Over the course of the past five years or so, my religious beliefs have gradually changed. I used to be a devout Catholic who believed in Jesus and agreed with about 95% of the Catholic Church’s teachings. Now I consider myself an agnostic, and of the hard variety. What this means is that I consider any useful or purposeful knowledge about God’s existence to be impossible for the human intellect. I cannot say for certain what has caused this change in my beliefs. I can point to a few specific things I’ve read or experienced or correspondences I’ve had which planted seeds of doubt in my mind, but obviously seeds cannot take route unless there’s fertile soil in which to take root. I do not know how the soil of my mind became a suitable garden. I suspect that it has probably been fertile my entire life, but I was too afraid to admit it to myself. The influence of familial upbringing cannot be denied, and once you start to believe in Christianity, it’s very hard to let doubt enter your mind, what with the prospect of eternal damnation for non-believers hanging over your head. But as the years went on, my growing disenchantment with my religious beliefs could not be denied. I think that it all began with the idea of petitionary prayer. According to the Bible, it is very important that we ask God for what we want, both for ourselves and for others. This concept always seemed to me to be completely incompatible with the fact that God was all-knowing and all-loving. In any possible situation for which I might pray for God’s intervention, God already knows more about the situation than I do, and already has the ability to intervene to change things if it is the right thing to do. So for what conceivable reason would my input be in any way needed or even useful? Who am I to think that God would take advice from me? A God with a suggestion box isn’t much of a God, in my opinion. Still, I continued to call myself a Christian. Even if I didn’t believe everything most Christians believed, I still agreed with the most important aspects of the religion. If I had to narrow it down to a single event which caused me to first consider that I might not really believe in God, it would have to be the discovery of an internet site called The Skeptic’s Dictionary. I had seen John Edwards’ TV show, and it certainly looks as if he has the ability to communicate with the dead, even though I did not believe such a thing was possible. I decided to do some research to see if I could find out his secrets. On The Skeptic’s Dictionary web site, I discovered that my doubt was well-placed, and that his supposed ability to receive messages from beyond is nothing more than a rather simple technique called “cold reading” in which the medium throws out a series of vague guesses, and then watches the subject for a reaction. Anything which gets a reaction is followed up on, and the subject remembers the hits more than the misses. John Edwards is certainly very skilled at it, and his ability is also enhanced by his post-production in which he edits out most of the misses, to make him appear more accurate. After I finished satisfying my curiosity on this obvious fraud, I browsed around the rest of the topics, and found myself becoming more and more intrigued. There are hundreds and hundreds of belief systems which are subscribed to by thousands and millions of people despite a complete lack of evidence in support of them. In fact, in many cases, as with John Edwards, many people believe in things despite the fact that there is readily available evidence against them, which can be found with a little bit of research. This idea fascinated me. How could so many people believe so many ideas which I considered not only completely unsupported by the tiniest bit of proof, but which had plenty of evidence against. As you can imagine, it didn’t take long for my questioning gaze to turn inward at myself. Who was I to criticize anyone for believing in UFO’s, or astrology, or crystal therapy, or miracle ionizing bracelets, or psychics, or anything else for that matter, when I myself believed in a God who I couldn’t prove existed? Was the only difference between them and me that my belief was much more difficult to debunk? I pondered that question for a very, very long time. I came to the conclusion that if I continued to call myself a devout Christian, I could not criticize anyone else’s unfounded and foolish belief and still be logically consistent. If I rejected every other belief system because of lack of proof, I must also reject Christianity. There is a famous quote by Stephen Roberts, "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." I discovered that I was already very close to being an atheist, and over time I discovered that recanting by faith in Jesus Christ was not as painful as I imagined it might be. I don’t feel that my life is empty and meaningless without Jesus. I do not believe that there is anything I can’t accomplish now that I no longer look to God for help. I do not feel like a branch that has been separated from the life-giving vine. My heart is not restless. I am just as happy today as I have ever been. I have a terrific life. I am lucky enough to live in one of the most free and prosperous countries in the world. I am lucky enough to be surrounded by people who love me. I am lucky to have a bright and creative mind which has helped me create a career with which to support myself. I do not know why I have been so lucky, but I don’t spend a lot of time asking why. I don’t think, however, that I should give thanks to God for blessing me so, because that would beg the question: Why are so many billions of people not so lucky as I? Does God love me more than them? I don’t think there’s any satisfactory answer to that kind of question, and so I merely accept my life as it is. It’s not perfect by any means, no one’s life is, but it’s far better than most’s. If someday I meet God, either in this life or the next, I’ll be sure to say thanks. Coming soon: My Creed Part 2: Why I Will Never Believe Email Steve with any comments at aenor@aurora.mv.com |
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