From the Main Blog: Reasons for my disbelief

[webmdave]

By Rebekah ~

There are many layers to the reasons for my disbelief, most of which I haven't even touched on here...

When I think of Evangelical Christianity, two concepts come to mind: intense psychological traps, and the danger of glossing over and missing a true appreciation for the one life we know that we have.

I am actually agnostic when it comes to a being who set creation in motion and remains separated from us in a different realm. If there is a deistic God, then he/she doesn't particularly care if I believe in them, so I won't force belief and instead I will focus on this one life that I know I have, with the people I can see and feel. But I do have a lot of experience with the ideas of God put forth by Evangelical Christianity, and am confident it isn't true.

If it's the case god has indeed created both a physical and a heavenly spiritual realm, then why did God even need to create a physical realm? If the point of its existence is to evolve to pass away and allow the presence of the new heaven and earth? Why not use his forethought to know which created beings will be 'good' and only create them in heaven? The existence of a physical realm is the only realm we can be sure of, and the Christian hypothesis doesn't have a good explanation for its existence. To clarify this point... if God is all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful and is capable of creating a place like heaven in which free will exists, yet there is no suffering, then why not just create that and skip the suffering on earth and in Hell? Many Christians will say that suffering is necessary for free will, then that must mean Heaven doesn't allow free will, which would make it like a "celestial North Korea". The most reliable assumption is that the physical realm exists and that humans are prone to inventing religions.

(If) suffering is necessary for free will, then that must mean Heaven doesn't allow free willIf there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that believing what is most likely true based on evidence, rather than what we desire to be true, yields much more effective outcomes.

Witnessing loved ones afflicted by mental illness and adverse childhood experiences made it clear to me how our behaviors are determined by things outside of our own control such as DNA, brain structure, neurotransmitters, hormones, etc. This realization made the Christian ideas of extreme punishment and reward unpalatable and unbelievable to be coming from an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God. Allegedly the same being who created all of the said factors that form our personalities and behaviors. So who is to blame for the outcome? Not to mention there is no chance I am going to be amicable towards a religion which doesn't have physical evidence and also tells me my loved ones that have passed and didn't believe correctly are currently being eternally tortured in Hell. If that isn't psychological terror, then I don't know what is...

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[◊ Weezer ◊]

Excellent post.  Thanks for posting it.