Why I’m an Atheist... But also Searching for Answers: Introduction to my Blog
“You’re not really an Atheist. You’re a secret Christian because you’re trying to find something.” Yeah, something to fill the God-shaped hole in my life. Actually, no. There are things I am searching for, but I’m not going to call it God because other people do (It’s not even clear that other people call what I’m searching for “God”).
This world and this life contains a lot of mysteries. Duh. I guess.
Why I am an Atheist
I don’t believe in God. There is nothing substantial about that. There are many people just like me. This is not a comprehensive taxonomy of my unbelief
I don’t believe in God because the God presented to me in my youth wasn’t believable. Most of my non-belief came because the arguments that sustained my belief were weak and/or incorrect. However, even more than that, I would say the main reason I don’t believe in God or a God right now is because I don’t understand how an omnipotent God can function. The God of Christianity is described as omnipotent. Without understanding who God is, am I even believing in him if I wanted to, good-faith, believe in him? No.
Think about omnipotence. There is no logical subject for omnipotence. Standard omnipotence might say that God is all powerful. God can do anything. Don’t get triggered at this next overused statement: God cannot create a rock so big that he cannot carry it. Some apologists might say that this statement is nonsense and therefore an improper way of speaking or even formulating a sentence.... but it is analogous to an omnipotent God granting free-will.
This creates a real problem for believing in God. Or believing the words of John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The Problem of Free Will
I’m shooting from the hip here. Eventually I want to get more philosophical and technical. Free will is a major problem when it comes to an omnipotent creator. Why? Because omnipotence implies omniscience, which implies not only predestination of those who are saved (and those who will burn in hell for eternity), but predestination of every minute action and thought people might have. If God is omnipotent then he is omniscient and therefore knows everything in the past, present, and future.
Modified Omnipotence
So what if instead of God being Omnipotence in an illogical sense, he was omnipotent in only a logical sense? What if God simply knows everything that is possible to know at a certain instance in time?
This means that God exists in time. The past, present, and future are NOT available to him all at once. He is no longer the “Alpha and the Omega” but simply the “Alpha.” If God exists in time, the problem of evil becomes more substantial. Because when and if a God can transcend time, the problem of an all good God coexisting with evil means that no single time-instance of his creation can be pointed to as “evil,” even the Adolph Hitler sagas, because everything is in its proper place (cosmic justice is served... maybe).
I can’t find people who understand this question much less who are able to answer it. That is not the only reason I don’t believe in God. It is one of many.
What questions am I trying to answer? What are the answers I’m looking for?
What is the Question?
To be honest, I’m not sure what the question is. I feel like I’ll know the answer when I see it. Some of the people who have attempted to answer it (who I’ll be reading and writing about over the coming months) include Joseph Campbell, Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Jung, and others. Nietzsche seems to be particularly intelligent in this regard, especially in dilineating the terms “bad” and “evil,” his conception of the slave mentality and the nature of forgiveness, and his idea of the Ubermensch (someone who rises above the master/slave moralities).
Follow me on Steemit. Bring ideas to my attention. I won’t promise to fully investigate what people throw at me unless they sell it well. When I was in college I told my younger brother that nothing can be learned from religion (nothing useful). I was wrong. There are so many things to be learned from any succeful thing that has stood the test of time.
I plan on making this multi-platform: Steemit and YouTube. Right now my YouTube channel is of my 700 mile hiking adventure on the Appalachian Trail, but in the future it’ll contain me talking about ideas.
Would you consider yourself agnostic? This is what I tend to tell people when they ask me what my religious faith is. If you haven't heard of the term, it means:
"a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God."
This includes all religions in my opinion. There is no way anyone could prove the existence of any of these religions. If somehow someone gave me proof, sure, I would believe. But that is because I live a life based in fact, not blind faith.
To me, religions were made long ago by people who could not find meaning in life. They also wanted to give morals to others that needed them. That is fine. But I am not going to blindly follow something that has been translated and handed down by word than by the interpretation of a bunch of other humans, who lie constantly, and finally put into a physical book form. It seems extremely ignorant to believe and trust humans over the past two thousand years.
I do recommend, and I see you are probably on your way, getting into philosophy. It really gets you thinking about the question. Even if you don't know the question. What are morals? What is justice? Why does it matter? Where do I fit in to the big picture? Does the big picture matter? Etc.
Great post man, keep it up.
Agnostic is a useless word. Everyone is agnostic, whether they believe or not. Agnostic, means lacking knowledge. Nobody knows God. If they did, conclusive proof would be put forth.
People can be deist, as in maybe there is an entity larger than ourselves, which I concede might be possible, or theist, those that believe a certain entity governs them and follows a certain faith. I can understand the deist position, as it acknowledges the position of the person not knowing all about the universe. But I cannot understand a theist position at all. Believing in some ancient manuscript when most of its arguments have been debunked, them being either incomplete, or outright contradictory to reality, well, that's just silly.
In a way, a theist is the staunchest atheist of all, completely denying without a doubt the inexistence of all gods either than their own. Well, atheist just go one god further. And unless, they're the militant angry atheist, they're position is always "I don't have all the information, but the information that I do have invalidates the existence of god".
Meaning in my opinion is not given by a god, but by ourselves. What we accomplish during our lifetime and what we represent to those around us, that is our meaning. Whether good or bad, enlightening or regressive, that only time will tell, when posterity will pass judgement on our actions. But that posterity is not omnipotent, but more potent than ourselves, most likely.
I really like philosophy, especially in college, but I want to get into for real.
I call myself an Atheist because I don’t require 100% certainty for belief or disbelief. Disbelief would never be had if 100% certainty was required (proving a negative is impossible in most cases).
Pray that God will reveal himself to you. Read the Bible. Start in Matthew. Read the entire New Testament. Then start reading the Old Testament.
I was saved in 1980. I have no doubt whatsoever that God exists and God is the God of the Bible. I've seen God work in my life and the lives of others. I've seen God change me and other people.
There are a lot of good books for the honest skeptic. My favorite is "Evidence That Demands A Verdict" by Josh McDowell. You can buy it used on Amazon for as little as a dollar plus shipping.
I don’t believe God exists. Praying that he will reveal himself to me would be weird. Did you read the article?
Religion is just a primitive way of understanding the universe and creating order in societies. An anecdotal way of making sense of the unexplained, while also an attempt at law. It is foolish to rely on it now, when better explanations exist for the phenomena, and more concrete accurate laws have taken shape.
That is not to say that religious texts are completely useless. They bestow knowledge, similar to how a grandpa would teach grandkids or something. But they shouldn't be treated as sacred words, unmutable, but as elder knowledge to draw wisdom, like a novel, or a proverb. That is, as a metaphor.
I do not know whether humankind will ever completely understand the universe, but it sure is much more interesting and comprehensive than any faith deems sufficient.
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Hmmm....