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Former pastor turns atheist...

Amadeus

Amadeus

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After Year Of Atheism, Former Pastor: 'I Don't Think God Exists' : NPR

At the start of 2014, former Seventh-Day Adventist pastor Ryan Bell made an unusual New Year's resolution: to live for one year without God — this reflecting his own loss of faith. He kept a blog documenting his journey and had a documentary crew following him.

After a year, Bell tells NPR's Arun Rath, "I've looked at the majority of the arguments that I've been able to find for the existence of God, and on the question of God's existence or not, I have to say I don't find there to be a convincing case, in my view.
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...

"I think before, I wanted a closer relationship to God, and today I just want a closer relationship with reality," Bell says.
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Although I don't think I could do the reverse (live a year with God), it is an interesting challenge for theists. Last year I delved a bit into Buddhism and found some benefits from that religion/philosophy, though only from an atheistic perspective.

Do you think your beliefs could survive a year without God?
 
I'm guessing the guy had lost his faith before this experiment began. I think people would be surprised just how many atheists there are in the clergy.
 
I don't quite get it. What does it mean to 'live without god'.

Just not going to church on the weekend and not praying? That hardly seems like being 'without god' or living without any sort of religious conviction. Those are just meaningless surface behaviors. Could be going 'a year without grocery shopping at Walmart'.

Or is a year without god a bit of a parody. He's relaly 'partying' and '****ing my mom' and all sorts of things that religious people imagine that us non-religious people do because they can't see how we could live without 'morals' if we don't believe in god? Because really - the idea of watching someone just sit around and be a normal person doesn't a TV show make so he must have gone to some deep-end extreme there.
 
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BrewerBob said:
I'm guessing the guy had lost his faith before this experiment began. I think people would be surprised just how many atheists there are in the clergy.
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Actually it was prompted over his firing/resignation from one of his positions in an advisory board over a political dispute with his Seventh-day Adventist governing body. If you know the SDA church, it's very conservative. So it ended up being a intertwined ideological/performance dispute; where one party disagrees with a policy which is rebutted with a sudden poor performance review, and it all degenerates from there.

If you follow his blog and interviews from there, Bell goes through this short "Christian doubt" phase ( if you've ever seen that stereotypical 'crisis of faith' situation ... *rolls eyes* ) where he came up with the challenge. The scope of the challenge wasn't just to "live without God" either, but to actually live as an atheist, meaning he forced himself to read various philosophers and the whole schtick.

Aunt Spiker said:
Just not going to church on the weekend and not praying? That hardly seems like being 'without god' or living without any sort of religious conviction. Those are just meaningless surface behaviors. Could be going 'a year without grocery shopping at Walmart'.
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He kept a blog and read/watched papers, books and lectures; and I believe was even a guest at the American Atheist conference in Utah.
 
brothern said:
Actually it was prompted over his firing/resignation from one of his positions in an advisory board over a political dispute with his Seventh-day Adventist governing body. If you know the SDA church, it's very conservative. So it ended up being a intertwined ideological/performance dispute; where one party disagrees with a policy which is rebutted with a sudden poor performance review, and it all degenerates from there.

If you follow his blog and interviews from there, Bell goes through this short "Christian doubt" phase ( if you've ever seen that stereotypical 'crisis of faith' situation ... *rolls eyes* ) where he came up with the challenge. The scope of the challenge wasn't just to "live without God" either, but to actually live as an atheist, meaning he forced himself to read various philosophers and the whole schtick.


He kept a blog and read/watched papers, books and lectures; and I believe was even a guest at the American Atheist conference in Utah.
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Seventh day Adventists, those are the people who believe if you dont do church on Saturday, you're not saved. Lol.....:roll:
 
countryboy said:
Seventh day Adventists, those are the people who believe if you dont do church on Saturday, you're not saved. Lol.....:roll:
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Also the church of conservative hero, Ben Carson.
 
Amadeus said:
Do you think your beliefs could survive a year without God?
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Yeah, I know they could. I've been through essentially the entire spectrum, and there have been times when I was within a very thin shred of saying eff it all, but then something would happen to bring me back to myself. Maybe it's because I'm not expecting, nor wanting anything from God, but that it is just a way of being for me. God isn't something that I can ever be without, because I'm a part of it.
 
