My Response to the Top 10 Reason Why I Don't Believe in God (Part 1 of 3)

Sorry I have taken so long to post this blog, I have been in the hospital the past couple of weeks with a nasty infection in the muscle of my right leg. Looks to be getting better and should be fully healed in a few weeks. While in the hospital I couldn't gather my thoughts enough to write. This will be a three part blog as my response to the article I read is rather long. I hope to have all three parts up over the next 5 to 6 days.

About a week ago I read a blog posted by Greta Christina titled "Top10 Reason's I don't believe in God." It caught my eye because it seemed like it would really challenge my faith and make me search for answers. At first glance, it looked like she put some time in to really think about these Top 10 reason's and I thought they would make a great deal of sense to me, but after reading the entire article with an objective point of view, I really wasn't impressed. With the number of people she has following her, and the effort that was put into the blog I really thought it was going to be game changing and that I would not have an answer for her top reasons. From what I take from her comments she seems to be misinformed and didn't do as much homework as she could have to get her theology and logic correct. But that is my opinion and I could be wrong.

But, it almost seemed as if she took someone else's ideas and tried to elaborate on them herself to make the point on why God doesn't exist. The biggest thing I noticed when I first started reading the article was that she capitalized God throughout the entire post. Most articles that I read from other atheists, they don't capitalize God because that would suggest He is a higher power, thus making it a true noun. That was the first puzzling thing to me when I started reading the article, wasn't sure if it was an honest mistake or if it meant something else, but that's neither here nor there.

Greta started her blog off with her #1 reason being: The consistent replacement of supernatural explanations of the world with natural ones. She references that in the past religious people often explained sickness, astronomy, and life all due to some supernatural event, while science now has proven that all of these things have happened due to a certain scientific explanations and by no means are supernatural. What she failed to address is the fact that most of the things she referenced or used as analogies was bad theology and human error in the past.

Nowhere in the bible does it state that the sun revolves around the earth, people in the past thought this because they thought humans were so special that’s how the universe ought to work. But this thought is not biblical nor correct based on science and their observations. The fact that people were killed for thinking otherwise just shows how sinful and jacked up we are as humans. God’s name has been used to do a lot of good in this world, but it was been equally used to do a lot of bad thing as well.

To address the illness and life issue, yes science has proven that bacteria and viruses cause illness but how can she conclude that God doesn’t use that method to infect people? What is more interesting to me and completely erases her first reason is that science isn’t always right either. Science thinks they know something and then they change their minds again. So to say science is the end all to religion is just another way of saying I don’t believe just because I choose not to believe. Even if you do agree that science is right and perfect, scientist say that the universe arose from nothing…before the universe sprung into existence from its infinitely small point, nothing existed before that.

Isn’t that the exact same thing the bible says? God (Jesus) created the universe from nothing, then said let there be light, created land and water, created the sky, then animals, and then people. Now if we use scientists explanation of the start of the universe it goes something like this: the big bang created the universe out of nothing, 360,000 years later or so light shown through the dense mass of the universe, the earth was formed through collisions of rock and minerals while water was brought to the earth by comets, life evolved creating animals, which from a certain species humans arose. This almost sounds exactly like the bible but proven by science…hmmm? I do believe the bible was written before we ever knew of these theories?

She also states that she has not been provided evidence that God even exists, this is why she doesn’t believe in God. When you look out at the universe and think we are here by mere chance with the complex organisms, life, plants, and everything else, and so far we have found no evidence that this happens anywhere else, something has to be control? Scientists say that life should be common in the universe, but we have no radio signals, no visits, and no proof so how can we assume that life is common? All of these things point to a higher power, but because we are human and think we are mighty and we put ourselves, our logic, and pride before the true Creator. The original sin wasn’t only that we disobeyed God, it was that we thought we knew better than Him. Sounds like a repeating theme?

