Does truth elude us, or do we elude truth?

Today I arranged my meeting with the pastor of Morning Star Baptist Church. Putting aside the curious name my former church chose to give itself when they moved to a new building, it's a very nice facility which I've hardly explored to its fullest. This was perhaps the second or third time I've ever set foot in it. Those times I was there for mere moments. This time I spent several hours in it, in the pastor's office.

It was a nice office. A large cove of books was etched into the wall, looking to be more spacious than his closet. My mom did tell me he's an "information junkie". A clock that turned out to be an hour fast gauged the blur of time as we talked. A comfortable sofa accomodated me, but my comfort wouldn't come until I found myself in my words. Folding my arms this way or that didn't do much for the slight trembling I had for awhile. My coat was right behind me but I wasn't cold.

I didn't have trouble getting my words out, though. Trying to think of what I wanted to say next was my only problem, but I suffered it no more than usual, and it was hardly debilitating. To run out of things to say is to get out everything you had to say.

That isn't to say I said everything I intended, but some of the ideas and arguments I prepared were for a more aggressive speaker. This man wasn't here to fight. I was ready to fight, but it wasn't my goal. My goal was to establish myself, my views. I did so. I'm proud of myself.

One of the first things I said to him was about the Ireland anti-blasphemy laws. I said that it's fundamental to free speech and free religion that you be able to criticize someone's ideology. We agreed there. I pointed out that I do sympathize with European Muslims who have seen anti-blasphemy protection be extended toward Christianity and Judaism but not Islam. While no one should have these protections, I can't fault Muslims for wanting equality in the matter.

I then told him about my concerns about the church. He helped me put things into perspective. I know I'll go back sometime, but for now just talking about it made me feel as though I wasn't running. For awhile I've been trying to figure out who I want to be in the world, and who I choose to be if I visit my former church will be a part of that. He suggested I downplay myself, that I needn't lie. I don't like his particular suggestion of wording, though. Saying I'm "on a journey" that led me away from the church does give me an idea to start with, but I want to be able to define my disbelief in a way that accentuates it, maybe breaks it into swallowable and efficient pieces, but doesn't mask it. That's something I'll think about for awhile.

He told me he wants me to come to church as I am, and if I don't believe, that's ok. He implied I could come on Christmas and Easter, for example. Or that I could always come to him with questions or insights after his sermon.

I don't see myself doing that. I want to move beyond the subservience of church attendance. Sitting down and talking with him directly was so much more meaningful than my old church days had ever been. Seeking understanding through agreement and disagreement, to me, is infinitely more special than bowing in accordance to the status quo, or to God.

Pastor Mark might study a lot or have certain valued insights or abilities that have led him to lead this church but as a human I look to him as an equal, not a superior. He doesn't act superior; indeed he was very polite, patient, considerate and attentive to me, but that he is the chief, nay, sole speaker in the assembly of the church bothers me. I may choose to sit quietly and listen to you rather than speaking myself, but the arbitrary, unilateral method of preaching steers me away from it.

Of course, I believe in the merit of having speakers. I suppose it's that my viewpoint isn't one that's genuinely regarded or voiced within a church. Maybe I've taken a step toward changing that.

I'll go back someday to see the people I left behind, when I feel I'm ready to present myself.

In the meanwhile, we had a good discussion. He agreed with me on the topic of faith vs. fact. I am glad he's not someone who claims God is demonstrably proven. That's something I want to get people away from. I contend that there is no such thing as "spiritual fact" as far as humans are concerned, and I'll continue to refine my arguments against it. Someday they may appear here.

I talked to him a bit about my mom, and how I'm trying to go easier on her, because I understand her pains and frustrations, like worrying about me going to Hell, and having an aversion to fighting. What I didn't say, though, was that religion renders her less capable of discussing openly in this way, and she is not unique in this regard. This I see as a fundamental flaw in putting feeling over fact, which is the mode of operation of religion. Oh well. I didn't go just to argue with him.

I'd say the toughest question I asked him was regarding God's invisibility. Why is it important, nay, vital, that God test our ability to believe in him rather than reveal himself? My question came out differently than that, and I talked about how God does reveal himself in the Bible. He was silent for a moment, and said it was a good question. In answering, he said that even if people could see God they still might not believe, among other things. He also talked about how God reveals himself through creation and through his word... I guess I should say I expected this answer. It seemed to me like you need faith not only in God but in the invisibility of God.

I didn't grill him on this. I accepted what he said by telling him that it at least fits with what he believes, but that I can't believe that. I still think this question is fundamental and I can't accept the idea that it's its own answer; that you have to believe in belief. It seems thematically impressive yet it's circular and impotent as an answer.

