I Say Never

What probably keeps my family calm and collected about my loss of salvation is the hope that I can reach true salvation one day, Lord-willing. My one major restraint has been not telling them how strongly I feel like I will never be a Christian again. I’m sure they believe God is far more powerful than my obstinacy, but I feel so close to fully confident in saying never. Absolutely not ever again. Never.

It goes along with how things can’t be unseen, which is a funny comparison considering how faith is certainty in things unseen. So confusing!

The way I lost my faith was a mere matter of backing up. I should start saying that. “Hey, how’d you lose your faith?” “Oh, I just kept backing up and eventually my faith got lost in the big picture.” It’s a perfect illustration. You see, faith is selfish. This is not an accusation where I say, “I’m not selfish–religious people are.” No, I’m selfish, too, but I don’t pretend like there are things I can possibly do that aren’t selfish. Selfishness is not a sin. It is necessary. There are things we do that are more selfish and things that are less selfish, but everything is derived from a selfish intent, even if it’s the satisfaction of doing something good for someone else. That satisfaction is selfish, but it’s not a bad thing.

But anyway, back to how my faith got lost in the big picture. I am a selfish person, yes, and my faith in God was very selfish. I looked for all the ways it could bring me peace and satisfaction. Christians do this under the guise of saying satisfaction in the Holy Spirit is honoring to God, not honoring to man. You can twist it however you want but when it comes down to it, it makes you happy, and you want to be happy. It’s hard to question that sort of faith when it brings such deep satisfaction, which is why it’s marvelous for Christians when doubt finally leads to “humble” repentance. Christians were all for my doubts there for a while, but when the doubts got too doubt-y, they were no longer edifying or acceptable. Once I started observing the world from other perspectives, non-Christian perspectives, I’d gone too deep. And it’s true, there was no going back once I’d stepped back too far. I see faith for what it is and how it works. I’ve drawn the parallels of faith between different religions and different gods. As far as I can tell, it all looks the same. Someone would be hard-pressed to prove to me that one of those gods is real and the others aren’t. They all fill the same role in different lives. Scientifically, without confirmation bias, the whole personal god thing fails. It’s all conjecture built on personal transcendental experiences. Despite the Christian arguments for absolute truth, there is no evidence to substantiate a claim that BibleGod is absolute truth.

Perhaps saying I don’t think I’ll ever believe in God again is a bit of a bold statement, perhaps not totally founded, and maybe I just really don’t want to believe in God again (I do want to believe in God if God is real). The fact of the matter is, I’ve seen too much. I don’t usually blog about these matters with such confidence. I feel a little vulnerable writing all of this, but that’s okay. I might be wrong. Maybe one day I’ll confusedly worship a god again.

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