Last time, 'Ramblings of an atheist -1', I vaguely discussed my reasons for being an atheist. In this post I plan to expand on that.
I am an atheist, not because I don’t want to believe but because I can’t believe. Some people are atheist because of a single event (‘How could a God let this happen? How could a God allow for so much injustice in the world? Etc. etc.), others are atheists because they don’t understand the possibility of so many religions with different Gods. While these are all arguments against the existence of God, they really aren’t that strong. And as such, religious people have fairly quick, and half way reasonable responses to these issues. ‘God presents himself in different forms to different people. God gives us the power of freewill and thus anything that happens is not truly an act of God, unless of course it is a miracle…umm…wha?.
Before you start attacking me for hating all religious people…I don’t. I believe that people are entitled to their own beliefs as long as they are respectful of other people. In other words, if believing in God helps you sleep at night, ‘then great’, because quite frankly I don’t want to deal with you when you are grumpy due to lack of sleep. On the other hand, if you want to debate religion, I’m all game.
The biggest problem I have with God is that it requires faith. I am a man of science, meaning I like to see evidence for theories, facts that either support or refute hypothesis, etc. Whenever I try to apply anything halfway logical to the concept of a supreme being I only encounter speculation. Yea yea, I know,’ everything around us is evidence of God’…what!!!
I would love to know that a God exits, and that there is more to life than this, but until I’m given a reason to believe, I cannot. The usual response is, ‘that must be a very lonely life’. Actually its not, I have a great life, great relationships, and great friends (most of who are religious, but lack the ‘religious fervor’ (which is an issue for another time)).
Just because I don’t believe in God doesn’t mean that I can explain everything. The first thing that usually happens when someone finds out that I am an atheist is to ask me to explain something, or a whole slue of things. Lets see…there is ‘how did the universe start? How did life start? Etc.’ To which I answer ‘I don’t know, do you?’ And they reply, ‘God’. The problem is that religious people invoke God to explain the unknown because they are afraid of the unknown. This has been happening since the ‘dawn of man’. Who knows, perhaps other species believe in their own gods as well, ‘these gods would be responsible for the miraculous flakes that appear on a daily basis in the fishes bowl, or lava-lamp in a lizards cage’. The point is, people invoke ‘God’ to explain that which they cannot explain or fathom. It was long held that the sun moved across the sky because it was a flaming chariot tethered to a God.
Well, I think its time for a break before my head explodes. Next time I think I’ll discuss the question; ‘Are all Atheists selfish gluttons with any moral compass due to their heathenness?’
2 comments:
Hi James,
Again, some great themes in this post.
You bring science into your discussion -- "I am a man of science -- amd you relish opportunities to "debate religion." Trying to understand the relationship between science and religion occupies the attention of many today. Baha'u'llah spoke about the unity of science and religion.
Science has been dominant over relgion for well more than a century, yet interest in religion is in resurgence, as the following passage from a recently published analysis argues:
"As the twentieth century approached its close, therefore, nothing seemed less likely than a sudden resurgence of religion as a subject of consuming global importance. Yet that is precisely what has now occurred in the form 6 of a groundswell of anxiety and discontent, much of it still only dimly conscious of the sense of spiritual emptiness that is producing it. Ancient sectarian conflicts, apparently unresponsive to the patient arts of diplomacy, have re-emerged with a virulence as great as anything known before. Scriptural themes, miraculous phenomena and theological dogmas that, until recently, had been dismissed as relics of an age of ignorance find themselves solemnly, if indiscriminately, explored in influential media. In many lands, religious credentials take on new and compelling significance in the candidature of aspirants to political office. A world, which had assumed that with the collapse of the Berlin Wall an age of international peace had dawned, is warned that it is in the grip of a war of civilizations whose defining character is irreconcilable religious antipathies. Bookstores, magazine stands, Web sites and libraries struggle to satisfy an apparently inexhaustible public appetite for information on religious and spiritual subjects. Perhaps the most insistent factor in producing the change is reluctant recognition that there is no credible replacement for religious belief as a force capable of generating self-discipline and restoring commitment to moral behaviour.
"Beyond the attention that religion, as formally conceived, has begun to command is a widespread revival of spiritual search. Expressed most commonly as an urge to discover a personal identity that transcends the merely physical, the development encourages a multitude of pursuits, both positive and negative in character....A reorientation occurring in all the major religious communities is the accelerating migration of believers from traditional branches of the parent faiths to sects that attach primary importance to the spiritual search and personal experiences of their members."
The document is ONE COMMON FAITH. You might be interested in perusing the entire text:
http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/bic/OCF/ocf-2.html
It seems to me you are covering important ground in your spiritual search.
Very nicely put. I totally agree.
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