The scientific conspiracy

When I was a believer, I had a strong tendency to shrug off new scientific data contrary to my beliefs. I honestly thought there was a conspiracy to disprove God through their findings because they were mad at God, didnt want to believe, or so they could do whatever they wanted without consequence.
When I started to study the science of evolution, it was really an attempt to pick it apart and find the fingerprints of God in creation. I would often see the unexplained as "God" and so it didnt need to be explained for me. My faith overcame evidence consistently with the biblical stories of creation and the flood.
There are a lot of convincing arguments on christian sites such as answersingenesis.org, and all you need is a little faith to make them feel true.
There are a lot of terms specific to christian scientists that help distinguish false secular science from science based on truth, terms like microevolution and macroevolution, historical and observational science.
These terms werent exactly helpful in my search for God, because they truly cloud up matters which are relatively simple.
For example, what they label as macroevolution is actually a whole lot of "microevolution," and all of it is just evolution. Of course there was a time when all evolution was considered false, but they changed theories with mounting evidence and invented terms.
As for historical and observational science? These are ridiculous terms.
But they sounded so good when I had faith to make them true, but when you get the rest of the story, its all baseless assertions and accusations.
I really missed quite a big observation though in my effort to deny reality in favor of the fantastical. The group of people I thought was conspiring against my faith is made up of geologists, paleontologists, astronomers, and many other scientific disciplines. Interestingly enough, the people who should have the most access to the "fingerprints of God" as I imagined they would be in nature, are made up primarily of people who do not believe the biblical story. I always thought that being in the presence of God always changed people, why did I not stop to wonder why I thought this group of people would deny God if they had physical emperical proof of everlasting life?
Interestingly enough there's quite a different group who conversely have much more collective faith than the educated.
In July of 2013, of prison inmates who chose to disclose their religious preference,  only 0.07% were atheist.
What does that say about those who believe and do not? Why is it that the people who should know for certain God's existence, if there is evidence for it,  do not believe? Is it possible that some people believe the Bible so they can do what they want without consequence?
Im careful not to read too far into this because if everyone in the world believed, it would still be false, even if I was the only one that realized it. I dont base my rejection of faith on what's popular or not it is based solely on the evidence which speaks directly to religion being the flawed creation of man, and not the perfect story of God. I also know the Christian answer to this: It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  The Bible is so clever in some of it's writings.
Im glad I am able to see the information with some objectivity and realize it is not scientists who have the agenda, but scientists who have to specify the religion they support who have a plan to deny reality, whether in ignorance or not.
There is an epidemic of invisible, undetectable, miniature, three-legged donkeys, which pop into existence with the birth of each child. They live off socks but are concerned with their weight so only eat them one at a time and they think live in washing machines. The evidence is overwhelming that they exist because there always seems to be one sock missing. Can you prove these creatures dont exist? You can prove my evidence is false, but you cant prove the creatures dont exist.
This is how "christian science" works. There is already a presuposition of God and so only the evidence which supports that is accepted, the rest is considered untrue, ficticious,  or tainted, and furthermore cannot be refuted because you can not disprove God exists.
With faith, God did it, is an acceptable answer, but what does the evidence really say?
There is a conspiracy, but the truth is out there.

