Planning a blog post, in two parts:

Ideological Shifts, pt. 1: How I Overcame My Atheism...

Ideological Shifts, pt. 2: ...to become a secular Humanist.

I realized about a month ago that there was a way in which I could frame Christian scripture so as to (mostly) dispense with contradictions: consider the Bible not as a binary text (lil OftenBen) but rather as a series of parables, communicated on a variety of levels (from Leviticus as a 'rulebook' for the Israelites in its time to Jesus literally telling stories), which allows the reader to develop an intuitive understanding of how to apply the transcendent wisdom of the text (10 Commandments, Sermon on the Mount, etc.) to their everyday lives. This framework, combined with my latent understanding that certain phenomena lend credence to the idea that we may never understand all of the machinations underlying the universe and its existence, led me away from the near-total rejection of religion that had characterized my youth thus far.

However-- I also came to understand that there were certain parts of scripture which I could not reconcile with my personal views, regardless of my framework. The story of Ananias and Saphira comes to mind. This got me thinking a bit more, and I came to realize that the wisdom which I had identified in Christian thought could easily be applied without acceptance of Jesus's divinity, God's existence, or the infallibility of scripture. Essentially I re-realized something I'd considered a couple years ago. Religion is comprised of two fundamental components: belief in the divine, and belief in a moral code. Acceptance of one need not necessitate acceptance of the other, although they tend to reinforce each other. Essentially, that's how I ended up at secular Humanism. I believe in love. I believe in community. But I also believe in the power of people, working together, to overcome adversity. And I see no reason for recourse to the divine; I'm now happily agnostic.