Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero

I know made a post about religion yesterday, but I thought I would talk a little more on the subject, since in the past couple of days I've been browsing YouTube and its plethora of atheist material. With each video I watch, I am less and less convinced by the idea of a God, especially the Christian God. One thought in particular I've been coming back to again and again in my mind: what kind of all-powerful and perfect being (who I'm assuming has perfect logic) would damn so many of his creations to eternal torture simply for not believing in him, when so few logical signs point to his existence? Sounds like a malevolent sadist to me. No, these are not new ideas, and I didn't begin this blog to try to debunk the existence of God.

There ARE some atheists that irk me a little bit. Some simply say, "God does not exist." "I can prove that God does not exist." Simply put, no, you can't prove that. Just as theists can't prove that God(s) DO(ES) exist, atheists cannot prove that God(s) do(es) NOT exist. There's no way to know either way. But let's think through a few scenarios.

1. An individual believes in God and there is a God. He devotes his life to God. He dies and goes to heaven and lives an eternal afterlife of happiness.
END RESULT: A life devoted to an invisible being and a fulfilled afterlife

2. An individual does not believe in God and there is a God. He tries to live life to the fullest. He dies and goes to Hell for no good reason (unless the God is not the Christian one and isn't a total jerk-face).
END RESULT: A life devoted to whatever he wants and eternal damnation

3. An individual believes in God and there is no God. He devotes his life to God. He dies and becomes dust.
END RESULT: A life devoted to an invisible being and then nothing

4. An individual does not believe in God and there is no God. He tries to live life to the fullest. He dies and becomes dust.
END RESULT: A life devoted to whatever he wants and then nothing

Obviously, this list is a little biased to my own beliefs, and it's definitely oversimplified. But to recap... If one believes in God, either eternal happiness or wasted time (not necesarily, but... mission trips (the non-humanitarian ones) and any time spent worshipping). If one does not believe in God, either eternal damnation from a total asshole of a God who doesn't deserve worshipping, or a life well spent (again, not necesarily, but I'm not totally finished). On second thought, there are so many possibilities out there... perhaps a God would reward atheism because of the signs that point to it? Kind of weird, but again, possible. This whole idea is getting ridiculous so I'm just going to move on from it.

Perhaps a little of my religious history is in order. From late elementary school to early high school, I considered myself a Christian, attending the church of a friend of mine as regularly as I could. I can't remember the first time I was invited, but I remember I believed in some sort of God before I first went to church. I don't think my parents explicitly taught me that God existed, but they definitely alluded to it. That church just told me all the specifics about that God. Throughout the years, I convinced myself that they were right, and they convinced me that they were right... but looking back now, I know there was always this nagging feeling that there was just something inherently wrong with some of the stuff they were saying. In the back of my mind, I thought then what I did now: what if I just hadn't discovered Christianity? I was condemned to Satan's hellfire? Makes no sense. So over the years, especially after I stopped attending church, I began to see that Christianity just couldn't be right due to all of its self-contradictions. It's like saying "I love chocolate" and "I hate chocolate." Only one of those can be true. But Christians twist that to mean "I have a love-hate relationship with chocolate," which almost makes sense... but that's not what they said!

So anyways, more time passed, and although I now had no reason to believe in Christianity, I still admired Jesus and some teachings of the Bible, and still believed in some sort of God. I thought, if there is nothing after life, what's the point? Isn't that just so depressing? I went on convincing myself there HAD to be a God for life to matter. Whenever I thought about the possibility of there being nothing after this life, I wanted to curl up in a ball and lie in bed. Only within the past year have I realized the fallacies of this thought-process.

A few friends of mine have become increasingly open about their own atheism. I think there was one thing I read about atheism that compared this sort of event to a homosexual's coming-out, and although I know they have their major differences, they are, in some ways, quite comparable. Anyways, at first I didn't understand why they would choose to just NOT believe in God. In the past, whenever I saw someone "lose faith" or declare their disbelief, it was often out of sadness. I wasn't about to pull some "God works in mysterious ways" bullshit, but my rationalization was, "Maybe God stopped paying attention, maybe he made the universe and now is just letting it do its own thing, like a scientist with a petri dish."Something like that. The possibilities were endless. The point is, I didn't want to just stop believing in God because something bad happened. But I realized that this isn't what happened. They just had no reason to believe. The evidence is not there. On top of this, life didn't have less meaning without God... it had more meaning.

It took awhile for this thought-process to evolve in my own mind, but now, when I think about life and death... I think about how my time in this world is finite, fragile, and precious. I can interact with my surroundings. I can experience an incredible array of emotions. I can change things. I can affect other people and living things. By the miracles of science, the molecules in my body have coalesced to form me for a brief instant in the history of this universe, after being around for billions, perhaps trillions, probably even more years. I won't be here for much longer. I need to get up out of this seat, I need to see what this life has to offer. I want to see the world. I want to help everyone I can. I want to learn everything there is to know. I want to get out of Sequim! I want to spend as much time with my girlfriend and other friends as possible. I want to make MORE friends. I want to meet everyone, nasty and nice. I want to teach music to kids that have nothing. I want to become a better musician. I want to write beautiful music. I want to live life. I may not follow this motto all the time, but now, when I think about the possibility that there is no God, there is no afterlife... that's when I'm at my happiest.

"Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero." "Seize the day, and place no trust in tomorrow."

--Jon