Lately, I've been trying to articulate some of the ways that my thinking has changed since I left evangelical Christianity (as opposed to Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, or liberal Christianity; further references to Christianity refer to the evangelical version). It is hard to express these things in a way that makes sense both to my secular friends and religious friends at the same time.
1. Starting Points
I think a lot of the difference between then and now is that I have a different starting point. When I was a Christian, my starting point was the Bible. Actually, my starting point was my understanding of God, and from there I interpreted the Bible, and from there I interpreted the world around me. Now I do it the other way around—I start with the world around me and make conclusions based on that. I should note that this is also how science works, including sciences like Linguistic Syntax. The theory is built from the data, and if the data contradicts the theory, you update the theory to fit the data.
Christianity isn't like that. From infancy, we are taught that God is love, that God is just, that God knows everything and his judgements are fair. We are taught that things happen for a reason and that God is in control. When inexplicable things, hurtful and unfair things, happen to us, we struggle to place them into this system where an all-powerful God who loves us allows us to suffer. It is not an option to allow the data to inform the theory; we do not conclude that God is lacking in power or love just because our friends die of cancer or our devout family member commits suicide. Such conclusions are anathema; they are not allowed. This is because they would change the very basis of the faith, and this is risky. The worldview and self-concept of the Christian is based on God being loving and powerful and just, not on the world around her/him.
These starting points are like the first floor of a building. If you've already built up to the tenth floor and it turns out that the first floor is fatally flawed, you need to tear the whole thing down and start over. However, if it is just the tenth floor that has a problem, you can take that that part down and rebuilt, leaving the rest intact.
So, for the Christian with the image of God (triune, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omnipresent, author of the Bible) as the first floor of our hypothetical building, if circumstances seem to contradict this idea, we have two options. We can either ignore or reinterpret these circumstances in a way that matches our starting point, thus leaving our worldview intact, or we can tear the whole thing down and start over.
For the non-religious person whose starting point is the data (i.e. experiences in life, gathered information, etc.), this first floor is not one's theory or beliefs about the world. It is just observations. One's theory is built up based on this data and if it doesn't fit the data, it makes the "building" very unstable and so you end up taking that floor down and building a different type of theory that fits the data better. This does not mean that one's theory ends up being perfect, I think we probably spend our lives building and tearing down and rebuilding theories over and over again, but that's the great thing about this model—you're free to change your mind and grow from your experiences.
When confronted with data that contradict (seem to contradict, however you'd like to express it) the Christian idea of God, Christians often resort to ideas that serve to protect this idea as it is rather than altering this idea to fit the data. This is why so many people say things like "God's ways are higher than our ways," or "God has a reason for everything, this must serve a good purpose in the eternal scale of things," or "Who are you to question God?" From my perspective, what these statements are actually saying is, "Yeah, that first floor is starting to look kind of shaky, but we can't tear it down! It's the first floor! Then we would have no building, that's terrifying!" It is terrifying. I know—I tore it down.
It's terrifying to tear it down because it's no small thing to destroy God, and you end up destroying and reinventing your concept of yourself and the world around you in the process. This is why I feared for most of my life that I would lose my faith and subsequently become suicidal. I saw no other meaning in life than serving God, because he was the basis for everything. However, it turned out that there are a million possible first floors that one can build from, and I decided to build from the data that I currently have, and from that I am constantly adding different floors (or theories) that represent patterns that I've seen in the world around me and conclusions that I've made so far. It's much easier to tear these floors down and rebuild, and it's not nearly so terrifying.
2. Relativism, or Not Caring About What Other People Believe
As a Christian, it was my duty as a good person to care what my friends or family believed, because their eternal destiny was contingent on it. If someone that I loved had not accepted my belief system, I believed that they were going to Hell and could easily avoid it by turning to God. If I were not to try to influence them towards a decision that would ultimately save them from eternal damnation, what kind of a friend would I be?
For this reason, when I get concerned letters from friends and family that try to persuade me to return to the faith, I see that they are concerned about me and that it is a gesture of love on their part, and accept it as such. I understand the motivation, because I used to have it.
However, in my new-found atheistic state, I don't really care what your worldview is. If you believe that you're going to spend eternity in heaven but you really just die and become food for worms and that's the end of you, what harm did your belief system cause? None. If you don't hold any particular religious beliefs and you die and that's all, what harm did your lack of religion cause? None. So, while I understand those who seek to save my soul, I don't think they have a soul at all, so I don't spend any energy trying to save something I don't believe exists.
That's why I'm usually reluctant to engage in discussion with those who are seeking to persuade me to return to the faith. While I appreciate the concern, here's the situation: You want to convert me, and I don't care if you leave your faith or keep it. If you don't deconvert, I don't care. If I don't convert, you really care and the "discussion" continues. The thing is, at this point I don't believe that it's possible for me to convert back to my former faith, and when I point out things that threaten the very basis of your faith, you become (understandably) upset. The only outcome I can see in such conversations is frustration on the part of the believer who is trying to convert me, both because I'm questioning the things they hold dear and because I "refuse" to turn to Jesus. That said, I'm ready and willing to discuss any of this with people who seek information and understanding, not my conversion.
This also relates to Relativism, because I know that not everyone has had the same experiences as I have, so I expect them to build different theories based on their different sets of data. This doesn't make their theories less valid than mine, it just means that they are considering things that I have not considered. What's true for me can't be true for you, because you don't see the world through my eyes, nor I through yours, and that's okay. What's true for me in six months will be different again, because I'll have six more months of data to build on.
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