Over the last six months, I have endured a transformation in views about theology, from Christianity, to Buddhism and Hinduism, to general Theism and Deism, to Agnosticism. The following are contents of an email, explaining how I made this transformation.
It would be beneficial for me to entirely detail how I started to transfer faith from pure Christianity to general Theism and Deism and then to what I believe now. Some time in October of 2011, I was reading a book assigned to me, called "Into Thin Air", which detailed the (true) story of a man and his group's climb up Everest, and of the tragedies that occurred high on Everest itself. The story is irrelevant, but there was a particular point at it where one person, a Sherpa, was devastated by the loss of one of the group members, because he felt the death was preventable if he had taken a different course of actions. He grieved for the man, yes, but he also grieved for his chances to receive spiritual transcendence in accordance with Buddhism, as at the time he equated the death to him murdering this man.
The mention of the religion made me curious about Buddhism. I looked up the tenets of Buddhism, and of Hinduism (as Buddhism was created by a Hindu), and was surprised, as they both aligned perfectly with what I believed morally and religiously. Your beliefs about reincarnation and eventual spiritual transcendence are almost exactly what the Hindu and Buddhists believe, and are the primary theory for what comes after life that I had at that point, and what I still have today (but I'll detail that a bit later). Anyway, Buddhism and Hinduism both are monotheistic, but put more emphasis on acting as a moral and benevolent person during life, an ideal that I've held in my moral code for around the past five years, since I endured ostracism and criticism associated with my elementary school and the first hockey teams I played with in Rogers that was significantly more than the average person (I hold few good memories of it, and the only good person I met there moved out of state).
All this made me begin to question Christianity. Why would a benevolent deity send people to "burn in hell for all eternity" after a single lifetime? How could evil people go to heaven when at the same time moral people would be sent to hell, all simply because of a belief in a man that lived thousands of years ago? The majority of my questions centered on beliefs about the afterlife, but a few seeped into questions about Christianity itself. These came and went (for the time being), but at this point in time, I hadn't paid much attention to them (What about all the contradictions in the Bible? What about all the hate in the Old Testament? etc.).
Over the course of a few weeks, my beliefs about afterlife slowly made the transition to Buddhist views. I left it at that for a solid period of time, before encountering some videos on Youtube one day that were blatantly criticizing Christianity in conjunction with a thread on an online forum that I go on to occasionally making a statement about destiny, and the physics behind it. I'm not sure if I remember the videos (I know there were a few about people being restricted from doing anything to find other religions, and a few about abiogenesis and evolution, but I haven't a clue what specific statements were made), and I did not comment on them, but I remember thinking that people were foolish to criticize something that did no harm to them, that gave people comfort in their lives. I still hold this belief. But they asked questions and provided empirical evidence that got me thinking.
As for the thread, it detailed how someone was playing pool one day with a friend of his. Before breaking the rack and starting one of their games, he was hit by a question; how is this similar to the big bang? He and his friend contemplated this, and eventually came to the conclusion that, just as physics dictated the movement of the balls, physics dictated the movement of the universe at its inception. They hypothesized that a person could create a model on a computer that accounted for all the variables, then apply that model to the pool table to predetermine how the balls would break, given their exact setup and how that cue ball was shot in at it. They applied this to the universe, saying that if there were a model sophisticated enough, we could predict not only what has happened in the past based on information, but also in the future. Now, obviously this model will never exist, but it made me think on the predetermined nature of the universe. I applied things I had considered the week prior to finding the thread about the human psyche, about the predictable nature of people, and I came to the conclusion that if we could find a model sophisticated enough to understand all the information about how the universe started, how the particles were positioned, and then had a complete understanding of the human psyche, we could predict every action that was to be taken by every human for all eternity, and we could predict how and when the universe were to end. Again, this will always be impossible, but the net effect was to establish a sense of destiny in me, with nagging unaddressed doubts on Christianity.
I became fatalistic, and over the next few months those beliefs helped me through adversity whenever I would face it. All the while I had shifted from pure Christianity, still believing in God, still believing in Jesus, but without those Christian tenets that the death of Jesus had "saved" us (in all honesty, I never really believed in that principle, especially when I shifted to a Buddhist outlook on afterlife). My views on "God" changed from the Christian defined principles of "God" to more a general theist outlook, that there was a God, but more that he was a 'watchmaker of the universe' than he was a figure that constantly intervened and micromanaged as Christians believe. Coincidentally, I shared my views at this time with Thomas Jefferson, the only other important figure in history to have been born on April 13th, who shares a first name with my middle name, who was 'Jefferson' or "Son of Jeff", and who shared in almost all my political outlooks (this statement may not be relevant, but I find it to be interesting).
I remained this way for a while, drifting away from Christianity to things I felt had greater morality and greater truth to them. It was at this time I left Christianity. I'd come to the conclusion that all religions were wrong, and that we as humans would never get religion correct (we call this Unitarianism, what I defined previously as general Theism and Deism). I still believed in God, still believed in afterlife, still believed that our actions on Earth affect our lives after we die. I simply found more stability and reassurance in the Buddhist and Hindu concept of God than I did the Christian one. Regarding Christianity, at that time I believed that Christ lived (there was at least one historical account of his death from a trusted, objective, famous scholar), but that he was not divine; simply an example for the ideal life a person should live (a Jewish belief).