We talked about James Randi and Peter Popoff, Pat Robertson and Todd Bentley, Jean Paul II and Benedict XVI. He seemed disappointed in the behavior of fraudsters, and said that while he rarely criticizes specific people, he does teach people to understand the idea of Christ's message and to see people who are going against Christ's ways. Of my critiques of these men, he said you don't have to be a Christian to smell a rat.

I worry that con men will continue to succeed if Christians don't speak up about them. I believe in naming names. Highlighting examples. Asking tough questions. Demanding good answers. It's not Christians alone that fail at this, but the American media and the American people. But I worry that religion plays a big part of this. A notable minority of the country would not question Sarah Palin's motivations or qualifications because they believe in her spiritual character and convictions. I think that says a lot by itself.

We talked about God healing amputees - or rather, not doing so. This played back into the idea of faith vs fact. On the topic of faith, he mentioned faith in a loved one. It made me think about why we have faith vs. knowledge in our personal relationships. We can't put strict definitions to words like "love" or "friendship" so we must use faith to bridge the gap between the implied definition of the word and the functional dynamics of the relationship it attempts to describe.

He really liked what I said about faith and fact. I'll try and recall it accurately. Ah, yes. He was talking about doubts, and how doubt is part of faith. What I said was, "Faith without doubt isn't faith; it's either knowledge or ignorance."

I mentioned the difference between faith and belief to him, too. He didn't have much to say on it but I think he agreed. Belief is your idea that something is real. Faith is your trust that it will stay true to you. You can have faith in your wife, but belief in your wife is irrelevant. I think I can accept faith, since I have faith in others which I can't prove, but I can't accept belief in God because it's unfounded and irrational and even self-refuting, depending on the interpretation of God. If God started granting my wishes, I could have a justified belief that he's real, but it would still be on faith that he loves me - I have a reason, but I can't be sure. He could just like giving me gifts for the heck of it. I can accept that faith, but not the belief in between.

The church is doing some classes. One is being led by one of my old youth pastors. It's about children who hit adulthood and stop going to church, and they're using a book by Ken Ham as their basis, so that's always fun. I tried to explain to the pastor my perspective on that issue. The silence, the difficulty expressing one's religious views to their family and the family's lack of interest in the matter. This explains both the deterioration of the faith, and of the confusion parents experience when that faith finally breaks. I don't know if the book covers all of that stuff, but I have my doubts. He said he appreciated my views on it.

It's just so obvious from perspective. I sat in that church and watched my bored friends and their lackluster faith. It was obvious nine out of ten were dragged there by their parents with no interest in their feelings on the matter, just as I was. This sort of ignorant "get them in the building and they'll do the rest on their own" approach to indoctrinating children with Christianity is part and parcel to why churches are withering.

I talked to my mom about this a bit today and she said how the older generations came from an age where almost everyone went to church, and those who didn't still felt like they were supposed to. Well, these old folks deserve what they've reaped, my parents included. I only wish more of my age group were more vivacious in thinking for themselves rather than just fizzling out into intellectually uncurious agnostic ambivalence. I know that you can't know some things, but it's nice to figure out what you can and can't. Still, if we must, we can at least take things one step at a time.

Finally, one of the most important things I think I did was explain where I'm at to him. I don't want to come off as someone who's looking for answers from God. I don't believe God exists. If he does, he knows where I live, and he's got some splainin' to do. I'm still interested in his alleged institutions, though. I tried to make it clear that I don't feel a longing for these feelings of God, but I do want to know what approach I'd like to take from here on out, and talking to the pastor was helpful in shaping those thoughts.

I tried to present myself as I am - as someone who has considered as many possibilities as I can. I could be wrong. I could be something other than I think I am, or reality could be different than it appears to me. But I'm not afraid of confronting these possibilities. That's why I went in to talk. I want to be someone who can confront my pasts and problems. Someone who's confident in who I am and what I think. I think that's who I am now. And I think he could see that.

I told him what he already knew. Christianity is about feeling. If I were to revert to it, it would be on feeling. I don't feel a need for that feeling and I can't think my way to it.

He was open to the idea of talking to me again. He said I was "very wise", "considerate", "amiable" and "articulate". I really appreciate that. I warned him if I talked to him again I might be more oppositional, though I attempt to distinguish Christians from Christianity. He pointed out that you can't separate the two completely, which is true. I didn't have much of a reply at the time, besides agreeing, but I think if you choose to attach yourself to something, you assume a vulnerability. The only way to never be offended is to become like water, like a mental Bruce Lee.

I like the man. I think he genuinely cared about me and wished me the best. I know he'd love to have me turn over a new leaf, join his church and all that jazz. Not happening. I appreciate that he didn't try to sell it to me, but he did make it clear it was available.

