Once again, I shall procrastinate writing my paper to tell you a little bit about why I do not believe in God; however, to make myself seem like I'm being productive in school matters, I shall insert something about the Holocaust in here.  I'm sure it won't be difficult.

      I was born into a Catholic family, baptized into the Catholic Church, and raised as a Catholic.  I sang in the church choir, attended CCD classes until eighth grade, and have gone to church nearly all my life (and still do, but that's to be discussed in  a later entry, I think) every Sunday with few exceptions.  When I was preparing for confirmation in 6th grade, I was under the impression that God was definite.  I did not know that some people "believed" and others did not--I simply thought it was a fact that God exists.  I didn't know it was something to be questioned, just as it's not to be questioned whether I will die.  I know I will die, and now I know that God doesn't necessarily exist.  After finding this out while doing CCD homework on the computer, I began questioning God's existence.  After all, I could not call say for a fact that I knew he existed, for my previous knowledge had been based on a false assumption.  Of course, this exact thought process did not run through my head; however, I did notice that I could not know for sure God existed, otherwise these people called "atheists" would have a reason to believe.

      I don't recall much more of that day, the one thing I remember from it is that, within a year, I knew that I didn't believe in God—he didn't make sense to me after all because so many things were wrong with the world that it would not make sense for a God to waste all his powers on it.  My reasoning was vague at that time—I didn't have a structured argument to present as to why I did not think God could exist and I didn't know my exact reasoning behind it.  I just knew that it didn't feel right to believe in him.  I just didn't have enough proof.  Lately, however, I've done a lot more reading about atheism and religion, and I've been able to hear others' voices and their reasoning behind their disbelief.  I have never written reasons before as to why I do not believe in God, but I think I can structure a sketch of what my "disbelief" is based on.

      The first problem I came across, which I had only a minute grasp on when I was 10, was the problem of evil.  For those who are unfamiliar with the argument, it states that an omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving being would not and could not exist in this world because suffering exists.  This being could not exist because he could do something about it, being all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving.  He could end suffering in a second since he is ALL-powerful, and since he is ALL-loving, he would want to end the suffering.  He could even prevent suffering, for he is ALL-knowing and could stop suffering before it even occurred.  The question is why do Catholics insist that God has these three qualities, yet they feel suffering is justified (on God's part)?  Very common objectives include free will, giving the opportunity to obtain grace, and the idea that only God knows what good and evil is.  There are many others, I'm sure, but these are the three with which I am most familiar, so if you would like me to justify the problem of evil with regard to another objection, please feel free to comment.  Unfortunately, these are very broad subjects, one of which I wrote a six page paper on, and being that I have little extra time on my hands, it is quite difficult to cover them all concurrently.

     The free will defense, in breif, states that God, out of his goodness, granted humans free will in order to allow us to choose good over evil.  This freedom is so important to many, for it allows them to develop their moral identity and to have the right to choose each and every action.  God, therefore, cannot intervene in human affairs—he cannot stop a man from raping women (or a woman from raping a man; or, to be politically correct, a human from raping another human).  He cannot stop a person from bashing an infant's brains out, and he cannot stop a serial killer from killing many innocent victims.  It simply is not in his power to do so.  First of all, free will seems to compromise God's powers in itself.  For if God is all-powerful, he can do whatever he wishes--even interrupt free will if he so chooses!  If God felt someone was going to cause immense suffering, such as Hitler in the Holocaust, then he would know BEFOREHAND and he would have the power to prevent it. To me, free will screams "powerful, but not all-powerful."  Unfortunately, I could think of various arguments people could offer in defense.  For example, someone might say that God willingly gave away a part of his unlimited powers in order to grant us free will, and that God will not go back on his gift of free will, for it would not be a good thing.  In my opinion, God preventing the Holocaust would have been amazing for many reasons I'm sure you could imagine, including that I wouldn't have to write a twelve page history paper on it.  They may also say that God can't trump God.  God's power granted us free will, and since he made that decision with his all-powerfulness, he cannot take it back.  It is done.  Still, though, God's power would be compromised!  He would be making the decision to intervene or not to intervene.  All-powerful means God can do anything, and he doesn't have to compete with his past self to do so.  Furhtermore, I could argue that free will is NOT good--that it does more harm than it does good, and that an all-good God would not allow us such a gift at such a high cost.  I would imagine that you would not give your children weapons with which they can harm each other for a few very important reasons. First, you're not stupid--you know they will get hurt.  God being all knowing would have known what free will would cause.  Second, you don't want them to get hurt because you (I assume) love them, as they are your children.  God sees us as his children according to the Bible, and he loves us all, so he would not want us to get hurt.  Third, you have the power to decide whether or not to give your children the weapons, just as God had the power to decide whether to give free will or not.  Had you decided to give your children the weapons, you STILL have the power to take those weapons away from them.  You could prevent them from hurting each other and themselves by overriding your previous decision to grant them a gift (the weapons) and taking them away.  Similarly, God should rightly have the power to override his free will decision and prevent people such as Hitler from causing atrocities such as the Holocaust.  If he DOES NOT have this power, he is not all-powerful, at least not in my definition of all powerful, which loosely defined means "having the power to do anything and everything."  God is either all-powerful, or he is not.  All-powerfullness would mean God can do anything. God cannot take away free will; therefore, God is not all-powerful.

