I would imagine that most of you would be shocked to find out that I have become an atheist.
Most professing atheists (people who deny the existence of God) will delight in telling you why they have embraced atheism. Their polemic is predictably full of well thought out paradoxes which nullify the possibility of the existence of God in this reality. I’m more interested in telling you how I’m an atheist and how you could be one as well.
When I was growing up in the 1980’s, one of my favourite shows to watch was “The Mighty Hercules”. Of course, it is based on Greek mythology and stars “Hercules” the half-god son of Zeus. I only watched the show until my very conservative Christian parents found out about it and then I was forbidden from watching this innocent children’s animation. Why? They were afraid of me picking up some strange and different ideas about God which would contradict what I learned in church and then lead me astray.
Here’s the interesting thing about that; the concept of God that I was given in church and Sunday school was almost identical to the Greek god Zeus.
Both are separate from and placed above humanity and all creation. Both are all powerful, deterministic and use coercion to control the outcomes of their desires. Both are capable of great love, but ultimately are vengeful and retributive if you don’t go along with their will. Both justify the use of violence and injustice for the supposed greater good.
The big difference is that in the Christian narrative, you also have Jesus. The evangelical religion tries very hard to blend the person of Jesus with their Old Testament—very Zeus-like version of God. In the end, you get a god who is love, but will also hate you for eternity if you don’t believe quite right during your lifetime. You get a god who as Jesus, will unconditionally defend the poor and vulnerable and yet, the “father” is quite transactional. He will reward you for godly living, but inflict you with poverty, dis-ease and suffering as a form of punishment. On one hand you have Jesus who insists that relationship is more important than individual rights while the Zeus like god insists that your religious rights must be defended, even with violence if necessary.
In the evangelical Christian narrative, they don’t seem to understand that Jesus came to correct our false ideas about God. Instead, they end up with a very confused and mentally unstable deity. And I just can’t bring myself to believe in that god anymore.
If that is your idea of what God is like, call me an atheist.
See, that’s the thing. If I tell you that I’m an atheist, you need to ask, “What idea of God does he NOT believe in?” Any idea we have about what God is like, is just that.
Just an idea. Not actually God.
What’s interesting to me is that most people are so very dogmatic as to what God is actually like. It’s almost like they have taken God and put God-self under a microscope, between two pieces of glass to study! How ridiculous! Of course, many will claim that God is such because the “Bible clearly says so”. This is equally laughable. The Bible (also which version are we talking about—Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Ethiopian Coptic), which is a man-made compilation of ancient writings is IN FACT full of contradictions and historical inaccuracies and is not a reliable or even a univocal source for what God is like. That should be obvious to anyone who has made even a half-hearted attempt to study the Bible.
Whenever we talk about God—or anything pertaining to the metaphysical for that matter, we must realize that nothing we believe is actually provable and embrace a posture of intellectual humility.
Now, do I actually believe in God? Oh yes, but not because of an inherited believe structure and certainly not based on the Bible. (I actually do place a high value on biblical scripture. I just prefer to not give it a job for which it was never designed to handle) I cannot help but to believe that God exists because of teleological evidence via the anthropic principle. (BTW, you really should google these terms if they are unfamiliar to you). Put simply, I understand that it is utterly impossible for this universe to exist, never mind produce life—especially intelligent life by mere chance. It is mathematically impossible! Scientific discoveries strongly indicate that this universe was designed by someone and has a purpose. My life experience of observing beauty, giving and receiving selfless love—also seeing the same in other created beings leads me to believe that God is indeed love. Yes, the Bible tells us that, but that is meaningless unless I witness it myself.
By faith, I believe that Jesus is the full revelation of what God is like. I can’t prove it, but I accept it as truth. Looking at the life of Jesus as recorded in biblical and extra-biblical sources, it just makes sense to me that He lived in a way in which—if everyone followed His example would inevitably lead to peace and good for all. If God is indeed relational love, this is exactly how He would be embodied!
I believe that God is relational, selfless, restorative, merciful, forever inviting us to participate in the ultimate reality of who God is—never giving up on anyone. I believe that everything that exists comes from the only source of anything in the universe—existence itself…God, and thus God experiences life as us and through us. I believe that to love God IS to love and care for those around me, even creation itself!
If God is like the one I learned about in church—the one who looks an awful lot like Zeus, we need to re-define the word “love”, for it would then be meaningless. If that is the god you currently believe in, I would encourage you to become an atheist, just as I have.