TONIGHT we meet at shoe lane at 7pm for bible study. THE PREVIOUS E-MAIL WAS DRAFTED YESTERDAY, BUT SENT TODAY. SORRY!
I finally found the gumption to respond the sender (It was at one point, "Pops," Dennis Adams, then it was Jared Demerrit, when he left, I didn't know who it was) and ask if I could have my e-mail removed from the list. Here's my e-mail:
Dear E-mail List (I don't know who sends these out anymore),
I went to FBC for about a year or more, about 3 or so years ago. I had always been pretty skeptical of God, Jesus, and the Bible. In hindsight I should have known that I was a bad Christian one day in Sunday School. My teachers were Rob (I can't remember his name, but he was a pretty awesome guy; he does music.) and Joey Beck. They were talking about Heaven. They talked about the massive pearls and the gates that adorned the entrance to heaven. They talked about the throne where God sat. They mentioned how Jesus sat to his right (my left). They then mentioned eternal worship.
I was terrified. I thought, "No way. There's no way that the God I want to believe in would be so megalomaniacal as to make me stay on my knees, singing his praises, for ETERNITY." Two things bug me about that: 1) Unless those clouds are really soft, my knees would be killing me, and 2) Eternity? I can't imagine eternity. But imagining an eternity where I would be forced (or I guess, by acting in accordance to the bible, chose) to worship our infinitely merciful God sucked. If he was infinitely merciful, I like to think he'd give me something awesome - like a massive pool filled with a 1:5 mix of chocolate syrup and ice cream, respectfully.
In any case, that's when I should have realized that I was a bad Christian. It turns out that I didn't realize. It took me going to college to realize it. Once I was out of the culture of the youth group and church in general, I had absolutely no motivation to go. I didn't feel any stirrings of the "Holy Spirit" in my life. I read the bible once or twice, but it wasn't inspiring to me. I continued to pray, but I felt like I was talking to myself (don't people put straight jackets on the "crazies" who do the same?). I just didn't really believe, but I was afraid. I was afraid of eternal damnation. I'd been exposed to Pascal's Wager in Sunday School. Essentially: "If I live my life believing in God, and it turns out that I'm wrong - I lose nothing. If I live my life not believing in God, and I'm wrong - I lose everything."
This isn't an argument for God's existence, and it isn't even a good reason to believe in God. It's fear-mongering at its finest. And it works. I was still afraid of being smothered in a pit of fire and brimstone; of being eternally tortured and maimed, for a reason as simple as disobeying my parents. For some reason, I believe that God (if He existed), would be a bit more upset that I didn't believe in Him than if I told my mom that she's being silly for enforcing a curfew on me.
However, after much thought, examination of the evidence (or lack thereof), reading, more thought, and more examination, I decided that there is no God. I could elaborate on the heart-wrenching guilt that I felt when my actions didn't match the biblical archetype, but I won't.
I apologize if this seems vitriolic and angry, because that's not the case. It's not as though a lack of god(s) has made me inherently bitter and angry at the world. In fact, the reverse is true. Now, I stare in awe at how the world works, instead of basking in the ignorance that religion so earnestly promotes. For example, the more a person is educated, the more a person is exposed to the evidence - the more his or her "faith" is revered. I didn't read that from a book, that's at FBC. If you don't believe that statement, just think about it for a minute. The faith of a Rocket Scientist is more revered than that of a farmer (I added this in hindsight, to clarify what I meant).
Faith is exhalted as some mystical force that one must posess in order to be virtuous. But faith is just something that's invoked when one doesn't understand something. You wouldn't say that it takes faith to understand that 2 gallons of water being pushed through a pipe, with the same amount of force, is going to go faster if the diameter of the pipe is smaller. However, faith is a perfectly acceptable for other things, such as how Man came to be, or what happens after this life. Religion says that it's okay to question; as long as the answers don't interfere with established dogma, thus fostering ignorance.
In any case, I've decided not to believe in a personal, omnipotent, and omnipresent god. It bothers me when people refuse to look at the evidence. It bothers me when people don't believe that our explanations for how life originated and evolved are more wondrous and exciting than "God made it." And that may help explain some of the inherent tension in this e-mail.
Finally, I write to you to ask to be removed from this list. I've wanted to do this for a while, I just figured it would come off as a bit douchey. I appreciate your time, and I apologize for the length of this e-mail.
Thanks,
Brad Carter
I didn't get a response until the next day:
We're having fellowship and Bible study again tonight @ 7pm! ~ The address is [ADDRESS]. in Newport News.Also, Jamie Keithley and some of the Young Singles are going bowling tonight. Call Jamie if you're interested :) Her cell is [NUMBER].See you later!
