I think I may have provisionally decided to be a Christian. It boils down to this: I don’t prefer any of the other choices. I’m certainly not going to choose a different religion over Christianity. I’m also not satisfied with being nonreligious, irreligious, or just throwing up my hands and saying “I don’t know!” I don’t want to be an atheist, so I don’t have to be one.
This realization might not be an entirely logical one, but I am not Mister Spock. I am simply not governed entirely by logic, and I am not willing to govern myself entirely by logic, because I am not happy, satisfied, or fulfilled by so doing. Nor do I believe that anyone is driven entirely by logic and reason. I’m not saying that logic and reason are unimportant or irrelevant, just that they’re not the only factor that comes into the calculus.
Given all of that, the simple fact is that I like Christianity best. Given the choice, I pick Jesus. I am comfortable with Christianity, I find it culturally relevant, and I find it good. Christianity is the standard by which I judge other religions… and so I shouldn’t be surprised when I pick Christianity. At least I’m recognizing that the game was rigged from the start and acknowledging the answer I was ultimately going to come to anyway.
It’s like Wolverine, you see. Of all Marvel superheroes, I like Wolvering best. Whenever I play a Marvel Universe RPG, or HeroClix, or X-Men Legends on my GameCube, I pretty much always play Wolverine. If I don’t, I’m sad because I’m playing the wrong character. I like all of the other superheroes, too, but I’ve liked Wolverine the best since I was eleven years old. I’m always going to like Wolverine best, and admitting that was a big step for me. I know that he’s kind of a caricature, and he’s in every Marvel comic now, even Avengers, and it borders on ridiculous, and everyone likes Wolverine so it’s not cool to like Wolverine, but all of that doesn’t seem to matter much. The fact is, picking a different superhero to play means not-picking Wolverine, and that’s not going to happen.
Christianity’s like that. Other religions, belief systems, etc. are fine and good, and there’s a lot of genuine truth out there that’s worth finding, studying, and grabbing hold of (and not just paying lip service to, “truth everywhere, blah blah”). But I’m not going to not-pick Christianity, so the sooner I face that and get on with things, the better.
Sailing to Byzantium 
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
I hope you find what you are looking for in Christianity. For the record though, you don’t have to be Mr. Spock to be an atheist. I’m irrational in at least 5 new ways everyday and I still don’t believe any particular religion is true.
I think it’s a big step that you can pick something that will make you happy despite the fact that you can’t prove it 100%.
There is something about Buddhism which draws me in. Perhaps it’s the exotic otherness, but I do want to learn more. At the same time, I don’t feel a need to believe in anything incredible or to call myself a Buddhist. I take what I can from it and leave the rest.
Jeremy, there is precious little that we can prove with 100% certainty. We all are forced to make decisions based on uncertain evidence. We can’t change that. What we can do is ensure that we are making our decisions for good reasons. What we mean by good reasons is subjective. Some want to maximize personal happiness. I have made a personal choice to maximize knowledge of the truth because I have a kind of faith that truth will maximize very long term happiness. I must admit that I feel a deep sense of regret when I see others choosing short term happiness over truth. They willingly ignore the truth if it seems like it will threaten their happiness. My life is full of people who make daily choices to reach for the blue pill, and it makes me a little sad.
“You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe.
You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” (The Matrix)
While I don;t think that choosing to believe is necessarily “choosing the blue pill,” I think it can be. In my journey, choosing the blue pill is the very thing I do not want to do.
On the other hand, I think that there are different kinds of truth. Metaphor, myth, symbol, and archetype can all contain truth, regardless of whether they factually represent the empirical world.
I’m not one hundred percent certain that “what is true” is necessarily the right question. At least for me.
Your honesty is very refreshing. I think you’re right — there is something a bit off, a bit odd, in deciding between, say, belief or non-belief simply on the basis of logic. I’m a non-believer because the very idea of accepting as true something I couldn’t prove is emotionally disturbing to me. So, on some level, you choose to believe for the same reason I choose not to believe: because we can’t imagine choosing the other option and feeling like we’re being honest with ourselves.
