From Pastor to Atheist: A Non-God Way of Life

By Larry Cartford

Religion has been a powerful and determinative force in human life ever since the beginning of time. Many religions have flourished, then died. Yet the basic dynamics of religion have not changed. Religions seek to promote the gods they create, instill fear, divide people, and control behavior.
After disclosing religions for what they are- manipulative and domineering- a non-god way of life is presented.
What religions consider to be their exclusive domains, eternal life, spirituality, morality and truth, are exposed as not solely theirs.
Spirituality and morality are presented as an innate depth of human beingness in all people. Eternal life is offered as the noble destiny for all people not dependent on what gods are accepted. Truth is to be known through reason, not revelation.
To break unconditionally the power of religion the nexus must be changed from gods to humans at the center. No longer ask, What do the gods want? instead. What do humans need?
Along with a non-god way of life a world without religion is discussed which elucidates a new way of beauty, openness and peace.
For all people seeking an alternative way of life not controlled by religion or revelation this book offers a non-god way of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 23, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450085854

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Copyright © 2010 by Larry D. Cartford.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Introduction

I     My Quest

II     The Parish

III     Journey’s End

IV     The God Theory

V     Metafictions

VI     The Chosen

VII     Tribalism

VIII     Control

IX     Self-Interest

X     Noble Destiny

XI     Reason and Revelation

XII     Change the Nexus

XIII     A World without Religion

XIV     Conclusion

I dedicate this book to my wife, Deone,

who supported and encouraged me throughout my ministry and

in our life after my resignation.

Introduction

My interest in atheism has increased since I left the Lutheran ministry. I had considered it prior but always rejected it as an option for life. Once freed from the theological circle of thinking, atheism became my way of life.

I approach atheism from the point of view of religion and existential meaning, not from a scientific view. I come from the inside of organized religion. I know its ins and outs, its restrictive thinking and its limited view of life and eternal life. I was caught up in the emotional dedication to the Christian God and his way of salvation. I saw first hand how a supposed holy, infallible book distorts history. How an organization decides what is truth and what is heresy. How an organization restricts the way to salvation. How an organization encourages fear of hell so it can control behavior.

Religions and their gods have had a dominant role in history, in wars, in executions, in enslavement, in terror, in control of science and in disdain for free thinking. The history of religions is hardly exemplary.

In this book I hope to expose the ways of the gods for what they are. And once they are exposed, rejection of them is an open option.

I hope to be able to add to the conversation and truth about atheism by delineating another way of thinking and viewing life and eternal life.

When I entered the ministry,

I was filled with dedication, desire and drive

To convert the world to Christianity.

I ended up trying

To convert the church to Christianity.

I     My Quest

My journey to atheism took many years. As a child in second grade I indicated an interest in becoming a Pastor. In fact, I went to my neighbor, who did not attend church, to encourage them to come to our church. They never did. But I did not give up. A year later we moved off the farm so I lost contact with them.

I continued to show interest in the ministry. I would argue with friends in my class upholding Christianity. I became the go-to guy for information and knowledge of the Bible. This fed my ego so I read more. In the sixth grade a classmate suddenly took up religion with a newly formed church in town. The church was very literal insisting that what the Bible said was absolute truth.

This became my first exposure to an exclusive religion which insisted its way was the only way. No one but their people were going to heaven. No one but their religion held the eternal truths. No way but their way was the right way.(see chapter on Tribalism.)

Because this religion was Bible-literal, my friend read only their religion’s interpretation of it. He thus knew more about the Bible than I did. Even so I kept up with him encouraged by my friends to refute his contentions. Again this was an ego builder.

So I continued to direct myself toward the ministry. My Pastor encouraged my deciding. I fact, one Pastor when I was in second grade, told my mother, Larry has indicated an interest in the ministry, always encourage him. And she did. My family never missed a Sunday Service. My parents were active in the congregation, supporting it, involved in it, promoting it. So from early on it seemed as though my course was set.

In seventh grade I was the first to finish memorizing the catechism. I craved the satisfaction of my longing to understand Christianity and to participate in the spread of Christianity. I longed for the day when I would have my own parish to preach and teach. Some days I would go into my church, churches were never locked in the 40s and 50s, and preach from the pulpit. No one was there so I had a grand time. I was president of the youth group, secretary-treasurer of the Sunday School, member of the choir, I even sang solos.

