Yes, it’s been a while. But I’m trying to make this not just a journal of where I had lunch Saturday afternoon. My time has been taken up almost entirely by a wickedness named ToME. I thought I’d say a few words about why I no longer believe in a deity of any sort, since my reasons may differ a little from a lot of others.
As someone who fancied himself an intellectual as a teenager, I’d toyed with the idea of atheism and agnosticism for a long time, along with a couple brief jaunts into Eastern philosophy. This was especially the case as I went to a private Catholic school from kindergarten to 8th grade. I was baptized as a Catholic; as one would guess from my surname, my father is Jewish. Neither my father nor my mother is particularly religious, thankfully – my dad actually wears a crucifix just because he likes the way it looks. They’re like most people, with a tacit belief in God but not caring about religious doctrines or rituals – a very sensible system, and probably the only way to make it as a normal person in the normal world. My floating religious beliefs back then could be called an inward rebellion against a parochial school, but even that may be too generous. I don’t think it’s unusual that I feel embarrassed by ways I thought years ago.
For a year or so in high school, I actually did firmly believe in God, though I didn’t practice this belief in any way. For me the cause was actually a piece of music – A Love Supreme by John Coltrane. An astoundingly lucid declaration of faith, I still can’t think of a more convincing argument for the existence of a God who would inspire the creation of such beauty. I could write an entire other essay just about that, but I’ll leave it for now.
My junior year I had a little bit of what the residual teenager in me would call an existential crisis. I had no idea what I wanted to do in college. I really don’t still, but that’s another matter. I’m a man who is prone to being very intensely infatuated with various girls; Petrarch and all that. That year there was really no object for my desires. I had no focus. Nothing seemed to matter all that much. Always bored with school, I just completely gave up. I skipped several classes, and ended up with mediocre grades for the year (some things never change). I’m sure this sounds odd to most of you, and it is something I’ve managed to outgrow a little, with the help of a particular female who shall remain nameless. You know who you are. I had built up being in love as something that could save my life and help me fulfill my potential, and that combined with a lack of social skills and a shallow heart easily swayed by a pretty face was bad news.
My senior year I finally found the ultimate object of those emotions. Her name was Jeannette. One morning I just woke up and I couldn’t stop thinking about her. In class I couldn’t help but stare at her constantly. I’d wait to leave when she did so that maybe some sort of conversation could be exchanged. I was deeply depressed on weekends and when she wasn’t in class, and I basically ignored some of my best friends and teachers, something I feel sorry for today. Sometimes I even followed her for a bit to her next class, just so I could look at her a little longer. Scary, I know – but I never would have done anything to her; she was a goddess to me, and for about a year after school ended I still thought about her constantly and cried over my memory of her. I even wrote sonnets, one of which was published in the school literary magazine with a very thinly disguised obfuscation of her name. But who reads those things, right? I finally did manage to ask her out, but I’d rather not talk about that.
Getting back to my point, Jeannette is, in a sense, the reason I no longer believe in God, or at least the catalyst for that reason. No, it’s not because I refuse to believe in a God who would make me suffer so much. This doesn’t deal with evil. It’s a case of importance.
I was really questioning life itself at this point. As long as I got to see her, I could go on living, but I knew I would never see her again after graduation. I’ve always believed that suicide is wrong, basing that on Camus’s argument. Suicide is giving up, admitting that the world is too much for you and you can’t make it good through your own ability. Suicide is weakness. This led to me thinking about God. It seemed that God was out of the question based on my situation, but I needed to develop the logic behind it. After some thinking, I managed to work a deductive argument that illustrates the reason I feel as I do. I’m a fan of logic and clarity, so here’s your proof:
1. If God exists, God must be the most important thing in the world to each and every individual.
2. Assume God exists.
3. God is still not the most important thing in the world to this individual.
4. Ergo, God does not exist.
Simple, probably a little circular, with arguable premises, but there you have it. To go point by point, I developed premise 1 by just thinking of what most conceive of God. God created the universe; he is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, and so on. Thus each individual relies entirely on God for, well, everything – not just your physical self, but your thoughts, your emotions, your ultimate fate, etc. This being the case, should God not be always first in an individual’s mind? Try taking a baby away from his mother, and all you’ll get are tears and wails for mommy. We are like children to God; if God exists, and we believe he exists, this same inborn need for him must exist inside all of us, conscious or not.
The second premise initiates this thought experiment. For the third, as I thought this over in my mind, I realized that even if God existed, he would not be the most important thing to me. To me, everything that involved Jeannette was good, and to hell with God; I’d throw my lot in with her even if she stood directly opposed to God, no matter what punishment might await me. I eventually realized I could expand this to all the people I love, for now and for the future. I’d rather be with my friends than be with God. I don’t want God. God was not the most important thing to me even in the basest sense. When I did sincerely believe in God, I still did not care. There is apparently a part of the human psyche inspiring religious devotion that is completely absent from me. Even if I had incontrovertible evidence tomorrow that God existed, I’d still take my chances with a few people. And so on.
Therefore, God does not exist. It’s a weak argument, but it’s one that I can’t really see a surefire way out of. You could say that the first premise isn’t entirely correct; God ostensibly gives us the free will to decide these things. But I don’t find that entirely convincing; infants don’t have much of a free will, but even in them you don’t see much concern over religious matters. Free will doesn’t overcome unbreakable dependency. You could say that this is more of an emotionally based argument, only saying that I do not want God to exist, not that God doesn’t exist. Fair play, but if God does exist and we assume God exists, he should be ever present and primary in the minds of humans. He isn’t in my mind; I don’t know about yours.
