Religion
Just to conclude my cerebral POV here, I offer the following up for rumination:
The Existence of God
Discussions regarding religion often revolve around the question: Does god exist? What do we mean when we say that something exists? As far as human beings are concerned, nothing exists unless it manifests itself in some form, shape or manner to man or to his extended sensory perceptions.
If something is claimed to exist but does not impinge on man in any way whatsoever, we can safely say that it does not exist as far as human existence is concerned. This undefined mirage may still exist somewhere in the universe or another universe. However, since this alleged object or event does not manifest itself to us, it does not affect us in any way whatsoever and we must simply state that it does not exist.
Religious people argue that, although they cannot positively prove that god exists, the atheists cannot prove that god does not exist. This argument embodies several fallacies.
It is logically impossible to prove that an object or event does not exist. However, it is not only possible but is exceedingly common to prove that something does exist. If something exists, it manifests itself to us by objective evidence. It is also axiomatic in the affairs of man, and steeped in common sense that, whoever makes a claim, has to prove its validity. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, like alleged Time Travellers have discovered.
Whoever might claim that the moon is made of green cheese has to prove that the moon actually consists of green cheese, instead of rock, as established by previous, hard, factual, objective evidence. It is logically impossible and nonsensical to demand that, whoever does not accept the claim that the moon is made of green cheese, should disprove it.
Only persons, who do not utilize logic, will accept as true statements that are completely unsupported by factual evidence. Yet, this form of irrationality and lack of fundamental logic is the foundation of all religions. Since approximately 80 % of the world population accepts the completely unsubstantiated statements of various religions, 80 % of the world population suffers from a severely distorted and ineffective worldview in this argument.
Christian dogma expects people to believe the fairy tale of Noah?s ark, although it is patently impossible to squeeze even samples of all the world?s animals into one small ark. Rational persons consider such stories as ludicrous and yet, such is the power of religion, that the majority of the people on earth accept such fairytales as facts.
The bible account of the creation of man and the universe, as outlined in the Book of Genesis, is so much in contradiction with irrefutable facts that a rational person cannot help but laugh about such fantasies. It may be all right for children to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but adults are supposed to outgrow such fairytales
Where was the Jewish God Jehovah, when Hitler incinerated five million of his chosen people; where was the Buddha when Truman vaporized 250,000 Japanese women and children; where was the Christian God when Stalin killed thirty million human beings?
It defies rationality when religious persons pray to these same gods for individualized help and salvation.
Pascal's Wager
Another favorite statement by religious philosophers refers to Pascal?s Wager. Pascal was an eminent seventeenth century mathematician who struggled with the contradictions presented by Christian theology.
His wager consists of the statement: It is advantageous to believe in god because the worst thing that can happen is that you have spent your life believing in something that is untrue and you will end up just as dead as everyone else will. However, if you do not believe in god and if god actually exists, then god?s actual existence will matter in the extreme because you will be in big trouble with Him. Which tends to be a common, if secretive view of Religion and God.
The problem with Pascal?s wager lies in the reality hat a person cannot pretend to believe in God just for the sake of a wager. The obvious insincerity in pretending a belief in God for the purpose of a wager makes an actual belief in God impossible.
Theologians have used Pascal?s wager to admonish people to believe in God, just in case. This situation justifies the old definition of theologians as persons who are looking in a coal-bin on a dark night for a black cat that is not there.
The Epicurean Postulate
It is pointless to get involved in endless discussions regarding the existence or non-existence of god and his moral qualities. Such nonsensical and unproductive discussions have raged for the last three thousand years.
One of the problems in theism, the belief system involving a personal god, revolves around the existence of evil and the resulting inconsistency in the concept of an omnipotent god.
The mere existence of evil in this world makes the existence of a benign god impossible: If god were omnipotent, he could eliminate evil and if he were benign, he would want to do so. Furthermore, if god were all-good, as he is supposed to be, he could not sin. However, if he were all-powerful, he could sin.
The Greek philosopher Epicurus illuminated this dilemma in 300 BC:
If God is willing to prevent evil but is not able to prevent evil, then he is not omnipotent.
If God is able to prevent evil but is not willing to prevent evil, then he is not benevolent.
Evil is either in accordance with God?s intention or contrary to it.
Thus, either God cannot prevent evil or he does not want to prevent evil.