Drew
I was pissed. My e-mail was really well thought out and well written, yet I didn't get a response. So I responded:
Dear Drew,
Apparently my last e-mail was too long winded. I hope that you'll forgive me and allow me another opportunity:
Please take me off of this list.
Don't make me speak to God about the matter.
Love,
Brad
Was it rude? Maybe. Anyway, I got a response. Not from Drew, who was apparently sending the e-mails, but from "Pops," Dennis Adams.
Hi Brad! This is Mr. Adams (Pops), the Music guy at First Baptist. I hope all is going well with you. How was school this year?
I hope you thought you might hear from me after your e-mail from earlier in the week. I appreciate how you are feeling, and it is good that you are putting so much thought into religion and spiritual matters. I would be lying if I said I'm okay with what you are feeling. I am sad to the core, and I would love to sit down and talk with you. I guess you'll let me know if that can happen or not.
My biggest problem is, based on your e-mail, I am spending my entire life and career chasing a myth. If you are right, I'm a fool. I don't feel at all foolish for trusting in something unseen. I guess that's faith.
If I was an elementary school dropout, I could accept that I am un illiterate bumpkin with no basis for what i claim to be truth. However, even though I don't belong to MENSA, I did learn a few things in my 8 years of college. What I realize is the more I read and study, the more I realize I do not know.
Is it possible that you opened the door a tiny crack back in high school to let a little religion trickle in, and now you have thrown the door wide open for unbelief to flood into your mind and heart?
Are you ticked at me yet? My intention is to explore the possibility of a dialogue with you, whether it's e-mail or face-to-face.
I remember our time in youth choir, and especially choir tour. The Brad from then does not seem to be the Brad from today. What actually has happened? How did you become so enlightened? You know the old saying about if it looks like poo, and smells like poo, and tastes like poo, it must be poo?
Do you dismiss all evidence of God ever having existed in your life?
Can we talk? I have only the fondest memories of you, and I wouldn't be much of a person or friend if I didn't at least try to catch up with you. If you are right, I need to know before I throw away the rest of my career working for someone who doesn't exist.
I do love you and hope we can get together. I'll even go so far as to say that we can get together and not even discuss religion. I promise.
The next e-mail will come from you. I won't bug you again, but you can bet your bottom dollar, whatever that is, that you are being prayed for, even if you don't want it.
Please don't be angry with me. I am going to move your e-mail address from the young singles account to my own.
I am at dadams1054@gmail.com.
I am your friend,
Dennis Adams
So I decided to respond. It took me an hour and a half to write this response:
After that mouth full, I went to bed. The next morning, this was in my inbox:
Pops!
You didn't have to say the Music guy. I remember you, as you remember me, with nothing but fondness. I respect you, and I won't get angry with you. Anyone who can't discuss something as dear to them as their religious beliefs without going bonkers probably needs to re-examine those beliefs and find their source of insecurity. Sorry if that last e-mail seemed a little angry. What I meant to accomplish with the first e-mail was to just explain, even a little, why I wanted to be off the list. I didn't want to send a "Hey, take me off this list," e-mail, because I felt that it would be disrespectful. It's not that the e-mails offend me - they don't. It's not that they're annoying - even though the sheer volume of e-mails sometimes is. It's just the fact that I'm hardly in Newport News, and when I am, I don't feel that pull to go to church.
So let me get to my response.My biggest problem is, based on your e-mail, I am spending my entire life and career chasing a myth. If you are right, I'm a fool. I don't feel at all foolish for trusting in something unseen. I guess that's faith.
If I was an elementary school dropout, I could accept that I am un illiterate bumpkin with no basis for what i claim to be truth. However, even though I don't belong to MENSA, I did learn a few things in my 8 years of college. What I realize is the more I read and study, the more I realize I do not know.I don't understand how Muslims can denounce the beliefs of the Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Ancient Greeks or Egyptians, Zoroastrians, or Native Americans, while wholeheartedly accepting that their God is the one "true" god.
I would have to respectfully agree about you probably chasing a myth.
I don't understand how Christians can denounce the beliefs of the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Ancient Greeks or Egyptians, Zoroastrians, or Native Americans, while wholeheartedly accepting that their God is the one "true" god.
I don't understand how Jews can denounce the beliefs of the Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Ancient Greeks or Egyptians, Zoroastrians, or Native Americans, while wholeheartedly accepting that their God is the one "true" god.
Etc, etc.
Everyone believes that their own God(s) is the true God. They can't all be right. One's beliefs are most often determined by their place of birth. If you and I were born in, say, Iran, we'd undoubtedly be Allah fearing Muslims. We may not have been as zealous as some, but there's a good chance that we'd believe that the infidel deserve to die. If we were born in India, we'd likely be Hindu, fearing Krishna or Vishnu. Luckily for us, we weren't born in those countries. We were born in a country where you're free to believe anything (Who knows, maybe Tom Cruise is right?) or nothing at all.
