Why I Respectfully Don't Believe In God

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 / Unsplash

Let me tell you about one of my best friends and how it relates to my skepticism regarding God.

She stayed in touch with an acquaintance despite it putting her in political danger after he was wrongly accused of sexual assault and all his friends abandoned him. She has helped multiple people, including me, navigate mental health struggles. She wants to become an engineer so she can build nuclear reactors that will fight against climate change. She pets her dog.

She also happens to love women and is not Christian—so apparently, she’s going to Hell…

It’s for this and many other reasons I have long been skeptical of believing in Christianity (and any religion). I grew up in a small rural town with three Christian churches under atheist parents. I’ve seen all sorts of Christians from those who take everything in the Bible literally, to those with hearts so full they have a gravitational force, to those who treat it more like a hobby they get back into every few months.

I have a deep deep respect for Christianity and many religions. I resonate with the values underlying lots of religions like not murdering people (except in video games). I have great religious friends. I've dated a Christian woman. I'll even admit I sometimes find atheists to be more stubborn and irrational in their arguments than Christians; Atheism and science itself can become their own religion.

Just as believers must learn to look for reasons behind their faith, skeptics must learn to look for the faith behind their reasons.

That’s why I'm writing this article. I want to help both religious and non-religious people appreciate the other side more. At the end of the process, even if you remain the skeptic or believer you have been, you will hold your own position with both greater clarity and greater humility.

I’ll admit I’m biased because I believe in atheism and science and more specifically optimistic absurdism. But I'd actually love to believe in a God. The thought there is a all loving, all powerful, being out there looking out for me is very comfortable. I have simply yet to see a logically consistent argument with true premises that doesn't end with, you just need more faith. As we'll get to shortly, faith is not enough.

If I get a little heated in the writing of this article, remember I'm talking mostly about a faith which believes one of my best friends is going to spend eternity in hell. How would you feel if someone believed the same?

I will focus specifically on the Christian God because it’s the religion I’m most familiar. To format this article, I will go through the strongest ten arguments against Christianity, the strongest Christian counter-arguments, and finally why I think their counterarguments are invalid. When it’s relevant I’ll specify between various Christian denominations but the core of the doctrine remains quiet similar across denomination.

How Could A Good God Allow Suffering?

Every day while I play video games, write silly articles, and sleep on a fluffed bed, children are put into slavery in Bangladesh, Palestinians and Israelite innocents die in crossfire, and people spend months in agony from Cancer. God could a good God allow such suffering?

Some Christians respond this suffering is as a result of human free will which God gave us so we could make our own choices. The suffering is human created.

What about the suffering of animals. Humans have the choice of saving themselves from Gods wrath with their supposed free will. But animals can’t. They suffer tremendously, pointlessly.

Right now millions of pigs--animals as smart as dogs--are being locked up in pens so close they can barely move a few inches from side to side. There they are forced to eat, eat, and eat genetically modified food that fattens them up more and more until their legs can barely hold them, waiting for the inevitable death that will bring their meat to consumers. A Christian might once again say this is brought by the free will of humans, not God.

But what about animals in the wild? Right now, a mother deer is suffering from a terrible disease it doesn't know how to treat. It rests against a tree as it's child looks on in confusion, wondering why it's mother entered a sleep she will never wake up from. In another part of the world a antelope is suffocating in the jaws of a lion.

A Christian might respond without predators an ecosystem wouldn't be balanced and dive into chaos. That’s true, but what necessitates there to be predators in the first place? God creates laws of the universe, right? Why not have Predators instantly kill an animal when they touch it? Why didn't God have animals eat different things and then just stop feeling the want to mate when the population got to a certain size to control ecosystems? This kind of thing makes no sense when thought of in the framework of God, but a lot of sense when you think of a indifferent Universe.

Right now, there is a whole group of starving children in South Sudan. Why don’t we introduce some predators in that area to balance out and give them mercy instead of starvation? It might seem like an unfair comparison—there are many different ways we could spare suffering instead, but that’s exactly the point. There’s so many different ways that could be implemented in nature. Yet we seem to give unfair rights to humans over animals. Sure some animals might be argued to be less conscience, but would you treat your dog the same way we treat an industrial pig?

How could a God allow this seemingly pointless suffering?

