Towards honesty

[lerite]

Believing in the Creator, in the Christ, and in the Holy Spirit: we covenant together in this church to walk in the ways of God known or to be made known to us. As a community of concern, we pledge ourselves to worship together, learn together, and work together to further the cause of human unity.

Comments

[luinied]

I've had this open in a tab since you posted it, waiting for when I had the time to write a thoughtful reply. Except now I'm not at all sure what to say.

As a fellow former believer, a lot of this hits home pretty hard. I get a lot out of atheism, and it's absolutely better for me as a person-- and for my being a decent human being-- than being a Christian was. But what atheism has to offer is pretty different from what any religion has to offer, and there's definitely an element of human connection that's missing. Which is not something I can get from even the more pleasant atheist communities or from personal acknowledge-it's-not-about-facts spirituality.

And I very much get how being an atheist can't not come off as challenging to Christians in a way that's scarier to them than just being a member of another religion. The latter is amenable to vague "many paths to the same truth"-style thinking, but Christianity, even the most liberal Christianity, tends to encourage you to (parable irony ahoy) build your ability to be at peace with the world on the supernatural or at least metaphysical foundations it offers. No amount of respect for other's beliefs, appreciation of the benefits of religion/spirituality, or lack of desire to find converts is going to make an atheist not a threat to this. Which adds to the sense of isolation, when there are conversations-- often ones not really related to religion-- that I just can't be a part of, because my contribution would remind someone there that I'm an atheist and make them feel deeply uncomfortable.

I still go to church with my family when I see them over holidays, and I'm not going to tell them how my beliefs have shifted since I grew up, because they worry enough about whether I'm eating right and staying warm without worrying about my immortal soul. And it's not like there's someone up there judging me for deceiving by omission.

Even though I don't really understand it, having grown up Christian, I can see something appealing about how Judaism works in this regard. Every Jewish friend I've talked to has agreed with the other commenters here, that the idea that secular Jews are "culturally but not religiously Jewish" is wrong, because the religion really is about following the traditions, not about what you believe. (That said, if I were Jewish I'd probably be terrible about following the traditions.)