Post by Elliot Kane on Mar 4, 2010 12:10:05 GMT
Religion and Me
This is my story of how I came to hold the views on religion and god(s) that I do. It's kind of like my personal journey, if you will. Tell yours if you wish to, comment on mine if you like. Please remember throughout that this is my thought process. Yours may differ
The place where I grew up in England was not very religious and my family, while containing a few Christians, was more of the quiet Church of England type than the 'must convert all!' more vigorous Continental types. As such, while my childhood contained the normal visits to Sunday school and the occasional appearance in church, none of it really took. My peer group at the time had little real interest in religion and that's how it was with me, too. Religion was something that was there and if I'd been pushed I would have supposed that God existed in some form or other, but I never gave it any real thought. I was a kid, after all.
When I hit seventeen, 'The Age Of Reason' arrived for me and my brain started to kick into higher gear. Mostly (Though not quite) through the education system, I had learned something never taught in any school I am aware of - how to think for myself. Religion was not my first priority, but when I got to it at some point in my twenties I had observed the binary nature of the universe and theorised that a binary universe most strongly indicates two deities rather than one. My knowledge of other religions - or possibly my understanding that they existed and the various colours they brought to the tapestry of the world - had increased and I came to the one conclusion that I have ever made with regard to established religions: they are all wrong. Or at the very least, there is no way of telling which if any are right, so you may as well assume they are all wrong.
I had long since worked out the actual point of religion and the tremendous advantage that it gave a people in terms of social cohesion and thus martial dominance. That is, after all, both easy and obvious once you take the very simple step of separating the two unrelated questions: 'Why does religion exist?' and 'Do deities exist?' It is honestly a source of bafflement to me that most people can't seem to see one question without the other getting in the way. But then, different backgrounds breed different understandings, I suppose.
Going through a bad time in my life, I did what a lot of people do: "My life sucks, ergo there is no god!" The childish stupidity of this is embarassing and so I draw a veil over this lapse of thought. My brief flirtation with Atheism. It makes sense if you can see no further than your own nose, but it's clear nonsense once you can. The case for Atheism can be made a lot more cogently than that and it is a source of embarassment to me that I never truly made it during that period of my life when I was Atheist myself. Reason fails most where emotion burns strongest, I suppose.
Not that most of the arguments in favour of any religious position don't begin with 'I Believe That...' in any case, but as someone who likes to think of himself as a man of reason... Well, it's not good, is it?
The Atheist argument - the good one, that is - is simply that there is no proof whatsoever that any deity exists or ever has existed. The more science understands of the world and the way that it works, the more 'mysterious and unexplained' happenings are revealed to be entirely natural and explicable after all. It is not unreasonable tio suppose that some day science will understand the universe sufficiently that it will prove there is no 'god shaped hole' and thus that there are no deities.
Of course, the last part reveals Atheism as what it truly is: a belief, not a logical reasoned argument. It is a belief in science (Or possibly in humanity) rather than a belief in deities, but a belief nonetheless. There are those who claim in mitigation that you cannot prove an absence, but it isn't true. You can prove the traditional Western dragon cannot exist in very short order and the same for most other mythological creatures. It is simply sufficient to look at the science behind such a creature and whether it collapses under its own body weight, rips its wings off when it tries to fly or whatever, the facts are all against the existence of the dragon. Ergo, there are no dragons on Earth, nor were there ever. Granted, proving the non-existence of deities is a lot harder, but Atheism is only a reasoned position once this is done.
As such, being a man of reason, I reject Atheism for the simple reason that I cannot prove it is correct.
Rejecting all the world's religions is a lot easier, though. I have to give Atheists that much. There is simply no actual evidence that any deity has at any time had anything to do with any of them. As such, I reject them all, as I always have done, though for much of my life more through ignorance than knowledge or reason. I hold the existence of religion to be a good thing as it helps to guide those who need it in avoiding self destructive behaviour (They are all designed as guides to life for the societies they serve) and most of all in creating a strong and binding sense of community - a social cohesion unrivalled by any other source. But it is proof of the cleverness of humanity, not the exisence of deities.
The Theist argument - 'there's somethuing up there but we don't know what' - has the advantage that it would be nice to believe in some benign hand(s) watching over us all, (Or possibly intimidating/patronising - choose your viewpoint, here!) but really amounts to wish fulfillment and nothing else. If there is anything out there, there's nothing that says it/they are benign, malign or indeed even care about us poor little humans at all. We could easily be beneath their notice entirely. But the bottom line is, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that there are, were or ever will be deities of any description. Even the existence of the universe itself only proves that at some point something must have caused it to be - not what that thing was, nor whether it still exists. If time travel is possible, it may even be the result of a temporal paradox.
