In some ways, this makes me disillusioned with the social myths of insular religious communities. In other ways, it makes Christianity seem more powerful, since small-minded places are too unsophisticated to concoct a conspiracy or brainwashing. As I've said, the sum of belief is bigger and more profound than its parts—all the fragments we piece together are less impressive than the belief system we come to hold by piecing them all together. Therefore, criticizing this or that fragment of the context of our belief is an ineffective way to invalidate the belief itself. 

In other words, I hope you don't limit your consideration of Christianity to what you experienced in your hometown. I couldn't be a Christian if Christianity existed only in that place (or ones like it) and only at that time. Christianity is, if I'm not mistaken, the most ethnically diverse global religion, and has one of the most complex histories (a history that is not, I realize, without its repulsive moments, such as the Crusades and violent infighting). I know you are aware of these global and historical factors, but the point I'm trying to make is this: Christianity has been believed by too many different people of too many different countries, centuries, and socio-economic statuses to not be taken seriously--or worse (and I don't think you were doing this but you were heading in this direction): to be dismissed in a Marxist way as merely the means by which social power structures perpetuate themselves. 

I am fond of much of how Augustine worked to reconcile his doubt with his faith, and one of his fundamental principles was that discipline can be liberating as well as restricting--we do not find freedom FROM external influences, but find freedom TO live a more meaningful and fulfilling life. So as I observe with disdain the problems with the religious community I grew up in, I should view the community not only as a social structure that is trying to control me (though it sometimes is), but also as a collective body that can enrich me and at times enlighten me beyond what I could cogitate by my lonesome. After all, not all social means of epistemology and identity are invalid--you no doubt find comfort and meaning in your current non-religious environment and colleagues; when you left your hometown, you relied on new social traditions and methodologies to inform your thinking, shape your identity, and define reality--and rightly so. But I wonder why you think you are automatically part of a community of believers (or truth-seekers) that is less prone to socially constructed methods of belief and behavior. And if you do not think you are, I wonder on what grounds you evaluate your former and current context of belief (or truth-seeking).

I also wonder how you can conclude that Christians are a "small group of humans"--and even if they were, what their size has to do with the validity of their beliefs. I finally wonder if it is possible that Christians' "effect on human culture" can be summed up in more complex ways than "hardly positive." For every King Henry VIII and George W. Bush there is a Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr.—and even if the ratio between these types isn't 1:1, some level of diversity has to be compelling. And what about the value to "human culture" of those Christians (even if you conclude they are a minority of Christians) who act upon their belief by interacting in culture with compassion, with commitment to a collective good, and with a sense of equality and justice (yes, slavery was supported with some demented attempts at theological justification, but abolition was also theologically based, if not more so) One other thing: I know more Christians who are desperate and uncertain about their faith than those who have a sort of ontological arrogance, or, in your word, "hubris." 

A couple of responses to other statements of yours. You write, "I think life has no inherent purpose or direction but people or groups of people may impose meaning on life or decide what life and existence means to them." 

I find this problematic in various ways. Again, if this is true, then the only function of systems of moral reasoning are to perpetuate a certain social structure over another. But how do we then make any moral judgments about murder, sexuality, law, and so forth? As you suggest later, our only universal responsibility is survival, so (as I would continue) the only moral judgment that can be made is what is best for the survival of the species. By that token, why is it wrong for me to cheat on my wife, since with every adulterous encounter I increase the chances of producing offspring? If my wife cheated on me, I would feel violated--but would I only feel this way because I'd been deluded to believe certain sexual ethical standards in my upbringing, or because if no one felt violated after such an event then no one would marry in the first place and society would suffer—or because a more fundamental and universal sanctity and structure of human relationships put in place by a divine Creator had been compromised? Or, for that matter, on what basis do you condemn Osama bin Laden, who was acting upon a "decision" of what "existence means to him"—his way of "imposing his own meaning" on life--when he orchestrated the attacks of September 11?

