Pastor who decided to take a year off from God, is now officially an Atheist. Welcome to the fold my brother.

Courtesy of Salon:  

Ryan Bell no longer believes in God, exactly. Bell is the former Seventh-Day Adventist pastor who last January made a resolution to live as an atheist, to live for a “year without God.” More precisely, Bell decided to take a year to explore “the limits of theism and the atheist landscape in the United States.” 

On the surface, it sounds a little gimmicky, and his critics have often portrayed his decision to “try on” atheism as little more than a carefully-crafted media stunt of a typical genre. 

If it was all a stunt, it may have not been a very good one, at least in the near term. He apparently hasn’t immediately profited from it. Bell’s decision caused him to lose jobs counseling students and teaching part time at Fuller Theological Seminary and Azusa Pacific University, and so by his own admission he’s “only lost money and earning potential” during the year. A decent book contract might promise to make up for lost capital, but he doesn’t have one—at least not yet. 

I would argue that Bell’s public embrace of atheism is more a natural outcome of his own personal and professional trajectory than a strained gimmick. In an interview he did with NPR last January Bell indicated that, as far as he can remember, he has always wrestled with his faith.

That's all it takes my friends, that's all it takes.

You come on over the side of enlightenment and everything is so intellectually stimulating and free of shame and guilt, why would you go back?

We live our lives feeling connected to the world around us, and recognizing that not believing we know everything is part of what makes us free.

I have said it before but it bears repeating, EVERY high school student should have to take a class in comparative religious studies in order to gain persepective on the history, similarities, and crimes of various religions around the world.

In my opinion it would do so much to change the world in a positive way.

(Is it wrong that I was listening to Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" while writing this? It was wasn't it?)