To me there are only a few answers:

There is no God and the Universe is indifferent
There is a God, but they are certainly not loving, and I wouldn’t want to believe in them anyways
There is a God, and they think this pointless suffering is love, in which case I don’t want to believe in them anyways

The common religious response is that tucked within the assertion that the world is filled with pointless evil is a hidden premise, namely, that if evil appears pointless to me, then it must be pointless. To truly understand the reasoning behind Gods plan, we would need full understanding of Gods perspective, in which case we would be God.

Please forgive me when I call this certain line of reasoning, dare I say, overpowered.

This point can be made to countless theological claims outside of suffering as well.

Point to a contradiction in scripture and a Christian might say, "who are you to say you can understand Gods ways? Perhaps that contradiction does make sense and is purposeful from Gods perspective." Point to some part of nature which seems poorly designed like an inefficient metabolic cycle or a organ prone to failure a Christian might say, "how can you say that's poor design, you would need to have the perspective of God to truly know if that's true."

Here's the great thing about this argument though: it goes both ways.

Can't say God isn't good because he exists beyond our grasp? Then, you can't say God is good because he exists beyond our grasp. If you can't say he didn't inspire confusing or contradictory scriptures, than you can't say he inspired any scriptures because you would have to have a Godlike perspective for that.

If objections to gods supposed nature or behavior can be dismissed on the grounds that humans are incapable of understanding the ways of God, than any description of God's nature or behavior can be dismissed on the grounds humans are incapable of understanding the ways of God.

The argument undermines the entire basis of theology.

When we look at what this argument is really doing under the surface, it's actually a smokescreen for making religion unfalsifiable, again. Complexity in Christianity becomes not a reason for doubt but a reason for marveling. After all, how could you possibly understand the nuances of God?

Alongside unfalsifiability, this belief is dangerous because it can be weaponized. With this belief, any suffering can be validated as “Gods plan.” You’re poor and don’t understand why, God’s plan. Your child died in a car crash at ten, God’s plan. You have a lower happiness set point than everyone and constantly struggling with depression, God’s plan.

Of course, most Christians actively fight against suffering and seek to bring kindness to the world--that's awesome! But that doesn’t stop some from weaponizing the belief. There’s a reason many Christians tend to be conservative: planned suffering can help validate why things are as they are, with the justification being it's Gods plan.

The problem isn't that suffering exists, but its scale and distribution. Suffering helps us take gratitude in what we have. A loving God could allow suffering that builds character while preventing suffering that only destroys. Instead, we see suffering that breaks rather than builds. We see suffering distributed randomly rather than justly. We see suffering that serves seemingly no purpose beyond pain.

The Problem Of Divine Hiddenness

If God exists and is infinitely loving, he should be willing to form a relationship with any finite being. So why doesn't he show himself to us? It seems strange we have to play this game of hide and seek where we seek for him but he often doesn't answer. This is the problem of divine hiddenness.

The Christian response is God gave us the free will to be able to choose whether to follow him or not. If he revealed himself to all of us immediately, we wouldn't have the opportunity to grow to love him; there wouldn't really be a choice at all. I respect the thinking behind this, but when we look at the real world hiddenness often looks a lot lot more like unfairness than free choice.

What's the single biggest factor for if you become Christian or not? Your good character? How much you pray to God? Nope?

The single biggest factor for if you become Christian is where you are born.

Religion isn't distributed randomly. In Thailand your 90% likely to be Buddhist. In Saudi Arabia you're 90% likely to be a Sunni Muslim. If you're born in Rwanda you're 75% likely to be Christian.

A common Christian response is atheism is geographically based as well. Context shapes your beliefs. But atheists don't claim there is an all loving God watching out for us. It seems like your origin of birth determines more about your eventual faith than anything else. It just feels arbitrary if not openly racist for a God that supposedly loves us. Is there something in Thailand which makes them less open to God—is the tap water made of “God Resistant H2O.” Yet geographical centering is exactly what you would expect if religion were a human construct.

This doesn’t even account for all the people like isolated hunter gatherer who will never convert because they haven’t even heard of Jesus or God or the Holy Spirit. Are they consigned to hell to no fault of their own? I won’t make it seem every denomination of Christianity thinks so but it’s a point worth thinking over.

Another issue with divine hiddenness is that of resistant and non-resistant atheists.

Resistant atheists are those who aren't willing to give theism a chance. Sure, they might have gone to Church, looked into some of the arguments for God, talked to some Christians and more, but a part of themselves has always been unfairly resistant to God. I can understand why resistant atheists would be punished by God in a theist account.

