The Agnostic Christian

For this first post, I would like to give a little background about what inspired the creation of this blog and what I hope to accomplish with it. I will first start off with a little background about myself and the situation that led me to start my journey. I have been a Catholic for a little under 30 years. There have been times when I was more a philosophical Catholic in that I still believed in all of the principles of the Catholic Church, I just did not attend mass. My faith has never been an issue for me. I am a trained scientist, yet I have always believed that science and religion were the yin and yang of the universe. There needs to be a balance between the two but they both can exist and support one another.

This all changed when a routine trip to the dentist turned into a nightmare. Apparently the dentist found a troubling spot and thought that I should have a biopsy just to be safe. The hygienist told me that these things were normal and that she estimated that there was only a 10-20% chance that there was a serious problem. Normally this would not have had such an impact but in light of my becoming a new father, I freaked out. Basically she was telling me that there was a 1 in 5 chance that I had cancer. Now that I look back on it, she probably was not very good at math (It was more like a .1% chance of oral cancer IF you were 50 and smoked, was an alcoholic, or dipped). Also, the dentist didn't help either. You never want to hear the words "uh oh" when you are being subjected to a cancer screening. Long story short, I freaked out for a week all for nothing. I really think that it was the fact that I was under a lot of stress with work and a new baby and that this just pushed me over the edge.

Although it was all for nothing, this period of intense fear had a more profound psychological impact. I started looking at every single part of my life under a microscope. After much soul searching, one issue in particular was a problem. Looking in the face of your own mortality is an extremely unsettling event. I always never really worried about death because of my faith. I then had the thought..."What if I have been wrong all this time and God does not really exist?" Needless to say that this sent me in a philosophical downward spiral. I started visiting atheist websites and reading a lot of atheist arguments....they made sense. Maybe I had fooled myself all of this time. It was really unsettling to realize that what you have believed in for so long could just be wishful thinking.

I spent a couple of weeks searching and searching. Reading all the arguments that I could get my hands on. Reading multiple philosophies and philosophers. Some topics and people covered in my search were evolution, determinism, free will, indeterminism, Nietzsche, Russel, Kirkegaard , Kant, Freud, etc. Then I moved on to the "new atheists" which include Dawkins, Harris, Carrier, etc. I also read many atheist blogs and watched many atheist videos on youtube.

The next phase of my search led me to several theistic blogs and websites. I have to admit that I was surprised at the contrast. Most of the theistic blogs were very well thought out and were very intellectual. (***Please read the next paragraph before judging me as biased as that I think that there is a reason for this***) There were,however, definitely some that were the mirror images of their vitriolic atheistic counterparts. This was satisfying in that it showed me that there were intelligent believers out there. One point that is a constant on the atheist blogs is that believers are not very intellectual.

I am not insinuating that all atheists are vitriolic and bigoted and all believers are intellectual. I think that this is more of a byproduct of the internet. Nearly all of the atheistic sites could be thought of as the "offense" and it seems like most of the theistic websites are "defense." Atheists are more outspoken and critical of religions so it then follows that the theistic sites are more responses to these critical assessments.

To be honest, the atheistic argument does not resonate with my personal view of reality and the workings of existence. The purpose of this blog is to serve as a journal of the path that I am currently on. Many atheists will probably not like this blog because I will most likely concentrate on the theistic side of the argument. I realize this bias but the bias is only superficial. My training as a scientist provides enough ammunition for the atheistic side of the argument. Also, if I were able to reject the atheistic argument so easily then I would not be here writing this blog.