Why we moved to Costa Rica, Part 1: Atheism and aliens.

The number 1 question we always get asked about our move to Costa Rica, and the hardest for me to answer, has been "Why?"

I've noticed that I modify my answer based on who is asking, and how uncomfortable I think the honest answer might make them. But part of the reason for this move was to find a community where I felt comfortable living more authentically, so it feels like its time to start being fully honest when I'm asked.

This might sound ridiculous, but if you're going to pull the thread all the way back, our move to central america all started with aliens...stay with me here

I had watched an episode of the Daily Show featuring an ex-Pentagon official, and he basically says "Yes, aliens are real!" And at the end of the episode I was left feeling like Hmm ok, maybe they are? But the point is that it had opened my mind just a tiny crack. What else had I been dismissing that I could be wrong about?

I was staunchly atheist, the physical world was all there was to it. The big bang happened and everything since then has been a wonderful coincidence. If Stephen Hawking and Neil Degrasse Tyson don't believe in God, why would I? But if I now believe alien life could be possible, what else am I missing? What about God?

So I started where I felt comfortable. Literally Googling "Did any smart scientists believe in God?" And they did. Einstein, Tesla, Max Planck, the Nobel prize winning physicist, father of quantum physics. And they're not talking about god like a bearded man in the sky. They're speaking in terms of energy and vibrations and consciousness...and I'm thinking wow you guys are sounding a little woo-woo to me.

I start reading books like The Physics of God and I stumble upon the declassified CIA report describing the mechanics of consciousness, and suddenly this combination of science and god is kind of working for me. I feel like its answering a lot of questions that I hadn't really had a satisfying answer to before. And around this time I start experiencing odd things in our house that had me scratching my head.

Continued in Part 2.