My favorite deconversion stories are of people who were known for their faith while they were still Christians, and earnestly and honestly struggle away from true belief, because that’s the kind of story I identify with. I’ve been reading about the recent de-conversion of Jonathan Edwards, a British triple-jumper and Olympic gold medalist. I’d never heard of him before this week (I don’t even know what triple-jumping is), but apparently he was quite famous for being a Christian during his athletic career. The link is to a Times Online interview with him (‘I have never been happier’ says the man who won gold but lost God).
Some choice quotes from the interview:
The upheaval of recent months has not left Edwards emotionally scarred, at least not visibly. “I am not unhappy about the fact that there might not be a God,” he says. “I don’t feel that my life has a big, gaping hole in it. In some ways I feel more human than I ever have. There is more reality in my existence than when I was full-on as a believer. It is a completely different world to the one I inhabited for 37 years, so there are feelings of unfamiliarity.
“The only inner problem that I face now is a philosophical one,” Edwards says. “If there is no God, does that mean that life has no purpose? Does it mean that personal existence ends at death? They are thoughts that do my head in. One thing that I can say, however, is that even if I am unable to discover some fundamental purpose to life, this will not give me a reason to return to Christianity. Just because something is unpalatable does not mean that it is not true.”
Well said. Although I personally don’t really have a problem with the idea that existence ends at death, or that life has no previously imbued purpose.
Hey I just found your blog when I was look at who has links to mine - thanks for the link!
I don’t know if we know each other - if not then, hi, nice to meet you :).
Good luck surviving life as an atheist at a Christian college. That sounds hard. Maybe at some point you will feel ready to come out of the atheist closet and then you could transfer to a place where more people understand you.
What I hope Edwards will find - and you have, or will find - is that you can give your life whatever meaning you like - which is very cool (I think). You can do things which make your corner of the world a better place, if you want, no matter whether you believe in God or not. You can affect other peoples’ lives and make a difference. And you can do it all because you WANT to, not because you should or have to or God will be upset with you if you don’t. You get to make your own decisions now.
If you thought life was an adventure with God, that’s nothing (imo) compared to the adventure it is when you aren’t trying to figure out what an Invisible Person wants you to think, do and say.
That’s how I feel, anyway
(Plus I figure I have the bases covered since I can’t imagine a decent God being bent out of shape about me wanting to help the world be a better place, anyway, if he does actually exist)
I myself started to loose belief after reading about Dan Barker (loosing faith in faith - From preacher to atheist)
I just finished reading that book for the second time.
You might say Dan Barker saved me.
Hehe, fun de-conversion stories. My journey is on my blog, titled “In Too Deep”.
In terms of life-after-death, I focus on the role I play during life. The part of me that lives forever is the positive influence I hope to have on people and society around me, and indirectly thus the generations to come. This is what I believe the question of “eternal life” is about: “how do I live an eternal life”…
I’ll be keeping an eye on this blog, it definitely resonates with me. I have to finish my thesis now, when done, I’ll be back into the fray, blogging about the chasm between religious belief and atheism. I hope to build some bridges. I don’t really care what direction people walk over said bridges, I just want to facilitate movement and communication across the chasm. (Though, of course, I have some expectations about the long term effects of such bridges. Hope is important, we all need hope…)