Thoughts
Why I chose to reject God
In the past I've written a few articles which have undermined religion, particularly Christianity; in all honesty I've tried to keep those as objective as possible, and attempted to avoid offering my own personal reasons for my lack of religion. If anyone is interested to know why I chose to reject God, though, here it is.
Chinese Whispers
When I looked at Christianity (which is all I can really talk about with much confidence) in terms of the 'bigger picture', it seemed that people have believed in a God for generations upon generations simply because their parents did before them. The whole idea of having religious 'experiences' or life changing moments is rare - in my experience, people have a given religion from birth, they don't choose it, and in the majority of cases they stick to it until death.
This hereditary belief system does itself no favours. To begin with it gives religion a lack of credibility - surely a person of religion would be far more consciously sincere about their beliefs if they had actually chosen them? I decided that I had no strong convictions for the ideas of Christianity, so I gave it up.
Prescriptive Morality
Morality is one concept for which there is a lot of tension between those with faith and without. My personal stance is that humanity would be doing itself an injustice if we believed morality was something we were incapable of on our own. Of course it can be developed over time - and no human is born with a perfect set of morals - but to make the claim that without religion we would be unable to hold human values at all is absurd. I came to realise that I didn't need Christianity for morality - and in fact, I never had.
Living to Die
Most Christians I've talked to - and this surprised even me - held the belief that if God or Heaven were to be infallibly proven not to exist, they would no longer have any reason to live. Their argument - and the logic here is very much flawed - is that if we're dead for good, then what we do during life is unimportant, and life itself is hence meaningless.
When I realised God was nothing more than a human creation, it had the opposite effect; I have even more reason to live knowing that it's infinitely more likely that there's nothing after life. It's easy as a person of religion to become complacent, thinking that death isn't the end of everything - and living less of a life as a result. I don't want to make the same mistake.
Unlikely Entity
The prospect of a god having created the universe as we see it today is so unlikely, statistically, scientifically, even rationally, that I'm surprised I ever gave the idea credit. Religious statistitians would claim that that prospect of a universe coming into existence without the invervention of a divine entity is so unlikely as to be considered impossible - but what then is the probability of such an entity itself coming into being?
In a universe where alien life, even intelligent life other than our own, is so likely - simply because the universe itself is so exponentially massive - it would be selfish to assume that our own is the one favoured by such a god. Ar situation that would yield interesting questions: what if we were to one day create life of our own, even artificial intelligence? Does that not invalidate the idea of an all powerful deity being responsible for all life?
A Source of Comfort?
Human beings, myself included, are fairly suggestable. It has been shown multiple times, through advertising, psychological experiments, even optical illusions. If an idea is implanted in our heads firmly enough - like, for example, the idea that we are able to communicate with a god through prayer or other means - it is probable that at least a part of us will believe it. This was the final thing that got me. Look at religion from outside of the box, and it is simple to see how easy it is for someone to persuade themself that something is irrefutably true, despite there being no evidence either way and a very low probability that a book written thousands of years ago is anything more than a thing of literary interest.
—
If God does exist I apologise. I am sure (given the fact that I am created in his image) he will understand why I have chosen to discount him as improbable and unnecessary. If he doesn't, a lot of people are in for a disappointing death.
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13 comments for “Why I chose to reject God”
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It worked for me up until that last paragraph, comrade.
First, let me add another reason for kicking God's arse: the denial of human responsibility. The central dogma of Christianity denies us our right to personal responsibility. Did you do wrong? Beg forgiveness, and all will be well. Jesus died for your sins, after all. And hey — don't be sad that you were such a spineless, unprincipled scumbag. After all, you were born a sinner under the doctrine of Original Sin. You had no choice. Your personal principles mattered not a whit. Your only path to salvation lay in accepting Jayeeezuss…
…to which I say balls. And more balls. My sins are my own. I worked hard at them, and where they have done harm, I regret them, and I have tried to learn to be a better person so as not to cause harm again. That's my choice. My principle. The mistakes I made are mine. They do not belong to Jayeezzuss, and if he died for anybody's sins, they weren't mine. I'm not proud of my mistakes, but I am proud that I have learned not to repeat them, and I am proud that I have at least tried to repair such harm as I have done, and accepted responsibility for it. Screw you, Jayeezzuss.