      Now, if I were to give theists the benefit of the doubt, I'd allow them to define God as all-powerful if they can defend it.  They may likely use the argument that "Sure, God has the power to take away free will, but he doesn't want to because he wants us to build moral identity and he does not believe it is 'good' to take away that gift.  So it is not a question of whether or not he has the power, it is of whether or not he sees fit to use it."  Fair enough.  Let's then look again at what I'd briefly mentioned about giving children weapons.  You are a loving and good parent, and you would not want your children to kill each other.  What moral integrity would they learn from that?  If both children die, what good came out of it?  What love does it show that you, knowing your children would get hurt, gave your children the means to harm each other.  Perhaps it makes YOU a better person, but you're in God's shoes right now, and God would not be so selfish as to have children suffer for his own gain.  What then is the reason that God would give his children such a gift?  We have the power to blow up the earth more times than I have appendeges (once is enough for me, but I don't know about you).  We also have the free will to do so.  Who would benefit from such an act?  Whose morality would increase?  If we were all DEAD, then what purpose would it serve?  What purpose would God have for granting us the power to destroy ourselves?  Perhaps God feels we aren't fit to live; however, God, being all-knowing would have forseen that before creating us, and he would not have bothered creating a world that was doomed to fail.  So why give us free will?  I still cannot answer this question.  It can't be for morality reasons, for we would all gain nothing from the death of everyone.  What does free will get us?  Perhaps then it is to allow us a chance into heaven, which would be determined by what happened before we died.  Then, what of babies? Newborn babies die without developing proper eyesight, let alone morality, so morality cannot be the deciding factor here.  If, however, it were, I could argue that a world without free will would not need morality, for it would be a good world under God's control.  People would still die, but they'd die at a proper age, such that suffering is decreased greatly.  Also, the world would offer plenty of opportunities for achieving at least some moral integrity.  You can feel sorry for a person whose grandmother dies, and you can learn greatly from death.  Perhaps we would fear our own death, and learn from that as well.  We could learn about the best thing to do.  Perhaps there are children who want to take a field trip to Disney World, and though they have comfortable amount of money to live off of, they are trying to raise money to go to Disney World.  Never going to Disney World would not be considered suffering; however, people would have the opportunity to donate or not to donate to the cause.  Situations such as these would provide opportunities to show character.

      "Who, then would get into heaven?" you might ask.  If everyone had to be good, then they would presumabley all go to heaven.  Perhaps this is so, so let us assume that all of these people would go to heaven.  Then for what reason would these people have needed the moral integrity that theists are so adamant we develop?  If God would have accepted all of them, then why would they have needed the moral integrity?  I don't know the answer to this, and I don't know how to argue against it other than that God would want us to have developed it because he is good, and he would have wanted us to appreciate heaven after being "tested" on Earth.  All right, I'll run with that, I suppose; however, it still doesn't cover babies who don't have the chance to develop moral intergrity, and it doesn't cover people who simply don't do anything bad, but they don't do anything good either.  In the case of free wil, why would we need immense suffering in order to develop moral integrity?  Why does God feel the need for us to develop moral integrity?  Surely young children have not had the opportunity to do so.  Why would it be better to have free will than to not have it?  People seem very appreciative of their power to do evil if they so choose, but why would they rather that and have so many bad things happen to them and to those around them, than being comfortable and knowing they will not suffer great tragedies.  Furthermore, why would God, an all-loving being, want to watch his children tear each other apart.

