Young Writers Society

Hey there Keepwriting!
I have to admit, your title was what drew me into this essay of your because it was a struggle that I too have dealt with. My father grew up an atheist and my mother Christian, this caused some conflict in my personal beliefs as I became the woman I am today. I would like to make it clear that I am an atheist but I am not here to bash on your beliefs or anything of that sort. In fact, I am very happy that you were able to find happiness in religion after all, happiness is what really matters in the end and I would like to congratulate on that. Okay now that we have that out of the way, on to my review!
Overall, I liked the way you teetered back and forth between following religion and non-religion all the way up to the end. This created a sort of suspense for me and that's not commonly found in essays yet, I think it worked for you here. I also enjoyed how you created arguments for both sides of the spectrum. Religion and how it relates oneself is a struggle that is more common than many people realize and I was really fond of how you brought that issue to light. As a reader, it was easy to find your tone and your voice in this work which is really important and helps make a connection with the reader.
Since I do not follow religion, I do not know much about it so I will not be critiquing the Biblical references simply because I am not educated enough in that field to be comfortable doing so. That being said, I think that your science references need a little bit of polishing. It seems that some of your sources, although the old time scientists and their discoveries led us to where we are today, are a little outdated. I think that choosing such a well known scientist was smart but, I think this essay would greatly benefit from some modern scientists and their discoveries.
As for grammar and technical writing skills the only complain I have is you staring the last paragraph with "and". It's not correct and weakens your conclusion.
If you have any questions or comments please feel free to message me or reply!
-BubblegumGoddess

Okay...

So I'm a Christian but I have a major, major problem with pretty much everything in your blog post. I can't really call it an article or an essay because you don't really include references from concrete sources. You sort of just summarize everything you've researched with the expectation that we're just going to believe what you've said.

I read about C.S. Lewis when he was an atheist. He believed in evolution, and the Big Bang Theory as most Atheists do.

Charles Darwin believed we started as bacteria, then evolved into fish, then amphibians, then reptiles, then birds, then mammals, then into the humans we are today. But where is the evidence for his theory?

However, no fossils have been found even to this day that have been proven to be the links between species... I was left puzzled and confused.

With evolution studied and found unprovable

He preached, he healed, and he rebuked. Not only that, but after the pharisees accused Him of blasphemy, treason, ect. He was crucified on the cross for the sins of the whole world.

Then I looked at Atheists and the like. They seemed fine to me and happy, but they used the "fact" that they "are animals" as an excuse for their wrong doings.

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts with me! I love a good debate, and I'm glad you all were kind in your comments. Since this is a controversial topic, people like to avoid it, but I'm happy you all took the time to respond to me.

Science is merely but observation & analyzing how things work. The Only way Faith conflicts with this, is that it takes Trust to leap off the diving board of circumstantial evidence you get to view on earth, & risk taking the fall through the air if that water you believe you see is really H2O or if it's just a mirage.

Seek God, He asks you to seek Him; to seek it above everything else; “The Lord is near to all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them.” - Psalm 145:18-19 “Call to me and I will answer; I will show you great and wondrous things you do not know.” - Jere. 33:3

God revealed his presence to me when I was 7. It's because He can't take sitting idly by while one of his sons or daughters perpetually is weeping every minute of every day. Besides having had Jesus speak to me, my dad before suicide at 18 was transported into a vision of Candles & heard a voice say "It is not yet your time", and when his mother died of a heart attack at 53 she talked with Jesus & was given the choice to stay or come back. She came back and told about it. Last year I called on God every day for 4 months to visit me, Personally manifest to me again. He finally came, in a ring of unblemished light he spoke from: I could see a movement inside as he spoke, but no features. Jesus said to me, "I don't feel your pain while you're in it, but I Know. He said more stuff, but I forgot what was said cause I was euphorically crying. Last thing he said and let me retain was, "I know you don't know where you're going: But That is My Glory."

No other place but the text located in the bible can you find the Nature and Characteristics of God portrayed and described. No other religion really defines their God, what they stand for specifically, what they want their servants to do: they just have a silhouette of a personality per se.