That last paragraph of yours… if God exists, I'll be making no damned apologies. Instead, I plan to hunt the sonofabitch down and kick five kinds of hell out of him until he offers me - and every other person on this planet - the personal apology he most certainly owes us for the cross-eyed, cackbrained, backhanded, secondrate piece of piss-poor planning that is this universe, as supposedly constructed by a theoretically omniscient being.
Are we shiny?
Good response Dirk! I make no apologies. If God exists, I'll help you kick a sixth kind of hell out of him until I get my apology.
Hmmm, not true. You say "The central dogma of Christianity denies us our right to personal responsibility. " Actually, ascribing to Christianity is by definition taking personal responsibility.
As for Daniel's reasoning process: Everything you say is based on a hypothetical condition that doesn't even exist. You say "if God were proven not to exist …" that won't ever be proved though, so why rationalize a response? God does exist. He is a Living Being. Right Now. Today. The one thing you need more than anything, and I mean this in all sincerity, is Appreciation.
I don't think you are rejecting God as much as the idea of God.
* the hereditary aspect — I have worked with young people in churches, they are about 1/2 hereditary and 1/2 made their decision to be believers in their teens or early 20's. Hereditary Christians usually do not appreciate their faith as much as new believers. If you've never been been starving you really don't appreciate the 3 squares that appear on your plate everyday.
* re: Dirk and denial of responsibility — totally got it wrong. you don't get a free pass from responsibiliy. It's when you understand the the consequences of your sins that you realize you need forgiveness. Yes you did it, you deserve the consequences even if that means death or worse, living for eternity with your errors. You are responsible for your sins alright, it's just Jesus has been punished for them. Here's the good part — Jesus did it for you even when you spit in his face.
* if you beleive in justice, responsibility, love, forgiveness, accountability, and punishment for wrong doing ( ie justice) — then you beleive in God, because He is the source of them. These characteristics are all what the Bible means when it says it created man in God's image.
Cassy - when I wrote "if God were proven not to exist", I meant it only as a thought experiment. Obviously neither of us can prove the point either way - but imagining what it is impossible to prove is one of the things that we are certainly capable of, and perhaps one of the things that makes us human.
"The one thing you need more than anything […] is Appreciation"
This is one of the things which irks me. Do you really see worship as more important than simply being a good human being?
Time Traveller; I guess I can only relate my own experiences of Christians, and most of them have been the hereditary kind. I'm sure you're right when you say that new believers have more appreciation for their faith, though.
God being the source of morality, though? I prefer to think that humans have developed their own set of morals - I mean, I don't know exactly how you interpret the Bible, TT, but the morality God shows throughout seems pretty inconsistent to me. If you look at Jesus, sure, he appeared to be an almost-perfect individual (morally at least) but at the end of the day, he was only human. Whether he had delusions of being 'divine', or whether it was simply his followers which elevated him to this status is hard to ascertain.
NB: And yes, I definitely am rejecting the idea of God, as you say, rather than God himself, since technically I don't believe he exists.
Thanks for all the interesting comments so far! I hate to dredge up such an old debate, but it's one I really love.
There is nothing such as immanent justice. World certainly isn't "just". Millions of innocent living things (animals or humans or whatever) die an horrible and suffering death everyday, without deserving it in any way. It's just the way it is, life is hard, living is harsh, and wishful thinking (live after death, immanent justice, all will be fine at the end of the ends) won't help because it's just fantasy crap.
C'mon, 2000 years ago it was clear to thinking people, go read "de natura rerum" and learn something, man. Stop believing that Santa will bring you toys next christmas…
Well put Daniel. Oldie but a goodie! I felt like I was reading many of the same points/issues I have had for the past fifteen years. I hope this post has a long thread. Some one said "Humans can't create a worm, but creates all kinds of gods".
I think people would well be served to look at realities of life that are beyond dispute. You will never see up without down, front without back, hard without soft, Life without death, rich with out poor, good without bad. If we accomplished making all the poor people rich, we could not identify what rich was.
Things "are" by comparison.
Feeling like this life is "lacking" by seeing all kinds of injustice and concluding "life is hard" or "Life is cruel" is not looking hard enough. Much is good and always has been, always will be. The balance of life is not broken, cannot be broken.
The state of ON is always superior to OFF. The key here is ON is something, while OFF is nothing.