Greta’s next point is: The inconsistency of world religions. This point is difficult to refute because she is right, the different world religions all don’t match up perfectly and they all think they are right, even to their death. But this can also be explained if you were to do your homework on all the major world religions. I am no theological scholar and don’t proclaim I have the answers to everything, but these are my own opinions based on the knowledge I have obtain from my life and readings. From the most basic point of all world religions they do match. At the most basic form you have religions that say do good and in the end you will meet your creator. From there the religions begin to differ due to different interpretations. Of the three major world religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) they all have the exact same foundation. It’s the human interpretation that has caused the differences in acknowledging certain prophets and messiahs.

I don’t know enough about Hindu and Buddhism to understand why they differ so much, so I won’t take a stab on why they don’t match. The reason there is disagreement from who we think God is, is because God is mysterious beyond our comprehension. Greta says that if God did exist He would be more powerful and greater with more effect in the world. I don’t know if she knows it but He is powerful and great. Not sure if I know of anyone that created a universe from nothing. Not sure if I know of anyone that parted a sea. To me that’s power and greatness. God does affect our lives every day, but you just don’t see it. Everything happens just like God intended it to happen. All this bad in the world isn’t because God is doing it, it’s because we have become our own god’s and committed these terrible atrocities to ourselves. Remember in the absence of God comes evil. Greta know that you not believing was known before you were even born, and whatever outcome comes in your life it is what God willed it to be and not yours. To me, that is influence!

The final point I will talk about in this three part blog is Greta’s third point: The weakness of religious arguments, explanations, and apologetics. To me, this is a weak argument in itself that I will spend little time on explaining my point of view. When people talk of a mother’s intuition or a connection between twins, not many people question the theory. When we hear about a mother who has something happen to a child while away, and she is reported to have a sick feeling or thought, that’s okay. But we religious people are asked how do you know there is a God, and some say I feel it in my heart, mind, and soul He’s real, we don’t accept it? Sounds like a double standard because it’s dealing with the supernatural. It’s okay to believe the intuition because there is a cause and effect that we can measure it, but when the cause can’t be measured we become skeptical. But maybe we can measure the cause and effect with science?

I read an article posted on either the New York Times or some major newspaper about 6 months ago and it talked about the God gene. The God gene was describe as a sequence in our DNA and also found in the brain, that when the scientist asked religious people to pray or think about God a certain part of their brain became active. When the same was asked of non-religious people, that part of the brain would not activate. This was also found in there DNA, people who were non-religious did not have a certain sequence in their genes, but those who were religious did.

Now, I am not saying this is 100% accurate, but it makes things interesting because the scientist conducting the survey was an atheist and was hoping to show nothing happens or no difference. So this isn’t some subjective study being conducted in religion's favor. You could say that gene sequence just makes people apt to believe in religion although it may not be true, and point well taken. But they tested this with non-religious beings, and found these regions only activated when thinking about God not a superhero or a random mystical being.

In closing, faith is a feeling of certainty of what you cannot see. To ask a child why he thinks his dad is superman is all based on the faith about his dad, so in essence he will say yes my dad is superman. It doesn’t make him right because he feels that way, but in that kids heart his dad is superman to him. It’s the same for religion, you may not think it’s right but it’s a feeling that those who believe feel. Many who grow up in religion often lose it, and many who grow up without religion find it, so you can’t say that it’s what we’ve been made to believe through culture.. It’s an intuition that us believers share and until you feel and understand it you cannot comprehend it.

Greta I noticed on your blog that you mention you are a lesbian and are happy with your significant other. Now you would expect that I would bash you for being a lesbian but there is no use for that, Matthew 7:3 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? But the feeling you have for your significant other is special and no one else can tell you it’s wrong, even though she’s a female? How can you sit and say that is what you feel in your heart is right for your relationship, but others cannot do the same for God? If we go by your logic then you really don’t love your spouse, because if the "feeling" in your heart means nothing, there is not love there at all.

To Glory always be to the Lord!!

