de-conversion

Preaching Atheism

I feel this topic (which has been sitting on my computer for some time now) is a suitable one in light of recent rebranding. To preach or not to preach?

Ever since I left my Christian faith behind me and became an agnostic atheist, I have had a huge moral dilemma in my life - should I try to ‘convert’ theists to a more freethinking way of life? The problem is this – having left Christianity, I now feel I have achieved some kind of enlightenment. I’ve realised that I now believe what I want and life is pretty much how I want it to be. Now I have discovered this, I feel I want to help others achieve the same freedom of thought and help them gain freedom them from the semi-brainwashing that some religions seem to employ.

However, I’m also a great believer in leaving people to think what they wish and being accepting of people from other belief and faiths. I am privileged to know people of many different faiths, and I realise my friendship with them would get nowhere if I were constantly attacking the religious wall of blind faith around them. However, am I morally obliged to help them towards what I see as true freedom of thought?

Continue Reading 50 comments June 28, 2007

Why should we be good?

This post is partly in response to a comment I read asking why agnostic atheists should aim to love, be compassionate and what you might call general goodness. One of the things I miss about being a Christian is the motivation I had to be good (for now, let’s assume that goodness includes love, mercy, compassion, kindness, generosity, etc.). However, now that I’m an agnostic atheist, I find myself questioning why I should be good even though I still do my best to be so.

So, why do I bother? Why don’t I selfishly ignore the needs of others in an ongoing quest to promote my own personal happiness? I think for me, it’s because in helping others I do promote my own happiness. When I give money to charity, I no longer do it because I believe Jesus said I should, I do it because I’ve realised that it makes me feel good. In a simplistic way, when I hear stories of starving children, I feel sad, therefore to make myself feel happy again, I give money to the charity in the hope that I have contributed to giving those children a better life. This makes me happy…

Continue Reading 16 comments April 4, 2007

Theism, agnosticism and atheism

I would like to start off this entry with a diagram I made earlier:

THEISM ————————— AGNOSTICISM ————————— ATHEISM

That is the chart of theistic ideas as I see it. This site, of course, represents a view about here:

THEISM ————————— AGNOSTICISM ————————— ATHEISM
————————————————————————–^

Many people have asked me why I don’t simply call myself either an agnostic or an atheist. Why blend these into one? Well, here are the reasons as I see them.

First, let me clarify that by ‘God’ I do not just mean a higher power. I’m more referring to the “loving” Christian God type of being. Now, I’m sure most people would agree that a person on the true path of rationality would not be on the theist end due to the complete lack of hard evidence for God…

Continue Reading 11 comments March 30, 2007