Introduction To This Blog and Why It Exists

Hi everyone.

My name is Michael.  I'm, for lack of a better term, atheistic agnostic (my take on this is sort of summarized here, in a great talk by Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson) .  My parents were not particularly religious, and encouraged me to study the subject myself, so I've spent a good portion of my life studying religion (in particular, the Judeo-Christian faiths, but more generally all religions).  In High School I spent more time reading about religion and philosophy than doing pretty much anything else.  To me, these are the single most important questions that we can answer.  I also tend to discuss these conversations as often as possible, whereas most people (even very religious people) don't really like to talk about their beliefs.  So this journey started about 30 years ago, and in that time I've read the Bible (in it's entirety) about 16 times, the New Testament (in it's entirety) about 30 times and the Gospel of Matthew (for example) at very least 50 times.  This doesn't include just reading it as a reference, when I'm given one verse or passage, I always read at least the entire chapter.  I've read commentaries, articles, discussed subjects vital to the Bible and Christianity with experts and also argued with people who aren't (including both religious and non-religious).  I don't do this to beat up on Christians, in fact, there are positive features of Christianity, and I have a reverence for certain aspects of the belief system (and even more so with Judaism, as my Mother was Jewish, even if not observant).  Some people don't like talking about their beliefs, and even more people don't like debating the subject (even in a respectful manner), which I find both puzzling and frustrating.  Why puzzling?  Because I can't imagine believing (I mean truly believing, not just half-heartedly accepting) Christianity without taking it very seriously.  I like to think that if I truly believed Christianity to be true, I would feel obligated to make it my life's mission to promote it, because according the Bible (and Jesus in the Gospels specifically) Christians should be focusing their life on spreading the "good news").  I'm frustrated because most Christians have never actually read the entire Bible, which to me is beyond strange.  Imagine that you are given two contracts and you have to sign one of them.  Both of them explain what will happen to your eternal soul.  Would you skim through them, only hearing about what they say on Sundays from someone else, or would you carefully read both?  Heck, I'd spend 30 years reading them, I'd discuss it with knowledgeable people and I would truly seek to know what they both say, but sadly, people don't do this that often. What's even worse, most religious folks claim they want to discuss their religion, but what they really mean is that they want a one way form of communication where the goal is to only for the listener to accept their beliefs.  Many atheists do the same thing, which is also pointless and usually results in both people losing out.  The best way to discuss this subject, in my experience, is not preaching (from either side), but to simply ask and answer questions, be respectful, present your case and truly listen and be interested in what the other person has to say.  At the end of the day I acknowledge that I could be wrong, so before engaging with someone on this topic you should ask yourself, "is it possible I'm wrong about this"?  If you can't, I wouldn't discuss it with anyone.  Anyhow, that's my take.

Regardless, the reason for this blog is keep a record of some of my discussions with other people on the subject of religion.  So please enjoy.

Michael