Sceptics’ Circle

One of the first things Nathan discovered during his visits was that all four of his mentors were people of faith. Each one had a different journey with faith, which impacted their lives in different ways. Wildlife Researcher explained that he didn’t believe in God before traveling to Africa. He was a staunch atheist, trusting only in science to explain the world. But, surrounded by majesty, beauty, and childlike faith, the self-confident researcher found a new way of understanding life.

Nathan noticed that not all of the mentors’ friends and colleagues were religious. Nathan reckoned he would better understand how faith had impacted the characters of his four mentors if he first had an idea of the base they departed from—how they would have been thinking if they weren’t religious. To achieve that, he wanted a peek into the minds of their non-believing friends. He discussed this with the four and asked them to introduce him to friends and close acquaintances who did not share their faith. 

Nathan was fascinated by how different the groups of non-Christians were from each other. 

Non-Christian Fishermen

A boat-full or two of Fisherman’s friends would rarely see the inside of a church. Yet, they all believed, without any doubt, in the existence of a higher power. Some of his family and crew members were heavy drinkers, quite crude, easily angered, and enjoyed a good fight. They stubbornly kept on making choices that they themselves believed were sinful. But even the harshest and coarsest had no doubt that a mighty power existed in heaven, Someone or Something greater than the vast seas and in control of the forces of nature. The higher entity they acknowledged was not necessarily the God of the Bible. Fishermen could sometimes be Hindu, Muslim, Animist—or a few other options too.

Some fishermen saw themselves as Christian, but the essence of their faith was so mingled with the veneration of ancestors or spirits that it was challenging to tally them as people of the Book.

Nathan was surprised about the number of superstitious beliefs among fishermen. “Always step onto a boat with your right foot first for good luck, never ever with the left.” “If you get a knife from a friend as a gift, immediately give a small coin to the giver in order to ‘buy’ the knife because a knife accepted as a gift would cut off the friendship.” 

Some of their superstitions caused Nathan to smile. They believed that if you take a boiled egg out to sea, the fish would flee from that boat so that you would get no bites, or if the wind came from a northwesterly direction, it would slam the fish’s mouths shut so they couldn’t take the bait.

Nathan saw that, to fishermen, believing in the invisible was smooth sailing. It was instinctual to believe that there were higher forces in control of life and nature. Some fishermen may anchor their faith in disjointed jumbles of convictions, yet all of them believed in powers in invisible dimensions.

Non-Christian Scientists 

Nathan learned that scientists repeatedly asked two specific questions: 

• “Is it verifiable?” (Can you prove it?)
• “Can it be quantified?” (What are the precise measurements?) 

A significant percentage of Scientist’s friends were atheists. These friends insisted, “Nobody can prove the existence of God.” 

Because there is no proof for the existence of God that moves the pointer on any scientific measuring instrument, religion and God had been categorized in their minds in a mental folder titled Fiction and Wishful Thinking. Religious beliefs, to this group of scientists, stem from times of crises in history when humankind needed a crutch—pre-scientific times when people could not logically explain the natural events around them. Religion today, they believe, is an unhelpful batch of antiquated myths that is way beyond its “use by” date. Their advice to Nathan was, “Believe what can be measured and proven; jettison the rest.” 

Nathan found it interesting that Scientist’s non-Christian friends didn’t all see eye to eye. Some believed that, right at the origin of the universe, before anything existed, there was, by complete and utter chance, an enormous explosion. From that moment, fate, flukes, and happenstance brought everything about that exists in the universe today—and this over an extremely long time.

To some of her friends, it remained an insurmountable problem that there is statistically such an incalculably low probability that fate could have lined up events so perfectly to make matters as complex as our solar system—and especially intelligent life and the organized information encoded in DNA—any possibility at all. Intellectual integrity compelled them to open their minds to alternative possibilities. Their careers in empirical science fully aligned them with Parmenides’s ouden ex oudenos: “Nothing comes from nothing.” The ubiquitous appearance of intricate design, especially in living organisms, goaded them to seriously consider the possibility of peerless intelligence as the source and guiding force of the universe.

• It is not the God of the Bible that they believe in
• Not a personal God
• Not a loving God
• Not a God that humans could ever know or have a relationship with
• It is a power, a force, a super-intellect.

 Non-Christian Artists

Nathan saw that many of Artist’s friends who vocally rejected Christianity and wouldn’t give church a moment’s thought still found themselves drawn to spirituality. Many were intrigued by esoteric ideas and mystical energies. They were interested in cosmic vibrations and careful about karma. They would reject any talk about God, but believed in angels, spiritual guides, and demons. Some would be convinced that crystals radiate healing energy and dream catchers allow pleasant dreams while driving nightmares and menacing spirits away. 

In the minds of Artist’s non-Christian friends, every individual has their own experience and own truth. If anyone desired to believe something entirely different from what all others believed, that would be perfectly fine—even admirable. Everyone has their own reality. 

One artist, deeply touched, with tearing eyes and goosebumps along her forearms, shared her heartfelt conviction with Nathan, “People, whales, and dolphins have souls.” She stayed quiet for a moment to make sure that the weight of what she was revealing had properly sunk in. “All other creatures simply stop existing when they die, but these three—dolphins, people, and whales—when they die continue as conscious identities for eternity.” 

In Artist’s community, if anybody had the desire to, they would be free—and encouraged—to establish their own new religion.

 Non-Christian Researchers

Over the course of his visits, it became clear to Nathan that non-Christian wildlife researchers were people who asked penetrating questions and had a deep desire to do what was good and edifying. 

These researchers strived for what was right in the world. They would go to great lengths to understand how other groups of people think. They could get endlessly frustrated with people who attack each other without ever genuinely trying to understand them. Wildlife researchers could clearly see how wars could be avoided, how poverty could be wiped out, and how we could take better care of nature and of people in need—if people only were willing to put their differences aside and commit to working together rather than wasting energy in endless, senseless, arguments, insults, infighting.

Although personally uncertain about the existence of God, one non-Christian wildlife researcher explained to Nathan that he got far more annoyed with combative, “Dawkins, and Sam Harris-style” fellow atheists than with most believers. Although he didn’t believe in God, he could perfectly understand why others did choose to believe. Though he was no believer, he saw some forms of religion as beautiful and intriguing cultural expressions. He admitted that he was sometimes envious of the special bond that was visible among believers. 

Non-Christian wildlife researchers, Nathan concluded, clearly see both the positive and the negative traits associated with religion and aren’t uncomfortable with the tension between the two.

The memory was an open wound, and he was drowning in doubt.

Deepening Doubts

The fact that his four mentors were people of faith gave Nathan a sliver of hope. The many types of unbelief he saw in their friends and in the world around him caused him to reminisce about the disappointing school reunion and the unsettling experience of God melting away like the snowman near his front door. The memory festered like an open wound. He was drowning in doubt.

Nathan poured out his thoughts in an email to a young doctor in a run-down, overcrowded hospital, where she was working tirelessly, equally devoted to healing the physical and emotional wounds of her patients.

Nathan carefully worded his question:

Culturally, God is melting away in the Western World, like a snowman when the temperatures rise. But believers and atheists would agree: an eternal God cannot melt away. It is a logical fallacy. That leaves only two options:

A. either the people of the West (different than in non-Western cultures surrounding us) are finally intelligent enough to see that there is no God, and there never was, or… 

B. the people of the West are losing all ability to see and recognize the eternal God or to hear and discern his voice.

How would we ever know which is true? A or B?

After reading his email in the middle of the night, the young doctor went down on her knees on the hospital floor and prayed with all her heart.

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