Interview with Benjamin Ady

Posted by Helen on: 10.17.2006 /

Benjamin Ady, whose blog is here, has kindly agreed to be our eighth online interview candidate. (You can read all our online interviews here)

You might also like to read the church review Benjamin recently completed when he visited his former church (he is no longer a church attender).

The purpose of this interview is to give you the opportunity to listen to Benjamin as he shares his thoughts and opinions with you.

If you want to discuss whether Benjamin’s views are correct, we invite you to do that here on the discussion board. Benjamin is welcome to participate in discussions there about his views if he wants to. If he doesn’t have the time or inclination that’s fine with us - we don’t consider doing so ‘part of the interview’.

I’d like to post more online interviews. If you’d like to send one in, you can find the instructions and questions here.

Please share a little about yourself with us

What screen name do you post under — so we know you when we see you?

Benjamin Ady

Would you like to share any of the following so we can know you better: your age range, whether you’re married or single, have children, what kind of work you do, what area of the U.S. (or other country) you live in?

I’m 31, married to a gorgeous, compassionate, brilliant, forgiving, amazing, blond, tall Australian bombshell named Megan. We have two daughters: Aeowyn, aged 4, and Cosette, aged 2. I am going to school full time as a 3 year undergraduate psych major at University of Washinton, Seattle Campus. I also play blackjack professionally to keep food on the table.

What do you like to do when you have some time to yourself?

Read, and then read some more, and then read until my eyes just about fall out of my head. And occasionally play the guitar and sing a little.

Please share with us something you really enjoy about your life.

I love it when my daughters run up to me upon my arrival at home yelling “Daddy” and *fling* themselves into my arms. I love dancing with my wife in the front of the cinema while the credits are rolling and everybody else is filing out. I *totally* love being in school. Dr. Csikszentmihalyi talks about this lovely self forgetful thing that happens called “flow” which is when one’s skill set and the challenges one is facing meet in this lovely synergistic way–like I suppose what totally happens for Lance Armstrong when he is cycling. I feel that being in school.

If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about you or your life, what would it be?

Can’t think of anything. I’ll think of it later, at one o’clock in the morning, and I won’t be able to sleep for annoyance that it is too late to come put it in here. Oh well.

You and Conversation at the Edge

How did you find Conversation at the Edge (or, the eBay atheist blog) and what drew you to post in the comments section?

Helen left a comment in response to one of my blog posts, and I liked her comment, and so I followed to see where she came from, and I found CatE. I have posted in the comments sections because there seemed to be real conversation going on about things that made sense to me and were important to me, and I wanted to join in.

Is this the first time you’ve participated in any online discussions on the internet? If not, could you share with us what other sorts of online discussions you like to participate in?

I have only recently started participating in online conversations again after a … 8-10 year hiatus. Funnily enough, some 6-7 years ago, online conversations formed a strongish part of the development of the relationship between my wife and I. I mostly putz around on a few blogs in my circle of friends and their circles of friends, attempting to leave provocative comments.

Has posting on Conversation at the Edge (or the eBay atheist blog) changed you in any way?

Hmmmm. I’m thinking its impossiblish to interact with other human beings in a meaningful way and *not* be changed. I hope so.

You and church/other groups

Were you raised going to church and are you currently a church attender?

Yes, I was raised in an independent fundamental Baptist church (a place I still find scary–you can see their web site here. Warning, they look kind of normal, but they aren’t really). I am not currently a church attender per se, but my wife does occasionally convince me to “go to church” with her, which I do because I have a strong desire to honor and bless her. Of course, this is only if you define church attendance in a ‘traditional’ way (whatever that means). For instance, I attend 12 step meetings, which feels a lot more like whatever ‘church’ ’should be’ than any ’sunday morning church’ I’ve ever been to.

What is your main reason for choosing to be a church attender/not to be a church attender at present?

This could get quite lengthy. I have gradually come to the realization that “Sunday morning church” simply doesn’t work for me on multiple levels. By “Sunday morning church” I mean “traditional” “mainline” “typical” “boring” “irrelevant” and other things. I would find myself week after week sitting there looking around at all the beautiful people and they seemed to be understanding/connecting with various things like the lyrics of the music, the meaning of the passages read, the gist of the sermon, etc. I, on the other hand, kept having this overwhelming sensation of “Huh?” and “What was that?” and “What the *&%^#” does that *mean*?”

Finally I just decided there wasn’t much point anymore, especially since there often was not much of an outlet or … pathway for me to ask all these questions, and no one really seemed interested in engaging them. My friend Richard Sharp says that “Sunday morning church” services are scripted, staged, and safe. I guess this scripted/staged/safe model just wasn’t working for me anymore, so I quit.

Apart from church are there any groups you participate in regularly for faith-based, social and/or self-improvement reasons?

As I said before, I attend 12 step meetings every week. Sometimes these meetings feel like the only really safe place in a dangerous world.

