What follows is something i posted in the website "A Christian and An Atheist"; the atheist was previously a conservative Christian. He wrote, "I was certain that I could never deny my faith, and following Jesus was the first and most important thing in my life." Anyway, he posted his "deconversion pictures" detailing his objections against God and/or Christianity: essentially, how can one be sentenced to eternal torment just because he/she happened to pick the wrong religion? Below is my reply.
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Whoa.
First off, those are very striking, dramatic drawings. i've always wanted portraits/realism paintings to be as "realistic" as possible (if i'm using terms i just invented forgive me, i hope you know what i mean), but these are too real-looking they're disturbing.
Like others i wanted to know why Emery left Christianity, and i've checked out losingmyreligion.com already. But i think these pictures speak best. Well up to now (that i'm a Christian) it still seems unfair (to put it mildly) that a child or anyone would pick the wrong religion and BANG! But (1) can i speak for the rest of the human race when i barely knew how sinful i am? (2) The Bible speaks of God's justice (fairness!) and while i do not know about the fate of unbaptized babies or people in places where the Gospel has not yet been preached...i can see God working in my own life.
i was an agnostic/humanist for around 15 years; i "did what was right in my own eyes." But when i was supposedly at my highest point, having all i thought i wanted --- studies, money, love, career --- all these culminated in a decision that led me to lose all my principles, one by one, and left me to become such an awful person that, for the first time, i hated myself. It was so ironic that the big and small choices i made that were supposedly "right" turned out to be wrong, for me and the people around me. It was a long time before i realized that i used to define "right/good" as "what i want to do": because i saw myself as a good person there was no dilemma (i thought) between what i "want" to do and what i "must" do.
Like most Filipinos i grew up Catholic, but only heard about Biblical Christianity in snippets. Sometimes i would hear the "Good News", starting with "We are all sinners," and i would not hear the rest of it. "Excuse me," i thought, "you might be speaking for yourself but how dare you call *me* a sinner," i would think. But when i reached what turned out to be the lowest point in my life, it was quite "easy" to admit my faults; after all, i had no one else to blame for my decisions. (Of course it was quite hard to admit that i was not as good/moral/righteous as i always thought i was; but then again there actually was a time when, i tell you, it was as if my conscience vanished. :( To be honest, it was when i was seriously bent on a particular decision, and i resolved not to yield to my conscience --- God's voice --- anyway.)
Maybe Biblical Christianity is perceived to be "easy" and filled with blessing, but Jesus actually promised persecution, suffering and even death for His followers. For my case, my turning point in going back to God came when i needed help in forgiving someone; i really did not want to, and it took years for me to be able to do so, but even i knew that it was the right thing to do. Nowadays i am continuing to realize how much effort God made in reaching out to me (through that still small voice that i ignored to the point when i thought it vanished, books, family, even concerned strangers), all the time i was questioning and even dismissing His existence; not just to show that He is true, but to protect me from my right-in-my-own-eyes tendencies and decisions.
What i can conclude (even from my own life because i don't know that much about anyone else's) is that God simply does not hang around waiting for the next victim in His divine moustrap. If anything, He was doing all He can to show me that i can only live a worthy life if i was born again in His Spirit --- all the while being "unfair" only if it was for my behalf and everyone else's.
i still do not know about the fate of unbaptized babies and so on; but knowing how God moves in my own life leads me to trust in His goodness and mercy. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen."
Another point is that, as Creator, doesn't God have the authority on how to "run" things as He wants to? We "demand" that God be just, consistent, and so on, but to paraphrase, do we even have the power to add an inch to our height or make one strand of hair white or black? i believe Emery when he said that it was a tough decision for him to leave Christianity; but *with all due respect*, can this be seen as leaving any organization just because the boss is not running it the way he wants it to be run? Emery mentioned ethical and logical consequences as the cause; i think both can be chalked up to misunderstanding. (A) Ethical: not seeing God as good and perfect, or as this site says, being exposed only to the fundamentalism that focuses on the 'truth' in the "speak truth in love" passage. (B) Logical: failing to understand God fully; but does this mean God (particularly, the God of the Bible) is not true? We can try to grasp God based on His revealed Word and actions, but if we say we completely understand God, maybe He should not be called "God" after all.
Thanks for your time, and God bless and be with us all :)
teci
http://tecigurl.blogspot.com
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