So, Off exists because of On. On created off.
This balance of On always being a bit more than Off, means (to me) no matter what, good will trump bad.
So what happens right now, happening right now, is a perfect balance of off and on and more marvelous than we can imagine. We would be better served to appreciate, savor, or the best you can do, derive joy from the moment.
Can you imagine anything more wild than what is happening right now on this world, in this solar system, at this very moment? No you can't. But asking why or how was this was created, is asking an impossible question.
Why? Because through our eyes and our senses we are the universe looking back at it's self!
Simply put, you don't get intelligent beings from a unintelligent planet. The earth is smart, the galaxy is crazy smart, it created us just like apple trees create apples. If you were an alien who visited earth a long time ago, it would have seen rocks and mountains and said, that planet makes rocks and mountains. The alien today would see people and conclude our planet also makes people.
Because we are part of the universe, similar to a car headlight, shining our consciousness in a beam, we don't know how the car works, how it was created. Being a part of "it" is the point. Happy to "be".
And don't think being a "part" of the most fanfuckingtastic thing you can imagine is not being noticed. The top of your head is the center of it all. How so? Where is the center of a ball, on the outside of the ball? Anywhere. That makes were you sit the center of the universe.
So our role is to accept the many pleasures, accept the many pains and most of all eek out as much joy as you can. Happy just to be.
Accept the orgasm, accept the pain. Experience it as the opposite ends of the same stick. Unavoidable, so don't keep fighting it. It really is "all good" baby.
Don't fight it, don't wobble, be here, be now. If your going to do something, do it. If your going to be lazy, be lazy. Don't wobble, feeling all bad and guilty wastes your energy, if your doing it, really do it and be alive. Engage it. No wobbling.
Thank you for your post Daniel.
Apologies If I rambled on too long.
Alan Watts would probably grumble at my delivery of parts of his work.
Chris
My Response to Daniel and Dirk.
Title "what Fools These Mortals be" Your going to kick GODS Arse huh. Thats like an ant saying i'm going to kick the universes arse. One Day you will stand before the Father and he will remind you of your words. His judgment will be absolute and there will be nothing you or anyone else can do to change it. Christianity means taking responsability for everything you've done. Considering other people so that you won't do anything to hurt them and if you do, asking forgiveness because you accept that fact your guilty for hurting them. This means Everyone Christians and Non-Christians. as it says in the 2 great Commandments. ’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. This sums up Christianity.
I'm capable of asking for forgiveness, and if I do ask anyone to forgive me, it'll be the party I've done wrong to. Anyone is capable of accepting guilt and responsibility, surely?
That second commandment is a good one, I'll give you that. But why is the first necessary?
song: why i'm an atheist
http://www.ijigg.com/songs/V2BA4CGFP0
you're already dead dude
Not since the time of writing, thankfully!
hi daniel :)
some thoughts :
Chinese Whispers: the "heriditari-ness" of a belief system neither proves nor disproves it's legitimacy.
Prescriptive Morality: i agree … there are numerous possible reasons and seedbeds for morality, not merely religion.
Living to Die: agreed … there are many legitimate reasons to live (beyond those that come from religious convictions.) the existence of life beyond these 100 or so years "down here" is merely a possible extension to the joys we currently experience.
Unlikely Entity: this universe was definitely created (if we subscribe to the "first cause" argument.") Either by an impersonal force (e.g. chaos) or a personal one (e.g. God.) i'm unaware of any conclusive data either way. logic is really all we have with which to weigh the evidence.
A Source of Comfort?: "suggestability," similar to your heredity argument above, certainly accounts for the belief of many. but what about those believers through history who have very low levels of suggestability? (where their brains are stronger than their familial programming?)
summary: your arguments are rational and legitimate, but now i'd like to know …
if this is what you THINK, is this also what you BELIEVE? (the two are not always congruous.)
i'd hate for you to SENSE deep down that God is who He claims to be (in Christ,) but fail to respond to Him merely because you are surrounded by so many irresponsible and non-thinking followers (a deep frustration of mine, also, to be sure.)
there are many reasons for brilliant, excruciatingly critical thinkers to "drop their nets" and follow the One who claims to have set this place up :) intelligence need not be left outside on the porch when one enters the domain of faith.
blessings !!
- mike :)