      This is where, I think I should get into "testing."  Some might say that God wants to test us to have us develop grace so that he sees who is worthy of heaven.  Once again I run into the problem of God knowing all.  If God is "all-knowing," (and by all-knowing I mean he "there isn't anything he doesn't know, for he knows everything that was, is, and will be") then why does he have to test us?  He, being all-knowing, would know before creating us which of us would fail him and which of us wouldn't.  Why would he need to make us suffer to determine this?  Perhaps he doesn't.  Perhaps he DOES know.  Then if he does know who will get into heaven, and he does know that we would suffer on Earth, then why does he put us on Earth to begin with?  Why doesn't he skip a step, and allow those of us who are good into heaven automatically, without having to go through such trials and tribulations.  Again, someone may say that we wouldn't appreciate heaven if we weren't put on Earth first.  Unfortunately, I can't say that I would be truly happy in heaven.

      This is the second issue I have with God, and probably a huge one: the >heaven and hell ordeal.  I'll start with hell, because I have a lot less to say about that, at least I think so.  Hell is supposedly where everyone who fails "God's test" goes.  They are bad people, and so they deserve to be punished, right?  Isn't that what we think God says?  Well, I thought God was all-loving, which means, and again I define for you, "he loves all, without exceptions."  Then why would God have hell?  Shouldn't he forgive everyone who was failed their test on Earth and allow them into heaven?  This then would pose a problem in heaven, so God couldn't do that either.  It seems that God runs himelf between a rock and a hard place here, and that his all-loving nature comes into question.  Should these people really suffer an eternity in hell as punishment?  I could not, if I had the power, condemn a person who I dislike to an eternity of suffering.  Perhaps God can.  Perhaps God does love these people as much as he loves those who have done good, but he feels he has to separate them.  Still, an all-good God does "good for all" and so doing this would yet again reduce God's status.

      On the matter of heaven, if I hypothetically died right now from spontaneous combustion, and arrived in heaven, I would be utterly miserable.  I would be without my boyfriend, I would have no friends to greet me, no family, and I would have to wait a reasonably long time (though not long compared to eternity) to see them again.  Heaven would, to me, be punishment, and I would rather stay here with everyone I love.  Also, what if my boyfriend lands himself in hell?  What then would heaven be like for me, knowing each and every moment that my boyfriend was suffering and would not make it to heaven with me, and knowing I would never see him again.  I can't imagine living like that.  I also can't imagine being made to think I was happy when I really wasn't.  I don't want to live a delusion and think I'm with my boyfriend when I'm really not.  I want him physically there with me, not suffering in hell while I'm in "heaven."  Heaven just simply doesn't make sense.  I'd rather stay on Earth, and if Earth is meant as a step to heaven, it's simply not worth it.  If I'm stuck going to >heaven or hell, I'd rather not have been on Earth at all.  I can't imagine I'm the only person who feels this way.  I'm sure there are many theists who feel that heaven would be unbearable without the ones they love.  For some people, a "heaven" simply doesn't exist, for their life now would be much preferred.  If not all "deserved" people would be happy in heaven, it cannot be a place of paradise for all.  I can think of few people who would want to live an illusion of happiness.

      So what would God's place be in this if there were people who would be unhappy in heaven?  If people didn't want to go to heaven, it would be pointless.  God would know these people's wishes, and he would know they would be unhappy in heaven.  Even if these people are the best people in the world, they may not want to go to heaven, and God, being all-loving, should not want them to experience suffering on earth, and then suffer even more in heaven.  Heaven isn't consistent with God, just as God's qualities aren't consistent.

