Saturday, March 13, 2010

My struggle with atheism

There are many reasons that a person may become an atheist.  A person may have experienced great suffering in the world.  They may have been personally injured by a parent or someone they associate with God, like a priest or a pastor.  They may have lived through some natural disaster convincing them that there is no room in the world for a loving God.  These are emotional arguments for disbelieving in God.  There are also intellectual or philosophical reasons for becoming an atheist, reasons of morality or ideology.   One of the most popular types of intellectual atheism is based in scientific reasons.  If you think there is a disagreement between religion and science, and you pick science as the winner, then you will be an atheist.

Each of these arguments for atheism requires a different response.  Each of type of atheist would have a different conversion story if they chose to become Christian.  I am lucky that I have not had great pain in my life, and I never experienced the emotional trauma required to reject God.  My personal struggle with atheism came from scientific arguments, and therefore this is the only type of atheism that I can personally comment about.  This is not to say that I don't think there are good arguments against each type of atheism, but that, if I speak with any authority at all, it is only against scientific arguments.

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