Why? Part One

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

Have you ever felt small?

I have. But I don't think we spend nearly enough time thinking about just how small we really are.

Supercluster. Credit: NASA, ESA, and Johan Richard (Caltech, USA)
Acknowledgement: Davide de Martin & James Long (ESA/Hubble)

You and I are tiny. And we would probably be pretty open about that. But when it comes to our daily lives, how about your nation? We'd normally see it as a pretty big deal. However, your nation is merely a small fraction of the Earth, and is only one of thousands upon thousands of civilizations throughout history.

But how about the Earth itself? Earth is massive! Every human that has ever lived has existed on this planet. Even then, Earth is tiny in comparison to the vastness of our Solar System, or even some of the other planets in it.

So the Solar System must be at least of a decent size, right? Not in comparison to the Milky Way Galaxy in which we find ourselves. In this galaxy, scientists have currently found 2,500 solar systems, although with the roughly 200 billion stars in our galaxy, there may be many more solar systems we haven't found.

The Milky Way itself is too ridiculously huge for our puny mammal brains to comprehend. And yet we haven't even scratched the surface of the vastness of the observable universe. There are galaxy clusters that contain 100 to 1,000 galaxies each, all the way up to superclusters like the Laniakea Supercluster that contains roughly 100,000 galaxies!

If you don't start to grasp the seemingly infinite scope of the universe by now, don't worry, you probably can't entirely. But what I am getting at is this:

You are puny. 

In a cosmic sense, you and I are like insignificant particles trapped on a speck of dust. If our species ceased to exist, it truly seems like the cosmos would take little to no notice of it, and the universe would continue as before.

Yet I don't think that we fully understand that. 

Perhaps it is a survival mechanism, but whatever the case may be, we yearn to have meaning, objective purpose, and importance in our lives. "Why am I here?" is perhaps the most widely asked question by humans the world over.

As far as I have seen, although I am no universal arbiter of truth, the universe exists. And by that, I mean it only exists. There is currently no sufficient reason to think it was created or designed with any purpose. Rather it and the descriptive rules governing it seem to just "be". No reason, no rhyme. Existence does not require purpose.

We are products of this universe. You and I are particles, arranged in a specific way. We are products of the same natural processes that make up the rest of the universe.

We exist because we are the result of how the universe works.

Really take that in, think about it. You and I are just as much a product and part of the universe as gravity, rocks, and supernovae. And our lives in essence are governed and determined by the same forces that rule the rest of the cosmos.

In spite of all this (and in one sense, as a result), humanity since its inception has crafted innumerable stories in an attempt to imbue our lives and our world with meaning and purpose. The purpose of disease is to punish sinners, the purpose of rain is to water our crops and the sun to make them grow. Oddly enough though, the majority of things in this world were seen as being "for us". Certain animals were made to become livestock to eat. Certain plants were made to be crops that we tended to. Plagues were made to show us our sins and make us repent. For the longest time, nearly everything in our world supposedly revolved around us.

This tendency is seemingly written in our very DNA. Thus, as science begins to show us just how insignificant we are, who can blame us for recoiling at it? We seem to crave objective meaning. We are important. We are special. We are the apple of the divine eye, the special objects of its salvation and attention. We are made in the very image of god.

But as we are finding out, the world doesn't look like it was created for us, or even with us in mind. Your existence is an infinitesimally puny portion of this vast universe. One might even argue that your life has less impact on the universe, and is far less impressive, than an exploding star.

Credit: Jonathan Daniels

How does this address the "why" question? 

It does this in a seemingly harsh way. There is no objective "why". There is no objective meaning and purpose. You, your life, your goals, your dreams, they are all a product of the inner workings of the cosmos, and are just as objectively purposeful and meaningful as a black hole.

Unsurprisingly, our brains recoil at this. Many of us have been sent whirling into depression when we first recognize this. Especially if you have been raised to think that you are the object of eternal attention and love from god, it is rather difficult to let go of that and not go mad.

Nevertheless, all isn't lost. It is still possible to let go of our notions of objective meaning and survive. Not only that, we can find our own purpose, our own reasons to live this beautiful life that we have.

Where's the Evidence?

