The God Concept
As atheists we sometimes treat the concept of God as if it has a silver bullet.
As if there is just one problem with the idea of God, that we can point out, that will destroy it altogether as a valid concept.
Even atheists who are former and deconverted Christians make this mistake,
because there's often one concept about God that dealt the final blow to their belief and brought them to disbelief.
But this is probably actually an illusion, and they've probably just forgotten their earlier concepts.
So, you may be surprised to hear that I hope to give the concept of God
the respect it deserves.
I learned a long time ago that you'll never cause someone to see your perspective, unless you show them you understand their perspective.
And I wanna give the concept of God its fullest and most respectful treatment,
before showing why I stopped believing it.
In the mind of any sophisticated believer,
the concept of God is a "mega-belief".
It's a belief, that's held together by many small beliefs, many small experiences that accumulate
and form a larger belief.
If at any one time, one of these beliefs is attacked,
a believer can still in their own mind rely on the strength of the other beliefs.
It's only when a sufficient number of these beliefs, that form the "mega-belief",
are countered,
that the Christian will really start to question their faith.
This is called "graceful degradation". It's a concept in network theory,
where multiple nodes in the network can be knocked out, but the network as a whole can still stand up.
FOr the purpose of continuing my story, I'll label these nodes.
This is a simplified model of the concept of God.
But I think that it covers a sufficient number of different subjects to make my deconversion convincing.
Here's a brief overview of each of these nodes.
I may not cover all of them.
The first is logical arguments.
These arguments could have been presented by someone who the believer perceives as a reputable authority.
I myself was convinced by the arguments of Gerald Schroeder, who wrote "The Science of God".
Next is prayer.
Prayer provides a basis for belief in God, through the perception of 'answered' prayer.
Next is morality.
God is seen as the source of morality for Christians.
Without God, there can be no morals.
Next there's the beauty of creation,
whether the universe or life itself.
The complexity of our material reality is a testament to God, in the eyes of Christians.
Next is the Bible.
The Bible is seen as the divine Word of God, inspired by God.
It seems to have inherent wisdom.
Next is the testimony of other Christians.
Other Christians bolster our belief
both by providing an example and by providing numbers.
(Can 2.1 billion people be wrong?)
This is also related to our own experience
as Christians.
We don't see how anyone could believe the way that we believe
with passion and devotion and commitment that we believe,
and become a non-Christian... It seems impossible...
Finally, and most importantly for me,
was my personal relationship with God and my personal experiences of God.
How can you come to not believe in God, after feeling that you have communicated with God himself?
Atheists on YouTube have covered almost all of these points individually.
I'm going to show you now how all of them come together to effect a single coherent concept of God
in a single person's life.