I have come to the realization that I do not believe in God.
I don’t deny that God exists. He (she? it? they?) certainly might exist. However, at the moment, I simply do not have enough to go on. I see no gap in the universe so great that it needs a god to fill it, and I feel no personal relationship with any divine being.
I have very few reasons to believe in God at the moment. I have the testimony of others, sure, but for most people that means a singularly unreliable, subjective kind of testimony. And it is more than counterbalanced by my sense of skepticism.
By no means do I intend to paint all believers with one broad brush, or to disparage them all. In fact, one major reason that I leave myself open to the possibility of God if the fact that my wife believes in God. She seems to have a sweet, humble assurance of divine presence and a sense of relationship with the spirit that I do not have, but would never dare question. In fact, people like my wife lead me to hope that I might be able to believe in God someday.
The authority of the Bible, like the auithority of any other religious book, is also highly unconvincing. Again, it it second-hand testimony at best, and largely unsibstantiated. Furthermore, all of the “Bibles” of the world conflict with each other, and contrary to the protestations of their respective adherents, none of the pack really stands out.
I am naturally inclined toward Christianity, sure. But it is Christianity that I am inclined toward, not God. You may think it odd that I would separate the two, but I’m doing it. I find Christianity appealing and relevant, but I have no reason to think that it is for any other reason than because I grew up in a Christian family in a Christian culture. So when I make my ad hoc adjustment for cultural bias, I find myself again at the zero mark.
Finally, I admit that I would like to believe, but for the moment at least, that is not enough. I know how easy it is to manufacture something when you want it badly enough, because I grew up in the Mormon church. For the time being, I simply refuse to make myself believe. I’m not comfortable with that, and I would never be able to shake the skepticism that comes from the fact that I would know full well that I had purposely cultivated religious fervor. That’s not the same thing as a relationship with God. I know, because I did it for twenty-eight years.
In other words, I have already gone the route of pushing myself toward belief. I’ve spent years cultivating faith on purpose, readin scripture, praying, testifying until I felt sure of myself. Immersing myself in religion and spirituality until I convinced myself that it was all true and that it really was God. Coming out of that, I’m hardly willing to just pick a different flavor of religion and try again. I have no reason whatsoever to suspect that the ultimate result won’t be exactly the same. Also, I am reviled by the idea that God is playing some kind of cosmic shell game.
I could change my mind. I’m open to it. Right now I have some vague criteria in mind that would do the trick, but they seem to not be forthcoming. I’m not closed to the possibility that in the future at some point, either those criteria will be met, or I will change the criteria. I’m hardly so arrogant as to assume that I’ve got the whole universe figured out right now, and I’m hardly so stubborn that I would be unwilling to change my mind about things.
I prayed this afternoon that God would tell me that he exists. I didn’t get an answer. I guess that’s all for now. I don’t know what this means, or how long it will last, but here it is.
Sailing to Byzantium 
Whoa! I know how this feels! Deadline calls, but I look forward to coming back and reading more, and I wish you the best in this new cognitive turn.
Hi Kullervo,
If you were convinced or moved by Ebon Musings’s article on the cosmic shell game, then you must not be in agreement with my “religion as language” metaphor. To my way of thinking, asking whether a religion is “true” or not is no more meaningful than asking whether French is “true”, or German is “true”. A religion is a mode of communication, a pair of glasses to wear.
A Christian is someone who believes and acts upon what Jesus Christ taught about Himself, about life, death, sin, forgiveness and the resurrection (His and ours). Jesus taught that a follower of His is a person who depends upon Jesus alone for salvation.
If you grew up with Morman parents and attended a Mormon Church then you did not grow up in a Christian home nor attend a Christian Church. Could I make a suggestion? Go to a Christian Book Store. Buy yourself a Bible, either the New International Translation or the New Living Translation. And then, read a chapter per day. That’s all. But before you read, ask God something like, “I’m am so confused about whether you exist or not. I simply don’t know. But if you do exist, please show me through the words of this guy called John. Speak to me through the reality of Jesus that is present in this letter. And if you do, I promise to follow you, learn about you, obey you and love you.”
The problem with religion is that there are so many of them with so many variations of the theme of god / God. Most atheists make the leap of illogic that if some of them aren’t true, then none of them are true. Such a thought is neither logical nor reasonable. Think this through. Just because you were a little off track at the start of your life doesn’t mean you have to stay off track. I didn’t become a follower of Jesus until I was thrirty. I’m fifty-six now. I can honestly say that each year since I became a Christian has been better than the year before. And this is not because my life has become easier, as secular people understand easy. In fact, if anything I’ve had more problems. But the journey through the problems have become easier because of the reality of Jesus, who declared through words and actions to be God. Any how, good luck on your journey.
Makarios, I don’t know why you say that someone who grows up Mormon doesn’t grow up as a Christian. Kullervo grew up believing in and worshiping Jesus Christ. He has numerous Bibles, and has read the Bible multiple times.
Is your criteria for ‘Christian’ something other than worshiping Jesus Christ?
Sorry–I missed your second comment there, Makarios.
Based on your definition of Christianity, Mormons are Christians. 😉
I’m sure you have mourned the “death of God” in your life, and I mourn with you.
