6.04.2010

I Get E-Mail From a 12 Year-Old

I'm sure the parents of the self-identified 12 year-old girl who emailed me would be trilled to know that their daughter is browsing atheist blogs. Here is what she had to say minus her name:
How can you believe there isn\'t a God? Look at the world around you. Look at your body. Who created you? If you don\'t believe in God then how do you think the world was created? If you think it was chemicals, then who created the chemicals?We couldn\'t be made of chemicals as we have feelings and we can think. I believe in God. We have very different views but believing in God has helped me to want to be a good person and I am actually afraid to do bad things as I am afraid of God. If believing in God helps people then religion should stay. If being an atheist helps you to be a good person then please could you tell me how, but I cannot see how. If you do not like the picture below then feel free to take it off (if you put it as a comment on the blog) but that is my veiw.
Unfortunately, the link to a picture you included took me to an error page on Photobucket, so I never got to see it.

I can believe there aren't any gods because there is no evidence that any gods exist. The fact that I exist cannot be evidence that something was necessary to create me because then we would have to ask what created whatever you assume must have created me. So if my existence suggests a god, then the existence of a god would suggest a creator of that god. We'd have to go on and on like that forever. The universe simply is - there is no need to assume it was ever created.

I don't think that believing in god has helped you to be a good person - I'd give your parents, your friends, your school, and your culture credit for that. If you are a good person, you would have been a good person with or without believing in gods.

Being an atheist does not help someone be a good person just like being a Christian does not help someone be a good person. And yet, most atheists and most Christians are good people. Morality (our sense of right and wrong) is independent of religious beliefs.

Look at it this way: if a boy really wants his friend's bicycle and the only reason he doesn't steal it is that he's afraid of being punishment, we wouldn't consider him to be a very good person. But if the boy really wants his friend's bicycle and he doesn't steal it because he knows the other boy would feel bad and he doesn't want to make others feel bad, then we'd consider him to be a good person. Behaving well only to avoid punishment is not really being a good person.

It is too bad that you are afraid of gods. I remember feeling the same way as a child. It was no way to live. I hope you can outgrow it like I did.