My brother challenged me

My brother Perry (left in the picture) had multiple myeloma (a.k.a. Kahler's disease) and succumbed to it on August 29th (in fact to the side effects of trying to mitigate it). It's still unreal and hard to imagine that he's no longer with us and it still pains me everyday.

He and I were polar opposites regarding religion. I am an atheist and he was a creationist. This is usually sufficient for a break in the relationship but his (and my) brotherly love trumped this difference of opinion. We had plenty of discussions which generally ended in his disappointment of my "stubbornness" and I understood that because from his point of view he was trying to save my immortal soul. Still I don't want to lie about my convictions, most of all not to myself. It seems I am the cause of him going full blown creationism because I once challenged him with the necessity of Jesus coming to earth if there was no actual original sin. By the end he was a cover to cover literal Bible believer. I went the other way but I won't repeat the reason for that in this blog post (see the first post on this blog).

In March of 2020 he came to stay with me in the Netherlands to receive a treatment for his multiple myeloma which had been diagnosed shortly before. Since he was in a bad shape he created a sound file with the request that I listen to it after his demise. I thought is was an instruction for his funeral or something like that. It wasn't. It was a challenge to me. He recovered quite a bit from the treatment and returned home to his family. By then I asked him if I should destroy the file. He wanted me to keep it because it might still be needed on a later date. That date came in August this year. I've re-listened to it a number of times and it drives me to tears or close to it every time i do.

Some more necessary background: I am a prostate cancer patient and had a prostatectomy in 2018. I have the best of care I could wish for, but there seems to still be some metastasis because my PSA concentration keeps rising slowly. I've had two PSMA scans (i.e., prostate specific PET scans, one of them likely premature) but neither showed the location of a metastasis. I received radiation therapy of the prostate area because the rising PSA might be due to micro metastases which are not easily visible via such a scan. That did not help so we'll have to wait for the cells to grow to visibility so that the treatment can be directed properly.
A second thing to mention is that I once participated in a prayer experiment. The details of which can be found here. The bottom line is, the experiment was negative.

Now for my brother's challenge. He referred to my previous experiment and the many discussions we had but had a last request. He asked me to do a PSA test. If it was anything except 0.000, he said "he rests his case" but if it was, that I please consider Jesus so he could see me again. At his funeral I said I would and meant every word of it. I was due to do a PSA test anyway. The day before I was due to have my blood drawn for the test I prayed the following (original in Dutch):

Lord God, I pray to you but I don't believe you exist. If you exist I do want to know that. If you exist I'm not sure I will worship you. For that many questions have yet to be answered but your existence is a precondition to that. Perry was your servant. Perry was convinced of your existence and Perry wants me to share that conviction. For that Perry challenged me to do a PSA test and expect a PSA value of, as he said, 0.000. I want to ask you that the next PSA test for which I will have my blood drawn tomorrow, shows that value. If that is the case, I will believe in your existence. And if I am not entitled to be healed of prostate cancer, then let it be a measurement error like the second measurement after my prostatectomy was likely a measurement error but let this time show that value. If that is the case I will believe in your existence and from there we can build to me possibly also becoming your servant. I pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.

The test showed an exact doubling of the value that I measured nine months earlier.

All this strengthened my disbelieve. If the Christian god would not grant the wish of his die hard servant who professed his believe his whole adult live, then either he does not exist or he's not worth considering. I think I have the right to say that I've done way more than most to open up to be convinced, except for believing first (which would constitute circular reasoning). I also will no longer subject myself to challenges by Christians, however well meaning they are. Let them try really disbelieving in God for two weeks first. Maybe then they will have a slight idea where I stand. And if the Christian god actually exists and he's omniscient and omnipotent and he wants me to know he exists, he should have the knowledge and means to convince me.

So we're back to square one. My brother died a creationist Christian, I am still an atheist and a strong atheist regarding the Christian god, but I do miss my brother like crazy and loved him to no end.