The members of the congregation, when they were informed that I was interested in the ministry, encouraged me. Again my ego was built up. My high school years revolved around my various jobs, my church and my school.

Convinced, determined and directed I became a student at a Lutheran College. I enrolled as a pre-seminary student and selected my courses accordingly. I majored in history, philosophy and foreign languages. Now a new feeling began moving around in me—doubt.

In these years I met truth as never before. In the past the way of education was to accept what you were taught, believe it and hold to it. Questioning and searching deeper were never encouraged.

An example of my increasing suspicion that there was more to the truth than what I had been taught was that there are two different and conflicting creation stories in the Bible. I thought never, yet is was so. One creation story has humans created last, the other has humans created first. Now if the Bible is absolute truth, why not be consistent? Abraham, the great father, had a maid and a child with her. Not acceptable. Sarah had a child well past child bearing age. Unbelievable. What was happening to the absolute truth? My Pastors must have known these conflicting stories, but they never taught such. In fact, once I asked my Pastor what circumcision was. He told me it was a mark on a man’s back. I had accepted that, but when the truth was taught, I was disillusioned. Now I had to struggle with the truth as never before. Then, having accepted creation as God’s ultimate handiwork in seven days in 4004 B. C., evolution nearly knocked me out.

In class after class I was taught to question the basics of truth, the meaning of existence and the place of God in the scheme of life. The Lutheran college I attended, I had to take religion courses each semester. In none of these courses were the absolute truths of Christianity questioned. I had to find the questioning in the secular courses. Why, I could not comprehend except if religion courses taught otherwise, the money flow from the church might diminish.

Caught in the dilemma of doubt, I tried to quiet the questioning by turning to the easy route of accepting the truth as Christianity stated it—life created by God, original sin, estrangement, the need for salvation, sin, redemption only in Jesus Christ through his death and resurrection, life’s meaning found only in repentance and obedience.

Then came my senior year. I had kept doubt in control, vacillating but mostly steady. I decided to take a seminar in philosophy from a new, young professor. The course was entitled Existentialism. The first semester dealt with secular existentialism—Camus, Sartre, Jaspers, Heidegger. The second semester we studied the philosophical theology of Paul Tillich. This course was the game changer. The Christian teachings were accepted but questioned. In this course doubt was honored, questioning was encouraged, probing was invited, skepticism was respected.

Now my foundations of beliefs were challenged as never before. Were there other interpretations of life and life’s meaning, was the truth only to be found in Jesus Christ, was revealed truth the only truth, where did the rational fit into thinking?

Thinking hurts. Not only because it causes the brain to work, but also because it calls into question accepted truth.

The book I remember best from the first semester was A. Camus’ The Plague. A town in N. Africa had been hit by the plague, thousands were dying, fear enfolded everyone, the town was quarantined. The main character, the Doctor, worked strenuously to cure the sick, to defeat the plague, to find vaccine. Tirelessly he accepted the sick and toiled to affirm life. He found his life’s meaning caring for the sick. He never called on god, never cursed god. He had no god, his meaning was here and now in his skills, in the physical. The religious people tried the god solution but to no avail. For the physician the meaning, purpose and direction were in the town, working with the people, seeking to make life whole again. He accepted being-toward-death and lived his life to make a difference in the secular world.

This man’s life made me question my accepted beliefs about Jesus Christ and his way of eternal life as the only way to make sense out of the existence of temporariness in this world. Without the eternal the temporal is insignificant. Not so, says Camus. Life lived in and for life in this world without reference to any outside being or force became another expansion in my quest for meaning and truth.

According to Camus life’s meaning, the authentic life, comes from within not from some outside source. The significance of life is to be found in each person which energizes that person to do outward acts of kindness.

Yet, people despair and conclude they need the god reference to make sense out of life. The fear of the human condition of temporariness thrusts people to believe in the eternal. This is an example of people’s need to believe in something beyond to make sense of the here. This need creates religion.

The second semester the philosophical theology of Paul Tillich was studied. In this study I discovered an entirely different concept of God as the Ground of Being. I knew something about ontology but never had it referenced to God. This caused more movement forward in my sphere of doubt.

The traditional concept of the omni God, that God is all everything, knowing, presence and power, I