I have a lot of respect for your willingness to be upfront about your reasons for belief.
I don’t think we’ll ever find a definitive answer to “what is true” but asking that question is very important. If we let go of that question, we set ourselves adrift to believe any manner of false things that sound good to us. Following our bliss must be understood correctly or it becomes an invitation to eating lotuses.
But I really have no standing to talk, because I’m going to do exactly what I want anyway. 🙂
I agree that not asking any questions can leave us drifting in blue pills, but I’m just questioning whether we can assume “what is true” is the best or the right question to ask. Necessarily.
I lived for more years than I care to remember in a world between worlds. I chose to be called a Christian, not because I actually believed, but because not to believe in something was too vague, too disquieting for me. Yes, it was also not in not to believe, but that was not the main reason. Then one day – late in my life, I looked around I saw so many things in life that speaks of a higher authority – and I decide to challenge this ‘other force’. I start to seek – but sort of came to a wall. Then one day last year God seeks me and I was hooked. I still can’t believe what happened and sometimes I wondered why me? Lately I came to realise that I can and must say thx and try to give to others what He is now giving to me on a daily basis (because I love to – not because I felt compelled or that God tells me so) – compassion, love, empathy, my earthly goodies, my time and myself.
Funny thing, but to me at least, atheism seems like the blue pill. If the only things I can believe about life and the world are naturalistic explanations then all of a sudden my world is quite a bit smaller (and rather cramped IMHO). Atheism may let you see how deep the rabbit hole goes – it just turns out to not be very deep.
I just wanted to say that it makes me so happy to see an intelligent guy-type say that logic isn’t everything… I’m referring my husband and guy friends to your example, Kullervo. 😉
Wishing you peace as you contineu to pursue the journey, and pursue Jesus.
Thanks, beingmade!
I can honestly see the issue from both sides. For various reasons, I would love for their to be a loving, personal God behind the universe. It would seem to give the universe greater purpose. But it makes the miracle of the universe more shallow because a magical creature did it.
On the other hand, naturalism opens my mind to the miracle of existence. The world is even more of a wonder if there is no personality behind its creation. But it means that we’re alone to work out our own fate.
I don’t know which alternative makes you more comfortable (most atheists that I know wish the first option were true), but the red pill/blue pill choice hinges not only on what is true, but why you make the choice. Whenever we encounter something which seems offer us the truth but pulls us away from our comfortable positions, we are being offered a blue pill/red pill choice. If we choose comfort over truth, then we’ve chosen the blue pill. If we choose truth over comfort, then we’ve chosen the red pill.
I’m not willing to say that there’s a definite right or wrong in such dilemmas, but I know which one feels right to me. For example, imagine you’re happy in a marriage. If you find a woman’s phone number on a slip of paper in your husband’s pocket, do you ignore it and go on with your (possibly illusory) happy marriage, or do you try to find out about the woman behind the phone number?
Very well put.
I am glad you considered Christianity.
P.S.: Nice comparison with Marvel Universe 😛
“Considered?”
I was never not considering Christianity.
I don’t like “religions” at all. None of them -because they’re for US as people we made them up. How can we have any belief in something that our ancestors made… all the pomp and circumstance?
I love that you said, “Given the choice, I pick Jesus.”
I pick Jesus, too. And all the rest of it doesn’t matter. The church, the building, the programs… none of that stuff matters. Just picking Jesus matters, and everything else will eventually fall in line.
Thanks for sharing your decision with all of Blogosphere.
I find a sense of freedom and peace in not being anything. I’m not atheist, agnostic, Christian, Muslim… etc. I believe a little bit in everything. How can one possibly make a decision to follow a certain path when it’s impossible to know all the paths from which to choose?
However, I do (somewhat) understand the need to belong to a particular (and already established) community.
I read some of your earlier posts on consciousness and transcendant reality. I recommend reading “The Physics of Consciousness” by Evan Harris Walker and “The Holographic Universe” by Michael Talbot. Very interesting theories and perspectives.