Therefore, it follows that God is either not omnipotent or he is not benevolent. He cannot be both omnipotent and benevolent.
The Rock Lifting Paradox
If the Epicurean argument does not suffice in pointing out the inherent contradictions in the concept of a god, there remains the somewhat provocative and hilarious Rock Lifting Paradox: Can God make a rock so heavy he cannot lift it? If we assume the common definition of omnipotence, we encounter a contradiction: If God was omnipotent, he should be able to do create such a rock but then he cannot lift the rock and his omnipotence breaks down.
This thought experiment makes it logically and factually untenable to claim the existence of any allegedly omnipotent God. This paradox creates a dire dilemma: Who would really want or need a God who is not omnipotent, a god who would not be able to change the laws of the universe on behalf of a sinful supplicant? This paradox does not prove or disprove anything in itself, but it does point out the inherent logical impossibility of the existence of an omnipotent God.
Conclusion: The Existence of God
Religious people pursue their religion because they have blocked their rationality in all matters pertaining to religion. They are impervious to the contradictions, logical inconsistencies and other obstacles to the existence of a personal, omnipotent god. They need an omnipotent, omniscient god to lean on. They prefer to walk through life with blinders so that the harsh facts of Reality will not frighten them.
There is no need to prove or disprove the existence of god or gods. The mere fact that no god has ever manifested himself in any form, shape or manner, eliminates any reliance we can place on him or any attention we need to pay to him.
As far as modern man is concerned, gods or other supposedly omnipotent beings never have and do not now interact with man. As far as we, as human beings, are concerned, gods do not exist because they do not manifest themselves to us or interact with us.
For the sake of argument, some people suggest that gods may exist in some other universe or plane of existence where we cannot be aware of them. However, as long as these nebulous, hidden gods do not interact with human beings in our universe, we need not concern ourselves with such extra-celestial god or gods.
In order to prove the existence of gods and other super-natural beings, adherents of religions have often been suggested that some people hear voices or see visions involving ethereal superior beings, gods, angels, virgins, the dear departed and other ephemeral appearances.
Photography has been available for the last 150 years. However, nobody has ever captured an image of God or of any other supernatural mirages. If these phantoms cannot even re-arrange a few electrons by leaving an impression on photographic film, how are they going to interact with us or help us?
Miracles
Where are the miracles that gods can supposedly perform? There has never been any objective evidence of a single miracle. Religious belief systems routinely claim miracles. Alas, not even a shred of objective evidence has ever supported an alleged miracle. Miracles cannot possibly occur in reality because they would violate or modify firmly established natural laws of the universe, such as gravity, time or entropy.
After horrendous disasters or personal calamities, religious people always thank god for the miracle of saving them or helping them. If god is omnipotent, he could have prevented the disaster before it struck. Since he did not prevent the disaster, he obviously hurt his believer on purpose.
Miracles and other reversals of natural laws supposedly occur merely at the whim of a god who is clearly non-existent and non-omnipotent. With modern recording devices, scientists can expose any sham, almost instantly. Since the advent of objective recording devices, there have been no claims for miracles.
The Equivocation of Deism/Pantheism
We have concerned ourselves with supernatural events or beings that supposedly interact with human beings on the individual level. Another definition of God deals with the concept that a Superior Being created the universe, that he set the stars in motion and then relaxed and stood back, presumably somewhere in the infinity of interstellar space.
This is the popular view of god as the Clockmaker: He built and wound up the universe. Now the machinery is just running down without further intervention by Him, and He is not paying the slightest attention to human affairs.
This impersonal, pantheistic or deistic view of the universe is popular with agnostics. Persons who find it rationally unacceptable to believe in a personal god hold or pretend to hold this view. This approach is favored by closet-atheists and by many agnostics. Jefferson, Washington and a multitude of other politicians utilized the deistic viewpoint extensively because they needed an affiliation with religion and gods in order to be politically acceptable to the religious masses.
The deistic approach to religion represents a failure to face a simple issue honestly and squarely. Who needs a god who blissfully stands back in a dark corner of the universe, ignoring the pleas of his subjects? Religious persons need a God to provide them with miracles. They cry to God and expect help.