End of Part 1 - Here's the link just in case any of you want to read her blog.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/154774/the_top_10_reasons_i_don't_believe_in_god?page=entire

The Failure of America's Education System

Usually I just jump right into the topic that I am blogging about, but for this blog I wanted to start it off with how I usually come up with ideas for my blogs and how I write them.  Most of the blogs I post are based on subjects I have been reading or thinking about over the past week or so.  Usually I will write the subject of my blog about a week before I write the content within the blog.  This allows me to think more about what I am going to write so that it is structured and not just some rambling words that you are reading.  Once a week has passed I begin to write my thoughts and feelings on the subject.  Then I let the blog sit for a few days so I can think of anything else I would like to add, subtract, or clean up.  In this process I try to clean up grammar mistakes but hey we are all human and I don’t catch all of them.

Although the process is fairly simple, it allows me time to make sure I state my thoughts clearly while ensuring that I don’t miss any key points I wanted to make.  This process is something that I learned at a very early age while going to school, and no it wasn’t for writing blogs, it was for writing papers, journals, and other types of academic reports.  I will be the first to admit that I hated having to write papers because it usually meant two things: you had to read a book and then you had to hand write or type your thoughts on to a paper.  Usually you were given guidelines for the paper as well: it can only be 3 to 5 pages, APA format, no use of the first person narrative, and the font has to be a certain size.  In my opinion, this is where the American educational system began to fail their students.

Think about the things you enjoy doing on a daily basis, and I bet one of the reasons you enjoy that activity is because you get to be creative and use your imagination?  This is something I think our educational system has taken away from its students, imagination and creativity.  Today, students are taught to express their ideas in a certain format and structure, and then the teacher only looks for the outlined criteria to determine the student’s grade.  They don’t reward points for thinking outside the box, challenging the norm, or expressing their true thoughts.  This has caused the educational system to grade their students on the same criteria, thus assuming we are all the same or should be the same.

Now I do understand that there should be some type of structure so the teachers can grade their students equally, but this only causes teachers to look for those deliverables in the assignment and that’s it.  The teacher may notice that the student was thinking outside the box and being creative, but the grade they have to give the student is based upon the required deliverables.  I see this being translated into people’s professional careers and it causes people to lose their job and hit the glass ceilings sooner than they should. Their inability to be think outside the box and take projects and run with them with little direction rarely turn out to be successful.  Also, limiting a person’s creativity and imagination only creates lack of competition and mindless robots.

The second failure of the American education system is its lack of competition in the classroom.  When I was in elementary school, we had progress charts in the classroom that let you and others see how you were performing compared to everyone else.  This created a healthy competition because most kids wanted to be number one or near the top.  We also would grade papers together and had to call out our grades in front of everyone, so the teacher could record the grade on the assignment or test.  This made everyone aware of how you performed, and if you didn’t do well you were embarrassed and didn’t want it to happen again.  Now teachers can’t post grades to share with the class, star charts are ancient history, and competition between students has been completely erased.

Now I may step on a lot of teacher’s toes when I say this, but the teacher is at fault for the lack of competition in the classroom.  The teaching position has become more of a "job" rather than a resource/mentoring position, and honestly teachers don’t really care how students perform anymore. Yes they could lose their jobs if they have too many students fail, but that may be their only motivation to ensure everyone passes or just gets by in their class. But what if you made the position performances based? What if each year the average grade for the class had to get better each year? If they teach the same subject every year they should get better at teaching it, and learn how to overcome different students teaching styles right?  What if teachers had to compete against each other, the lowest performer didn't get a raise or didn't receive certain benefits the following year?  If the teacher wants to turn their position into a "job" then they should be evaluated like others in the business world.  In most cases the lowest performer is usually terminated.   

