Those damn Bereans...

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17:11 NIV)

Not the most often quoted verse I've heard, but I did hear it quite a bit. It was usually in the context of, 'Don't believe something just because that's what you were always taught. Do your own research to find out for yourself if something's true.'
Yeah, great, be like the Bereans; they're so damn respectable because they do their own research and read the bible for themselves and think for themselves and don't believe something just because Paul said it was so... Well in my experience, that's a respectable position to take only if you come to the right conclusion. The right conclusion, of course, being that the main tenets of Christianity are true, and in a literal sense. If you come to just about any other conclusion, no matter how honest and careful, and 'in pursuit of the truth' your research is, you're just plain wrong. And not only are you wrong, but your motives are probably suspect too: you hate God, you 'don't want to answer to anyone but yourself,' you want to live a sinful life, you want to 'believe what you want to believe,' etc, etc... It's absolutely unthinkable (unpossible, even) that maybe you simply looked at all the available evidence for and against Christianity, you looked with an open mind and 'an open heart,' and came to the logical conclusion that the 'for' evidence just wasn't strong enough to warrant belief. That there are too many other, better explanations.
Or (possibly even worse) you read the bible, go to church, maybe teach Sunday School... you call yourself a Christian, but you take a far less literal interpretation of the bible, like Bishop Spong, like a lot of (most?) Unitarians, or other 'liberal' branches of faith. You do all that because you're like those noble Bereans who thought for themselves, but because you didn't come to the 'right' conclusion, you get no respect for thinking for yourself. I guess I can kind of understand that, though- it's hard enough to really respect someone when you strongly disagree with them, but then throw into the mix the 'us vs. them' and 'we must battle because we're in a spiritual war' mindset of fundamentalism and it's pretty much a lost cause.
But this really isn't about the whole 'liberal vs. conservative' Christian thing (well, kind of it is, because I just think it's so ironic and stupid to argue about faith- something that, by definition, can't be proven- 'my faith is the one true faith, not yours!' If you could prove it, it wouldn't be faith, would it? And, if you have faith, you don't need evidence; if you have evidence, you don't need faith). It's about me, going from mainstream fundamentalist* to atheist, due to being like those noble Bereans and thinking for myself.
I can remember more than a couple of occasions being in church and listening to pastor so-and-so rail against the people who, when you ask them why it is that they believe the things they believe, they say, 'Well, that's just what I was always taught,' or, 'That's just what I've always believed.' And pastor so-and-so would rant and rave and yell about what a stupid position that was to take- you should never believe something just because 'that's what you were always taught.' And he'd be right- you shouldn't. But I think he needs to take it a step further and say that you should also learn how to think critically. Churches tend to not do that very often (I think it's because if you learn to think critically, as well as think for yourself, you might just end up disagreeing with them).

Here's what I find ironic- I was 'always taught' that the bible is the inspired, infallible, authoritative Word of God. I was 'always taught' that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. I was 'always taught' that Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a perfect and sinless life, performed miracles, died as an atonement for the sin of humanity, was resurrected and went back to heaven to be with God, and that we can have a personal relationship with him. I was 'always taught' that the creation account in Genesis should be taken literally-that Adam and Eve were the literal first two humans and that all life today was present, more or less in the same form, at the beginning. Death came afterwards, as a result of Adam disobeying God, the flood (and Noah's ark) was a literal event, etc., etc. That's what I was 'always taught,' and that's what I had always believed. I didn't necessarily believe it because that's what I was taught (except maybe at first, when I was much younger); I did do my own research- read the bible, studied apologetics, etc. but then after awhile, after I started having more and more difficult questions and was not getting any satisfactory answers, I managed to also learn how to think critically, and think for myself. Sort of like those Bereans. (I can hear the argument now, because I've made it myself- 'What's all this crap about thinking for yourself? I think for myself and I happen to believe all that stuff you no longer believe. All of us already do 'think for ourselves.' Well, sure, all of us do 'think for ourselves' to a point- some people think the rapture will be pre-trib, others post-, and still others mid-. Sure, everyone thinks for themselves, and mainstream fundamentalism doesn't have any problem with that at all until you start to disagree with some 'established' idea, and have solid reasons for doing so, i.e. I don't believe there's going to be a rapture because, based on logic, evidence, and critical thought, I can honestly no longer believe in such things.) Yet I don't hear anyone mentioning Acts 17:11 when talking about people like myself. Not once has anyone ever said to me that even though they disagree with me 100%, they still respect the fact that I came to my own conclusions about the bible/god/jesus/etc.

A lot of people who are critical of atheists/atheism like to say that we just 'don't like God' or what the idea of God means for our lives. My problem isn't so much with God, as with what people say about him. Lots and lots of statements are made, many specific, some broad and vague. Some people, after doing all kinds of research and study and investigating, can reach some sort of agreement with those statements. I can't. And it doesn't involve any ulterior motives of any kind. I studied, prayed, researched, examined, asked questions, prayed some more, studied some more, and all of that. I was a Berean, you might say. I just happened to come to a different conclusion. Obviously lots of people disagree with it. They strongly believe that I'm 'wrong.' And I respect their right to believe that, but it is my honest conclusion, for my life.

They don't get to think for me. They don't get to decide for me.





*Mainstream fundamentalist- some might say that's an oxymoron, that fundies are in the minority, and therefore not mainstream. Well, the specific church that I attended for many years was very mainstream- a 'mega-church' even (though this local church was relatively small compared to 'sister' churches in places like California. But around the time I left, they were doing 3 Sunday services, with, I believe, a total membership of around 1000 people, and (I've been told) an annual budget of around $1 million). This particular church (the whole branch, not just that local church) identifies strongly with Answers in Genesis, the ministry that started the Creation Museum. (Tell me that's not fundamentalist.) So... mainstream fundamentalist. In any case, I'm not here to argue semantics.

Still here...

Just been busy. I have no idea who, if anyone, reads this. And I'm not supposed to care, since, like I said in the intro, it's just a letter to some friends/online journal, but since I do post comments on other blogs occasionally and leave this URL as a link, I figure other people might stop by once in awhile. So, just thought I'd let you know, it's far from being over. I have a whole lot of stuff that I want to get written down here still. If the topic interests you at all, do the RSS thing, or check back once in awhile. I'm hoping to get a little busier with it in the next few weeks or so.