience in my life that I had interpreted as some type of interaction with God….but I knew by now that this was not likely to be convincing to a nonbeliever. I mean, how convinced was I by the personal experiences of people in other religions? I didn’t give them a second thought. So what did I have left for discussion with my atheist colleagues? The only solution was to trust that God would provide. However, this was a very memorable point in my journey.
Meanwhile the investigation into Biblical interpretation continued. Questions were multiplying. Since evolution was true, there could be no literal creation story or literal worldwide Biblical flood. The tower of Babel no longer made sense. Maybe these were simply cultural origin myths or the flood was just a local occurrence? But once this was allowed, how could I decide which parts of the Bible should be taken literally? Adam and Eve could not be the literal first humans since the human population could never fall to two people. There had to be other contemporary humans living at the same time as any “Adam and Eve”….meaning that there would have been many generations of humans which were not their descendants. Maybe these early stories were metaphor? Unfortunately, the Fall of Adam was supposedly the source of “original sin” which was passed down to all later generations. This was taught by major figures in the New Testament, including Paul, who spoke of Adam as if he was a real person. Maybe Paul was just referring to a known fictional story (but why wasn’t this more obvious… what was with all the genealogies in the gospels connecting Adam to Jesus, etc.?). Maybe these quotes of Paul weren’t accurate or maybe Paul just had restricted knowledge about that issue (these were both very worrying possibilities). Though these types of issues were the central focus of my reading, additional theological problems were continuingly added to the list and, now and then, I took little diversions into other subjects. Unfortunately, nothing was becoming clearer.