Post number 1

[Mister Agenda]

I'm essentially an atheist now, I would be quite surprised to learn God (or any supernatural being) really exists. As an agnostic theist at least I was able to have a lovely idea of an omnibenevolent God doing his best without completely unlimited power and knowledge. Of course, when I was one, I didn't know to call myself that. It just didn't occur to me at first that there wasn't a God, because I was still wrapped up in notions of someone needing to take some sort of action to start the universe, just that there was no good reason to think the people who wrote the Bible were that different from their peers regarding their access to an omnipotent universe creator. It was all just stories, some of them about things that really happened, mixed with the sort of supernatural explanations for events that are typical of ancient peoples. If the Hebrews lost a battle it was Yahweh's will, if the Greeks lost a battle it was the will of their gods, if someone had a heart attack or stroke and keeled over out of the blue they were being punished for some offense to a deity. If the Genesis story was broken down into chapters with headings like: Why we don't live forever, why women suffer in childbirth, or why snakes have no legs; the similarity to 'why' stories told in other cultures would be more obvious.

But at least I have an idea of a better God, one that isn't just a pile of omnis stacked up over generations of people claiming their God is the mightiest; one that didn't create us just to see if we would pass some test, with a sadistic punishment in store for those who fail. That God is completely imaginary too, but at least it wouldn't require me to twist myself into knots trying to justify its bizarre actions and commands.