Posted by Jim Henderson on: 03.01.2006 /
When Off The Map hires an athiest we go for the best and the brightest.
Our (providential?) decision to hire Hemant was confirmed by our Athiest friends at American Athiests Inc. who this week chose Hemant to be the recipient of their 2006 Founders Scholarship for $2000.
Now Hemants getting his money back!!
Read Hemants acceptance response here and see his very cool picture.
Congratulations Hemant and thanks for partnering with Off The Map to help Christians become better human beings.
Comment by: Ir
1Congratulations on winning the scholarship grant, Hemant! That is a cool photo of you on the winners page. I hope American Atheists, Inc. will spell your name on the scholarship check better than they spelled it above the photo ;)
(Speaking of spelling, Jim, I noticed that you accidentally reversed the “e” and “i” in “atheist” in this post (and a couple of other places))
Comment by: Siamang
2It’s a sign from the Atheist God!
Oh wait. Nevermind.
Hemnant, you NEED a new picture. Was that your senior picture?
Next time no Sears portrait studio.
Comment by: Jim Henderson
3Ir
Sorry about the spelling
I just have never met an atheist before :-)
Comment by: Ir
4I figured that’s what it was, Jim ;)
LOL Siamang! :)
Comment by: Jim Henderson
5Hey Ir
When you say you used to be a “practicing Christian” - what are you now and how do you diffentiate?
Comment by: Tom in Sacramento
6Say, Ir, I don’t think Jim’s spelling was the problem. He was just talking about Hemant being Athier than anyone else. ;-)
Comment by: Julie
7Siamang,
One thing I have learned from reading this blog is that atheists have humor that closely matches mine. Whoda thunk?
Comment by: Ir
8What am I now? Confused, probably :)
These are some things I used to do which I’m not doing now:
have a daily time alone where I talked with God and read the Bible to tell him stuff, see what He wanted of me etc;
believe pretty much everything my church believed except about roles of men and women and the age of the earth; ;)
be an active member of my church - be involved in ministry and go to church twice a week;
attend Bible studies
I stopped doing the first two things a few years ago but kept doing the others until a year or so ago - I felt like a hypocrite doing that but I also wanted to ‘keep the door open’…and was afraid of isolating myself…so I went, I talked like a Christian, and the weirdest part was, it seemed like no-one could tell the difference anyway.
I stopped going to church last year. I still haven’t told most of my Christian casual acquaintances about any change. For various reasons. In a perfect world I’d tell the truth. But many people can’t hear the truth even when you do say it. People assume a ton of things. I happened to stop going when my church was going through a lot of changes and there was a general exodus; I’m sure some people assume I was part of that.
The people I have told seem to have the opinion that I’m still a Christian but I’m struggling with my faith. Which isn’t surprising since I’m from one of those churches were there’s no such concept as being a Christian, then not being a Christian anymore. Well……maybe they’re right. Who knows. Except I’m not really struggling with my faith per se. For example, I like not trying to figure out God’s mysterious will for my life; it’s much simpler this way.
I also wrote about ‘me now’ in comment #30 of “Sheep and Goats - who’s in and who’s out”.
Comment by: Siamang
9Julie wrote:
“One thing I have learned from reading this blog is that atheists have humor that closely matches mine. ”
But that may not be a good thing! ;-)
Comment by: Hemant
10Siamang– They wanted a picture. I had a “yearbook-y” one taken of me at the school I worked at last year. Not my favorite, but I’m sure it could be worse… :)
Comment by: Siamang
11Snort!
Get Brian McLaren’s photograper. That photo on the right is really cool!
Comment by: ike
12Be rebellious Hemant, transfer to diviniy school.
Comment by: KSG
13Ir,
Thanks for your comments (#8 & #30 in sheep/goats) I appreciate your (web) honesty and authenticity. And I would think that there are a great number of people who go through the motions of church attendence just to keep up appearances, whether for the sake of family, friends, business, or whatever.
People always assume what they don’t know. Thank you for removing some of mine.
p.s. I will respond to your question to me in #30 of sheep & goats… soon, I hope.
Comment by: Paul
14Congrat Hemant! Well deserved and humbly accepted!!
Comment by: Ir
15Thanks, KSG. I’ll be interested to see your response to my question when you have time.
About how I kept going to church - it wasn’t exactly about ‘keeping up appearances’. For a while, the relationships I had there were enough to keep me wanting to go. And in some ways I enjoyed my involvement in ministry. And while I felt that I was being hypocritical acting like a Christian outwardly only, yet I felt that as long as I put my best into what I was doing, and did it without wrong motives, how could I be doing anyone any harm?
I had to step down from any ministry I was involved in before I could consider not going; it took courage to say I wasn’t able to continue. I gave other reasons - time constraints, family obligations - rather than saying it was all about my spiritual distance from what was going on. They are connected, because where I am spiritually has led me to change my priorities and re-evaluate whether I can justify serving in active ministry.
But also, it’s very hard for me to discuss where I am spiritually - or whatever - with Christians. Christians don’t have a framework for understanding; any more than people who have never been Christians have a framework for understanding someone who suddenly becomes one. In some instances when I’ve tried, I can almost see Christians deciding what ‘box’ to put me in. For example, do I go in the ‘box’ which says “Put off by unkind, unfair treatment by other Christians” - some of them know full well I could go in that box but from my point of view, that didn’t put me off. It just added some questions to my pile along the lines of “If the Holy Spirit is real, how come these Christians treated me this way and how come these people who aren’t Christians, treated me better?” It didn’t help my faith, but it wasn’t the ’straw that broke the camel’s back’. After all, Christians can learn and grow from relationship disappointments, can’t they? :)
Comment by: KSG
16Ir,
I hope you can tolerate my boldness, what area of ministry were you involved with?
Comment by: Ir
17I don’t mind you asking. You might ask something eventually that is too specific for me to want to post here - if so, I’ll say so.
I was never involved in ministry to the extent some Christians are. Anyway, the area most recently was worship - instrumentalist, not vocalist - playing and also assisting with some of the preparation necessary to the worship ministry. So - no ministry which required me saying things it had become hard to say with conviction.
I’ve done other things too; before my ’skeptical days’ I was a Bible study leader at times; a children’s worker at times; some other things as they came along.
Comment by: KSG
18Ir,
I appreciate your willingness to be as open as you have been and I respect your desire to keep cetain details anonymous.
I know that if I were asked to give an account of my spiritual journey to date I would be quite reluctant and would only do so by avoiding details so as to obscure my identity (because if I did I would get crucified by certain people who know me and fortunately don’t have a clue that this site exists)
p.s. I posted my “statement of faith” in sheep/goats. I’ve got a helmet so I’m ready ;)
Comment by: Ir
19KSG, I didn’t realize you were wanting to be anonymous also!
Now you’ve got me curious - what would your friends/peers/associates/leaders object to about this site and/or about your participation here?
I don’t think my Christian friends would object to OTM or to Christians posting here; many of them would probably be overtly supportive.
Comment by: KSG
20Ask me again sometime.
I ignore my computer on weekends, helps keep things sane.
Comment by: Ir
21Good policy - that way it’s not your immediate family crucifying you! :)
Comment by: Rick
22A funny thing about getting a scholarship from American Atheists (AA) is that you can tell others without being insincere that you’ve recieved a scholarship from AA (Alco. Anon.).
Lame jokes apart, congrats Hemant. You deserved the award for being a part in the chapter of positive atheism. Rock on.