Mulahad
Mulahad, arabic for “atheist” (Image license: CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sometimes when people state their reasons for not believing in a personal God, it makes me wonder how arbitrary these can be.
A good example is this quote from Timothy Leary:
Monotheism is the primitive religion which centers human consciousness on Hive Authority. There is One God and His Name is ______ (substitute Hive-Label). If there is only One God then there is no choice, no option, no selection of reality. There is only Submission or Heresy. The word Islam means “submission”. The basic posture of Christianity is kneeling. Thy will be done.
from The Intelligence Agents (1996)
For Leary it is all a matter of personal preference. His statement expresses a certain indignation towards the idea of a personal God and he is not willing to humble himself before such a God.
He argues that a personal God cannot exist because that would require submission and it would also mean that he would not be free to choose and select his own reality.
Humility is one the main characteristics of a relationship with God. Prayer is an expression of humility: “God please help me, I can do nothing about it”
Jesus has supposedly said:
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
And again he has said:
Most certainly I tell you, unless you turn, and become as little children, you will in no way enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever therefore humbles himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Leary's own religion therefore is quite different and he gives us some advice on how we should be practicing our religion:
If you are serious about your religion, if you really wish to commit yourself to the spiritual quest, you must learn how to use psychochemicals. Drugs are the religion of the twenty-first century. Pursuing the religious life today without using psychedelic drugs is like studying astronomy with the naked eye because that's how they did it in the first century A.D., and besides telescopes are unnatural.
from “The Seven Tongues of God”
For him the “spiritual quest” and the “religious life” consist in using drugs to explore extraordinary states of consciousness. He believes that truth can only be found there.
Disliking submission he ruled out the possibility of a personal God from the start, so there's nothing to verify for him but consciousness, feelings and ecstasy.
Now you could say it's just as arbitrary to believe in God as well. Kind of, but for me personally there are more indications now that prompt me to believe that God exists than the opposite.