http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/97

If you don’t watch it, the gist of the presentation is that when we are forced to make a choice between two well liked objects, for the purposes of deciding which we will own, we engage in one of two behaviors, depending on the conditions of the experiment.

If, in one instance, we were told to choose one object, a painting in this case, over another object with the possibility of changing one’s mind at a later date, a human will experience what is referred to in common parlance as ‘buyer’s remorse.’ They become dissatisfied with their selection.

If, in the other instance, we are told that our choice is final, and that no exchange is possible, we find reasons to be happy with our choice. We also find reasons to dislike our old choice. In essence, our happiness is fabricated.

This is not something that we should find surprising, but it has very big implications, and the first one that came to mind was the relatively recent collapse of marriage. The model I propose is that just a few decades ago, a divorce had very negative social connotations. While this may have kept a few miserable people together, I feel that this negative association by itself did little to keep marriages whole. It was mostly the fact that these marriages were never considered optional in the first place which caused people to automagically find reasons to be happy with their given situation. 

Arranged marriages would have further reinforced this by taking control out of the hands of the betrothed. 

A hypothetical experiment would look at different, preferably isolated, cultures with different dispositions towards divorce. It would be interesting to rate their satisfaction with their partner and see if any correlations arise. Subjecting the subjects to a personality test could reveal more data. For example, in western cultures neuroticism is generally correlated with divorce and marital dissatisfaction. Could these different cultural systems bring greater satisfaction to people who are more likely to be miserable? Cataloguing rates of domestic violence could prove interesting as well.

My interest in this subject is mostly scientific, I am curious about what drives major social changes. I am not proposing that we switch to an ancient system, and in any event seriously doubt that such a change is possible. Given current knowledge and our ability to communicate ideas rapidly to remote areas, keeping ourselves in a protective bubble would be difficult, and not desirable anyways. People who are in abusive relationships, or who are in a genuine bad situation should be able to get out of them without stigma. But by allowing them to get out, we have opened our eyes to choices we never had before. From this choice comes both good and bad.

That’s the executive summary. If you’re interested, read on. Otherwise, skip to the bottom section.

Getting to this point has taken a while. It has been the result of a good deal of serious introspection. Many of you who are reading this may note may not understand how someone could lose their faith, and even if it is possible. I’m telling you it is.

The process of ‘de-converting’ started several years ago with a few seeds of doubt, and has culminated in the complete rejection of a deity. 

It started with the realization that many of the old testament stories were simply impossible. The one which really stuck out for me was the story of Noah. The more I learned about it, the less credible it seemed. The entire earth flooded? There were no mountain tops exposed? Where did all the water come from? Where did it go? I can only assume that there was a small mountain of innocent children who would have been killed. It seems incongruous with the stories of the new testament that God would kill innocents for crimes of their parents. A rainbow was a sign that God wouldn’t flood the earth again? So water didn’t refract light before that moment in history? What characteristic of the H2O molecule changed? Or did light waves/particles behave differently? If God performs these kinds of miracles to kill every human except for eight, why doesn’t he perform these sorts of miracles any time in recent history?

Sorry but I don’t buy it. Especially now that I am aware that there is no geological evidence of such a flood. Especially now that I know that the biggest entirely wooden ship in history would have been built by a man with no shipbuilding experience, being given only minimal instructions. Especially now that I have learned that the would have crumbled under it’s own weight waiting for the flood. There are an estimated 30,000,000 species on the earth. How could the ark hold them all? What did they eat for the hundreds of days they were adrift? How did they not eat each other? Not to mention that carrying only 2 of every species would have represented an enormous genetic bottleneck, meaning there wouldn’t be nearly as much genetic diversity as we see today. At least not without the help of extremely rapid mutations.

I could go on, and on, and on, but you get the idea. This is just one story of many in the first five books which makes absolutely no sense based on what we actually know. The creation story, garden of eden, plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, wandering in the desert for forty years, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra, living for hundreds and hundreds of years, giants which stood over 12 feet tall. Countless examples of impossible stories. Yet we see no evidence that any of these things actually happened. 

One notices that as we move forward through the Bible, it becomes apparent that the miracles become harder and harder to verify through experimental evidence. What we do know is that the gospels were written several decades after the death of the historical figure of Jesus, and are not all first hand accounts of the events they write about. There are very obvious discrepancies from one gospel to the next. Here are some very good examples:

http://exchristian.net/3/

Jesus is hard to nail down on a number of key issues, especially regarding whether the New Testament washes away the Old Testament, or whether the old laws should be upheld in their fullest. There was a devisive argument in the early church on this very subject. In the end, the old laws were decided to be primitive, and were rejected. 

