Summary of my beliefs

I have many reasons for not being a Christian. They can best be summed up by a few quotes:
• “The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain
• “It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts that I do understand.” -Mark Twain
• “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” -Stephen Roberts
• “It’s pretty easy to establish that you cannot change your beliefs on will (despite what some people claim). “Trying” to be an [Christian] just by pure will isn’t going to work. Atheism is more of a realization than anything; it involves reading the arguments and realizing that you agree with them… A Christian can no more try to be an atheist and succeed than an atheist can try to be a Christian and succeed.” –Kieran Bennett

First, I'd like to define my beliefs. I see myself as an agnostic atheist.  I know that these seem like contradicting words, but they refer to two different things.  The word "agnostic" refers to my knowledge: I don't claim to know anything about god with absolute certainty.  The word "atheist" refers to my lack of belief in any gods.  An atheist is not necessarily a person who believes with absolute certainty that there is no god.  It simply refers to a person who does not hold a belief in god.  Since I do not have a belief in god but I am not absolutely certain that one does not exist, I refer to myself as an "agnostic atheist".

To properly explain why I don't believe, I'd like to elaborate on the reasons I once did:
1. I'd been taught that God was real since birth.
2. Everyone that I knew and trusted believed in God.
3. I'd been taught that the Bible is truth.
4. It appeared to be true that belief in God resulted in goodness and morality, and that the only way to live a moral life was through Jesus.
5. Fear of Hell if I didn't believe.
6. From the stories I heard, God seemed like a nice guy, like a guy I wanted to work for.
7. I was HAPPY believing.

1. And 2. I'd been taught that God was real since birth. Everyone that I knew and trusted believed in God. I went to church every Sunday (and every Tuesday when I was in Catholic school!) God is real. God loves you. Jesus died for you. All of these stories really happened. I can prove it by this book here. All of that I believed as a child because why shouldn't I? Everything else I was taught was true: Don't touch that, it's hot. (I touched it. Yeah, it was hot.) Wear a jacket because it'll get cold later. (I didn't wear a jacket. It did get cold.) The tooth fairy will leave you some change for that tooth you just lost. (Well, the tooth was gone, and there was change there, so they must have been right!) Santa comes in the front door because we don't have a fireplace. (There were presents there, and they said “From Santa”!) God is real, and he sent his son down to die for your sins because he loves you. Okay, cool. Why shouldn't I believe it? The adults I trusted obviously did. And they were smart and I looked up to them, and it was a big part of their lives. It must be true. The problem with this is that I can't accept something just because someone else says it's true. Even if that someone else is someone I know and trust. I have to read the book and do the research for myself.

3. I'd been taught that the Bible is truth. I tried to read through it in eighth grade. I only got about halfway through Numbers and got really bored with all of the family trees and measurements of the temple and stuff. So I skipped to Psalms and read that, which I liked. I also read a few more books, and all of the gospels. I didn't understand some of the stuff, but I assumed it was because I wasn't an adult and that some concepts and vocabulary were beyond my capability to understand. I also was somehow not creeped out by all the talk about killing people. I assumed that it was just part of their culture at that time and that it didn't apply anymore. Then I went back and started reading parts of the Bible again in high school. It's not that I didn't understand before. It's that there actually are many, many contradictions in the Bible (sometimes within the same book!)**  And the parts I just brushed off before? I can't get past those. There's so much unnecessary pain and death, all fully supported by God! Your kid's insubordinate? Take him to the elders and they'll stone him!**  Your wife's not a virgin on your wedding night? You (along with the rest of your town, of course, don't want them to miss out on the party!) can just stone her!** Your fields are poorly tended? Just buy some slaves from your neighbouring countries (not from your own country though!)**  Don't like your daughter much? Just sell her as a sex slave!** Your slaves aren't listening to you? Feel free to flog them to within an inch of their life (as long as you don't kill them!)**  So taking into account all of the gruesome things God condones, all of the contradictions, and the fact that there is no proof whatsoever that this book is true (or even historically accurate), I just can't understand how I used to put so much stock in this book.

