While I’m on this whole ‘god’ kick, here’s a lesson in contrasts. While again searching the seemingly omniscient Google for “Why believe in God?” I came across an NPR “This I believe” story by Penn Jillette. I wish I were this articulate:

“This I believe: I believe there is no God.”

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I’m not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it’s everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I’m raising now is enough that I don’t need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

There are many who argue that the truly Christian Heaven is a metaphor for the lives we lead, not some after-life recreational park. With those people, I agree. The only Heaven we can be sure of is the one we make, to the best of our abilities, right here, right now.

Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Forgiveness (much like punishment) is much more powerful in the here and now. If I pray to god for forgiveness, I’ll never really know the answer. If I ask my wife, or friend, or child to forgive me a transgression, I get a meaningful answer now. So I do the right things as often as I can so as to not have to ask the people I love for forgiveness.

“I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.” That’s just a long-winded religious way to say, “shut up,”

Some very religious  people like to say that “science is faith just like religion” and that is true to some extent. The difference is that all scientific beliefs are held provisionally. They are always subject to change based on new information. Religious beliefs cannot, by their nature, be falsified, so are held for as long as the believer wants.

Well put Mr. Jillette.

At the bottom of the page was a link to William F. Buckley’s  How is it possible to Believe in God? I have not generally been a fan of Mr. Buckley’s ultraconservative view points, but I thought it was worth a read as I know him to be very articulate. He starts with an apocryphal story:

I’ve always liked the exchange featuring the excited young Darwinian at the end of the 19th century. He said grandly to the elderly scholar, “How is it possible to believe in God?” The imperishable answer was, “I find it easier to believe in God than to believe that Hamlet was deduced from the molecular structure of a mutton chop.” That rhetorical bullet has everything — wit and profundity.

Unfortunately, all the retort has is an admission that believing in God is easier than scientific investigation. Duh. I find it easier to believe in god than to believe that we can split atoms. Well, I don’t, but many people do. The ease of belief doesn’t make it correct.

What is the greater miracle: the raising of the dead man in Lazarus, or the mere existence of the man who died and of the witnesses who swore to his revival?

There’s a third possibility: that one person wrote a falsehood. I’m no bible scholar, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have sworn affidavits from the witnesses at Lazarus’ revival.  So, of the three potential scenarios (resurrection, witnesses to a resurrection, or fiction) I’m gonna have to believe (provisionally) there was no miracle.

This I believe: that it is intellectually easier to credit a divine intelligence than to submit dumbly to felicitous congeries about nature.

felicitous:  very well suited or expressed; congeries: aggregation, collection

Again with the “intellectually easier”. The whole point of scientific inquiry is not to submit dumbly, but to evaluate, refine, investigate, and provisionally form “felicitous congeries about nature” to be held only until they are replaced by other congeries about nature, no matter how felicitous. “Submit dumbly” indeed.

So, for this round, I think I’ll have to call it comedian 1, conservative commentator 0.

Tomorrow we’re meeting with our soon-to-be-former pastor to explain why we’re leaving the church. In anticipation, I’ve been attempting to clarify in my mind why I no longer believe in god. At best, my belief was tenuous even while going to church. But as I started to pay more attention to the words of the verses, and the hymns  and the sermons, the words had less and less meaning for me. I couldn’t even fake out belief by asserting that it was all a metaphor, with wonderful life lessons to be learned. So, what are the various arguments for belief in god? I went looking, despite my wife’s humorous “why not?”

I recently finished Irreligion, and decided to do some searching on the opposite side. If I ask, what do the religious say about believing? So, I asked the seemingly omniscient Google, why believe in god? The first result was less than inspiring. It has six reasons:

1. The complexity of our planet and universe prove God exists. Sorry. Just because I was once dealt a perfect “lay down loaner” in euchre doesn’t mean that god gave me that hand. Our planet is special and unique, and the universe is amazing, but that doesn’t mean there’s a god.
2. The complexity of the human brain proves God exists. Sorry, there are perfectly natural processes that have lead to the human brain. No need for god.
3.  Random chance can’t explain it all, so God must exist.”… life cannot arise from non-life. Where did human, animal, plant life come from?” Certainly believing in god will prevent you from taking a job as a scientist, looking at a very interesting question. Claiming “God did it” is to ignore the possibility that there ARE natural causes.
4. Lots and lots of other people believe in God, so God must exist because they can’t all be wrong. Yes. They. Can. I’m sorry, but I’m simply not impressed by the “everyone else believes it” argument. We human beings have been known to be wrong on very large scales.
5. “We know God exists because he pursues us.” I’ve got to admit, this is the first I’ve heard this argument.  “I have come to find out that God wants to be known. He created us with the intention that we would know him. He has surrounded us with evidence of himself and he keeps the question of his existence squarely before us.” If he wants to be known, why doesn’t he make it more obvious so that he could rest a bit and not pursue us? How do you know that God wants to be known?
6. Jesus said he was divine, so therefore he is. I’m not making this up. I’m amazed.

Look throughout the major world religions and you’ll find that Buddha, Muhammad, Confucius and Moses all identified themselves as teachers or prophets. None of them ever claimed to be equal to God. Surprisingly, Jesus did. That is what sets Jesus apart from all the others. He said God exists and you’re looking at him.

Well that settles it. I’m God. Therefore Jesus is no longer anything special. Two people have claimed to be God. Therefore god doesn’t exist.

One final quote from the page: “God does not force us to believe in him, though he could. Instead, he has provided sufficient proof of his existence for us to willingly respond to him.” Then why didn’t god influence Google to give me more convincing arguments? If god is pursuing me, why aren’t the answers a bit more clear?

Maybe I’ll find something more convincing on another page. Maybe not. I once read someone’s logic for disbelief this way:

If there is a God, he made me with an analytical mind. For me to not use that mind would be a sin against God. Therefore it is a sin for me to believe in God.

Today, I don’t believe. If there is a god pursuing me, your evidence will have to be more compelling. But after you’re done convincing me you exist, it will be much tougher to convince me to worship you.