On exChristian, person who believes in God and Jesus asks:



Well, I was born quite a while ago but no god concept made itself known to me then or now. I twisted my brain as hard as I could to accommodate a god concept and finally I gave it up.

I've tried really hard to get back into my childhood mentality to figure out why it never "took" with me but it just didn't. I might have been around five or six years old when Mom tried telling me about this god thing that was everywhere and could see me but I couldn't see it. Rather spooky concept to tell a child after dark in a dimly lit house where there's no electricity but so she did.

When I got older I was introduced to a simple bible story book with pictures, which made it somewhat more realistic, but still--neither Adam nor Moses nor Jesus dressed like my Dad. All of them wore night-gowns for heaven's sake! Not that Adam bothered with even that much covering.

Another piece of evidence--and this one was more real than perhaps anything else--was the rejuvenating earth each spring and the fruit it brought forth each summer to be harvested in due season. So my mother tried to convince me. Somehow, it simply didn't "take." There are a number of possibilities.

One possibility is her argument that there is no other explanation for things happening this way other than that God does it. Too bad she didn't take into account how easily that argument is proved wrong by simple observation any farm girl. Another possibility is that my child's mind had already observed that the seasonal changes occur naturally according to a set pattern that has nothing to do with a "higher power." Yet a third possibility is that she had already at some earlier point explained the detailed unfolding of growing plants in such a logical manner that my mind automatically rejected this new and mystical explanation.

I am at the moment reading history of thought literature and I'm finding that for at least three thousand years there have always been thinkers who rejected the idea of a supernatural entity or god concept. It is not in-born, it is indoctrinated. I've also studied religion and its possible origins. I do not think that it is totally based on stories. I think it is a mix of psychological events and ignorance of the universe, mixed with a desperate need to understand the unknowable, also known as FEAR.

If you can figure out that it was because your co-wife was jealous of your status with your shared husband that the hut collapsed on her (and killed her) and not you, you will feel a lot safer than if you think it was a random act of nature. Or if you're a man, if you can figure out that it was Zeus's displeasure due to your brother's conniving to get the larger share of the hunt that caused the tree to fall on him and kill him (rather than you) in the thunder storm, you're going to feel a lot safer than if you think it was a random act of nature.

And right there you've got two of the Ten Commandments:

1. Thou shalt not covet (co-wife), and
2. Thou shalt not steal (brother).

That's how some of my thinking goes. You might be interested in Karen Armstrong's History of God. I've heard it's really good. I haven't read it and you shouldn't take my word for it--read the reviews for yourself, but I would guess Armstrong reviews the developing concept of god over time and cultures.