I can relate...

[acroyear]

Anne Rice leaves Christianity – The Marquee Blog - CNN.com Blogs:

Legendary author Anne Rice has announced that she’s quitting Christianity.

The “Interview with a Vampire” author, who wrote a book about her spirituality titled "Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession" in 2008, said Wednesday that she refuses to be “anti-gay,” “anti-feminist," “anti-science” and “anti-Democrat.”

Rice wrote, “For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian ... It's simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”

Rice then added another post explaining her decision on Thursday:

“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me," Rice wrote. "But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been or might become.”

To further my respect for her, in her twitter/facebook feed, she quotes some of the very same passages I like to "believe" in, and seem ignored by so many, including,

• "If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." (spoken at almost every Christian wedding in America)
  
• "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. "
  

and a nice quote from Ghandi: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Comments

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

Not about you, but re: Rice.

Not for nothing, Joe but... I kinda wanna call bullshit on her. Here's why:

She converted, what? Ten years ago? Did she somehow, miraculously NOT KNOW what modern Christianity was about? Did she not know (insert contentious horrible thing here) before signing on?

This is not someone who was raised as a Christian and came to the conclusion that they wanted out of the circus. This is someone who opted INTO to the circus a mere *ten* years ago. Frankly, though the volume knob is set differently, the radio station *has not changed* in any meaningful way in way longer than that.

I just question her sincerity, on all sides.

I do NOT question *yours*.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

10 years ago, *I* wouldn't have known, though as you know from my AFR writings, I was (slowly) getting a clue at how bad it was. I still thought they were the exceptions, not the norm. I didn't really get the scope of it until I started following the anti-evolution battles through sci-blogs.

seriously, most people don't join a church because of the national presence or political motivations. they join because they become attached to the local community there. as a result of not wanting to lose that spirit of community, the cognitive dissonance sets in - they can't see the outside, or what stories they hear they think must be the odd exceptions because the "christians" *they* know aren't like that.

Certainly none from *my* church harbored such capacity for hatred...or so I thought before the great split here in NoVA, which friends of mine are still deeply involved in the legal disputes for. Really, I don't know where most of them stand on the split, and I no longer care.

But that's where the split happens: when you finally see the people in your own church joining in the "hate parade", not even aware they're doing it (I've had to figuratively slap my mother around on some of these - she didn't even know just how bad the anti-marriage amendment here in VA in '06 actually was until I explained it to her, and that was after she'd already voted - she was still trusting the "Christians" around her to not be liars.).

I will grant you, given the critical reaction to her early work from the religious nutcases out there, Rice should have had a little more clue than that...then again, not every artist reads their critics. ;)

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

Define "modern Christianity". There are many flavors and each church within each denomination is different. Some churches preach extreme tolerance and use the Bible as a guideline. Some churches preach extreme literalism and believe that Jesus only spoke in King James English. Converts are extremely naive and tend not to see the downsides of their new religion. Or you try and rationalize them off or not emphasize them when you are first getting involved. Religion isn't just about doctrine, it's about experience and if you're getting an emotional high from services and have a bunch of new friends who dote on you, you're not really processing the whole nuts and bolts of it all. You're in the moment.

Then after the honeymoon period, doctrine starts to creep in and again, you can rationalize it off at first or think that you can have your own views and stay within your church but it doesn't always work out like that, esp. if you are in a hard-line denomination like Catholicism.

From what I've read of Anne Rice, she's got a manic personality (obsessive doll collector in addition to writer) and so I can see how the emotional fulfillment of a church would be very appealing to her. But after 10 years, it's hard to keep that attachment if you disagree with fundamental pieces of doctrine.

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

Because I am a pedant, and also had an "h" in my birth name that no one ever seemed to put in the right place, it's Gandhi, not Ghandi.

And I would comment that some atheists are quite cheerful, and not pessimistic at all. Even hopeful.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

In another thread elsewhere i commented that most atheists and pagans I'd met knew the answer to "Who is my neighbor?" and what the parable meant than most of the Christians out there.

[arseaboutface.livejournal.com]

Well, the plural of anecdote is not data.