A Former Pastor Tries Out Atheism

I'm all for creating spaces in which people can doubt safely. I've even written about it. But can the doubting process be pushed to an absurdity? Well, I think it just has.  

Ryan Bell, a former pastor and adjunct professor at a Christian college and seminary, is giving atheism a try:

“I’m making it official and embarking on a new journey. I will ‘try on’ atheism for a year. For the next 12 months I will live as if there is no God. I will not pray, read the Bible for inspiration, refer to God as the cause of things or hope that God might intervene and change my own or someone else’s circumstances.”

Bell is interviewed about the experiment here. He even has his own website to document the journey: YearWithoutGod.com. Unfortunately, I think Bell’s journey is misguided. 

First, it seems obvious that raising doubts and questions about one’s Christianity is not the same thing as actually trying on and living out the beliefs of an entirely antithetical worldview. It’s like having struggles in my marriage, and rather than go to counseling, I decide to “try on” bachelorhood for a year. “Honey, for the next 12 months I will live as if there is no marriage here. I will not talk to you, I will not go out on dates with you, refer to you as the cause of home-cooked meals or clean laundry or hope that you might intervene in any of my affairs.” Guess where that journey ends? In divorce. Similarly, does anyone think Bell’s experiment will have any other ending but God expelled from his life?

Our approach to doubt should be one of openness, but also of caution. We should create safe spaces for people to get their doubts out on the table and grapple with them. However, we must not doubt God lightly or haphazardly. Doubt can lead you into deeper waters of trust in God, but doubt can also drown all remnants of faith too. And if Christianity is true, the consequences are eternal. Therefore, when it comes to our views about fundamental reality, our questions should cause us to think them out and reflect deeply before we start living out an entirely different worldview. Thankfully, God has equipped us with a rational mind to do just that.

Second, as Bell tries on atheism, will he follow those beliefs to their logical conclusions? According to atheism, God does not exist (and no, I reject atheists' attempts to redefine atheism as a lack of belief rather than bite the bullet and accept their own knowledge claim). Rather, the universe we inhabit is one incredible uncaused accident that certainly did not have us in mind, and biological life is simply concerned with survival and reproduction. Yes, those ideas have consequences, one of which J. Warner has recently highlighted in his post, “The Inevitable Consequence of An Atheistic Worldview.” Here’s another. And here’s a whole bunch more. And finally, here's what an intellectually honest atheist has said.

So, is Bell going all the way in this journey? Will he lean fully into the absurdity of life without God? Or will he do what many atheists do and live on borrowed capital from a Christian worldview, which has the intellectual resources to sustain objective meaning and morality? If Bell doesn’t attempt to live out the logical consequences of atheism, he won’t really get the full taste of life without God, and thus, his assessment will be inadequate. 

Well, if Ryan Bell is misguided in his journey of doubt, are there other ways of doubting that are better or more helpful? Yes, I think we can actually doubt well. Think about it, what’s the purpose of doubting? The end goal should be the discovery of truth. And there are better ways to find the truth than trying on atheism. If you struggle with doubt, don’t follow Ryan Bell’s lead. Gary Habermas is a much better guide. His free online book, Dealing With Doubt, will give you greater insight into the nature and causes of doubt and offer wise counsel as you travel your own journey of doubt. 

Comments

[Jack Burns]

CH Spurgeon's "Morning and Evening," November 9, Evening, makes me wonder if the Prince of Preachers might have written a similar blog post if he had read about this absurdity back in his day. In his commentary which is clearly written to believers is an encouragement to "wage constant war against doubts of our God" (not take a year off). He calls doubting God "sin" and "not a little sin either, but in the highest degree criminal." "Our God does not deserve to be so basely suspected."

Thanks for the head's up and your take on the matter.

[Brad Nelson]

Is this a response to another "experiment" a while back in which Atheists were asked to "try praying?"

[KWM]

Ryan Bell doesn’t know if he’ll go back. He mentions “detox”. This is not an experiment. This is not benign doubt. This looks more like the beginning of the rejection of theism outright.

If you’re a Christian you can’t live as an atheist. Even for a second. If you’re truly living as an atheist, then you’re not a Christian. Easy enough. Pretend atheism anyone?

What you can do is be an atheist.

[GM from Austin, TX]

Next up...giving up that whole "food and water" idea for a year. Let's just see how it goes.

[Mo]

This is terrifying. I couldn't live without God for even a day or two, much less a year!

How can you get up every morning knowing that all you see in the world - the pain and suffering, the mindless pop culture/celebrity culture, complete purposelessness and meaninglessness and your own daily failings - that this is all there is to life? It's a wonder I made it to age 18 without knowing Christ! I was the most miserable creature on the planet!

How can you live without the words of God each day cleaning out your mind from your own sin and from the darkness there is in this world?

Plus we know the enemy is going to love this and put real doubts and temptations into his life - and if he wants to stick with his experiment, he will choose not to pray and ask for help!

I don't know. Seems like a recipe for disaster.

Plus, if this man is truly born again, he won't be able to stand it. There's no way the conviction and the emptiness of it would be bearable.

If it doesn't bother him much, then I'd question whether he was truly born again in the first place.

***

Ah, now I see:

"If I were beginning this journey having been, up until December 31, 2013, an ardent fundamentalist Christian, I would say there is no way to suddenly disregard God. But that is not my story. Mine has been a slow erosion of the beliefs I was raised with. Unanswered and, indeed, off limits questions, knocking at the door of my mind, refusing, finally, to be ignored. Indeed, anyone who once believed in God, and is now an atheist, has walked this road. To finally take the God glasses off is not a heroic act or a herculean feat, but the logical next step in my exploration of faith. What if it were true that there is no god, as I have suspected for a very long time? My “trying on” atheism is more like taking the next step and allowing myself to embrace my serious doubts about God’s existence. By removing my “God glasses” (both beliefs and actions) I am freed to see the world in a different way."

He was already deeply doubting.

Now he's just walking away entirely.

This is tragic. I hope fellow believers reach out to him in love.

[brgulker]

So basically, your are "open" to doubt as long as that "doubt" is limited to the kind of doubt that cannot produce the end of faith.

How do you define "open"?

Think about it, what’s the purpose of doubting? The end goal should be the discovery of truth.

Doubt cannot be genuine if you're already presuming you know what the truth is.

[DGFischer]

brgulker,

to your point >> Doubt cannot be genuine if you're already presuming you know what the truth is.

It is a strength of science that there is a built-in skepticism to the whole of research and experimentation. All experiments are to be reproducible, able to be analyzed by others to determine if their results were viable, or if other factors not included in the original experiment could have altered the results. This degree of doubt which we call falsifiability creates real scientific progress. It's the minimizing of this facet of scientific pursuit that leads to true doubt concerning whether such aren't at heart pseudo-scientific.

I have lived long enough to have heard the phrase "the certain results of science" to be nothing other than the kiss of death when further research reverses the theory. But I don't give up on science. I just see red flags raised when skeptics of a given theory are written off as "deniers."

[Kelly]

The only problem I see here is assuming that Bell is a born again believer. Nothing that he has presented so far has proved to me that he is. IMHO this entire discussion is a mute point.

[Bill]

He must be an atheist or at a minimum a strong agnostic already. I've rarely met a true believer but rather see the truth of Ludwig Feuerbach's statement "In practice all men are atheists; they deny their faith by their actions." This is just another example.