Why I don't believe in God

[Reflectionist]

I wasn't raised in a Christian home. But, since I was very young, my idea of religion was inherently flawed. In all of my interactions with Christians, Sunday School teachers, Youth leaders, pastors, friends, the idea was that a belief is the same as knowledge. Objective knowledge, to be more specific. And at the time, I accepted that – for the longest time, it seemed obvious that God was something that one could say "I know God exists, without a shadow of doubt." I fondly remember a time when religion was a simple thing; you either believed, or you didn't, and if you weren't sure, then you probably didn’t believe. You had to be certain, and I quote, "beyond the shadow of doubt." This was one of my youth minister’s idioms. He's a really cool guy – what Christ you see left in me after this is because of his guidance. But that's why this is going to hurt.

I don't believe in God anymore. There are times that I've wondered why I did, or why others did. What is the point of belief? Well, if it's for some extrinsic (external) reward, the belief becomes shallow. If it's for an intrinsic (internal) reward, then it's noble, yes, but it loses any effect when you attempt to share it. Intrinsic rewards are necessarily subjective. Extrinsic rewards are usually objective. I didn't want my belief in God to be a matter of "I don't want to go to hell," or even that "I want to go to Heaven." The idea seemed pathetic to me, that we would feel so ironically negative about our own existence, so that we could no longer find any real meaning in anything here... it was always about looking forward to Heaven. The irony was in the consideration that our being here was a decision of the God we followed so adamantly.

And why would I want Christianity to be a matter of subjectivity? Of aesthetic? It was simple: I had seen what Christianity is viewed as. It seems so condemning. The vocal majority spewing condemnations, demanding outright war against Islamic States in the Middle East; there are Churches left and right endorsing a no tolerance campaign against homosexuality, abortion, and many other things that are condemned in the Holy Bible – and some that are not. It all seemed like the death of Civil Liberty. My original hope was that to explain Christianity as an aesthetic, we would lose our need, and our will, to condemn others for their differences that made them who they are. Those differences may be condemned by Scripture, but other things, such as unconditional love, are held in much higher standing by it.

But no, this was not the Christianity of the Bible that I believed in. This was nothing more than a collection of political and social ideas – prejudices by which to judge others. Coming to church meant you were subjected to those stances. It was about what other people expected of you; how they expected you to act, speak, vote, and believe. Not merely what to believe, but how to believe and apply that belief. These are things I disagree with. This was no reverence toward God. The church was not first and foremost a place for reflection, contemplation, guidance, comfort, or even acceptance... but a medium in which to purport an elitist pro-Levitical Law political agenda. And by you having a Christian belief, you were expected to adhere strictly to those political beliefs as well – no exceptions. This wasn’t about loving God; this was clever marketing; blackmail.

And I was spending time defending this belief, with its unspoken injustices. A brief tangent, here: This is the reason why Christianity is no longer appealing. This is why the evangelical efforts of Christians are starting to become ineffective. This is why people want to distance themselves from God. It’s because Christians are so willing to associate God with elitist ideals, especially within a governmental context. It wasn't about God. What interest in God we had at this point was for the extrinsic reward. I distinctly remember many sermons on how, compared to the promise of Heaven, this world doesn't matter at all. Too many times I heard the words: “Jesus is coming back! Everything on Earth will perish! Glory be to God for it!” No; these things, like love and respect didn't truly matter, in the long run. People didn’t matter, in the long run, as long as they knew how wicked they were so that they’d accept Christ. I wonder if this is why these elitist ideals of political and social expectations became so prevalent.

I remember a youth leader getting very defensive when I brought up something about George W. Bush. He said "conversation is over." Not just, "this conversation." He meant conversation in general. I find it oddly hypocritical, that these people would miss so much of what Jesus says. It may not be intentional, but it doesn’t occur that Jesus could be speaking about us as well – not just the Pharisees. Or we might hear a sermon on Jesus walking on the water, and having Peter step out of the boat, and there will be some grand moral or ethical lesson involved with it about how we need to change our lives for Jesus. As if we were living the worst, meaningless lives of sin imaginable, as if it were a comfort, and outside of that was God ("Come to church!"). Not a single thought was given, or entertained, to this metaphorical boat being the Church itself – or what a little self-reflection could do to enhance these messages to apply to our own lives. Or what one could be as a Christian through it. There is a sickening dissonance in the way many Christians live – not that there isn’t in the way I live, there certainly is, but I’m not playing a Jesus card in order to purport myself as morally superior.

