When Christians and Atheists Cannot Commit To a Side
Image credits belong to: Skitterphoto | Pixabay
Help The Common Caveat raise money before April 18th. Donate here!
Introduction:
Whether you are a Christian or an atheist, your perception of God will not remain the same throughout life. You may shift sides of the debate more often than you want to admit. The shifting happens most often in your most private thoughts that you do not reveal to family, friends, and online debaters. Christians might benefit from this post more than atheists, since it addresses Scripture and the psychology of belief to encourage a deeper relationship with Christ.
I have a Facebook friend who calls himself The Fathiest Atheist. On March 18th, 2023, he posted the following words:
“Some atheists pray during extremely uncertain times. I would. In fact, I have. But I also know some Christians curse, condemn, or abandon their belief in God during their own tragedies. Some people bounce back later and return to their original worldview, often more convinced than they ever were. And for others, those desperate moments are a turning point away from what they once thought and straight into the other camp- sometimes as fierce advocates for how their personal history disproves their previous worldview and verifies their current one.”
He explains that this kind of experience can feel like a state of emergency or panic, as you question, “Who am I?” He finalizes by saying, “your answer to that question will have a lot to do with your own experiences, and your familiarity with the genuine journeys of people you know.”
My dear atheist friend is making some cogent points about the nature of belief/unbelief. Belief is not black-and-white. It is not constantly stable like a solid object. We panic when we experience thoughts that are contrary to our cherished beliefs or the stories we tell the public about ourselves. This can make us feel fraudulent and inauthentic. Sometimes, we question ourselves so much that we spiral into an existential crisis.
What we need to realize is that our beliefs and disbeliefs do not have a linear trajectory. Our belief structures are on a wild journey until we die. We stabilize ourselves by telling ourselves that we actually believe in what our mouths are speaking to our peers. Furthermore, we tell ourselves elaborate stories about how the world works, how other people work, and how we can best respond to it all.
We constantly want to convince others that our way of believing is the correct way, but we want to convince them without encountering controversies. We try to overcome the controversies together through negotiation and amendments to our beliefs. Thinking through the negotiations and amendments can inspire many cycles of self-doubt before we return to a state of confidence, again.
It is all a part of the journey.
The fact that such a journey exists has me pondering about the nature and psychological structures of belief. First, I want to see what the Bible says about belief.
Peter Denies Jesus
I am reminded of the story of the apostle Peter (see Matthew 26:30-75).
Jesus and his disciples were on the Mount of Olives when he told them that they would abandon Him on that same night. Apparently, Peter felt pretty certain when he said, “I never will.” Apparently, he still felt certain when he asserted a second time that he would not abandon Christ, even if his life was threatened. Peter’s unawareness of his own meager belief is perhaps evident in later passages at the Garden of Gethsemane where he is found sleeping instead of being on guard and praying, as Jesus asked. After all the disciples professed that they would never abandon Jesus, Judas arrived shortly thereafter with a “great crowd armed with swords and clubs.” This time, Peter was ridiculously bold when he brandished a sword against the attackers and Jesus had to stop him.
After false witnesses and higher authorities judged Jesus and physically assaulted Him, Peter was accosted by three women in the courtyard, who said he knew Jesus, and each time, he retorted, “I do not!”
In Luke 22, we read a lot of those same details again, but with an extra detail in verse 61 where Peter wept in response to Jesus’ looking at him after he has denied Jesus three times. In being reminded of how Jesus foretold his denial, Peter’s sorrow indicates to me a form of repentance (i.e., a turning away from sin and to God) and regret for having denied Christ.
I think this starkly exemplifies how our belief and certainty can vaporize once we are put to the test. This may be due to all the influential factors existing outside of our awareness at all times. But we can find comfort in Luke 22:32 where Jesus says to Peter, “But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
This tells me that, although we can allow our faith to fail, God does not intend that failure. He intends to bring us back to Him after we turn away.
The Psychology Behind Belief
We can be very unaware of all that entails from our belief systems, as we spend little time thinking about and testing the boundaries of our belief systems.
A January 2015 SpringerLink article, titled What Are Belief Systems, states:
“The elements (concepts, propositions, rules, etc.) of belief systems are not consensual. That is, the elements of one system might be quite different from those of a second in the same content domain. And a third system may be different from each.”
We are unaware of how our belief systems are independent from and outlive the believers. Belief systems do not function in the same way as knowledge systems, even though belief systems often revolve around intellectual discussions about conceptual and controversial entities (e.g., God, witches, evil spirits, conspiracies, politics, morality, etc.). This may be because the verbalized entities of our belief systems often try to characterize the world ‘as it should be’, in separation from the world ‘as it is.’ Fantasies about insurrections leading to revolutionary and utopian change may be good examples, as they dwell on the defects of current reality, needing to be upended to achieve a more idealized reality.
