"Carl Sagan Took My Faith -- And Gave Me Awe" (Beautiful, inspiring deconversion story)

[CoffeeCat]

Incredible story of one man's journey from Conservative Christian to Atheist. The writer, Brandon Fibbs, worked on the Cosmos Series. There are so few people willing to talk openly about atheism. He does it so beautifully. His writing is uplifting and very inspirational.

http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2014/03/10/carl-sagan-took-my-faith-and-gave-me-awe/31220

"I was once a devout and sincere believer in the Christian faith. I am the son and grandson of pastors and missionaries. My family founded one of the country’s largest Bible colleges, Christ for the Nations, from which I earned a theology degree. For years, I contemplated, and began strategizing, a run for national political office under the banner of Christian reform."

snip

"I did not abandon my faith because I was hurt or angry or disillusioned. I did not abandon my faith because I wanted to rebel, or live a life of sin, or refuse god’s authority. I left because I could no longer believe. I left because I felt there simply was no convincing evidence for my belief. I left because my faith insulted reason one too many times. I left because once I applied the same level of skepticism and incredulity to Christianity that I always had to all other faiths, it likewise imploded. Once I accepted that the Bible’s account of cosmic and human origins could not possibly be true, I began to realize that it was just the first in an interminably long line of things the Bible was wrong about."
snip

"This, for me, is Sagan’s most enduring legacy—this realization that science is the most emotional journey imaginable. Science does not castrate awe or inhibit transcendence—science unleashes it."

more at link:
http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2014/03/10/carl-sagan-took-my-faith-and-gave-me-awe/31220

Link to Mr Fibbs' You Tube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Fibbs1701

[Homer Wells]

1. WOW!!!!!!

Just Beautiful. You just said what is in my beliefs.

[onehandle]

2. ...

An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.

- Carl Sagan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan