The essence of my prior belief in Christianity was based on the argument that “I would rather believe than not believe.” I assumed the world was meaningless without a benevolent God and that it would do me no harm believing Jesus was Christ. Death to me was also no longer death but a paradise-like afterlife, all of these new theories were adopted because at the time I said, "I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. " The accuracy of my beliefs involving Jesus was complicated by the fact that most scholars believe he existed albeit they are confused as to whether he truly was the “son of God.” Jesus’ told his disciples they would live to see the end of the world. God was supposed to have intervened and instilled a new world order; some scholars believe he honestly thought he would overthrow the Roman Empire. They believe this because his disciples were so shocked they forgot to write anything down, the first was Paul 20 years later who never met Jesus. The first disciple of Jesus to write anything, Mark, did so 40 years later. Also something startling to me was that Jesus was a Jew who taught completely in Jewish tradition, he went out of his way in Matthew to say those who don’t follow the Torah will be given the lowest seat in heaven, and his brother James didn’t even want the apostle Paul accepting the uncircumcised into our conception of Christianity. James’ wanted strict food laws because Christianity was still a form of Judaism. The name Christianity wouldn’t be adopted for another 70 years. Nevertheless, I think more than likely my initial fault was adopting Christianity on irrational grounds, in other words, I adopted a belief in Jesus because “I would rather believe than not believe.” I can allude to the detriments of this via an example with chocolate.
I would like to believe Chocolate is fat free. It tastes good, sometimes I like to eat it, why not eat it like its fat free and do so all the time?
The problem is empirical evidence says it’s not fat free. If I were to believe such a thing I would be hostile towards this evidence. This would also lead me to dismissing other things which didn’t suit my beliefs or prejudices (like my new one with chocolate). Imagine the disaster if I lived my life, which is finite in nature, based on a particular belief that was possibly wrong.
Thus one should never believe something for sheer desire or through mere choice. Being ‘damned if you do or damned if you don’t,’ is not a logical defense for supporting religion. Simply because I didn’t want to live in a world without ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ as Christ didn’t mean he was the Son of God, much less that the world was meaningless with him not being Christ.
If I am to believe in a religion without empirical evidence, I must grant the same grounds to everyone else of other religions. This becomes a problem when people live devout lives catered to this belief, perhaps becoming hostile to those of other faiths. These conflicts historically have even gravitated towards war. They are not harmless beliefs in any sense, they are essentially one’s ‘meaning for life’ which people risk their lives for.
To sum it up, simply because I wanted to believe in Christianity didn’t mean I should, I shouldn’t believe in anything without weighing the evidence. It seems humans are unique in that they look for an overall purpose of humanity or nature in general. The process of searching for meaning in life is something entirely human. Even though it’s intimidating to think our roles are infinitely small in the Universe, we must compare ourselves to other things. Attempt to imagine the meaning of ants. They do not ponder a meaning, only human’s do, and they perhaps have no meaning. They also weren’t created for the sake of man because animals came before man. We didn’t even get the chance to taste some of them. It is also yet to be seen if God intentionally created animals that would evolve into cave man, thus allowing the cave man amble food, this is preposterous.
The basic view I’ve adopted is to live for each other, it’s very much the idea of Christianity now but you’re not doing it for an egotistical endeavor to receive salvation. While one person is saved through a belief without empirical evidence, another is doomed to eternal hellfire. Some claim they are saved through a ‘spiritual awakening’ or through some emotional experience, this experience can range from simple consoling due to hardship or even an array of ‘ecstasy like emotion’. Yet this emotion is only given to some and not others. What good does it do me if your beliefs or faith derived from ecstasy emotion and I wasn’t so fortunate to receive the same? Am I to go to hell?
Salvation is very much a selfish endeavor. I think perhaps it reaffirms the goal of living in a gratuitous world, if a man is only gratuitous because he likes to do it or it’s pleasing to him, he’ll stop being gratuitous when he meets an unpleasant person or scenario. If he’s told he will be granted eternal life, he’ll be gratuitous in the face of turmoil until his dying days. The idea of heaven is a very motivating idea, it’s the essence of what Christianity classifies as good, plus people get to stay there forever too. There’s also hell which is the worst of the worst, this fear no doubt plays into one’s decision.
So, to some things up, there are many controversies of religion and no religion can empirically argue it is ‘true’. The same can be said of God’s existence, it’s unproven. Knowing the search for meaning is ‘unique to humans’ provides comfort; it makes us strive to gain more knowledge of the mysterious and the advancement of the species even more important. Religions must also include the theory that the Sun will come too close to the earth in a billion years so it doesn’t seem like the world we know is eternal in any way.
For a more detailed answer of the meaning of life I found this from a letter sent by Einstein to a 19 year old who struggled with the question: In short, all actions are based on two reasons designed to carry out a “self-preserving purpose”. Man’s actions are determined via his inner necessity and the environment, the past is just as determined as the future. A community’s actions indirectly fulfill their desires, thus seeking a belief in a God is designed to fulfill some sort of purpose for ourselves. This is the ideology of the law of causation. To think a God has anything whatsoever to do with our created state is ‘arbitrary and unreasonable’.
Also its an impossibility for a God to reward and punish humans who act based on necessity, they must act as they do. This dismisses the theory of free will, if I have free will, a tree has free will. A tree does not have free will; a tree will always act according to a certain set of rules and the nature of its environment. I am very much the same; my rules are based on my own self preservation, I also act to fulfill particular desires or prevent unfavorable consequences. We are completely enslaved to the external world around us and all things are exposed to this natural law, our desires now determine our desires later; it is very much like a chain. All of this is according to Einstein, so it’s interesting.
The Meaning of Life