Why do people who don't believe in God spend so much time talking about it? Why do they waste their time and energy trying to battle the word of God and the people who try to promote it? 6 years ago I would have answered this with an "I don't know." But now I know why they do it. Rather, why we do it.
6 years ago my wife became a Christian. This was the result of her need to make sense of her life which was, in her eyes, falling apart. We were having marital problems and she had hoped the divine powers of God would help reunite us again. As fortune would have it, we did reunite and today we are as strong as ever. Although I have never asked her, she likely viewed this as a miracle. That God had willed us to be together for some divine purpose. I, on the other hand, viewed it as the result of a lot of forgiveness. Either way, our lives had changed; for the better because we were a family again, for the worse because now we had another major challenge. How could we ever reconcile the differences in our worldviews, me being a secularist and her being a devout Christian. And most importantly, how do we raise our children?
3 years ago, my oldest son - 5 y.o. at the time- asked me if I was really going to Hell. After getting over the shock, I told him "of course not", but he didn't seem convinced. He had learned in Sunday school that anyone who doesn't believe in God will be sent to Hell to burn forever. His eyes seemed older at that moment-like he had lost a part of his innocence. I remember how concerned he looked and how hurt I was to see him that way. I asked him what he thought would happen to me. He said that I would go to Heaven, because I was a good daddy. I left it at that and we went to sleep. I am sure he slept a lot better than me that night.
Up to that point, religion had never been a significant part of my life. I never cared that much about it. Sure, I was always fascinated with how rational people could accept the non-sensical as reality, but that was their own personal choice. Why should I care? Now things were different. Now religion had forced its way into my home and my life and was now consuming the thoughts of my children. I didn't ask for any of this, but here it was. I didn't want to care, but I had to care.
Common belief among Christians is that atheists are people who don't want God to exist. I can't speak for all of them (as atheists are very independent people and wouldn't want me to), but this accusation is simply not true. I would like nothing more than to know after I die I will spend an eternity with the people I love. As humans, we know with certainty that one day we will die. This is one of the ways we are different from the rest of the animal kingdom. We spend countless hours wondering what the end will be like. There are whole industries built around this very fact (i.e life insurance, legal wills, religion). So naturally, we want to find comfort in death in any way we can. I am no exception. I want to believe that I will live forever surrounded by love. But this is not likely. Atheists deal with probabilities. That is why we demand proof. Proof is the ultimate decider in truth. There is no proof for God. Until there is, you will always have people like me that play the odds.
I know that tomorrow there is close to a 100% chance that the sun will rise in the east and will set in the west. Why is this? Because we know certain things about our Earth and solar system that make this likely. I also can say with a high level of probability that dinosaurs did not live with humans. Why is this? Because nowhere in the history of archeology have we found dinosaur bones buried with human ones. I prefer to live my life on probabilities. I do not find the risk-reward very appealing in the God hypothesis. There are Christians who also concede that the existence of God cannot be determined through reason. So why believe in it at all? Such arguments like Pascal's Wager have been around for decades. Even he realized the existence of God could not be reasoned out. Here is what he said: Even though the existence of god cannot be determined through reason, a person should "wager" as though God exists, because so living has potentially everything to gain, and certainly nothing to lose. In other words, at the very least we should pretend to believe in an unreasonable God so we can get into Heaven - if there turns out to be one. But there is more to this than you might think. There is something to lose even for the Christian if he/she is wrong. The average Christian who goes to a 1 1/2 hour sermon every Sunday is spending more than 5300 hours at church during his/her lifetime. If he/she tithes $20 each time, he/she is spending more than $70,000. If Christians are wrong, they have sacrificed a large amount of their only true existence supporting a bogus idea. Again, I live according to probability. In fact we all do. Non-beleivers just don't ignore the probabilities when it comes to religion.
Outside of my own personal issues with religion, others who battle the mainstream Christian movement get involved because they recognize a danger. They understand that their way of life is at stake if they don't stand up to be heard. Religion is a personal matter, but there are many public issues that have pitted Christians against non-believers. Things such as abortion, stem cell research, prayer in public schools, the faith based initiative, proselytizing in the military, etc. Each issue becomes so complex, bogged down by dogma and doctrine, that we tend to get nowhere as a society and the general public ends up suffering for it. Take for instance stem cell research. The reason the government has not funded this promising field of medicine is because of Christian influence. They believe that the potential for a human being in the 3 day old blastocyst is more important than the 12 year old girl suffering from liver disease. This absurdity can only be manifested through the dogma of religion. Rational sense tells us to fund the hell out of this research so we can start caring for people who actually feel pain, feel fear and feel sadness. But this research is being outlawed or held down in courts by religious activists who want to push their own agenda.
It's when the personal matter of religion becomes a detriment to society that you begin to hear the voices of non-believers across the country. Issac Newton stated that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If his law holds true, people can expect to hear a lot more from non-believers in the future. And I don't blame them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I am an engineer, so I can appreciate your desire to have proof for truth. However, consider that "proof" has no bearing on the probability of an event. Meaning that our understanding of something or lack there of has no effect on the liklihood of the event happening or not. So "proof" can be a dangerous indicator of truth. For instance, addition existed before someone devised 1 + 1 = 2. Or lift existed before someone discovered that accelerating airflow over a wing reduced the pressure creating lift. So just because you haven't gathered enough proof doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I am sure there are many decisions you make even when you don't have proof of them. For instance, you don't have proof that the next time you get in a car that you won't have an accident, yet you do. So you say, you live according to probability. The majority of the population believes there is a God. Ever watch "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"? The Probability of "Ask the Audience" is always high. When you have a large sample size and a variety of background experiences, you can coverage on a probable outcome.