“The Lord is near unto them that are of a broken heart; and saves such as are of a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivers them out of them all.” Psalm 34:18-19

The wicked (meaning far from God) through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts - Psalms 10:4

Rule #1 Because they only have so much information, Humans cannot truly access Logical assertions. "As far as the laws of math refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality" - Albert E. You cannot simply be so pragmatic when it comes to anything that you cannot witness firsthand: you must weigh the probability of supernatural occurrences & the like. You must make an educated guess.

Rule #2 If you do not first believe or suspect a thing, you will not know how to isolate what expectations or outcome you are looking for. In other words, you must, of an order, you must believe something could be possible first, or you won't be able to realize what type of evidence would lean toward confirmation of your Theory.

The Fibonacci numbers, goldens spirals, Golden ratios in the growth of every thing.

I also have to think: What are the odds that an explosion and reaction of chemicals comes out to any more than chemicals in an altered state, much less laying down a tidy little universe structured from top to bottom? What are the odds non-living matter can jump to Braniacs on a macro level of living matter; what are the Odds it operates on a predictable system that we can contemplate? In the facts, it’s right next to mathematically impossible.

The Israel that Arose, shifted, became enslaved, was delivered & Raised up, then ravaged & exiled & reestablished numerous times: we see that the Greater portion of Contemporary Israelis still do not recognize Christ for who he said he was To The World two-thousand years ago.

He wanted to take away your weaknesses, your fears, your feelings of inadequacy, your rejection: He wanted to teach you how to know His abounding goodness and hear His voice. I seek God with all my might and heart and hope and in prayer he tells me what to do, where to go, and He gives me promises. That's all there is, no other secret than that.
Though your sins (wrong in God's eyes, not anyone else's) are as scarlet they shall be made white as snow." – Isaiah 43 " For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." – Matthew 11:30

Hi, Keepwriting.

Thanks for this. It made for an interesting read. It got me thinking anyway.

I believe you have the causal relationship between being Christian and having a hard life backward.
Being a Christian myself, I'm very familiar with the wavering you experienced. When I felt guilty about it, thinking those doubts were a shortcoming of mine, my mom told me there was no faith without doubt. Chosing God despite all the reasons we have not to is a gift to Him.
As I grew up, I realized that there is no faith without hardship either.
There seems to be a rampant belief in the US that being a Catholic is about guilt. It's not my own experience. It's about comfort. Not one of the very devout persons I know led an easy life. It's like, in God, we find a promise of sucor, of justice - the famous 'just reward'.
You turn to Him as the time of your death grows closer, as you lose the people you love, etc. People believe because their life is hard and they need some kind of comfort but nowhere in the Bible is it written that you should leave all the heavy lifting to God. We are responsible for our own fate, Christian or not.

Now, onto Creation. From the first time I crawled into a Church as a toddler, I have been told to read the Book of Genesis as I would a very long and beautiful metaphor. Not untrue, but not very precise. I don't feel the need to choose between my faith and science.
I remember something I heard a priest say once: religion explains why, science tells you how. It's nonetheless the same story.

I don't know how many times I've heard it: faith is a gift.
A couple of great authors describe faith as a choice. My favorite one is Blaise Pascal. Maybe you should read his 'thoughts' if you haven't yet. That's one man who found God while going through a great deal of pain. Pascal's wager is that any rational person should give God's existence the benefit of a doubt: if He exists, there is a lot to be won or lost; if he doesn't, what does it cost, really, to believe?
Ludicrous, right? Like true faith can result from a cost-benefit analysis...
So, clearly, you don't choose faith. It really is a gift. For me, it has always been obvious that God was the one giving it. But why does He grant faith to some of us, and not to the others? Maybe atheists don't need faith to behave responsibly. Maybe those atheists you saw behaving badly have been given that gift but have been ignoring it.
I don't know but I have trouble with the idea of someone choosing not to believe so they can wallow in sin. Faith or no faith, most people are born with a sense of right and wrong and, most of the time, they listen to it. And let's be honest, not all Christians are entirely sinfree.

Anyway, nice read. Good luck to you, Keepwriting.

I'm an atheist, but I don't blame that we are animals for every one of our wrongdoings. Recently, if you haven't seen, someone (I forget who) found out that Christians are BLOCKING scientific research on the evolution and the Bug Bang because they don't want their faith questioned.