The Origins of God and the Universe
Another dilemma that frequently arises in discussions of religion revolves around the origin of God and the universe. If God made the universe, as he is claimed to have done, who or what created God? Did God create himself? Religious persons find it exceedingly difficult to answer this question.
Lacking a rational response, they phrase their reply in the simplistic question, "God must have made the universe. If God did not make the universe, who or what created it?" Thus, they evade the issue and place the burden of proof on the person who asked the question.
Only one answer is possible in response to this question: Nobody knows who made this alleged god, but it certainly could not have been another god. Otherwise, the god-creating god would be the real god, instead of the god whom he created.
Another favorite response to the question of who made god tries to stipulate that God has always existed. Therefore, there was no need to create god. This argument is somewhat circular. Nobody has ever proven that god exists, much less that he has always existed. We will concern ourselves with the creation of god after somebody has factually established that god even exists.
Maybe man will never know the conundrum of the creation of the universe. Maybe he will at some distant time in the future. However, ordinary human beings do not need an answer to this question because any answer would be irrelevant to human existence and happiness. Whatever we may find, it is extremely unlikely that the ultimate answer to the secrets of the universe will reveal a God with a flowing white beard who answers human prayers.
We can find an interesting insight in the scientific aspect of this question in the inflation theory. This theory tries to explain the cause of the Big Bang in terms of the destruction of the total symmetry of the original vacuum by a quantum fluctuation. Well, maybe. This answer is just as incomprehensible as the creation of a non-existent god.
Understanding the creation of the universe and knowing what lies on the other side of the Big Bang does not have the slightest effect on our happiness. We enhance our happiness, our emotional state of well being, by minimizing pain and by maximizing our alignment with Objective Reality, by understanding how life really works
Human beings do not live in the fairyland of religious speculation. Neither do human beings live in the world of quantum particles, relativity and cosmology. We merely need to know how life actually works on the human plane, in the world we live in. We can accomplish this objective by trying to enhance our factual understanding of the nature of Reality, without blinkers imposed on us by religion.
Atheism
Religious persons sometimes claim that atheism is merely another belief system, similar to any other religion. This assertion is due to a lack of understanding of semantic concepts. The word belief is similar to the concept of faith because it implies mental acceptance of something as true in the absence of firm evidence.
A belief is a vague idea supported only by the confidence that people place in it. If people have to resort to a belief in something, they have doubts regarding the veracity of what they believe in. If we know something to be a fact, we do not say that we believe in it. If people know the facts of a situation, they have no need for beliefs.
Atheists pronounce themselves skeptics or atheists, not because they adhere to a furtive belief system of not believing in god, but because gods do not exist. Gods do not exist in view of the indisputable fact that no god has ever manifested himself to a human being. The atheistic worldview is not a belief system because it does not rely on beliefs in unsupported claims. The atheistic worldview insists on objective evidence.
Much has been made of reports of alleged cures where God miraculously healed a repentant sinner. The purported miracle, lacking objective evidence, was more than likely attributable to luck or to other natural causes. It is a fact that people very often do get better with the help of their immune systems. If the poor sinner had died, as many sinners and non-sinners do, there would have been no miracle.
If our appeals to our God are successful and if He seems to solve our problem, he gets credit for his miracles he works. However, if he does not resolve our predicament, religious persons blame his lack of cooperation on insufficient prayer, the unworthiness of the supplicant, the lack of proper sacrifices, or the inscrutable ways of god.
Such situations arise frequently when human survival is threatened. Persons, who pray to God and who survive a pending calamity, sing hymns of praise to Him for answering their prayer. However, those persons who perished, although they prayed just as hard, are no longer available to blame Him for his failure to save their lives.
In acts of courage and defiance, many men have cursed the gods but the gods did not strike them with lightening, or anything else. Man has ignored the gods and they, in turn, have ignored him. Atheists have to help themselves and solve their problems without the delusion of divine intervention.
Atheists struck a deal with God: We will not bother you, if you will not bother us. They mocked god and nothing happened to them, because god does not exist. If he actually does exist, he cannot or does not want to punish atheists. In either case, he does not respond to prayers or to curses.
Without a god or gods, religion becomes meaningless and prayer becomes an empty delusion. What is prayer, but the appeal to nonexistent supernatural beings, to upset the laws of the universe on behalf of an admittedly unworthy sinner? Of course, in order to rely on prayer, a believer must have faith.
