Do you have doubts about your rejection of religious claims?
I do, every now and then. I think to myself that most of the world's population - could they all be wrong? They all think some kind of god(s) exist - could they
all be wrong?
In the end I realise that yes, they
could all be wrong. Regarding gods and the fine details, we know that most of them
are wrong. If Christians are right, Muslims are wrong. And if Jews are right, Christians are wrong. And so forth. So there's no reason they
all can't be wrong about the most basic belief, the one they all share - that there is some deity out there.
But, of course, they all
could be right. Maybe there
is some divine being or beings and all is part of some ineffable plan. I know of nothing logically impossible in that idea. And maybe that being is the Christian one - perhaps even the conservative 'Christian' one, and gay people really are all hellbound and trans people are a violation of God's will. Again, I know of nothing logically impossible in that idea.
But in the end I have to come back to the one thing I absolutely know. Like Descartes, cogito, ergo sum. And given that I exist, all I can do is rely on my best perception of what is and my evaluation of that as evidence - for everything. Nobody, I believe, can do less. If I perceive rain outside, I take that as evidence that if I go out, I'll get wet. Nobody sane takes it as evidence that if they go out they'll stay dry. Everybody works to the best of their ability to evaluate the evidence that they perceive.
And when it comes to the existence of gods, the best of my ability to evaluate the evidence that I perceive tells me that there is insufficient evidence to believe in any gods. There may be
some evidence - you might say that every holy book is
some evidence for that god's existence - but it is not sufficient to warrant belief.
And if, when I die, I find that there is some god or other there, staring me in the face, I'll be able to say truthfully that I did the best with the evidence I perceived and the evaluation of that evidence using the brain that it gave me. If that sends me to Hell, or Hades or Tartarus or Gehenna or Gre'thor, then I'll go.
But given the mind I have - the mind that, if there's a god, it gave me - how can I do other?