Exploring the Reasons behind Atheism and Theism

Not that I expect anyone to be reading this, but just in case I figured I'd wack up a new post to briefly say where I'm at in my journey. Here we go:

I guess in high school, when I started to take Christianity more seriously and learn about what it's really about, I just took it at face value. My parents were 'Christian' - granted non-regular church goers until I was in grade 10, it sounded good, and I guess I just accepted it. Then when I started uni I read 'The Da Vinci Code,' and even though much of what Dan Brown claims to be fact, isn't really according to an non-agended documentary my oldest brother got us to watch; that book might have been the trigger for me developing some doubts about Christianity. Well, maybe that coupled with year 11 and 12 biology and physics...especially the topic of human evolution...which we did a whole term on!

Anyway, uni and other things got me to be more of a thinker in young adulthood, and issues did arise about Christianity which noone could give me a satisfactory answer to. Things like 'If there's going to be a new creation which will be perfect in all ways, why bother with this one first?' 'Why bother with the Old Testament and its old covenant, why not just go straight to the new covenant of the New Testament? Isn't it almost like making a mistake on God's part, and then he had to fix it?' If modern humans have been around for at least 10 000 years, and the beginning of our species began about 1-3 million years ago (rusty on numbers - but something like that from my year 12 'human evolution' biology text book,) then why do all the significant Biblical figures come from a comparably recent history?' 'Why shouldn't women lead/teach men if some of them are better at it?' 'How is showing favourtism to one ethnic group loving?' 'If the devil is the cause of evil, then why doesn't God just eliminate him?' 'I just can't buy into a literal Garden of Eden. It doesn't make sense with evolution. If the story is just symbolic as some people try to defend that, then the tempting of Adam and Eve could never have happened, and how then can humans be blamed for being the cause of sin?' 'I can buy into sin (stupid or immoral decisions that people make) as being the cause of suffering in human lives and relationships, but it doesn't seem to biologically make sense that our actions are the cause of the environmental flaws of this 'fallen world' such as tsunamis, earthquakes, etc?' 'Is it really loving to kill (sacrifice) some people in order to strengthen the faith of and/or bring others to God?'

Basically, certain events in the Bible, theologies and/or inconsistencies with the way the world is have always bugged me, and I'm over hearing the lame 'I guess we'll never know' answer to some of those that mature Christians sometimes give. I tried to accept the unsatisfactory answers I got as some of them weren't central issues to the heart of Christianity, but that won't do anymore.

What I never did, and never thought to do, was to explore in depth the 'for' and 'against' arguments for a) God, b) The Bible, and c) Christianity. Over the last few years, whenever a certain issue plagued me, I was fed apologetics which would half satisfy me to carry on. But apologetics is just one side of the argument. Surrounded by atheists in family, friendships, workplace etc, I figured that (some of ) these people must have just as good a reason not to believe in God/Bible/Christianity as religious people have to actually believe in it. I once went to a Christian talk where the leader put it down to this - you have to look at all the available information and decide for yourself which is more reasonable - atheism or theism. It's only after you've decided which is more reasonable that faith is the final step.

So as, hopefully, an educated thinking member of the human race, I've decided to do just that. Being objective and open minded to anything and everything that atheists and theists use as reasons to support their stance. And then to ultimately re-asssess my allegiances.

I think the prime appeal of theism, and of Christianity in particular, is that the thought of not existing - of losing consciousness forever - is pretty freaky and beyond imagination. The closest thing is sleep, being in a coma or being knocked unconscious. It's at those moments that I creep myself out about this idea that I find myself really hoping that God and an afterlife are real.

So where have I gotten to since my last post? I can say with certainty, that while I'm studying full-time and working 3 full days, there's no way I'll have time to post once a week on this thing like I thought before. I wore myself out physically last term, and this upcoming term promises to be even more work. But in my one week break, I did manage to watch the following documentaries:
-All 6 of 'The Aetheism' Tapes
-'The God Who Wasn't there' documentary
-And I've just started the "Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief "

I also read some more of Dawkins 'God Delusion' and a tiny bit of Strobel's books. During term, I plan to continue watching documentaries as often as I can as I usually watch stuff when I have dinner, so it's manageable. But no, I won't be posting detailed responses. I'll just churn through as much material as I can and let the issues sink and float in my mind. Eventually I'll write about particularly issues and what I've found out about them in both for/agaisnt and my conclusion.

A Christian friend of mine commented that I seem to have a lot of respect for some atheists like the guy at my work and Dawkins. Maybe more so then for some Christians being her concern. My response to that is that I'll give respect when respect is due. Someone like Dawkins has been a leading biologist for decades, and has an admirable manner of presenting arguments clearly and with evidence. He knows what he's talking about, he makes sense, and his points (what I've read/watched so far) correspond with what we see in the world. As for the guy at work, his widely read and further along in years then myself, and such people always have interesting things to say. So to me, that seems like a bit of a cheap way of trying to avoid engaging what these people have to say by questioning their integrity.

I've rambled long enough. In short, so far the atheist camp have some pretty solid down to earth objections to God/Bible/Christianity. I'm yet to explore all of their reasonings, and of course I'd like to read up on Christian responses to these. I hope they're just as reasonable and down to earth. I'm yet to read up on the full extent of Christian apologetics which in theory counter the objections atheists make; but I hope to take it several steps further and see how atheists counter the apologetics, Christians counter the atheists' counter, and on the cycle goes 'til someone has to be wrong...perhaps.

Another back and forth I'd like to do, is to re-explore the case for God/Bible/Chrisitianity - particularly the historical arguments, and cross examine these with non-agenda historians and so on to find out what the bulk of historians really think about the crucial story of Jesus, and perhaps the OT. I've heard slightly different things from the atheist and Christian camps, and want to get to the truth on that.

So in short, lots to do. Plenty of issues yet to be raised. Many hours of footage still to be watched. And lots of page turning that needs to happen. For now, my religious preference is still with Christianity, I just don't 100% buy into it. I'd like to - it sounds nice, but wishful thinking or delusions don't cut it anymore. I gotta know one way or another for sure. Even if as agnostics suggest, we can't really know if there's a God or not, at the very least I should be able to find out the probability of there being a God, and whether or not Christianity and the Bible are reasonable or laughable. Let's dive in!