He must have just read Stephen King's latest novel "Revival". If he starts playing with lightning and trying to conjure up his dead wife and son, then you'll know he has.
 
One person alleges that they have lost their alleged faith and blogged about it. 2,000 years of Christianity is doomed to fall by the wayside now. :roll:
 
Amadeus said:
Do you think your beliefs could survive a year without God?
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I spent 2-3 years in college actively questioning my belief in God - I read books on the topic, went to forums, attended lectures, talked to friends and so on. Several years later, I still believe in God, but am now ambivalent about the veracity of the Bible. So, yes, my beliefs could survive because, for all intents and purposes, they already have.
 
Declan said:
One person alleges that they have lost their alleged faith and blogged about it. 2,000 years of Christianity is doomed to fall by the wayside now. :roll:
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A pastor falling away is news; the great majority of pastors earnestly fulfilling their calling isn't. ;)
 
lizzie said:
Yeah, I know they could. I've been through essentially the entire spectrum, and there have been times when I was within a very thin shred of saying eff it all, but then something would happen to bring me back to myself. Maybe it's because I'm not expecting, nor wanting anything from God, but that it is just a way of being for me. God isn't something that I can ever be without, because I'm a part of it.
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Greetings, lizzie. :2wave:

:agree: It helped me when my son was killed in a freak accident a few years ago while helping his neighbor. Sympathy from friends and neighbors was much appreciated, but I felt like I was in quicksand - until his young daughter, who adored him, told me "it's all right, grandma, we'll see him again, and he's watching over us." Out of the mouths of babes... :shock:
 
Declan said:
One person alleges that they have lost their alleged faith and blogged about it. 2,000 years of Christianity is doomed to fall by the wayside now. :roll:
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Snarky much?
 
ThePlayDrive said:
I spent 2-3 years in college actively questioning my belief in God - I read books on the topic, went to forums, attended lectures, talked to friends and so on. Several years later, I still believe in God, but am now ambivalent about the veracity of the Bible. So, yes, my beliefs could survive because, for all intents and purposes, they already have.
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"Ambivalent"? Hehe, that's a middling moderate way of putting it. ;)
 
From the article, the pastor already made a colossal blunder.

"After a year, Bell tells NPR's Arun Rath, "I've looked at the majority of the arguments that I've been able to find for the existence of God, and on the question of God's existence or not, I have to say I don't find there to be a convincing case, in my view.

"I don't think that God exists. I think that makes the most sense of the evidence that I have and my experience. But I don't think that's necessarily the most interesting thing about me."
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What the pastor is either willfully ignoring or flat out ignorant of is he just engaged in flip sides of the same coin. Systems of faith are not based upon evidence, faith does not work that way making me question the entire purpose for the one year experiment. But worse and like a complete fool, there is no "evidence" that God does or does not exist. Therefor, all he really did was swap one system of belief for another. He can look all he would like at these arguments for and against the existence of God, but they all come down to the exact same thing... which you believe. There is no way to prove this in terms outside the box that is system of belief.
 
What I find interesting is that this former pastor had a camera crew documenting this past year and that there is a Facebook presence. Good marketing, I guess.
 
Amadeus said:
After Year Of Atheism, Former Pastor: 'I Don't Think God Exists' : NPR

Although I don't think I could do the reverse (live a year with God), it is an interesting challenge for theists. Last year I delved a bit into Buddhism and found some benefits from that religion/philosophy, though only from an atheistic perspective.

Do you think your beliefs could survive a year without God?
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I question whether he was ever "born-again" to begin with. Anybody who has ever witnessed the awesome presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit KNOWS it's real. The born-again experience with the Holy Spirit is experiential, and physical as well. Most people never surrender their lives and will to Christ and ask him to live through them, so they miss out on it.
 
nota bene said:
What I find interesting is that this former pastor had a camera crew documenting this past year and that there is a Facebook presence. Good marketing, I guess.
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Very telling isn't it?
 
Christians lose religion all the time. Atheists find religion all the time. Even if this guy weren't simply trying to do some kind of publicity stunt, I don't see what anyone thinks is of note in this story.
 
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