Is it about serving and pleasing God - that is to say, showing humility, selfless love while on Earth, so that people may not see you, but rather, the Christ in you? Or is it rather about appeasing yourself, your parents, your ministers, by adhering to Biblical laws, and demanding that others do the same - with no tolerance, empathy, affection, love - just demanding? Must we sink so low as to forget 1 John 4:18, where it says "There is no love in fear?" All we're doing is alienating what we see as God's creation, for our own political and social gains. Don’t you believe God created a round world, and all its inhabitants? Or do you believe that God just created the United States and Christians?

And no, you may not necessarily do these things directly. You may not be the one going out to public protests, holding up signs with Scriptural condemnations on them. You may not be the guy speaking out against diversity or differences in belief, race, sexual preference, etc. You may actually be a loving person, in person, but you do support these actions. It shows in the company you keep and the conversations you have, and in the political stance you have. Throughout my life, people have tried to impress upon me an importance of adhering to morality by showing me that I'm being watched, or looked up to. Or that I’m at least being paid attention to. Well, I'm watching and paying attention to you. You vote for these things. You vote for our civil rights to be taken away. You vote firstly according to the prejudices your Bible contains, and secondly for the unification of Church and State so that you can continue to do so. Your actions speak louder than any words you may tell me in private. I know full well, these are just words to you. This life doesn't matter. This is what drove me away, initially. That's what caused the first little slice of cynicism to creep in.

That's when I started to really study, to see more of the problem contained herein. In my naive attempts to justify Christianity despite the ironic condemnations thereof, I came to Christian apologetics. I found myself unable to trust the aesthetic approach to Christianity. I was highly suspicious, so I latched on to the springboard I received from evangelical training I took while I was in High School. What I sought after couldn't be solved by talking to people I could barely trust anymore. They had unintentionally burned that bridge when I adhered to the thought, and hated myself. I knew something was wrong. I looked into philosophy. For a while, I defended Christianity. I engaged in debates on a regular basis. I might've made some good points, but I don't think I was ever bright, or knowledgable enough to really affect anyone with these ideas.

Continued....

[Reflectionist]

I started looking deeper into the reasons why one believes in God, from a philosophical view. I learned that this extrinsic reward motivation that Christianity provides (i.e. Heaven as an afterlife) is a contrived substitute for the purpose of Christianity. It's a substitute for what we would call the meaning of life. These purposes we arbitrarily attribute to something that has no accessibly inherent or immediately obvious purpose, like God, aren't effective at all in these exchanges. They are only effective to us, only in so far as our passion, dedication, and motivation can fuel us in our attempts to justify our own beliefs. And, no matter how passionate or dedicated you are, the person you're talking to isn't going to be even remotely compelled unless they already so much as slightly lean toward that opinion on the matter themselves, for instance, if they live in an area where belief in God is the standard, or at least the majority.

The problem with these exchanges, and a biased approach to them, is in that God is not objectively knowable. "Beyond a shadow of doubt," is an impossiblity. But don't make the mistake of thinking I'm making a statement about the whole of human knowledge (epistemology). I'm only talking about God here, since God is a matter of belief, and not a matter of education. And while some could argue that God is within sense perception, I say otherwise. That stance is very belittling, and limiting description of God, who, by definition, cannot and does not have limits at all. The assertion that you know that God exists, beyond all doubt, is in effect, blasphemy. Christianity holds faith as one of the three linchpins of its belief (Next to hope and love - I Cor. 13:11-13). But if you say you "know beyond the shadow of doubt," it's not really faith at all. But that's not to say you cannot, or should not believe in God. We'll come to that in a moment.

