I went to visit my mom two weekends ago and as I had planned, we eventually went for a walk. I told her that I had something that I wanted to talk to her about and that I would appreciate if she just listened first and asked questions after. I gave her the long story of how I got to where I am and I could actually see her nodding along while I talked which made me think that she had no idea where I was going with this. I don't know, maybe she did, but the way she was reacting made me think she was expecting me to tell her that I had doubts but now my faith is stronger than ever, rather than I had doubts and now I don't believe in God. When I finally said it, I don't think she really reacted at all, which made me keep jabbering away until she had something to say. Although her reaction was much more positive than I was expecting, the things she talked about were expected. Things like "hell is real" and "there's no atheists in fox holes" and "what if you're wrong?" and "you have to experience God in order to know he's real". After three and a half hours of talking about it, I was spent and it was time for me to go home. I was getting frustrated with the conversation and decided to tell her that I needed to stop talking about it for now. She brought up a few more things and unfortunately, I didn't stay as calm as I would have liked. I think that's what I'm most disappointed about - my eventual lack of calm because it makes me seem like I'm not as settled in my new lack of faith as I really am. She, on the other hand, stayed very calm. Hence the "people can surprise you". So it went well. Much better than I expected. And I learned something.
I've told people that if God shows himself to me, I would believe in him - my problem is just that I don't have any proof of his existence. But I think that just believing in God wouldn't be enough because according to the Bible, you have to worship him too and give him your life and obey him completely and I wouldn't be ok with that. So even if God showed up and therefore I had to believe him to be real, I still wouldn't necessarily become a Christian.
First, I'm not ok with completely handing my life over to someone else and doing everything they say. Then I'm just a pawn. What's the point of my life if I'm just living it for someone else? I enjoy making my own decisions, with input from others that I trust or from other's who are impacted by a decision I make. I enjoy using my mind to solve a problem or think creatively. If God is such a god that would require that I give up thinking for myself, I don't think I want him.
Second, I'm not ok with the things that he apparently requires of people or tells them to do. IF the Bible is true and an accurate depiction of what God is like, I don't like him, agree with him, or think he's worthy of any sort of praise. I don't like that he expected Adam and Eve to blindly obey him without them knowing why or even knowing about good and evil. I don't like that when he's unhappy with how his creation turned out down the road, he kills nearly all of it off. I don't like that he's against humanity bettering itself and outright moves against it (Babel). I don't agree with him that it's ok to slaughter an entire people - men, women, and children (excluding the virgin women of course) - because they are not doing things your way (multiple old testament stories). I don't agree with him that children should be killed or almost killed because their parents screwed up, God hardened their parent's heart or because God wants to know just how devoted their parent is (David and Bathsheba, Egyptian first borns, Abraham and Isaac). Outside of the Bible and just thinking of real life, if God is real, he is undeserving of worship or praise. His priorities are messed up: providing fancy cars for preachers in the west while starving children in third world countries, requiring blind faith and trust over critical thinking and evidence, and requiring humans to attribute everything good to him, even good things we do or things we do well, and take every failure onto ourselves. I don't think the God described in the Bible or by Christians is a good or loving god and if he does exist, I don't think I want anything to do with him. I'd fight him the same as I'd fight any human that would do the same things. I've had someone else tell me that I think my morals are better than God's but that they are really just different morals. That just because God is a god, his morals must be better but that's just another reason I don't like "God" - he has a double standard. I don't think gods should have a lower standard than mortals, if anything, greater power demands greater accountability.
Whew! Now that you know what I've learned, I'll tell you how I learned it while talking with my mom. My mom wants me to experience God and at first, to prove that I don't believe in God because I hate him, I asked how I was supposed to do that. Basically, her answer was for me to start over: to pray the sinner's prayer and be open to God. I've tried that and I'm done trying. If God wants me to experience him, he'll have to come find me. But our conversation ended by her telling me that the first thing I should do after I invite Jesus into my heart is to tell someone and that she'd be waiting by the phone and it was then that I realized that she really didn't get it. I'm not wasting any more of my time with this: a) because I really don't think that I'll find God if I go looking and b) as stated before, I don't think I'd want him, even if I did find him so what's the point?
