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Hi. I'm what's generally known around here as "unsaved scum", and I've written down some of my thoughts on God and religion in general. I was wondering what you might have to say about it, as judging by the interesting people around here, it should give rise to some fascinating responses. Thank you, and here it is:
"I consider myself agnostic. That's agnostic, NOT atheistic. I believe that the existence of a higher power, a deity, a god, a 4D being or whatever, such an entity would be entirely beyond human perception, and thus it's impossible to know with absolute certainty - at the very least, until our technology advances a sh*tload further than it is now - whether or not such an entity does or does not exist. Even if such an entity tried to make itself known to us, we humans, with our limited powers of perception and cynical nature, would never recognise a manifestation of a higher power for what it was. Personally, I'm inclined to believe that no such power exists, as I've never seen evidence of it, and I believe only in what can be backed up with scientific evidence; in other words, I believe that existence/reality/consciousness is simply the result of a series of random coincidences. The Big Bang theory and evolutionism, in other words.
What I am convinced of, however, is that should a higher power exist, it likely will bear virtually no similarity to the deities portrayed in human culture, partly for the reasons mentioned previously, and partly due to any perception of a higher being which may once have existed having undoubtedly been defiled beyond recognition by milenia of mistranslation, misconception and manipulation for use as religious dogma (don't even get me started on organised religion; anyone who knows me, knows the utter contempt with which I regard it in any form). An interesting concept has been brought to my attention lately by - wouldn't you know it
- a Pain Of Salvation CD. In the lyrics, Daniel Gildenlow talks about how if you study ancient religious scripts, while they appear entirely different on the surface, all pointing to similar yet vague, time-distorted truths. The idea of a huge global catastrophe for example; interpreted as a flood by Christianity, but what if that was only one way the real truth was passed down? And what if the similar concepts in other religions are simply differently altered versions of the same event? This is the sort of thing I'm talking about, and one of the main reasons I have no faith beyond what I see with my own two eyes. Maybe there is some kind of god up there, but whether there is or not probably isn't worth worrying over, except out of innocent curiosity, as the chances are that no god present in our culture bear any similarity to the real deal."
__________________________________________________ ____________
"Think for a moment, if you will, about DNA. In the words of Project 2501, it can be argued that DNA is simply a program designed for self-preservation. Which, if you look at it that way, is pretty much an undeniable fact. But through the gradual mutation, adaption and development of billions of years, what was once simply a self-preserving program being passed from parent to offspring has recently (in geological terms, at least) given rise to something much more special. The physical has given rise to the metaphysical. Awareness, appreciation, conciousness, sentience, the capacity to question, call it what you will. For the purposes of this argument, I'll simply call it God.
Just to make it clear, I remain as agnostic as ever in terms of belief in a conventional God. However, I do believe that there is a certain spirituality at the individual level. Earlier I quoted from Ghost In The Shell, but from my standpoint a more accurate name for that film would have been Human and God. Because all a human is is a lump of flesh, blood, sinew and bone, which wanders listlessly around the surface of the Earth looking for food and members of the opposite sex to ensure that the species continues. A God, on the other hand, is what's looking out from behind the globs of jelly humans use to look at things and recognises the majesty of the world around it. While humans might make sounds with their mouths, it is the God which appreciates the potential beauty of these sounds and makes them into a song. While humans might scratch random lines with a stone onto cave walls, it is the God which turns these lines into patterns, into shapes, and ultimately into expressive masterpieces which are hung in museums. What I'm saying is, there is a God, if you want to call it a God, in all of us, and it is that God which takes us beyond beings which exist simply to survive and reproduce; something which can be said of only the most minute fraction imaginable of the species present on Earth, and in none to the same extent as ourselves.
And of course, with this metaphysical element to our existence, existence itself takes on a greater meaning. As beings able to express ourselves, to ask ourselves questions about the environment we live in, we are able to develop, to interact, to make new dicoveries every day and with each new discovery give rise to new questions. We can recognise the majesty in a range of mountains, we can feel the pulsing energy of a crowd at a gig, we can be enraptured by the works of George Orwell and John Steinbeck. We can like, we can dislike, we can laugh, we can cry, we can be afraid, we can be joyful, we can be angry, we can love, we can hate... all that stuff is the gift of the God within us, within or DNA, and it is the reason we stay here, the reason we just don't throw ourselves off the roof of the highest building we can find. Therein lies the joy of living.
From this stems the most fundamental reason for my strong dislike (I don't want to say hatred) of religion in all of it's forms. Just to clarify, I don't hate or dislike or feel any kind of adversity to followers of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. If anything, I feel sorry for them. Instead of using their lives to seek answers, and thus giving their existence context and relevance, they accept answers - whether these answers are right or wrong is irrelevant - given to them by somebody else. I can't think of anything more pointless. If you believe you already have all the answers, then what is there left for you to do? Go through the motions of life - go to school, get a job, get married, have a family, spread the word of whatever deity or deities you believe in and then die? What is the point of it all if you can't use these experiences to come to conclusions about the world around you, or to raise new question? It's all been done for you; there is nothing left to live for. That way, you aren't really a part of the world, you aren't really experiencing it; you're simply an observer looking at it from a fixed standpoint. It's ironic really; while all religions believe they are spreading theword of God, in a way they're really defying it."