4. It appeared to be true that belief in God resulted in goodness and morality, and that the only way to live a moral life was through Jesus. My mom, dad, our whole family, families at our church, and my Catholic school teachers showed me that. Morality comes from the Bible. It's when you don't believe in the Bible that things go wrong. Further cementing that idea in my twelve-year-old mind was the tragedy on September 11th, 2001. The people who did that were Muslim. Oh, that explains it. Islam is a religion of violence, unlike our Christianity. The only problem? If you actually LOOK at the Bible, it's FULL of violence and war and pain and death. There are plagues and fiery serpents and holy wars (many, many holy wars). How much of that was really necessary? I mean, really? How many innocent people died because people were doing the “will of God”? How many continue to die? Here's a quote from Bertrand Russell that eloquently puts what I am trying to say: “In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion. You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.” There is absolutely no way to justify all of the death in the name of God, for ANY religion, not just Christianity. “They were doing what they thought was right” doesn't count. Would they have felt the need to go out and kill so many others if they didn't believe in God? No. But because their holy books said it was okay (good, even!) to do so, they did it.** Now, I'm not saying that belief in God makes anyone a bad person. I'm not saying that belief in God will make someone pick up the torches and pitchforks and go hunt witches. But I AM saying that absolute belief in something utterly improvable (especially when there are so many people with absolute belief in DIFFERENT improvable things) isn't good for society, or moral and intellectual progress.
Okay, so, does morality come from the Bible (or God or faith or religion)? No. Main argument: slavery. We as individuals and as a society agree that slavery is morally wrong. Yet, the Bible supports it. Oh, it's just a cultural difference, many people say. That's true. Does that matter? No. If people claim to get their morality from the Bible, they need get their morality from the Bible. That means accepting homosexuality is a sin, slavery is morally acceptable, and it's perfectly fine for whole civilizations to be wiped out, as long as God says it's okay.*** Now, most people would not agree with the previous sentence, even people who claim their faith is what keeps them on the straight and narrow. Why is that? Why do people who claim that they get their morals from the Bible, in fact, see some things in the Bible as morally wrong? If they have the capability of making that judgement, their morals must come from somewhere OTHER than the Bible. To tell you the truth, I have no idea where the conscience comes from. But I DO know that it's not from the Bible. I've read enough of it to know that much. I started to doubt the existence of God (and the veracity of the Bible) during the summer after my junior year in high school. Since then, I've managed to live a pretty moral life. As a rule, I don't kill, steal, lie, or, in general, hurt people, at least on purpose. And I'm under the impression that most atheists live that way, too. I'm a good person. I'm a good person because I WANT to be, regardless of whether I'll wind up in heaven or hell for my actions. I'm sure that most Christians want to be good people (why else would they be in church, barring fear of eternal damnation?), but here's the thing. They'd still be good people even if they became atheists or stopped going to church. They'd go on loving the people they love, trusting the people they trust, and living their lives just like they always had. Being an atheist doesn't make someone a cruel, immoral demon incapable of love and kindness.

5. Fear of Hell if I didn't believe. Here's the problem with this one. Seriously doubting the existence of God also means seriously doubting the existence of the fiery place he sends people to if they don't behave. If it turns out that there is a God and that he is as benevolent as I was led to believe, I'm sure he'd much rather I actually thought about it, read his book, did my research, and came to my own conclusion, even if it is faulty, than worshiped out of fear for my own well-being. And if he doesn't want that? If the only criterion for getting into heaven is belief? Well, I guess that sucks for me then. But I can't live my life pretending to believe what I don't believe or pretending to worship someone I don't want to worship (for reasons explained in the next paragraph).

6. From the stories I heard, God seemed like a nice guy, like a guy I wanted to work for. Now, we've already talked about the things in the Bible I've got issues with (mass murder, genocide, and basically killing or hurting others just because God said to. Also, religion impeding on moral progress.) It makes sense to me why I wouldn't want to work for this guy.

7. I was HAPPY believing. I mean, I really, really was. I felt like I always had a friend watching over me. I'd look at a sunset and say “wow, God is awesome.” I'd see good things people were doing and praise God for them. So now that I can't believe anymore, you'd think I'd be unhappy, empty. But the fact is, I'm not. I have the same emotions as before, actually. I see good things people do and I'm happy. I see bad things people do and I'm sad. I see a sunset and I'm filled with wonder. If anything, my time here on earth is now MORE precious to me than it ever was because I know this is the only life I've got, and I'm not getting another one. To me, a universe that somehow came to support such diverse and complex life is even more beautiful and wondrous than one that just poofed into existence because someone willed it to. Yes, my faith was a comfort at times, especially when my dad died. Yes, sometimes things are harder because I don't have that comfort. In fact, one day last summer I realized that, according to my beliefs, I would never see my dad again. That was really, really hard to deal with. But do I wish that I could believe again just to have that comfort? No. I don't. I am a happy, balanced, moral human being, and I like myself how I am.

One last quote to leave you with:
“We [atheists] want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world – its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and not be afraid of it.” - Bertrand Russell



** Website of some contradictions for you:
OT: http://skeptically.org/bible/id8.html NT:http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/paul_carlson/nt_contradictions.html
** Deuteronomy 21:18-21
** Deuteronomy 22:20-21
** Leviticus 25:44-46
** Exodus 21:7-11
** Exodus 21:20-21
** Deuteronomy 20:10-17, Deuteronomy 21:10-14, Judges 7:1-8, Exodus 17:16
*** Noah’s flood, anyone? (For a list a blogger put together of how many people God killed, see: http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-many-has-god-killed-revised_04.html)
All Bible quotes taken from the New International Version from www.biblegateway.com