But what about non-resistant atheists? Non-resistant atheists genuinely have given God a try, or at the very least, they think they have. I personally have gone to Church, dated a Christian woman, made friends with multiple Christians, studied arguments for both sides, prayed to God, and I'm still making my journey now. I would love for a God to exist! Someone who loved us, was looking out for us, and wanted the best for us. And yet, wherever I turn, I have never found even a single convincing argument or experience for that of God's existence.

God doesn’t need to give me overwhelming evidence of his existence all the time—that would take away my supposed free will. But he could at least give me one sign, one! During my entire life.

I have yet to find it.

To me it simply seems unfair for God to turn away non-resistant atheists in the spirit of some divine hiddenness. He's turned me away even after all of my exposure to Christian thought. Just think of the people born in a place predominantly of another religion.

The Faith Problem

"Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand." - Neil Armstrong

Just today I was asked by three Mormons alongside my aforementioned friend at lunch about what it would take to convince me to convert to Mormonism.

I said three things:

Justification for why Mormonism itself is the superior religion compared to other religions and better for the world and myself compared to living an atheist life.
Justification that God exists beyond the probabilistic occurrence of “miracles” in my life.
Justification for how the world works that would work in tandem with science or prove it wrong.

After a long albeit warm and kind debate, the Mormon argument always came back to the same thing: you don’t have enough faith.

Nothing will ever convince you about the truth in Mormonism unless you open your heart and put your faith in God. I can respect this. Some degree of faith is necessary for anything. As we’ll get to later in the article, science itself is based on faith (but of a different kind than religion).

But Faith itself is not enough.

First, it’s circular. In order to justify Gods existence I need to have faith God exists. That’s not justification, that’s blind belief.

Second, it gives no justification for why Mormonism or any other religion is the true one. Any religion can be the true one if I just have faith. There has to be some logical justification, some evidence of some sort for why that religion is right (we'll get more in depth into evidence in the section on science).

The Mormons in the discussion began to cite evidence for their faith based on personal experience of their prayers bringing good to their lives. The miracles they experienced proved the Mormon God.

But how do you know these prayers came to fruition from God?

All Christian denominations are based on great advice (mostly) for living a more meaningful and fulfilled life. Take the average person who enters into Religion and you’ll see they have a lot of problems. That’s often what makes them seek out religion in the first place. They begin praying and following some of the other great principles for living a good life and of course there life gets better. How can you know it was Gods influence rather than simple regression to the mean? How can we be sure we haven’t sunk cost biased (it’s a verb now I made it one), or fooled ourself into believing in God?

Often Christians will point toward miracles. I prayed my father would overcome his terminal cancer and he did. Miracles do happen but I believe they are simply very unlikely events. Over a large enough time scale, it would actually be a miracle for them not to happen, especially when you are looking for them say--because you’re searching for a reason for Gods existence. I have yet to experience a miracle which is not explainable with probability.

Who’s to say it was God who made it happen rather than simple chance? How do we know it's causation and not correlation?

Christians point back to faith. Well, now we’re back to the same problem again aren’t we?

Science Is At Odds With Christianity

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

Evolution. The fallibility of Miracles. Physics. And so much more aspects of science seem to be at fundamental odds with Christianity. What gives?

A common religious response is science and religion address different questions. Science answers 'how', religion answers 'why'. They're complementary, not contradictory. Added onto this, many brilliant scientists throughout history were deeply religious.

This is true. There are many enlightened Christians today who seem to have no problem with combining science and religion.

Yet this doesn’t stop the fact that Christian claims often make testable predictions. When they do, they often fail to meet scientific scrutiny. For example, the Earth seems to be 4.5 billion years old rather than only 6,000 to 10,000. There's no geological evidence for a worldwide flood. Humans aren’t special, we just wiped out all the other human species which existed before us.

In fact, BibViz a website dedicated to documenting the contradictions present in The Bible–there are thousands of them...

This problem becomes exasperated when more fundamentalist Christians push back against science because of their faith leading to what I consider harm in the world. For example, skepticism regarding climate change, anti-vaccination movements, teaching creationist notions of design instead of Darwinian evolution. Of course not all Christians do this but it seems like they allow science into Christianity when it doesn't go against some of their most deeply entrenched beliefs and than when it does, they let their faith come in to stop it.