"I consider myself agnostic. That's agnostic, NOT atheistic. I believe that the existence of a higher power, a deity, a god, a 4D being or whatever, such an entity would be entirely beyond human perception, and thus it's impossible to know with absolute certainty - at the very least, until our technology advances a sh*tload further than it is now - whether or not such an entity does or does not exist. Even if such an entity tried to make itself known to us, we humans, with our limited powers of perception and cynical nature, would never recognise a manifestation of a higher power for what it was. Personally, I'm inclined to believe that no such power exists, as I've never seen evidence of it, and I believe only in what can be backed up with scientific evidence; in other words, I believe that existence/reality/consciousness is simply the result of a series of random coincidences. The Big Bang theory and evolutionism, in other words.
What I am convinced of, however, is that should a higher power exist, it likely will bear virtually no similarity to the deities portrayed in human culture, partly for the reasons mentioned previously, and partly due to any perception of a higher being which may once have existed having undoubtedly been defiled beyond recognition by milenia of mistranslation, misconception and manipulation for use as religious dogma (don't even get me started on organised religion; anyone who knows me, knows the utter contempt with which I regard it in any form). An interesting concept has been brought to my attention lately by - wouldn't you know it
- a Pain Of Salvation CD. In the lyrics, Daniel Gildenlow talks about how if you study ancient religious scripts, while they appear entirely different on the surface, all pointing to similar yet vague, time-distorted truths. The idea of a huge global catastrophe for example; interpreted as a flood by Christianity, but what if that was only one way the real truth was passed down? And what if the similar concepts in other religions are simply differently altered versions of the same event? This is the sort of thing I'm talking about, and one of the main reasons I have no faith beyond what I see with my own two eyes. Maybe there is some kind of god up there, but whether there is or not probably isn't worth worrying over, except out of innocent curiosity, as the chances are that no god present in our culture bear any similarity to the real deal."__________________________________________________ ____________
"Think for a moment, if you will, about DNA. In the words of Project 2501, it can be argued that DNA is simply a program designed for self-preservation. Which, if you look at it that way, is pretty much an undeniable fact. But through the gradual mutation, adaption and development of billions of years, what was once simply a self-preserving program being passed from parent to offspring has recently (in geological terms, at least) given rise to something much more special. The physical has given rise to the metaphysical. Awareness, appreciation, conciousness, sentience, the capacity to question, call it what you will. For the purposes of this argument, I'll simply call it God.
Just to make it clear, I remain as agnostic as ever in terms of belief in a conventional God. However, I do believe that there is a certain spirituality at the individual level. Earlier I quoted from Ghost In The Shell, but from my standpoint a more accurate name for that film would have been Human and God. Because all a human is is a lump of flesh, blood, sinew and bone, which wanders listlessly around the surface of the Earth looking for food and members of the opposite sex to ensure that the species continues. A God, on the other hand, is what's looking out from behind the globs of jelly humans use to look at things and recognises the majesty of the world around it. While humans might make sounds with their mouths, it is the God which appreciates the potential beauty of these sounds and makes them into a song. While humans might scratch random lines with a stone onto cave walls, it is the God which turns these lines into patterns, into shapes, and ultimately into expressive masterpieces which are hung in museums. What I'm saying is, there is a God, if you want to call it a God, in all of us, and it is that God which takes us beyond beings which exist simply to survive and reproduce; something which can be said of only the most minute fraction imaginable of the species present on Earth, and in none to the same extent as ourselves.
And of course, with this metaphysical element to our existence, existence itself takes on a greater meaning. As beings able to express ourselves, to ask ourselves questions about the environment we live in, we are able to develop, to interact, to make new dicoveries every day and with each new discovery give rise to new questions. We can recognise the majesty in a range of mountains, we can feel the pulsing energy of a crowd at a gig, we can be enraptured by the works of George Orwell and John Steinbeck. We can like, we can dislike, we can laugh, we can cry, we can be afraid, we can be joyful, we can be angry, we can love, we can hate... all that stuff is the gift of the God within us, within or DNA, and it is the reason we stay here, the reason we just don't throw ourselves off the roof of the highest building we can find. Therein lies the joy of living.
From this stems the most fundamental reason for my strong dislike (I don't want to say hatred) of religion in all of it's forms. Just to clarify, I don't hate or dislike or feel any kind of adversity to followers of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. If anything, I feel sorry for them. Instead of using their lives to seek answers, and thus giving their existence context and relevance, they accept answers - whether these answers are right or wrong is irrelevant - given to them by somebody else. I can't think of anything more pointless. If you believe you already have all the answers, then what is there left for you to do? Go through the motions of life - go to school, get a job, get married, have a family, spread the word of whatever deity or deities you believe in and then die? What is the point of it all if you can't use these experiences to come to conclusions about the world around you, or to raise new question? It's all been done for you; there is nothing left to live for. That way, you aren't really a part of the world, you aren't really experiencing it; you're simply an observer looking at it from a fixed standpoint. It's ironic really; while all religions believe they are spreading theword of God, in a way they're really defying it."
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