Which brings me to my current position on 'Are There Deities?' - blowed if I know! Which makes me Agnostic. For now. Because there is nothing more annoying to me than having to admit defeat on one of the 'big philosophical questions', and one day... ;D
***
For those of you who find my writing style 'too impersonal', this one is for you. Better the other way, isn't it? ;D
This is my story of how I came to hold the views on religion and god(s) that I do. It's kind of like my personal journey, if you will. Tell yours if you wish to, comment on mine if you like. Please remember throughout that this is my thought process. Yours may differ
The place where I grew up in England was not very religious and my family, while containing a few Christians, was more of the quiet Church of England type than the 'must convert all!' more vigorous Continental types. As such, while my childhood contained the normal visits to Sunday school and the occasional appearance in church, none of it really took. My peer group at the time had little real interest in religion and that's how it was with me, too. Religion was something that was there and if I'd been pushed I would have supposed that God existed in some form or other, but I never gave it any real thought. I was a kid, after all.
When I hit seventeen, 'The Age Of Reason' arrived for me and my brain started to kick into higher gear. Mostly (Though not quite) through the education system, I had learned something never taught in any school I am aware of - how to think for myself. Religion was not my first priority, but when I got to it at some point in my twenties I had observed the binary nature of the universe and theorised that a binary universe most strongly indicates two deities rather than one. My knowledge of other religions - or possibly my understanding that they existed and the various colours they brought to the tapestry of the world - had increased and I came to the one conclusion that I have ever made with regard to established religions: they are all wrong. Or at the very least, there is no way of telling which if any are right, so you may as well assume they are all wrong.
I had long since worked out the actual point of religion and the tremendous advantage that it gave a people in terms of social cohesion and thus martial dominance. That is, after all, both easy and obvious once you take the very simple step of separating the two unrelated questions: 'Why does religion exist?' and 'Do deities exist?' It is honestly a source of bafflement to me that most people can't seem to see one question without the other getting in the way. But then, different backgrounds breed different understandings, I suppose.
Going through a bad time in my life, I did what a lot of people do: "My life sucks, ergo there is no god!" The childish stupidity of this is embarassing and so I draw a veil over this lapse of thought. My brief flirtation with Atheism. It makes sense if you can see no further than your own nose, but it's clear nonsense once you can. The case for Atheism can be made a lot more cogently than that and it is a source of embarassment to me that I never truly made it during that period of my life when I was Atheist myself. Reason fails most where emotion burns strongest, I suppose.
Not that most of the arguments in favour of any religious position don't begin with 'I Believe That...' in any case, but as someone who likes to think of himself as a man of reason... Well, it's not good, is it?
The Atheist argument - the good one, that is - is simply that there is no proof whatsoever that any deity exists or ever has existed. The more science understands of the world and the way that it works, the more 'mysterious and unexplained' happenings are revealed to be entirely natural and explicable after all. It is not unreasonable tio suppose that some day science will understand the universe sufficiently that it will prove there is no 'god shaped hole' and thus that there are no deities.
Of course, the last part reveals Atheism as what it truly is: a belief, not a logical reasoned argument. It is a belief in science (Or possibly in humanity) rather than a belief in deities, but a belief nonetheless. There are those who claim in mitigation that you cannot prove an absence, but it isn't true. You can prove the traditional Western dragon cannot exist in very short order and the same for most other mythological creatures. It is simply sufficient to look at the science behind such a creature and whether it collapses under its own body weight, rips its wings off when it tries to fly or whatever, the facts are all against the existence of the dragon. Ergo, there are no dragons on Earth, nor were there ever. Granted, proving the non-existence of deities is a lot harder, but Atheism is only a reasoned position once this is done.
As such, being a man of reason, I reject Atheism for the simple reason that I cannot prove it is correct.
Rejecting all the world's religions is a lot easier, though. I have to give Atheists that much. There is simply no actual evidence that any deity has at any time had anything to do with any of them. As such, I reject them all, as I always have done, though for much of my life more through ignorance than knowledge or reason. I hold the existence of religion to be a good thing as it helps to guide those who need it in avoiding self destructive behaviour (They are all designed as guides to life for the societies they serve) and most of all in creating a strong and binding sense of community - a social cohesion unrivalled by any other source. But it is proof of the cleverness of humanity, not the exisence of deities.
The Theist argument - 'there's somethuing up there but we don't know what' - has the advantage that it would be nice to believe in some benign hand(s) watching over us all, (Or possibly intimidating/patronising - choose your viewpoint, here!) but really amounts to wish fulfillment and nothing else. If there is anything out there, there's nothing that says it/they are benign, malign or indeed even care about us poor little humans at all. We could easily be beneath their notice entirely. But the bottom line is, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that there are, were or ever will be deities of any description. Even the existence of the universe itself only proves that at some point something must have caused it to be - not what that thing was, nor whether it still exists. If time travel is possible, it may even be the result of a temporal paradox.
Which brings me to my current position on 'Are There Deities?' - blowed if I know! Which makes me Agnostic. For now. Because there is nothing more annoying to me than having to admit defeat on one of the 'big philosophical questions', and one day... ;D
***
For those of you who find my writing style 'too impersonal', this one is for you. Better the other way, isn't it? ;D
) We moved to a 5 room house with electricity but had no TV until I was about 10 or 11 and my family had no telephone until I was 25 and had 8 years in the US Navy.
) raping the land—will, in the end, pay the consequences.