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Gods Identity __________________

I dont know if God exists, but itd be better for His reputation if He didnt.
JULES RENARD

I was recently asked by a loved one, after having read the previous sections about my disbelief in the existence of God, to answer a question. The question itself was simple: Who is God to me? They asked me to dwell on the concept for a while before getting back to themand probably for good measure, seeing as I had a flurry of colorful words and adjectives surging through my brain that I could have used at the spur of the moment to succinctly describe just who I felt God was. However, this would have been too simple a cognitive exertion. Such a question deserves some due diligence with its response. I must admit that answering this question is difficult, and requires some framing in order to rebut it efficiently. As in my previous sections, I mostly delved into discussing my disbelief in the Christian faith, and the inherent problems lying within it. As Ive already argued, the Christian godor, rather, the concept of god to Christianssimply cannot be a just deity, because a just deity would not be a deceiver. Given the many problematic readings inherent within the Bible itself, it is truly difficult to grasp just what the Bible ultimately sets out to accomplish. It seems that you can find any verse to support any argument from any standpoint, really, even when verses utterly manage to contradict one another. Moreover, such a deity could not possibly exist, given that such a being referred primarily to falsehoods that we have either dismissed through logical inference or through an altogether lack of evidence. Ive oft heard that one cannot dissect the Bible and pick apart what one believes to be true while wholly ignoring other aspects. Given this rule of thumb, the Bible and its stories fall flat in the face of reason when parts of it can indeed be rebuffed or

discharged. Again I will use the story of Moses and the Passover as an example. I previously stated that over a century of research has come to the conclusion that no evidence whatsoevernot a single jar or pot, sandals, cookware, clothinghas been found to indicate the mass migration of a million-odd Jews wandering through the desert for 40 years.1 Furthermore, if such a story were true, and Jews were indeed kept as slaves for 400 years in Egypt, surely some records would have been kept by their Egyptian captors, either of having owned said slaves or detailing of their great escape. However, no such recordsbe they written or geologicalexist to support any of these claims. Jesus himself explicitly made references to the fall of man, the story of Noah, and the plight of Moses as being literally true, but according to natural history, none of these events ever transpired. So, we are left to assume that Jesus was a madman, he was a liar, or much of what he said was fraudulently insinuated by scribes and later authors of the Bible. Thus, to dismiss these stories only further solidifies the case that the Bible is fallible and cannot be taken at face value. Henceforth, the Christian god cannot possibly exist. One would need to exercise great cognitive strain in order to see past the logical and historical inconsistencies within the Bible and its cobbled-together stories in order to arrive at the haphazard conclusion that Jesus is God. Back to the question at hand: if God is not Jesus, Yahweh, Allah, the Earth Mother, Zeus, or any of these incarnations that have manifested in various cultures throughout recorded history, then just who is he/she/it? Do I even believe in the existence of such a deity at all? Christians and atheists actually have a lot in common: they both dismiss the existence of thousands of gods, the only difference with the latter being that they dismiss only one more than Christians do.

Voice of the Soul

From a biological perspective, human beings really arent that special. Sure, weve evolved to become the most sophisticated and intelligent beings on the planet, but if you take a look at just what separates man from beast, youll see that it really boils down to little more than a few extra pounds of grey matter. Our big brains have allowed us to develop
James Weinstein, Exodus and the Archaeological Reality, in Exodus: The Egyptian Evidence, eds. Ernest S. Frerichs and Leonard H. Lesko (Eisenbrauns, 1997), 87.
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sophisticated means of communication, which furthermore helped pave the way for the cultivation of hundredsif not thousandsof cultures throughout the world. Culture, language and the ability to express our thoughts, feelings and desires have driven us to where we are now as a species. However, is this sufficient enough to conclusively deduce that because of our increased cranial capacity, humans are inherently unique and worthy of possessing a spirit or a soul? Is it because of our heightened sense of self awareness that we have deemed ourselves spiritually superior to every other living creature on this planet? This particular point of view is a problematic one to entertain, because it assumes that intelligence is a sufficient condition for the existence of a soul. When you stop to analyze the biological composition of human beings and their DNA, one neednt look very far before realizing that our genetic code is close to that of a chimpanzees or a bonoboin fact, there is less than a two-percent variation. 2 This is because both humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor, and as humans and chimps gradually evolved from a common ancestor, their DNA, passed from generation to generation, changed too.3 Looking further still, the DNA of a monkey is only slightly different from that of a mouse, which is only slightly different from that of a lizard. So, because Christians believe that humans possess a soul and animals do not, where in the span of human evolution did this soul come to manifestation? As Ive already said, I cant find a reason to believe that our intelligence alone makes us worthy enough to warrant a soul or a spirit.

