I wrote several posts in response to some of my critics, for lack of a better term, and ended the third one with a reference to a co-worker of mine who said she was a strong Christian some years ago, then abandoned her faith because of things she found online by Bart Ehrman and other skeptics. Given what I was writing about, her timing was perfect because most Christians, and everyone else, buys into the secular notion, or uses the language to affirm it, that there are such a people as believers and non-believers. She said something that perfectly encapsulates this fiction: “Wow Mike, I had no idea that you were such a fervent believer.” The implication is, of course, that she is a “non” believer. It’s unfortunate that most Christians would never question her assertion. They should because her implication is not true, that there are such people as believers and not believers. Everyone is a “believer” whether they are religious or not.
This is crucial to understand, not only because it’s true, but especially if any of your children, or anyone you know, once embraced Christianity, and now does not. I’m not talking about someone who left Christianity to become a Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu, but someone who left to become a “none,” the moniker the media gave to people some years ago who abandoned religion and on surveys when asked which religion they are picked, “None of the above.” Most of these people do not become philosophical atheists, but if you pressed them for a description of what they are would likely consider themselves agnostic. What they most definitely would not consider themselves is a “believer.” Again, in the modern secular mind “believer” is a religious person whose worldview requires “faith,” and these “nones” definitely don’t think they have or need faith. They obviously do need faith because the nature of existence requires it, as I’ll argue very briefly below.
A good example of this mentality is the website of a young man who abandoned the Christianity he grew up with. His website is called, When Belief Dies. We know what he means, that he doesn’t believe in Christianity anymore, but belief never dies. It only moves from one object to another, from one worldview to another, to one set of propositions to another, to one explanation of reality to another. It moves from embracing one set of hopes and meanings and purpose, to another set, to one way of making sense of the mess that is life, to another. The rejection of faith as a requirement of human existence, “religious” or not, is based on the secular assumptions of Enlightenment rationalism, with a large does of empiricism thrown in. It all comes down to epistemology, how we know things, and to the secularist, the only way to know is through our five senses, and the all powerful worship engine of the modern world, “science.”
The problem for the secularist is that rationalism, empiricism, and science all require very large doses of faith, things that can’t be rationally, empirically, or scientifically proved. Like, trusting that reason is a valid means to knowledge, that the laws of logic are laws, that we can trust our five senses to give us an accurate picture of what we measure, taste, touch, see, or smell. Or trusting that the laws and uniformity of nature are and will remain uniformly reliable. None of these can be proved by science because science assumes and depends on them. Another word for trust is faith, and every scientist is as much a “believer” as the most ardent and pious Christian, Muslim, or Jew.
I could go much further to prove my point, but room in a blog post won’t allow it. I will end with two quotes to make a further point. Ex-Christians, like my co-worker, are under the impression that only Christianity is required to come up with reasons for it’s validity. Once they leave, they delude themselves into thinking that their new “faith,” their new worldview doesn’t require any rational justification at all. Agnosticism doesn’t get them off the hook either, because it requires all kinds of unprovable assumptions, and requires a veritable leap of faith. I have a suggestion for the “nones” that comes from two wise defenders of the Christian faith. First, C.S. Lewis:
[A]gnosticism is, in a sense, what I am preaching. I do not wish to reduce the skeptical element in your minds. I am only suggesting that it need not be reserved exclusively for the New Testament and the Creeds. Try doubting something else.
The other is from Tim Keller:
The only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternative belief under each of your doubts and then to ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. How do you know your belief is true? It would be inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own, but that is what frequently happens. In fairness you must doubt your doubts. My thesis is that if you come to recognize the beliefs on which your doubts about Christianity are based, and if you seek as much proof for those beliefs as you seek from Christians for theirs, you will discover that your doubts are not as solid as they first appeared.
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