An unfinished blogpost on God

I eventually lost my faith again though it took a while
see Lost and How I went to theology school and lost my faith

I started writing this with more of an idea of what I was going to say than when I got to the end, which is where I got stuck, rather than a finishing point. But whoever said blog posts needed to be finished, or even coherent.

A little over a year ago I finally decided to be an Atheist because I didn’t believe in God any more.

I think what sparked my conversion to atheism was the conviction that if Christianity is real then the only reasonable response is complete surrender to God, and the question: “What happens next?”

It’s mildly ironic that those same two things in some ways sparked my return.

In the end what drove me back to Jesus was the promise of a relationship with God, and the promise of something to live for. These are more motivations than reasons to believe, and as such I feel like I’m attempting to build faith on a layer of tissue paper spread over a chasm.

Am I a Christian again? Saying “I believe in God” often feels like lying.

I attempt to appease my mostly unbelieving side using Pascal’s Wager with an (un?)healthy dose of Nihilism.

If you’re an Atheist and Christianity is true you’re screwed, if you’re a Christian and Atheism is true then you’re not really any worse off. Not only that but there’s no way to know anything, and it doesn’t matter anyway, it doesn’t matter if you kill or save a million people, if you’re a Christian, Atheist, or think you’re a teapot.

While writing this I realised the chasm is Nihilism and the tissue paper is Pascal’s Wager.

Rather than converting from Atheism to Christianity, I am trying to build faith in God on top of Atheism. No wonder it isn’t working.