Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The Truth Behind My Questions


Above photo is copyright Patrick Potts, 2010, and may NOT be used in any form without explicit written permission.

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Good evening! It’s been a long time since I even looked at this blog. As mentioned in my last post, my brain works in a very strange way. I can’t honestly say that I will update this now any more than then, but I hope to release some of the thoughts bouncing around in my mind. Now, before I go on ranting about religion and science, I feel it’s necessary to explain the current state of my beliefs.



On the topic of god, God, or deity: I believe that there may be a higher power, possibly even a deity. However, my opinion on what this deity is like is not based on any book simply due to the fact that humans are incredibly imaginative. Now, what exactly do I mean by this? I mean to say, quite bluntly, that the Bible and other such religious books could be “corrupted” by the pen of human kind. And that is assuming that books like the Bible were anything more than a fabrication over a long period of time.

My opinion on the Bible and other such books is based on the inconsistencies within. When we read the Bible from front to back, God himself is inconsistent. The Old Testament describes God in a very different way from the New Testament, with a few exceptions. In a relatively short amount of time, especially for a deity, God changes from supporting wars for “his” people, to sending his son to save everyone and tell them to love thine enemy. There is something very basic about the Old Testament God, something very human. He is jealous, vengeful, determined to make “his” people, well, his. This is utterly ridiculous to me. There is no reason for an absolutely powerful, omnipotent deity to be concerned with something so trivial.

Many believe I am an atheist after I explain that. I never deny the existence of God; I deny the infallibility of the Bible. I deny the idea that a deity would be as petty and confused as the Old Testament God, but still capable of making our incredibly complex universe. I believe that if God exists, he is not the God of the Old Testament. Does that make him the God of the New Testament? No, since Revelations brings everything back to those wacky times when a deity feels the need to behave irrationally in order to judge his own imperfect creation. If you feel the need to define me, define me as an agnostic. I believe there could be something more, but I refuse to base my life around one unprovable belief and claim human written text as my infallible truth.


On the topic of evolution: I do believe fully that evolution exists and is still occurring. If I were to believe in the Bible again, I would still believe in evolution. I believe that if there is a god, he/she/it would have used evolution. Evolution is apparent to me in every living thing. Some may argue that we can’t prove evolution, that we haven’t been able to replicate evolution in order to prove it. How could we possibly see the immensely intricate process of evolution when we only live to see a second of our own evolutionary time frame? Some will argue that evolution cannot be true since we are still the single most advanced organism on the planet. Why has no other animal evolved to the point of human-level intelligence?

I don’t have an absolute answer for this. Evolution is the adaptation to an environment, not a constant advancement. The earth we live on, this spinning collection of cosmic elements, has gone through a staggering number of changes through its life. To this day this planet goes through major changes. It is much more likely to me that we evolved rather than the idea we were created by a being that has always been. Just one of those theories has scientific evidence to back it up.


I don’t care to cause anyone to stop believing whatever they believe. I only care to discuss what I believe and why I believe it, as well as share what I find to be beautiful aspects of the universe we are part of. If you feel that I am attempting to damage the faith of Christians, then let me ask you, what is faith if you can’t test it with questions?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you could test faith, then it wouldn't be faith. It would be science.

Patrick Potts said...

Then what's the point of faith? Why not make it provable, instead of a guessing game? :)

Anonymous said...

The "point" of faith? Good question. The best answer I can come up with is that it's an excellent tool for getting people to believe something for which you have no proof.

Having evidence to back up faith undermines its very definition.

Patrick Potts said...

Right, which is why it doesn't make sense to me that a deity would choose such a confounding path to salvation. Even the idea of salvation doesn't make sense coming from an all powerful deity.

Anonymous said...

Hey Pat,
This is Pate. I must say I enjoy reading your blogs whenever they come out. While we may disagree on the area of the God of the Old Testament, I do agree with evolution. I am a creationist-evolutionist, which means I believe we are created by a deity, just evolution is how he chose to grow the universe. I also agree, if I read correctly, that we have evolved but not from another creature due to our intellgence being such greater. I think the biggest problems nonbelievers have with creationism is that we say 7 literal days. God is all knowing and all powerful, time would not hold God back, why would he need a literal day? I tend to say that day goes along with the last definition in Hebrew, which means a period of time. (Since we don't use day in this way often we overlook its possibility in the context often) Therefore, we can see that God started with Earth for a period of time let it evolved... then moved on... If all truth comes from God, then how can I say science is not God.. if there is truth in science.. .that means I have disproved God... Keep blogging my friend.

Anonymous said...

Its Matt G.

to pate - If you believe that God is all-powerful, then why could He not make the world in 6 literal days?

In general - Evolution is fact. Measuring the time through carbon dating is the hard part that is very subjective.

But what you believe all falls on faith. Faith is just one of those things that is hard to understand and practice. Even the Bible say, "Faith is given by God"

Lets be honest, yes it is very possible that the Bible is riddled with lies. But it has been proven by many people that were out to disprove the Bible that it is historically accurate.

And remember that we have to be imperfect so that we choose to love God. Or else, if we love God (or anything else) because we have to; is that really love?

But look on the bright side, we live in America, so we won't be getting killed for our religous beliefs. HAHAA......yet

Somebody's preachin...........

WHAT?!?!

oh yeah, and sometimes faith and logic don't mix.

Anonymous said...

Hey Matt,
I do believe that God have very well created the Earth in seven days... that is possible with God for all things are. If we take it a literal seven days then we can look and say that from Adam to Abraham was around 2000 years, Abraham to Jesus another 2000, and Jesus to present day appoximately 2010 years. Therefore, making the Earth appox. 6000 years old. This is much younger than the cardon dating of the world show and also evolution. There is the possibility that God made the Earth to appear much older than it looks, but then what do we do with history that is older than 6000 years old? It is possible Matt, I just believe that God did so over time period. Those time periods I believe correspond with science, and also the Bible. The word of day in Hebrew can be taken as 1) a 24 period.. but they wouldn't have hours it would be like from the time the sun was here today and then here the next for example, 2) a period of daylight and dark, i.e. for instance the next sunrise would begin each new day.. 3) a period of time.. i.e the day of David

All things are possible with God, I just tend to lean toward this explanation of Creationism.

Anonymous said...

There is a difference between Young-Earth Creationism and Old-Earth Creationism. Of the two, Young-Earth Creationism is more laughable.

I think by creationist-evolutionist, you mean you are some sort of Intelligent Design proponent?

What was God doing in the billions of years before the Earth was even formed? Gaping at the pretty lights he had made? Actually, what was he doing in the infinity before the universe was created?

Please keep in mind that carbon dating is only good for a few thousand years back. There are much more reliable elements, such as rubidium, that can be used to measure extreme age.

There are legions of nonbelievers that would be willing to die for your right to hold whatever religious beliefs you want. Just keep it out of what was supposed to be a secular government.

"Sometimes faith and logic don't mix." ROFLMAO

Patrick Potts said...

Young-earth creationism makes me laugh, for sure. The proof just isn't there for me. Some say, "Oh, God intentionally made the earth appear older." But my reply is always "why?" For me, this sends me right back to the Biblical inconsistencies. He informs his followers to not be "stumbling blocks," but by most creationist theories explaining provable science, God creates more than enough stumbling blocks.

How then are we to blindly trust a God that does nothing to prove himself and everything to make himself more difficult to believe? Why give certain elements a radioactive half-life longer than his planned age of the earth? Certainly an all seeing deity would have the foresight to realize what his own creations would discover in the fields of science.

To me, that is more than enough to question god.