In a book I'm reading called the Power of Myth (a conversation between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers), I finally got the real and nearly complete answer to the purpose of religion and God. I always talk about God being useful but not true, and I stick to that answer. BUT I also stick to Friedrich Nietzsche's story of the Ubermensch(literally translated, the super, or over man). First off, I will explain what myth is to me.
Myth, so far as I can tell, is a sort of fable, with a sort of collective teachings of a society. Each and every civilization has had its own myths. Myths help people go through their lives. It's sort of like a collective knowledge, consisting of subconscious knowledge and experience, reflections of a society as a whole and is passed on from one generation to another in a sort of symbolic fashion. Let's remember, myths are supposed to be interpreted by everyone in a society. For that reason, they are written in poetic, symbolic, and vague verses.
There was one example of subconscious symbolism that shocked me, that is the recurring theme of the eagle(a symbol of spiritual freedom, soaring) and the snake(the symbol of bondage to the earth) suddenly and almost universally throughout all cultures amalgamated to form the dragon. A serpent with wings. Without thinking about it, societies related these two animals that symbolized the human desire to have a free spirit and the constriction of man to form the dragon.
Another thing about myths that I mentioned above is how they are parallel. All myths share the same teachings but in different context. If you don't believe me, read this next part.
Part of the conversation between Campbell and Moyers. They are discussing the parallels between the myth in Genesis and myths in other societies:
"
MOYERS : Genesis 1; "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
CAMPBELL : This is from "The Song of the World," a legend of the Pima Indians of Arizona; "In the beginning there was only darkness everywhere- darkness and water. And the darkness gathered thick in places, crowding together and then seperating, crowding and seperating . . . . "
MOYERS : Genesis 1;"And the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light."
CAMPBELL : And this is from the Hindu Upanishads, from about the eight century B.C.: "In the beginning, there was only the great self reflected in the form of a person. Reflecting, it found nothing but itself. Then its first word was, 'This am I.' "
MOYERS : Genesis 1:"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply.' "
CAMPBELL : Now, this is from a legend of the Bassari people of West Africa: "Unumbotte made a human being. Its name was Man. Unumbotte next made an antelope, named Antelope. Unumbotte made a snake, named Snake...... And Unumbotte said to them, 'The earth has not yet been pounded. You must pound the ground smooth where you are sitting.' Unumbotte gave them seeds of all kinds, and said: 'Go plant these'. "
MOYERS : Genesis 2: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done..."
CAMPBELL : And now again from the Pima Indians: "I make the world and lo, the world is finished. Thus I make the world, and lo! The world is finished."
-
MOYERS : But Genesis continues: " 'Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, 'The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.' Then the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is this that you have done?' The woman said, 'The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.' "
CAMPBELL : The Bassari legend continues in the same way. "One day Snake said, We too should eat these fruits. Why must we go hungry? Antelope said, 'But we don't know anything about this fruit.' Then Man and his wife took some of the fruit and ate is. Unumbotte came down from the sky and asked, 'Who ate the fruit?' They answered, 'We did.' Unumbotte asked, 'Who told you that you could eat that fruit?' They replied, 'Snake did.' " ' It is very much the same story.
"
I implore you all to read at least the last part of the conversation. Read it and reread it.
If you cannot see the similarities between myths by now, you are truly lost. I'm not implying that every culture tells the same exact story. What I mean is that the problems of mankind are the same everywhere on Earth. From that myth is born, and is told in context to the society. I have reason to believe that myth helps in the survivability of mankind, or at least has up until globalization.
But I am no expert on myth. It is just a topic that has my interest sparked at the moment.
The most important aspect that I think should never be ignored is the fictitious nature of myths. Very easily, people take myths literally. The same way you don't ask your parents why you're not allowed to do dangerous things, you don't question the truth behind the myths they've thought you.
Myths do have purpose, and atheists (I admit) often disregard their power to teach in the same way theists take them a in a literal sense. There was obviously no snake, woman, man, God and fruit gathered in the Garden of Eden(or even a Garden of Eden). The messages in every religion are symbolic.
But here's where I take off my blanket of niceness. We're in the 21st century. Science makes planes fly. Religion makes planes fly into buildings. Science discovers nuclear power, the power of the sun,. Politics levels cities with nukes. Science discovers a way to satisfy the basic need of every man, woman and child on earth. Capitalist economies insist on feeding the already full.
These three major retardants of the progress of man, religion, politics and economics, have found ways to appeal to our animal like tendencies. Religion with the promise to never die(live forever with God), politics with the promise of equality and fairness, and capitalism with the promise of fair trade. All facades for the animal need for an alpha male(a God, the King) and greed.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Prophecies
First(Sorry, you asked for it), an explanation on fulfilled prophecies with the help of David Hume and Nostradamus.
My part of the explanation goes like this. If a thousand people wrote a thousand different stories, each with a vague writing style, and these stories were compiled in a book; after a thousand years, would it be easy to fit any of these stories to an occurrence in history? History, of coarse, is written by the victors, so history can be vague and one sided as well.
