50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (24 page)

How does one dispute a believer's claim that they saw a god,
heard a god, or in some way felt a god without insulting the believer?
I have found that it is not easy to have a respectful well-meaning
conversation about such claims. No matter how gently the challenge
is delivered, believers tend to interpret it as an accusation that they
are either lying, unintelligent, or mentally ill. It is a tough position
for a nonbeliever to be in, particularly one who genuinely cares
about the feelings of believers. For example, when a believer says
"God spoke to me," My first instinct is to ask whether or not it was
an actual audible voice that was heard or possibly just the believer's
own thoughts that were incorrectly attributed to a god. But some
believers have interpreted that as rude and insulting. The polite nonbeliever must navigate carefully through a minefield to get anywhere
with this one.

One believer told me that he had heard the actual voice of his god.
He said the words were audible and could have been captured by a
voice recorder if one had been available at the time. I asked him how
he was sure that the incident was not imagined or some sort of hallucination. I reminded him that many people see and experience things
that are not real every day around the world. It does not mean that they
all are mentally ill or lack intelligence. The human brain is not reliable
100 percent of the time. Brains make mistakes. We are all capable of
misinterpreting events, misremembering events, and imagining things
that are not there. I asked the believer who said he heard a god how he
can be sure that he did not imagine it. It was at this point that I began
to sense his rising irritation and decided not to push any further. So
how does one question this amazing but common claim of personal
contact with a god? I believe there is a way.

There is a crucial fact about the phenomenon of believers feeling
or hearing a god that cripples it as an argument for the existence of
gods. When they understand it, honest believers have little choice but
to rethink their position. It turns out that there is nothing unusual about
sensing the presence of things that do not really exist. To prove this we
only have to look at the claims of believers themselves. It may surprise
believers who do not know much about other religions but claims of
personal contact with gods are common, close to universal in human
culture. And it's nothing new. Believers have been claiming to hear
gods and feel the presence of gods for thousands of years. People who
make this claim today must recognize that countless millions of other
believers have felt or heard different gods. This is key: different god,
same experience. This is a strong indication that believers are
reporting some kind of psychological event that is common to the
human mind rather than evidence of actually making contact with
gods. Suppose, for example, a man hears Allah or an angel tell him to
convert to Islam. Is this proof that Allah is real and Islam is the only
true religion? A typical Christian might be too skeptical to agree with
that, especially if she recently heard the voice of Jesus calling her to
Christianity. And what about the animist believer who hears the voice of a god speak to him when the wind blows at night? What about tribal
people who say they were visited by animal spirits during a vision
quest?

The Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Jews, animists, Rastafarians,
ancient Greeks, and so forth who claimed to have made contact with
their gods cannot all be right about what they experienced. The only
explanation that works is that most, if not all, of the believers who
claim to have heard, seen, or felt a god are honestly mistaken about
what they experienced. This does not mean that people who make
these claims are lying, dumb, or crazy. It simply means they are
human.

There is a tremendous amount of psychological energy that comes
into play when the fires of religion heat up the human mind. Many
believers cry, convulse, speak unknown "languages," laugh uncontrollably, or scream during worship rituals. It is stunning to see adults,
tears streaming down their cheeks, wave their hands at the sky and
shout up to their god. Yes, some are probably just going along with the
crowd, trying to fit in and follow the script. But I am willing to believe
that many of them really are experiencing a powerful psychological
event in their minds. Some of the behavior that I have observed was
too intense to be explained as a conscious performance, in my judgment. I have seen, for example, believers' bodies vibrate and twitch
with a speed and intensity that would be impossible for most people to
fake. I was convinced that there was a genuine explosion of excitement and emotion going on in their minds while under the spell of religion. It is not farfetched to suspect that a belief capable of generating
such mental fireworks can also occasionally generate hallucinations.

Consider alien abductions. There are people who claim to have
been kidnapped by aliens. The most common theme involves victims
being immobilized, taken away, studied, and then returned. Just as it
is with believers of gods, however, no alien abduction victim has ever
produced any evidence to back up their story. So, how do godbelievers feel about alien abduction claims? Some accept them as true,
undoubtedly, but many are skeptical enough to have doubts. They probably would suggest that the person is either making it up or had
some kind of a dream that only seemed real to them. But why do these
god-believers have a double standard? If one person hears or sees a
god and that is considered proof that the particular god is real, then
why can't we consider alien abduction stories to be proof that extraterrestrial beings are here on earth snatching and probing people at
will?

My advice to believers who are sure they felt a god or heard a
god's voice is to be skeptical and remember that believers have been
hearing those same whispers from many gods for many centuries.

ne of the benefits of believing in a god who cares about you
is the reassurance that you are watched over and protected by
the most powerful being in the universe. As a child, I often asked for
protection from the god that I believed in (or at least tried very hard to
believe in). I didn't hesitate to ask for help when I was desperate,
whether it was to shield me from disaster on a tough math test or to
react fast enough to line drives hit my way while playing shortstop in
Little League. I can't remember how reassuring those silent prayers
might have been but I assume they served some purpose or I probably
would not have bothered. But as the years went by I learned that the
god my immediate society told me about was only one of many gods.
And the way I was taught to worship this god was just one of many
ways to worship him. By the time I reached my early twenties it
dawned on me that none of these gods seemed very real and worshipping them in any way didn't seem like a very wise use of time. So
there I was, all alone in the world with no gods to protect me as I made
my way through life. Was I scared? Was I terrified of facing adversity,
failures, and misfortune all by myself? Not at all. I figured I had
already been on my own all those years before, whether I had realized
it or not. Nothing had changed except my perception. How could I
miss what was never really there?

