Five years of Knocking on the Ceiling

I started this blog in November 2010. I think it was originally shaping up to be a venue for my thinking about the tension between skepticism and spirituality. And it was that to some degree. But I actually wrote quite a lot outside this blog in a private journal about that topic. I don't know if it got me anywhere. I didn't find anything compelling in my thoughts for an atheist and skeptic to hang his hat on, spiritually speaking.

The best progress I made on my quest toward a skeptic's spirituality was through John Shelby Spong's Jesus for the Non-Religious, which I blogged about in 2013. Without having to believe anything supernatural, Spong brought Jesus into my life. No, it isn't a simple as the secular liberal's basic recognition that Jesus taught a couple good moral lessons. It is deeper. Spong's Jesus is powerful: Historically, we can verify barely a handful of facts about Jesus's life; but we know that he moved people in ways they could only describe with the religious language of the time.

Another big step for me was Chris Stedman's Faitheist. That book didn't advance me spiritually, but it taught me a lot about how to exist as an atheist in a fairly religious society. Stedman said what needed to be said: Atheists and theists can get along and even work together.

This has also evolved to be a general blog where I post what I want to post. I've reviewed movies and books and commented on the news. I suppose I like have an outlet when I feel the need to say something to the world. Apart from Chris Stedman tweeting my review of Faitheism, I don't have evidence that anyone is reading this. That's ok. One of the main reasons I blog to is keep my writing muscles from atrophying when I am not writing much at work. 

I've had other blogs that I let go dormant for one reason or another. But this one has endured and I raise my teacup to five years of Knocking on the Ceiling.