That may not be convincing enough, though. Not only could it be considered blasphemy to be absolutely certain that God exists, but it's an epistemological problem as well. This whole 'epistemology' thing is kind of hard to grasp, anyway. How do we define our epistemology? Usually, in order for something to be accepted as objectively known, it has to be observable, testable, and repeatable. That doesn't mean it has to be empirical, or physical, by the way: Love exists, because we can observe love; we can test love; we can repeat love. We can't quantify it, of course, and we can't take a picture of love, but we can be certain that love exists. [For more information on this distinction, I suggest watching this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wX_W1BB_0M - it puts it as "injunction, apprehension, then confirmation." It’s the same thing.]

There is nothing about God that adheres to our epistemology, without the help of obvious biases such as subjective interpretation (which renders God observable, testable, and repeatable, but only if one wants to see things in this specific way), and possibly even imagination (That's not intended to be pejorative, by the way; I'm being serious - the process of imagining something that surpasses all greatness is a really humbling endeavor. It puts things into perspective, and can be life-changing. The process of imagination should be rewarded for its insight value). Biased interpretations of observations don't constitute any objective proof of God. But our objective truths come from repeated unbiased observation - if 100 people, of different backgrounds do the same experiment, and come out with different results, with similar ones for similar backgrounds, it's probably biased. If they all come out with the same results (excluding outliers, of course), it's probably not. And there are plenty of different religions according to different locations. (If you grew up in India, you’re probably Hindu. If you grew up in the Middle East, you’re probably Islamic. If you grew up in Japan, you’re probably a Shinto, etc.) In order for something to be considered objective, there has to be a process of an injunction - you can't look for evidence to back up the conclusion, you have to figure out a conclusion that fits the evidence.

Survival of the Fittest isn't an idea that evolutionary biology has a monopoly on. It applies to philosophy, thought, technology, religion, and the development of civilization. This type of civilization that you and I are used to, this way of existence, digitally communicating, is vastly different from others on this earth, for example a primitive Tribe in South America. Our languages, social norms, how we eat, what we eat, how we dress, how we act, etc. are all different in our different cultures. We've all got our different ideas on how to live life. And the ones that work are still here. The ones that don't work aren't here anymore. For all we know, there may have been an ancient civilization that thought it was pragmatic to stand naked out in waist deep water in the middle of winter. Those people are dead - our civilizations have survived. It didn't ever have to come about from some divine plan. It makes perfect since that if we notice that something that we're doing isn't working, then we need to stop doing that, and try something else.

If you want to say that the human mind works in terms of objective truths, then there is no such thing as opinion, belief, passion, prejudice, or emotion at all. There would be no aesthetic - the idea of "God," the idea of religion, would die out. There would be no love in the world. Nothing would be relative, or personal, and everything would be absolute and strictly scientific. Everything would adhere beautifully to logic and reason, and no one would disagree with it - they would have no inclination to at all; no creativity. But, on the other hand, there has to be at least some objective truth, otherwise things go completely in the opposite direction: solipsism, and complete, arbitrary relativism; absolute anarchy of ideas, thought, feelings, understanding and interaction; with no intent on learning, or making any sort of progress. But these are very extreme scenarios, which I do not endorse taking seriously. It's not a matter of complete subjectivity, or complete lack of objectivity. One should be aware of our epistemological abilities before making broad statements like that. Those are just the implications of the standard contention to Belief in God as subjectivity.

There is a line between proposing a belief as objectively uncertain, and proposing a belief as objectively certain. But the line is there. I would like to draw attention to the implications of purporting Christianity as objectively true in the guise of 'faith.' As Søren Kierkegaard puts it: "If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy fathoms of water still preserving my faith." What is admirable about a belief when you're absolutely certain it's correct, especially one that considers faith to be one of its 3 goals?

Whether you believe that God's existence is an objective truth or not, [believing in God], is a subjective choice that is dependent on faith. What sorts of logical persuasions that arise for this conclusion is just that: a persuasion that was intentionally looked for to prove or strengthen the standing conclusion. There was never an interest in finding out whether God truly exists or not. Apologetics came up as a means to defend a presupposed belief. As such, all the arguments in favor of said belief can be boiled down to a biased, contrived interpretation of indifferent observations. These arguments are only effective to us, only in so far as we are motivated to let our passion and dedication to our beliefs, can fuel us in our attempts to justify them. A belief like that has no power that can convince anyone else - at least, not in a way that isn't a form of blackmail. It's very similar to the first compelling argument for the Existence of God, which was: "So, you don't believe in God? Well, here's a bayonet up your ass!" This is why Christianity has survived so long in this way: it was the social and political expectation - nothing more. Again, you can't look for evidence to back up the conclusion, you have to figure out a conclusion that fits the evidence. It's biased, and just as objectively invalid as the apologetic arguments I spoke of before: its arbitrarily grasping at philosophical straws.