The word faith means to accept something as true without evidence and in contradiction to established facts. Otherwise, no reliance on faith, on unverified religious dogma, would be required: People need not have faith in gravity or other objective facts; people need to have faith only when they face an otherwise unacceptable falsehood. Faith is the unconditional acceptance of the impossible.
As man evolved, the survival benefits of a belief in the supernatural have decreased. In the third millennium, in this age of science and enlightenment, survival increasingly depends on increased rationality. The previous century has seen an overwhelming increase in scientific and technological knowledge. The ability of an individual to deal rationally, instead of emotionally, with his environment, has shifted survival benefits from the irrational and emotional arena to the rational and scientific domain.
In prior millennia, men like Socrates and Aristotle lacked the basic tools of knowledge and science to develop a clear view of Reality. They were groping in the dark for small kernels of truth. Since then, man?s scientific knowledge has increased by a factor of millions, with regard to both the quality and the quantity of information accessible to him.
A rational, scientific person is able to align himself with Objective Reality, with truth, more appropriately than a religious person is who is relying on prayers to nonexistent gods. A person with rational thought processes is more likely to achieve his desired objectives, including enhanced survival and lasting happiness, than a person relying on prayer.
Adherents of religions often refer to the emotional benefits of reliance on miracles, on life after death, or on other illusory benefits offered by organized religion. They advance the idea that a person will benefit emotionally from such childish illusions although they are clearly distortions of reality. This stance defies common sense since it presumes that irrationality can be superior to rationality in any aspect of life and under any circumstances whatsoever.
The only exception to this rule might apply to religious persons on their deathbed. They may emotionally benefit from a childish belief in a life after death because it facilitates the pain of their departure. Moribund persons no longer need to concern themselves with objective evidence, as the basis for achieving desired results. Their view of reality is no longer oriented towards achieving desired results. They can afford to indulge in dreams of a better life to come, without further adverse effects.
No matter what Henry James says in his "Varieties of Religious Experience", or what Otto calls the Numinous, the fact remains that quackery of any kind, whether medical or religious, remains quackery and can never be as efficacious as hard science. Marx had many faults but he was correct when he stated, "Religion is the opiate of the masses". This pronouncement extends to all forms of superstition, magic and the supernatural.
Religious Beliefs
A rational examination of the origins and sources of religion, as well as the benefits and disadvantages of religion, is unlikely to change the mind of anyone who is afraid to examine these concepts objectively.
People who approach the subject of religion with trepidation or who cannot distinguish between reality and superstition, find it difficult to apply logic to their thought processes. It is much easier to believe in miracles and pseudo-science than to acquire facts and engage in incisive, rational thought.
We can observe many members of society who appear to be intelligent and rational in the pursuit of their daily life. However, on Sundays they go to their church or temple. There they participate in incomprehensible and irrational rituals involving magic, prayer and other activities demeaning to their rational minds. Their rational mind tells them that a god does not exist and yet, there they sit and pray to him.
It has been suggested that religious people compartmentalize their thought processes in order to avoid otherwise inevitable and destructive conflicts. In this manner, rational and irrational thought processes can coexist in separate, locked compartments of the brain without connectivity. Yet, one wonders if there is some inevitable leakage from the irrational to the rational compartment, surreptitiously contaminating rationality.
Even some bright people may feel too frightened to face life without the consolations of a religion, cult or sect. Their upbringing has imbued in them the belief that it is safer not to subject the teachings of one?s church or temple or mosque to close scrutiny. Furthermore, becoming an agnostic or atheist can cut one off from the comfort and companionship of co-believers in a religion. This potentially damaging consequence of doubting one?s belief system is a strong deterrent to questioning deeply imbedded religious beliefs.
Religion may also satisfy an irrational human need for cosmic significance. Some persons yearn to be more than the grain of sand in the vastness of the universe that man really is. As long as men and women feel week and insignificant in the face of awe-inspiring natural forces, logic will not be as important as religion and man will prefer the sanctuary of imaginary, all-powerful beings.
Thus, people tend to associate in communities of like-minded people. Believers restrict their circle of friend and family to other believers. They surround themselves with mirror images of themselves.
