Slightly longer answer: JWs convinced me all other religions were false. Then, after being an elder for a dozen years, it became painfully obvious that my religion was also false.
So now they are all false.
The only question left was this: if all religions are false, is there any evidence at all that God exists?
I spent a few years re-examining all of my beliefs, this time without being committed to any particular belief system. That sure made it easier. It actually didn't take very long to come to the obvious conclusion: The evidence is overwhelming that none of the gods that humans have ever worshipped exist, in particular that desert god of the Old Testament.
I'm fond of, and in complete agreement with, Carl Sagan's assessment of the situation:
- The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying ... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.
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This does not, however, make me an atheist. As far as I'm concerned, claiming that there is no God is almost as irrational as claiming there is one. Again, I'll share a succinct comment from Sagan on that point as well:
- An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed. - Conversations with Carl Sagan (2006), edited by Tom Head, p. 70
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