lol Hi Carlita
I agree, but we can love people, animals, nature...why do we need to create a supreme being, or the idea of one, to feel love?
I agree, I'm not ready to label or identify with it just yet, but my mind is there. It's been there for a while, but my heart needed more.
But, now...I don't want fear or lack of what I'm familiar with, to be mistaken for love of a god. On some level, maybe I'll always hope that a god exists, hope is a very good thing. But, we also live in the real world, and it's important to view ourselves as capable, and not wait for an outside being to swoop down and save the day.
It would probably be more ''true'' to how I'm thinking about it all now, than not. But, I have a friend who is a spiritual atheist...and that I can totally get. I believe we are all connected, and that the unknown is very mysterious and exciting to think about it. I don't only live for the now, but I think about the footprint I'll leave behind. That kind of connection to the universe makes sense to me.
If you remove god from the equation...in every single equation in your life where you placed him, would the outcome of those events have gone differently? Would you be different? I think for me, that in some ways, faith has weakened me, in terms of not being able to make sound decisions. I'm often torn all the time and second guessing, always feeling unworthy. Christianity has a way of making believers feel like without God, we are nothing. On some level, that sounds beautiful but on another level, it can erode one's self confidence, in a very slow subtle way.
I know far more Christians who judge everyone, and see the 'plank in their brother's eye and not their own' ...than atheists. That's a fact. lol
I think that my values will always be my own. I don't need the ten commandments to keep me in line, and it's amazing that way back when, people actually needed them. But, in all honesty...is it more likely that two tablets of rules came from a burning bush, or were they just sound and just laws to keep the masses under control...but the idea of an angry god was tossed in to bring about more obedience? lol
I'ma come back and re-read, but I was thinking of how I handled the two. In my case, it was a bit more easy because I didn't have a religious background and/or indoctrinated as many ex-christians are. The four year indoctrination was enough for me! Good experiences but I can see why people would have bad views on it given the nature of Christianity and/or the Church.
What I did going back to CA (Anonymous), I studied the bible, then I really reflected what and who I thought god really was. I never believed in god so I never got that head start; but, they defined him as jesus and I believed in spirits so that kinda worked out. Then as I reflected, I realize beyond a symbolic view, god is life.
If you think about it, you don't have to drop your belief in god because if you replace life in every place where god is in scripture and the church (and make pronouns It rather than He), it's the same thing.
When life loves you (or you find love in life), you have the benefits of gratitude and salvation of your self in return.
When you go to church you are going to a group of people/body/mass that worships or that communes in gratitude and love for life as one body.
When you read scripture and see god so loved the world, you think god? How can god love the world? Then you think, wait, god can't be separate from his creation. He is an image of his creation. Mirror. So, basically life is loving life. It's a tongue twister. It's combobulated way of saying life in itself is a product of love and that love is a product of life itself. The creator (personified life) is basically a cultural way of saying you are loved.
You don't have to drop that as an self-acclaimed atheist. To me, the only thing you're really dropping is interacting with the community and using language that you don't identify with. Heaven is when you die with a smile. Hell is when you have regrets or unrepented things that separate you from life. No one knows what the afterlife may bring.
As an atheist you don't have to drop the heaven/hell thing because it just means either you're connected to love/life or you're not. Just people want to die with a smile. My grandfather and grandmother passed away smiling.
I don't know what denomination you went to as a christian, but if I went back, I'd be catholic. For me, I'd have to learn how to identify with god/life as I know it by experience and I have to identify with sacrifice and salvation/eucharist by how I live my life for the good and repent/forgive myself and others for the things I've done that broke humanity not just myself. The Church teaches all of that. I just wish they didn't use death of millions and sacrifice of a person to do so. Shrugs.
But being an atheist, you don't have to drop that. It's just different terminology. When you go against your values (sin), you learn how to forgive yourself and forgive others if need be. It's a gratitude for living and when you separate yourself by that sin, you separate yourself from love and that love is life itself (if we want to think of it that way).
As an atheist, you can still repent. You can still be saved. You can still worship. In my opinion, it's really the community and language you may have friction with because they want to do and say things X way when you only understand them in Y way.
That's okay.
On RF, you see so many definitions of god that as a strong atheist myself, I just throw my hands up and say "huh??" Okayeee... if you guys say so. The closest I got was Brahma but then that's just surface level. Pagan gods, forget it.
Anyway, the meaning and influence of christianity you don't have to give up as an atheist. It's mainly the community, scripture, and language that is different not your connection with it if you still feel that. My connection was broken when I studied the history of Christianity, it's influence on our societal laws, equality of people for centuries, and how it influences people in my immediate environment. I can't represent christianity.
But everyone is different. Reflection is good. I love labels. Lesbian is cool, but I'm a gay woman instead. Some people use Queer. It's a personal choice. To me, it defines me in all aspects not just sexuality.
If atheist does that for you, go for it!
The only thing that can stop you is falling asleep reading my post.