Well, I went and worked myself up into a huff because of something that happened while I was having coffee with a few friends today.
Well, being as we were all college students, and all fairly intelligent, things inevitably turned to philosophy. And, for some odd reason, the existence of god.
At first it was a fairly straight forward conversation, when someone HAD to bring up the most inane argument yet, “Because there are ~so~ many who believe in Him”
Now, besides being Argumentum Ad Popularum, this argument doesn’t hold weight because every deity believed in is different from every other, and in many cases mutually exclusive. Even within the same religions, gods tend to be varied, even if they come from the same source.
I am now, as I have been for as long as I can remember, an atheist. I am not an atheist for selfish reason, I wasn’t raised in an atheist home, I have not encountered enormous hardship. In short, I am the exact opposite of the caricature that theists inevitably draw of atheists when they get cornered (idiotic fundamentalist types, not intelligent logical ones).
I am an atheist for many reasons, too many of which I have to ever list in one sitting.
First, religion. Religion is, in all its forms, antiquated and irrelevant to my life. The rules in the bible, in the qur’an, even in more esoteric works like the vendantas, do not apply to me. They were written by people who were writing for and about THEIR people. Also, choosing one religion is the height of arrogance, because you are basically affirming that everybody is wrong in every way, except you. One may say that an atheist is doing the same thing, but we are not. An atheist concedes that everybody is equally wrong and that there was never any right to begin with.
Logic. I am fairly adept in logic, and I can call a fallacy at 4 trillion paces with nine arms tied behind my wrist. God, for the most part, does not have any consistent logic behind it. The reason for this being, is that god is basically a big anthropomorphic spirit daddy created for the soul benefit of the people who created it. We create god in our own image. Upon studying anthropology, specifically cultural anthropology and cultural evolution, one can see a clear path that gods eventually take. They come from vague ethereal beings, they transform into clear animal figures, change into many men, then ultimately, a single man.
Upon looking at psychology, we can see why god is always a man, or at least the most powerful are. We are a male oriented species, thusly all things we create will be made for men, and then for women if possible. It is in our natures, because it has always been. I am not a sexist, but I can’t deny humanities collective ego.
Upon taking a good hard look at the most popular gods on this earth, one finds nothing but hearsay. I am supposed to actually believe the words of uneducated shepards who lived thousands of years ago, as interpreted by stupid people living today. This doesn’t follow. There is no real evidence for god, yet there is abundant evidence, logical and such, against. That is why I do not feel constrained to believe.
Finally, one should examine (and refute utterly) Pascals Wager.
When I first saw it, without any real knowledge of logic or philosophy, I immediately saw all its flaws. It assumed that if a god exists, it is the exact god that pascal believed in. It assumed that this god liked being worshipped. It assumed that there is some negative effects for not believing.
I previously stated that I do not beleive the shepards (the bible for all you slow people ;)) So, I do not take pascal for his word. If god exists and it is just, then it won’t care if we believe or not. If it is unjust, we are all screwed anyway. Also, there IS the notion that it takes offense at belief. Anyway, if something is worthy of my worship, then it won’t want to be worshipped. So, even if there were a god, I would never kneel before it and ask it anything. Just as I do not kneel before my parents.
Somewhere in this disconnected rambling I hope I made a point. I always found that talking (or typing) something out helps me deal with my own thoughts, so I don’t let them fester.
Comments?
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious Carl Jung
