why i'm agnostic
When people ask me why I'm not a Christian anymore, the answer is usually hard to explain. First of all, what does it mean to be a Christian? At its core, I believe it's defined as belief in Jesus as the son of god and a commitment to follow him. But is it also someone that believes in and follows the Bible's teachings? What are the Bible's teachings, and are they cohesive with the teachings of Jesus? With a need to resolve my own cognitive dissonance surrounding these questions, I embarked on a long, ongoing journey to find what makes the most sense to me.
the ultimate standard of truth?
The Bible contains a wealth of both wisdom and ethical values. However, there are a few ideas and values that I was never comfortable with. As I grew older, the list of things I was uncomfortable with grew larger. The belief the American Evangelical church holds is that the Bible we know today is "the ultimate standard of truth." This idea caused me that cognitive dissonance, because it meant god did write (or inspire) these unnerving passages, and I just had to accept that. I grew tired of sweeping my conscience under the rug, though. In order to be convinced that the Bible is "the ultimate standard of truth," I needed to reach that conclusion for myself.
For this to be a credible conclusion, I think it's necessary to start with the most foundational element of the belief, then find empirical evidence that points toward that conclusion. The collection of writings we have today known as the Bible must be explicitly or implicitly referred to in that evidence. And logically, I think that the further the evidence is from the foundational element or source, the less weight that evidence holds. I started at the foundation of Christian belief, Jesus, and tried to work my way up from there.
The conclusion I reached is that if Jesus meant for us to have a written guide, he would have written it himself. If not that, he would have at least made sure to specify whom and what was going to be involved. Otherwise, anybody can claim they've seen god appear to them, write letters to churches dealing with specific issues, then unknowingly have them included in a collection of books that people end up regarding as "the ultimate standard of truth" two thousand years later. Here are some of the main empirical reasons on why I came to this conclusion.
- Jesus never explicitly stated that anyone or anything else had the authority to speak on behalf of god
- Aside from the Old Testament, Jesus never mentioned that there would be a god-breathed collection of books, let alone books from different, unconfirmed authors, some of which he never met
- Even if we assume Paul's verse about scripture being god-breathed is true, "scripture" is not defined by Paul either. The version of the Bible we have today wasn't first compiled until several hundred years after Jesus's time. Were the people choosing which books to include also receiving divine instruction from god?
- Even if we assume that the Hebrew and Greek contents of the books in today's evangelical Bible were god-breathed, how do we know they've been translated accurately and without bias? Even if we pick the translation that seems the most god-breathed to us, why is god breathing differently each time they revise it? For example the ESV, one of the most popular translations today, has had 3 revisions since its first translation 20 years ago. That's a lot of times for god to change his mind in two short decades
From my perspective, there is no evidence that Jesus ever intended for our Bible to become "the ultimate standard of truth." He emphasized "the word," which is much more likely to be referring to his own teachings than a book of any kind. I think it's fine to write down what he said to preserve that teaching. But as soon as it's written, it can no longer be proven to be the direct words of Jesus. And the writings of people who never even met him certainly cannot be regarded as such. We can benefit from the wisdom present in the new testament without enforcing the harmful values as being morally right. Jesus emphasized the word, but he also emphasized the holy spirit. I think that practically translates to our conscience. Our conscience isn't perfect, but it has the ability to learn and grow when it recognizes something is wrong. That is what separates it from any one document, and I believe that's why Jesus emphasized the holy spirit as much as he did.
is jesus the son of god?
Fast forward a year, and I no longer feel convinced that Jesus is the son of god. Here, I will write more about what led me to agnosticism at another time.