Concerning the Big Bang, I believe that there are other universes and a particle from a dying universe became a new one instead of just dying like the rest. I mean, that's my theory, but looking at what other scientists think what happened, it just seems plausible.

And then Evolution. I have never really researched it, and had just assumed that the different kingdoms are just different kingdoms and that the species evolved from the first few species in the kingdom (probably doesn't make any sense but okay). So basically, amphibians evolved from amphibians, mammals evolved from mammals, etc.

Now, I've been reading the Bible recently, and I think that it's a really enjoyable read, but I still don't believe in him. To us atheists, or at least most of us, we think that if God was real he would have come down and joined us and met the Pope or something again to show his people that he's real. But he hasn't, so I don't think that he's actually real, in my mind.

But one of the biggest reasons that I'm not an atheist is because of how some Christians around where I live and around the world great their fellow people. If God loves everyone, why are people depressed? Suicidal? In poverty? Raped? Murdered? Discriminated? The Christians that I live with always say: "They have sins, so they must be punished". This just doesn't make sense to me. Everyone has sins, right? Even in "Carrie", the mother was so into Christianity that she abused her child because of it. And besides that, some Christians own mistranslated Bibles, which leads them to discriminate people who are bi, gay, or even trans. That's another thing I don't get.

Now, I'm not trying to make you an atheist, but I just wanted to give you some theories of mine and an atheist perspective to help you a little. And you know what? I'm happy that you researched athiesm. Not a lot of Christians do where I come from (they just discriminate the atheists without hearing their side.)

Hope this helped!--

Kara R. Stevens

I recently started reading Lewis. I read Mere Christianity about two.months ago and The Spiderwick chronicles. From a philosophical standpoint, the same reasons for believing in God Are the same for not. But there is only one truth, and for me, that is that there is God. Why there is such dissension about religion today is how Christians behaved throughout history. They rejected scientific reason because of supposed faith. It was perhaps no fault of theirs as religion was a stronghold in people's lives, however hypocritical and self serving, and this other option took away their certainties and reason for acting so sanctimoniously. We as a postmodern society are too cynical of religion. Because people use religion desperately doesn't make it any less valid. I have pondered atheist thoughts myself and found I cannot agree with the grey area that doesn't acknowledge the black in it. If everyone is, and is expected to be, a summation of their experiences, why do we like Jon Snow more than Cersei (I am not included in we, lol). I was comfortable believing there was no God as long as I was good to others. But that isn't enough. We all make up a moral code that suits us perfectly and because the self righteous pricks are the religious ones, we say everyone should make a moral code that suits them and live that way.
I consider myself very nonjudgmental and very accepting of people. I strongly dislike the concept of hell as burning fire, and hope it is just a metaphor. Christianity works for me because it is the ONLY perfect way to live your life. It's a truth most people don't want to see especially when they are happy and content. But that's the truth, and to say that's a truth that works for me alone makes it a lie. It's a universal truth, whether or not we believe it.
BTW Death is just so scary it's easier to be cynical and scared and brave in the face of its inevitability and to reconcile with eternal unconsciousness than to have unwavering faith in harps and gold and marshamllow clouds

Hi Keepwriting,

Just a quick grammar correction - third paragraph, first sentence, the word "believe" should be "belief".

I am an atheist that believes that science has an answer, that is not always perfect, to everything, but it is much more logical than God creating two people that later had two boys that later created the human race. Otherwise we would be deformed because when siblings mate, deformities occur (scientifically proven). I feel that it would much more logical to believe that humans evolved all around the world creating the diversity that we see today, such as the difference between race/ethnicity. If God were to create only two White people, and if evolution did not exist, we would not have seven billion people of various shades of skin color and features. The variety gives humans the chance to think outside the box and work together to create new ideas and blend together their old ones. If evolution did not occur and we all descended from two European people, we would most likely share the same ideas and believe in God and teach everyone else (their descendants) that God was real. May I ask you this one question, why would Atheists exist if we all descended from one set of parents who would have taught us to believe in God?

If you have ever watched a highly religious family, you would see that they family does not question their beliefs or think outside the box. It is ironic that you look for evidence to prove science yet believe in God without any proof other than a Bible, that many believe represents a popular work of fiction.