On a similar note, you identify survival as the scientific basis for pleasure. But this still strikes me as is an insufficient explanation for the variety and profundity of pleasure in life. Chocolate doesn't need to taste good in order for the human species to continue. Even sexual intercourse doesn't need to be pleasurable in order for human reproduction to occur—for example, ridding ourselves of bodily waste is necessary to stave off death, and yet we do not take pleasure in the process, at least not in any way that compares to orgasmic pleasure. Why is the pleasure of viewing a sunset "crucial to survival"? I think you disappoint poets and artists by downplaying the spiritual dimension of the beauty they are inspired to capture in their art by saying it is merely scientifically functional. No less an existentialist than Emerson himself saw more than a science experiment when he sat by that pond. 

You write, "I find resonances in many different sets of mythologies and intellectual paradigms but don't feel that any of them are necessarily true." 

The way I characterize our perception of truth (I believe truth is absolute but our perceptions of it are subjective)—as the way experiences, observations and ideas resonate to form a coherent worldview—if something resonates we must perceive it to have some level of truth to it, or it couldn't resonate. The postmodern, cafeteria approach to historical belief systems—I'll take a little of this and a little of that—strikes me as disingenuous. Are not belief systems to any extent mutually exclusive? And if not, what is the point of someone saying this bit of Marxism and this bit of Buddhism and this bit of Zionism resonate with me? What is the meaning of that resonance? Why should anyone care—indeed, why should my Christianity make you care enough to write me an e-mail (I say this only rhetorically—I am glad you did write!) What do you or anyone care what crazy ideas I'm thinking or accepting? Is it really true that you only wish to enlighten me to the existence of other viewpoints, and it would be of no consequence to you if I were to say, "You're right, my Christianity is a delusion, and your way of perceiving the world is more defensible than mine?" In other words, if nothing is absolute, what's the point of your or my search for belief other than diversion? 

And this has always puzzled me: isn't the statement "nothing is absolute" itself an absolute statement? Postmodernists seldom add the Dennis Miller qualifier here—"Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong"—which tempts me to suspect their motives.

I'm beginning to realize I'm taking too much of your time, and I should bring this to an end. Let me just try to return to a couple of basic points I was trying to advance in my earlier writing. 

First, can we agree that it's equally logical to believe in a divine manager of the cosmos as it is not to believe in such a presence, and can we go from there? It doesn't do justice to the power of the idea of a Creator to say it's purely sentimental (which you do not say) or a social mythology that exists only to perpetuate a social structure (which I thought I did hear you say). Those explanations are too superficial. 

Second, yes, my beliefs are in some way the product of my social context. Show me a human being whose beliefs about the world are fully independent from his or her social context—from what Richard Mouw calls "precognitive commitments." But again, it's possible that my social context helps to clarify truth for me as well as obscure it (or, most likely, that it does both in alternating fashion), as you believe your current environment does for you but your previous one did not. When you begin to reduce Christianity to something that is merely "imposed," you do not do justice to the legitimacy of my efforts to wriggle free from my previous social conformity and do some more original thinking, or at least allow that in my case, something more than social conditioning is at work in what I believe. I do not wish to declare to the world that I am right and everyone should now listen to me, but I do want nonbelievers to contend with the more robust Christianity of Augustine and C.S. Lewis, and not the simplistic conformist Christianity that typifies small-town communities and even much of popular evangelicalism. 

Finally, I hope I have not sounded self-righteous or unnecessarily aggressive in what I have written. I hope we both sincerely believe the possibility that we have it wrong and the other is right. As you say, "I found other ways of looking at the world which did resonate with my experiences," and what use would it be for me to wrest those away from you? Besides, little of what I say above advances Christianity beyond other organized religions--not only is that a topic for another day, but there is no empirical proof of God and Christianity; belief wouldn't be belief without a leap of faith.

So what is the purpose of my writing, then? Because what resonates with each of us--and why it resonates—is always progressing and being refined. I do not wish to preach to you, but rather to make sure that you have allowed the chance for belief in a Creator to resonate with you, just as I hope you keep pressuring me to make sure I have given atheism a fair trial. This may sound too "postmodern" and relativistic for a Christian to say, but it's where I'm at now and it's the reference point for my later, presumably refined beliefs. Thanks again for writing.

- Why Atheism is a Faith