The 'proofs,' one has for a God aren't proof at all unless one wants them to be a proof. You should agree that God is beyond our ability to know with certainty - to comprehend fully. If we can comprehend it, it's not God. The uncertainty is what makes faith powerful. It's what makes it admirable. What's the point of faith if you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God exists? This is the backlash you're getting into. When you exploit a loop-hole in Logic to make God's existence logically imperative, you are unknowingly allowing any other faith-based claim, any other opinion to come in to that realm of being logically imperative. You don't want that. [For more information on what I mean here, I suggest you watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdneXwe6Q4o]

Though, I must say: the enemy is not God, or even belief in a God. Whether one believes in a God or not is a personal choice, and shouldn't be discouraged. No one can make the decision to truly believe in a God for someone else (I emphasize "truly," in lieu of "I don't want a bayonet up my ass, so I'll say I believe in God"). The enemy is, and always was, the misapplication of those beliefs. Things like forcing a belief upon someone else, or using that belief as a standard from which to judge everyone else on the grounds of morality and ethics, like a world leader who has the power to nuke any country in the world on a whim, or like the Westboro Baptist Church, who completely misrepresents the very sine qua non of Christianity as Jesus put it: "The most important [commandment] is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

Through all of this research that I've done, in these past six months, I've come to the conclusion that I cannot believe in God, anymore. I really should just leave it at that, because it's the simplest way to put it. I suppose I should end with this quote: "The tragedy of self-reflection is that I can never be the person I reflect upon. I am not the performer, but a member of the audience. Yet, at the same time, I am the performer, and am responsible for his actions. That I am aware of this - this unfair obligation - is the tragedy." I don't view Christianity as a worthy belief to hold - I have other things pressing and I simply don't care to know if there is a God or not; much less to spend time following one. Of course, I'm always open for religious and philosophical discussion, and I'll be more than happy to contribute to conversations, and attend Bible studies or whatever along those lines. But I'm too calloused to take a personal commitment to it, and if you're expecting me to, then you might as well just leave me alone. You'll be wasting your time trying to prove something to yourself, and all that you'll be proving to me is that you're insecure, and that you think I'm stupid.

Thanks for reading all of that. I haven't done a long, comprehensive writing like this in a long time. Please let me know your thoughts. Hold nothing back, I'm a big boy.

--James Elliott: The Reflectionist-

[Nerd42]

I believe in God and that a belief is not the same as knowledge

I haven't got time to read this all now but I have saved it and will read it when I've got time.

Have you read C.S. Lewis? You seem to have run across a case of what Lewis calls "Christianity And" syndrome. If people want to read Lewis I recommend they start with "The Abolition of Man" and then read "Mere Christianity" C.S. Lewis is the definitive answer to what you bring up.

[Reflectionist]

Lewis is a hack. A piss poor philosopher, and an even worse theologian. I hate it when people recommend that I read C.S. Lewis. I abhor the man. His ONE apologetic argument, Lewis' Trilemma, is illogical on so many levels. He's like the Dawkins of Christianity, except his claim to fame is in writing children's stories instead of evolutionary biology.

Have you read any Soren Kierkegaard? Friedrich Nietzsche? Aquinas (even though he's refuted and outdated)? Sartre? Tillich? Lewis looks like a third grader with crayons after reading them, and this writing was written after I read them.

[Zerotonine]

This is incredible. I've never read such thought and emphasis put into such a subject. I wouldn't like to say my opinion, please don't take it as disrespect. I might not mean what I say half the time, especially on faith-related topics. I will, however, say from my own personal experiences what its like to have no God; I am a recently convert muslim, and for many reasons I have left Christianity. Things did not add up exactly in place when I studied the religion further. For a very, very long time I have tried dedicating myself to Atheism (no, little boys and girls, that does not mean worship the devil). I simply couldn't. It was hard not turning to anyone, but if you did, would you know the "God" you are turning to is in fact real or not? Countless nights I've had this thought.