Because of the nature of Christian faith, it's hard to prove them wrong because, well, God said it. Christians often respond by saying science itself is faith based. Science can only study natural causes, not supernatural ones. That is because natural causes are the only kind its methodology can address. There would be no experimental model for testing the statement: “No supernatural cause for any natural phenomenon is possible.” Therefore even taking science into account, it’s still an article of faith that God doesn't exist.

That's true. There is literally nothing I could do to argue against that. There is also no way of proving 100% that I can't coalesce a pet Alpaca using my bare hands. Yet I'm not going to claim I can.

It would be unfair and disingenuous to claim that Alpaca statement were in the same vane as saying God exists as there is quiet a bit of evidence in Christianity for why they believe in some form of divine presence. But this doesn't change the fact not all faith claims are made equal.

The faith that underlies trust in the tenets of science are simply not the same as the faith claims underlying the truths in religious doctrine. One is based on empirical study, cross examination, and continual refinement. The other is based on historical accounts, experiences (both of which are very biased), and admittingly some good logical arguments.

My faith in science is therefore of a different ilk. I don’t believe in anything in the sense that I’m open to having even my most fundamental beliefs (like my cat Lola is objectively the best cat) questioned with enough evidence. I believe in probabilities. The probability that evolution exists seems pretty great in that there is a titanic amount of evidence for it in the world. The fossil record, vestigial structures like tail bones in human buts, and the use of artificial selection to create most foods we eat. So I choose to believe in it, but always remain open to evidence which shifts the probability to something else.

A religious person might say we can't trust what we see with our senses--that's why we ascribe to a God. I would agree, we can't trust what we see with our senses! That's why we follow a set of principles which help us mitigate human bias as much as possible. It's called science.

Reality is that which exists even when you stop believing in it.

That's the nice thing about science, it continues to tick even when you don't tock.

Many Christians respond by saying Science can't explain everything using the famous God of the gaps argument. Whenever science can't explain something, God becomes the default answer. But this creates a constantly retreating divine presence--a cosmic game of whack-a-mole where God keeps getting pushed into smaller and smaller holes in our understanding. Two hundred years ago, God explained lightning. One hundred years ago, God explained disease. Today, God explains consciousness or the origin of the universe. Tomorrow? Well, that gap might close too. It's not a very sturdy foundation for faith when God continues to lose power with continual scientific progress.

One more thing Christians like to say in regards to science and God is the fine tuning argument. The argument generally goes the scientific constants of the Universe like the electromagnetic force, gravitational constant, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force are oddly specific. If they were different even by a smidgen of a degree the Universe could be completely different than it is now. It's very unlikely the Universe formed this way by chance.

The constants are indeed a mystery, but that doesn't validate the false premise this argument rests upon. In order to assess the probability of something you must have a dataset for that thing to assess probability of. Getting matched with your soulmate on Tinder is unlikely because most of the time you match with someone who thinks, "Hiya," is a perfectly fair opening line. In order to assess the unlikeliness of a Universe being created by chance you would need multiple Universes to have as a data set. We don't yet know of the existence of multiverses.

Therefore, you can't say the Universe must have been fine tuned by a God. Even if the fine tuning argument worked, it still wouldn't point to the God in The Bible, just a God.

I should make clear, I don't see science as the be all end all solution to understanding everything about the world. Science itself is inadequate for explaining everything regarding how to live a good life, how the world works, and more. But I do believe it's a lot better at doing so than religion at least in regards to the second question.

You Can’t Take Christian Texts Literally

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Those who sanitize the past are condemned to justify it." - Modified from George Santayana

So many religious texts are no longer relevant to the socio-cultural landscape of today. Science proves many testable statements wrong. So, why should we listen to the texts now?

One religious response is we’re taking an overly literal approach. The Bible in specific uses different literary genres: poetry, metaphor, history. Not everything is meant to be read literally. Genesis might be explaining WHO created the universe, not scientifically HOW.

My response is this creates a convenient moving target:

Comfortable passages are literal
Uncomfortable ones become metaphorical
No clear criteria for which is which

It’s worth mentioning many Christian denominations like Catholicism take value in both The Bible and the Church’s interpretation of it. This gives more flexibility to its beliefs. but that doesn’t stop the fact interpreting The Bible literally has many flaws.

