After Giving Up God For A Year, Pastor Concludes ‘I Don’t Think God Exists’
A Seventh-day Adventist decided to try to give up God for a year, and came to a stunning conclusion. See what he’s doing with his life now.
Last year, Ryan Bell was the pastor of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Hollywood, California. This year he started an experiment: giving up God. After a year of trying to live as an atheist, Bell now says he has no reason to believe God exists.
Bell, on his blog, Year Without God, posed the question on December 28 of 2013, “What difference does God make?” On December 31 he made it official.
I will “try on†atheism for a year. For the next 12 months I will live as if there is no God. I will not pray, read the Bible for inspiration, refer to God as the cause of things or hope that God might intervene and change my own or someone else’s circumstances. (I trust that if there really is a God that God will not be too flummoxed by my foolish experiment and allow others to suffer as a result).
Now, he’s taking another step.
The now-former pastor who ministered for over 20 years, told NPR, “I don’t think that God exists. I think that makes the most sense of the evidence that I have and my experience.â€
“I’ve looked at the majority of the arguments that I’ve been able to find for the existence of God and on the question of God’s existence or not, I have to say I don’t find there to be a convincing case in my view,†he adds.Â
Bell says that he feels “awkward” calling himself an atheist, but that does not mean he believes in God.
“I think before, I wanted a closer relationship to God, and today I just want a closer relationship with reality.”
Raw Story notes “Bell created a stir when he first announced his plans to ‘live as if there is no God’ for 12 months, resulting in him being fired as an adjunct professor at Azusa Pacific University and at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he coached doctoral candidates preparing their dissertation proposals.”
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Today, Bell now works for an organization that helps the homeless, called PATH.Â
“I’m still the same person deep down that I was before. I care about justice and equality and I want to see opportunities spread more evenly in our society,” he says.
As for God and the hereafter, unlike many, Bell seems to be comfortable not worrying.
“I think there are much more important issues to be focused on – things that are really threatening our society while we’re worried about what’s going to happen about after we die, when in reality, no one of us knows what’s going to happen to us after we die. But what we do know is that if we don’t do something about the immediate challenges that we’re facing today, we’re going to die a lot sooner (laughter) than we might otherwise.”
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Image via Facebook
Hat tip: Raw Story
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