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Old 02-10-2003, 08:38 PM   #11
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One thing I get from reading a lot of these posts and the others that were on Talk.origins was generally how rapidly people converted from fundamentalism to atheism/agnosticism. On the other hand, the less fundamentalist your background, the slower the conversion or the conversion never fully takes place. I was raised in a rather liberal religious household. My mother goes to church regularly but really likes Bishop Shelby Spong. She believes in Jesus and the resurrection, but thinks St. Paul is a misogynist who totally misconstrued Jesus's mission.

I grew up understanding that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago and that men and apes shared a common ancestor. I never believed in the flood and didn't even know such people existed until I was in College. I was utterly shocked that people could believe such crap. However, I didn't become a freethinker until years after college and the transition was very slow over a few years of reading many other books (which interestingly enough my reading of which was the brainchild of a fundy, and a very good looking fundy at that, trying to convert me).

In one church I attended, there was a poster of Jesus suffering on the cross with the caption "He Died to Take Away Your Sins, Not Your Mind." And I remember how much I liked that view. I didn't have to be irrational to be a Christian. Ultimately however, I came to believe that most, if not all, of the Christ story was myth and simply unsupportable and became a Deist.

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Old 02-11-2003, 12:05 PM   #12
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I grew up the son of missionary parents and readily embraced their views, including young-earth creationism. During college (a Christian one), I did some wider reading on the matter and eventually sided with the old-earth creationists like Davis Young and Hugh Ross. Toward the end of college I experienced a crisis of faith due to a number of what I perceived to be ethical and historical inconsistencies in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, and I entertained a simple monotheist position. I entered an evangelical seminary as a doubter and eventually found a way to hold my doubts a bay, all the while experiencing what I considered to be a profound relationship with God.

After a year of seminary, I met my lovely wife, and we ended up in Africa as Bible translators. While reading through a one-year Bible in 2000, my old doubts began welling up again, and I eventually had to admit that my evangelical faith was ill-founded, a view which was encouraged by my reading of Robert Price's "Beyond Born Again," which I chanced upon while surfing the web in Burkina Faso. We decided to return to the US because of my doubts, and after a couple episodes of moving into and out of faith, we were asked to resign from our mission. It was Glenn Morton's theistic evolution website that first convinced me that evolution was more than wishful thinking, later bolstered by Kenneth Miller's "Finding Darwin's God" and many other books and websites. My reasons for accepting evolution were almost identical to WinAce's list:

Quote:
1. Retroviral DNA fragments shared between chimps and humans, dogs and wolves, cats and wild cats...
2. Broken Vitamin C pseudogene
3. Fossil skulls that one creationist called an ape and another a human...
4. The revelation that genetic algorithms can evolve cool and unexpected new stuff from old stuff.
5. The crumbling of Christian dogma inside my head that coincided with learning the scientific case.
In particular, Edward Max's article on molecular genetics on talkorigins, along with the 29 evidences for macroevolution on the same site, were powerful confirmations of my new position. Additionally, the homology found in the arms and hands of humans, bats and dolphins (each with wrists and five fingers), set against the form of cartilaginous shark fins (serving the same function as those of dolphins but with a completely different form), was good fodder for thought.

After having accepted evolution while still entertaining some form of Christianity, I read Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason" and for about a year considered myself a deist. In the summer of 2001 I read some of the works of Robert Ingersoll and began doubting the very existence of God. Some days I wake up thinking, "There has to be a God;" other days I think, "There cannot be a God." My tendency now is to doubt God's existence, though I haven't given up on the possibility that he/she/it may exist.

All during this time I have stayed with my family and even continue to attend an evangelical church with them, mostly for my wife's sake. My father is disappointed but feels I will come around; my mother passed away five years ago. My mother-in-law is the most openly disapproving of anyone in the family. I know they are all praying for me and discuss my situation among themselves. As for friends, I do enjoy getting together twice a month with a Christian-led group of believers and skeptics to discuss our positions. I have presented a good deal of evidence for evolution in the group, and has been received with some degree of surprise and an understanding of how "some people could accept evolution, even if I don't fully accept it myself."

It's been a long, hard and ongoing journey, but I am now relieved from the burden of having to force square pegs into round holes.
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Old 02-11-2003, 12:16 PM   #13
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I can't say i was ever a creationist, well a biblical literalist anyway. I recall growing up in a catholic family. as a child i went to church tuesdays and thursdays and sundays, went to catholic school, and sunday school etc. fast forward 10 years, i'm 18 years old and not really a catholic, but i still go to church on sundays and i believe in a god. Then one day my friend, who was an atheist, asked "do you believe there is a god?" To which i replied yes, and he asked "why?" "uh i just do," to which he replied, "fucking moron." Which led me to rethink lots of things. After a while i became a "hard core" atheist. that is, i knew for a fact there wasn't a god. 3 years later it took a philosophy teacher to open me up to the possibility that there is "some godlike thing." Which is fine, i'm allways open to new ideas.

