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.