I’d like to pose an argument that Mormonism and Christianity are by no means mutually exclusive. Of course, from the common Christian perspective, there are monumental problems with Mormon theology. Some of these seriously undermine the basic concepts of God’s nature and the method of salvation. However, I know that in my case I always felt like I was Christian first and Mormon second. In other words, I believed in Jesus, had a working relationship with him, read the Bible daily and the Book of Mormon only sometimes (contrary to LDS leaders’ advice, who suggest reading to the Book of Mormon daily for self-conversi0n, I was never convinced that it could be more relevant than reading the gospels daily, since they tell the life of the Lord), believed in my utter dependence on God for salvation, and placed all the teachings of Mormonism as basically subject to the basic concept of God and my total fear/awe/reverence towards him. To say it in a different way, I never dealt with God in a way that I was telling him what to be because of what they taught me at church. I gave him the space to be God as he was, and practiced Mormonism because I was reasonably convinced that it was true. I cannot speak for Kullervo, of course, and there is definitely plenty of room in Mormonism to forget Jesus between “We thank thee O God for a prophet” and “Praise to the Man” (just think about the audacity of that hymn’s title for a second!!). But for my part, I was definitely as Christian as the next believer, even if I was paying tithing to the wrong guys ;). For me, I was self-aware of this dual belief: a supreme belief in God and Christ that was the only thing I really felt converted to, followed by a secondary, subordinate belief that Mormonism had the authority it claimed.
This is just a quick observation, but it sounds as if you’re more agnostic than atheist. Agnostics tend to be more open to the possibility of God’s existence, whereas atheists typically–although not always–deny that He or She could ever exist. It’s just a thought, and maybe something you should look into.
I think that given your religious background, and the beliefs of your wife, you may find agnosticism to be more balanced and fulfilling. Rather than being at odds with religion, you can remain open to the possibility of it’s truth, but with a degree of skepticism. Agnostics, like atheists, rely on reason more than faith. You don’t have to close yourself to the possibility of God’s existence, and you can still participate in religious activities with an open mind 🙂 The only difference is following rationality and reason, rather than your heart and faith. Good luck!
LaShawn-
I appreciate your input, and I’ve given agnosticism some thought, too. But an agnostic says “I don’t know what I believe.” I do know- I don’t believe in God. When I think about whether there’s a God or not, my answer is “no, probably not.”
It’s “weak atheism” rather than “stong atheism.”
I feel like agnosticism is merely stating a truism: it’s objectively impossible to know whether God exists. Of course it is! It’s religion; it’s faith. The difference is that the agnostic stops there and sits on the fence.
No offence (ha! “fence”), but agnosticism seems like a cop-out to me. I feel like I can be an atheist and be as open minded as I want.
Although I disagree with the “I don’t know what I believe” part, I see your point, and no offense (or offence!) taken 😉
I tend to be a hard agnostic: we can’t know with certainty, but we can say what seems most likely.
Is that really different than weak atheism?
I don’t see agnosticism on the same spectrum as atheism. Or to put it a better way, the spectrum theist-agnostic-atheist isn’t an accurate way to model these belief patterns.
I am a hard agnostic: we can never know for certain whether God exists.
I am simultaneously a hard atheist: I am very confident that God does not exist.
Here is a thought that might be useful for someone who was really searching for God or a reason to believe in God.
What is our best guess for the destiny of the human race say a hundred billion years hence (figure just chosen at random to reflect a long time)?
Given the past fifty years of progress in so many fields (computer technology, science, physics, nano technology et al, can it be possible, even probable, that the human race will eventually come to a point where we will have figured how to prolong life indefinitely?
And during that time or in the next eons after that time would we not be able to organize matter to make animals, insects, fish and fowl that would be similar to or even different from the species with which we are familiar with today, at the same time using and building on the principals of life as we now know them?
Would we not then be de facto Gods?
If one could answer this in the affirmative I do not think it is such a huge step to say this has already happened and there is a God or Gods in the cosmos with which we might be involved. (ie. If this will happen in the future given unlimited time it must have already happened in the past given similar unlimited time)
Starting from this frame of reference I do not find a belief in God so difficult.
Dennis
This is the problem with many apologetics. Dennis, all you have done is try to make an argument (and a pretty tenuous one at that) that the existence of God is not impossible, and then tried to invoke the “infinite monkeys” trick.
Sure, if it were possible for mortals to attain godhood through their own efforts, then given unlimited time (which is not necessarily a given) such a thing is extremely likely to happen.
However, that doesn’t mean that it has in fact happened in our case. Furthermore, the “god” you have described bears no resemblance whatsoever to the God described by any religion that i am aware of, because you have defined “god” only as a being that can create life. This description leaves out crucial defining characteristics of pretty much every religion’s God.
In a billion years, will we also have attained immortality though our own efforts? Will we also have attained incorporeality and omnipresence? How about omniscience? Moral perfection? Certainly not moral perfection, since that seems to be something an individual has to start out fresh, and can’t build on past progress the way you can with science.
Also, if such a thing is possible and thus likely, and the unievrse indeed was infinite in size and time, then it would have happened an infinite number of times, which means that individuals can attain godhood without the help of god, and they do so all the time. So then what would we need god for?
I completely agree.
I guess I’m sort of hard-agnostic, and soft-atheist. Although for the most part I don’t believe in God, I can never say with certainty that He does not exist. There is no way for me to ever prove it.
As a former Christian, I can relate to your experience here: I found that the only reason I accepted the faith (or even the “god” concept at all) was because of my social conditioning – thus leading to question whether anything I believed in was real at all. After seeing the absurdity of faith, I dropped the whole “god” concept and embraced the void of Existential Nihilism instead.
From one sailor on life’s seas to another, good luck in your own search for meaning.