Adult Spirituality Group notes

For our first Sunday morning gathering to open and discover our new book, some of the five participants had read the Introduction and Chapter 1, entitled "From Atheism to Belief".  We thought through concepts of atheistic, agnostic, and belief/faith in a higher power/God.   (Please check out a related online article book review of "Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto".)

The author synopsized his entry into faith:

"I had started this journey of intellectual exploration to confirm my atheism.  That now lay in ruins as the argument from the Moral Law "the law of right behavior" (and many other issues) forced me to admit the plausibility of the God hypothesis.  Agnosticism, which had seemed like a safe second-place haven, now loomed like the great cop-out it often is.  Faith now seemed more rational than disbelief."  

"It also became clear to me that science, despite its unquestioned powers in unraveling the mysteries of the natural world, would get me no further in resolving the question of God.  If God exists, than He must be outside the natural world, and therefore the tools of science are not the right ones to learn about Him.  Instead, as I was beginning to understand from looking into my own heart, the evidence of God's existence would have to come from other directions, and the ultimate decision would be based on faith, not proof.  Still beset by rolling uncertainties of what path I had started down, I had to admit that I had reached the threshold of accepting the possibility of a spiritual worldview, including the existence of God."

For next week:  Please read Chapter 2 (pp. 33-54) to discuss.