Ra, Isis, Brahma, Shiva, Odin, Loki, Thor, Zeus, Hera,
Jupiter, Juno, the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Ghost), and on and on. Humans it appears have always worshiped deities,
though from culture to culture these gods are distinctly different. A complete list of all the gods humans have
worshipped would include thousands of names.
Each of these gods explained early beginnings, explained natural events
that were not understood, defined appropriate behavior, and seemed to work
mischief of one sort or another.
It occurs to me that I am an atheist when it comes to 11 of the 12 listed here. I do not believe those first 11 ever actually existed. I think they are myths. Were I to run into a Zeus worshiper today I would be amazed and shocked to discover that someone actually believes in and worships Zeus. I think I might actually chuckle. The same is true for the other 11 on this list, or any of the other thousands I did not list. On the other hand, if I were visited by the personage of Zeus who asked me why I persecuted him I would be forced to rethink all I believe and know.It further occurs to me that when atheists talk to me they are amazed to discover I believe in any gods. Atheists are just like me and the first 11 on my list, they believe all such gods do not exist and are myths. Atheists go one more than I do to include the Christian God. That makes me pretty uncomfortable.
Worse, if I look at the god I was taught to worship in light of the other gods that are or have been out there, I see similarities. My God created everything. My God got mad and destroyed everything. My God played games with some of his followers (poor Job). My God is jealous of the other gods, and interestingly, He did not deny their existence but told us we were not to have any of those other gods before Him. My God sometimes answers prayers, sometimes doesn’t. He has a will that we do not understand. He tends to always be portrayed as a male, but I think that is unreasonable and is a sign of the predominant culture at the time most books of the Bible were supposedly written. (We believe the Holy Spirit is a male as he impregnated Mary and we know Jesus was a male, so it has always made more sense to me to think of God as God the Mother, not God the Father, but that is just me. Jesus called Him our Father who art in heaven. Am I the only one bothered by the fact that our trinity has no female representation?) He promises love, forgiveness and grace but threatens to send us to eternal punishment if we do not behave. That does not sound like love and forgiveness to me. It sounds mean as hell. Like all the other gods, He is invisible. He is everywhere, but we cannot identify Him with any of our instruments. He promises a heaven or a hell, and we cannot find out where those places are either. We do not have the GPS coordinates for heaven or hell though we can even detect dark matter and dark energy millions of light years from earth. If He is in another dimension then by the laws of quantum mechanics any contact with that dimension would end time.
So, who is He and where is He?
Or, like every other god on this list is all of this simple mythology? There is evidence outside the Bible to confirm the existence of Jesus as a man and the followers who believed in him, but those reports are all second hand, a.k.a. hearsay. And the Bible was written by men, not God. Even Moses and Abraham were probably fictitious characters made up just like we made up Paul Bunyan, the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. There is no evidence that the Jews were ever captive slaves in Egypt, nor is there any record that a Caesar required a census to be taken around the time of Jesus’ birth. Sadly, given all the errors and misleading’s in the Bible, it is the evidence from the sources that were hostile to Jesus that holds the most credence for me. And none of those sources were eye-witnesses to the miracles or resurrection or ascension, etc.
I want there to be a god. I would love knowing that there was a supernatural being who knows all things, is the great creator, worker of miracles and savior who can provide eternal life. I want to believe that if I call on the Lord, He will hear my prayers. If there is truth in that belief then I am very concerned that this god does not seem to answer prayer. When he appears to, we give Him all the credit. Even NFL players look skyward after touchdowns, though I find that blasphemous. (If there is no god, is there blasphemy?) When He appears to ignore our pleas we simply say that is His will and we cannot fathom that will. Really? God wills such pain? Why? Where is the love and grace? Where is the forgiveness? Are we really more important to God than sparrows? I want there to be burning bushes, columns of fire, storms ripping the veil in the temple, water into wine, the parting of seas or at least walking on them, a fish feeding hundreds and the blind made to see. I can do without the 40 days and nights of rain and turning people into salt because they looked over their shoulder. But I do not see any of these things. A really cool and obvious miracle would be most helpful to all of us at this point. Something on the order of at least The Day the Earth Stood Still or Independence Day. A chariot in the sky would settle a lot of things.
