The Religious Atheist?: Coming to grips with God The Magician

Being an atheist is a very simple position to take. You can make a personal decision that you do not believe that any god or gods exist. In that simple personal decision you are not required to justify or explain why you have taken your decision and added it to your personal belief system. There is no atheistic school to attend nor is there a necessary instruction book on how to be an atheist. So far, so good.

However, if you are not an atheist but are in fact a believer in some philosophical system, a religion, and your religion says that it has a god or gods then you journey to belief and the rigour with which your indoctrination is applied is far from simple. It carries many layers of complexity and requires at least some formal learning. In fact, with all religions, your learning and studying never stops.

This book addresses a discussion on religion and atheism that is relevant to the 21st century. More than at any other time in modern history, our time has benefited from the overwhelming explosion in scientific and technical knowledge. From the macro to the micro level a large number of human beings, courtesy of the internet as well as book publishing, have immediate and voluminous access to nearly every area of knowledge acquisition no matter how novel or arcane. There is only one subject that is not examined in any detail; the existence of a god or many gods. All religions have gods. It would therefore follow that offering unequivocal proof of the existence of a religion's gods would be of paramount importance to each religion. In spite of what would seem to be such a simple thing to do, no religion has made any real headway in providing reliable irrefutable evidence that their preferred deities are real.

Can human beings ever prove that gods exist? Perhaps we can but most likely we cannot, for reasons that will be examined later on. But the most relevant question seems to me to be why not try? Proof of a god/s is priceless to the whole human race. Interacting with a proven god or gods has to have incalculable benefits for all of us. To be able to ask questions of and receive answers from infinitely powerful deities that benefit the whole of creation has to be the most important aim of every religion.

It is no longer adequate to merely rely on texts that are unproven or unsubstantiated in any way. It is no longer virtuous to merely say “I believe” and then expect an answer to life's complexities to miraculously appear. Why not? Why can't we continue as we have for millennia, relying on supplication, intercession and unquestioning belief. The answer to this question is around us, everywhere. The world is almost unbelievably complicated. Instead of a life lived in simplicity we are now custodians of enormous power and technology. We are part of decisions that not only affect us as individuals but have consequences for all life. People in Tibet, tribal Africa, Bangladesh, New York and the sinking islands of the Pacific are affecting and are being affected by the actions of every other person on this planet. We are no longer just custodians of a way of life. We are consumers/rapers and pillagers, users/abusers of every facet of human and other life on this planet. We are making decisions that have effects which we, our governments and our scientists do not fully understand. If ever there was a need for a visible, contactable God the time is now. We need to find a god desperately if indeed one exists.

What is the point of creation if it wanders aimlessly from one “catastrophe” to the next? Species appear and disappear including homo sapiens. Stars and galaxies are born and die cataclysmicaly. Energy that destroys DNA-based life emanates from everywhere in the universe including from our own Sun. Mankind's response is to postulate a deity or deities that love and hate us in equal measure. We cling to our deities in the face of reason and death.