Your last sentence is a good thought, and it's one which I agree. Religion (I'll focus on Christianity, because I don't really know as much about the others) preaches certitude. Ask anyone in FBC's congregation, and whether or not they truly believe it, they will respond to the question, "Do you believe, with 100% certainty, that there is life after death?" with a "Yes." I don't know if there's life after death; however, the evidence seems to point to "no" (I'll probably expound on that later). In any case, Religion preaches absolute certainty. Everyone is 100% sure that Jesus will come back and judge everyone. The End Times have been near since the Bible was written. I don't claim 100% knowledge of everything. I claim doubt. I doubt that what's in the Bible is true. I doubt that there's life after death, and I hope that there's not - for an afterlife cheapens this life. I doubt lots of things. But I do believe.
I believe in science. Science can't prove anything. It can only give us probabilities: "There's less than a 5% chance that these results would be duplicated by chance." This is the standard which most Scientists and Doctors base their empirical studies. Some go for a less than 1% chance. However, science is backed up by replicating studies and reproducing results.
If a study is replicated, but the results are not - then it is replicated by another scientist. If that scientist cannot replicate the results, it is replicated again by another scientist. Eventually, we realize that someone made an error, or the original faked their data. To see this, google Dr. Andrew Wakefield. He started the whole, "MMR Vaccine causes Autism" scare in the 90s. He's since been disproven. My point is that Science is all about replication. If something is replicated enough, it's seen as fact, though it may be formally called a theory. If there was evidence for God's existence, then there would be no Atheists, Jews, Muslims, etc. I would happily change my beliefs if it were experiments or studies could reliably and empirically prove that God existed. And saying that God exists outside of the Natural world, to me, seems like a cop-out.
But back to science. If something is replicated enough, it's seen as fact, though it may be formally called a theory. This is a case of semantics. For example, it is still called the "Heliocentric Theory," yet no one would argue that the Earth doesn't orbit the Sun. However, when you muddle in the origins of Man, people get uppity and harp that "Evolutionary Theory" is just a theory. Just a side note: I firmly believe in Evolution. Could it be disproven one day? Of course. Find us an animal (on earth) with DNA unlike anything we've ever seen here, and there's your proof. It takes but one case to disprove science. However, there's currently no other theory that could explain why we share ANY genes AT ALL with bacteria (Not to mention, fossil evidence and DNA evidence.) Evolution is accepted amongst the Scientific community with the same veracity that the Heliocentric theory is accepted. No reputable Biologist disagrees that through Natural Selection, animals adapt and evolve to survive in their natural environments. There are disagreements about whether Evolution is Gradual and Continuous, or intermittent and jumpy. Notably, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould disagree, respectively. While they disagree they do, however, believe that life arose through the evolution of species. FWIW, I agree with Dawkins - evolution is gradual.
Sorry about that digression. I'm a big fan of Evolution.I'm not sure how to answer this first part. I came to church because I was skeptical. I was skeptical of God, Jesus, and Religion in general. I was skeptical of Atheists, Muslims, Jews, and others. I didn't understand how they knew that they were right. So I came. I came. And I came. And I came. This is supposed to be repetitive. Have you ever wondered why you're supposed to go to church? And you're supposed to immerse yourself in the Bible? This is undoubtedly because whenever one immerses themselves in a specific subset of a culture, in a certain field, in a certain discipline, they believe it. The farther you are away from the church and the bible, the less likely it is to have a hold on you. Also, think of the children. Have you ever wondered why St. Francis said, "Give me the boy until the age of seven, I'll give you the man."? When I was in church, I was still very impressionable. I'm not saying that I believed because I was impressionable, or that the church purposely deceived me. Most people I met were good people with good intentions. But, as they say, "The road to hell was paved with good intentions."Is it possible that you opened the door a tiny crack back in high school to let a little religion trickle in, and now you have thrown the door wide open for unbelief to flood into your mind and heart?
Are you ticked at me yet? My intention is to explore the possibility of a dialogue with you, whether it's e-mail or face-to-face.
I remember our time in youth choir, and especially choir tour. The Brad from then does not seem to be the Brad from today. What actually has happened? How did you become so enlightened? You know the old saying about if it looks like poo, and smells like poo, and tastes like poo, it must be poo?
Anyway, I believed what I heard, sort of. I was always questioning. I remember asking Adrian (Mark's wife...don't know if I spelled her name right) how it was that Moses, Aaron, and the people in the old testament lived close to 1000 years. She explained to me that there are a few theories, and that one is that there weren't as many people, and thus there wasn't as much sin in the world - so they lived longer. So I thanked her and thought, "Well, the population has been growing exponentially...yet people are living longer. That doesn't make sense."