But if we continue to talk, I'll hit him with full force. He demonstrated what seems to be his main basis of belief - his evidence, his assurance. I disagree, but since he wasn't using it as his focal point, I didn't get too deeply into it. I'm beginning to see things in more and more interesting ways. I'm examining the understanding of words like "love" and "truth" to see if they have any absolute values. I think that understanding is a vital part of both love and truth.

I understand his reasoning. But I see something fundamental about taking apart his beliefs and finding every flaw I can. The pursuit for truth is not discourteous in the bluntness and thoroughness of its refutations. It is courteous because acknowledgement is a form of respect and to acknowledge all aspects and thus all flaws is a most sincere honesty.

Someday I'll define absolutes for you as best I can. It won't be perfect. But it's a curious line of thought that fascinates and challenges me. I think I can get at what God "could be" - and why he isn't.

Don't wait on it, though. The road there is long and I have a lot of stops on the way. The debate's not over; it's only beginning.

Delays

Going to have to delay pastor thing. Wacky sleep and my crazy grandmother have disrupted my timing and the pastor's not in on Fridays.

I can't let delays turn into not doing it. I'll try to get it together next week.

Tired. Sleep.

Now play dead. Roll over. Good Canaanite.

Matthew 15
21Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."
23Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."
24He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."
25The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.
26He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
27"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
28Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

I remember in Sunday School learning about Jesus, the healer, and Jesus, the preacher, and Jesus, the savior... I don't remember Jesus the racist or the jerk.

Funny thing, when you read the Bible without rose-colored lenses.

Ranting on pastor, church, Lee Strobel, books, and the Gospels

So, I'm going to go talk to the pastor next week, I've decided. I'll call maybe Monday or Tuesday and try to figure out when he'll be available.

Topics will include my own faith experiences, my concerns regarding "coming back" to right the wrongs of my departure, and my doubts of faith in an attempt to understand and to challenge his position.

As far as my faith is concerned, I do plan to limit it. I don't feel I could possibly tell him everything, but I can attempt to summarize. My loss of faith is still a story I haven't told here. It will be told, and it will be thorough and interesting, I promise.

As far as "coming back" goes, I might want to visit the church. I want to discuss the nuances of the situation with him. I want to educate the pastor as to the intimidation and emotional distance created by churches toward atheists as well.

There are a lot of stories and tidbits I could share regarding atheistic clashes within the family or church structure. I'm sure anyone reading this blog has either exprienced or at least heard of something like it.

My biggest concern if I visit is, how can I balance what I want (to face my fears, to be true to myself, to share myself with others, and to voice my positions and challenge the establishment) with what I do not want (to give the wrong impression, to cause unnecessary distress, to disrupt planned activities like Sunday school lessons with debates or evangelism.)

I've said it before, perhaps not here but definitely to my mom and others, that if I attend church, I have three options: participate insincerely, challenge and thus disrupt, or obstain from involvement. Even obstaining is insincere as well as unnecessary. I refuse the idea that I avoid or hide from Christian messages or dogma, as I've heard them my whole life and still indulge them on occasion, but all the same, there's no reason to attend church regularly and listen to their side indefinitely.

There comes a time where they grow redundant, uninteresting, and pointless to someone like me. That time came years ago. And besides, it's not as though they'd want to listen to me with equal time and courtesy as I'd be expected to listen to them at church. If they did, I'd gladly join an exchange of that sort, but I'm not expecting that.

I'll cut straight to the pastor. Skip the chain of command, skip the people who might just dodge or defer me anyway. I've grown bolder like that, and he's not really in a position to deny me. This is a rite of passage, of sorts.

I've got my general gameplan, but I am working on some things. I'll need to write out basic counterarguments to the arguments I expect from him, but I don't want to overprepare, as trying to hold to specific notions could see me derailed and appear to be underperforming. One thing I've been readying for is Lee Strobel's "Why would they die for a lie?" spiel. My mom described this pastor as young, an "information junkie" and "used to talking to people like you." With that information and considering the sorts of arguments I have against the faith, I have a hunch he might use this one.

If anyone's unfamiliar with it, you can find both a demonstration and a rather amusing refutation here.

Additionally, ProfMTH on YouTube made a rather detailed video series examining the particulars of this argument.

A quote from the first link at Conversational Atheist speaks to my problem: "There are so many ways to tear apart this ridiculous argument that choosing the most effective becomes problematic." One can simply watch any number of debates between atheists and Christians, regardless of one's stance on the matter, and see that atheists have a wealth of options to launch as their primary attacks. Some, like Christopher Hitchens, have streamlined it into a somewhat redundant, though timeless, "best of" line of arguments, but these, like all things, are subject to individual interpretation.

