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Hello!
Hello and welcome. Call me Defaithed. Male, 40-ish, American. (Not that any of those matter.)
The writings to follow have been a long time in coming. A really long time – over 20 years. There'll be a lot to say.
After so many years of having "lost the faith", I think the first public writing I've done on the topic – i.e., outside of private communications with friends/family – was a few comments in an article on the Richard Dawkins web site, Two Ex-Jehovah Witnesses to Tell Why They Became Atheists. Look there for comments by "defaithed"; that's me. An excerpt by way of self-introduction:
I guess I was one of those [religioned] kids who always had doubts but suppressed that voice. (After all, He can even read your mind...) I'd see the "map" in one of the books (I forget which) that innocently plopped a dinosaur (Plateosaur-looking, IIRC) among ancient peoples. So did this mean dinosaurs lived with people? And nobody really had a clear answer; it was firmly in "don't think or ask about it too much" territory. Then there were the eating conditions in "paradise": if we wouldn't be eating meat any more, what about fish? No more shrimp, even? "Don't worry, it's all part of the plan and will get worked out. Concentrate on what's important here and now..."
Therein are the two threads of upcoming posts: 1) Having and then leaving "faith" (yes, Jehovah's Witness, but the brand name isn't important); and 2) Finding freedom to pursue a supressed fascination with science (or should I simply say "with reality"?).
Finding that freedom too late, alas, to have actually become a scientist. Hence my subtitle, "a layman's journey from religion to reason". I'm no practicing scientist, but that doesn't stop me from following its ideals and methods wherever I can. (And by the by, I'm no theologian either, so I'm a layman there too. Whatever a theology layman is.)
Lots to say. But even when poking fun at faith, I'll do so without bitterness. (Bitterness over my case, that is; there's plenty to dislike about what faith still does to those caught in it, especially kids.) Well, I do feel some anger and disgust; no question about that. I've got young kids, and I feel like fightin' when I see the religious nonsense that still taints schools, government, and society in general. But I also see a swelling tidal wave of sense that's knocking popes and preachers onto their cans; that gives me great hope.
The land of reason is a great place, and I'm loving every day in it.
Is is possible for faith AND reason to co-exist? To you as an "ex-faithhead", must they forever be inimical?
I think you can guess the short reply: It's an unanswerable question without defining the fuzzy stuff – in this case, "faith".
Some (including some self-described "faithful") define faith as belief not based on evidence or reason. If that's the case, then clearly it's opposite to reason.
"Co-exist" is another matter, though. Faith (by any definition of that word) obviously co-exists with reason on our world, just like war and peace, love and hate, wealth and poverty, and other opposites co-exist on our world. Obviously faith and reason can co-exist when each resides in a different person.
Can they co-exist in the same person? That seems trickier, but again I'd have to say "yes". As humans, we can all certainly hold conflicting views on things, conflicting ways of thinking. How about a man who is truly tolerant and open-minded to all peoples, without a thought to race or nationality – except toward those damn sneaky Greenlanders, curse them! Would we deride that man as prejudiced? Or would we say he's mostly tolerant, with a smattering of prejudice? Do tolerance and prejudice "co-exist" in him?
Putting aside the Socratic questions. my final answer would be: Yes, faith and reason can co-exist in the same person. But it's a trivial thing, no different from the way that love and hate, selfishness and generousness, courage and timidity, ad infinitum, swirl together within any person. I'm not sure what the significance would be – other than my tentative assumption that, perhaps more easily than with many attributes, we can make a conscious effort to completely jettison "faith" from our makeup.
But again, that's all based on one definition of "faith", a word that's too often left fuzzily undefined. I'd have to ask you: Is there a definition of "faith" that changes how one would look at all the above?
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