🌲 TREE 633: JG – Disappearing God, part 2

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I didn’t want to stop believing in God. My faith in a personal God that is ‘all in all’ was central to my family, my friendships, my employment, my identity. That’s not stuff I was going jeopardise quickly or easily.

The only thing stronger than the drive to keep my life working the way I was used to it working was that it wasn’t working.

I found I didn’t want to serve a God that was so petty he would subject the majority of humanity to nonstop eternal conscious torture for the crimes of not embracing correct beliefs and saying the right prayer. Fortunately, there are plenty of devout Christians who don’t believe in hell and have good theological reasons why. So I got to stay in the club.

I looked at the evidence for modern scientific understanding of the origins of the universe and the emergence of life. It made sense, really good sense. Fortunately, there are devout Christians who believe the Big Bang and evolution are the mechanisms by which God created the universe and life. So I got to stay in the club.

I learned about probability and cognitive biases. It turns out a lot of the things that God is getting credit for have really solid material explanations. God started to seem much less busy.

I read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and found it arrogant and unconvincing. I was certain I didn’t want to join his club.

I listened to Christian arguments for why people leave Christianity. (The main two are 1) they got hurt and didn’t deal with it and 2) they want to reject morality.) They didn’t reflect any of the reasons I was wavering. Rather, I saw the reverse of those reasons as causes of people feeling driven away from church. The institution of church repeatedly crushes people who are awkward and inconvenient, then blames them for not being okay. There is a constant stream of high profile Christian leaders who eschew ethically and morally upright behaviour.

I read Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God. I didn’t see the point of her vision of a vision of a God who somehow existed but didn’t really do anything. Why is that God even necessary?

There were other events that happened over the years that I strove to keep believing in God while also embracing explanations of reality that actually made sense to me. These are the ones that I can think of right now. The explanations that didn’t include God kept getting the upper hand. In February 2011, I admitted to myself something I had already felt for quite a long time: God, the almighty personal being at the centre of Christianity, doesn’t exist. The problem for me was that I was still in the club.

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To those of you who are Christians, please hang in here. Remember, I’m telling my story, not telling people what they should believe. At the end of this week, I will be writing about how there is absolutely a place at the FFOREST table for people who believe in God and, unlike Dawkins, I don’t think you’re deluded.

I went to Dorset for the weekend and I got to hang out with a friendly little muntjac deer! I love all tiny deer.

Grow slowly
Jeff