Why I'm not an athiest anymore.

We live in a society that's lost its faith in...well...faith. I grew up in a Catholic school and I was a pretty fervent believer in all things Jesus until I reached puberty. Atheism spread through my worldview all the way through my mid-twenties. I'm not going to claim that I'm now "saved" or even that Jesus was really God's son, or anything of the sort. I simply wanted to share some of the insights I've had as I've grown a little bit older, and perhaps only a little bit wiser.

I came to the conclusion about a higher power through two things: a thought exercise, and some of what is suggested by quantum mechanics. I know, I sound like I've smoked a pound of weed, and am trying to be like those super-douche intellectuals that never makes much sense. The former is definitely not true, and the later perhaps halfway.

The thought exercise is this: ask yourself if any of the following things is WRONG: murder, rape, or slavery. Your answer, I hope, is yes. But, there are philosophical debates over whether or not morality is simply a construct of a society. If that's true then it means that when an ancient army sacked a city, and they viewed the murder and rape of its inhabitants as justified, they weren't wrong. After all, in their society, those things weren't 'evil'. I choose to believe that they were though, no matter how they might have viewed it. So the real question is, do you believe that there are human actions that are, and always will be evil? That leads the next question: If you believe that, then WHAT says they are truly evil? Whatever it is cannot exist within humanity, or else morality IS simply a societal construct. Some might argue evolution made those things "bad" for our species, but evolution hasn't dictated that to any other species on our planet. We don't view a wolf killing another member of its pack for dominance as an evil. Nor do we really view animal mating habits, which can be downright rapey, as evil either. I'd say that means we're not really animals but something more.

The other thing that made me a believer is what scientists say about quantum particles. Now, as a disclaimer my understanding is that of a layperson. I'm no scientist, but I do read about some of the things they say they've discovered. Look up the double-slit experiment and what it suggests. There are particles that exist in multiple places at the same time, until they are observed. There are even experiments that show that particles (photons etc.) will retroactively change their behavior after they've been observed. Things get downright weird in quantum physics, and some of it suggests that consciousness plays an important role in the universe. That means there just might be more to life than it being an accident or a randombyproduct of matter. Don't even get me started on just how many things had to go right for life to exist on this planet!

My point is that there are a lot of reasons to view your life as having a special purpose and meaning in our universe. What exactly that is I can't say. I simply wanted to share some of the things that have led me back towards believing in something bigger than humanity, and a created universe.

 

To that I'd say the Christian response would be free-will. If he controlled our every passion and impulse, it wouldn't exist. Evil arises from our freedom of choice. I'm not claiming to know everything, or even being pushy about Christianity. I still question christian theologies constantly (there are many) , it certainly hasn't convinced me thoroughly. I'm just saying that there are some logical paths one can take towards believing that there is more to existence than meets the eye.