Naturally, I threw it aside and trusted that it'd all work itself out. And it didn't. I had lots of questions, and none were answered satisfactorily. Unfortunately, I don't remember them all. However, one I do remember is contradictions in the Bible. I wondered how, if the Bible was the word of God, and God was infallible, how the Bible could possibly have contradictions in it. No one ever answered that question for me, so I just had to let it settle. These seeds of doubt were planted before I headed off to school, where I wasn't surrounded by Christians, eager to protect my belief in God. I had opportunities to surround myself with Christians, but for some reason I didn't.
As far as what happened, how I became "Enlightened," it was a very, very gradual process. Up to even last year, I would see a beautiful sunset and say to myself, "How can you not believe that SOMETHING created that for US?" This was before I was exposed to other explanations. As I said in my last e-mail, religion rewards questioning, when it doesn't interfere with established dogma. The ignorance fostered by this is astounding. Did you know that some people actually believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old? People still doubt evolution, because it's apparently seen as a kind of insult to humanity. "You're the product of 3 and a half billion years of evolution."(Some often forget that everything is always evolving. Bears are also a product of 3 and a half billion years of evolution. So are mice, shrews, squid, and pine trees.) I don't see how it's such an insult, but some take offense to it.
I've been exposed to the creationist view of how life came about, and I find it much less intellectually satisfying than the truth. The thought of Noah riding a triceratops is ludicrous. And if the argument is that God created life, then what created God? The creator of the creator must have had a creator. The creator of the creator's creator must have had a creator. Ad infinitum.
There's a lot of intolerance, ignorance, and injustice carried out and maintained in the name of God. It's just not for me. So I guess you're right. The Bible, and by association, God, must be poo. :)Do you dismiss all evidence of God ever having existed in your life?
Can we talk? I have only the fondest memories of you, and I wouldn't be much of a person or friend if I didn't at least try to catch up with you. If you are right, I need to know before I throw away the rest of my career working for someone who doesn't exist.
I do love you and hope we can get together. I'll even go so far as to say that we can get together and not even discuss religion. I promise.
Yes. Mostly because there wasn't any evidence of God in my life. If God sent me a letter, or spoke to me, I'd say there was evidence. If he ever showed himself to me whilst I was in a sober state of mind (a lot of people see God when they're high), I would say that there was evidence of God in my life. But there wasn't. For instance, when I was Baptized. It was the culmination of my Christian "career." I was dunked under the water, and pulled out to the applause of the congregation. I walked up the steps and into the hallway. All I felt was cold from my damp clothes and that incredible AC. I spoke to Carlie about it and she said that she felt something. Something she couldn't explain. She labeled it the "Holy Spirit." She said she felt Him around her as she was dunked. I didn't feel that. I felt nothing. I just hoped that Brian Williams was strong enough to lift me back out of the water.
I'd love to talk to you. I just know from personal experience, that unless someone is willing to hear what the other person is saying, there's no hope for change. I could listen to you about God, and how you know that he exists, but it probably wouldn't change my mind. I could talk to you about all of the evidence against God, and about how there's none in favor of Him, but it wouldn't change your mind. So I doubt you'll be "Throwing away your career." I have no doubts that you honestly believe in God. That you believe that Jesus died, was resurrected 3 days later, and will be back sometime in the future. I have no doubt that you believe that God truly exists and has revealed himself to you. I have no doubt about that. But I doubt I could change your mind, even if I tried.
Which brings me to my almost final point. I'm not trying to change your mind. I cannot find the exact quote right now, but it's by Dan Barker, who wrote Losing Faith in Faith, and Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became one of America's Leading Atheists. It roughly said that, "One does not actively try to "convert" another to atheism. It is a private, personal journey, made all the stronger by an intimate examination of the evidence, and deciding what to believe accordingly." I don't try to tell people that they're wrong for believing what they do. If it makes them comfortable to believe that there's something up there watching everything we do, great. If they gain security in the belief in the afterlife, awesome. But I don't.
I appreciate the correspondence, and look forward to your response.
Take care Pops.
With love,
Brad
my dear friend,
while we disagree, i love that our friendship is based on mutual respect and not dependent on our religious views. i would absolutely love to get with you for lunch or just to hang out. when can we make that happen? btw, we do not have to discuss religion. i'd really like to just find out about your life, college, plans, etc. you know, the stuff of life.
always your friend,
dennis/pops/mr. adams
I haven't responded yet because I'm not sure if I want to speak with him. I haven't spoken to him in years, but I may catch up with him.
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