Another religious response is it's unfair to judge historical texts from the socio-cultural climate of today. In the words of Timothy Keller: "Of course, we think of the Anglo-Saxons as primitive, but someday others will think of us and our culture’s dominant views as primitive. How can we use our time’s standard of “progressive” as the plumbline by which we decide which parts of the Bible are valid and which are not? Many of the beliefs of our grandparents and great-grandparents now seem silly and even embarrassing to us. Wouldn’t it be tragic if we threw the Bible away over a belief that will soon look pretty weak or wrong?"

I agree to some extent. Hundreds of years from now if we haven't wiped ourselves out from climate change or something else, we'll look back upon Tik Tok and think, what the bloody hell happened there?! Even if stories don't agree with our socio-cultural landscape they can still have value. You don't have to believe a story happened or even agree with it for it to grow you.

But here's the thing: can you honestly say slavery should ever be seen as a morally good thing? Or that women are lesser than men? Sure it might someday be that way, but I would see those cultures as misguided rather than truly moral. Yup, this is making a socio-cultural value statement for the value of human rights. But I don't ascribe to moral relativism.

The Bible has some beliefs regarding slavery and women (especially the Old Testament) that are lets say, less than ideal. I don't think this should ever change and Christians should take responsibility for these aspects of The Bible rather than saying, "that's historical relativism." That's the theoretical equivalent of saying "it's not a bug, it's a feature."

A common Christian response is you should first focus on understanding the fundamental beliefs of a religion before worrying about its teachings on gender or slavery. Some might object (including me): I can't accept a doctrine if its gender views are outdated. A Christian response is--does disagreeing with a religious texts stance on gender roles logically disprove something, like say, Jesus's resurrection? If Jesus is truly divine, we should take his teachings seriously, including his belief in the Bible's authority. If he isn't divine, then the Bible's other teachings become irrelevant.

Is gender a nonsequitor belief? It effects everyone. The belief Christianity has regarding this is therefore extremely important, and this applies to many of Christians beliefs. It's unfair to ask people to ignore the glaring problems on the outside of a faith before looking at the root. A cover does speak volumes about the book.

Christianity Is A Straight Jacket

"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." - Gloria Steinem

Christianity requires not only specific pre-requisites to become a member of any denomination but forces you to agree with doctrines that are unfalsifiable. That's a unprecedented restriction of freedom.

A common religious response is any community that did not hold its members accountable for specific beliefs and practices would have no corporate identity and would not really be a community at all. Political parties, club sports, and my hard drug friend group--I'm kidding, it's a hard drugs friend group--all have pre-requisites. Yet we don't complain about their biases.

I actually think this is a fair argument. It's being forced to ascribe to unfalsifiable doctrines that's my problem. The religious response is freedom is overrated. In many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, the liberating restrictions--like sticking to only 12 hours of video games a day.

True, constraints can be liberating, except when they aren't. The difference between the examples I gave earlier and religious doctrine is the first can be proven wrong. Trust me, playing 8 hours of Minecraft daily is more than enough for me. Religious doctrine, however, is rooted in faith.

This brings us back to The Faith Problem. At the end of the day, no matter what you say, a Christian can always pull the Trump Card: you simply must have faith.

This is how you get incredibly outdated and in my opinion heinous beliefs like homosexuals are sinners (Leviticus 18:22), women are lesser than men (Timothy 2:13-14), and abortion is a crime, remaining cardinal ideas in Christianity.

Christians respond by saying in many communities they are still expected if not encouraged to doubt. That's great, really. The problem is this doubt and questioning is all meant to lead to one pre-ordained conclusion: realization in the truth of God. There is no other option, aside from leaving the faith of course. Something more and more people are doing in modern society.

So, is it really questioning, or following a maze with only one exit?

In fairness, science operates on faith as well. After all, we can't fully prove anything. Remember when we thought the womb wandered around a woman's body? Remember when Newtons Laws Of Motion were as foundational as peanut butter on banana until Einstein's theory of relativity came along? Will something take over Relativity like Quantum Mechanics? We don't know, we just have to have faith Relativity works for now.

This is true, in part. The thing is Sciences faith is a different sort of faith. Religious faith is rooted in historical evidence and experiences--things we know are full of bias. Science is rooted in experimentation and revision. It's rooted in falsifiable evidence. Albeit science is done by scientists but at its best science itself is meant to help us overcome the biases inherent to our human nature.