Creating religion

"If I wrote a book and ran around and called it the truth, I'm sure I could get a few followers. Especially if I had a sword."
This is something a Christian told me in a conversation about religions. In my mind I thought "Exactly."
There are a lot of religions in this world and I'm sure there will be many more to come.
One reason I bring this up is because it was a little confusing to me how Christianity was started in the first place. Why would so many people follow it if it wasn't true to start with?
If the disciples weren't certain of Jesus' resurrection why would they continue to preach it until death?
If I had literally seen the events purported in the Easter story, I would have done the same thing, but there are some clues that the disciples might not have ever seen such events.
Mark, which is widely held to be the gospel written first, contains something in the Easter story which is curious to me. The women left the tomb and "told no one" of the empty tomb.
This phrase seems out of place to me. Why would they be afraid at the most triumphant moment of the man they had been following for so long?
I have a hunch this phrase is here for another reason: to explain why no one heard about this event at least until Pentecost.
Even if I'm wrong, it still doesn't address the differences in the Easter stories between gospels or why the tomb wasn't preserved by early Christians. Why tell people that Jesus has been raised when you could just show them an empty tomb? It wouldn't prove the resurrection, but it sures seems suspect that it wasn't preserved.
Could the story be a later fabrication to continue in a radicals teachings? Would the disciples continue to preach the gospel until death if it was false? The short answer is YES!
Enter Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church.
Joseph Smith met with an angel, got some new texts written on golden plates which were omitted from the Bible by generations past. He gave a lot of details about these plates and wasn't the only one who claimed to have seen them. His mom even vouched for him and there's no way I could get my mom to do that for me if she knew I was lying!
Joseph Smith is said to be a martyr be his church and despite having a mob which would have seemingly delighted in his recanting of his faith, that is not the story which has been passed down to us, especially through the Mormon church.
Does that mean the faith Mormon church is also "true?"
We have the same evidences as the disciples, only much more recent. We have a few people who claimed to witness something miraculous and even died continuing to preach it.
I, as a christian, would have rejected it immediately because it isn't the truth that Jesus taught, or archaeologically verifiable.
That isn't even the only modern sect which has similar claims. The motivation to present these lies as truth must be admittedly elsewhere then. I cant claim to know what it was for the apostles, but there may be a very heinous answer to that in Acts 5:1-11.
In this story a husband and wife sell land they owned and brought money to the apostles, but kept "some", no amount or percentage is specified, for themselves. The both fall dead for "lying to God." It says that the rest of the church was afraid when they heard what happened.
The context of this story is about the early church sharing everything so no one was in need. Interpretations here vary quite a bit as to what actually occurred, but I think that it's glaringly obvious that the goal was that believers should give their all to the church without holding back even "some."
It's a motivation well mirrored in the creation of the modern religion of Scientology.
L. Ron Hubbard has been quoted by several people as saying religion is where the real money is. Unfortunately we don't have a recording of his actual words and accounts as to the actual phrase vary so maybe he didn't say it at all, but the religion he started seems to fully support this mind set.
Everything costs money to be a higher "level." There are a lot of things in Christian churches that costs money, but at least the forgiveness of sins is free and what does cost money is optional (other than the tithe which I would argue those of faith give freely rather being required to pay.)
There are many devout Scientologist even though the religion's founder was a science fiction writer prior to his founding of Scientology.
Shedding the shackles of faith has not been easy for me. Even though I can prove portions of the Bible false, still many questions have lingered at the back of my mind that must be answered carefully in order to be sure of the truth. I have to be sure that I have not been mislead in some way by ignoring an imperfect story that truly is from God. Having modern instances of the creation of religion and how quickly they can grow with only a few devout believers definitely helps to provide some possibilities as well as discounting the evidence which once seemed so sure.
The Biblical continues to fall apart piece by piece under scrutiny. It fits the entire biblical story better for each portion to be legend sprinkled with some truth, than the most crucial story being the ultimate truth.

I still want to believe

One thing that is very difficult for me to explain or understand is that I still want to believe.
I would be willing to bet there are quite a few out there like myself in that respect. Even though I no longer believe, it doesn't mean I've stopped studying the Bible or looking for solid answers to questions I have.
The problem I repeatedly run into with the Bible is that at every turn there is some discrepancy. It is truly why I remain an unbeliever. Because the Bible proves false consistently.
Like I said though, it hasn't stopped me from searching its text. I'm sure some will see this as a longing for "the truth," but it's more like re-examining the scene of the crime.
Some of why I feel the need to continue to study is that I know I will get a lot of questions from my family and I need to be prepared to provide answers and I have never liked the answer of "I don't know." I do have to be comfortable with that answer sometimes though.
As a Christian I often looked at gaps in science with a mentality of "God did it" and I would just be amazed without wondering further on the how of it. I would be satisfied with not knowing because, to me, it was just another instance of a miraculous God.
It shouldn't surprise me that I still feel that way in some instances.
I have a hard time imagining an eternal universe and the evidence of the big bang seems to imply ours had a beginning, especially considering the universe is accelerating in it's expansion. Will the universe ever collapse? Or is it doomed to fan out until there's no way to observe its expanse? If it doesn't collapse will there be an end? Or will it just fizzle out like a bag of pop rocks in my mouth, losing its energy and slowly becoming black?
These type of questions lead me back to a place where I wonder, is there a God?
Lawrence Krauss has some very interesting talks about just this subject. It's all very compelling in the context of a theory supported by phenomena which cannot be observed directly. Sadly it's still more solid than the theory God did it according to Genesis 1:1 considering there is some evidence. But still the thought occurs to me, is God possible? Is it just an idea in my mind? Could the big bang have been caused by an external omniscient force?
I have to admit there's so many more possibilities than probabilities and honestly, with our limited scope of intelligence, an omniscient being may not be all that great in the end. Assuming something even close to what I imagine could exist, in the end God could be a lot more like the great and powerful Oz.
It's all conjecture coming from the mind of a dreamer. The last artifact of the faith taking its time to dissipate, like fog on an autumn morning in the forest.
Like i said, I still want to believe. Not in the biblical story, but in forever. Wanting something to be true, though, has no bearing on its actual merit.

Could another religion be true?

