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A Puff of Logic

The following is mostly written in order to put my thoughts about this matter into words. A lot of people think about this stuff quite a bit though, so I thought I’d share it just in case anyone found it interesting.

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I tried. I really did.

I grew up in a christian home and had christian friends all my life. I went to church on Sundays and camps in the summers. I went to Bible groups, and eventually even to Bible college and got an under graduate degree in Christianity. I tried hard to believe it all, but I mostly just blindly trusted what the various religious leaders told me and tried to make sense of it and apply it to my life. However, I never really bought it. Not really. There were always way too many questions in the back of my mind that kept nagging at me. For the longest time I just dismissed it as Evil trying to tempt me or something.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a magnificent youth (and hey, I’m still young). I honestly believe I’ve had the privilege of growing up in one of the very best families this world had to offer. I have truly amazing friends. Most of whom are Christian. A few are muslim, and quite a few are atheist. I know one or two New Age buffs too.

However, I’m pretty sure none of the great people in my life are great people because of their religious beliefs. I’ve come to the conclusion that religious beliefs have very little impact on what kind of person you are. It’s what kind of person you are that decides how you use your religious beliefs. If you’re a narcissistic megalomaniac you’ll find some way to exert excessive power over other people to serve your own selfish desires whether you’re a priest, an imam, a scientist, or the guy behind the counter at your local 7-Eleven. If you’re an unselfish person always eager and willing to help others, you’ll do so no matter what your religious beliefs or vocation. It can’t be denied though, that the characteristics of large congregations of religious people present a very potent channel for maximizing a person’s megalomaniacal tendencies. It’s so potent that it naturally attracts the kind of people who wish to exploit it. Certain religions are quite simply incompatible, and that combined with the fact that they require their followers to try to convert everyone else to their religion has caused much of the grand-scale suffering throughout history. That, and the various interpretations of how far one can/should go to achieve this goal of course.

A few years ago I decided to stop going to church to get some distance in order to think this religion thing through more clearly. I’ve concluded that my thoughts on the matter can actually be summed up relatively succinctly:

Religion is used to explain how and why we exist and things happen. However, we now find ourselves at a point in history in which science has much better explanations for all the hows religion has ever attempted to answer, and then some. Science still can’t answer the why, but I actually don’t think religion can either.

To elaborate:

Science’s explanations make a whole lot more sense than the ones found in various religions, in no small part due to the fact that they’re backed by empirical evidence. The latter aren’t backed by any evidence other than simple observations followed by the use of a vivid imagination by a person or group either not capable of, or unwilling to, think the problem through to the end, and/or with a significant lack of logical reasoning abilities. The only thing science can’t explain, at least not yet (and maybe never - but never say never (oops)), are the whys. At least for the really big questions. However, like I said, I don’t really think religion can either. Religion explains why we exist in the same way a Calvin and Hobbes comic explains what tigers are like. Evidence, combined with reason, strongly suggest that God, the gods, Heaven, Hell, Nirvana - whatever - are simply human created concepts designed to explain certain phenomena and control certain groups of people (admittedly, sometimes for their benefit). At the very least, there’s no way to separate the belief that Jesus Christ is God from the belief that thunder is a sign that Zeus is angry by the way of evidence of any kind. Given the large number of religions, many of which have a long and rich history, and the fact that none of them are based on any evidence, the likelihood that any particular belief is the correct one isn’t very high. That, and the large amounts of contradictions found in the various holy texts, don’t make for a particularly strong case.

I think the main reason religion is still so prevalent is that our universe is so amazingly complex that most people don’t understand science’s explanations - and thus religion assumes its historical role of providing simple, albeit erroneous and illogical, explanations that these people accept in order not to have to think about them and simply go on with the business of living. Also, people are constantly looking for “some kind of meaning of it all”. That’s only natural, since we are beings who act with purpose, and therefore instinctively assume the universe we inhabit also acts with purpose. I think meaning is something each and every one of us need to find for ourselves - there’s no evidence of any universal purpose.

As you no doubt have guessed by now, I could ramble on and on and on about all this, and I’ve deliberately avoided talking about what made me jump off the Christianity band-wagon because I could probably go on for pages and pages. It starts with this: For religious people, their faith is so extremely important to them considering its consequences both in this life and beyond - so why in the world would they blindly agree to throw out the need for any evidence what so ever for religious matters when they require it for everything else in this world about which they want to know the truth? I’ll stop there and sum it all up with my answer to The Big Question:

Why are we here? Because it was inevitable.