Rev. Bob Ripley was a minister for more than three decades, including 15 years spent as Senior Minister at Metropolitan United Church, a major Canadian congregation. He also wrote a syndicated column discussing religion for the past 25 years. His most recent column, however, may raise a lot of eyebrows, because Ripley talks about how he no longer believes in God:… I need to tell you that I’ve changed my mind. Where once I proclaimed the doctrines of Christianity with passion and sincerity, I am now convinced that religion, all religion, is man-made. As with the long line of deities dotting the history of our species, the idea of one God, Yahweh, made manifest in Jesus of Nazareth, is our means to an end — to explain how we got here, for instance, or to avoid looking fate in the face or to gain an edge over our enemies.
…
If all this makes you sad, I’m sorry. Please remember that I have not changed. The heart that was once surrendered to Jesus Christ, that gave itself to others and infused a vocation with kindness, still beats in me. If you have ever met me, know that the person I was then, I am now, still striving for integrity and capable of profound love.
I’m not lost. I began this journey by asking questions. It continued by not being content with trite cliches or lazy affirmations. Curiosity is an amazing accelerant. I am a passionate advocate for unremitting intellectual honesty, for reason and reality, for love and learning. My advocacy simply no longer assumes a deity.
I still believe. I believe no person or group of persons is inferior to any other. I believe that what matters is not so much what we believe, but how we conduct ourselves for these few short, fragile years of being alive. I believe that being aware of the beauty and wonder of the universe, including this pale blue dot in the remote corner of one of billions of galaxies, is an indescribably wonderful privilege.
You know I have believed for quite some time that there are a number of ministers who no longer believe, but simply cannot bring themselves to walk away from the only life they have ever known.
I also think that in reality there are more non-believers in the world than believers. They simply hide that fact in deference to family, or career, or social position, instead living in constant fear of ever letting on to others their lack of faith.
In some ways these people are in a similar place to closeted homosexuals. Forever forced to deny their true selves in a desperate attempt to fit in with those around them.
Hopefully soon we will witness the same acceptance for the non-religious community that we are now beginning to witness among the LGBT community.
I know that's my goal.
Thank you for your continual posts on these issues Gryphen. I may not always comment, but I'm eternally grateful for them. I was watching Richard Dawking's youtube video on his book "The God Delusion" for the third time :) last night, and in his introduction he references the same issue Ripley describes so eloquently. The fear one must feel in the act of "breaking atheist" is something that many people simply cannot bear to face. They are forced to take their tortured feelings to the grave, rather than upset the status quo in their lives. Although it's a sad state of affairs, the more people who have the courage and conviction to publicly declare the fraudulence embedded in religious dogma, the more people will be "saved," ~ just not in the blood of Jesus ~ as sick as the sounds. It's unfortunate that articles like this aren't reported in the mainstream media, and are therefore not within the scope of others who may be enlightened and encouraged.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FiHRVb_uE0
Sorry 'bout posting twice. A notable quote from Robert M. Pirsig in his book, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values":
Delete“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.”
This is my candid retort to those who engage me in religious dialogue. "All religious texts espouse uplifting and inspirational words, however when the sublime is held hostage to the absurd, reconciliation is impossible." And you can quote me on that! ;)
Thank you for the Pirsig quote, 5:43. It made me think of a quote by Terence McKenna:
Delete"It's no great accomplishment to hear a voice in the head. The accomplishment is to make sure it is telling you the truth."
It's really good to see Pirsig and McKenna being quoted here.
Delete:)
Me at 5:43... *held hostage BY the absurd*. Sheesh. Too early in the morn.
Delete" I am now convinced that religion, all religion, is man-made."
ReplyDeleteExactly! When I hear... God told me this, God told me that, I wonder if that person could be suffering from schizophrenia.
Compartmentilization of intellect enables the sin of religion to flourish.........
ReplyDeleteI also believe that many ministers, pastors and priests do not believe in God or at the very least, do not believe in the systems and institutions that have been constructed to worship a being that has been manufactured to explain the mysteries of life. If they really believe all that they preach, so many of them would know that they are bound for hell for their behavior and crimes against humanity.
ReplyDelete"If they really believe all that they preach, so many of them would know that they are bound for hell for their behavior and crimes against humanity...."
DeleteThat's a really good point!
FYI: Metropolitan United Church is a large Protestant congregation in downtown Toronto. It was the first church to openly invite LGBT congregants, the first to hire an openly gay minister (Rev. Brent Hawkes) and the first to perform gay marriage. The United Church of Canada is the largest Protestant denomination, the most progressive, and actively promotes all of the issues that conservatives are usually against!
ReplyDeleteI think there are also millions more of people who consider themselves agnostic. You always talk about atheists but rarely mention agnostics. Perhaps you consider us to be foolish, like bisexuals who won't commit either way. But to me, it just means leaving a door open to possibility and continuing to question. Honestly, I don't think about it ever except when I read here. I know I hate organized religion and believe religion and extremism have only led to disaster in our history.
