God???

Thank you, RJ Eskow, for saying what I hadn't quite been able to put into words. See, I've been reading Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris lately, and giggling like a child at times because they are saying so many of the things I was too afraid (or intimidated, or polite, or something) to say to various church leaders back in my Jesus Freak days.

See, I've never "come out" as an atheist because that really doesn't describe me (I could go on about my dislike of -ism's in general...another day). The post above mentions the term "nonbeliever," but that's not me either. "Atheism" or "Nonbelief" provides answers to the utterly glaring inconsistencies, contradictions, and overall nonsensical nature of so much religious doctrine--for example, Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection was a necessary part of God's overall plan, yet Judas and pretty much all the Jews have been vilified by many Christians ever since (why is it called "Good Friday" anyway?) I could go on, but you get the point.

What science so far cannot explain with any satisfactory certainty are things like art, love in its most irrational forms, our perceptions of beauty, and so forth. Perhaps I should say that it cannot explain these thing yet. Maybe one day it will. Maybe it won't. Perhaps one day we will discover evidence of what existed before the Big Bang. For all we know at this point, before the Big Bang there was nothing in all of existence except a giant turtle. Richard Dawkins cannot tewll us for certain that there wasn't. Neither can the Pope. Neither can anyone else. Maybe human intelligence is a gross error on the part of natural selection that will be corrected when the ice shelfs melt or upon the occurrence of a few accidental meltdowns, or maybe there actually is some purpose to human existence. I expect there will be disagreement as to what that purpose is, but I would rather explore that idea than simply do away with all faith.