I'm not judging against your opinion, because I respect it in every way, but I strongly suggest you don't consider becoming atheist. It hurts, and further more broadens other unecessary beliefs. If there is a God, mankind would know by now. But we've become so blinded in our own different beliefs that we don't know what to do anymore.

[Reflectionist]

	Quote:	Zerotonine
	This is incredible. I've never read such thought and emphasis put into such a subject. I wouldn't like to say my opinion, please don't take it as disrespect. I might not mean what I say half the time, especially on faith-related topics. I will, however, say from my own personal experiences what its like to have no God; I am a recently convert muslim, and for many reasons I have left Christianity. Things did not add up exactly in place when I studied the religion further. For a very, very long time I have tried dedicating myself to Atheism (no, little boys and girls, that does not mean worship the devil). I simply couldn't. It was hard not turning to anyone, but if you did, would you know the "God" you are turning to is in fact real or not? Countless nights I've had this thought. I'm not judging against your opinion, because I respect it in every way, but I strongly suggest you don't consider becoming atheist. It hurts, and further more broadens other unecessary beliefs. If there is a God, mankind would know by now. But we've become so blinded in our own different beliefs that we don't know what to do anymore.

The belief in no Gods IS atheism... that's all it is. Whatever else you've heard about it is just personal opinion.

[Nerd42]

	Quote:	Reflectionist
	Lewis is a hack. A piss poor philosopher, and an even worse theologian. I hate it when people recommend that I read C.S. Lewis. I abhor the man. His ONE apologetic argument, Lewis' Trilemma, is illogical on so many levels. He's like the Dawkins of Christianity, except his claim to fame is in writing children's stories instead of evolutionary biology.

I did not mean to insult your intelligence by suggesting Lewis, even though Lewis is a simple writer, but have you actually read Lewis, and if so, what have you read? I think that either you are taking Lewis to be something he's not or else you think that I am. Lewis's non-fiction works don't require a "claim to fame" - they stand on their own - anybody could have written them. The fundamental ideas in "The Abolition of Man" are self-evident. If these were claiming to be research papers on scientific or technical questions or some other such thing, the need for expertise could be different, but anyone can comment on first principles and philosophy. Otherwise, the idea of "freedom of speech" would become utterly meaningless. There are millions of people, both educated and ignorant, who agree with Lewis's basic / fundamental points whether they've read them or not, so shooting the messenger will not silence his message.

Similarly, I see Richard Dawkin's personal qualifications as utterly irrelevant to whether his case against the existence of God is true or not. I read about the first half of "The God Delusion" before I finally realized that he was not going to provide any alternative starting point besides his absurd emotional tirade against God's character in the first chapter, which was the essential premise of the book. The scientific observations brought up had many possible explanations besides his and were a mere disguise for his emotional premise which was based on a selective interpretation of history - not on science. Perhaps "The God Delusion" was the wrong book to start with.

Lewis's Trilemma is intended to demonstrate the logical inconsistency of both holding Jesus of Nazareth to be a "great moral teacher" while also denying his divinity - it does not and is not intended to prove Jesus's divinity. It merely points out that if Jesus's claim to be God was not true, he would not have been a great moral teacher. It eliminates one possibility but does not prove anything positive. No logical person would claim that it does. Lewis's Trilemma is irrelevant to whether God exists or not. It is possible that Lewis could be totally right in "The Abolition of Man" and totally wrong in "Mere Christianity". Why did you bring it up?

And no, I have not yet read the works of all the world's great philosophers. I was thinking of starting from English translations of Plato when I get around to it and working forward to other philosophers from there.

[Nerd42]

Also, when I suggested Lewis, I didn't mean to dismiss you either. I'd like to respond to some points you bring up.

	Quote:	Reflectionist
	[font=Times New Roman]I learned that this extrinsic reward motivation that Christianity provides (i.e. Heaven as an afterlife) is a contrived substitute for the purpose of Christianity.