Where's the proof?!

                                                                                         

Where's the Evidence?

Why don't I believe?

That is a good question, and it is one I have spent a lot of time thinking about and refining. 

If you are a Christian from the same vein of theology I came from, you might not have the right picture of why I am who I am, and why I don't believe. This post is largely for you, although I also want to make it clear to everyone where I stand and why I am no longer a Christian. I am not trying to change anyone's mind here, but rather to give everyone some food for thought and a better understanding of who I am.

Who doesn't like a beer?

                                               

"Maybe you want to be sinful!"

At least that's what I would have said when I was a Christian. I had been told many different things about unbelievers, both from teachers and the Bible. Perhaps the one I was told the most was that unbelievers actually do know god exists, they are just "suppressing" that truth so they can live as disgusting and sinful of a life as they desire. Basically, an atheist is merely someone that wants to go to strip clubs, sleep with prostitutes, have sex with people of the same gender, murder people, and get super high on acid. Oh, and don't forget blaspheming Jesus, and giving god the middle finger. So, atheists are evil, and want to be their own gods rather than obey the true god.

The "lusts of the flesh" drive the atheist to do heinous, and wicked things. And they just can't sacrifice their lusts in order to obey the lord, and thus act as if they don't believe. 

But that wasn't why I became an atheist, nor why I am still one.

                          

                                                                     

Yup, that's teenage me. You are welcome.

"Alright, then maybe you are foolish, and have a foolish worldview!"

Another reason atheists were atheists was because they were fools, and their worldview was based on nonsensical ideas. To be an atheist, as Answers in Genesis (a leading fundamentalist, young earth creationist Christian group) puts it when claiming atheists are fools, 

"Presuppositions play an important role in apologetics. Everyone has starting assumptions (presuppositions) that they assume to be true at the onset of an argument. For example, an atheist has the presupposition that God does not exist and that the universe and life arose naturalistically. Bible-believing Christians, however, have the presupposition that God exists, He has revealed Himself to us in His Word, and that the Bible, because it is God’s Word, is the true history (and future!) of the universe. These two sets of presuppositions are quite obviously very different. It is through our presuppositions that we interpret the universe as we seek to answer questions about past events or the purposes involved in those events."

So, atheists presuppose god isn't real, and that everything is purely naturalistic. They don't have the right presuppositions (e.g. the Bible is true, god is real), and thus their conclusions about the world are foolish. Most of the time Christians go into further detail (like they do) and ask about morality, logic, etc., but the argument really boils down to "you are wrong because I already decided beforehand that you are wrong, 'cause I presuppose the Bible is right".*

But I didn't presuppose god wasn't real, nor that everything is naturalistic. I still don't. And yet I don't believe.

Me in the mornings...

"Are you angry with god then? Did something happen in your life to make you bitter against him?"

From personal conversations, to sermons, to the movie "God is not Dead", atheists are often portrayed as just being angry with god. Maybe their parent's abused them, or their friends betrayed them, or a church was really mean. Thus they are bitter, harsh people who are just really pissed off with the almighty, and should be pitied and prayed for.

Is this true of me?

Nope. 

Now, I have had bad church experiences before, and I've had things that make me angry with who I was and what I was sometimes taught, I won't deny that. But that's not why I became an atheist (it was a catalyst that helped move me towards questioning my beliefs, but that's not why I left them).  And I can say very openly and honestly, I'm not angry at god. How can I be angry with something I don't think exists? It's like being angry with fairies or Thor to me. 

What's your point?

"So if none of these is why you are an atheist, what is your reason?"

Alright, I probably should finish this post. So, here goes nothing.

I am an atheist, because I haven't been given enough evidence to support the claim that a god exists.

Yes, that is it. That's all. I haven't been given enough evidence. 

For several years, I tried to find it. I read books, listened to sermons, read the Bible, listened to apologists, talked with other Christians. But through all my searching, I never found any substantial proof that there is a god, much less that the god of Christianity is real. 

I am truly sorry if you were expecting a massive logical argument that god isn't real, or that Christianity is wrong. It may be a bit of a let-down. But this is why I am an atheist, nothing more, nothing less. The reason I don't believe in fairies, or a giant universe-creating tortoise is the same reason I don't believe in a god. I just don't have enough proof.

