Thank you for this Dr. Groothius. This is refreshing. The uniqueness and miserableness of man found its meaning in Christ, the God-man, who died for sinful man made in the image of God.
As an atheist, please listen to my experience. I don't think he really understands where most of us are coming from. This is going to be long, but I'm trying to be respectful. To him, the evidence is obvious so he has to come up with this elaborate rationalization about why atheists really do believe but are just deceiving themselves. But I know for certain that I really don't believe. I was once devout. I wanted to know the will of God so I could better live according to it. I studied every Christian denomination from Baptism to Pentecostalism to Ethiopian Orthodoxy. I even studied Rosicrucianism, Rastafarianism, Sethianism, Valentinianism, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Latter-Day Saints, the Urantia Book, etc. I wanted to know who had the strongest foundation for their claims. I studied Biblical and church history, from ancient Mesopotamia to the Ebionites to Augustine. I studied Christian philosophy from Iranaeus to Kant to Jung to Kierkegarrd to modern figures like Jordan Peterson and William Lane Craig. By the end of it, I realized that nobody actually knew what they were talking about. You see, the Bible is a compendium of texts from different authors spanning different geographic regions across nearly a thousand years. Even specific books are often compendiums of smaller texts, like how Genesis contains two different conflicting creation myths from different historical eras in just the first 2 chapters. There is no coherent, monolithic Biblical worldview. Even the New Testament is a struggle between Paul, Pseudo-Paul, the author of John, the synoptic gospels, etc. This is why there are so many different conflicting denominations. The Biblical authors did not know each other. The gospel authors probably didn't even know Jesus, and our earliest gospel, Mark, is likely a heavily corrupted xerox of a xerox. In order to make all of these competing ideas fit into a monolithic worldview, you have to cherry-pick, twist, reinterpret, and often outright ignore much of scripture. Liberal Christianity isn't really a save here, either, because it throws the baby out with the bathwater. Now, that doesn't preclude me from being a Jeffersonian or maybe a Spinozist or a Jesusist, but since this seriously destroys the supposed importance of the Bible, what's the point? Why be a cultural Christian if I can't find any good reason to believe the Bible is the reliable word of God? That isn't why I'm an atheist. I spent time studying all of the other major religions, as well as a swathe of ethnic religions (including diasporic and revivals) and new religious movements. It took me awhile to realize it all has the same evidentiary basis: nothing. And that wasn't what I wanted. Could you imagine how distressing it is to lose your personal relationship with God and realize you will never be reunited with your loved ones in Heaven? To realize that there is no divine plan, that cruelty goes unpunished, that horrible things happen to the swetest people for no reason without compensation? I didn't want to become an atheist. I wanted to glorify and serve God. But I can't, because God was never real. Eventually, I realized this was a blessing in disguise. But it took me a long time to find my place in a meaningless universe without any objective purpose or standard to guide me. I'm better off and, were God real, I'd now recognize him as the tyrant that my fansticism prevented me from seeing clearly when I believed.
There are plenty of people who have the opposite experience. See for example the recent interview: "Guillaume Bignon: A french atheist's surprising conversion" on the podcast Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. You make some very basic errors (eg. two accounts of creation) I can't believe couldn't be solved for you. Sad.
Thank you for this Dr. Groothius. This is refreshing. The uniqueness and miserableness of man found its meaning in Christ, the God-man, who died for sinful man made in the image of God.
we love Dr. Groothius!
As an atheist, please listen to my experience. I don't think he really understands where most of us are coming from. This is going to be long, but I'm trying to be respectful.
To him, the evidence is obvious so he has to come up with this elaborate rationalization about why atheists really do believe but are just deceiving themselves. But I know for certain that I really don't believe.
I was once devout. I wanted to know the will of God so I could better live according to it. I studied every Christian denomination from Baptism to Pentecostalism to Ethiopian Orthodoxy. I even studied Rosicrucianism, Rastafarianism, Sethianism, Valentinianism, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Latter-Day Saints, the Urantia Book, etc. I wanted to know who had the strongest foundation for their claims. I studied Biblical and church history, from ancient Mesopotamia to the Ebionites to Augustine. I studied Christian philosophy from Iranaeus to Kant to Jung to Kierkegarrd to modern figures like Jordan Peterson and William Lane Craig.
By the end of it, I realized that nobody actually knew what they were talking about. You see, the Bible is a compendium of texts from different authors spanning different geographic regions across nearly a thousand years. Even specific books are often compendiums of smaller texts, like how Genesis contains two different conflicting creation myths from different historical eras in just the first 2 chapters. There is no coherent, monolithic Biblical worldview. Even the New Testament is a struggle between Paul, Pseudo-Paul, the author of John, the synoptic gospels, etc.
This is why there are so many different conflicting denominations. The Biblical authors did not know each other. The gospel authors probably didn't even know Jesus, and our earliest gospel, Mark, is likely a heavily corrupted xerox of a xerox.
In order to make all of these competing ideas fit into a monolithic worldview, you have to cherry-pick, twist, reinterpret, and often outright ignore much of scripture. Liberal Christianity isn't really a save here, either, because it throws the baby out with the bathwater.
Now, that doesn't preclude me from being a Jeffersonian or maybe a Spinozist or a Jesusist, but since this seriously destroys the supposed importance of the Bible, what's the point? Why be a cultural Christian if I can't find any good reason to believe the Bible is the reliable word of God?
That isn't why I'm an atheist. I spent time studying all of the other major religions, as well as a swathe of ethnic religions (including diasporic and revivals) and new religious movements. It took me awhile to realize it all has the same evidentiary basis: nothing.
And that wasn't what I wanted. Could you imagine how distressing it is to lose your personal relationship with God and realize you will never be reunited with your loved ones in Heaven? To realize that there is no divine plan, that cruelty goes unpunished, that horrible things happen to the swetest people for no reason without compensation? I didn't want to become an atheist. I wanted to glorify and serve God. But I can't, because God was never real.
Eventually, I realized this was a blessing in disguise. But it took me a long time to find my place in a meaningless universe without any objective purpose or standard to guide me. I'm better off and, were God real, I'd now recognize him as the tyrant that my fansticism prevented me from seeing clearly when I believed.
There are plenty of people who have the opposite experience. See for example the recent interview: "Guillaume Bignon: A french atheist's surprising conversion" on the podcast Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. You make some very basic errors (eg. two accounts of creation) I can't believe couldn't be solved for you. Sad.