How our beliefs are processed and maintained in our brains is a black box to me. I am not sure we scientifically understand it to the most necessary degree. Perhaps our discussions about philosophy, mathematics, logic, science, and jurisprudence boil down to just expressions of self, whose ultimate basis is full of guesswork and a priori assumptions? It is like trying to guess the contents of the cookie jar while just sticking your hand in the jar without looking at the contents.
Belief is the insubstantial and symbolic tool used to make references to reality, as the human is the only social creature that can use belief as a means to rationalize his behaviors in response to reality. Belief is the apparatus upon which human societies are founded and later falter.
Because of that, I see why Scripture repeatedly urges us to unwaveringly “believe” and keep Christ as our anchor. When the failings of the physical universe try to distract us, we keep our psyche anchored in Christ who cannot be wiped away by any physical failing.
How we Westerners interact with ‘belief’ mostly involves an ethos and intellectual assent that are similar to how you interact with the premise that eating vegetables and exercising is good for your health.
But what does it mean when you do what is opposite of a premise that seems so believable and indisputable? What does that say about you?
I think our frequent attitude toward God and the Bible often reflects this intellectual assent, when, taken all by itself, lacks personal commitment. The Bible’s definition of “believe”, when coupled with “faith”, is different from our definition that involves an intellectual assent lacking personal commitment. Pistis is the Greek noun for faith that is quite akin to terms such as “trust”, “loyalty”, and “confidence” which are much more emotional than they are intellectual.
Getting back to what The Fathiest Atheist said:
I think there is some merit to saying that some atheists will silently pray to a higher power of some vague sort while having a persona that professes total disbelief in any deities.
Please be advised: I am NOT saying that to be a smart-aleck nor am I trying to insult atheists with an “Aha-gotcha!” moment. Maybe there are atheists in foxholes, after all.
I also imagine that professing Christians will privately curse and ignore and abandon the God they publicly claim to love and serve.
The nature of our private thoughts never match how we try to describe ourselves with words to the public. Our words are often meant to tell the story that we want others to believe about us. Whatever story you want others to believe about you may never actualize in their minds because you cannot control what others think about you, essentially. But we all will continue trying anyway because we always feel we have a reputation to uphold. It is actually quite saddening, as you often find yourself wishing you could be more concerned with other important matters instead of worrying about what others whimsically and arbitrarily think of you.
All of my rambling here helps me (believe it or not) to make sense of Jeremiah 17:9 that says the human heart is desperate and wicked above all other things, and that no one can essentially know it, except God who searches the heart and tests the mind.
It makes sense to say that no one can essentially know the human heart if we frequently feel the need to introspect upon ourselves, if we constantly feel anxious about what is actually in us, and if we do not have access to the black box that we ambiguously call the “unconscious.”
If the term "unconscious" is too esoteric, Freudian, Jungian, or scary for your tastes, I think it might be better to understand our involuntary parts in terms of the autonomic nervous system functions that are tied to things such as our "fight-or-flight" response.
In our current day, I see a world facing increasing rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, and a “meaning crisis” that is gaslighting us and making us constantly question “who am I?” If the unconscious self is essentially inscrutable to the human mind that is questioning it, then it is safer and wiser to let God search your heart and reveal to you what is in you.
On that final note, I am reminded of Proverbs 3:5-6:
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
The author of this blog post is Matthew Sabatine, who was born in the United States and raised as a Christian but left the faith in his early twenties. He returned to the faith midway through 2022. Matthew has some experience in the mental health field as a direct support professional, caring for people with intellectual and development disabilities and people who were in long-term residency/rehabilitation programs. Though Matthew has no formal undergraduate or graduate degree, he has experience co-facilitating therapy groups under the supervision of licensed counselors. Matthew currently works in sales/marketing by day and blogs on his free time at night.
General Disclaimer: All sources are hyperlinked in this article. The author has made their best attempt to accurately interpret the sources used and preserve the source-author’s original argument while avoiding plagiarism. Should you discover any errors to that end, please email thecommoncaveat@gmail.com and we will review your request.
All information in this article is intended for educational/entertainment purposes only. This information should not be used as medical/therapeutic advice. Please seek a doctor/therapist for health advice. By reading and sharing this article, you agree to understanding that this is meant only for educational/entertainment purposes and not medical/therapeutic advice.