Is there proof? I don't know. But so far, I haven't found it. 

*Perhaps you have a different version of the "atheists are fools" argument, maybe that they are atheists for bad reasons, or just are illogical. But this is the most common argument I've found. Either way, I don't think it matters too much, since it comes to the same conclusion.

Without Faith...

"Without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." -Hebrews 11:6

As I wrote in an earlier post, my life was flipped around pretty drastically when my beliefs came into conflict with my relationship with a good friend. I won't go into detail with that situation again, but the long and short of it was that she was not a christian, and my beliefs about hell meant I thought she'd go there. 

Questioning my beliefs about hell pushed me out into the unknown. My family is very religious, and has always made certain to train me up to become a believer in Christ myself. My mother was especially interested in theology, and had me read and work on memorizing the Catechisms, and read up on theology books. Looking back on my childhood, Christ was the center of everything from work to play to education. Mom and Dad didn't perfectly follow this ideal, but they did their best. 

All I truly knew was Christ and his Word, at least when it came to how to live your life and find your purpose. Early on, I was taught not to question the "basics" of faith, although I could question everything outside of that. Now I ran into a major problem: hell was one of those unquestionable basics, and yet I was questioning it.

What on earth was I going to do?

Imagine for a moment that you were born blind. Somehow, for your entire life, no-one ever told you about sight, and you didn't realize it existed. Sight has never crossed your mind.

Now imagine someone comes up to you and tells you about this weird thing called sight. There are colors, shapes, light and dark. The world is WAAAAAAAY different than you think. At first you think they are nuts, maybe it's some weird myth. But whatever it is, sight isn't a part of how you "view" the world.

You get knocked unconscious one day, and are given surgery to give you the ability to see. When you wake up, BAM! Suddenly there are colors, shapes, light and dark. Your brain is shocked into overdrive with all the new sensory input, and you have no idea what the hell to do with it.

Now ramp that up a bit, and make it all philosophical, and you sorta get what happened to me.

I didn't learn anything new by that first experience, rather I began questioning everything. I really mean everything. My life, my religion, my entire world. Nothing was beyond questioning. And nothing was making sense.

Desperation began to kick in as my need for a solid foundation and understanding of the world deepened.

Problem was, I had no idea where to start.

Understandably, my parents wanted me to be a believer, so they never taught me to be a proper skeptic. I was taught faith, not doubt. Belief, not questioning. So paradoxically, I started with what I was taught.

Prayer.

The greatest cure for doubt that I had been told was to pray. Beg God for forgiveness, plead for him to give you faith and to get rid of your doubt. 

In spite of my anger, hurt, and doubt, I still wanted to believe. My belief in Christ may have been on the chopping block, but I didn't want to part with it.

So I prayed night after night. I still remember several times breaking down and bawling, asking for him to help my unbelief.

Nothing happened.

So, I went and read Christian books that were written to prove that God was real, and that the Bible was absolutely true (and no, I didn't stop reading the Bible or praying either). I kept on trying to have faith, but the answers that were being given to my questions just seemed...off. Something wasn't right, but I couldn't quite tell what. Not to mention, many of the questions I had just weren't being addressed. 

Again, what was I supposed to do now? I hadn't been given any process for questioning the Bible or God. In fact,  the act of believing and searching the Bible and praying to God for answers was the very process I had used to question anything before this.

My first thought was to then expand out to different religions. Maybe one of them had the answers to my questions. 

Since I knew my Mormon friend would be happy to talk with me, I asked her about it. She arranged for me to meet with her family (her mother was a teacher at their church, and loved working with young people), and be able to ask them. I will say, they were very accepting and kind, and listened to all of my questions and thoughts. The discussions were very deep and thought-provoking, but...something just wasn't right. Honestly, at the end, I was left with more questions than answers.

You have to understand, I was getting insanely depressed now. My life was built around my religion. Hope, purpose, fulfillment, happiness, peace, everything came from it. But now, I didn't know what to believe or who to trust. What I had been taught wasn't working, and the pieces of the puzzle just weren't matching up.