Why I Don't Believe in Intelligent Design

[confuseddave]

I was commenting on a Guardian thread which was locked down (not sure if it's a time thing or just that the debate was getting out of hand), which is a pity because there's an interesting comment I wanted to reply to from someone called Wice:

it's nice to meet someone, who, starting as an ID proponent, finally accepted evolution as a better

Comments

[confuseddave]

My relationship with God was a kind of subtext to this story that I haven't really gone into. Obviously creationism was a direct effect of a belief in the inerrancy of scripture (although I don't think I was ever a literalist, I considered Genesis to be a direct allegory for the history of the universe). Oddly, I don't think I ever particularily liked Christianity; I was simply convinced it was true. I remember being bewildered by pagan friends at university who chose their religion because it reflected their personality - I didn't believe in Christianity because I liked it, I believed it because I honestly thought it was true.

I think I would probably have remained adamant about creationism for longer (possibly indefinitely) if I hadn't also deliberately made a decision to turn away from God (I hold and still hold that Christianity was harming me, and felt that if God loved me then he would find a way to bring me back in his own time). That said even while I was an active christian, I was aware in a nebulous way of our circular arguments, and that there was a risk that we were seeing what we wanted to see in answers to prayer, like faces in the clouds. I guess in a way I was an agnostic before leaving home; I always acknowledged the possibility that I might be wrong.

So the last nine or ten years has more or less been a steady tipping of my agnostic favour from christianity to humanist materialism. I guess I'm still agnostic to a minor degree (critical thinking demands it), but if I ever deserved to call myself I Christian, I deserve to call myself an Atheist now more.

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up my childish ways." (1 Cor 13:11)

It's interesting that you say "I can see how you can believe but don't feel it myself." For me, I feel like it's all about truth. This is part of the reason I have recently become outraged against christianity; because I'm slowly becoming aware of how much untruth is intrinsic to the christian religion. However, that is a rant I should also save for another time.