ReplyDeleteI try to live in the present and have stronger morals than any of these hypocritical evangelical right wingers that we talk about here.!! I think it's great this minister spoke out and that he emphasized that he is still the exact same moral man now as he was when he was a believer!
Thanks for your thought provoking posts.
I am an Atheist, and I understand that the very word elicits many negative connotations.
DeletePermit me to explain my philosophy, my way of being in this brief moment of time:
As I approach the three-quarter mark of a century, I still consider myself a dedicated Learner, a Freethinker, a Secular Humanist existing to do the best I can with what little I know at any given time, before this fragile form dies and its energies dissipate to dance the Universe unencumbered and I am grateful for what good I may be able to do before I die.
This is fascinating! What a great column, and very thought provoking. I'm sure that many of his faithful readers are mulling his words over in their minds.
ReplyDeleteI love this topic, and I will purchase his book.
Thank you for posting this Gryphen; I agree with your thoughts. I sometimes feel like I am in the closet about my beliefs, but I am becoming more and more comfortable expressing them. At any rate, I am comfortable (and have been for some time) telling religious people that my beliefs are personal, and while they usually don't get that, at least they stop pestering me.
R in NC
R in NC: My answer usually is this:
Delete"I believe in the Universe..."
I let it drift it off at that, and those who want further explanation may just ask.
I have found that this non-confrontational approach often leads to interesting discussions which lead others to think a bit.
Then again, there are others who really are beyond reasoning.
7:53, I must say you are one of the lucky ones. You must not have come across the types I deal with a lot. There are many groups who will NOT stop pestering you about it. I, unfortunately, have a fair amount of contact with idiots who are so tied up in their own beliefs that they won't accept a polite refusal to talk about your personal beliefs. One MUST get angry to get them to shut up. And then they won't deal with you again, thinking THEIR business is critical to your success. (That doesn't bother me any. I DON'T need them!)
DeleteI live near Greenville, SC, which is the home of Bob Jones University! Nuff said?
Man-made, that's just what it seems like to me, especially when I see articles that men cannot sit by women, women have to cover up from head to toe, women cannot be this or that in the church. Because an insecure man made it up!
ReplyDeleteEarly civilizations in what is now the Middle East were Goddess worshipers, i. e. Woman was creating Life from Within Herself.
DeleteWoman was the Trinity of Birth, Life and Death and She of the different Names ruled.
Then men realized that their sperm was instrumental in the creation of new generations, and they determined that their superior physical strength was divinely ordained to dominate woman, and so the Patristic/Paternalistic Religions of Judaism/Christianity/Islam took hold, and here we are, millennia later...
Can we, the inhuman humanity as a whole, one of these days, become equals???
No matter how much I wish it to be, my leash it too short.
But I count upon you who are the new generations.
That's why I love you, Gryph. You give me good solid food for thought with intelligent posts like this and you brighten my day with " chewing gum for the mind" posts about that ridiculous Wassillan. Perfect balance between the ridiculous and the sublime.
ReplyDeleteSomewhat analogous to those coming out of the homosexual closet (at least up until not so long ago), clergy must be particularly brave in making their revelations. As Richard Dawkins acknowledges at the Clergy Project (clergyproject.org):
ReplyDelete"Clergy who lose their faith suffer double jeopardy. It's as though they lose their job and their marriage and their children on the same day. It is an aspect of the vicious intolerance of religion that a mere change of mind can redound so cruelly on those honest enough to acknowledge it."
But yeah, I recall hearing that apostasy is not uncommon in seminaries after serious students are confronted with the facts about the texts they had previously believed to have been God-breathed. Looked for data on this, but couldn't quickly find it using Google.
Yeah, God doesn't care. God wants good souls, no matter.
ReplyDeleteWell, nowadays I seem to say to whomever that I don't believe any of that shit and that I think it's the oldest hustle in history. Some people, man, they wanna fuckin strangle you, right there as you breathe, they tie it into all kindsa political and ethical claptrap. Fuckin marks for their carnival working employers.
ReplyDeleteThe last paragraph really resonated with me! I immediately went to Amazon to buy the book, but it was not there. I did a Google search and found it is not yet available for purchase. I will keep checking back.
ReplyDeleteLike many of you, I live in a very conservative area where everyone's favorite game is "I am God's chosen...He loves me more than you cause I am clearly more holy".
After every sporting event, both teams along with a good portion of fans gather in middle of field to pray. I go home, so don't know which God they pray to, but really wonder why they think he gives a flying fuck about their stupid games. It is especially funny when we play the private Christian schools as they are always the dirtiest meanest players. My grands tell me they also say the foulest things. But never mind, God loves them more.