There Can’t Just Be One True Religion

"The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also." - Mark Twain

There couldn’t possibly be one true religion. There’s Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and so so much more. How could any of these one religions possibly hold the full truth let alone claim to have it? Isn’t it ridiculous to push that belief on others?

One common religious response is by saying we know there isn’t one true religion, we ourselves must have the superior, comprehensive truth.

I respond you don’t have to have the full comprehensive truth to believe we don’t have it. Must you see the whole Universe, every star, every black hole, every version of McDonalds on other Alien planets (I hear their McFlurry machines work there) to know we don’t see it? If The Bible had the full truth it would be infinitely long and explain everything. Yet, we routinely have to rely on other faiths or philosophies or science to make meaning out of things.

To say one belief system has uncovered the full truth is not only presumptuous, not only arrogant, but dangerous.

Christiantiy take one of the thousands of hues of starlight filtering through the Universes glass and claim it’s the only one. In the most respectful way possible, if you put on rose tinted glasses the only color you will see is red. So don't be surprised when you do.

Another common religious response is by saying it’s ethnocentric to push your beliefs onto others, you are yourself being ethnocentric. The idea that it’s wrong to push your beliefs is deeply rooted in Western notions of individualism.

I commend the value rooting this idea. Absolute relativism is ridiculous. If all truth were relative, then I’m an Ostrich and I can finally shit an egg big enough to use as a football. Some religions do have better truths than others. We should seek harder truths about how to live with kindness, integrity, harmony, and more.

But that doesn’t put the ethnocentrism from both sides on an equal playing field. The Western notion of individuality prizes a duplicity of perspectives whereas many religions only promote their own. Which sounds more ethnocentric?

Another related problem with the truth of God is the problem of religious confusion. If God is so loving and wants a relationship with humans, why did he make it so dang confusing to understand his whims? There are thousands upon thousands of religions and many many denominations of each one. The bickering of these religions has caused much of the violence and hate of history.

It would be like two kids arguing over whose turn it is to play the Wi. They both fervently believe their parent told them it was there turn. This ensues an argument which turns into a fist fight. In this situation, it’s obvious any loving parent would step in and clarify the misconception. But God doesn’t for us in the world?

One Christian response is this diversity of religions helps spread dialogue and support insight about the nature of God; working together in community, opportunity for learning, etc. While there are a lot of goods that come through religious diversity, do these really outweigh the bad? Religious wars, dehumanization, going to Hell, out group hatred, and more occur because of religious diversity. Also, you could get this dialogue in your own religion as well as we see through Bible study and other related things in Christianity.

The Church Is Responsible For So Much Injustice

Drew McCoy, host of Genetically Modified Skeptic, was told about Hell when he was just a little boy. He was constantly reminded at school sermons, by travelling Christians, and at church about the place he would go to if he didn't put his faith in God. His Christian faith remained steadfast into college when something happened...

The rest of his family got into a money scheme called Young Living Essential Oils. The company was founded by a man who experienced a miracle and believed it was God’s plan for him to create and spread this essential oil to others. The company proudly went against science based medicine claiming to have special basically sacred knowledge to good health. Many employees left creating videos on the problems they had before making the leap.

When he questioned his families involvement with the company, their minds were already made. They said things like you couldn’t possibly know the miracle didn’t happen, or the people that left the company secretly knew it worked, but it didn’t work for them and they were spiteful. Of course they go against science, science backed institutions like the FDA suppress truth because they can't make money off of that.

Drew didn't know what to say. He saw his family fall for thought traps like sunk cost bias, myside bias, confirmation bias, the special knowledge illusion, fear mongering, and more. Fast forward many months later and Drew had begun questioning his Christian faith.

Among many of the problems mentioned in this article he was struggling with the concept of Hell and the excuse for any problem with Christianity that we quote on quote, can't understand Gods ways. But as discussed earlier in this article, if we can't understand Gods ways, than any description of God's nature or behavior can be dismissed on the grounds humans are incapable of understanding the ways of God. It goes both ways.

Suddenly, Drew saw the very same thought traps present in Christianity as in the Young Living Essential Oils. The whole facade came crashing down.

Think about some of the core parts of Christianity:

Faith in strict doctrine
Daily prayer
Sunday community church
Baptism
Belief in afterlife and potentially Heaven or Hell
Encouragement of evangelizing
Generally a consumption of more right leaning news sources
An inexplicable urge to build tall things

This combination can (obviously not always) lead to a strong myside bias for fellow Christians, an unwillingness to see other perspectives because of fear of punishment, and a fervor for evangelizing.

