New Contributor Introduction: BHitt

Hi KingAndI’ers, I'll be contributing occassional posts here. I’m Brian. I’m a 29-year-old husband, father, and neuroscientist studying the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease (I know, a lot of Bible overlap there, huh?) I’m most of the way through a combined MD/PhD program at Northwestern and my wife and I are expecting our second child any day now, so I should be sternly reprimanded for spending so much time indulging a hobby on this site! Whatever.

I’m participating in this project because I think everyone should read the Bible. My own experience with the Bible is multifaceted. My mother is Irish Catholic and I was raised accordingly, attending Catholic school with daily religious instruction. I loved the Catholic Church but felt like there must be more to Christian spirituality than the theology and rituals encompassed by the Catechism.

I began attending various Protestant and Evangelical churches on my own and with friends and found that their style resonated with my desire for a more intense and personal relationship with God. I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior, prayed constantly, read the Bible daily, and shared the Gospel with others.

At the time, I read everything in the Bible through the lens of my salvation in Christ and the relationship that God wanted to have with me.

I’m a proud and joyful atheist! There was no crisis of faith, nor was there any epiphany. I just gradually developed a naturalistic understanding of the world, a humanistic sense of purpose, and a skeptical approach to truth-seeking. I eventually saw Christianity (like all religion) as a fascinating cultural and sociological production – likewise, the Bible:

I now read the Bible as a wonderful collection of ancient literature spanning many genres, a window into an ancient culture with cultural continuity with the present, and a cornerstone of Western literature and thought. I must admit, it makes more sense this way!

Being a huge nerd and voracious consumer of books/lectures, I went through a stretch a couple years ago where I returned to the Old Testament and listened to several professors’ lectures on it. I really enjoyed it, and was excited to see Bruce start this project, providing an excuse to do it all again, this time with a group. I think the discussion has been great! I’ve especially enjoyed the contrasting faithful and secular reactions to things like the character of the OT god and the morality of the Bible. Big thanks to Bruce and to everyone who’s commenting. I hope I can help encourage the discussion! My first post will be a brief-ish overview of what we've already read.

A Little More About Me

The first part of this thread can be found here.

When we last saw young Bruce, he was becoming enlightened regarding the psuedo-scientific world of UFOs, Big Foot, ESP and ghosts.  His mom was happy, for  a while anyhow.

She had taught our hero that, as Carl Sagan said (actually attributed toMarcello Truzzi), "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

The only problem was I started questioning religion.
As I said earlier when I was in Catholic grade school, I was an alter boy.  Before then I would sit in the pew during mass and recite the mass to myself.  I knew it word for word.  When I got to stand at the alter for the first time, my excitement turn quickly to confusion.  I saw that the entire mass was written out on cards under glass.  While serving mass, I would fixate on the priest and watch as he read the mass from the cards, rarely looking up.  I noticed other priests did the same thing.

But I digress.  I started asking adults the obvious questions a kid would ask.
"If he existed forever, what was God doing before he created everything?"
"If you have to know God to get into heaven, what happens to the people who never had the opportunity to know God?  Amazon natives and such."
"Can astronauts see Heaven from the Moon?" The Apollo missions were going strong when I was in grade school.

And I started asking the smart ass, critical thinking questions that got angry stares from the nuns at school and annoyed my mom so much.
"If Thor, Odin and Asgard (I read the Thor comics as a kid) aren't real, how do we know Jesus, God and Heaven are real?"
"How could Noah fit all those animals in such a small boat?"
"What is a soul?  How is that different from a ghost?"

The answers I received most often were of course "God works in mysterious ways." "It's not our place to ask those questions." or simply "don't ask such stupid question."

These answers of course never work for inquisitive kids.  They just throw fuel on the fire.

In fifth grade my english teacher Sister Madonna broke a yardstick over my back for poor writing (HA, I just misspelled writing!) while at the blackboard.  That pretty much sealed my disenchantment with the Catholic Church (for the record, all the other nuns and priests that I've known have been very kind, pleasant people.  Sister Mary Ann, my collage film professor is my favorite teacher, ever.)
Between the "lazy" priest serving mass, the non-answers about God and the evil nun, organized religion had no appeal.

But I still believed in God.

To be continued...

Not Dead Yet

I just wanted to check in to let you know this blog is still moving forward.
I've been traveling for work and, besides being very busy, the hotel had horrible Internet access.
I'll be catching up on posting tonight.
Thank you to the people who have emailed me to check up!