Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science

by Mike McHargue

I know what it’s like to trust only in what you can support with empirical evidence.

to know right from wrong without the aid of divine laws, instead relying on careful examination of how human actions can violate others’ consent and produce suffering.

I met Jesus, who saved my soul, and computers, which saved my life.

I spent so much time analyzing God that I didn’t have time to experience Him. Over time, this caused the feelings I had about God to fade.

“For God so loved the world” seems absurd from the Voyager’s vantage point.

What possible significance does the salvation of humankind hold?

What miracle is parting a sea in the face of a supernova? What power lies in an empty tomb when you compare it to nebulae that are hundreds of light-years in diameter, giving birth to stars?

There’s no angry man in the sky to smite you for making the wrong choices, and no savior to bail you out if you screw it up.

Humanism made me feel more comfortable pretending to be a Christian on Sundays.

I had the conviction that God was a comforting fairy tale told by apes smart enough to know they’ll die one day.

This group seemed far less prone to magical thinking than did my church back home.

I’d never heard Christians speak with such knowledge about secular ideas. Rob and these other Christians had a genuine appreciation for the good things that science—and a respect for empirical evidence—brings to society.

Science is based on recorded observation. We can’t repeat the Big Bang; we merely observe evidence that indicates it happened. Likewise, any ‘miracle’ would leave a mark on the physical world that we could test and observe.”

If you’re a Christian who wonders what to do with someone who’s in doubt, consider these words carefully: Love and grace speak loudly.

I felt there was some way to make peace with religion and to better understand what works about it.

The Eucharist reminds us that we, too, can be set aside, be made holy and sacred. We are set aside for a special purpose. Like Jesus, we are to be broken and poured out for the healing of others. That sounded beautiful to me. It sounded like humanism.

I don’t know what your relationship to the Bible is.

I can’t unlearn all the things that made me believe you aren’t real.

So let’s make a deal. I will try to do the best I can to do good in this world. I will serve others, and I will work against suffering. But I have to keep asking these questions about your justice and mercy. And I can’t forget about science.

I knew this idea of God was decidedly heretical to many Christians. I didn’t care.

God is at least the set of forces that created and sustain the universe.

The unbelieving brain has no God construct, no neurological model for processing spiritual ideas and experiences in a way that feels real.

neurotheology treats doubt as a neurological condition and would instead encourage people to imagine any God they can accept, and then pray or meditate on that God, in order to reorient the person’s neurological image of God back toward the experiential parts of the brain.

this insight was the most significant turning point in my return to God.

research says that you can start by pretending God is real, giving your brain something to work (or play!) with as you build a new neurological image of God.

God is at least the natural forces that created and sustain the universe as experienced via a psychosocial model in human brains that naturally emerges from innate biases. Even if that is a comprehensive definition for God, the pursuit of this personal, subjective experience can provide meaning, peace, and empathy for others.

God may be nothing more than a way that human brains interpret reality, but that experience is beneficial.

It’s a way for doubters to practice faith without feeling

the most corrosive form of religious doubt: an obsession with analyzing God as a fact.

These days, my intercessory prayers are an act of surrender—a way to voice my hopes and my hopelessness, my power to act and my powerlessness.

When I pray for things I hope for, I am searching for ways I can act to make a situation better. When I pray in situations I find hopeless, I’m searching for that redemptive perspective.

Studies have shown that people who pray to God about problems in this way achieve a positive emotional effect, similar to if they’d seen a therapist.

contemplative prayer is a nonverbal experience. It’s the act of being still before God. In contemplative prayer, the goal isn’t to petition God to act, but to be in God’s presence.

prayer is a type of meditation, because it produces remarkably similar brain activity and long-term effects.

In other words, if you want to know God, prayer doesn’t come after you’ve answered every one of your nagging questions.

That’s why the words at least are so critical. I’m not boxing anything in. I’m just stating what I can comfortably support empirically.

if I admit freely that it could all simply be happening in my head, it helps set my doubts at bay and gives me the space to keep praying—and in so doing, to keep God deeply rooted in my brain.

by simply participating in prayer exercises over time, she primed her brain for the kinds of experiences that are the heartbeat of every major religion.

Just remember, the benefits of prayer are available to you even if you don’t believe.

Trial after trial validate meditation’s power in shaping our emotions, our minds, and even our beliefs and behaviors.

“God sent himself in the form of his own son to sacrifice himself to himself so that he could save humanity from himself.”

To accept one person’s claim of revelation without evidence is to accept them all.

Jesus is at least a man so connected to God that He was called the Son of God, and the largest religious movement in human history is centered around His teachings. Even if this is all Jesus is, following His teachings can promote peace, empathy, and genuine morality.

a person who provokes that response is a person who’s probably worth paying attention to.

You can be skeptical about the Resurrection and still have an encounter with Jesus that’s life-changing.

I don’t know for sure whether Jesus rose from the dead.

I didn’t necessarily invite Jesus “into my heart,” as the saying goes. Instead, Jesus lives in my anterior cingulate cortex, the seat of compassion. He reduces my tendency toward selfishness, anger, and fear.

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Sin is at least volitional action or inaction that violates human consent or produces human suffering. Sin comes from the divergent impulses between our lower and higher brain functions and is accelerated by our evolution-driven tendency to do things that serve ourselves and our tribe. Even if this is all sin is, it is destructive and threatens human flourishing.

Every blade of grass, every tree, every bush, every microscopic algae on this planet is a resurrected form of the Sun’s energy.

But I knew it was time to go when I died a little inside every Sunday. I knew the time had come to move on when others were being hurt by the simple act of me being who I was.