Comments on: Atheist at Wheaton College

By: Calvin

Calvin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 05:36:29 +0000

I don’t know if anyone still reads this post, but if anyone finds it, like I did: I also go to a Christian college, and recently de-converted. For anyone else out there, anyone at all like me or this poor girl, I just wanted to say I know how lonely you feel, how scared to talk to friends and most importantly family about this loneliness because of its sensitive cause. For all others here who live in communities where it is okay not to be a Christian, just remember that some people are in situations that feel so hopeless…
When those who you love believe that you are going to hell and pray everyday for you to change your mind so that you can be with them in the heaven you don’t believe in, that is true pain. I’m really sorry for anyone else who has to go through it.

By: Jen

Jen — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 02:58:20 +0000

For a supposedly dry town too religious to drink, the Wheatonites sure buy a ton of alcohol. That’s all I am going to say about that.

By: Joe Kay

Joe Kay — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:19:33 +0000

I lived in Wheaton, IL for close to a year, less than a mile from the College.

I put up a bunch of Kerry ’04 and Obama for Senate signs in my yard. I noticed one day, there was a Wheaton College van full of people suspiciously driving around the neighborhood. They parked in front of my yard for a whole minute and stared first at my signs, then at me. Then they drove off.

The next day, my signs were gone, stolen in the night. Now I’m not going to say it was the Wheaton College people what stole my signs, they being good Christians and Obedient to the 10 Commandments and believing their God to be so Omnipotent that they needn’t worry about how we worldly humans go about electing officials. Nor am I calling Republicans a bunch of thieving jackals.

But dammit, some yellow bellied somebody was shit scared enough to go around and steal lowly election signs from peoples’ yards?

Congrats to the anonymous writer!

By: bipolar2

bipolar2 — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:49:32 +0000

** Expect individuation to hurt **

The word ‘islam’ means submission. Obviously submission to the will of Allah, as prescribed in the five pillars of faith. The big-3 monotheisms are alike in dismissing the individual’s will, “not my will but thy will done” as we’re shown in the poignant scene at Gethsemane in the NT.

Self-assertion, and doubt is just a form of it, takes on the character not of honest questioning, but of insubordination and rebellion. With characteristically combative verve, Kierkegaard grasped the nettles of fideism only to fling them in the face of all the “insubordinate” who employ reason:

“They would have us believe that objections against Christianity come from doubt. This is always a misunderstanding. Objections against Christianity come from insubordination, unwillingness to obey, rebellion against all authority. Therefore, they have been beating the air against the objectors, because they have fought intellectually with doubt, instead of fighting ethically with rebellion. . . .So it is not properly doubt but insubordination.” (Lowrie 122) Thus, Kierkegaard.

Once you’ve made “the leap of faith” into hyper-religious space there is no return except by self-assertion. It’s not surprising that even attempting to leave a religious culture which demands ‘subordination’ or ‘submission’ to someone else’s interpretation of an alleged “will of god” adversely affects the psychological well-being of the “apostate.” Prometheus vs. Jesus —

Self-assertion dominates the popular culture, the “secular” culture. Tolerance, that wide band of “permissible” behavior, lies between anarchy and rigorism. Trying to navigate in that band requires years of training and making a lot of mistakes. And, there is no end to learning until life itself ends. Most people never become individuals — they remain herd animals.

bipolar2
copyright (self)asserted 2007

By: Mike C

Mike C — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:48:23 +0000

This is not that uncommon. I had several friends at Wheaton that walked away from their faith during their time there. It happens… especially at a school that does encourage students to think for themselves and test their faith openly. Odds are that at least a few will decide they no longer believe.

By: kate

kate — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:33:37 +0000

That poor guy needs a hug.

Also, I hope he understands that he’s doing a good job with exposure. Simply exposing those sheltered people to an atheist takes away the, “I’ve never met an atheist before so therefore, I’m going to make up creative myths about them!”.

By: Butch

Butch — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:12:25 +0000

I can relate very much. Those of you “out-atheists” not living living in the Bible-belt (south Mississippi for me) and not coming from religious families (Southern Baptist for me) really don’t get how traumatic this can be. It’s damn hard and lonely. I’m lucky enough to have a great wife (Christian, actually) who supports me, but that’s about it for real life. At times I really think I should have stayed in the closet.

Good luck to him. I’ll be following his blog.

By: [website] $ sudo life » Blog Archive » Prayer

[website] $ sudo life » Blog Archive » Prayer — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:11:24 +0000

[...] The Friendly Atheist linked to a blog today, called ‘Leaving Eden,’ which is written by an atheist at a christian university. While browsing the posts over there, I ran across this post from a few days ago. It discusses an article from the ‘Christianity Today’ website about someone praying for their mother: I spent endless hours in the hospital waiting room while Mom sat on a cold metal hospital table just beyond the waiting room doors. In those hours I prayed—or at least I tried to. [...]

By: HappyNat

HappyNat — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 12:14:00 +0000

Should be an interesting read as the year goes along. Thanks for the link.