I grew up in a very religious (fundamentalist Christian) household; a faith-based approach to everything was encouraged on a daily, if not hourly, basis. But to their credit, while my parents presented their beliefs with absolute certainty, they did occasionally suggest coming to independent conclusions. Genesis 1 was probably one of the first things I learned to read and it introduced a lot of perplexing questions, such as: what did God do for eternity before deciding to create a universe? And (later), why did He create the Earth before the rest of the universe, it would seem more natural to work from the top down.
But most importantly, at the same time I learned that there were many different religions, with completely different Truths. It just did not seem possible that one specific group (ours) could happen to be the right one (with all the others damned to Hell)! This thought spurred a growing skepticism in me. This grew very strong as all the questions I asked led to circular answers, and everything that could possibly be claimed as evidence (anecdotes of answered prayer or other miracles) could be claimed with equal fervor by other faiths.
But at this point, I was still very young, and decided to give it all a try, to be diligent and do everything those around me were doing (in 3rd grade I started at a Christian school started by our Church). I memorized the ten commandments and prayed daily. I was told that eventually I would feel something, occasionally described as "a still, small voice." And yet, as the months turned into years, the only words ever forming in my mind were my own. My skepticism deepened.
But I hit upon the "argument from design" (though I had no idea that it was called that). The natural world was too intricately wonderful to not have a super-intelligent designer. So there was at least one basic principle I could agree on: the existence of God.
But at the same time, my interest in science had become very strong. And it was showing answers to a great many questions, all without invoking anything supernatural. Though I remember specifically when our coursework presented the Big Bang (as only a theory, of course) it was described in such ridiculous terms that I burst out laughing at the absurdity of it (a "cosmic egg" that burst from nothing and instantly created the entire universe). But upon later reflection, it was not any more absurd than an omnipotent creator making a universe on command). I don't recall where I first heard of atheism, but I do remember around age 11 thinking that things just made a whole lot more sense if I rejected the notion of God and looked to science for answers. Ever since then I have considered myself an atheist, though at times toyed with the idea that the term agnostic was a better fit, as I grew to understand the distinctions (more on that in Part 2). But in that environment, I was not brave enough to declare it to the world and what's more, felt that it would devastate my Mom, to whom faith was everything, so kept it a secret to all but my closest friends.
This was a real turning point, because many other things started making sense. In particular, I started to see how the growth and proliferation of religions could be explained in terms of human motives. Specifically, that the Bible was not the product of received wisdom, but composed and propagated by people to advance their own agendas. I eventually learned that many of the stories were incorporated from pre-existing cultures. That re-translations over the centuries had changed some of the original meanings (whether deliberately or accidentally). That entire doctrines had been formulated centuries after the action. That for each idea I was being taught was divinely inspired and unquestionably true, there were far more reasonable explanations in the real world.
I saw science as providing the best, and perhaps the only, means to find truth. But it would take until college to be able to fully articulate why, in terms of collecting and analyzing evidence and the error-correcting process of falsification. I learned what the limits of science were, and would be the first to admit that it can't answer everything.
The usual counter-argument from Christians is that science too is ultimately based on a faith in something. This is true, but does not mean that science and religious faith are equivalent. The faith of science is that repeatable tests give us information about the natural world. There may be untestable or unrepeatable events, but they are outside the scope of scientific analysis. Besides one is an active, constantly growing body of knowledge. The other is a fixed, ancient, body of suppositions that is increasingly bizarre upon close analysis.
Saturday, July 26. 2008 at 11:53 (Reply)
Saturday, July 26. 2008 at 12:57 (Link) (Reply)