Symptom of the Universe

Earth, to us, is indeed a very special place. Hiding away in our corner of the universe, it is the only place that we can call homebut is it the only such Eden in an endless sea of stars? Recently, after combing through vast amounts of data obtained from the Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers at NASA have discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the habitable zonethe range of distance from a star where liquid water

DNA: Comparing Humans and Chimps, American Museum of Natural History, accessed April 23, 2014, http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/human-origins/understanding-our-past/dna-com paring-humans-and-chimps 3 Ibid.
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might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet.4 Based on what we know about planetary formation, this planet, Kepler-186f, is likely not going to be the last Earth-size planet that we discover orbiting a star within its respective habitable zone. It is only a matter of time before we begin to discover more and more Earth-like planets orbiting stars at a distance where the conditions for life may prove favorable as we investigate years of data offered by Keplers observations. So where is Gods hand in all this? Christians believe that the Earth is a unique and special place, hand-crafted by God the Creator himself. However, it is fallacious reasoning to believe that simply because we have not found another Earth, such a planet does not and cannot possibly exist. After all, it wasnt until the 18th century that Immanuel Kant first proposed the idea of island universes, suggesting that the Milky Way was one among many such islands of stars in the sky.5 Shortly thereafter in 1924, Edwin Hubble peered into space and discovered a grouping of nebulae that he deemed too distant to be from our own galaxy, further reinforcing the notion that we lived in one galaxy among many. Therefore, it is intellectually dismissive to adhere to this belief that because something cannot readily be explained or observed, that God must have worked in a mysterious and miraculous fashion. Before we discovered the vast amounts of evidence supporting evolution, it would have seemed blasphemous to primitive minds who could not have fathomed the idea that God did not in fact craft each and every one of our identities prior to conception. However, over time the evidence supporting evolution has been and continues to be found in droves. Hence, if and when we can finally detect an Earth-size planet truly capable of supporting life, where will that place God? The idea of human exceptionalism will surely be humbled by such a finding, no doubt, but will this be enough to conquer and/or redefine our current conceptions of God? It would seem downright silly to continue justifying the idea of a human incarnation of God in light of such a discovery, given that our place in the universe would suddenly shrink as a result. Moreover, why would God even bother worrying about our trivial transgressions if indeed other
NASAs Kepler Discovers First Earth-Size Planet in the Habitable Zone of Another Star, NASA, last modified April 17, 2014, accessed April 18, 2014, http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasas-kepler-discovers-first-earth-size-planet-in-the-habitable-zo ne-of-another-star. 5 Kurtiss J. Gordon, History of our Understanding of a Spiral Galaxy: Messier 33, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 10, (1969): 293-294.
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worlds capable of supporting sentient beings exist? Will Christians regress in thought, pushing the explanations and justifications of Gods existence further into the crevices of ignorance? Its a rather restricted view to conclude that the entire fate of the universe rests on a handful of purported events that took place in a desert on a small blue sphere spinning in the corner of our galaxy some 2,000 years ago.

Faith is Subjective
I dont doubt the sincerity of those who believe what they do, because once upon a time I also harbored and shared those same feelings. One might passionately believe that they have felt the presence of their almighty Lord, Jesus Christ, work miracles in their life as I once did, but sincerity alone is not a measure of correctness. Had someone been born in India, for example, they could attribute similar miracles in their lives to Shiva and Krishna. The feelings shared by both parties could very well be equal in their sincerity, but one can see that such feelings are subjective in nature and based on ones own respective upbringing and general surroundings. Such sincerity can even turn a blind eye to logic and reason, even in those individuals who have even come to accept the scientific explanations of our origins. Yet, despite their knowledge of scientific truths, the mythological assertions driving their faith still manage to seep and pervade into their reasoning.
All too many preachers, while agreeing that evolution is true and Adam and Eve never existed, will then blithely go into the pulpit and make some moral or theological point about Adam and Eve in their sermons without once mentioning that, of course, Adam and Eve never existed! If challenged, they will protest that they intended a purely symbolic meaning, perhaps something to do with original sin, or the virtues of innocence. They may add witheringly that, obviously, nobody would be so foolish as to take their words literally. But do their congregations know that?6

