by Madeleine Kando
When I was growing up I believed in Santa. I always hoped that I would catch this sweet, jovial fellow in the act of coming down the chimney with a large bag slung over his big shoulder. He would wink at me, say ‘ho, ho, ho’, put lots and lots of presents under the tree and climb back up on his way to another family’s chimney. I don’t remember when exactly I lost the faith.
Maybe it was after I saw my father sneak downstairs on Christmas eve with lots of boxes in his arms. Or maybe it happened after we moved to another house that didn’t have a chimney. It was around that time too that I stopped believing in God. Before I stopped believing, I was a much nicer person on Sundays than during the week. That’s when we had to go to confession. But I did have this chronic little voice in my head saying: ‘You better not do this or that, God is watching you.’
I think my loss of faith, both in Santa and in God, have similar roots. I mean you can believe in something very strongly: you can believe very strongly that little fairies exist in your bedroom, but if you actually never ever see one? Even after many many years? Well, wouldn’t your belief get tested to the limit?
And so it went with my faith in God. I never actually saw proof that he was up there, amongst the clouds. So, eventually I stopped believing in him. It didn’t help much that a lot of other stuff took priority over my belief in God. Things like trying to survive adolescence, falling in love, cramming for my finals.. you name it. God sort of faded away, like a distant memory.
Now some people might argue that there IS proof that God exists, even if he doesn’t ever show up for dinner. It goes like this: God is perfect. Part of being perfect is that you also exist. So, if God is perfect then he MUST exist. Because if he didn’t exist he wouldn’t be perfect.
Well, you cannot argue with that, can you? Except that it is not a very convincing argument. The same could be said about unicorns (they are perfect too), but everybody knows that unicorns don’t exist.
Another argument for the existence of God is that, without God life would be meaningless. I don’t agree with that at all. Believing in God might give meaning to some people’s life. My love for my family, my work, my health, that’s what gives meaning to MY life.
And what about the ‘morals’ issue? ‘Believing in God makes people moral.’ Well, excuse me for disagreeing on that one too. If you only believe that stealing is wrong because God says so, and not because YOU believe it’s wrong, then there IS something wrong with your values.
I won’t go into my adult reasons for not believing in God. That would open up a whole new can of worms. Not the least of which is the amount of suffering that religion has caused on this earth.
It’s a bit scary not to believe in anything. It means you are all alone out there. Nobody to pick up the pieces when you turn to dust. And who knows, when I am ready to make the big step into the beyond, I might change my mind completely. But talking about believing in God is so taboo and it shouldn’t be. I can imagine a ‘post-religion’ society where people will look back on our time and say: ‘They were making such a big deal out of religion. Didn’t they have anything more important to fight about?’ leave comment here
Note: Some of the ideas in this essay were inspired by ‘The Atheism Tapes’, a series of televised interviews produced for the BBC by Jonathan Miller.
4 comments:
Dear Madeleine
It is a good article, but I don't think religion only caused suffering in the world. Don't forget that a large part of classical music, the magnificent architecture of cathedrals, the art of the Renaissance, all of that would not exist were it not for religion. And what about Greek and Hindu mythology, Yoga, meditation?
I don't agree with your argument that if you cannot see something it means it doesn't exist. Do you see energy, spirituality, thoughts? Even our eyes and our microscopes don't see everything that exists in the world.
I think it is too easy and too narrow-minded to declare that everything we don't see just doesn't exist. Science constantly discovers things that were not visible before and we thought did not exist. Even in nature we continuously find new surprises and we will never discover everything that exists.
I believe that the world could not exist without a 'super-natural' force that makes it tick. Maybe it is a force of nature, but for us, mere humans, it IS a super-natural force.
Madeline,
I never thought of God being up in the sky or behind evil that people do against one another in the name of religion. For me it is hard not to believe in some larger purpose when I see the intricacy and order in the universe.
I started out as a mechanical engineer, and know how humans design and create things, each time trying to outdo the last creation. That's how I think of God, or whatever force is causing existence to exist, constantly working to evolve higher forms of existence capable of greater knowledge, pleasure, and joy.
Most of what you talk about as reasons not to believe in God, seem to me unrelated to God but more to human beings on power trips, or anthropomorphism. As Feureurbach wrote, much of what we call religion is a projection of human beings.
A brave and important statement. I admire your courage. Unfortunately, this point of view is simply not heard in the United States.
Dave Covin
Gordon,
There are so many aspects to the concept of a God, it is hard to know which aspects have been created in our own image.
One day I might find a reason to believe in God. For now I find it sufficient to look for an answer to the complexity and miraculous intricacies of life within life itself, not outside of it.
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