That explanation may not have made sense, but consider this;
I once believed the world was going to end in 2012, because of the predictions that Nostradamus made that actually came true(Hitler's rise to power among many others).
Before I allowed myself to fall into the trap of belief without evidence, I read through all opinions on Nostradamus' work. I even read the translated prophecies. It surprised me that about 50% of his prophecies could be related to something that had happened. And they were were VERY vague. One had scrutinize every symbol to get some sort of meaning behind the images and words. What this meant was that prophecies were sort of like horoscopes. They're always vague, but people tend to believe them by fitting them into a situation even if there isn't any concrete evidence.
That was not the reason I stopped believing the world would end in 2012. It was months later when I read Neil Gaiman's Sandman. There was a comic involving the same bar being visited every century from the middle ages till the year 2000. In the first strip(the year 1500), there's a few people saying that it seems as if the world is coming to end the way things are going. Then in the last strip(the year 2000), there are people having the same exact conversation. That comic strip was enough to change my mind entirely.
It showed me that men are subconsciously aware and afraid of their inescapable doom. It is true the world will end; but just for them. Once you die, your world ends. People are generally afraid of losing. Death, being the worst way of losing, brings out the 'bad loser' attitude in people. "If I'm going to die, then so is the rest of the world."
Whether or not the world ends in 2012, it is stupid and wasteful to cling on to prophecies like that.
David Hume's explanation on miracles(which are related to prophecies, since most consider the fulfillment of prophecies to be miracles):
That is all I have to say about prophecies.
My part of the explanation goes like this. If a thousand people wrote a thousand different stories, each with a vague writing style, and these stories were compiled in a book; after a thousand years, would it be easy to fit any of these stories to an occurrence in history? History, of coarse, is written by the victors, so history can be vague and one sided as well.
That explanation may not have made sense, but consider this;
I once believed the world was going to end in 2012, because of the predictions that Nostradamus made that actually came true(Hitler's rise to power among many others).
Before I allowed myself to fall into the trap of belief without evidence, I read through all opinions on Nostradamus' work. I even read the translated prophecies. It surprised me that about 50% of his prophecies could be related to something that had happened. And they were were VERY vague. One had scrutinize every symbol to get some sort of meaning behind the images and words. What this meant was that prophecies were sort of like horoscopes. They're always vague, but people tend to believe them by fitting them into a situation even if there isn't any concrete evidence.
That was not the reason I stopped believing the world would end in 2012. It was months later when I read Neil Gaiman's Sandman. There was a comic involving the same bar being visited every century from the middle ages till the year 2000. In the first strip(the year 1500), there's a few people saying that it seems as if the world is coming to end the way things are going. Then in the last strip(the year 2000), there are people having the same exact conversation. That comic strip was enough to change my mind entirely.
It showed me that men are subconsciously aware and afraid of their inescapable doom. It is true the world will end; but just for them. Once you die, your world ends. People are generally afraid of losing. Death, being the worst way of losing, brings out the 'bad loser' attitude in people. "If I'm going to die, then so is the rest of the world."
Whether or not the world ends in 2012, it is stupid and wasteful to cling on to prophecies like that.
David Hume's explanation on miracles(which are related to prophecies, since most consider the fulfillment of prophecies to be miracles):
- People often lie, and they have good reasons to lie about miracles occurring either because they believe they are doing so for the benefit of their religion or because of the fame that results.
- People by nature enjoy relating miracles they have heard without caring for their veracity and thus miracles are easily transmitted even where false.
- Hume notes that miracles seem to occur mostly in "ignorant" and "barbarous" nations and times, and the reason they don't occur in the "civilized" societies is such societies aren't awed by what they know to be natural events.
- The miracles of each religion argue against all other religions and their miracles, and so even if a proportion of all reported miracles across the world fit Hume's requirement for belief, the miracles of each religion make the other less likely.
That is all I have to say about prophecies.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Part 2; Atheism cont'd and the Unjust God
Cont'd
2. Where religion would rely on belief before justification, atheists practice the opposite. With religion, there is a requirement to believe first. This is common in all religions. The creed is, belief first, then if someone asks you why, then justify. With atheists, we have a total opposite system, if you will, of beliefs. It's not an actual system, it's unorganized, it's decentralized, there are no preachers, there is no system of faith, it's completely up to the individual to keep learning and keep changing the way he or she understand how the universe works. That's why I keep writing.
Anyone who has followed this blog will know by now that I started off very agnostic. I was actually religious before that, and only stopped believing in God somewhere in October last year. Just over a year ago. But back to the subject at hand.
3. There are more contradictions within and between religions than there are within and between fields of science (philosophy not being counted as purely empirical science). Considering there are 3 major monotheistic religions, 1 major polytheistic religion, and possibly hundreds of off-shoots from these 4 religions as well as the hundreds of other belief systems(Scientology included) would imply the chances of one point of view being right would be 1 in a thousand(presuming there are that many different views). I would like to remind everyone that each and every religion presumes itself to be the one true religion. So on the off chance that the Mormons were correct, about 99.5% of the world's population will end up in hell. Think about that.
