CNN iReport

As I promised in my opening iReport on this whole Atheist versus Believers debate, here is my rationale for my beliefs or lack of depending on which side of the debate you sit on.

From the American Heritage Dictionary we know that Atheist or Atheism is:

a·the·ist (th-st)

NOUN: One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

Simple enough right?  Wrong, atheist or atheism is by no means that simple.  Almost to a person, reaching the understanding or belief that god does not exist is actually more personal on average than one who is a firm believer.  Think about it, many of us, especially in my generation and from the Bible Belt, grew up in Christian homes where we went to church on Sundays and had the whole bible and Jesus thing taught to us from a very early age.  So, as you can see to reject the belief in a god is FAR harder than to accept that which we have been taught since birth.  So being atheist is NOT something most of us came by or came to, easily.

From an early age, I have been that kid who asked the really tough questions.  Why did god, who is supposed to be loving and kind, allow so many people to die in the bible?  Why did he kill everyone except Noah and his family?  Why did that happen, how can that be, who is that, and what caused these things to be?  Yes, I was that kid whom everyone dreaded to have in Sunday School.

In all this I was also the kid who wanted to save the world.  The kid who brought home all the strays, the kid who cried when someone or something died, the kid who saw injustice in race even as the Civil Rights movement was just starting in earnest.  I was the kid who helped the old ladies across the street, who volunteered to go to the nursing home and sing to the old folks, who simply wanted an explanation for why his baby sister died when god could have easily saved her.

And then I grew up.  Suddenly I understood that I could ask those questions and more, and really expect an answer; and when there were no answers I formulated my own reasons for why things happened.  I wasn't a physicist, or a scientist, or even all that smart in math, but I was a questioner of everything and anything.  My faith, which was something I held on to with a mighty grip, began to ripple and then tear, and then one day the light of truth began to dawn on me.  At first I denied a lot of what was evident, I needed to hold on to my faith, but it grew more and more difficult as the years provided me with more questions than answers.  I took religion courses in college, I search works by anyone and everyone for answers.  Finally, I understood that the answers had to come from me, that I had to seriously look at my questions and decide if they could be answered and accept what  I found.

There is no god, at least not in the sense of what we have been taught all these generations.  There simply can not be a deity that allows, without feeling, the kinds of attrocities that occur daily on this planet.  A god would surely never abandon his creations and allow them to suffer so, and sure Christians will say that there are miracles every day, but why are they random, and how does your god decide who receives this gift.  Those are my emotional reasons, well the tip of the emotional iceberg if you will.  I will save my "problems" with the bible for another post due to space restrictions.

Now, the scientific reasons as I understand them.  Creation could not happen in seven days, and the world is far older than 7,000 years, as some Christians will argue.  Evolution, because of overwhelming statistical odds, has brought us to this point in time.  While science can't answer all the questions, they certainly are well on their way to it.  Imagine what we thought were the workings of "god" back in the time of early Christians, then move ahead in segments of 500 years and research what we have learned.  We now know that the world is not flat, that the universe does not revolve around the earth, that the universe is infinite and yet, very predictable in many ways.  The heavens are NOT a black fabric covering our sky at night with holes poked in to reveal our stars.  We know that prayer cures far less diseases than medicine, and we know that there are things out there yet to be discovered.

In my life alone, we have gone to the moon, sent probes to the edge of our solar system, and found the cure to many of the worlds most devestating diseases.  We have proven that man evolved, and I am ready for the come backs on that one, and we have come to understand many, many of the things that faith required us to accept even in my lifetime.  I am often amused by the arguments on the "Big Bang" theory.  While we can't explain it yet, and many of our finding only serve to create more questions, the fact is that we are LOOKING for answers instead of accepting the words from a religion that has been unchanged in over 2,000 years.

Well, that's a good start for me.  Every word written here only served to make me think of more that could be said.  I realized today that my beliefs could fill a book, my understanding of the world is almost unlimited because of the amount of questions I want answers to.  I realize almost daily that the bible in no way can come close to satisfying my need to understand, and I am unable to accept that faith alone is enough to prove the existence of a god.  And, in the outside chance that a god does exist, he in NO WAY is the god of my fathers.  He is not an Old Man in white flowing robes with a city of gold for those who believe.  Simply put, for me, there is far more evidence out that to support the absence of god, than there has ever been to support a god, and that evidence grows more and more every day.