But anyway as i look back i think i was never really a true christian(tm) but only because it was tradition. I went to a family reunion of some sorts a month ago and found out 3 cousins are also atheists. It appears the tradition is slowly ending.
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Old 02-11-2003, 05:58 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally posted by Ken
I grew up the son of missionary parents and readily embraced their views, including young-earth creationism. During college (a Christian one), I did some wider reading on the matter and eventually sided with the old-earth creationists like Davis Young and Hugh Ross. Toward the end of college I experienced a crisis of faith due to a number of what I perceived to be ethical and historical inconsistencies in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, and I entertained a simple monotheist position. I entered an evangelical seminary as a doubter and eventually found a way to hold my doubts a bay, all the while experiencing what I considered to be a profound relationship with God.

After a year of seminary, I met my lovely wife, and we ended up in Africa as Bible translators. While reading through a one-year Bible in 2000, my old doubts began welling up again, and I eventually had to admit that my evangelical faith was ill-founded, a view which was encouraged by my reading of Robert Price's "Beyond Born Again," which I chanced upon while surfing the web in Burkina Faso. We decided to return to the US because of my doubts, and after a couple episodes of moving into and out of faith, we were asked to resign from our mission. It was Glenn Morton's theistic evolution website that first convinced me that evolution was more than wishful thinking, later bolstered by Kenneth Miller's "Finding Darwin's God" and many other books and websites. My reasons for accepting evolution were almost identical to WinAce's list:



In particular, Edward Max's article on molecular genetics on talkorigins, along with the 29 evidences for macroevolution on the same site, were powerful confirmations of my new position. Additionally, the homology found in the arms and hands of humans, bats and dolphins (each with wrists and five fingers), set against the form of cartilaginous shark fins (serving the same function as those of dolphins but with a completely different form), was good fodder for thought.

After having accepted evolution while still entertaining some form of Christianity, I read Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason" and for about a year considered myself a deist. In the summer of 2001 I read some of the works of Robert Ingersoll and began doubting the very existence of God. Some days I wake up thinking, "There has to be a God;" other days I think, "There cannot be a God." My tendency now is to doubt God's existence, though I haven't given up on the possibility that he/she/it may exist.

All during this time I have stayed with my family and even continue to attend an evangelical church with them, mostly for my wife's sake. My father is disappointed but feels I will come around; my mother passed away five years ago. My mother-in-law is the most openly disapproving of anyone in the family. I know they are all praying for me and discuss my situation among themselves. As for friends, I do enjoy getting together twice a month with a Christian-led group of believers and skeptics to discuss our positions. I have presented a good deal of evidence for evolution in the group, and has been received with some degree of surprise and an understanding of how "some people could accept evolution, even if I don't fully accept it myself."

It's been a long, hard and ongoing journey, but I am now relieved from the burden of having to force square pegs into round holes.
Wow, Ken what a fascinating story. You should try reading Dan Barker's "Losing Faith in Faith." His personal journey sounds very similar to yours. He is now head of the Freedom from Religion Foundation in Wisconsin. I'm sure if you tried, you could get through to him. I'm sure the journey has been very hard on your family and I wish you the best of luck. Also, living in Texas can't be much easier than living in Alabama.

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Old 02-11-2003, 06:59 PM   #15
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Late in the summer of 1999, I lost my belief in Creationism forever, was an atheist for two weeks, and then became a theistic evolutionist. Yeah, I know what you're thinking- why did you return to theism? Don't bother asking.
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Old 02-11-2003, 07:05 PM   #16
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An excellent topic, SLD. I'm glad to see all the new posters here- welcome!

If you would like to give your testimony on how you lost your theistic beliefs, please look for the 'Atheists' Testimony' thread in our Welcome forum. This thread should be for those who actually believed in some form of creationism.
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Old 02-11-2003, 07:08 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally posted by Jobar
An excellent topic, SLD. I'm glad to see all the new posters here- welcome!

If you would like to give your testimony on how you lost your theistic beliefs, please look for the 'Atheists' Testimony' thread in our Welcome forum. This thread should be for those who actually believed in some form of creationism.
Thanks Jobar, come on back to my God and Quantum Physics topic in the Existence of God forum. You had some interesting ideas worth exploring.

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Old 02-11-2003, 07:21 PM   #18
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Ken-thanks for your post. We are travelling down similar paths.

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Old 02-12-2003, 02:16 PM   #19
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An excellent thread!

I think that this thread is the Evo/Cre forum's answer to the Atheist testimony thread in SecLife&Sup.

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Old 02-12-2003, 08:22 PM   #20
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Thanks, SLD and Bubba, for your feeback to my post. I've never been a big forum participant, but it's somewhat cathartic to tell my story to those who've gone through similar journeys. Yes, SLD, I think I would fit in much better in the Northwest than in the South, but here I am.

I've read some of Barker's writings and particularly enjoyed his debate with Michael Horner on the resurrection. At this point, however, I'm not inclined to be as political about my position as he is. It's enough for me now to navigate the challenges of my immediate social sphere, to convince friends and family that my change of outlook really is a matter of integrity, not of willful rebellion. Civility and mutual respect go a long way toward that end.

I would like to rephrase the somewhat confusing final sentence of the second-to-last paragraph of my earlier post. Here is how it should read:

I have presented a good deal of evidence for evolution in the group, which has led to comments like, "I now understand how some people could accept evolution, even if I don't fully accept it myself."

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