The older I get and the more I contemplate what religion, spirituality, and worldview is, the more secure I get in my own religion, spirituality, and worldview, the more secure I get in the understanding that atheism is just another characterization of reality just like mine.
Because honestly speaking, I feel like I have more in common with an atheist than with a modern Christian. I learned how to agree with Christians a few years ago, but when I’m honest with myself, I share more with rationally-minded atheists than with Christians. Even though I argue with atheists more than Christians.
There’s a weird law that I don’t know what the name is, but it states that you are far more likely to have a heated argument with someone whose opinions differ slightly from yours than one who’s opinion differs greatly.
I’m Christian more in theology than I am in mindset. And I feel modern Christians are more invested in mindset than in theology. Weirdly, I feel that modern atheists are close to Christians in theology just like I am. Atheists will largely agree with Christian morals and tradition, disagreeing with their mindset and theology.
I agree with Christian theology. Jesus died for our sins, sin is as it’s told in the Hebrew Bible and re-contextualized by the New Testament. I do not agree with Christian mindset. I don’t think I need to constantly live my life according to surrender and humility. I think there is room for wanting God and Jesus to cater to me instead of me catering to them. I believe there is this room because I believe God and Jesus told me so.
Naturally, atheists will think this is stupid and silly and such. But from a theological standpoint, atheism is the same thing! When you reject God and Christianity, you are demanding the ability to live life outside of God’s taught understanding. If God really created the world, then not believing in Him means that atheists are demanding that God serve them rather than the other way around. Theologically the two positions and worldviews are very similar.
So I have to decide, as a current theist, whether my time as an atheist as a teenager was formative or a horrible mistake. As a current theist, I believe that God must have influenced my direction, that me becoming an atheist is better at fifteen was better than the alternative. After all, I could have found God then rather than 10 years later.
I now believe that believing is better than not believing, meaning that if I’m not believing, then there must have been a very good reason, one only understandable by God Himself. Therefore, atheism is a good thing for some.
Meaning that if you were a certain kind of theist, it’s quite useful for you to become an atheist. Meaning it’s a kind of awakening. That you understand something now, having become an atheist, that you didn’t understand before, being some kind of atheist.
If you’re reading this, invested in the line of logic I’m drawing, know that I feel more in common with you, leaner towards atheism, believer in rationalism over theology, than I do with the Christians who have fully surrendered to Jesus over rationalism. I want Jesus to be rational, I will not accept a Christianity that cannot be rational. Ask me what I believe and how I got there. I will answer honestly. Decide whether I’m a kook or a genius or just a dipshit.