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What follows is a statement of my faith, or rather my absence of faith, that is intended as a corollary to my recent and my upcoming posts about attending church.
The world as we know it shows no evidence of an all knowing, all wise, all good, and all powerful deity, but to posit a God that lacks these qualities (as in pantheism, deism, and much of liberal Christianity) is to render God's existence all but irrelevant.
To respond to a question about how something came about by saying that God did it or God made it that way isn’t to give a reason but to evade the question.
To say of God that he is a supernatural being is to define God with a term that cannot itself be defined.
Other than to project attributes that we wish we had onto God, no one can say what God is, yet millions of people imagine that they know God’s mind, and that God wants them to oppress those who disagree.
The more effectively science can explain the existence of the universe and life on our planet, the harder it becomes to defend theism. This is why lesser educated believers tend to be hostile to science, while better educated believers worship such an attenuated version of God that they are left with little that outsiders can criticize or that they themselves can find comfort in.
Alongside the complete lack of evidence to support a belief in God’s existence, there is strong reason to believe that God (as a being who is all good, all knowing, and all powerful) does not exist. This proof is evident anytime any creature suffers, whether from violence, accident, deformity, disease, addiction, oppression, mental illness, starvation, natural disaster, natural selection, or for any other reason.
Despite what theists commonly argue, there is no evidence to suggest that those who believe in God are more open, honest, moral, compassionate, spiritual, sensitive, fair-minded, intelligent, common sensical, open to wonder, or superior in any other way to nonbelievers. I would even argue that the reverse is commonly true with religion being used to justify behaviors that require a lack of positive qualities on the part of those who engage in them. For example…
In nearly every instance, the God of a given nation is portrayed as favoring that nation above other nations (Gott Mit Uns the Nazi belt buckles proclaimed), and that nation’s powerful above its oppressed, the latter of whom are told that by submitting to their wealthy oppressors in this life, they will receive mansions in the next. It is even commonplace in modern America for ministers to promise the poor that they will receive mansions in this life if they are willing to prove their trust in God by donating generously to those same ministers.
All of the above being what I believe, it follows that I don’t attend church because I think I am in good company, it being my conviction that the company of believers as a whole is very bad company indeed (America's Christians continue to support Donald Trump), or because my beliefs about God or religion have changed. I instead go to church because I gain from the experience in ways that I have blogged about and will continue to blog about, and because I make a strong distinction between liberal Christians and other Christians. Unfortunately, liberal Christians are in the minority, the reason being that most people have an emotional need for assurances beyond what liberal religion can provide.