That was the first step. After realizing that the Bible is not infallible, and in fact is based on a collection of stories, the other conclusions fell behind in lockstep. One of the bigger epiphanies was when I came to realize that prayer is mostly a waste of time. Think about it. There are many verses in the bible where Jesus states that if you pray for something, that you will receive it. Not that if you pray, you may receive it, or that if you pray, God will think about it, and then decide what is best for you. Jesus is very explicit. Yet when we pray, it seems like they are answered almost, well… randomly. As if it didn’t even matter that we prayed at all.

Tragedies happen everyday. Horrible things happen to people who are no worse than you or I. Every. day. Every few seconds, someone dies of starvation, many of them children. Think about what a horrible way to die that is. AIDs, murders, cancers, flesh eating bacteria, suicides, infanticides, deaths from natural disasters (also known as an Act of God.) Is this the work of a God seeking vengeance? Is this the work of a loving God? It seems more likely that there is no God, or that if there is one, he doesn’t seem to care very much. 

So how can people conclude that God cares when you make a silent prayer to remove that stain in your skirt? If he chooses not to save these people, what makes you think that he is going to lead you to make the right decision about your vacation? What college to go to? Simply put, he does no such thing. In the end youmake the decision. Not him. This is something that I struggled with for a long time. I kept praying for God to help me make decisions, after all, that’s what I had been taught to do. I kept waiting for an answer, something that was obviously from God, but the answers never came. Everyone around me could “hear God,” but I couldn’t. I began to worry about whether I was going to go to heaven. I spent a lot of nights when I was younger unable to sleep, because I was genuinely concerned. After a while, I began to accept that God just doesn’t talk to me.

The question now is, why didn’t God talk to me? I posit that the stories of communication with God in the Bible are made up, and others, who think they are being communicated with, are just misplacing their own thoughts, or notice what are nothing more than coincidences, and superimpose them onto former preconceptions on how God works. It’s a result of groupthink, and it’s a fairly common phenomenon.

This brings me to the subject of Heaven and Hell. Just as a bit of trivia, you should know that the Old Testament barely mentions either concept, and certainly not in the detail with which they are described in the New Testament. Many Orthodox Jews reject the notion of a physical heaven and hell, saying instead that heaven is essentially being with God, and Hell is being separate from God. So from this we can gather that our perception of these two entities derived from someplace other than the Old Testament, which is supposedly the foundation of our faith.

Who gets to go to heaven? Who gets sent to Hell? The Bible tells us that those who believe in Jesus’ death for our salvation will get to go to heaven. What about all the people who have never heard of Jesus? All the people who weren’t fortunate enough to be raised in a Christian home? What about babies, severely retarded persons, people who reject God at a later date? Here is a good one, what about all the people who died at the hands of the ancient Jews before they even tried to convert them? (Think Og. Ia, Canaan, Jericho, etc.)

Here we have one of the most important aspects of the Christian faith, the soteriological system which defines the religion, and we don’t even know what happens to the eternal souls of essentially innocent individuals. Actually, if we take the Bible at face value, we do know what happens to them. They rot in hell. They burn eternally. Their only crime being ignorance. For how can they believe that which they have not heard?

Also, have any of you questioned if you even wanted to go to heaven? When I was a kid I was always afraid I would be bored. I thought it might be like going to church everyday.

The good news is that all of this is an illusion that we force upon ourselves. None of this actually happens. A skeptical reader at this point may ask what, then, does happen? The answer is that nothing happens. Our brains cease to function, and we lose consciousness. Our body is broken down, and we eventually become reincorporated into the earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 

It’s a little unsettling isn’t it?

Perhaps religions are born out of a desire to avoid that queasy feeling. I can hardly blame them.

Because all or most of the individuals reading this are Christians, I realize this note may have been offensive, and I apologize. Those of you who care may be inclined to dismiss this as a temporary stumbling block in my faith. I sometimes wish this were true. If you feel like praying for me, or whatever, that’s fine. Just know that if you evangelize to me, I reserve the right to proselytize to you.

Conclusion:

Here is what I now believe: God is made up. It’s the only plausible explanation for all of the contradictions that are inherent in our religion, and for that matter, all religions. I believe that the website which best explains what I now believe, without vitriol, would be this one: 

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/ 

The title seems a little simplistic, but it presents very strong arguments regardless. I disagree with points made in chapter 36, (yes, there are 36 chapters, but they’re short, and it’s easy reading) but the rest of the e-book is good in my opinion. If you do not wish to challenge your faith, then do not visit the website. On the other hand, if you’re faith can’t withstand a challenge, why do you believe?

If anyone is questioning the existence of a divine being, feel free to bring up the subject at any appropriate time. Part of the reason I am “coming out” is to be able to offer some help to others in a similar situation. I certainly could have used it.

If any of you question whether I was ever really a Christian, the answer is yes, I really was. Maybe not a good Christian, but a Christian nonetheless.