It’s important to understand a crucial thing about why people are Christian to really understand this point. When we think of Christianity we tend to think of the beliefs underlying it. But from a sociological stand point I would argue the behaviors and the sense of belonging it gives are much more important to being Christian. Behaviors and belonging almost always supersede beliefs. That’s why most Christians had childhood Christian influences from friends, family, and teachers.

In the most respectful way possible, beliefs like the infallibility of the Bible, the fear mongering of hell, and more simply hold as smokescreens which keep people in the faith that in actuality rests on the emotional connection created through shared behaviors.

Of course some Christians are in the faith because of reason predominantly. But in my experience the vast vast majority of Christian’s I have talked to don’t have concrete well thought out of reasons for why they believe in God. When their arguments break down, it almost always comes down to, you need Faith, which we explored the problems with in the first section.

I’m not claiming social cohesion behaviors and belonging are bad. They’re great! Of course I have ways of getting them in my life to through clubs, family relationships, friends and more. The problem is they keep people emotionally invested in a faith I see treading on many of the values I hold dearly today. Like homosexual rights, abortion, and more. Because of the infallibility of the faith, it’s very hard to change.

We have seen some of the effects throughout history. The church has been responsible for the Crusades, the colonialism of indigenous people, LGBTQ+ persecution and so much more. This leaves many non-religious people skeptical about Christianity simply for the acts of some of its members.

The Christian response is the church should not be seen as unanimous with Christianity itself. Growth in character and changes in behavior occur in a gradual process after a person becomes a Christian. You don't have to rise into the air in golden enlightenment before you enter the church. Therefore, you will still find broken and hurt people in the church everywhere. As the saying goes: “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.”

To add onto this Christians say the people responsible for this injustice are not truly Christian. In the words of Timothy Keller: "Think of people you consider fanatical. They’re overbearing, self-righteous, opinionated, insensitive, and harsh. Why? It’s not because they are too Christian but because they are not Christian enough. They are fanatically zealous and courageous, but they are not fanatically humble, sensitive, loving, empathetic, forgiving, or understanding—as Christ was."

Both of these are fair arguments. But it reduces religion solely down to its beliefs when in fact its made up of behavior and a sense of belonging as well. Sure, the faith itself can't be put as fully responsible for the actions of its followers but the behaviors and community surrounding it is still tied to the faith. Touting these people as "not truly Christian" is disingenuous and unhelpful.

While individual Christians can be forces for tremendous good, Christianity's institutional structures often enable and protect harmful behaviors. The question isn't whether Christianity can produce good--it clearly can--but whether its institutional elements systematically enable abuse of power and resistance to reform. History suggests it often does.

Why Do Good People Go To Hell?

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by." - Marcus Aurelius

Remember my friend I mentioned in the beginning? Seems like a good person right? But she happens to love women and isn't Christian, so, she's going to Hell for eternity. Period.

The Christian position is God’s grace doesn't come to people who morally outperform others, but to those who admit their failure to perform and acknowledge their need for a Savior. According to this view, Sin is not just doing things commonly seen as bad like sexual assault, indulgence, or pouring milk before cereal, but doing anything in separation from God.

My problem with this idea is simple: why should belief in God be held higher than being a good person?

Using Christianity's logic, a serial killer who converts to Christianity at the last moment before death (assuming they do so with good intention) could go to Heaven, where as someone who was good their whole life but never Christian is going to Hell. What?

In my opinion the ultimate point of a religion or philosophy should be to help one be a better person and make the world a better place. Why should it matter if I do so in the name of Jesus, The Buddha, or The Spaghetti Monster? If God is really such a loving person, wouldn’t he care more about the love people show than they do it in his name? As Brendan Urie says in Panic! At The Disco: “If you love me, let me go.”

So God, you gonna let me go? If you ascribe to the bible, no.

Think of a parent telling their child that 'no matter how well they behave, they're fundamentally flawed unless they worship the parent. Most people would call this emotional manipulation. But when God does so it's called love.

It’s worth pointing out some denominations of Christianity like Catholicism don’t believe faith alone is what leads to Heaven or Hell. Good works matter too. I resonate a lot more with this concept of Hell and Heaven. But it still doesn’t address the problem of eternal Hell existing in the first place.

