So, setting aside miraculous encounters of the third kind, why did I start believing God Is? You've heard it said that if God is all good, and if God is all powerful, then He would not allow all the evil in the world to exist or continue. Therefore, since evil is in the world, either God is not good, or He is not all powerful, so I don't believe there's a God.
Wow! I used to think that was an irreducibly complex argument to defeat all arguments. God was obviously just a myth concocted by people too weak of mind and character to admit that their evolutionary life was meaningless.
One little problem, if I was going to be honest with myself, for me to object to the evil in the world, meant I recognized that something evil actually exists, which meant that in my mind I was appealing to some understood good, albeit unspoken, standard of justice. Another little problem, I have done evil - hard to believe isn't it. I chose to do it. When I recall the evil I have done, I have to admit I knew it was evil when I did it, actually, before I did it. If life is just a random evolutionary process, then how can anything be right or wrong; good or evil? That can't even mean anything in a random, meaningless evolutionary whatever this thing we call life actually is. And yet, here I was, guilty of doing evil and knowing it, and then blaming God for not stopping it. Actually I would not have wanted God to stop my evil deeds at the time. It's only your evil deeds He is supposed to stop. Since He doesn't, and I suffer, then He doesn't exist. Simple, huh?
It turns out that my appeal to some standard of justice was pretty commonly understood by Atheists, Theists, Agnostics, corrupt power drunk public officials, children, geniuses, and idiots. Nobody likes to be the one who gets kicked, but none of us mind doing the kicking. I think even actors can grasp the idea ever so slightly.
Now where did this loony idea of good and evil come from? If its just off the top of my bald head, then where did you get yours? And, can God be all good, and all powerful, and let all this evil happen?
Here's where I ended up: Yes. Why? Well, if God made everybody do the right thing with an act of His own power, we would all just be tin toys without any will of our own. God didn't make us tin toys. He made us alive, built a set of rules into the software, and told us to play nice. It isn't his fault if we don't all play nice all the time, or ever. Why doesn't God stop evil? How would you or I know when or if He did? If He stopped some evil, we'd never know about it would we, cause it didn't happen. It was stupid of me to say He never stopped evil. I only know what I know. God, by definition would know what I didn't, being this all powerful being that sees the whole picture at a glance and all.
I'm full enough of pride to admit that I am so much better than anyone, no everyone, reading this that I know more than all of you put together, so I can condemn God for not living up to my standard of good and evil. It's you little people who don't have any grounds for complaint. Oops! Did I just say that out loud.
Yeah, I'm not an atheist anymore. That doesn't mean I have this all figured out. I don't. But I'm working on it. After I'm dead, I'll know if I am right. I'm not sure if that will help you though.
GG