I’m thinking of climbing Mount Everest.
I guess it’s a difficult thing to do.
That’s what I’ve been told by a guy who tried it and failed.
He started his climb in a T-shirt and shorts.
He turned around and went home when the temperature dipped into the 20’s.
He wrote about his experience on his blog: “Why I Am Not A Mountaineer”
I used to be a mountain climber. I bought into it with all my heart. Blind faith, really. I never understood what it was about and I was brainwashed to believe it. My family gave me ropes and crampons at every birthday. I didn’t want to disappoint them so I allowed them to indoctrinate me.
But I had questions. “What if I fall?” I asked. “Hush!” they hissed. “No questions! Just believe!”
I’m a curious person! And that curiosity irritated my climber brethren. They said harsh things and I found myself an outcast. I wasn’t allowed to think. I wasn’t allowed to have emotions. I couldn’t play cards. I couldn’t own a pet. I wasn’t allowed to use apostrophes in February. When I broke the rules, I was made to feel guilty.
So I picked up my rope, my T-Shirt and half a Snickers bar and started my climb up Everest. I’m not sure exactly when I lost my faith. I just felt that mountain climbing was a lie. (Plus, it was freaking cold.) Nobody can climb this thing. It was a sham! A lie! I felt betrayed so I climbed down, got treated for frostbite and vowed to tell my story so that others wouldn’t suffer the sa
Now I’m free. So very free! Free! Free, I tell you! And I can tell you for certain that nobody can climb that mountain. Don’t try!
I’m just a humble guy on a journey to humbly find some humble answers to the humble questions I humbly ask humbly.
Boy, that’s helpful!
Climbing advice from a failed climber.
It’s like learning about religion from a de-converted Christain.
To atheists, the deconversions stories are soooooooooooooooooooooo important.
Stories like this and this and this…and thousands of others.
Pagans don’t learn about Christianity from life-long Christians.
They learn about Christianity from nitwit de-converts who think Jesus never even existed.
They’re the theological equivalent to climbers ascending Everest in shorts.
“Hey! Listen to what this de-convert says about why he left Christianity!”
Why?
I’m not interested in the bitter tales of failure.
Climbing the mountain of skepticism is a difficult thing to do.
I want to hear from someone who succeeded in doing it.
3 Responses
A huge amen to this. Great analogy.
That’s a fascinating analogy. It also points to listening to the losers, in so far as finding out why they failed (not necessarily following them, but learning from their failure).
It seems a lot of deconversion stories center around tragedy – even (perhaps especially) after decades of being in Christianity. I’ve never understood that. Granted, I’ve had very little tragedy in my life, but I’ve got a pretty good model of “the problem of evil” because clearly horrible, horrible things happen. How selfish would it be to reject God only after personal tragedy when I see others in pain all the time?
That’s what your shorts and t-shirt analogy made me think of.
Thanks for the post!
I’m convinced selfishness is the root of ALL evil. I can’t think of a single sin that isn’t born out of self-centeredness…
Hell will be full of losers who think their personal story is the most important, interesting, truthful thing in existence… rather than seeking out where they fit in with the Big Picture. (As far as they’re concerned, their tiny little personal fable IS the Big Picture.)