The Problem of Self-Identity: Atheism

When I called this blog "The Evolution of the Mystery" what I had in mind was exploring the way religion has evolved for me - kind of a spiritual journal I could keep for myself and, by being made public, maybe hear from some folk who have experienced similar journeys. My continuing series on Paul Tillich is a part of that, exploring what his book and theology has meant to me. I want to intersperse that continuing series with some thoughts about my own journey with religious self-identity. When I was very young I knew our family was protestant, but didn't really have much firm idea about what the differences were and why there were varying denominations in the first place. And then, when I was in Junior High I began to self-identify as an atheist.

My first questions about this as a way of identifying my own religious views came from a book by an early hero of mine, Carl Sagan. In Broca's Brain he wrote about someone asking him if he believed in God. He writes that he told the person it depended on how he defined God. The concept of God, Sagan wrote,

covers a wide range of ideas. Some people think of God as an outsized, light skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others - for example, Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein - considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws. Whether we believe in God depends very much on what we mean by God. (Broca's Brain, p. 282.)

This gave me some pause as a self-identifying atheist. The question became, for me, if I am an "atheist" what exactly is it that I am denying exists? Next time, my early attempts to cope with this challenge to my young self-identification.