One question my wife asked me was if I thought I would find a new religion.
I think I can categorically answer that with a no. Although I'm not familiar with every religion, I can say I'm no longer comfortable with the premise of it.
Throughout the Bible there are many miraculous signs which would easily point to some other worldly power being in play. One of my favorites as a kid was when Elijah faced off against the prophets of Baal and called down fire from heaven. Such signs and miracles happen repeatedly throughout the Bible, God seemed to be especially eager in the old testament to prove he was above all other gods, but I have yet to see anything close during my lifetime.
Jesus performed quite a few miracles in front of the disciples that would make me never doubt, such as calming the storm. That's no cheap parlor trick. How on earth could the disciples ever doubt Jesus had supernatural backing after that?
The fact that the Bible says they ever doubted again indicates to me this is just a story. A man whom they saw heal the sick, feed the multitude with a few fish, and made a tree wither for not bearing fruit would be pretty convincing even in today's world of extreme magicians, but calming a storm that's something beyond anyone's capability.
I have to say, that it would be quite convincing to see someone calm a storm. I would be astonished beyond reason.
Once I realized that the Bible was not absolute truth, my eyes were opened to quite a few things I didn't realize before. As a Christian I looked at other religions as spiritual warfare with God's kingdom. Angels and demons all over the place influencing us for each side.
Religions are the concoctions of mankind originating from myths and fables. I've been fooled once and I don't intend to be again.
The thought has crossed my mind that maybe there is a spiritual realm and it is just beyond our abilities to observe it. Maybe its something akin to intuition where we know it exists but cant quite put our finger on it. It's kind of like dark matter in that respect, except with dark matter we have evidence it exists, even though we cant directly observe it.
I believed spiritual influence should fit perfectly into this category. Even if we couldn't observe God directly, it would be nice to at least see his unexplainable influence, it would even lead scientific minded down a road of evidence to God.
This is exactly what I expected to find when my transition started. I expected to find God's unexplainable influence everywhere.
I had been told it was here and assumed it was true, but it didn't take too long to unravel everything I knew considering how long I had spent weaving my own story of the universe along with just the right (mis)information.
The God of the Bible went to great lengths to show he was God, if that story was more than words on a paper, we should see it's continuation today. Even if only by a select few with a mustard seed's worth of faith.
Maybe most religions are making an attempt at describing this intangible but real thing, like the Greeks trying to explain natural occurrences by assigning them gods. But I have a feeling a larger majority are created by people with much less benign intentions. I would suspect most come as a result of men who seek profit and power, and are perpetuated by those who truly believe.
So forgive me if I don't run out to pick up a new holy book.
Not one of them can provide any evidence which would speak to a creator which intervenes in miraculous ways on a consistent basis. Not one.
Some would be quick to say that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, and I would agree. Perhaps there is a supreme being that started it all, but unless he puts credible evidence into existence, I'll simply consider it a distant possibility.

Do what I want without consequence

One thing that has surprised me on this side of my transition is that many times when people find out I'm no longer a Christian, they think it has something to do with justification of my own actions so I wont have to think about eternal consequences.
I still get comments that I'm angry with God or disappointed in him somehow, which is certainly not the case, though. I would have to believe in a biblical God to feel something toward him. It would be like stubbing my toe on the couch leg and being angry at the couch, except I'm imagining the couch, and maybe my toe. 

My life is going pretty well I think and I'm genuinely happy, so for me that's enough to prove those aren't the causes. So, what is it that others imagine I am doing in my life, which is so important to me, that it would cause me to profess unbelief in order to "get away" with it? Do they think I eat babies in my free time? I certainly wouldn't have forsaken God so I could be more comfortable telling white lies or so I could think inappropriate thoughts, because it can all be forgiven, so I have to assume they imagine a my life as filled with sin and no remorse, and not your regular run of the mill type sin.
I'm not even sure I want to imagine all the possibilities.

In reality what has changed most in my life is that it freed up a lot of time I was spending in church or preparing for church events. It seems like I still do quite a bit of studying to be sure, but I'm no longer proselytizing.

I haven't turned to drugs or alcohol. I haven't murdered anyone, robbed a bank, or picked up any prostitutes.

As a Christian I always thought I would go off the rails without a biblical compass. I imagined I would spiral out of control with debauchery and that may be what others think, but I think the question stems from elsewhere.

First, I think that as a Christian I only understood morality from the Bible. I could always look to the Bible to provide me with some sort of answer on almost anything with the right interpretation. But that made it difficult to understand morality on a multidimensional plane. Not only that, it made it easier for me to tell myself others were running from God. After all, if they really didn't believe in God, why didn't they just go crazy in self indulgence? I really thought without eternal consequences, there wasn't much reason to not do whatever you wanted. 

This isn't how it really works though. I have a lot of responsibilities and I work hard to live up to my own expectations of who I should be.

I think the thoughts also come from a need for Christians to justify how I could leave the faith.

