I was raised as a Christian, and while I definitely believe in a higher power of some sort, there are a lot of reasons why I wish I could let that belief go. As a side note, before I go any further, I've always been envious of atheists, because they usually come across as being a lot more well-versed on all angles and types of religions than many religious folks, who prefer to only comprehend the bits of their chosen religion which make it look favorable, even though they still have a wonderful way of striking terror into the hearts of all who don't see things exactly as they do. now, this isn't all religious people, mind you, but there are enough of them that this is a real concern.
There are a lot of things about the Christian faith which don't sit well with me. First, there are denominations. Why are there so many? Even if we exclude the bitterness between Catholics and Protestants, which apparently is still a real thing, why should we nitpick over whether someone is Methodist, Lutheran, or whatever else? We're all reading the same Bible, or are we? How do you even know which Bible you should read, given all the translations there are now? Surely one of them has to be the true word of God, but there has never been any consensus on that. More to the point, what is the point of squabbling over minor differences between denominations when supposedly churches are open places where all are welcome? What is that supposed to accomplish, and who holds the trump card that grants them eternal life if all others are going to hell? It's a numbers game, and a rigged one at that.
next, as others have said, there's the fact that children are often frightened into believing things that are well beyond their comprehension. I won't go into detail about this on a public forum, but I bear some serious emotional scars from things that were done to me as a kid in regards to religion and demon possession. Even without that, I think I'd still have grown up to be uncomfortable with the idea of baptizing babies specifically. If one is complicit in their sin, how can they choose the path their life will follow if they can't even remember being saved? If someone wants to get baptized at any point where they can consent and understand what the process means, then more power to them, but I think it's very wrong to basically doom an innocent infant who can't even think for themselves yet.
In that same vein, here's a scenario I've been turning over in my mind for quite some time, and I can't find a satisfactory answer for it. I've asked a friend of mine what she thought, but I left that conversation feeling even more distraught than when I went in, which I'll explain after I've finished laying out the scenario.
Suppose a kid goes into a store and decides to steal a candy bar. Not out of any malicious intent, he simply lacked impulse control, saw something he was hungry for, and took it. Walking home, maybe feeling a bit smug, munching on his prize, he encounters a predator who kidnaps him and does unspeakable things to him which eventually leads to the death of the child. In a twist of fate, or karma, the predator also gets killed days later, let's say he gets hit by a car. Now, according to Christianity, both are going to be tortured eternally. Both stealing and murder are breaking the ten commandments, and even so, sin is sin or so I've been told. No sin is greater than another, it's all viewed the same in God's eyes. But let's pull back a second. Not only are we talking about someone who molested a child, which is one of the filthiest things a human can do, what if that child had a bad home life, and wasn't necessarily taught that stealing was wrong, or he was legitimately hungry? Even if the child doesn't have a sob story, he's still just a kid, and I can almost guarantee that we've all stolen some tiny trinket or other from a store at some point in our lives, or at least imagined it. And yet, all sin is created equal, and all sinners will be punished equally. Just thinking about it is making me nauseous.
As for the conversation I had with my friend, she basically confirmed that in that situation, they would both go to hell, although she seemed to believe that if the child was taught that stealing was wrong and chose to do it anyway, his punishment would be just, while if he was raised in a faithless or otherwise bad home and/or community and didn't know better, he would be given a chance. Since this runs so painfully counter to anything the Bible teaches, I can only assume she wanted me to forget about the subject and sweep it under the rug. Up until that point, it had been an idle, though disturbing thought. With that dismissal, it became something I couldn't stop thinking about, like an awful song that plays on a loop in your head and won't go away no matter how hard you try to banish it.
So, after all of this ranting, you'd think I would be an atheist, right? Wrong. You see, I do believe in a higher power, even if it isn't the Christian God. And whatever that power is has the ability to create and destroy lives, and entire galaxies. That's scary as hell to me, pardon the pun. Many things can be explained by science, but not all, least of all our essences, our souls, if you will. Lots of personality traits are developed as we learn, grow, and gain life experience, but our general temperament is something we're born with, as well as certain quirks or oddities we may have. If that doesn't come from a higher power, then I don't know what does. I don't necessarily believe we're made in the image of said power, because that opens a whole other confusing can of worms, but we absolutely get our base traits from somewhere, and that can't all be explained by genetics. Science can't even come to a conclusion about what causes mental illness, because it's usually a shit-filled cocktail of components that are out of our control. So how can I not think that something out there is pulling the strings? As I said before, atheists are actually very lucky, because they don't have to wrestle with such questions, although I suppose some did in order to get to the point where they're comfortable in their nonbelief. If I could get to a point where my belief wasn't about 95% based on fear, I'd probably be a better person, but as it stands, the fact that no one can ever truly know what happens after we die, or what is out there, will always keep me in that comfort zone at least somewhat, because the idea of picking the wrong thing is even worse than the thought of possibly having been misinformed all along.
The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.