Comment by fizx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fizx | Hacker News Reader

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I was raised Christian. Around the end of college, I had a bit of a quarter-life crisis, and I ended up applying reason to my religion in the way talked about in this article. I joined a Christian missionary organization, and was determined to "go therefore in to all the world and preach the gospel to all nations", one of the typically semi-ignored Christian commands.

I was also convinced that it would be a good idea to prove that the key disputed points of Christianity were in fact correct. I went on skepticsannotatedbible.com and the Atheism sub-reddit and compiled a list of arguments to refute. I couldn't refute enough of them, and so found myself in a conundrum. I ended up choosing to live in the real world.

Most of my close friends, however, are still from the Christian communities I used to frequent. I prod and poke them mentally a little bit. Its amazing to me how Christians can justify almost anything, as long as their community mostly agrees with them. I have a group of friends who go to church multiple times per week, and have no problems sleeping with their boy/girlfriends. I have gay Christian friends, Christian friends who are bartenders, etc. My parents would be livid.

Anyhow, I just wanted to point out that when I think back about my life so far, the part of it that scares me, was when I took my religion and decided that I had to take it seriously and do something.

I have come across gay men from Orthodox Jewish backgrounds. Since secular or even atheist Jews are a perfectly possible thing to be, they can have an identity as Gay & Jewish. Most go that path. But some seem to want exactly what this article is talking about to be developed. They want some smart rabbis to come up with some smart reasons around the contradiction.

The Jewish tradition doesn't really emphasise a rule against homosexuality as much as many think. Many of the much more explicit rules (eg. If your brother dies, you get his wife) have ways around them or are ignored. They are sort of vaguely interested in the how and have this sort of instinctive understanding that it's possible.

Anyhow, I just wanted to point out that when I think back about my life so far, the part of it that scares me, was when I took my religion and decided that I had to take it seriously and do something.

I'm not sure you'll see this, but bringing this up should be fine now the thread has died.

Why do you feel that way about that time of your life? My experience has been exactly the opposite. When I was in high school I began questioning God. I attended a small church school with poor academics and being average and not knowing how to study in school I spent a good deal of time questioning the moral instruction I was given. (There were better reasons, caused a crisis regarding gods existence at 10. Fun.) The only difference is that I didn't accept that the reading the Bible was necessary. What bothered me most, and still does, was the apparent hypocrisy. Plenty of people in church, but none of them seemed to hold the traditional beliefs my family did. It was the little things, as well as boyfriend/girlfriend sort of things.

But, even now, after rejecting Christianity, I still have the greatest respect for those who really do believe. My grandfather who took his family to Argentina to teach college as a missionary and founded a chain of christian radio stations is probably the finest man I have ever met; my grandmother is similar. My ex-girlfriend spent last year teaching children in India. A sweetheart I wish I was with.

Due to my experiences I don't see why you were scared of the time when you sincerely followed your beliefs. To me this should be lauded, even, if I believe it is a false belief.

So, why do you feel that way?

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