I am not saying that your beliefs are wrong, only that if you argue that Atheists need more proof for science, then your argument should have more proof for God.

This was an inspirational piece, generating great debates. Thank you.

Best,
Emmary

Just FYI, how life came to be so diverse vs how life or the universe came to be in the first place are two totally separate questions. Evolution (science's answer to the first question) is regarded as one of the cornerstones of biology and one of the most ironclad scientific theories out there, while abiogenesis and the big bang theory (science's answer to the second question) are much more unsure.

And honestly, evolution makes perfect sense if you accept that life must change over time. Then, it becomes less of an answer to the question "where did species come from," and more of an answer to the question "how did life change over time". Then, it becomes simple. When the environment changes, some individuals of a species are better genetically suited to the change than others, so the individuals without the beneficial genes die out, increasing the frequency of those genes within the population. And that's how, over enough time, one species can evolve into another. It's not that one species suddenly gives birth to another, it's a matter of adaptation and survival. For an extremely simplified example: Why do giraffes have long necks? Because the environment that giraffes live in and the niche they fill favors long necks. Short-necked giraffes wouldn't be able to reach the food, and would die out.

And also, Darwin's theory wasn't perfect! He had no idea about the existence of DNA in his time. He did know that, for his theory to be proven, he would need evidence that traits can be passed from parent to offspring, but without knowing about DNA and how certain traits are coded in genes that are passed on, he was stumped. So yeah, a lot of faulty biology can be found in his writings.

And by the way, all this information comes from what I learned in a basic high school biology course. I don't know what sort of resources you were looking at, because it's really not that difficult of a concept. My explanation is probably kind of confusing because it's pretty simplified (and I haven't been in biology since January), so maybe you could look up some high school biology resources or something.

Anyway, this became a lot more involved than I intended it to be, so I'm just gonna stop talking here.

Hello! I'm not here to review (sorry), but I am here to respond. I am an atheist, and I always have been. The main reason I don't believe in a god or God or any afterlife is that I can't. I just can't see how something like that is possible. There is no scientific or logical explanation to any of it. In my opinion, that's what religion does: explain things. But unlike scientific reasoning, which does the same, I can't find any tangible evidence of it happening. Some things, like the big bang, are still shrouded in mystery. But, you know what? That's okay. There's no way we can know and explain everything now, it would be arrogant to think so. But, before anyone says the same can be said about religion, there's a monumental difference between saying "We think that the universe came from a single particle of infinite energy because of particle accelerators, cosmic microwave background radiation, and red shift. We don't know how the particle came to be." and saying "God created everything. God has always been there."

One last thing on evolution: it's not unprovable. In fact, you might see proof of it every day. All domesticated animals were bread using genetics by humans. We shaped evolution, yes, but it still occurred. And there is fossil evidence for evolution. It's just that the lines between one animal and what that animal evolved into are so thin that there is no 'missing link.'

Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Feltrix

Hey there Keepwring,

MJ here for a quick review because I love this topic and because one more review till my third star! . I love this topic because it's something I feel strongly about and something I'm very motivated to share about and talk about. I believe that there is a God who loves us and wants the best for us, so much so that he sent his son to die on the cross for our sins. However, I feel like there are a lot of people who see the Christian message as, "God's good, you're not, try harder." I'll try to directly address and challenge the points you made in this essay on both sides- a devil's advocate position to try and make your argument stronger. So here are some of my main points:

I read about C.S. Lewis when he was an atheist. He believed in evolution, and the Big Bang Theory as most Atheists do.

However, no fossils have been found even to this day that have been proven to be the links between species

I absolutely believe God exists. Even when my path is tiring or sometimes I feel distant from Him, He's still there all the same. This article made my day! And I'm so glad you're a part of God's family.

And speaking of C.S. Lewis, I love this quote of his from Mere Christianity:
"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

My the Lord bless you, and have a wonderful day!

Hey there Keepwriting and greetings from the After Watch shift. It's just lizzy dropping by real quick, so without a further ado, let the reviewing begin.

I am, as a very dear friend once described me, a Catholic except for the part about believing in God. I have danced around through Christianity and Atheism and also this short period as being Agnostic. And with those facts in mind (as well as the lit mod thing), I feel qualified to review this essay.

