by ValerieHallaway » Wed May 09, 2012 8:20 am
"God is redundant." -Steven Hawking
There are three ways in which I think of Religion.
The first is that it is and always was a way for humans, scared and huddling around the fire, to explain why they exist when nothing else besides them could think or reason. They had to make some sort of sense out of a big scary world out to eat them, and had to wonder what they did wrong to deserve such a troubling existence. If you look at a wide range of different religions you may notice that even though they were founded centuries apart, even though they have their extreme differences, they all are innately the same. One could say our higher power manipulates our religion, that they are all correct, and yet none have the full picture. One could say that religions that become founded after popular predecessors borrow and steal away things from the past, so converting masses to a new order is easier. Religion makes things easier for a 'true believer', religion makes difficult moral problems simple, black and white, good and evil, wrong and right.
Before I go on, there are very distinct differences between faith and religion. Religion is the institution, faith is the personal relationship you have to your god or however you feel. Everyone has faith in some measure, even the nihilists, even the atheists. I know that I can't turn my back on the fact I believe that the soul is a form of energy, the jump-start that makes a creature of circuitry and tubing start moving, then the rest is fuel for the fire so to speak.
The second way I think about religion is as an excuse. People have made religion to be a reason to slaughter, claim land, and have the common populous proud of their achievements. Religion fuels the war machine, it breeds misunderstandings and resentment. On a personal level, it lets people that follow a doctrine use loopholes so they can do terrible things, and never feel they must answer for their crimes. Being absolved for wrong doing because a man told you God understands, and believing that humans are inherently evil and sinful creatures by nature are gimmies.
The third way is that from now until the end of human existence, organized religion and personal beliefs in god/gods/something will exist just as fiercely as we do. It will evolve and change as Science develops, but even science needs a reason to exist. Humans love putting things neatly in organized boxes, and while this is not a bad thing, it means we'll never be able to cope with a big black hole in our logic and understanding. For now, I hope that less people rely on organized religion as a means to have a relationship with god.
To explain the quote I used directly, Hawking has hypothesized that a fluctuation of gravity may have triggered the Big Bang event. We have never needed a god to explain why the world turns after we figured gravitational forces out. You should definitely listen to his lecture on the subject, it's unprecedented at the very least.
Magic man, not all atheists are blockheaded assholes, just the ones out to piss others off and derail a decent thread.
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Valhalla awaits.