Is there anything else (outside work and family) which you devote significant time to? Or used to, or hope to in the future? (We understand that for some of you, work and family takes up almost all your time at present)

Back when I was generally more than 50% christian I worked for two years as a volunteer on board a ship belonging to an international christian missionary organization called Logos 2. This organization actually did a lot of good things aside from ‘evangelism’, and I”m glad to have worked for them.

Right now it’s mostly schoolwork schoolwork schoolwork.

Hope to in the future? I am greatly hoping that when I finish my master’s degree, my family and I can get involved full time with an organization that is helping needy people in the 2/3 world. My wife and I are specifically hoping to get involved helping in some way with those who are escaping/have escaped/need to escape sex slavery/sex trafficking.

Labels people might use behind your back (and sometimes to your face): “lost”

Please answer the following questions if your beliefs differ in any significant way from this: “Every human being has a “sin’ problem separating him/her from God and the only way to resolve my own sin problem is to believe that Jesus is God and Jesus took care of it for me”.

Has anyone ever called you “lost”? Have you heard or read anything which tells you that some people talk about you like that behind your back?

… not really. This is an interesting question which I’ve not thought about before. The sect I grew up in very strongly had a mentality that once people left the sect, they were kind of “on the outside”–lost in a sense, although I guess they would have said that if they ever *were* “christians” then they were “always saved” and couldn’t get out. I suppose that the people I knew in that sect probably think of me as being “lost” in some way. I think my mother probably worries that I am lost.

How would you/do you feel about being called “lost”?

It’s interesting to me. I’ve undergone a big change in my way of thinking lately that has put me into this category for some people. I’m thinking that in a world which, according to christians, has been cursed by its maker that in a very strong sense we are all lost. Words and their meanings are important to me. It makes me curious. If someone actually said to me that I was lost, I would want to know what they meant, and why they think that way, and so forth.

Do you feel “lost” in any way — is there anything you’re trying to find, or is anyone trying to find you, as best you can tell?

To quote my paraphrase of Helen: “I generally don’t like generalities”. Having said that, I wouldn’t say I feel “lost” in a general sense. Indeed, I rather feel “found” in a general sense.

I understand myself and like myself much better now than I have at any previous point in my life. I’m trying to find all the lost socks that disappear in the laundry. I’m trying to find ways to stop being so damned arrogant and unkind and selfish and afraid so much of the time. And I’m finding these things, little by little. sometimes I do get the distinct sensation that god is chasing me and just won’t let alone, dammit.

Over past 2 years I went through a phase were I got very very angry at god, because I was blaming him for all my self inflicted pain. that is to say I was blaming him that repeated attempts to numb the pain weren’t working. I felt like she was insisting that I “come alive”–become more able to feel, not less. Did you ever think that maybe Lazarus was pissed off at Jesus for raising him from the dead–like, “finally, finally I was dead, and you still couldn’t let well enough alone”. I felt like that toward god.

Are you aware of any assumptions people make about “the lost” which don’t apply to you?

Can’ t think of any.

How do you like to describe yourself regarding what you believe or have no belief in?

Mostly with this phrase: “I don’t know”.

What (else) would you like to tell the people who call you “lost” if you thought they were listening?

I would suggest they try reading though Brennan Manning’s “Ragamuffin Gospel” every week for the next month, and let me know what they think of it.

You and the Bible

Do you own a Bible? Do you ever read the Bible or look anything up in it? If so, what is your main reason for doing so?

Well …. there are at least 3 Bibles in our household, although I wouldn’t say I owned them personally. They are on our book shelf. Very occasionally I read it (only Eugene Peterson’s “Message” though–it’s the only English translation I can cope with) Very occasionally I get the idea that maybe I’ll find some inspiration there, so I read some.

As best you know, has anything in the Bible influenced you in a good way (directly or indirectly)?

hmmm. I suppose it might be argued that the course of history might have been very different without it, so I might not have existed. I suppose that some of my favorite books and authors might have had very different experiences or lives without the influence the Bible had on them, and then I wouldn’t have experienced the same lovely enjoyment that I have experienced from reading them: (thinking: George Macdonald, Sheldon Vanauken, Annie Dillard, Brennan Manning, JRR Tolkien, Victor Hugo, Dan Allender). Hmmm. I have also directly been encouraged sometimes by bits in the psalms, and perhaps other places.

As best you know, has anything in the Bible influenced you in a negative way (directly or indirectly)?

hmmmm…when I was younger, and even more arrogant than I am now, I used to use the Bible as both a basis and a weapon for bludgeoning and criticizing people in the most horrific , cruel, and ugly ways. So in that sense, yes, I suppose so.

Has anyone expressed disapproval to you about your own personal opinion, or use, of the Bible? What would you like them to understand better about you and the Bible, were it possible?

No one has done this in quite a long time–years. I’ve mostly written off the people who did that all those years ago. I wouldn’t be super interested in dialoging with them on the subject–I think I would find it a bit boring and annoying, kind of like riding the “it’s a small world after all” ride at Disneyworld just one more time too many.

Anything else

Is there anything I forgot to ask that you’d like to tell us?

You are welcome to visit my blog at oxymoronredundancyparadoxtrap.blogspot.com

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