Is the burden of proof on the atheists or on the believers? I think it is on the believers. Convince me of your god, show me he is real, and prove he exists. There is no way to prove god does not exist as one cannot prove a negative. (How could I prove I was not having an affair when I am not having an affair? The burden of proof lies with the proclaimer.) Do not tell me the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the solar system, the earth is 6,000 years old, or that evolution does not exist. We know all that to be false. Just show me he is real without quoting a book that is spurious at its best. And I am deeply concerned about the sanity of those who believe the Bible is inerrant, is 100% truthful and accurate. Really? How much evidence do they need to see the error in that thinking?
It further occurs to me that if our history were delayed 2,000 years Jesus would have been captured in social media. There would be cell phone pictures of shepherds in the field and angels in the sky, wise men would have arrived more timely and collected frequent flyer miles, miracles would have been recorded and analyzed, and the resurrection broadcast worldwide on Instagram and YouTube. He came at just the right time before any of our technology was capable of recording the event. He came to a group of illiterate Bronze Age men and women. Hence, it is all a matter of belief and faith, word of mouth, the Pope declared what books were divinely inspired in 382, almost 400 years after Jesus, and then a group of men at the Council of Trent in the 1500’s who decided what goes in the Bible and what does not. That is 1,500 years after the supposed date of the birth of Jesus. Incredible.
As more and more deaths are attributed to religious conflict on this planet one wonders what the hell is going on. Are the gods fighting? If so, my faith falters and my belief wobbles. If there are not gods then why do we commit such atrocities in the name of faith? Why do both Christians and Muslims want a theocratic state that supports their beliefs? Why do so many belief systems anticipate the end of humanity in a way that is almost celebratory? Even if humans disappear in a rapture, are we so arrogant as to believe the universe will cease to exist when humans are extinct? I do not understand. One cannot say that my lack of understanding of all this is proof that God must exist. That only He has a master plan and understands all things and knows all things. If that were true we should all be subservient to such a god and seek nothing, seek to understand nothing, and accomplish nothing. We should simply remain in the Bronze Age.
All of this yields a great fear, a great uneasiness in my guts. I grow more and more uncomfortable reciting the Apostle’s Creed and participating in the sacraments. Have I been worshipping myths? OMG!
It occurs to me that I am an atheist when it comes to 11 of the 12 listed here. I do not believe those first 11 ever actually existed. I think they are myths. Were I to run into a Zeus worshiper today I would be amazed and shocked to discover that someone actually believes in and worships Zeus. I think I might actually chuckle. The same is true for the other 11 on this list, or any of the other thousands I did not list. On the other hand, if I were visited by the personage of Zeus who asked me why I persecuted him I would be forced to rethink all I believe and know.It further occurs to me that when atheists talk to me they are amazed to discover I believe in any gods. Atheists are just like me and the first 11 on my list, they believe all such gods do not exist and are myths. Atheists go one more than I do to include the Christian God. That makes me pretty uncomfortable.
Worse, if I look at the god I was taught to worship in light of the other gods that are or have been out there, I see similarities. My God created everything. My God got mad and destroyed everything. My God played games with some of his followers (poor Job). My God is jealous of the other gods, and interestingly, He did not deny their existence but told us we were not to have any of those other gods before Him. My God sometimes answers prayers, sometimes doesn’t. He has a will that we do not understand. He tends to always be portrayed as a male, but I think that is unreasonable and is a sign of the predominant culture at the time most books of the Bible were supposedly written. (We believe the Holy Spirit is a male as he impregnated Mary and we know Jesus was a male, so it has always made more sense to me to think of God as God the Mother, not God the Father, but that is just me. Jesus called Him our Father who art in heaven. Am I the only one bothered by the fact that our trinity has no female representation?) He promises love, forgiveness and grace but threatens to send us to eternal punishment if we do not behave. That does not sound like love and forgiveness to me. It sounds mean as hell. Like all the other gods, He is invisible. He is everywhere, but we cannot identify Him with any of our instruments. He promises a heaven or a hell, and we cannot find out where those places are either. We do not have the GPS coordinates for heaven or hell though we can even detect dark matter and dark energy millions of light years from earth. If He is in another dimension then by the laws of quantum mechanics any contact with that dimension would end time.
