A Year Without God

February 29th, 2008 was the day I sent out my letter to my friends and family declaring my new found lack of belief. Of course, there is no 29th this year, so March 1st will have to do. ;-)

It has been one of the most interesting years of my life. I've had regular theological discussions for most of my adult life, but never with such variety, and certainly never from this side of the fence.

One of the things I've tried to do is not make assumptions about what people believe. The labels we give ourselves and each other are so very inadequate at expressing what we really believe. There is so much variety of belief, even within each of the nearly infinite denominations within Christianity, that pigeonholing is not advisable. It's easy to label someone a fundy or a new ager and essentially write them off. It's much more interesting, challenging, and sometimes exhausting to try to dig deeper and see what they really believe and why.

I have constantly run into the certainty brick wall. We are all certain of many things, but I refuse to be certain about the invisible. The problem with many of the God arguments that are made, is that they depend on experiences. I'm glad that you are happy and that you've had experiences you identify as God, but that does not mean I will have those same experiences or even if I do, choose to identify them as God. I try to be kind, but there are times where something appears so ludicrous to me that I laugh. Really, none of us is perfect, we could all be wrong.

It's been a good year, no disasters have befallen me, no local floods or fires, God hasn't tried to smite me yet. Of course the year hasn't been perfect, I experienced the same sorts of events that happened when I was a professing Christian. Work related stress from time to time, family medical issues, etc, etc. Then again, a big book I once read said something like "The rain falls on the wicked and the just.".

Let's see how the next year goes.

This was crossposted at atheistsandchristians.com and merelyadequate.net

How do you, or did you experience God?

Today's question is "How do you, or did you experience God?"

In my discussions with theists, I've been accused of false conversion many times. I was essentially doing it wrong, and they, of course, could tell me the correct way. However, other theists have been much more kind and understanding and realize that I must experience God in my own way...if a god exists.

I will now attempt to explain the ways in which I felt I was experiencing God.

The little things: Thoughts, feelings, bits of scripture popping into my head or jumping off the page at me.

The big things: Feelings of purpose, belonging, being loved, cared for, protected, and guided. Feeling God move at gatherings, especially during worship. Being given the right things to say in the right time. Prayer, nearly without ceasing. Blessing others with prayer, both one on one and during small group gatherings.

Even though I never felt God spoke to me in direct words, I felt that he was in constant communication through thoughts and feelings. I did my best to always keep him in my thoughts. I had bibles everywhere and made special CDs of music and scripture. I found one the other day. I called them Songs That Keep Me Strong, and had several consisting of quite a few songs.

Please share with me how you experience or experienced God. Please do not try to use this as an opportunity to tell me what you feel I did wrong.