That's one of the reasons why I say I shouldn't overprepare. If I focus my preparations on the idea that God cannot be logically proven based on the evidence around us, the pastor might focus on a "God must be personally experienced" line. It isn't that personal experience would defeat me, not by any means, but if I overprepare for the wrong topic I run the risk of underperforming. Adaptability is most important, and I think that as long as I am loosely comfortable enough with the general gamut of arguments and lines of thinking, I should be able to orient my innate opinions and insights to accomodate the entire discussion.

I do, after all, consider myself to be something of a shrewd layman. I lack expertise, but I attempt to adapt to details as they are presented. One of my greatest heroes is James Randi, a man who is not a scholar, but who has paid attention.

On the topic of religion, which claims that feelings and beliefs take precedence over thought and reason, it is apparent to me that while education can be useful, if religion is truly meant for the participation of all mankind, then it can be assessed by people of all walks and persuasions. There is a bit of a catch, in that if religion is true, one need not be well-learned to understand that truth, but if religion is false, one might need a certain degree of learnedness to understand that falsehood. I see it as my place to slip through the cracks in that potential premise.

I can't help but expect Pascal's Wager. I really like to think we're beyond that, but I can't say. At least it is easily destroyed.

I hope I'm not presented the "historical Jesus" AS EVIDENCED BY SO MANY HISTORIANS HOW CAN YOU DENY IT. I'm not in the mood to have to read a bunch of biased books, then read even MORE books to refute the original books, in a field where I don't have any training. It feels like a drawn-out fetch quest. Besides, if this is a matter of personal faith in a god who wants to reveal himself to you, why would it require the examination of historical details which were not available to the people who founded or expanded the religion for the majority of its life?

I'm starting to get off-topic from my original off-topic tangent, but someday I hope to make a YouTube video about my mom's book collection. It ties into the historical stuff in that I can't grasp why, if Christianity were true, people need to read all these contemporary books about things like prayer, healing, keeping your faith, arguing with atheists, proving Christianity... these books aren't the true and perfect word of God, like the Bible is supposed to be, so why is it that they have to exist, to claim the ability to do what The Bible apparently can't? I get why, in that it's all false, and that it's a mix of hypocrisy, profiteering, delusion and cognitive dissonance that facilitates the abundance of these things, but... well, I guess that covers it, then.

Right now I'm reading through the Gospels. I've got some hunches and curiosities I'll indulge while refreshing my memory and preparing for the context of the discussion to come. I may post some interesting verses, or reveal the machinations of my plots and studies this weekend. I also have plenty of stuff I still need to talk about, so expect some or any of that soon.

Everyone, welcome Fox News to the blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2bRoh_bIrU

I agree with Cenk Uygur on this. (And why wouldn't I? He's the most reasonable man in America.) The percentage of radical Muslims is so low that you can't filter them out with profiling. In fact it's really not anyone's business if you're Muslim when you get on a plane, and if you are, you could always lie about it.

This is an important aspect of religion. Should religion be used as a way to evaluate someone's potential behavior patterns and motivations? Yes and no. From a social standing, yes. From a legal standing, not so much. Social and legal can correlate in that your particular religious behavior may appear as red flags to others, in which case we might need to take a look at you.

Simply being a member of a group who may have relations to something is not necessarily enough. Those relations need to be clear and direct, or else it depends on your own behavior. I.e., having a vague tie to radicalism in some way isn't very useful information, but espousing it yourself is definitely worth noting.

As much as I dislike religion, I like rights. Religion has a certain potential to destroy rights, whether it's a religion denying another religion, or a religion denying atheists, or atheists denying a religion. We must rise above it on principle. Of course, expecting Fox News to do that is like a poignant analogy involving another thing that irredeemably sucks.

When we don't know, we don't act, we investigate. This goes beyond the matter of profiling. Shots in the dark are rarely wise. Rather than trust religion, I choose to ask questions even if I can't always get a clear answer. I hope for the day when more people do the same.

God Bless Ireland?! No, God Damn Ireland!

So, Ireland has illegalized blasphemy. Violators who outrage a religious organization with their blasphemous speech can be fined up to 25,000 pounds, translating to over $35,000.

Words escape me as to how horrible this is. This is an affront to freedom of speech. This will create a society I could not stand to live in. Luckily I live in USA, where I am entitled to free speech, though sadly not a free audience. Where I live doesn't matter, though. This cannot stand.

Such wretched news, and when I've got so many other things on my mind. Well, I'll continue the fight in my own ways. Soon I'll be flexing my own free speech. I've passed the word along to the new pastor at my ex-church that I'd be interested in meeting and speaking with him sometime. Now I have to plan my course. More on that later.