It is a difficult thing to be an atheist who believes in God. Sometimes it takes an oxymoron to find the Truth. And you often have to go heavily on the “moron” portion of the word.
The thing I find most distressing about faith is the fact that those who have it are absolutely convinced that if you don’t agree with them and whatever book of fairy tales they believe in and interpret for you, then you are not a True Believer and you do not have real Faith.
I remember being told by a Mormon girl in one of my classes that I was her all-time favorite teacher, but she was deeply distressed that, because of my religion (I professed to be a Jehovah’s Witness at the time) I was doomed to burn in Hell forever.
Hey, I was raised in Iowa. I have experienced minus 100 degree Fahrenheit windchill. I am among those who think a nice warm afterlife wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
But I am no longer actually a Jehovah’s Witness. So I guess that helps with the whole Hell-burning thing. The Witnesses are a religion that claims to understand the Bible is full of metaphorical truth, and yet insist that it is literally true. They don’t believe in Hell, which, honestly, is not actually mentioned or explained in the Bible as we have it now. But they do believe your prospects for eternal life on a paradise Earth are totally contingent on knocking on doors and telling other people that they must believe what you believe or experience eternal destruction. I have stopped being an active Witness and knocking on doors because I got old and sick, and all the caring brothers and sisters in the congregation stopped coming around to visit because number one son joined the Marines, and the military is somehow evil hoodoo that cancels out any good you have done in the past. Being a Jehovah’s Witness was really hard work with all the meetings (5 per week), Bible reading (I have read the entire Bible two and a half times), door-knocking, and praying, and you apparently can lose it all for saying, thinking, or doing one wrong thing.
According to the Baptist preachers, Jehovah’s Witness elders, religious zealots, and other opinionated religious people I have known and dealt with in my life, if I do not believe what they believe and agree with them in every detail, then I do not know God and am therefore an atheist. So, okay, I guess I am. If I have to be an atheist to believe whole-heartedly that everyone is entitled to sincerely believe whatever the hell they want to believe, then I’ll wear that label.
On a personal note, my favorite verse of the Bible has always been 1 John 4:8, “He that does not love has not come to know God, because God is love.” That is why I claim to be an atheist who believes in God. I know love. I love all men, women, children, animals, sunrises, artwork, paintings of angels by Bouguereau… everything that is. And I even love you if you exercise your freedom to tell me, “Your ideas are totally wrong, and you are going to burn in Hell, Mickey, you bad guy, you!” Mark Twain always said, “I would choose Heaven for climate, but I would prefer Hell for company.” I am not going to worry about it. I will be in good company. Some things are just bigger than me. And trying to control things like that is nonsense. Sorta like this post.
Evidence There is a Living God
A humorist does well to remember that you should not joke about religion. God does have a sense of humor. But it is a sense of humor backed by the ever-present threat of being struck by lightning. And among religious types, a sense of humor is about as common as a nudist wandering into the midst of a porcupine convention just as the thistle-pigs begin arguing about whether or not God is actually a porcupine.
On the question of God and whether we actually have one, or whether he’s alive or not, we often turn to philosophers for insight. Friedrich Nietzsche was a philosopher with a hard to spell name. People often turn to him for evidence of god and the accompanying God-thoughts.
But it is entirely possible that Nietzsche did not get the absolute last word on the matter.
Nietzsche was a bit of a poozer when it comes to questions about God. He said that God is dead because the big guy in the sky didn’t seem to be active in the world. At least, not since Bible times.
And if we are supposed to believe that God Jehovah is real because he’s written down in a magic book that so very many people believe in, then why isn’t god Thor to be believed in anymore? He’s written down in some very old books too. And isn’t the story about how Thor almost drank the ocean dry on a bet just as impressive as Jehovah parting the Red Sea for Moses?
But Nietzsche wasn’t a complete and total poozer. He did have some wonderful things to say along with the klunky and hard-to-understand God stuff he said.
It takes a big mind in a big head to think of making the stars dance just by generating chaos-waves in your big old head. That’s the kind of big idea that could become a religion of its own… if Nietzsche wasn’t already dead, of course.
But I tend to believe there really is a living God. My sister posted an old picture of some of the reasons why on Facebook today.
My thing one, thing two, and thing three (in the baby carrier with her feet up) are all the reason I need to believe in miracles. Thing one was recently promoted to Corporal in the Marines. Thing Two has applied for a job at Walmart, and thing three will be a sophomore in high school this fall. Grandma Aldrich is in the middle between thing one and my sister’s girl. The little blond one on the left is my sister’s kid too. All of them are miracles in human form. Grandma Aldrich is gone now. She died not long after this picture was taken. But her life resonates through mine, and through me to my children and nieces and nephews also. I would not be me if it wasn’t for her.
So there is proof of a living God. Everything that exists cannot be erased from existence, even when it disappears from memory. So we are all eternal. We all have touched the stars… at least, in a metaphorical sense. And our bodies, science has proved, are made of star stuff in a literal sense. So it is not too much of a stretch to believe we can make the stars dance.
And if my quasi-religious joking around has God thinking about how to apply a good thunderbolt, well, I was making fun of Nietzsche… wasn’t I?
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Tagged as autobiography, friedrich nietzsche, having faith, making fun of Nietzsche, religion