Not a court reporting post. Stop reading if you don’t want to talk religion.
I don’t talk about it often, but I was raised Catholic, and I found a lot of value in that. It’s hard to describe having a connection to God to those that have never experienced it. It feels warm and special.
Harder still is it to describe what would lead one away from that connection. I think I was 14. With regard to the federal restriction of funding of stem cell research, I felt very strongly that restrictions on such research were poorly thought, particularly if those restrictions were for religious reasons. I thought, clearly, if God gave us free will and gave us all this wonderful science to uplift mankind, surely he wanted us to use it, cure the sick, and create a world devoid of suffering.
If heaven is free of suffering, and we are made in God’s image, isn’t it natural that we should want heaven on Earth? I think if we’re honest, most of us would wish it on ourselves. Why not others?
But my awareness of the world grew, and I came to know that there were many who would not be satisfied with heaven on Earth. There were many that enjoyed the suffering of others, especially if circumstances were right.
(As best I understand, we have in groups and out groups in our psychology. The New York implicit bias charge explains it better than I do.)
And I started to look at this world and the many, many things that happen in it. Some of the better moments can feel supernatural, like, this must be God.
But oh, my God, when you look at some of the horrible stuff that happens to people that don’t deserve it. Look at some of the Epstein stuff. The world’s richest and most powerful people were cool with it. What on God’s Earth?
And so I came to the conclusion that if God was all powerful, he was letting a lot of stuff like this happen, and, well, better to disbelieve than worship an evil God.
The interesting thing about this self-imposed atheism is that I still found myself in a state of belief at times.
Take, for example, my medical issue in 2021. There were many ways I could have ended up injured or killed. Instead, I survived, my union protected my job, and I met the love of my life two months later. There’s got to be a God to set all that in motion, right?
But then why me? What makes me so special? That I should just be lucky / blessed enough to be born to a white middle class Staten Island family in 1990 while so many starve and suffer across the world and in our country.
And if there is a God, only he knows why I spend time thinking about it. Maybe I really believe that it’ll lead to something profound.
I can’t shake the feeling that if there is a God he’d want me to tell the world he gave us free will so we could make heaven on Earth. This is human nature 101, we imagine things and then make them happen. From cave paintings to rocket ships in less than 64,000 years. So imagine a world with explosive investment in all the things that make us better people? I just think the returns are too great to pass up for all of us and our children.
We live in a world with real problems and it’s going to take a lot of courage and investment to solve them. I just hope we elect leaders that are willing to try.
And with whatever resources life grants me, I’ll do my part.