I converted to Christianity in eighth grade. In ninth grade, my youth pastor, a great guy named Len Kageler, told us we should read through the Bible, cover to cover, once a year. So I started doing that.
In the twenty years that I was a Christian I probably read the entire Bible front to back a dozen times. And that doesn't even include Bible studies or sermons or other ways I'd expose myself to the scriptures.
I wasn't supposed to have any pride, so I tried to not make a big deal about how much I read the Bible. But the space I created for myself in my various Christian circles -- my Christian identity -- my "success" as a follower of Jesus -- was based largely on my familiarity with the Bible.
And now that I'm an agnostic (a doubting atheist) I find myself missing having a Bible.
The truth of the Bible was a postulate, a given; it was axiomatic. I approached it presupposing its truth, and I spent thousands of hours of mental P90X figuring out what it meant and how to apply it to my life. My goal wasn't to figure out whether or not it was true. My goal was to figure out what God was like and what life was like and what reality was really like.
Now, as an agnostic, whenever I read philosophy or religion, it seems I'm judging its veracity and little else. Even if I've determined that a particular book is believable, it's reflexive to determine the limitations, the scope, of the ideas presented. Dawkins' book The God Delusion is great (and by the way he outs himself as an agnostic in that book), but it doesn't help me with my marriage or my job, and it definitely doesn't clarify my purpose in life.
The Bible was an all-purpose text. It was a complete manual for human life. If any aspect of existence wasn't covered explicitly, I just had to dig deeper to find principles that shed light on the problem. The answers were in there if I sought them with enough tenacity.
It was a wellspring of wisdom and encouragement. God loved me and had a wonderful plan for my life; the Bible is where he expressed his love and revealed his plan. It was a dependable source of hope and inspiration.
As an agnostic, there's no omnipotent force that is working in the best interest of all mankind, I can't know what reality is really like, there is no ultimate hope, and there's no book that I can spend a lifetime reading and re-reading to find inspiration and new messages of love and redemption.
I'm not complaining. (I'm kind of complaining.) I'm just feeling sentimental.
If there's a book that has consistently helped you at the art of living, it'd be cool if you'd share it in the comments.