It's truly difficult to accept something outside of your frame of reference. I didn't understand someone who simply didn't believe in God because my thoughts were filled with a Biblical understanding of everything around me. It was only when the evidence was overwhelming that I could realize I was wrong, and that maybe this whole universe is a happy accident (in artistic terms here.) I still don't know the answer to that big question, but asserting an answer on it doesn't make it so.

In the end, I think it's unfair for people to put these assumptions on me, but I understand why.

They refuse to believe I could be right. If I left solely because the evidence speaks opposite of what I once believed, it means there is good reason to doubt the basis of their life. 

I think it's fair to stand your ground on faith as it permeates your life, I was once there and I thought all these things about others, either to defend my position or convince myself there was no reasonable evidence to the contrary of my belief. 

It worked, until my eyes were opened through real world evidence. But maybe I have been fooled and maybe this idea comes directly from the Bible.

II Thessalonians 2

11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

Well, I don't think I "delight in wickedness", but now that I've brought the verse up I would like to say that being persuaded by an omnipotent being of a lie so I can be condemned for eternity really doesn't seem fair, just or righteous by any moral standard. At least the verse may explain why I get this question.

I try my best not to put my own ideas of motivation on others and situations like these are a good reminder to myself to be a good listener. Knowing someone is always more worth while than thinking I know them through assumptions.

Presuppositions

Ever since I began this religious transition I have had more doubt than I ever did as a Christian. 
In a conversation I had with someone I respect, they brought up the fact that I may be wrong and he mentioned presuppositions.
I was not familiar with the term before so I had to look it up, and it basically means stuff you assume to be true which supports other stuff.
I initially took this to mean that maybe my new found knowledge could be assumptions. I spent some time really thinking that over. Did I miss something? Is there some key evidence that the scientific community is overlooking? Are we only making assumptions about how the universe came to be with the big bang or life with evolution? The answer is yes I think. There's quite a hump from atoms becoming self replicating molecules, to the complex form of life we know and even though there's an awful lot of evidence to support that idea...
What if I'm wrong?
He wasn't even asking the question. Pascal just ninja'd his way into my brain. In Christian terms you could say I'm not firm in the unfaith. His real interest was primarily in how I came to the conclusion.
Our conversation left me thinking back through everything I had learned and ruminating on each point. I believe the Bible to be untrue because the evidence of reality speaks directly against it. If parts of it are untrue, how can I trust any part is true which cannot be directly verified?
A good example of this conundrum is Noah's ark.
I heard someone say the other day that they wished we could find a huge boat on a mountain matching the biblical description, so we could finally lay to rest that the flood story was fact. It would be very difficult to explain how a giant wooden boat made it to the top of a mountain, but it still wouldn't explain why we don't see the results of a global flood in geological layer. While the find would be quite curious, what if we never find this mythical boat? Does it disprove the story? NO!
You cannot prove something doesn't exist. Only proof can be offered for that which does exist. It's incredibly convenient to believe in nearly anything in that respect. I can assert that I believe in purple butterfly-winged unicorns as rulers of the universe and no one can offer proof it doesn't exist, but it only exists in my mind.
Even though my mind went through all this, the presupposition which he thought I might have been making incorrectly was that, as a Christian, I assumed the Bible was absolute truth.
What if the Bible is just a love story from God to us, written by the imperfect instrument of man?
I know it may sound silly, but I considered, is the Bible partially untrue in order to tell the greatest truth of all?
Faith is still not far off for me. I needed to consider this further. It made me consider again: what if I was wrong?
It lead me to the thinking of why would God allow so many lies to tell his ultimate story? Why would Jesus break bread on the Passover if it never happened. Why would Jesus be the true completion to a complete lie? I simply cannot reconcile the idea to what and who I thought God was. I thought of him as greater than the men who wrote his words in such a way that he could inspire them to write absolute truth. If God cannot overcome man's imperfection to write his story down, how can he have the power to make them perfect through the death of Jesus?
There it goes again. My presupposition that I have any clue about God and his power.
I should know something about God from all the time I spent believing in, trusting, and studying him.
I still find the idea of using a well orchestrated lie to tell the truth. I think it's the ultimate goal of every story teller, and if God is the ultimate story teller...
It is a very interesting concept though, one I'm sure will be running through my mind for quite some time, but in the end, the idea contradicts the evidence in the Bible, so I come full circle to the same belief that the biblical story can safely be put back in the category of mythology. Ultimately faith presupposes faith and therein lies the problem.
Part of this religious transition is learning about me and how I react to situations and questions. I know a lot more of these will arise as time goes by and I have to realize that I do have artifacts from my faith in my psyche which leave me with a desire to believe despite the evidence to the contrary.
I want to believe because I like the idea, but if I'm wrong, as I have been in the past, "believing" in order to gain what the biblical story offers in eternal life and salvation just in case, is not what the God I knew ultimately wants and if he does exist, he didn't build the case for my faith sufficiently to have true faith.