Options for the Atheist Christian

So this blog is proving to be sort of an interesting journal of someone going from doubting christianity to leaving it altogether.
I eventually concluded that christianity is a horribly flawed mythology and found out that I was far from alone.

So how did I get from fervently singing to Jesus "My Jesus, My Savior, Lord there is none like you..." to believing I was caught up in an elaborate myth? I've thought about this so much and my best conclusion is Community.

My need for a close community was so great that I would sacrifice rational thought for a pat on the back. I would rather believe that everyone that doesn't subscribe to my beliefs would be eternally tortured by the Savior I praised than to jeopardize my close ties to my friends and family.

Choose rationality or choose your community. It's an outrageously difficult choice to make and the answers to the doubting christian are few:

Try to make it all make sense, claim that your faith is rational and fervently fight those who claim otherwise

Flame bait, I know. The problem with this is that it simply doesn't work. You can argue all you want and you can learn all the most obscure facts but you soon realize you're winning arguments by simply throwing the greatest number of red herrings. Your opponent eventually looses interest and walks away. You don't believe me? Argue with a UFOlogist for an hour and you'll see what I mean. They will claim obscure fact after obscure fact until you leave them alone.

Another approach is to pick an argument and claim it is universally true. "Man needs redemption from sin" is a good start, or pick any of Ravi Zacharais' arguments.

Quietly ignore the doctrines that don't make sense.

This is a safe bet for awhile. I got a good number of years out of this one. I stopped believing in seven-day creation, as I hope a good many christians have. Bit by bit, other doctrines and beliefs fell away. Demons were replaced by cognitive therapy, literal interpretation by allegory.

The problem is you can only ignore doctrines for so long. Eventually you run into problems with healing (God doesn't heal amputees), gays (generally treated worse than samaritans) and on. And when you get to the big questions on Hell, you'll have a hard time staying quiet. In conservative circles, thoughts against the Iraq war will get you in trouble. Try to stay quiet, but you'll be found out. Still, it works for a good long time.

Find a denomination that defines doctrines more like you do.

There is by some counts upwards of 33,000 to choose from. Certainly not that many in your local area, but you get the idea. Jump around long enough and you'll find people who quietly ignore the same kinds of things you quietly ignore. Literal interpretation of large portions of the bible will be replaced with fervent admonitions to "Trust in the Lord" and "Don't stray from Him". You'll be told it's the relationship with Jesus that counts more than anything. Eventually that gets old. You can only go so long with radio silence from the big guy upstairs before you start getting suspicious.

However, if you really like your new friends and they really like you, chances are it won't matter much anyway. You'll take their collective words as words from the Holy Spirit and go on about your life. This works until they give you some really bad advice. It'll happen.

Concentrate solely on the 'good parts' of the Bible.

I.e. the ones that match the generally accepted morality of our times. So out with the old testament genocide and new testament stonings. This seems to be the generally appropriate way for the Emerging Church and a number of liberal denominations as well. There is a ton of great advice in the Bible and good happy things to like in it. There's the kind and generous Jesus that does nice things for the world. The kind of guy you want to be like when you get a bit older. That works for a lot of people, for a long time. It's probably one of the few reasonably good things that christians can end up doing. Still no matter how much you concentrate on the good in the Bible, there's still some really nasty, racist, mean, violent and awful stuff in there. Why not just let go of it and just be good? If you're too the point that you are judging what is good in the Bible and what isn't, then you are already using the good common morality that humanity is increasingly evolving.

Become a pew sitting atheist.

I tried this for awhile. I know others that have been doing it for years. In the end I just couldn't get myself to worship a mythical god-man-ghost. I tried as hard as I could to just see the general spirituality in it all, but couldn't get there. I couldn't take another sermon that insisted I "just believe" or "pray more" or "serve more".

Look at your wise christian elders and say "if it's good enough for them, its good enough for me."

I propped my faith up with this one for a long time. I figured none of my pastors would stake their careers on a myth. What I learned was that this was exactly what they would do because they have the most to lose. It was a hard enough decision for me to make to leave my christian circles, but my entire livelihood isn't tied up in it. For many pastors expressing doubt in their faith would land them in the poor house.