In the 1990s I completed a long solo journey around the world. For
month after month I had no friends, family, or gods to keep me company or watch my back. It was just me and my Lonely Planet travel
books. I don't want to make it more than it was but there were a few
dangerous and difficult moments along the way. In Africa, for example,
I was struck with a mysterious fever while on a poor man's safari in
Kenya. I was terrified that I might have contracted malaria or something
worse. I spent an entire day on my back trembling uncontrollably in a
tiny tent far from any towns or hospitals. It was not the best of times for
me. My brain was close to cooking and I wondered if this was going to
be the end of me. That night, I left my tent to urinate in the bushes. I felt
a little better and the cool night air was a welcome change from the stifling tent. I believed that I was going to be okay and foolishly wandered
a few hundred yards from my campsite. At some point during the walk
I blacked out and collapsed in the tall grass. I awoke some time later in
the night to discover a Masai warrior standing over me. It was a scary
situation. I couldn't tell if he was planning to kill me or ask if I knew
the latest World Cup results. Looking up from my submissive position
in the grass, the tall man looked extraordinarily fearsome. I still clearly
remember how his metal spear tip sparkled in the moonlight. After a
long and awkward period of staring at each other and exchanging a few
mutually incomprehensible words, I decided that I needed to appear a
bit more manly and less of a pushover in case this was going to turn
ugly. So I rose to my feet, inflated my chest and tried to look as confident and capable as any sickly, dehydrated, and disoriented man can
look. The Masai said something. I forced a smile and slowly backed
away while still facing him. Fortunately, he let me go without any confrontation and I made it back to my campsite.

The next morning the Masai man came to the camp and spoke with
my safari guide. It turns out that he had found me lying there in the
bush, easily the most pathetic tourist in all of Africa that night. He said
he guarded me for a couple of hours while I slept off my daze because
a lion was prowling nearby and he believed I was in serious danger. I
was happy to be able to thank him for his kindness. I did not think about it until much later, but throughout the ordeal of sickness and
even when I awoke in the bush in the shadow of that scary spear tip, I
never once prayed for a god to help me. Somehow, I found the strength
to ride out both the fever and the fear all by myself.

One day in Nepal I was feeling exceptionally strong and ambitious
so I made a spontaneous decision to climb a mountain-by myself. I
was very fit and it was a tiny mountain by Himalayan standards so it
didn't seem like a foolhardy thing to attempt. To my surprise, however, reaching the summit almost killed me. Not that it wasn't worth
it. Atop my own personal Himalayan hill, I experienced the unusual
joy of standing inside a cool cloud as it lingered in the sky. My natural
high faded fast, however, when I discovered that some twenty leeches
had infiltrated my pants. Fortunately they had made it no higher than
my knees, so I suppose it could have been much worse. The little
beasts were firmly attached to my legs and some were even inside my
socks. One white sock had turned completely red, soaked through with
my blood because I unknowingly had crushed a couple of bloated
leeches while climbing. I was too tired to panic but it was a bad feeling
to have so many creatures simultaneously feasting on my blood.

Apparently the stealthy little monsters had slithered up my pant
legs during the climb through the thick bush at the base of the mountain. As I stared in disbelief at my leech-covered lower legs, I realized
that I was out of drinking water and starting to feel very thirsty, a condition that probably was accelerated by the high altitude. I felt
exhausted in a way I had never before experienced. Nepal is a beautiful country with a fascinating culture and lovely people but it never
seemed to have quite enough oxygen to suit my taste. I suddenly realized that I had to get off this mountain before the sun set or I would
have serious problems finding my way back to the village in the dark.
So I peeled off the leeches as gently as I could and let them go. (No
reason to kill creatures for doing what they have to do, I figured.) After
enjoying my moment on the summit and breathing in a bit of that
cloud, I raced down the mountain. My legs ached and my lungs struggled to keep up. I moved as fast as I could without being reckless. Halfway down I was still terrified that I wouldn't beat the sunset. But
all I could do was keep moving. Interestingly, never once did I feel the
need to ask a god for help. I just kept putting one foot in front of the
other until I arrived at where I needed to be.

I never would have imagined that one could be surrounded by
millions of people and feel lonely. But I was. Worn down by weeks
of travel, risky food, and the constant barrage of con men, the dusty
backstreets of Asia almost broke me. There was one haunting night
in a rundown hotel in New Delhi, India, that I won't soon forget. I
didn't cry that night but I'm sure it was only because I was too tired
to work up a tear. I had always believed that I could handle loneliness better than most. I love being alone. It's the best time for
reading, writing, and thinking. Solitude had always been so good to
me. I never imagined that I needed people around me all the time the
way so many others seem to. That long night in India revealed how
wrong I was. I was more lonely than I had ever been in my life. I was
in pain. But I never asked a god to comfort me. I just laid back in the
filthiest bed I had ever seen, stared up at the bug-infested ceiling,
and began planning how I would make tomorrow a better day.