If God is loving and perfect shouldn't he have the ability to forgive and accept those who aren't Christian instead of sending them to eternal damnation?

The Christian response is typically all loving persons are sometimes filled with wrath, not just despite of but because of their love. Think of a parent disciplining their child after they do something naughty.

I completely agree. Love isn't infinite forgiveness--that's idiocy. It requires a balancing. The logic around Hell is if you are punished eternally for your Sin, then you will try extra hard to live well under God while alive. But that seems like an overreaction. Finite crime doesn’t justify infinite punishment. Finite beings can’t even comprehend infinite punishment which defeats the whole point of a punishment considering it should incentivize us not to do the thing. How can we do that if we don’t even understand it?

Why do we need to spend eternity in hell to realize the error of our ways? In fact, it doesn't even matter if we realize the error, it's eternity--as in, it goes on forever.

A punishment that lasts forever and ever and ever isn't love, it's maliciousness.

Isn't the knowledge that all the most important people in your life and the world at large will continue to be effected by your actions after you die enough?

The Argument From Morals

The argument from morals for God goes humans are inherently sinful and we need God’s grace to help us along our paths. After all, some of the most horrific acts in history have been done by atheists. We have a sense of objective moral values like killing children is wrong. These morals must be objective from somewhere, therefore God must exist. Without a God giving us this objective moral order, wouldn’t we succumb to moral relativism, claiming morality is whatever we deem it to be?

Firstly, there is a problem with the premise of this argument. The morals we ascribe to God aren't even objective. Determining what is right and wrong in the Christian moral system is a process of determining what God has declared right and wrong. That process is based on subjective human judgment. Humans read holy text, interpreting them through their subjective holy lens. They then converse with others and come to consensus on what God has declared right and wrong. The faithful will then claim what they have come to is transcendent or objective even though it's just as dependent on subjective human judgment as any other.

Secondly, there is simply no argument that a non-religious person can’t be inherently good. The fact is there are incredible religious people and incredible non-religious people. You know them. Think of one now. Point made.

Thirdly, the alternative to God’s morality is not moral relativism. But just because we don't believe in a rigid God morality like the ten commandments doesn't mean the only alternative is moral relativism. That’s a false dichotomy. The moral argument essentially says we can't imagine how morality could exist without God, therefore God must exist. But our failure of imagination isn't evidence of divinity.

We can develop moral principles through reason, empathy, and understanding of human wellbeing. I would say we have made a lot of progress in finding what's moral without God. Lots has happened throughout human history. Human rights seem pretty nice eh? What about The Golden Rule? Keeping slaves to do your laundry is no longer cool. According to The Better Angels Of Our Nature by Steven Pinker, there is statistically less violence now than ever before in human history. Of course not everything is sunshine and rainbows. But clearly, we have the capacity for moral growth, and it doesn't require Religion.

Fourthly, do we even want objective morals? Morality depends on the context. Murder is bad in almost all cases but considered fine if you are being assaulted by someone in most cultures. An objective moral truth is so inflexible it could be immoral. Principles for morality can be come to but they should always be adapted to the context which is NOT the same as moral relativism.

We have to do the hard work of figuring out what is moral considering the context. We can’t give up and ascribe to the universal morals God gives simply because it’s hard. Something being hard doesn’t invalidate the journey of pursuing it.

Concluding Thoughts

I want to end by acknowledging the profound good that Christiantiy has brought to countless lives. It has given hope to the hopeless, community to the lonely, and moral guidance to those seeking direction. Many of the kindest, most thoughtful people I know are deeply religious.

But perhaps it's time for believers to consider that faith, like any powerful force, needs to be wielded with great care. Just as a doctor must constantly question whether their treatments are helping or harming, perhaps it's time for religious communities to examine whether certain doctrines are truly spreading love or inadvertently causing pain.

This isn't a call to abandon faith - it's an invitation to evolve it. After all, if God is truly infinite, shouldn't our understanding of Him be capable of growth? Just as parents adjust their guidance as their children mature, perhaps it's time for religious institutions to consider whether some traditional interpretations still serve their ultimate purpose: bringing more love, understanding, and compassion into the world.

In the end, what if God's greatest test
isn't faith that puts doubt to rest,
but courage to question, strength to be,
beyond the walls of certainty?
For maybe religion's highest art
lies in opening doors--letting all colors flow free,
now that's the God I want for me.