I have spent most of my life trying to believe in God. I have honestly watched that faith save a life. I have no doubt that without my mothers unswerving faith and love in God, without the belief that He is there, loving her in return, sheltering and protecting her, without her belief that her heart is still beating simply because He wills it so, I would not have my mother today. I have seen others stand tall under fire, so to speak, gaining strength from the belief that God would not give them more than they could handle. Others give thanks to Him for every blessing, living in a state of grace that I find baffling.
There are times in my life that I have envied these people their unswerving belief and faith, while at the same time trying (some days more unsuccessfully than others) not to judge them for believing blindly without ever questioning the plausibility of their belief.
I spent a great deal of my childhood learning about God, and even as a child I didn't understand this blind faith. I would learn the bible, and though I tried so hard to accept it as others did, I wasn't able to banish my scepticism. I have heard someone say that Faith and belief in God is not a place you arrive at and stay, but a series of actions that you repeat every day. Kind of like forgiving someone who doesn't deserve it.
To me, it seems the bible, or Gods word, are so hypocritical and contradictory...and yet I seem to be one of the few who sees it. It is enough to cause a child to believe there must be something wrong with them, since they are the only ones who doubt.
For example...Noahs ark.
Seriously? One old man built a boat because God told him that it would rain non stop for 40 days and nights. This old man, who lived in a time where the world was flat, was to load his family onto the boat, as well as one female and one male animal of every species. Now, some of this would be easy (if you count constructing a boat without nails easy) but really...this is just impossible for so many reasons. Here's a shortish list of them:
1. IF the world were covered in water for 40 days and nights, most plants would have gone extinct since they need sunlight and carbon dioxide to live, which is kind of impossible for land dwelling plants to find in a 100% aquatic environment. That being said, last I heard Noah wasn't a deep sea diver, so collecting water dwelling plants wouldn't have been possible either. You might say that it would un necessary, since water plants need water to survive, however, coral needs a very specific environment to survive, which does not include a mixture of fresh and salt water, and a change in temperature.
2. To continue along with plants, concider that in the last 200 years many plants have gone extinct due to lack of environment, polution, clear cutting etc...and yet there are millions of different plant species today. Go back a thousand years or so...how many plants were there? LOTS. So one old man went on a world wide expedition, after building a huge boat, and collected seeds and cuttings from the milllions of plants that were in existance.
3. Not to mention the animals. I can just picture Noah rustling up a couple of Hippos, aligators, crocodiles, blue whales, great white sharks, venomous snakes and spiders, polar bears, etc. I hadn't heard that he had a magic pipe in his pocket like the pide piper.
4. Lets assume though that he did manage this feat of getting a male and female of every living species onto his boat. What the hell did he feed them? Cows and goats and chickens would have been easy I suppose...but I somehow doubt that with all of the animals around, there would have been even close to enough room to house all of the food it would take to feed elephants and hippos, not to mention the meat eaters.
5. Having that many bodies on a boat, no matter how large or small, is going to breed disease. In a time when people were completely uneducated about the existance of germs, when people didn't see the need to wash your hands after wiping your arse, I find it hard to believe that much would have survived such a long time of enforced captivity. If you think about it, chicken farms today give their chickens antibiotics because so many of them live so close together amid shit and dirt (kind of like how the Arc would have been. If even one chicken contracts an illness, there is a likelihood that a large population of the chickens would be affected. If you add up these conditions (germs and lack of knowledge + unsanitary conditions + alot of living, breathing, urinating, and excreting living bodies) your most likely consequence would be a floating plank with a lot of dead bodies on it. I guess Noah was just a lucky guy!
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that a lot of the bible is based on truth as the people who lived in that time saw it. This is a patturn that you can see being repeated all through history though. Then a man was absolutely possitive that a bush spoke to him and it was generally decided that obviously, it was the voice of God. 200 years ago, this same person would have been tried as a witch, and in 2010 would be heavily medicated and hospitalized. Every civilization has had it's beliefs and superstitions.
That's just one story though.
There's the plagues. Once believed to be the will of god, now explained through science. The same goes for the burning bushes. The trek through the desert and bringing water forth from stones? Also explained by science. Mana? Science wins again.
200 years ago, people were born and so many of them never went farther from their place of birth than they could walk in a day. They lived and breathed what preachers told them. When medicine rarely offered a cure that good hygeine and diet couldn't, it was easier to accept death and disease as God's will, rather than accepting that life just SUCKS sometimes. When many children didn't live past infancy, it would have been easier to think of them in Gods arms than to accept that life was just too hard and too unhealthy, disease and germs to prevalent to allow anything but the hardiest and most fortunate to survive. God was easier to believe in, when real information was impossible to get your hands on.
Lets go to the MOST basic principle of the bible. Creation. I have argued the point with my husband many many times out of pure stubborness. I don't know how many times I've told him "Though you may have come from a monkey, I did not". 20 years of trying to believe in God is no match for several hours in front of documentaries. Though there is no proof of creation, there is much proof of evolution. The Big Bang has actually been created. Did you know our universe is still exploding outward from the original bang? Yup. Much as I hate to admit it, my infinately great grandparents lived in trees and ate bananas and threw shit at eachother when they felt like it. It was nice thinking that was just the hubby's family, but alas...
The upside is I am not conflicted anymore. The downside? I now know that I will never see my grandmother again. She isn't somewhere beautiful waiting for me. When my parents are gone, they really will be gone. When I am gone, I will never see my children again. All the people I love...they will all be lost to me some day. It is a sad and depressing thought but this is the only life we have. The only time we have. There is no after, no later. Only now. It makes it that much more important, more necessary to play with your children, to love your partner, to care for your parents, to enjoy your life. You only get this one, this ONE time around the sun before your light goes out.
It is hard to live life knowing that if I live my life well, or live it badly I will still end up the same. It is hard to know that the lowest common denominators of society will end up in the same place as the best. That there isn't something good in store for me, and fire and brimstone for the pedophiles and abusers and ruiners of life and innocence. The truth is though, that the pay off is in the now, not the later.
I am saddened by my loss of faith, and yet renewed. The world is so much more beautiful now that I know I only get to see it this once. My children are more precious now that I know I only get these days once, there is no more. I can see why religeon was born. People need to believe in something. After 20 years, I believe in my children and my family and myself. I believe in the power of today, and the hope for tomorrow. At first loosing faith was painful, and dwelling on all the other losses that go along with loosing God were painful but with time has come acceptance.
I have no wish to offend the population around me, and have no desire to recruit you over to the dark side. If there is enough wonder in the world for you to believe in a God that loves us all and is waiting to welcome you Home one day, then you are blessed I suppose. This is only my own personal opinion.