Storm has already gone really in depth with the grammar so let's just turn to content. The overall idea of this thing, sounds more like a personal reflection type of essay than anything else. And in that manner, it's not really attractive to me because it sounds more like a search to place blame than anything else. You sort of bounce between a search for personal belief and asking a lot of the audience, which also strikes me as odd. Because this is supposed to be about a personal battle of faith but it doesn't really come off that way, so you may want to re-examine the style of writing this.

And another big thing is, that half of your statements sound offensive to either one party or the other. Take the one in the quote below:

Christians always seemed to blame God for their problems, or look weird in the way that they acted—raising their hands, and swaying in churches.

He was crucified on the cross for the sins of the whole world.

Hello, Fea here to review!

Wow! Awesome essay! The hook was awesome, and it is well-structured with good grammar & punctuation. It's interesting and makes sense to read. The ending with the question is great!

The one typo I caught was the first sentence of the third paragraph where you speak of CS Lewis and his being an atheist; there it says 'he was an Atheists.' It shouldn't be plural ^_^

Personally, I'm an agnostic atheist - I don't believe in a god but I don't deny the fact that there's a possibility one exists. For me, Christianity and the Bible seem to sometimes be illogical or irrational - the main reason I don't believe in it - but I think it's really awesome that you looked at both sides and decided which one worked for you. Kudos to you for finding your own belief and exploring both sides *thumbs up*

Nice work!

~ Fea

Hey, Keepwriting! Storm here with a review, so let's jump right into it!

I'll start the review with this: I am an atheist. I grew up believing in God, but after 13 years, I moved away from it all. I couldn't keep lying to myself and telling myself that I believed anymore. So while I am an atheist, most of my family is Christian and I have a lot of knowledge of the Bible.

My life has never been the sweetest and certainly not as of late because of the struggles of life.

Though I grew up around Christian and Catholic influences, I've always had a mind of my own.

I had to decided for myself whether He was real or not.

I read about C.S. Lewis when he was an Atheists.

Christians always seemed to blame God for their problems, or look weird in the way that they acted—raising their hands, and swaying in churches. I didn’t want to be like that so I looked at evolution.

With evolution studied and found utterly based on theories and supposed "facts" I looked to Christianity.

And with that the conclusion I came to was that both Atheism and Christianity are a faith—the belief in something; and that neither side can prove to the other which is right, but that each and every individual has to decide for himself which is true.

I totally apsolutly and completly believe God exist. I see him everywhere and in every thing. I feel sorry for those who do not believe in heaven and Christ second coming for they have nothing to look foward too. If i didnt believe in God or heaven i would probebly think my life pointles with no perpose, think the world pointless with no perpose but to make evil. I dont see how the Big Bang Theory could be much considerd as the way we where made, where did all the particles and things come from?. I ask this quiston as a christian but a non believer could ask where God came from and my ansewer would be that God didnt come from anywhere, he was the first being to make something come from something else, he created creating so we could understand the process so we could create our own things on earth to survive. God could have made the earh out of nothing, make Adam out of nothing but no he invenented creating so that we might understand better. Its harder to believe that Adam was made of nothing then it is to believe he was made from the ground.

I am also Catholic.

I've always been really curious, always looked for the reason behind things. I'd have to know how something worked, where it came from, or its purpose. So I have moments where I wonder about God, and for the thousandth time, come to the conclusion that it makes no sense for there to NOT be a God.

How does everything come from nothing? It had to come from something. Not something- because how can a THING decide to create without something else to force it to- It'd have to be a someone. And to create everything, that someone would need complete understanding and control of everything that exists or could exist. He would be God, eternal, with no beginning or end. Any other explanation has huge holes. Like you said, where did the particle come from? Where did the rules of science come from? Everything works so perfectly and every little thing has a purpose, so I can't believe in a Big Bang. Makes a lot less sense than the existence of God.

That was really ramble-y, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyways. That is my thought process when I feel some doubt, and I always come back to the fact that there has to be a God. It is the easier choice to believe that we have no purpose. That it all came from nothing, so nothing we do matters. But honestly, it's better to believe that life is more than that. I'd rather live my life with faith and hope, and know I have a purpose- to better myself and the people around me, to love.