So, who is He and where is He?
Or, like every other god on this list is all of this simple mythology? There is evidence outside the Bible to confirm the existence of Jesus as a man and the followers who believed in him, but those reports are all second hand, a.k.a. hearsay. And the Bible was written by men, not God. Even Moses and Abraham were probably fictitious characters made up just like we made up Paul Bunyan, the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. There is no evidence that the Jews were ever captive slaves in Egypt, nor is there any record that a Caesar required a census to be taken around the time of Jesus’ birth. Sadly, given all the errors and misleading’s in the Bible, it is the evidence from the sources that were hostile to Jesus that holds the most credence for me. And none of those sources were eye-witnesses to the miracles or resurrection or ascension, etc.
I want there to be a god. I would love knowing that there was a supernatural being who knows all things, is the great creator, worker of miracles and savior who can provide eternal life. I want to believe that if I call on the Lord, He will hear my prayers. If there is truth in that belief then I am very concerned that this god does not seem to answer prayer. When he appears to, we give Him all the credit. Even NFL players look skyward after touchdowns, though I find that blasphemous. (If there is no god, is there blasphemy?) When He appears to ignore our pleas we simply say that is His will and we cannot fathom that will. Really? God wills such pain? Why? Where is the love and grace? Where is the forgiveness? Are we really more important to God than sparrows? I want there to be burning bushes, columns of fire, storms ripping the veil in the temple, water into wine, the parting of seas or at least walking on them, a fish feeding hundreds and the blind made to see. I can do without the 40 days and nights of rain and turning people into salt because they looked over their shoulder. But I do not see any of these things. A really cool and obvious miracle would be most helpful to all of us at this point. Something on the order of at least The Day the Earth Stood Still or Independence Day. A chariot in the sky would settle a lot of things.
Is the burden of proof on the atheists or on the believers? I think it is on the believers. Convince me of your god, show me he is real, and prove he exists. There is no way to prove god does not exist as one cannot prove a negative. (How could I prove I was not having an affair when I am not having an affair? The burden of proof lies with the proclaimer.) Do not tell me the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the solar system, the earth is 6,000 years old, or that evolution does not exist. We know all that to be false. Just show me he is real without quoting a book that is spurious at its best. And I am deeply concerned about the sanity of those who believe the Bible is inerrant, is 100% truthful and accurate. Really? How much evidence do they need to see the error in that thinking?
It further occurs to me that if our history were delayed 2,000 years Jesus would have been captured in social media. There would be cell phone pictures of shepherds in the field and angels in the sky, wise men would have arrived more timely and collected frequent flyer miles, miracles would have been recorded and analyzed, and the resurrection broadcast worldwide on Instagram and YouTube. He came at just the right time before any of our technology was capable of recording the event. He came to a group of illiterate Bronze Age men and women. Hence, it is all a matter of belief and faith, word of mouth, the Pope declared what books were divinely inspired in 382, almost 400 years after Jesus, and then a group of men at the Council of Trent in the 1500’s who decided what goes in the Bible and what does not. That is 1,500 years after the supposed date of the birth of Jesus. Incredible.
As more and more deaths are attributed to religious conflict on this planet one wonders what the hell is going on. Are the gods fighting? If so, my faith falters and my belief wobbles. If there are not gods then why do we commit such atrocities in the name of faith? Why do both Christians and Muslims want a theocratic state that supports their beliefs? Why do so many belief systems anticipate the end of humanity in a way that is almost celebratory? Even if humans disappear in a rapture, are we so arrogant as to believe the universe will cease to exist when humans are extinct? I do not understand. One cannot say that my lack of understanding of all this is proof that God must exist. That only He has a master plan and understands all things and knows all things. If that were true we should all be subservient to such a god and seek nothing, seek to understand nothing, and accomplish nothing. We should simply remain in the Bronze Age.
All of this yields a great fear, a great uneasiness in my guts. I grow more and more uncomfortable reciting the Apostle’s Creed and participating in the sacraments. Have I been worshipping myths? OMG!
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