There is no God.
But, you knew that, right? I mean, it's silly, okay?
Well, in case you didn't, Penn Jillette makes the case here. Basically, he's outlining advantages to not believing in God. I'd say he's right on all counts, but he's starting from the wrong perspective.
Penn's basically saying that not believing in God frees you up to really get the most out of life.
I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
I mean, that's a nice sentiment and all, and it has the virtue of being accurate. But being an atheist isn't just this kind of humanist "live every day to the fullest" platitudes. For me, anyway.
It's refusing to believe in religion because it makes no sense and is stupid. Penn's not one to avoid confrontation, so I guess he just went a different way with the essay, but I don't believe in God mainly because the case for him is so completely non-compelling.
I mean, I feel like I'd be fairly ready to believe in some kind of intangible something guiding the universe. I don't know...Certainly nothing personified or omnipotent or intelligent, at least not as we think of intelligence. But some kind of something, because the human circulatory system is just so goddamn complex it boggles the mind.
But no one on Earth has ever made the case in a compelling way. I don't find any religious book I have ever read interesting on any level aside from folklore/mythology. Ever. I know a lot of Americans like Buddhism because the Dalia Lama is this cute giggly old guy and Richard Gere certainly seems serene, but it's just as big a load of steaming crap as every other religion.
Embrace the suffering of life? Yeah, okay, that ain't so bad. Meditate frequently? Well, it is supposed to be quite calming, so that's nice. Bow down in front of this golden statue of a fat guy all the time? Umm...that's a bit silly, innit? But, well, if you say so. You'll be reincarnated when you die? But, hang on, that doesn't make a lot of sense. The Buddha as been reincarnated a whole bunch of times, including as that giggly weird old guy? Oh, come on...You guys are messing around with me...
In fact, the only people whom I find at all compelling on the subject of the creation of the Earth and man and life and all that wacky shit are scientists. Down to a man. So you have to ask yourself...If all the religions are, clearly, such complete crap, and all the scientists are learning more accurate and true information each day, completely without God being involved, who is on the right track?
And that's not to say that religion and science can't co-exist. Most of the great scientists of history have also been very devout in their religion. I think, like Einstein, they're able to compartmentalize. To understand where religion begins and ends and where science begins and ends. Fair enough, I guess. I don't know how a guy like Einstein was able to understand physics with such relative ease (zing!) while still believing in Judaism. The Old Testament makes about as much sense as "Naked Lunch," although it does contain somewhat more gay sex.
I'm reading this book right now called Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origin by Robert Hazen. It's pretty great...He's discussing all the different, conflicting theories going on right now about the beginnings of life on Earth. Clearly, Hazen's favorite is the theory first offered by Jack Corliss in the 70's - that life may have began not on the Earth's surface, but deep in pressurized, super-hot ocean vents.
Just that one tiny bit of information - that life might have started deep inside the Earth rather than on top - kind of renders Judeo-Christian genesis beliefs obsolete, doesn't it? I mean, what kind of fucked up weirdo God would create little single-celled life forms deep inside highly pressurized ocean vents? Wouldn't he just make dudes and put them on the top of the ground if he was setting out to make dudes?
My thoughts on the whole thing are simple. We've only ever learned about God from other people, people who were alive before us. And we know people want to believe in God, because it renders life ordinary and sensible. "This is happening for a reason or else it wouldn't happen." So we're just using dead civilizations to tell us what we want to hear. Yeah...That's sound reasoning...
I also wanted to draw your attention, while we're on the subject of my hostility towards religious faith of all kinds, to this new film, The God Who Wasn't There. (Great title).
It's the film that is, finally, declaring an Official War on Christmas.
“Christian conservatives complain nonstop about the ‘War on Christmas,’ but there really isn’t any such war,” said Beyond Belief Media president Brian Flemming , a former fundamentalist Christian who is now an atheist activist. “So we have decided to wage one, to demonstrate what it would look like if Jesus’ birthday were truly attacked.”
...
