Why We Let An Atheist Join Our Church:

Because life is an ineffable mystery, religion speaks in pictures and symbols. To accept or reject the symbols literally is to miss the point from two different sides. Those who fight over whether God exists are like foolish pedestrians who praise or curse a red light as they step into oncoming traffic. The question isn't whether God exists like a brick exists, but rather "what part of our experience does the symbol 'God' reveal and what parts does it obscure?"

The problem with most religious discussions is that we are usually swimming in a sea of undefined terms. What sense does it make to ask whether God exists if we don't define what we mean by the term "God." For some it's easier to reconcile themselves to the universe by picturing a large person overseeing the process, while others reconcile themselves to the ground by using impersonal elemental images. These approaches are in conflict only when we forget what we are trying to do in the first place, which is to harmonize with the ground of our being...

As William James pointed out, religion is not merely hypothetical opinion about the world. Religion is most essentially a decision to be engaged in a world that cannot be understood and offers no guarantees. "God" is a symbol of the truth that stands outside our widest context. "God" is a symbol of the reality deeper than our ultimate concern. "God" is a symbol of the mystery that lies between the poles of our clearest rational dichotomy. The point is not to affirm the reality of the symbol itself, but to affirm the reality to which the symbol points.

More and more, I'm starting to think that the liberal religious people are onto something. There's this treatment of God as a symbol and not an actual being (sort of) that I've been completely unfamiliar with, and I'm starting to see how it could be useful.

It's funny, I find myself identifying less and less with the online atheist community. So many of them are so reactionary and so hateful towards religious people. I understand that they're angry, and I understand that most of them don't live in a place as open and varied as Toronto, a place where I can be religious or non-religious without any consequence. I don't envy the bible-belt dwellers! But then I see discussions about how they find it impossible to have respect for theists and I can't believe what I'm reading. I just don't get it. Maybe because I remember how natural it was to believe in God. How could I lose respect for theists without losing respect for myself? It wasn't so long ago that I was one.

I found the Internet Infidels discussion forum to be really helpful when I was first leaving Christianity, but now it seems silly to me. There are so many arguments that I've seen rehashed over and over for years. I don't need to rant about all of that anymore. I'm significantly less angry, and I'm starting to see more variations of Christianity, variations that I would be much more comfortable with than the evangelical sort that I grew up with. I do find it interesting that these variations use practically the same vocabulary, but they use it so differently, and it makes it almost impossible to get a discussion going between the two. So many of the rants I find online are so simplistic, they assume that all Christians are like this, and all atheists are like that, and it just doesn't work that way. There are so many ways of being Christian, and so many ways of being atheist, and even some ways of being both.

I've been thinking about grad school lately, and considering an ethnographic study of evangelical culture. It would be a good project, almost guaranteed to get funding, but every time I think about it, I cringe inside and think, "I'm never going to get away from them, am I? Isn't it time I move on? I would have to go to church!" I was talking a friend last weekend who used to be Christian (like practically all my friends from home, you bunch of heathens!) and who said that he never thinks about it anymore. I don't know how he manages it—I think about these things constantly. Sometimes I wish I could just turn it off.