Per a discussion I’ve been having with one of the broad members I’ve decided to post this here. It is my own take on the existence of god, and is complimented by the thread called The Concession.I have thought a lot of things about religion over the years. I would like to believe that there is a god who loves me and is here to give aid to humanity; it is a beautiful idea. However I have found that I can no longer bring myself to believe in any of the religions that I have encountered and learned about. The reason that I have come to disbelieve is because of the means by which one comes to know the truth of any religion.
Most people find their religion because they were raised with that religion form birth, it being the tradition of their parents, while others are introduced to a new religion later in life. In both these cases however the thing that binds someone to their religion is the same: the thing that is generally called a spiritual experience.
I was raised in the Mormon faith, and Mormonism is a religion that strongly emphasizes the importance of the spiritual experience; it even has a scripture in its cannon that states you may know the truth of all things by the power of the Holy Ghost. I’ve had powerful spiritual experiences with Mormonism; I served a mission and felt the rush of the spirit as I testified of it or when I gave a blessing to the sick. I prayed to know the truth of the Book of Mormon and had a strong feeling enter into my heart telling me that it was true. I know what it is like to remember some scripture like a flash of light at a time when it was needed for the person whom I was teaching. I have felt the warmth and comfort gained from praying when I was troubled. I have however had spiritual experiences outside of the Mormon faith, some of which come into conflict with the teachings of that church.
When I first came out as being gay I was implored by my parents to resist the urge to engage in homosexual activity. For their sake, and the sake of my belief in God, I obliged them for a time. However after a few weeks, the pain of loneliness set in once again and I searched out someone online to try dating. It wasn’t long before I had found someone to go out with and not long after that we met and went on a date. I was anxious yet excited.
During the date I felt comfortable and natural, as if this was the way my life was meant to be. By the time I got home however the reality of what I had done set in. I became immediately concerned about my standing with God, and being a good Mormon I decided to kneel down and pray so that I could ask God what to do.
I started by explaining to God my feelings, and how I felt dead without even the option of pursuing a relationship. I then asked if it were right for me to seek after a relationship with a man. When I asked this question immediately I was filled with a warm good feeling. Just as I had before I had prayed and received an answer. Indeed it felt the same as it had when I prayed to know the truth of the Book of Mormon, or of any other religious principle.
This was odd to me because I knew that homosexuality was against the teachings of the Church which I also knew by the spirit was true; a church that supposedly had the teachings of an unchanging God. While this contradiction of spiritual witnesses troubled me, I continued knowing that I had an answer from God.
When I told others of my spiritual witness about homosexual relationships, they told me that I must have been deceived. However I was unable to judge one as true and the other as false, for I could not tell the difference between the two witnesses. I was left to believe that they were either both true or both false together. Someone then suggested that I felt good about having homosexual relationships only because I wanted to feel good about them.
I have since explored many other religions and I have had the same or similar experiences with other gods as I did with Mormonism. I have felt the power of god while taking part in pagan rituals. The feelings produced by these rituals were so strong and powerful that I could not tell the difference between them and the experiences I had with Mormonism. Similarly I felt as if I had a spiritual connection to the divine as I pondered the teachings of the Buddhists or of Taoism.
All this time I reflected on the fact that these new spiritual experiences conflicted with those I had when I had been an adherent to the Mormon faith, and I was reminded of the suggestion that I only felt good about pursuing homosexual relationships because I wanted to. Had I only wanted to feel good about having a same-sex relationship and therefore made myself feel as if I had a spiritual experience? If so could all of my spiritual experiences be explained the same way? This introspection held me for some time but eventually I came to the conclusion that I could not know if a god had influenced my experience or if the feelings I had during spiritual experiences only came from myself.
In the end a witness from the spirit is really just a good feeling, and a feeling is not a way to know the truth of something. You may let your feelings guide you, but in the end is that really substantive evidence of a claim? Can we expect someone to believe the claims made because we tell them we have a good feeling about them?
I am often asked something similar to the question, “How can you know a god didn’t create the universe? Can you prove gods don’t exist?”
The fact is we don’t know; however, we have no evidence that there are gods, and a claim that can be made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Why should we assume that anything happened by supernatural means; especially when everything that our sciences have probed have functioned by natural means? On top of this, simply attributing something to a god doesn’t answer any questions. It might give us a who, an assertion that is made without evidence, but it doesn’t give us a how.
When a claim is made of the existence of something it is left to the one making the claim to provide evidence of that thing’s existence. When no evidence is found, the claim can be dismissed. Aside from strong emotional “spiritual” experiences I have no evidence of any religion I have investigated. The spiritual experiences can’t be shown to have come from anywhere but myself, so I have no evidence to even prove to myself that any religion I have followed is true.
Could some new information come along that may be conclusive evidence of some sort of a god? Sure, but the idea of a possibility of new evidence coming sometime in the future is still not evidence and is not a reason now to give credence to any claim that is yet unfounded.
So the question for all those who encounter the idea of a god, or some other supernatural concept is: do I have enough evidence to prove to myself that this is true? If not, why then should you believe it? When we are searching for truth it is only safe to believe things that can be shown to be true by evidence of their truth. Otherwise we would be left open to following after any fairytale.
Many people have brought to me stories of miracles reporting them as evidence of a god, such as an item being found or arriving in time to prevent a tragedy shortly after being prayed for, or events seemingly playing to the advantage of someone after a prayer or blessing, and many more similar stories can be brought forth upon asking most faithful. Many would tell you that such a miracle was nothing more than coincidence, but the faithful will tell you that these stories are nothing short of evidence of the divine.
I’ve never seen a miracle—most miracles I’ve heard of are unverifiable, and beyond that, all of them are unspectacular. Never do I hear about a flashy grand miracle like those in the bible or any other holy book. Instead I see people clinging to any story that remotely validates their way of looking at the world.
Not only are these miracles unspectacular, but they are the same types of miracles reported by the people of any religion, and people who follow any god. Why would the Christian god perform miracles for a Wiccan or a Hindu when this would lend evidence to the gods that they follow? Or would a god purposely try to confuse people? Even people who don’t believe in a god but still practice some sort of other supernatural belief report similar miracles. Above that this same sort of pleasant happening still happens to atheists and agnostics regardless of their disbelief in a god.
No, these trite happenings are not a reason to believe in a god, especially in a specific god. Show me the power of god in a substantial repeatable testable way. Does any god have power to do that?
Like I said before if we do not have the evidence to know the truth of a claim, but believe it anyhow, we may as well be chasing after myths or fables, and that is no way to know truth.
If a god wants us to believe in him he should provide evidence of his existence, but he does not, and we have no reason to follow any of the supposed gods or mythologies. If a god would then punish someone for not believing in him when he hasn’t provided evidence for them to know him he is an unjust god.
This was originally posted on my blog http://volerum.blog.com/2009/10/31/god-unknown/.