      If there were then no heaven for us to go to, why would God have to test us?  Why would God put suffering in the world?  This again brings us back to moral integrity.  Perhaps heaven doesn't exist; however, this means our life now is that much more important, so we should develop the highest level of moral integrity and enjoy it as much as we could.  So then why would greivous suffering then be necessary?  I've already established that grievous suffering isn't necessary to lead a morally good life.  Furthermore, children who never have the chance to develop morals suffer tremendously.  Why should they have to suffer?  Why can't they lead a good life?  What is the point of suffering?  Why does "God" allow suffering?  What higher order could he be achieving?  Not eveyone wants to go to heaven, even those who deserve to go there, so God could not be punishing people simply to punish them further.  Free will and naturall sufferings (ie: diseases, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis) have no point without the reward of heaven.

     So why would God decide to put us on Earth in the first place?  Not to test us of course, because he knows where we would end up.  Also, it can't be to go to heaven, for a paradise in which everyone is truly happy cannot exist.  Perhaps he put us here to give us a chance to live.  So then for what reason does he take the lives of children?  Maybe these children would have grown to be terrible people, and so he refused their entry into Earth.  So then for what reason would he allow Hitler to live?  Why would he give other bad people a chance to live, and not the other ones?  It's inconsistent.  So God takes the lives of many, many people before their time, even though he put us on Earth to give us a chance to live.  This simply doesn't make sense.  I'm then inclined to think that maybe God isn't good.  That he is an evil god.  This would also be impossible, for there is also much good in the world along with evil.  God cannot then be all good or all evil.  Then perhaps he isn't good or evil and is somewhere in between.  This then is another far-reaching explanation for God's existence.  Let's then assume that there perhaps is a God, but he's neither all-good, nor all-evil.  This would explain a lot of what I have previously mentioned; however, it would make no sense for a God such as this to exist.  He would be a God full of contradictions, a lying and deceitful God who would have no real purpose for existing other than to create humans, and make them suffer or be happy on a subjective basis.  He would have no basis for his decisions, and would be able to do anything he pleases, no matter how good or how bad.  Other than this God being a "nonsensical" God, a question arises that must be answered.
     
     Supposing this "good and bad" God existed, how did he get here?  If the earth is so magnificent that it had to have a creator of a higher power, then why does get away without having a creator?  How did God come about?  If God has no creator and he just happened to be here, then how is that any less fantastic than the Earth always being here?  Nature seems to take the most efficient ways of propogating itself.  We can see strongly through evolution (I'm not getting deep into it now) that nature "selects" the best surviving species to reproduce and carry on its genetic code for future generations.  If an animal is better suited in a different way, nature will eventually take that route, making nearly nothing unnecessary.  Keeping this in mind we must ask ourselves the necessity of a God.  Would it not be easier to say that the universe was always here than to say that the universe was not always here, god created it, and god was always here?  Why do we need to bring a second party into the equation?  Nature is efficient--a God such as the one above simply isn't, for it had no purpose for us.  Nature, however, requires that we be here. The conditions were perfect such that humans eventually evolved and became part of the circle of life.  Some may say that the probability of the conditions that sustain human life occurring are so unbelievably small that it's nearly impossible to believe it occurred by chance.  However, the conditions had to be perfect for something.  If not humans sitting here saying "Geez, it's crazy that the Earth is so perfect to sustain us," it would be tentacled creatures with sixty-six eyes thinking the same thing.  A lot of amazing life may come from a wide range of varied atmospheric conditions.  The fact that humans are here is simply part of those statistics.  The conditions had to be perfect for something, and it so happened that eventually we roamed the earth.

      After all of this, I decided that I don't believe God exists.  It simply isn't necessary, and it wouldn't make sense, for such a God wouldn't be all-good because of suffering, and it wouldn't be all-evil because of God.  The God would be full of contradictions and nonsensical, and thus inefficient.  It would simply be easier for the universe to have always existed to suggest that it needed a higher power to exist for which we have no proof. 

     Thanks for reading this.  I know it was long, but I needed to cover as much as I could to cover every major objection I could think of.  If you have another feel free to comment.  As always (which is weird to sat because I've only said it once) comments are greatly appreciated, whether theistic, atheistic, red, blue, black or green.  Thanks again for reading.

~Sam