It seems to me that the search for God is, by nature, the search for an interventionist, since everyone should accept the possibility (and the ultimate insignificance) of a supremely powerful “watcher god” who has never made his presence known and will never alter the universe in any way.
The question to me, at least, is whether or not there is a deity who can affect MY life, either to help me or to hurt me.
The evidence presented here so far has mostly been of two categories:
**A) I felt the presence of God
B) Something extraordinarily rare happened to me (surviving the car accident and the pills)
**
Of course, in my own life:
A) I have often had very strong, false “feelings”, so much that I would probably fail to recognize the feeling they speak of unless it was clear and overwhelming enough to fall into category B (Examples: I have been suddenly overcome by an intense artistic vision and convinced that I could create something extraordinary, only to fail miserably. I have had strong dreams of the “End Times” out of the blue, only to later discover that there was an upside-down copy of “Left Behind” on the floor next to my bed)
B) I have survived accidents unscathed without feeling any sort of divine touch. (Examples: At age 17, driving a car into a concrete divider head-on at 60mph. At age 18, flipping over the handlebars of a bike and landing on my head on the pavement.) It seems to me that the probability of surviving car accidents and overdoses is low but not so incredibly low as to be an undeniable miracle to outside observers.
Now, since I was not a first-person observer of the events described, I cannot judge whether they surpass my own experience. However, heard secondhand, they cannot convince me.
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<font color=000033>My *lack of* conversion experience</font>
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I would love to have the faith so many others speak about. It would very comforting to me to think that there was some divine purpose and thus I have spent a long time looking for evidence of such.
Currently, however, while I consider it very likely that there are god-like beings out there, I cannot arrive at the belief that there is, today, right here on Earth, a God affecting our lives. Here’s how I arrived at my current state of agnosticism:
A) Lack of direct evidence: Most of the popular religions revolve around divine intervention in the distant past. Why is that? Why is the same God who was so forceful then so quiet now?
B) Lack of motive to intervene: If there is a God who is to us as we are to ants, why is he interested in us? Do we generally play with ants except occasionally to fry them with magnifying glasses, confound them with an ever turning piece of paper, study them like puzzles, etc? In other words, are they ever more than toys to us? or at best, tools?
C) Lack of motive to judge: Suppose ‘God’ created us, like we would create artificial intelligence. Why would he judge us? Do we judge Furbies and send them to Furby Heaven or Hell based on whether they ever managed to pick up the word ‘Zamboni’? At best, it seems that He might be training us and discarding the mistakes.
Given those three considerations, I see the following likelihoods:
A) There is no god who intervenes in our lives
B) There is a god who plays with us like toys
C) There is a god who cherishes us like pets (but for some reason may have grown bored tending the herd and moved on to either individuals or some other farm entirely)
D) There is a god who is “culling the herd”, so to speak, and will take the best he sees (according to some unknown criteria) for some other purpose.
E) There is a god who is so incomprehensible that I cannot even fathom his motives, let alone act on them in any way.
Only C and D present any motive for worship since they offer the possibility of special perks for ‘good behavior’. Yet, all of the religions of the world have their own definition of ‘good behavior’, and the common denominator seems to be ‘that which the conscience allows’, so I can see no particular reason to join a religion.
If I do pick a faith, then at best I may stumble upon the right God who will reward me. As likely, I will stumble upon the wrong God and be punished. It seems I’m better off just living a happy life and hoping that either:
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some God will reveal himself to me with overwhelming evidence
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if no such evidence is given, divine favor will fall on those who do the most with what they’re given, thereby glorifying their creator, rather than those who spend this life preparing for a future one which may or may not exist.
Wallowing in agnosticism (and verbosity),
Meara
