I don't believe in God. For some time this was something that concerned me because I thought it was a sign that I was arrogant or immature. I decided I would give it a shot. Partly it was due to the fact the girl's family I was in love with at the time where extremely big on church, partly I just wanted to prove to myself that not believing in God was the right path for me. In the end for lots of reasons no matter how hard I tried it just seemed to me far too obvious that the Bible was written by people and that it was all an effort to overcome insecurities and influence one another (albeit in a mostly positive way).
One such moment came to me when a missionary spoke to our church and told us how he had been in Cambodia spreading the faith. He spoke of people so poor that they didn't have clean drinking water yet now because of his mission they believed in God and would be saved. I felt sick and I had to go for a long walk alone because I just found it hard to stomache that with the bigger problems the world is facing right now, like overcrowding, a significant if not majority of the population are actively doing nothing to help because they believe God will save them.
Another incident occured when we were sitting up the top of the church in a special area for singers. I was sitting up there with my girlfriend at the time because she was a classically trained singer. We had to fill out a survey by the Church about whether we believed in God and how old we were and so forth, and while we were filling it out one of the old ladies next to me confided in me that she was dying soon but that was she happy because she was going to meet the lord. I didn't know what to say - I struggle with empathy at the best of times and my brain cannot imagine being that deep into religion. Even now years later I don't understand this at all. How do you get through life where you need to make complex decisions and doubt your own logic every day and yet believe something you read in a book?
The final incident was at high school when a religion friend said to me that Jesus was a better person than me and that I sin every day. I said to him that I had never done anything to hurt him and that the times I had hurt other people I was really very sorry, I always try and be a good person and if I have failed simply by being human then I don't really consider that failing at all. I believe that being the best person that you can be qualifies you for being a good person and I only judge myself for that which I can control. I am colourblind and have trouble seeing the difference between the red balls and the brown balls on a snooker table, yet sometimes being colourblind allows you to differentiate some colours more easily than people with common sight and sometimes it can be an advantage (for more info look up colourblind soldiers in vietnam). In the same way, sinning everyday and being imperfect give me a better chance at perfection than Jesus ever had. He was a mean persecuted by his own perfection, yet I am a man attempting everyday to overcome my imperfections.
In short I made my peace with God by accepting that a truly loving God who loves me for how he created me will accept that I have chosen to accept that he may or may not exist, and in the form the bible presents almost certainly does not. I cannot stress that it is against everything I stand for to believe without conviction and I am highly distrusting, so either (A) God doesn't exist, (B) God made me wrong/I haven't yet found my true power to believe in things that are all around me or (C) God does exist but accepts that I don't believe in me and loves me anyway. Regardless people of faith have no right to judge me because either way this is really between God and myself.
Thanks for reading
