However, I still feel some need to identify myself, and my list has changed quite a lot since I was a teen. You will probably note that I listed “Christian” as one of my identity words. Yea, “Christian” was a huge part of my identity and for a time in my life my life practically revolved around that piece. If you asked me who I was when I was a teen, that is likely one of the first words I would think of after my name. A lot has changed since then.

I’m aware that lots of atheists out there do not consider “atheist” to be a large part of their identity. And it’s probably fair to say a lot of Christians do not consider it to be a huge identity issue either. I’m sure that the reason it is for me is the huge importance religion has always had to my sense of self. When I eventually found the teachings to be Christianity to be out of sync with what I knew of the world, I went through a major identity crisis. I was at a bit of a loss on how to act in certain circumstances–like how to react to parents and family members who still strongly identified with Christianity. (From stories I’ve read from other atheists with Christian parents this is a very, very common issue.) Since I’d always been taught that morality comes from God, I had to completely rework my understanding of morality. It was no longer about obedience to a higher power, but about human wellbeing and happiness (a great improvement, since obedience is a very poor and childish basis for morality). One example of major change in my thinking is that I could no longer find any good reason whatsoever why gay people should not be allowed to marry. I am still of the opinion that the reason that Christians are so strongly opposed to homosexuals is that one of the very, very few issues that the Bible seems unambiguous about. Actual unambiguous direction from the Bible? That is something you don’t see every day.

 I strongly identify as an atheist. But having come to the conclusion that it’s not healthy to identify only as one thing (especially something that is just saying what I don’t believe), I’ve branched out into other areas of interest as well. Yoga, of course—though that does at time create some tension with the atheist label. I am also a nature lover, and love camping and kayaking. I’m interested in improving my communication and public speaking skills so I’ve signed up with Toastmasters International. My first meeting as a member is this coming Monday.

Identity is a complex thing. Atheism is only a starting point, and part of a realization that you are responsible for creating your own self –according to what kind of person you want to be.  And not waiting around for a god to “reveal his will for your life.” It’s a start.

And words like faith and religion, which are highly emotionally charged, have many different (possibly even contradictory) meanings to different people. When atheists criticize ‘faith’ what I have seen is that what they mean by faith is uncritical and unexamining belief that some proposition is true–regardless of any evidence to the contrary. I think this perception of faith is legitimate in that belief is a core element of Christianity and any knowledge that poses a challenge a Christian’s belief is, to some Christians at least, highly feared. (This, I think, is a huge reason many Christians don’t want the Theory of Evolution to be taught in schools. They don’t want their teenagers exposed to something that might cause them to question the biblical account–or maybe even the whole of Christianity. Their very souls are at stake, after all.) This view of faith means sticking your fingers in your ears in the face of contrary evidence and saying “na na na na naa naa I can’t hear you!” But this gets really tricky because of the many definitions of the word ‘faith.’ It also means things to people that have little to do with belief in propositions–things like trust and loyalty. Someone who is true to their spouse is ‘faithful,’ etc. So there is a huge danger of equivocation here. That is when you use a word to mean one thing in part of an argument and something else later in the argument.

Here is a decent example from http://www.logicalfallacies.info/ambiguity/equivocation/.

(1) Christianity teaches that faith is necessary for salvation.
(2) Faith is irrational, it is belief in the absence of or contrary to evidence.
Therefore:
(3) Christianity teaches that irrationality is rewarded.

This argument, which is a reasonably familiar one, switches between two different meanings of “faith”. The kind of faith that Christianity holds is necessary for salvation is belief in God, and an appropriate response to that belief. It does not matter where the belief and the response come from; someone who accepts the gospel based on evidence (e.g. Doubting Thomas) still gets to heaven, according to Christianity.

So faith does not automatically mean irrationality. I think it has come to that connotation in modern times as we learn more and more facts about the world. I’ve heard it said that there will never again be theologians like Thomas Aquinas and others who were the top scholars of their day. All the facts that they knew about the world seemed to confirm the teachings of the Church. Of course the universe must have a designer, which was God! Of course the sun revolved around the earth, as we can clearly see with our own eyes! But now we know more about the universe than Aquinas and company ever dreamt of knowing. There was no tension between the scientific and religious views of their day. They had faith, and it was rational faith.

But does true religious faith really allow for changes in one’s whole view of the world with new learning? Even for the letting go of treasured dogmas when they no longer make sense? Could a Christian be convinced that Jesus’s resurrection was mythical if the historical evidence really points that way–but still have faith? Can a Christian also be a Freethinker (that is, someone who forms their opinions on the basis of reason, not religious creeds)? Can Infidels have faith? Many people, both atheists and believers, seem not to think so.

So why do I care? I actually rather like the word faith in it’s non-irrational connotations. I like the definitions having to do with loyalty, trust, and strong conviction. These are highly compatible with the secular way of life. It’s just the bit  about using that same word to also mean dogmatic belief in improbable and improvable tenants that I find highly repulsive.