In addressing why non-believers “...waste their time and energy battling the word of God and the people who promote it”, you brought up several issues. I’d like to address a few of them.
It sounds like you’re upset about what your son’s learning in Sunday School and the fact that he questioned where you’ll be spending eternity—smoking or non-smoking. Jokes aside, I can understand why you’re both uncomfortable with and bothered by his concern. You don’t share those beliefs. Please understand though, that no one can ever force your son to become a Christian. It may be possible to force people to say many things—even that they’re Christians—but to become a born-again Christian is a personal choice. Constantine (who was not a true believer) tried to force Christianity on others in the third century. It led to an apostate, pagan church, and centuries of persecution that lasted until the Reformation.
Your son will hopefully be taught the true Gospel at the church he attends, and then he will have a decision to make on his own. God wants us to choose Him of our own free will. If your son desires to accept Jesus as his Savior, there’s nothing you could ever do to stop it—even if you forbid him to go to church. Likewise, if he rejects Jesus there’s nothing you or anyone else could ever do to stop it. So relax. Your wife can teach him her beliefs, and you can teach him your beliefs. In the end, it’s up to him to make his own decision.
You state that “There is no proof for God.” That depends on what you qualify as “proof.” The Bible states that “There is none so blind as he who will not see.”
I’m sure you’ve been following the Intelligent Design dialogue. Many scientists who may not want to totally discount the theory of evolution have admitted that there is definitely design in nature. It’s difficult to argue against the fact that things that are designed must have a designer. BTW—there are many scientists who classify themselves as creationists. That’s difficult to do in the scientific community (watch Ben Stein’s movie about the evolutionists. Incidentally, Ben Stein is not a Christian. He’s just a guy who’s tired of scientists being black-balled by the mainstream scientific community because they question evolutionary theory. ”Science”, as far as evolution is concerned, is very closed minded.) If you’re interested in studying these ideas further, see the website: www.answersingenesis.org Also, Buried Alive by Jack Cuozzo.
Quickly, there are other facts besides design that point to the existence of God. For example, when archaeology was young, the Bible was chided as being inaccurate, and they tried to discredit it based on their finds (or lack of finds). But these days the Bible has been discovered to be so accurate that it is more often recognized as a reliable source of history. Quoting from The Answers Book, “There are many particulars where skeptics have questioned the Bible’s accuracy, usually on the basis of there being no independent evidence (the fallacy of arguing from silence), only to find that further archaeological discoveries have unearthed evidence for the biblical account.”
In Isa. 40:22 and other places the Bible states that the earth is round or circular, Job 26:7 says that God made the earth and hung it upon nothing, the man who discovered the ocean’s trade winds did so because he read in the Bible that God made paths through the sea.
Biblical prophecy is astounding. There are over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Jesus’ first coming (there will be another coming). Before you debate the historical fact of Jesus’ existence, understand that there are secular historians of Jesus’ day (Josephus for one) who also spoke of Him. The odds of all 300 prophecies being fulfilled perfectly are mathematically off the charts, but Jesus did fulfill them all. Some have argued that he intentionally fulfilled them so he could claim to be the Messiah, but it’s pretty hard to pick where you’re going to be born, or where you’re going to live when you’re a child, or how you’re going to die.
Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, skeptics argued that the Bible had been compromised over the centuries, so you couldn’t trust it anyway. When the entire Book of Isaiah was discovered among the scrolls and it was virtually identical to the Book of Isaiah read in the synagogues today, most let up on that argument.
There are other evidences and if you’re interested I would recommend ordering The Answers Book available through Answers In Genesis at the website I mentioned above.
Just a couple of things about your statement “...others who battle the mainstream Christian movement get involved because they recognize a danger.” Perhaps they should realize that most of the charitable organizations, hospitals, schools, and universities (including Harvard and Yale)— in this country as well as in Europe and a lot of third-world countries— were started by Christians. Yup, we’re dangerous.
Finally, Christians are not against stem-cell research. Just embryonic stem-cell research. No, we don’t believe a “3-day-old blastocyst is more important than a 12-year-old. We believe it’s just as important as the 12-year-old. It’s pretty hard to get to 12-years-old if you’re killed off at 3-days- old in the name of medical research. I remember the arguments prior to 1973 in favor of allowing legalized abortion. They said it would end unplanned pregnancies and child-abuse. I haven’t seen that result. I have, however, seen pictures of aborted “fetuses” that the media won’t print. They look like babies to me. When we let human beings decide when life begins, we can get some pretty strange ideas. There is a professor in this country who believes babies should be “abortable” until they’re two-years-old! He’s dead serious.
You may disagree with Christians and the Bible on many issues, but understand that they feel just as strongly about their beliefs as you feel about yours. Also understand that you can read the Bible and know what God says about the “issues” of the day. The Bible also says that God never changes. We don’t have that guarantee with human opinion. It changes with the wind. If skeptics are afraid of Christians who “want to push their own agenda” just imagine how Christians fear atheists who push an “agenda” made up in their own minds.
Post a Comment