THE GOD WHO WASN'T THERE is a taboo-shattering documentary that Newsweek says “irreverently lays out the case that Jesus Christ never existed.” The film includes interviews with some of the top religion experts in the world. Directed by Flemming, the movie is also highly critical of the modern Christian right and explores the dangers that religious belief poses to society. The movie has been praised by critics but condemned by pro-theocracy groups such as James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.
This sounds pretty cool. I'm intrigued by their claim that Jesus never existed. I had always heard that, amongst the various teachers and speakers claiming to be prophets or even relations of the Almighty, one of them was probably a guy named Jesus from a place close to Nazareth. In fact, I took more than one UCLA History class that, in part, traced a lifeline for the historical Jesus.
I'm, of course, open to the idea that Jesus may have been a combination of several thinkers of the time, or even a complete fabrication designed to help spread the ideology of a few reformers. I just wasn't really aware there was a lot of contention on the topic.
It probably won't be hard to make contemporary Christianty look stupid, though. I've found that most professed Christians don't really know very much about their own religion. The days of true believers citing Scripture for their beliefs has long long since past. Now, American faith is all about what they call having a "personal relationship with God," which means believing in God and asking him for stuff that you want and thanking him if you score a touchdown or win a Vibe Award, but not doing any of the reading or church-attending or the other bullshit activities that go along with being religious.
I don't blame people for not wanting to attend church. I have attended 2 church services in my lifetime, and in each instance I immediately wished I had somehow gotten out of it. (One time, I was forced to go to a Catholic Mass at UCLA for a class...It was creepy, and I was particularly struck by all the signs everywhere reading "He Is Risen." Is that proper English?) I do blame people for being ignorant of their own professed religion.
For example, all of the American Christians who think that God hates fags or that Jesus wouldn't want gay people to get married and be happy. HEY, YOU IDIOTS. JESUS WAS ALL ABOUT LOVING EVERYBODY FOR WHO THEY ARE, WITHOUT JUDGEMENT. HAVEN'T YOU BEEN PAYING ATTENTION AT ALL? HE HUNG OUT WITH WHORES AND LEPERS TO PROVE THIS EXACT POINT, YOU JACKASSES! AND THAT EVEN INCLUDES THE PEOPLE YOU REALLY HATE, LIKE EAST COAST INTELLECTUALS AND ABORTION DOCTORS AND EVEN FUCKING MICHAEL MOORE! THAT'S RIGHT, AMERICAN CHRISTIANS! JESUS WOULD WANT YOU TO LOVE MICHAEL MOORE. HE WOULD EXPECT NOTHING LESS THAN YOU TO OPEN YOUR HOME TO MICHAEL MOORE IF HE NEEDED A WARM PLCAE TO STAY, OR FEEDING MICHAEL MOORE IF HE WAS HUNGRY OR GIVING HIM $10 IF HE NEEDED CAB FARE HOME. WHILE EXPECTING NOTHING IN RETURN! THAT WAS JUST THE JESUS STYLE.
Now, you don't have to agree with Jesus. I'd say that most people don't, really, if you get to the heart of the matter. I certainly don't. I think turning the other cheek if someone hits you is a good way to get a shattered jaw or broken collarbone. I say that the meek will never ever ever inherit the Earth because the rich will fucking destory it before that could ever happen. Plus, I'm not a huge "fish and wine" guy. Although I am basically with him on sandals. Those things are comfy.
But if you don't agree with Jesus, just stop blindly saying you love him and everything, okay? It's really not as straight-forward as Believe in Jesus -> Go to Heaven. At least, the Bible says it isn't. And that's the book you guys are always going on and on about, right? The Bible? Or was that Sean Hannity's latest? I get them confused...
You bring some interesting points on the so-called non-existence of God. However, your ideas are truly "crushed by inertia." They are crushed by the weight of your inaccurate information and misinterpretation of that inaccurate information.
ReplyDeleteFirst you denounce God via the prototypical stereotypes of God and the various affiliatated constructs that have promoted the notion of God. This is not intelligent. Your statements are based on stereotyped assumptions, not facts. The facts clearly show that the interpretation of the word 'God' is as varied and numerous as there are people.