If situations like I mentioned above were in place, teachers would push their students and accepting the thought that C students are okay would go away.  Right now, teachers feel that if the students pass it's because of their teaching skills, if the students fail its because of the student. In my opinion they go hand in hand, you can't take credit for one and not the other. If the student fails that means the teacher failed the student, they didn't push them hard enough to do better. There are a few instances when it is the student, but the title of teacher has taken on a different meaning. It now means preparer, teachers only prepare students to pass state/government tests and nothing else. Many teachers will say that they have to teach to those tests, but what does that have to do with mentoring and going above and beyond?    My most memorable teachers were the ones who took the time to ensure I didn’t fall behind and challenged me to do better.  Just because I was a C student in math didn’t mean that I had to stay a C student.  It was my 2^nd grade teacher who took time with a handful of kids during recess to push us to become A and B students in math, and now math is one of my best skill sets.

Today, teachers pass the buck when students don’t perform to their standards.  The teachers just assume the student has a learning disability, so they send them to some remedial class thinking this will solve everything because they are too busy to invest more time into their students.  You will always have students who try hard, but for those who don't if there is no one there to push them, they will settle for just getting by in school and then later in life.  Before the class starts teachers should ask students what they want their grade to be in that class. Then it's the teachers job to make them achieve that grade. If the student set the bar too low, that is when the teacher should raise it for the student.

America has turned itself into a nation that accepts mediocrity and because of this America has been in a free fall ever since. We have fallen from the ranks of having the best and brightest.  Most countries have to deal with more poverty, crime, and corruption than we do, and they are surpassing us in standard academics.. There is no reason why this should happen, and in my opinion it all falls on our teachers. Push your students and make them better because those students will one day be taking care of you. Do you want those who are okay with mistakes providing you medication or operating on you?  The government says they care but they only dump money into the system, but that is their only involvement in my opinion. And that is one of the biggest problems, no one really cares, including parents.

It is interesting that in other countries children have to fight tooth and nail to get into a classroom, but in America it's the complete opposite.  Children would rather drop out of school than attend  a public school system and get a decent education for free.  But I can see why we have so many dropouts, the people who need to believe in them the most, teachers and their parents, don't believe in them.  One of the best things about my parents was that they cared about my education and development.  They pushed me to be better at every step of the way while I was in school.  I hated school so much I would hide my homework and lie about what was due the following day, but because my parents cared enough to push me and see through the bull crap I got back on track.  Along with my teachers pushing me each step of the way, I have graduated high school, graduated college, and have two master's degrees.  If I didn't have those people in my life to push me every step of the way I may have never made it to college.

Today, parents don't push their kids like they used to in the past.  In the past, parents knew it was education that was going to give their child a better life than they could provide.  Now, they need their children to get a job to help pay the bills or they just don't care how their children perform at school.  The government has become too lenient on these parents, and there is no support system for our students of today.  I always thought it was the law that a child under 18 had to attend school, and if they didn't the parent could get in trouble.  From what I have seen, our state services are too busy to take care of these minor problems.  But if our tax dollars were put to use, we could start putting the pressure on parents to get their kids to school and do well.  I bet if parents were taken to jail for allowing their kids to skip school, things would change.  I bet if the parents tax returns or government checks were based on their child's performance in school they would get more involved.  Because there is no enforcement, it's just a vicious repeating cycle from parent to child to parent to child.

In closing, if changes are not made soon to our educational system America will soon meet the same fate of other great civilizations and countries of the past.  The two things that we need the most are greater involvement from the teachers and parents.  If teachers would be teachers and not make it a "job", the students may be more engaged and want to learn.  I understand I am not a teacher and in "the know" of what all goes on in the classroom and school, but I have been through the process and observed the very things I am talking about.  I can't imagine it's gotten any better, and with teachers getting younger and younger, their thoughts are only on pay and going home after "work".  A pastor's job extends beyond preaching from the pulpit, so should the teachers but they are just speaking in the classroom.  They need to develop, mentor, and invest more into their students.  The parents need to stop being lazy and being worried that they don't known how to help their children with their homework.  It's more about the fact that you care will make all the difference to the child.  Without support the whole system will crumble, or has it already begun to crumble and we are all watching it on the way down?  I pray this isn't the case and I hope that we can turn it all around!

Glory always to the Lord!