That's true as far as it goes, but the modern idea of a binary system of heaven and hell is not Biblical in origin. True, the Bible mentions heavens, a new heaven and new earth, a hell, a prison, a pit and a lake of fire, but the "Saturday morning cartoon" afterlife has unfortunately taken hold in many Christian's minds does not make sense when put up against the Bible.

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	Reflectionist;69438]It's a substitute for what we would call the meaning of life.

Please explain the difference between a substitute and an alternative answer.

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	Reflectionist;69438]The problem with these exchanges, and a biased approach to them, is in that God is not objectively knowable. "Beyond a shadow of doubt," is an impossiblity.

It apparently wasn't an impossibility for the apostle Thomas.

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	Reflectionist;69438]That doesn't mean it has to be empirical, or physical, by the way: Love exists, because we can observe love; we can test love; we can repeat love. We can't quantify it, of course, and we can't take a picture of love, but we can be certain that love exists.

What is love? Describe it. We might not be able to quantify it but we should be at least able to define it. Love is one of the most "mushy" concepts in terms of semantics/language that I've ever encountered.

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	Reflectionist;69438]There is nothing about God that adheres to our epistemology, without the help of obvious biases such as subjective interpretation (which renders God observable, testable, and repeatable, but only if one wants to see things in this specific way), and possibly even imagination (That's not intended to be pejorative, by the way; I'm being serious - the process of imagining something that surpasses all greatness is a really humbling endeavor. It puts things into perspective, and can be life-changing. The process of imagination should be rewarded for its insight value). Biased interpretations of observations don't constitute any objective proof of God.

True. I could see God but that would not prove God's existence to anyone else.

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	Reflectionist;69438]But our objective truths come from repeated unbiased observation - if 100 people, of different backgrounds do the same experiment, and come out with different results, with similar ones for similar backgrounds, it's probably biased. If they all come out with the same results (excluding outliers, of course), it's probably not. And there are plenty of different religions according to different locations. (If you grew up in India, you’re probably Hindu. If you grew up in the Middle East, you’re probably Islamic. If you grew up in Japan, you’re probably a Shinto, etc.) In order for something to be considered objective, there has to be a process of an injunction - you can't look for evidence to back up the conclusion, you have to figure out a conclusion that fits the evidence.

This is the bit that "The Abolition of Man" answers.

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	Reflectionist;69438]Survival of the Fittest isn't an idea that evolutionary biology has a monopoly on. It applies to philosophy, thought, technology, religion, and the development of civilization. This type of civilization that you and I are used to, this way of existence, digitally communicating, is vastly different from others on this earth, for example a primitive Tribe in South America. Our languages, social norms, how we eat, what we eat, how we dress, how we act, etc. are all different in our different cultures. We've all got our different ideas on how to live life. And the ones that work are still here. The ones that don't work aren't here anymore. For all we know, there may have been an ancient civilization that thought it was pragmatic to stand naked out in waist deep water in the middle of winter. Those people are dead - our civilizations have survived. It didn't ever have to come about from some divine plan. It makes perfect since that if we notice that something that we're doing isn't working, then we need to stop doing that, and try something else.

Good point, but Christianity is still here. If your religion isn't working you should get another one that is more correct but how you come to the idea that "God does not exist" from "let's find out what works and what doesn't" I can't see.

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	Reflectionist;69438]If you want to say that the human mind works in terms of objective truths, then there is no such thing as opinion, belief, passion, prejudice, or emotion at all. There would be no aesthetic - the idea of "God," the idea of religion, would die out.

That makes no sense. Opinion and belief, I'll grant you, wither in the presence of the ultimate truth but passion, prejudice and emotion would become stronger, not weaker. Plato (whom I haven't read for myself yet but plan to sometime soon) said something to the effect that it is the task of the educator to guide the child to hate what he ought to hate, and to love what he ought to love. This was because good really merits love and evil really merits hate.

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	Reflectionist;69438][font=Times New Roman]But, on the other hand, there has to be at least some objective truth, otherwise things go completely in the opposite direction: solipsism, and complete, arbitrary relativism; absolute anarchy of ideas, thought, feelings, understanding and interaction; with no intent on learning, or making any sort of progress.