“Dear Gary”

I have been involved in a conversation with Gary both here (sporadically) and on Gary’s Blog He recently made reference to a few items to flesh out.

Unfortunately, to fully understand my response, I need to back up a few paces, and respond to a specific quote:

Gary, “To be honest, I may read the first book but I doubt I'm going to read all the others, but I appreciate you giving them to me. Why won't I read them? I'm afraid.

The issue is this: I WANT to believe. So the more I read authors who tell me why I shouldn't, the more of that innocent (foolish?) childish faith I grew up with will fade away. I'm afraid of becoming you, Dagood. I don't want to wake up one morning and look in the bathroom mirror, as you did, and realize that I no longer believe; not because I want to stop believing, as you did not want to stop believing, but because the ‘evidence’ has convinced me otherwise.” (emphasis in original)

Boy…been there; done that. Numerous times throughout my entire deconversion process I longed to just set down the books…and walk away. It was hard from a time standpoint (hours spent reading, thinking, listening, watching.) It was difficult from an effort standpoint (the mental drain of locating sources, determining arguments, reviewing evidence.) It was attacking my faith, my family, my relationships and everything I understood about the world. Who would bother to engage in such masochism?

But I couldn’t walk away. Because walking away would give in to the very fear you describe, Gary. If I wanted to know truth—be persuaded by what actually is—I should NEVER be afraid of reading. Of scrutiny. Of testing, probing, prying, pinching, prancing, pushing and punching. While truth may not always be able to prove itself, it certainly cannot shy away or avoid inspection. It should welcome it.

As Paul, said “Test everything; hold on to what is good.” 1 Thess. 5:21

If I walked away, vowing to never read another word on the subject again, I was acknowledging I no longer wanted to know what was true—I only wanted to believe what I wanted to believe. I would let desire dictate my course; not what actually is.

And this is contrary to every fiber in my being. I live my life in realism—dealing with what actually is. Almost every single case involves someone wishing they had done something differently. Not driven that night. Not taken that road. Read the contract. Inspected the property. Paid the penalty provision immediately. But they didn’t. And now they come to me, forcing us together to determine what the best course of action is, based upon the situation we are in. We can’t “create” evidence we don’t have. We can’t go back in time and change a course. We must determine a solution with what we have.

In the same way, as I studied, I recognized I must deal with reality. If God is the Christian God—so be it. If God was a malevolent bastard—equally so be it. Whether God was completely unknowable, partially unknowable, or some theist was spot-on with everything they said about God—so be it. If God was the God of the Protestant Bible, the Catholic Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Koran, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pantheistic, polytheistic, monotheistic, Republican, Libertarian, Communist, etc.—so be it.

And if God does not exist—while a reality I was not particularly fond of—then so be it. Whatever Christians say, if it is true, it shouldn’t be afraid of scrutiny. Likewise any other theistic or non-theistic belief.

Otherwise, how would we ever know we are wrong about something? Of the three (3) books I recommended, two are written by Christians. The other (Shermer is not a Christian), dealt with topics outside Christianity like Holocaust denial and UFO’s. Why should you be afraid to read books written by Christians?

See, once we eliminate reading non-Christian books out of fear of changing our beliefs--the next, very short step is to stop reading Christian books differing with our position out of fear of changing our beliefs. Then we begin to read only those books completely agreeing with us.

If we don’t learn differing positions, how will we know whether we are wrong? If all you ever do is read what you agree with, you will never change your mind.

So now I am asked:

Gary: “Where do you think you would be today in regards to Christianity if on that day that you came across the atheist blog on the internet, and saw the disturbing discrepancies regarding the death of Judas Iscariot, you had simply told yourself, ‘I don't want to know’, and chose to never again look at an atheist or other blog that questioned the validity of the Bible and the Resurrection?”

My response is the same as above. I am a realist. I DID stumble across Internet Infidels. I cannot erase the chance happening from my mind. As common vernacular would say, “What has been seen, cannot be unseen.” Or if you prefer old school, “You cannot unring a bell.”

I cannot even perform a mental exercise of supposing I happened upon IIDB, read a few posts and told myself, “I don’t want to know,” choosing to never look again. It is completely against everything in my personality. It is against my personal philosophy. It is against my nature of being me. Like asking, “What if someone tickled you and you decided to not do anything about it?” I just….couldn’t. I would react.

I believed in Christianity. This was about Christianity. I love discovery. I love learning. I had no fear of a problem; truth can withstand the scrutiny.

Finally, I must clarify for any possible lurkers... the “disturbing discrepancies” within the Judas Iscariot contradiction were NOT the contradictions themselves. It was the extremely poor methodology being employed in reviewing the various accounts. The Judas story was merely the symptom—the disease was the method of “any possible resolution resolves a contradiction.” Which, in itself, even this method turned out to be a symptom of the invasive underlying disease of poor and inconsistent methodology throughout various tenets of Christianity, including inerreancy, canonicity, inspiration, and historical methodology.