Why I Don’t Believe in God…

Believing in a higher power is one thing, but proving that it exists is another entirely. Having faith is not enough to sway others to share that belief. 

The most common question I get asked is "Why don't you believe in God?" This is a deeply personal question, and like most atheists that are as vocal as I am, it is one I have considered at great length. I was raised by a loving, deeply Christian family. I attended Sunday School regularly in our sparse Lutheran church and was even a senior sacristan at an Anglican private school. I'll be honest though, I was always shaky in my faith, but as certain, or so I thought, as one could be about the existence of God. So for me, I spent most of my young adult life seeking a spiritual awakening. I tried religions on like shoes for a few years. I dabbled in Mormonism, Scientology, and every major denomination of the Christian churches. Never having the born again moment that so many spoke of.

In the end it took a trip to Jerusalem to sway me. I did a tour and saw the wall being built around Palestine; I stood at the Wailing Wall with a cardboard yarmulke on my head. I visited the twelve Stations of the Cross, knelt at the rock of Golgotha, and finally entered the tomb of the holy sepulcher.

It was in this low ceilinged tomb that I lost my faith. As I peered at the marble slab over the place of Jesus' supposed burial I was stuck by the crack in the marble. This crack was a too perfect flaw in a too perfect piece of marble on a too perfect altar in a too perfect room. I peered deep into the dark crack searching for answers, waiting for my personal spiritual awakening. It never came, and I realized…this is silly. This "Holy City" was in actual fact a contrived Disney world from the era of Constantine. I believed in none of it, and realized I wasn't in love with God; I was in love with the idea of God.

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More: http://www.eloquentatheist.com/2012/07/why-i-dont-believe-in-god/