“Are you sure about this?”
That was the question I asked myself as I signed up for “Atheism for Lent”. After months of doubt, deconstruction and endless questions about God, would this be the tipping point? Was giving up God, giving up prayer, and immersing myself in the best critiques of religion and God really a good idea?
Well I’m just over a week into the course, and it has exceeded my expectations both on how challenging the writing would be, and how enjoyable it is. I’d never really given much time to the atheistic arguments, and never realised how strong a lot of the were. I’d read a lot of Christian arguments which would reference some of the critiques, but that had always been from a biased point of view, so never really thought there was much weight to them.
In some ways, the arguments I’m reading now are articulating some of the questions and problems that I have with religion, they are putting into words the things which I couldn’t. They’re also providing some pretty convincing arguments against the idea of God and the concepts of Christianity. People like David Hume, Bertrand Russell and Anthony Flew, as well as greek philosopher Epicurus were part of the reading for the first week, and have definitely given me a lot to think about.
I’m not as worried about where I’ll end up by the end of lent. My hope is that I’ll move into a greater understanding of what faith, God and life mean. Something which goes further than theism and atheism. I’m beginning to see that there’s so much to life that is mystery, so much which we can’t explain, and to claim certainty over anything is foolish. I hope that I’ll begin to understand things in new ways, see things in a different light and become a better person in the process.
In some ways I think I am giving up God. Giving up the idea of God I grew up with, giving up the frameworks and ideas that I had built. I’m doing this in the hope that as I do so I’ll discover something more real, something more true and something that truly gives me life.
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Which arguments have you found compelling?
Some of David Hume’s arguments in his book "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" were really strong. And Bertrand Russell’s "Why I am Not A Christian" speech was really interesting.