I feel that all too many people are left experiencing this form of cognitive disconnect, as I once did when I was holding faith in one hand and scientific understanding in the other. Ultimately, as Ive already stated,
Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (New York: Free Press, 2009), 7-8.
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such feelings are as oil and water, and cannot sync nor meld with one another. Much like Bart Ehrman, Dan Barker is a former pastor who eventually realized that he too could not come to reconcile faith with reason. Reading his words, I only further concluded that the truth behind faith is a subjective hallucination.
I finally realized that faith is a cop-out, a defeat, an admission that the truths of religion are unknowable through evidence and reason. It is only undemonstrable assertions that require the suspension of reason, and weak ideas that require faith. I just lost faith in faith. Biblical contradictions became more and more discrepant, apologist arguments more and more absurd, and, when I finally discarded faith, things became more and more clear.7

It became clear to me that no faith is ultimately right, because we define our faith as being right based on what others around us have told us. Even within circles of faith, you have subjective validationpastors will pick the most relevant tidbits and recycle them incessantly, choosing the parts of the Bible that they deem the most relevant and wholly ignore other sections because somehow Jesus sacrifice only nullified the parts of the Bible that they dont like, thereby construing the Bible as nothing more than a very weird collection of mad libs.

Who is God?
If someone were to stop me in the middle of the street and ask me point blank, Who is God?, I would probably tell them that if God did indeed exist whatsoever, then he would be akin to a kid sitting atop an ant hill with a magnifying glass. I would later go home that evening, dwell on my response for a while before realizing that such a rejoinder would have been horribly inaccurate. A kid with a magnifying glass at least interacts with his poor insect subjects. I have found no reason to believe that God, if such a being exists, has played any role or has had any involvement with our mortal affairs. Again, the question of suffering is too great to simply write off Gods negligence in attempting to solve the worlds issues all the while attributing all the good occurrences in our lives to his almighty hand. Moreover, if such a being exists, and because this being has shown no care
Dan Barker, The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-Filled Life Without God (Berkeley: Ulysses Press, 2011), 12.
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for our trivial woes, such a being cannot possibly have any grand plan for our lives, as apologist Rick Warren would argue.
We think it is sad that so many Christians pretend to have no purpose of their own, that they must bow as servants before someone elses plan for their lives, especially before a mythical slave master! If you need a purpose-driven life, you are an actor in someone elses play. You are following a script, and its not even a good one. If your life only has meaning while it is being directed in someone elses movie, you have no life of your own. You have been subjugated, cheated, and robbed.8

To assume that God has crafted a specific purpose and role for our lives is also a futile exercise in delusion, because if this were true, his only role for you is that of a servant and nothing more. You are thus subjecting yourself to a complete life of servitude to a sandal-wearing Santa Claus.
Suppose I decided to breed children as slaves. What would you think of me? Yes, there would be purpose involved, but it would be my own selfish purpose of needing to be doted and waited upon. Those children would exist for my satisfaction, with no free purpose of their own. That would make me an egotistical monster.9

My faith in Christianity had actually transformed into a form of deism for some time. Even though I rejected Christianity, I still held to the idea that there was some god, gods, or universal force behind the creation of the universe that I simply could not explain. However, I also believed such a being held a very laissez-faire toward his creation. This being or beings created the universe, and either walked away from it or swore not to interfere with or manipulate its contents. Nowadays, however, I consider myself more of an Agnostic Atheist: I dont believe that this aforementioned being or beings exist, but I also contend that the existence of such a being or beings is essentially unknowable. However, while I may entertain the idea, and while I accept it solely on a philosophical level, I dont readily accept the concept itself as being true. If some evidence were to be found, then I would come to terms with this beings existence. Until such evidence arises, though, I live my life as if there was no God watching, because as far as Im concerned, hes yet to come knocking on my window.
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Ibid., 19. Ibid., 27.