If people wear blinders successfully, then the young and na?ve among them hear nothing but the desired belief. No reputable person in his or her sphere of life ever disagrees with or objects to the tenets of their common belief system. As time goes on, people in a mentally incestuous society consider it normal that all seemingly intelligent people believe as the community believes.
When a believer encounters non-believers, the shock may be great. The believer asks, "How can they not believe? Doesn?t everyone believe?" The believing community usually provides a convenient answer to that question: The non-believers are evil or they are possessed by an evil power. If you hang around them enough it might be contagious.
As a result, the believer becomes paranoid and afraid of non-believers, because he fails to understand that non-believers do not need to believe in anything. Non-believers rely on reason, logic and the factual evidence of the real world.
Instead, the believer sees non-believers as abnormal and undesirable. Thus, religious belief maintains itself through self-affirmation, insulation and demonization of non-believers.
Religion and Intelligence
It is interesting to note that the degree of involvement with the supernatural, including religion, is directly proportional to the degree of factual knowledge available to a person. The bell curve, depicting the graphic display of variances in intelligence within a population, places 80% of the U. S. population in the I.Q. range from 85 to 115.
It is interesting to note that 90 % of the U. S. population is also involved in religions or other belief systems. The September 1999 issue of the prestigious Scientific American magazine published a repeat-survey, confirming previous surveys:
Whereas 90% of the general population has a distinct belief in a personal god and a life after death, only 40% of scientists on the B.S. level favor these beliefs in religion and merely 10% of notable scientists believe in a personal god or in an afterlife. Contrary to the notion fostered by so-called creation-scientists, Albert Einstein did not believe in a personal god.
THE BENEFITS AND HORRORS OF RELIGION
Ever since man started praying to gods, religion has grown as an institutional power. Until the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment, religion had organized itself into the dominant power governing all spiritual and secular affairs of man. Prior to 1700 AD, all affairs of society were under the domination of religious hierarchies.
In the process of wielding its enormous power, religious institutions have held the human race in a vice-grip of irrationality and have made every conceivable effort to suppress rationality and science. Only in 1998 did the Roman Catholic Church admit its error when it condemned Galileo in 1543 for pronouncing that the earth revolved around the sun, instead of having the sun revolve around the earth as demanded by the Bible.
Only the complete absurdity of its position forced the Pope to admit grudgingly that there might be some validity to the theory of evolution. He then explained the previous lapse by proclaiming that God had arranged for evolution to take place.
Evolution is a scientific fact and a Law of Nature. Evolution is not a theory any more than the Theory of Relativity is a theory. Institutional religion has oppressed rationality and has held humankind in a devastating chokehold for more than 2000 years.
We will gain nothing by describing the horrors that religions have inflicted on humanity in the name of their gods. From the crusades and the inquisition, to its devastating cooperation with the aristocracy in fettering and enslaving man?s body and man?s mind, religion has taken a heavy toll on humankind and on rationality
The horrors of religious institutions are now obsolete and part of the past. As we enter the third millennium, the power of religious institutions is waning, albeit far from dead. The influence of organized religion on the affairs of man is declining steadily. This development is due to such events as the French Revolution, the United States Constitution and the inevitable spread of democracy as the only political system compatible with freedom and the innate nature of man.
Man still interacts with religious institutions on the individual level but the political power of the church over the affairs of man has disappeared, with the temporary exception of a few Islamic nations.
This drastic change in societal power struggles was a product of the Age of Enlightenment. This step up the ladder of evolution was the result of the rational intellect of a new breed of philosophers like Voltaire, Rousseau and Locke. Their visions of a social contract replaced the institutions of feudalistic and religious slavery.
The advances in the enlightenment of man over the last five hundred years were pioneered by a few intellectual giants and by a small minority of rational, intelligent philosophers, scientists and visionary firebrands. A large majority of humanity still goes to church on Sunday, fears its gods and prays for salvation
The masses of men remain emotion-driven animals that have yet to throw off the shackles of religious irrationality. The man who goes to church and prays to god is still carrying the demon of religion on his back.
The next step in the evolution of man must wait until the mass of men has evolved to a higher plane. Intellectual freedom and honesty will allow man?s rational mind to exert its full powers and will enable man to assert a higher degree of control over his primitive emotional system
Please remeber, this is not a personal POV, rather a cerebral argument for debate.
I conclude this piece of work------------------------------------
Grayson-----------------------------------------------------------
