50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (34 page)

Why do the analytical skills and skepticism that most people utilize when buying a house, car, or laptop vanish when religion comes
up? Why don't believers ask hard questions and refuse to accept
hollow answers the way they do for almost everything else? Why can't
fundamentalists seem to recognize the numerous errors and contradictions in their holy books? Obviously they are capable of seeing errors
and contradictions because they are so good at identifying them in the
books and claims of rival religions.

Finally, the fact that many smart people believe in gods doesn't
help answer the question of whether or not gods are real. It clearly is not a good reason for anyone to believe in gods any more than the
existence of smart atheists is a good reason to reject belief. The
unlikely existence of gods has nothing to do with what kind of people
do or do not believe in them. For example, I don't give great respect
to scientists just because they are smart. I respect them because they
base their conclusions on the scientific method and I know other scientists are checking their work.

Gods probably are not real because there is no good evidence to
suggest that they are. This fact would not change even if every Mensa
member were a believer who spoke in tongues and juggled rattlesnakes during Sunday church services. If everybody on earth with a
doctoral degree believed that Mbongo, the African river god, was real
it would not be enough to prove that he is. Only evidence and overwhelming arguments can do that. Never look up to people or follow
passively in their wake when it comes to belief in gods. So what if
some guy has an impressive degree, a fancy professional title, or an
impressive vocabulary? That stuff doesn't do anything to strengthen
claims that a god is real. Forget the quality of a given religion's membership rolls and ask for evidence. Always ask for evidence.

The same applies to atheists. No one should ever conclude that
gods do not exist solely because some scientist or a philosopher said
so. Ask them why they don't believe. Never make the mistake of
thinking that we can simply poll the brightest people to determine if
gods exist or not. Reality is not a popularity contest. Reality is what it
is, regardless of who knows it.

Dawkins, Richard. A Devil's Chaplain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

I have recently been examining all the known
superstitions of the world, and do not find in our
particular superstition one redeeming feature. They
are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies.

-Thomas Jefferson

e is everywhere, this god of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. I discover an echo of Yahweh/God the Father/Allah
around every corner in Jerusalem's Old City. Even the yellow stones
around me seem soaked through with belief. I lean against a building
and watch as a parade of Christians pass. Their leader plays a guitar
while several others sing. Some of them are crying. They are retracing
what they believe to be the path their messiah walked on the day of his
execution two thousand years ago. According to the Bible, Jesus
promised to return to his followers very soon. Twenty centuries later,
however, they are still waiting.

A Jewish man walks by at a brisk pace. He has a baby in his arms
and smiles as he passes. The automatic rifle slung over his back is a
reminder of the fear and hatred that is never far away in the Holy
Land. The Old City is divided into ethnic or religious "quarters." Integration is a concept that has not caught on here. Military checkpoints
and terrorism warning posters sour a city that could have been an inviting time capsule of human history. Jerusalem may be a sacred
place. It may even be God's chosen place. But it is not a happy place.

Approaching the Noble Sanctuary, all I can think of is how
peaceful and calm it looks. Of course, appearances can be deceiving.
This place is a flashpoint of religious prejudice, hatred, and violence.
There are some believers who gladly would kill or die either protecting or destroying it, depending on which version of the same god
they are loyal to. The Dome of the Rock stands out with its shiny
golden roof, glowing and rising above the stone city. This is arguably
the most sacred piece of real estate on the planet. If any god has a specific address on earth, this must be it. It was here, say Muslims, where
Muhammad rode a winged horse up to heaven to meet Allah. Many
Muslims are convinced that the end of the world as we know it is
coming soon and their messiah will visit the earth to finally show
everyone that Islam is the one true religion. Jews and Christians, of
course, are far too skeptical to believe that this will happen in this way.
They are unconvinced, probably aware that in sixteen hundred years
Muslims have failed to produce any convincing evidence to support
this extraordinary prediction.

Many Jews see no beauty in the golden dome. They see only a misplaced structure built by misguided believers. For some it is a crude and
horrible violation that must be destroyed before crucial prophecies can
be fulfilled. This is where Yahweh wants his most important temple to
stand, not this Dome of the Rock. Jews who believe in the prophecy
wait for the day when they will be able to rebuild the temple and watch
their god's plan unfold. When this happens, they say, the true messiah
will finally come and it will be confirmed that they really are God's
chosen people and they were correct to reject Christianity and Islam.
Muslims and Christians are far too skeptical to believe that it will
happen in this way, of course. They are unconvinced, probably because
in thousands of years Jews have failed to produce any convincing evidence to support this extraordinary prediction.

Meanwhile, inside the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulcher, visiting Christians are praying, weeping, and posing for photographs. They have a prediction, too. Theirs is similar to the Jewish and Islamic
prophecies except that their messiah, Jesus, has already been to earth
once. Next time will be his second visit, they say. And it is going to
happen any minute now. We are close, very close to the end of the world
as we know it, some Christians say. Muslims and Jews are far too skeptical to believe that this is correct, of course. They are unconvinced,
probably because in two thousand years Christians have failed to produce any convincing evidence to support this extraordinary prediction.

What is convenient about all of these messiah predictions is that
he is always "coming" and never needs to actually get here for the
prophecies to be accepted and defended as true generation after generation. It is difficult for a nonbeliever to understand how so many
people across so many centuries can continue to be confident that they
will see the messiah in their lifetime. How many more centuries must
pass before believers start to doubt? How many more thousands of
years must pass before we can all agree that these predictions are
unlikely to ever come true?

