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Scott's Beliefs |
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I really enjoy discussing philosophy and religion with my friends. I'm very interested in trying to understand why people do the things they do, and what motivates them. I like to think about question like why are we here, do we have a purpose, what morality should we judge ourselves by, and basically what's it all about? I consider myself an Atheist, although I was not always that way. I was raised in a religious Christian home, and believed what I was taught, but had a lot of questions that I could not find answers to. As I got older, I discovered many more questions about what I was taught, particularly about the Bible. When I actually read the Bible for myself, I found many things that I had not been taught in Sunday School. I found contradictions, things that didn't make any sense, things that were truly horrible, and a lot of stuff that sounded very much like fairy tales and mythology. In the New Testament, I read that God is love. In the Old Testament, I read that God commanded his people to destroy entire cities, and to put every man, woman and CHILD to death, which does not sound like love by any definition I have ever heard. For example, in the Bible, the book of Joshua is the chronicle of Joshua leading the people of Isreal, at the command of God, to make war on a string of cities. According to the Bible, God commanded them to go from city to city, invading and attacking each one. At God's command, they invaded each city, and killed every man, woman and child. Think about that for a minute. They killed children, and babies, young mothers, old women and men, in the name of God. Is this the sort of god that you would want to worship? Is this a god of love? How could a perfect, sinless god say "Thou shall not kill," then turn around and command his people to kill innocent children? That seems like a contradiction of one of the Ten Commandments. This caused me to re-evaluate my beliefs. I was raised in a Christian home, and therefore I was raised to believe in Christianity. I have had many friends with vastly different beliefs, including Buddhists, Islamists, Jews, Wiccans, Atheists, Agnostics, Christians, Hindus, Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pagans and a few others. Most of us shared one thing in common: we all were raised to believe as our parents believed. That made me realize that my "chosen" religion was really just a factor of chance. If I had been born in the Buddhist, Islamist or Jewish home, I would have then been raised with that belief system. That pretty much nullified the "Faith" argument. If I am to simply have faith, then what religion should I put my faith in? I've never been much of a gambler, and I didn't feel like taking a gamble that Christianity was the "correct" religion, when the odds were so poor, considering the thousands of possible religions on our planet. The consequences of choosing the wrong religion could be dire, so I considered this an important question to answer. I decided to step back and think about the different religions from an open-minded perspective. I needed some sort of evidence to make an informed decision about something so seemingly important. There are many thousands of religions in this world. However it didn't take long before I saw the complete, total lack of evidence for any religion or god. Some say, "Well look at nature, how wonderful and beautiful it is. That proves that God is real!" I can only ask, "Which god does it prove the existance of?" The beauty and wonder of the world could be explained by any god or gods from any religion, or by no god or religion at all. I finally realized that nobody really knows anything about god or anything supernatural. People may say that they "know the truth," but they have no evidence, only a feeling. A feeling or emotion is not evidence, and people from all the thousands of the world religions all share a similar feeling that their belief is true. I came to the conclusion that you are just as likely, or maybe moreso, to learn the truth about god or the supernatural from the local grocery clerk, bank teller, janitor or housewife as you are from the Pope, the pastor of the largest church, or the leaders of any major religions. When trying to figure out which religion was "true," a thought came to mind. If there are 10,000 world religions, and only 1 is true, then that means 9,999 religions are wrong. That means that a Christian is 99.99% athiest, since they believe that 99.99% of the world's gods do not exist. So I began to question why I should think that there would be a "true" religion at all. If 9,999 religions are false, then why would the 1 remaining not also be false? With a complete lack of any scientific, testable evidence, I concluded that all religions are nothing more than mythologies created by man. But why would so many people not come to the same conclusion as I did? Why do most people continue to believe the beliefs of their childhood? I thought about this for a while, and the conclusion was plain to see. First, people continue the beliefs and rituals of their childhood because to do otherwise can cause alienation from family and friends. I have experienced this first hand. I have received coldness from family members, and rejection from long-time friends. Some religions even have solid rules that you must turn your back on family and friends who leave the church. Second, I think some people stay with their religion because it gives comfort and easy answers to life's difficult questions. The promise of living forever after death in a place of paradise without sickness or unhappiness is a happy thought indeed. However, the belief that Santa Clause flies around on Christmas delivering presents to all the children of the world is also a happy thought. I cannot force myself to believe something that I have no evidence for, no matter how appealing the thought might be. Many people believe that their god heals the sick at the request of prayers, yet statistics show that people heal or do not heal, live or die, regardless of their beliefs. Good people suffer, innocent children die, while evil people live and prosper. Third, religion gives power over others. Televangelists rake in millions of dollars from their congregations by convincing them that God wants them to send their money. Church membership usually encourages paying a large percentage of the member's gross income to the church. Money is power. Politicians proclaim their belief in the popular god of their nation to get votes, again bringing power. Parents can control children by telling them, "God is watching you, and He says you must obey me." Truth has always been very important to me, as well as looking at the world with open eyes. I concluded that, with an utter lack of evidence, I could not believe the teachings of any religion, whether I wanted to or not. To pretend to believe would be to lie to myself and others. I came to this understanding during the last church service I ever attended, and I remember it well. I was standing in the front row at church, singing a song that went, "And, He walks with me, and He talks with me." I realized that I honestly did not believe that Jesus, God or any other supernatural being walked with me, and no supernatural voices have ever spoken to me. To stand there and sing those words, proclaiming a belief that I honestly did not believe, was living a lie. That was something I could not do, regardless of the threat of losing friends and family. I left the church that day, never to return, and I have never regretted it. The next question I faced was whether or not I believe in any sort of supernatural power, spirit world, or a soul. As with organized religion, there is a complete lack of any scientific evidence (testable, repeatable in multiple laboratories, etc) to support any of these. I did, however, discover a line of reasoning that, at least to me, supports the idea that there is no afterlife. From what I have seen of nature, if something can be damaged, then it can be destroyed. It has been demonstrated in many case studies that a person's personality can be altered by altering the physical conditions of the brain. Hormone changes, drugs, disease, age and injury to specific parts of the brain can have a dramatic effect on the person's personality. If a person's brain is changed or damaged, then his personality, perceptions and senses are also changed or damaged. It follows, then, that if a person's brain is destroyed, then his personality, perceptions and senses are also destroyed. If no personality, perceptions or senses, then what is left to experience an after-life? This is why I firmly believe that when we die, we cease to exist. Simple as that. Game over. I would like to believe that life continues, like with reincarnation or some happy magical paradise in the sky, but it is impossible for me to believe something simply because it sounds nice. |
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