So I guess I should say that while I don't hate God (because as I said in another post, how can I hate something that doesn't exist?), I don't like the idea of God and I don't plan on searching it out in hopes that it's real - because I'd rather it wasn't. Now, I don't agree with believing or not believing in something because you hope or don't hope it's real. That doesn't actually define reality. But I feel like I've done a lot of looking at both sides and this side seems to be a more realistic picture of reality and if I'm going to be doing any searching, it's Atheism that I owe at least 10+ more years to - Christianity and God have had enough of my time to prove themselves.
First, I'm not ok with completely handing my life over to someone else and doing everything they say. Then I'm just a pawn. What's the point of my life if I'm just living it for someone else? I enjoy making my own decisions, with input from others that I trust or from other's who are impacted by a decision I make. I enjoy using my mind to solve a problem or think creatively. If God is such a god that would require that I give up thinking for myself, I don't think I want him.
Second, I'm not ok with the things that he apparently requires of people or tells them to do. IF the Bible is true and an accurate depiction of what God is like, I don't like him, agree with him, or think he's worthy of any sort of praise. I don't like that he expected Adam and Eve to blindly obey him without them knowing why or even knowing about good and evil. I don't like that when he's unhappy with how his creation turned out down the road, he kills nearly all of it off. I don't like that he's against humanity bettering itself and outright moves against it (Babel). I don't agree with him that it's ok to slaughter an entire people - men, women, and children (excluding the virgin women of course) - because they are not doing things your way (multiple old testament stories). I don't agree with him that children should be killed or almost killed because their parents screwed up, God hardened their parent's heart or because God wants to know just how devoted their parent is (David and Bathsheba, Egyptian first borns, Abraham and Isaac). Outside of the Bible and just thinking of real life, if God is real, he is undeserving of worship or praise. His priorities are messed up: providing fancy cars for preachers in the west while starving children in third world countries, requiring blind faith and trust over critical thinking and evidence, and requiring humans to attribute everything good to him, even good things we do or things we do well, and take every failure onto ourselves. I don't think the God described in the Bible or by Christians is a good or loving god and if he does exist, I don't think I want anything to do with him. I'd fight him the same as I'd fight any human that would do the same things. I've had someone else tell me that I think my morals are better than God's but that they are really just different morals. That just because God is a god, his morals must be better but that's just another reason I don't like "God" - he has a double standard. I don't think gods should have a lower standard than mortals, if anything, greater power demands greater accountability.
Whew! Now that you know what I've learned, I'll tell you how I learned it while talking with my mom. My mom wants me to experience God and at first, to prove that I don't believe in God because I hate him, I asked how I was supposed to do that. Basically, her answer was for me to start over: to pray the sinner's prayer and be open to God. I've tried that and I'm done trying. If God wants me to experience him, he'll have to come find me. But our conversation ended by her telling me that the first thing I should do after I invite Jesus into my heart is to tell someone and that she'd be waiting by the phone and it was then that I realized that she really didn't get it. I'm not wasting any more of my time with this: a) because I really don't think that I'll find God if I go looking and b) as stated before, I don't think I'd want him, even if I did find him so what's the point?
So I guess I should say that while I don't hate God (because as I said in another post, how can I hate something that doesn't exist?), I don't like the idea of God and I don't plan on searching it out in hopes that it's real - because I'd rather it wasn't. Now, I don't agree with believing or not believing in something because you hope or don't hope it's real. That doesn't actually define reality. But I feel like I've done a lot of looking at both sides and this side seems to be a more realistic picture of reality and if I'm going to be doing any searching, it's Atheism that I owe at least 10+ more years to - Christianity and God have had enough of my time to prove themselves.
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