Second, you claim that supposedly devout scientists 'compartmentalize' 'God' and/or religion, just as they do their occuptions as scientists. This is again an unintelligent false assumption and, again, has absolutely no basis in fact. In fact, the opposite is true; most scientists see, within their various scientific discoveries, the wonderous nature of Creation, its perfection, and most of all; its order and direction to a single point of origen. But of course one would have to either be extremely up-to-date in the world of science, or actually be a scientist to really appreciate this fact (or just be intelligent).
Here are a few science quotes that you should ponder over:
"I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."
"God is subtle but he is not malicious."
"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."
"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
Of course, it was Albert Einstein who said those words.
The Gods are laughing hard at the shipwreck, crushed by its own mental inertia.
Please, do your homework, and open your mind. Your 'Gabbin' is potentially insulting.
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ReplyDeleteAnon, your response, in addition to coming in triplicate, is spectacularly contradictory.
ReplyDeleteYou probably didn't think so...but allow me to clear it up for you.
See, you go on and on about how I'm misinformed and shouldn't speak because my ignorance is offensive.
And then you go on to say that no one can ever know anything about God or the eternal, and so we should just respect that fact.
So, which is it? Do you know way more than me and pity my lack of reason? Or do you think that it's impossible to know anything of God, and so it's a fool's errand to try?
Sort that out, try not to be so condescending, don't make fun of the blog name, start getting better at detecting headline Simpsons references, and come on back. How's that sound?
My response to anonymous is it's die not dice and second the universe strives for perfection in everything. This is not a difficult theory to understand. The universe wants everything to be perfect. Just look at some solar systems, galaxies, and what a hydrogen atom looks like and its pretty clear. Obviously sometimes perfection is difficult to come by but if we thought outside of our tiny little minds and for one second stop having such huge egos it would obvious that the universe as a whole its pretty damn perfect. Why do you think the universe is so beautiful? Why does chemistry and physics work so well? Not because of god. The only mistake I have noticed is us. Also when did it make more sense to believe in something you can't prove or see than not to believe in anything? Religion was created by the powerful to control the poor and less intelligent people of the world and its working pretty well.
ReplyDeleteI've often felt the only reason people believe in God is because of the utter hopelessness and confusion of the world we live in. Our lives make no sense whatsoever, so let's envision a dreamy place in our heads that we get to go to, assuming we say the right things here, where things will at some point make sense. I think a lot of people are afraid to say there is no God for the same reason. If there's no higher power with some higher purpose for the universe, then there really is no point to life. But I think that's just frame of mind. I definitely agree with Penn in his sentiment that atheism gives you vast amounts of hope--it just takes more work. Sure, it's frightening as hell to think you're on your own, but it's also humbling to think that you can create your own meaning, on this earth and in this lifetime, for your own individual existence. I think atheism provides a person with the objectivity to begin that task. It's less a rejection of God and more an acceptance of the realities of the world we find ourselves in.
ReplyDeleteThis idea and the style-over-substance remarks of anonymous-man make me think of Deism, which is a belief system we desperately need rekindled in this country. Deists believe that the study of science and all things physical actually brings you closer to understanding the world--and thus, closer to God. Like you said, Lons, the human circulatory system is overwhelmingly complex. I think something like faith or the kind of ignorant practice of religion you referred to cheapens the staggering perfection of life because, like Penn says, it forces you to view these "miracles" through a particular lens. Or as is more common among religious folks, they are simply overlooked and taken for granted. I respect guys like Jefferson, Franklin and Paine because they strove to study and understand these complexities instead of just saying, "Yeah, life is amazing, huh? God is great! What? You don't believe in God? That means you think life is hollow and empty. God deserves more respect! You're going to hell. Joke's on you, heathen!"
Kaz, that's far too well-reasoned and thoughtful a response for a blog post. You should just compile a few Einstein quotes and type "So there...OMFG you r teh sux0rs..." if you want to fit in on the Intar-Web.
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