Recently a thread started on my Facebook page pertaining to my lack of a belief in god. While discussing varying definitions of god with a friend I pointed out that I personally have a hard time believing in a creator god because there is no evidence that directly points to an intelligent creation.
In fact things like the human eye that appears complicated enough to require an intelligent origin are, upon examination, very flawed. For example, staying with the eye, the nerves and blood vessels that connect to our eyes obstruct the light sensitive retina leaving us with a blind spot, while other animals like squid don’t have this problem. This leads me to believe that an intelligent force was not responsible for such sloppy mistakes; especially when lowly humans can engineer much better cameras.
In response to this my brother- in-law posted:
[XR4-IT], I wonder where this thinking came from, knowing how you were raised, and the things you have accomplished in your life. EVERYTHING DENOTES THERE IS A GOD!!!! Every living, breathing thing. Even the plants and the sun in the sky proclaims, and testifies of the presence of a Supreme Creator. If everything were perfect in this world, how would we progress? How would we learn? How would we come to understand the laws that make this world possible? I urge you to return to that which you were taught [Mormonism]. Your family prays for you [XR4-IT], every night, to that God that you have rejected.
To this I respond:
[My Brother-in-law],
I understand your concern in my lack of belief in god, and I know that on the surface it may appear perplexing that someone who was once a deeply committed adherent to a religion would walk away from it, but as I have received and investigated new information over the years concerning the universe and world we live in I have had to weigh the manner in which I understood reality against all the information I have available to me. Because I would much rather know the truth than follow after some myth or fable I must always shape my perception of existence to what makes the most sense.
To you the existence of everything around you makes you sure that there is a god, but to me simply seeing that something exists is too ambiguous to be evidence to know how it came to be. I cannot look at the sun, the earth, and life and assume that these things were placed here artificially by some god; especially because I understand the processes by which these things may have formed naturally. Also no god has left us with evidence of its existence, no way to know that the world was formed by any other means then natural gravitation. In examining the biological patterns of life intelligent engineering is absent. Instead we find a phylogenetic tree where complex life is clearly the result of gradual modifications to less complex life, which appears to be the product of natural selection rather than intelligent engineering.
It has even been demonstrated that elements which are naturally abundant can in self catalyzing reactions spontaneously form RNA molecules which can replicate themselves naturally. It has also been demonstrated that the amino acids which are needed for the building of proteins will also form on their own in nature. These are the basic building block of life, and they all occur naturally. Demonstrating thoroughly that life could have formed on its own, not requiring a god for its formation.
Yet in all this knowledge I have not the evidence of a god, and I cannot bring myself to believe in something that I cannot justify to myself through evidence.
You urge me to return to what I was taught, but I find that I cannot bring myself to worship that which I don’t believe in, and have no reason to believe in.
To which my brother-in-law replied:
I feel for you [XR4-IT], and so does [your sister]. She cries for you. Your recent selfish decisions have hurt your family more than I think you will ever realize. We hope and pray that one day, the selfishness will end, and you will return to that which I know, deep down, you still believe. Otherwise, I guess your whole life, especially the two years you spent in California [LDS mission], was just a lie. Just think about that. You’re better than that, and you know it. I reaffirm my belief that God does live. We are here for a purpose. We are here to learn, progress, to have our rough edges smoothed with trials like a carpenter that transforms a piece of wood into a beautiful piece of furniture. One day you will realize this. Whether it be in this life, or the life hereafter. For your sake, I hope it’s sooner.
[My Brother-in-law],
Please don’t presume to know what I believe “deep down”, because you’re not in my head and you don’t know what I think except the things I tell you. I assure you that I do not believe in any of the religions I have encountered over my life. In fact I do believe that I was raised believing in a myth, and I often regret having served a mission. Not only do I lament the time and money spent on the endeavor, but I also mourn the fact that I brought people into a religion that I cannot bring myself to believe. I mourn that I convinced others to devote their lives and means to an idea that I believe to be false; something as unbelievable and unverifiable as the magik* that my Wiccan friends believe in.
While the fact that my sister and other family members are pained by my lack of belief in god saddens me, I cannot make myself believe something because others want me to. I can only believe things out of my own conviction, and due to my experiences in life, and the information that I have gathered over the years I cannot with an honest heart maintain such convictions.
I do not know if you have read this: http://volerum.blog.com/2009/10/31/god-unknown/ but if you want to understand why I think the way I do it is the most complete description of why I do not believe in a god, especially in conjunction with what I have written here.
You shape your own beliefs by your own experiences, and I do the same. My experiences have led me to view the world vastly different from the way you do and the way I was taught to believe as a child. You seem to think this is selfish, but I do not see how.
*For reasons that I’m not sure of many Wiccans will spell the word magic with a ‘k’ rather than a ‘c’.
Names replaced for privacy, and some clarification given in brackets [].
