Forgive me. I don’t believe in God.
Here are 12 reasons.
1. GOD THE CREATOR. A piece of graffiti on a wall in London read: “God hasn’t forgotten the world. But He’s now working on less ambitious projects.” Cool. If God created the world, then all responsibility for the state and the fate of the world rests with God. If this God takes some responsibility for the state of the Earth, then we need to know what His responsibility is. We also need to know our responsibility. Can God increase his level of responsibility and decrease our level of responsibility or vice versa. How will we find out if there is a change in levels of responsibility or if it always remains the same. If His creation started in a particular way, then is God helpless to change it? If there is God, then perhaps humanity has to practice to forgive God for what He created and what He permits to happen in His creation.
2. GOD AS FIRST CAUSE. If the world arose out of a First Cause, then the world would be the same stuff as the First Cause. God would be everything, sentient and insentient. God would be good and evil thus making no difference between the two. How does such a belief help humanity to live wisely? If the world arose different and separate from a First Cause, then the evolution of life moves further and further away in time from God, yet helplessly tied in to God. If God is the First Cause, and created the world in seven days around 10,000 years ago (an article of belief for millions of evangelical Christians),then this belief renders irrelevant all scientific evidence on evolution and the noble research of thoughtful people.
3. GOD IS LOVE. If God is Love then why does this loving God permit the appalling levels of obscene suffering on all sentient beings – the young and old, innocent and guilty, the believers and the non-believers? The intensity of despair, depression, sickness, terror and war reveals a God who shows a pathological indifference to what is happening on this Earth with merely an occasional dispensation of His love to a few for unfathomable reasons.
4. GOD IS ALL POWERFUL or a HIGHER POWER. God seems powerless to address major global issues impacting in every aspect of this planet.God cannot stop infliction of destruction upon the Earth – wars, global warming, earthquakes, Tsunamis, famine, hurricanes, AIDS, volcanoes, epidemics, forest fires and other nightmares heaped upon sentient beings and the Earth itself. The schoolboy’s theological question arises. Can such a God create a rock that is too heavy for Him to lift?
5. GOD IS A PERSONAL GOD. If God is a personal God, what does God do when devotees pray to God for one outcome and other devotees pray to God for a different outcome on the same issue? A soldier in one army prays for personal survival and victory and a soldier on the other side prayers for personal survival and victory.We would assume a personal God hears our prayers, protects us like a loving father or mother and ensures we live free from harm. A personal God would have a personal relationship with every man, woman and child obvious to everybody. People worldwide make billions of prayers to God on a daily basis. God only seems to take notice of very few while the vast majority of prayers get ignored. The evidence shows that God cannot offer protection from suffering. We are told of the Person of God. A person has a face. Who has seen the face of God? If the believer has seen the face of God, then he or she should describe the face. If God can change his mind and ignore us sometimes and love us on other occasions, then God is not unchanging. If God keeps changing his mind, God is as unreliable as anybody else. If God remains unchanged, then He is rigid and inflexible and cannot respond to prayers.
6. GOD IS BEING or PRESENCE. Some advocate that there is only Being or Presence. They claim there is no past and there is no future. If this is reality, then all existence remains trapped in the Now with no release, no escape from the present. Being or Presence undermines the countless causes and conditions that that gives rise to the present. If God is Presence, then God rejects actions and results since actions and results arise in time due to past, present and future. If action and result only goes on in the presence of God, then God has no participation in our circumstances since God is Being or Presence. God is then aloof and detached from our reality or completely immersed in it. How can a detached God or absorbed God offer wisdom in daily life.
7. GOD IS ABSOLUTE TRUTH. Absolute truth is a problematic term, often used to impose a point of view on another (s), or to proclaim a dogma. Absolute Truth is a metaphysical abstraction. If there is Absolute Truth, then the exponent of Absolute Truth must define Absolute Truth, otherwise God is merely two words, namely Absolute Truth, invested with intensity without reference to anything whatsoever.
8. GOD IS ENERGY. What is the point of a reverential attitude towards a cold, indifferent, unchanging mass of energy? If God is energy, then all worship, devotion, love and prayer becomes utterly pointless. What way does claiming that God is Energy help us in daily life? We are creatures experiencing changes in enegy – high, medium or low. Sometimes we have lots of energy, little energy or no energy.
9. GOD IS CONSCIOUSNESS or PURE AWARENESS. If Consciousness exists, or Pure Awareness exists independently of everything else, and everything else is subject to impermanence, then Consciousness or Awareness has to exist before and after everything else. Who makes such a claim? Who can show Consciousness or Awareness independent of phenomena? Is the ego also simply ascertaining claims for itself as Consciousness or Pure Awareness, as the True Self? Consciousness depends on causes and conditions like everything else. Who can show evidence for Consciousness outside the mind/body process?
10. GOD IS ONENESS. The believers of God as Oneness reject change, development and evolution. Absolute Oneness is yet another claim upon ultimate reality. If we experience Oneness with everybody and everything, we eliminate all differences of view except for the view God is Oneness. If everybody and everything is at One already, then why engage in acts of love and compassion since it won’t make a scrap of difference to Oneness?
11. GOD IS INTELLIGENT DESIGN. It seems highly questionable to consider God as Intelligent Design in a world of such uncontrollable forces in nature and the greed, aggression and delusion in our species. What is intelligent about that? Is appears that intelligent design places us in a world demanding belief in God based exclusively upon a certain religious book, prophet or saviour? Is it intelligent design to create a world that exists as a living hell for far too many people? Some might say that such a God shows a lack of intelligent design.
12. GOD IS INEXPLICABLE. If God is Inexplicable, then there is no point in any reflection or meditation on an Inexplicable God. If God is beyond words, then there is absolutely no point in writing or speaking about God. If God is beyond words, we cannot communicate with God and God cannot communicate in any practical way with us. If God is not beyond words, then what are the words that bring us closer to God? If God is not a person, and is impersonal, then God knows nothing about prayers, chanting, hymns and acts of devotion in His name. It means an impersonal God cares nothing for the human condition or life on Earth. There is nothing to confirm a loving God or an indifferent God.
I prefer to keep faith with the exploration of the causes and conditions for what arises and passes, expansion of the heart, insights, realisations, love, compassion, wise action and liberation.
May all beings live with love
May all beings live with compassion
May all beings live an awakened life