In Normal Conditions

I have to admit I’m not a huge chemistry fan. I feel better with literature, history and social sciences. I won’t say that chemistry is not important when it comes to understand the world that surrounds us, but it’s not something that I enjoy. Same thing with math

I want a math teacher like Winnie Cooper

But there is something I remember pretty well. Every time we had to solve some exercise, the teacher pointed out this was in “normal conditions", meaning that it was at sea level, with 1 atmosphere of pressure and gravity of 9.8. To do the experiment in other conditions would have the elements behaving differently and get a biased result.

I think something like that happens with religion. Surely, many of you have had a discussions with an acquaintance or relative, usually older, who after a lot of problems and difficulties gets to be a successful person and thinks has the answer for everything. They will tell you that you don’t believe in God because “you haven’t suffered enough”.

If this is the case, it would certainly be wrong to disdain all the effort a person has done to succeed, especially in the very competitive we live in nowadays, especially considering there are many who would not strive for a better life than the one they already have. But it would also be wrong to just agree to anything this person says.

That someone who has suffered greatly believes in God is no proof for its existence, especially considering the number of educated people, regardless their economic status, who don’t believe in it. These people, who have suffered and worked hard, have had to use anything to keep afloat. Many times, they will have to use the placebo effect that religion provides, that everything will be ok, that everything happens for a reason, and that God loves us.

But this suffering, instead of helping to see things clearly, cause us to see them desperately. The cool that is needed to understand and analyze reality is lost. This is why the argument from personal experience is more a fallacy than anything when it comes to prove God’s existence, or explain why a person doesn’t believe with “he or she hasn’t suffered enough”

He hasn’t have it very easy. Yet, he doesn’t need God.

I have had my shared of those who tell me that because I’ve had a fairly nice life, I don’t believe in God, and that if I suffered a little bit more, I would believe. All the contrary, I would say the life I’ve had has helped me to keep my cool, analyze and keep my skepticism towards the existence of a God.