Again, I made no attempt at delving into religion for a month or so, focusing more on schoolwork and dropping most of my considerations on philosophy, as my schedule was absolutely packed with other things. Finally, during winter break when I had some time, I looked at some Youtube videos and articles arguing both sides of the coin, that God existed or that Jesus was our savior, or that he didn't exist and that Christian arguments to give proof that he did were futile and could be refuted. I finally addressed those nagging questions on Christianity that I still had left over from past considerations, but now I also applied them to other religions, other definitions of God. I saw the debates between Richard Dawkins, a leading evolutionary biologist who supports the concepts of abiogenesis (that life was created by inorganic materials by natural process) and evolution (which I have always believed in). By contrast, I looked at people life Ray Comfort, who argued intelligent design was the only explanation to a number of things, and I found arguments stating that information has never found to have naturally become more complex, that information has never sprung about through any sort of natural process, that this information had to have been attained through a gift from an intelligent source (arguing that God initiated the evolutionary cycle, that abiogenesis was false). In time, I actually found these latter arguments to be untrue (the human genome has over a thousand-fold more information than an equivalent source that it evolved from, that information was added through evolution) and I began to question if God was necessary. I also faced arguments that God could intervene into this world and that he had, from a number of different sources, even a number of different religions. I actually came of with refutations to most of these myself, and the ones I didn't immediately come up with were stated in response to whatever the source material was. For example, if a crane happened to be passing by, right next to where a car was dangling on the edge of a bridge, about to fall off and crash into a ravine below (true story), it was not an action of God, but an action of coincidence. Many other cases like that have ended in death, and why would God put the people in that situation to begin with? (in this case, a truck driver was sent off the bridge and into the ravine, killing him). I also found arguments against the intervention of God to help people: that there has never been any case proven where prayer aided recovery and that this recovery would have happened anyway due to natural biological process associated with the emotions and conditions of the inflicted. That whenever people turned to God in times of adversity and grieving, saying it was his will, they had no right to claim any accomplishment for themselves, as everything was therefore "God's will", and then they had no ability to impact anything they did in life (an argument that eventually defeated my concept of fatalism, to a degree). That abiogenesis was an entirely valid and research-backed explanation to the origin of life. Essentially, I confirmed my view that a deity could not influence our lives, or even that any deity wanted to.
In addition, I began ask a simple question: How do we know a God exists if he can't influence our universe? How do we know what afterlife will be like? I answered the first question with "We don't know, and there is no need for one" and the second with "We don't know, but there ought to be an afterlife, as "nothing for all eternity" would be illogical". These now shape my beliefs. I am agnostic regarding the existence of God. I don't know why the Universe started, but anyone can argue that it was natural, than our concept of divinity could just be nature itself at work (a pantheist belief). But no one can also ever disprove the existence of God. I am theist regarding afterlife. I don't know what is in store for us when we die, but I know something is there. I think is has to do with morality and the benevolence or malevolence of our actions, lest no person should have a sense of morality if it did not. And finally, I am atheist regarding the ability for a deity to influence our lives. Maybe something could change that in the future. Using the analogy put forth by Richard Dawkins, if I were on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 meant utterly confident a deity could, and 7 meant absolutely sure a deity couldn't, I would be a 6, maybe slightly leaning towards 7. The reason for me doing so is because of the aforementioned explanation, and because physics and logic tells us it just couldn't happen.
Finally, regarding a sense of security and peace that is afforded by one's beliefs: I do not need to turn to a deity when I grieve, when I face adversity. I simply look forward to the future, to how I can overcome that adversity, and that grieving never changed anything. I do not need to look to a God to pray for the actions of others, for I know that I cannot change their actions and cannot hope that they will ever change in my favor. If they do, I thank the person, not God. I act morally and benevolently as a moral rule, not because I hope to gain admittance to anything in the afterlife. And finally, I do think there exists something greater than ourselves: the Universe itself. Its machinations disregard any attempt we might have to change them, and we are simply a blip on the radar of time. If the length of the existence of the universe was made into a radar, and the length of the existence of the modern man made into a blip, it would run for 2 weeks before sounding off. It it were made into the length of monotheism, it would run for 3 months. If it were made into the length of the US existing, it would run for 1.5 years. But I cannot stop that comparison from existing, I cannot change those actions from being so astronomical. I can only influence what is in front of me. But to know that I have the ability to influence the things presented to me is to receive a sense of security and peace, that I am something, someone, that matters, that I can and will be an agent for discovery, knowledge, and change.
I will continue to search for truth in things I do not know through my lifetime. Religion will be among them. There will be things I simply cannot explain in life. Religion will be among them, at least in part. I will try to explain those things that I can, and I will insist that there lie explanations for everything. I will not hold my search for knowledge to things religion says to be true. Galileo taught us that. Copernicus taught us that. As for now, I am led to the conclusions I have stated. That might change in the future, to favor theism, or to favor atheism. As for now, I'll make an effort to understand what's been asked of me, and of society, since we were able to ask questions. That is something I am content to do.
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