Tod, my boyfriend whom I love and trust and want to be with for the rest of my life, sometimes asks me why I don’t believe in God. Why I am an atheist. Here is the answer I never gave him.
Sometimes I wish I did believe in God, or a god. Sometimes, when life just isn’t fair and slams another sledgehammer into my skull, I just yearn for the comfort of having a belief like that, a conviction. But I don’t. My brain won’t accept the idea of an omnipotent being that can still be consciously (!)constantly creating and destroying, well, everything.
Maybe that is the limit of my thinking ability. Maybe that is where I cannot conceive of there being “more”. I do mean more in the most unrestricted manner possible, since I can’t conceive of what it might be. Does that make me free, or at least more free then 95% of the world population? Or does that limit me more than 95% of the world population?
I have some fancy reasoning for God, or the concept of God, to be not true. But the argument that really convinces me every time is the simple question: ”If God really exists and can do all these things, why then can he, or it, not visit me like an equal and have a descent conversation with me to let me know who he is and that he actually exists. If he really is omnipotent, he should be able to do that too, don’t you think? He should be able to convince me of his existence in a proper conversation, face to face. Why is that too much to ask? And for the argument’s sake I do like to confirm my desire for him, or it, to visit me like an equal because since he is supposed to be omnipotent, he, or it, should be able to do everything.
I watch a show like “Saving Grace” and at time I actually feel like crying because some of the things that they talk about on that show really hit a nerve in me, like love and loss and all kinds of pain. And then Grace has this angel to guide her through the rough stuff. She can actually talk with this angel and touch him and be angry at him and happy and what not. And she can feel like she’s actually connected to the source of whatever has happened to her, this source being God of course, through her angel. And then I cry because I don’t have this in my life. I watch that show and I feel so lonely, so left out. And it is not fair to make me feel like that, just because I cannot do what 95% of the world population can do. I cannot believe like most people. I cannot convince myself of the existence of God. And he, or it has never, successfully, done so for me either.
I am a gay atheist, and neither of those I am by choice.
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Since I wrote this back in januari a lot has happened in my life. My father suddenly passed away, about which I write in other blogposts aswell. His passing has sort of confirmed my convictions as mentioned in the above post. I am more then ever convinced that there is no God or at least there is no God that is like people believe “it” is. This God that people seek out is nothing like any scripture on earth most likely, as it probably has no reason to be concerned with little beings like us. And even if it does, the reason is most likely far less to do with anything remotely human then we would like it to be.
One of the things I’ve learned also is that I am not an atheist perse but an apatheist.
From Wikipedia: Apatheism (a portmanteau of apathy and theism/atheism), also known as pragmatic atheism or (critically) as
practical atheism, is acting with apathy, disregard, or lack of interest towards belief or lack of belief in a deity.
Apatheism describes the manner of acting towards a belief or lack of a belief in a deity; so applies to both theism and
atheism. An apatheist is also someone who is not interested in accepting or denying any claims that gods exist or do
not exist. In other words, an apatheist is someone who considers the question of the existence of gods as neither
meaningful nor relevant to his or her life.
No evidence
This argument takes a more scientific perspective, criticizing blind faith (faith without logical evidence to support it).
It argues that if God wanted people to believe in him, he could show off his existence with miracles, and explain to
humans what he wants us to do. Being all powerful, if he truly wanted humans to believe, he could send a divine
sign. Since he does not seem to care if humans believe or not, apatheists will not care until he shows them a reason
to.
I stand corrected as, clearly, I am an apatheist.
Guidoland 