Magical predictions of the end of the world are never far from
one's mind in Jerusalem. Millions of people believe that Israel itself is
the fulfillment of a prophecy. Many Jews and Christians say that their
god created the nation of Israel, just like he promised he would long
ago. "Fulfilled" prophecies such as this are a powerful motivation for
many believers. They feel confident that their god is real because he
made promises and kept them. For many believers, prophecy is the
clincher, the decisive proof that their religion is true.

After a few days of exploring the Old City, I venture outside the
walls to see more of Jerusalem. At the Israel Museum I find an impressive collection of art and ancient artifacts. There is no shortage of creativity or passion in this land, I think to myself. In a garden outside the
museum, I meet and chat with a group of beautiful Israeli women.
Their smiles and laughter make me feel welcome in this place that is
so far from my part of the world. Later, I wander around Yad Vashem,
a sprawling complex of museum exhibits, outdoor sculptures,
archives, and memorials dedicated to teaching about and remembering the Holocaust. It is obvious that this young nation has a powerful
sense of its history and that unity means a great deal to its people.
Much of that unity, I suspect, is the result of past suffering and present
dangers. Outside the Holocaust museum building, I see hundreds of
Israeli soldiers stream out of buses. Apparently a visit to Yad Vashem
is part of their duty. As they stack up their rifles on the lawn before
entering the museum, I am stunned by how young they are. They are
too young to be carrying guns and wearing military uniforms, I think.
Far too young to hate or be hated. But here in the Middle East belief
in a god has led to separation, fear, hate, and the inevitable violence
those mistakes bring. Guns and young soldiers are necessary for survival. But why? Why have Jews, Christians, and Muslims found it so
difficult to live in peace for the last several centuries? Is it because
Yahweh/God the Father/Allah was not clear enough about how he
wanted to be worshipped? Or maybe it was the fault of prophets who
failed to communicate his messages properly. Regardless of the
reason, the result has been a never-ending clash between believers
who share both the same god and the same unwavering confidence
that they know his will. Christians and Muslims slaughtered one
another during the Crusades and now seem dangerously close to a
rematch. Christians slaughtered Jews in Europe for centuries. And, of
course, Jews and Muslims are at each other's throats in the Middle
East. For my entire life I have heard about peace plans, cease fires, and
peace summits for the Middle East. I believe that these kinds of efforts
have always failed and always will fail because they never address the
root problem of religion. The way to bring people together who are
separated by belief in a god is to get them to take that belief a little less
seriously. The people of the Middle East need doubt. They need skepticism. So long as warring sides are 100 percent certain that their
belief is true, they are unlikely to ever yield.

Later that evening I end up at a shopping mall where I happily
stumble upon a good bookstore, good food, and a movie theater. I like
this place. It's almost enough to make me forget about all the problems
and controversy that burden Israel. Almost.

Hatred. Settlements. Intifada. Walls. Tanks. Suicide bombers.
Children throwing rocks. Segregation. Prejudice. Babies dying. And
all the while, both sides point to the God of Abraham to justify their
actions.

God is love? Through the eyes of a nonbeliever, all of this bears a
remarkable resemblance to insanity.

Back on the streets of Old Jerusalem once again, I wonder how it
is that I could be walking on "evidence" of a real god. I am in the
nation that many Christians claim to be irrefutable proof that their god
is real. The nation of Israel, they say, shows that the Bible correctly
predicted the future in a way that only a god could. Therefore, they
declare, the Jewish/Christian god must be real.

It is odd that so many believers are convinced that their god magically created the modern nation of Israel. There is, after all, a much
simpler explanation available-one that does not require faith, magic,
or a god. One only has to consider the fact that many Jews around the
world emphasized and cherished a cultural and religious link to this
region. Jews also have a long tradition of believing that this land was
promised to them by their god. Many of them didn't just feel that it
would be nice to live there; they believed they were supposed to live
there. It was where their god meant for them to be. No doubt the intense
persecution Jews suffered in Europe helped motivate the drive for a
new nation. Jews dreamt of once again praying at the remains of the
Jerusalem Temple, not as visitors but as residents. Some Jews did more
than dream. They worked to make it happen. Theodor Herzl
(1860-1904), for example, pushed so hard and so long for a Jewish
homeland that today he is honored as the father of Zionism. (Zionism
was the international movement for the establishment of a Jewish
homeland.) Herzl believed that anti-Semitism was so bad and so incurable that the best hope for Jews was simply to leave Europe and other
places where Christians continually discriminated against Jews and
sometimes murdered them. The idea of a Jewish nation in Palestine fit
well with the beliefs of many Christians too.

For many years Jewish people around the world, some of them wealthy and influential, worked to realize their goal of creating a
Jewish nation in the Middle East. The United States and some European nations were agreeable to the idea more than ever after the horrors of the Holocaust, and in 1948 the State of Israel was created. But
how is this the obvious work of a god? How is it the magical fulfillment of a prophecy? Let's keep in mind that creating countries was
nothing new to Western powers. After all, nations such as England,
Germany, and the United States had redrawn national borders as they
pleased and pushed people around many times before all over the
world. So where exactly is the supernatural component in the creation
of Israel? Why do believers imagine they see magic and gods in what
appears to have been a completely human-engineered event?