I’ve been thinking a lot lately. It’s not really my fault, though. I’ve stumbled across a few blogs written by atheists and–purely out of curiosity, I swear–I’ve read a few of their posts. Most of the points they made were, to be honest, right on the mark. The ensuing discussions in the comment sections, however, made me want to pull my hair out. I decided I’d write a little about my perspective on it, but found myself up against almost insurmountable problems.
I’m relatively new to atheism. I’ve only stopped believing in God within about the past twelve months. Because of that, I still have a fairly fresh memory of my previous absolute certainty of God’s existence and His glorious nature. At the same time, though, I feel so stupid for having believed it. Was I really that gullible? So I understand that people who feel compelled to defend God are acting out of complete sincerity and are doing so only because they are deluded and don’t know the truth. Which, in turn, is exactly what they think about those of us who no longer buy the story. And the comments on the blogs kept revolving around this central issue: “I’ve got the truth and you completely refuse to see it.” The rebuttal to which, of course, was: “No, I‘ve got the truth and you completely refuse to see it.” Is there no way to find common ground? Is there no approach to this issue that works for both sides? And then I realized: the atheists have got it wrong.