God is also said to be all-loving. This is almost universal across all religions. Assuming Christianity was the true religion, and God had the sympathy to allow every one from every offshoot of Christianity(collectively, the worlds most wide spread disease/religion) into heaven, that would still mean 2/3rds of the entire planet ending up in hell for simply not being born in the right place at the right time. That's 4,000,000,000 souls in hell. God's will? Maybe he's more of a sadist than a lover of all things.
Now if we change the rules a little bit, while maintaining the all-loving nature of God by saying God will allow any body with good intentions to enter heaven, granted that at the gates of heaven, he or she accepts God(or that version of God). If that were the case, then the most logical approach would be to reject God in our daily existence, and simply maintain benignity.
4. Theories and facts.
With the above text in mind, we can dissect any apparent observation. I will now dissect 4 observations using the power of the internet and some facts that I already know of. The observations are gravity, evolution, emotion, and God. These observations, as you can tell, are increasingly difficult to explain, that is, gravity is explain quite simply, which is not the case for the explanation for God.
Gravity is and was a theory because there was a tendency for objects to fall. The first explanations for gravity by Greek philosophers are now considered obsolete. For a long time Newton's theories were considered as close a match to actual fact as you could get. Then Einstein came along with his theory, and up to this day, it is considered to be the closest you can get to to explain the FACT of gravity(sorry, I published it as "theory", I really meant fact).
We can observe that changes occur when an organism produces offspring. We observe that a child bares resemblance to both sides of the family, hence, the same organism is not simply being copied and pasted, but recombined with traits from other organisms. The theory here is said to be evolution, that is, the constant test of survivability of genetic traits through the process of natural selection. Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin both had very different theories of evolution. Both of them had produced very close-to-fact explanations that seemed to fit the theory of evolution, but they were both incompatible with each other UNTIL the discovery of DNA. Since then evolution has been rewritten(by combining Darwinian evolution with Mendel's genetic model), tested and confirmed to be a fact; or at least to close to fact to be denied by any one with an ounce of biological knowledge or a Richard Dawkins book. To say that evolution is just a theory is to say that gravity is just a theory. Thus, we can conclude that although we cannot prove evolution, just as we cannot prove gravity, but the ever increasing evidence for both gravity and evolution must compel any sane person to believe they are both true, or at least as close to truth as we can get at the moment.
Emotion is next. We can observe that every living creature,on nearly every degree of sentience, has some degree of emotion or emotional response. The basic one being panic and aggression. We can observe insects to have both of these emotional responses at any rate, which is why I say they are the most basic. Let us also take into account the normal state of being, that is free of emotion, like when asleep(without a dream), or when idle. Since I already rejected philosophy as empirical science, I have to explain the phenomenon of emotion without the will to power theory. This might get messy. To test a basic emotional response such as fear, scientists have used artificially hatched chicks. By disallowing any 'teaching' from a mother hen, these chicks were hatched in a lab. A while later, a silhouette of a eagle(or hawk, I can't remember what they used) was shown to the chicks. As in, a figure of an eagle was made to seem as if approaching the chicks from above. The chicks responded exactly how you'd expect them to; by scattering and chirping madly. For more, read The Making of Memory. What we can conclude is that emotions are genetically imprinted to ensure the survivability of an organism. The moment an organism panics, all it's senses are elevated, it has the will to move with more agility, and therefore have a greater chance of escaping. It is not God's will, it's the organisms. If the genetics that are inherited by the chick(in this case) aren't best at what they do, then they will not survive to be passed down. We can now see that this testable hypothesis on emotion almost fits perfectly, but there is still much room for improvement, there probably already is, but I haven't read it up yet.
I will not go into the more complex emotions such as anger, love, curiosity and etc as I am not intrigued by any of them.
Sorry if I'm going off topic, but a possible theory for the existence of consciousness would be perhaps to master emotion, hence exponentially increasing the survivability of the organism as it should (but in our case only the Buddhists seem to get it) ensure the constant manipulation(control of emotion being a form of manipulation) of emotions to suite the situation.
Ok, last theory. God. We can observe that there are miracles, prophecies that seem to fit perfectly, signs of upper intelligence, a voice in the back of our heads that guides, a void that people need to fill, etc. So, God can be used as a theory. However, with all the theories above(I worked from the ground up, skipping chemistry, first with physics(gravity), then biology(evolution), psychology(emotion)), it can be seen that there doesn't necessarily need to be a higher power that works for the more complex systems of the universe by creating less complex systems.
The argument I'm trying to present here is that there is an assumption that God created us for the universe, which would mean God's objective would be our existence, and for that to happen, God would need to create all the other basics. This is a major flaw in the theory of God, considering the more basic theories already hint that the universe was made ground up, not the other way around.
Blanketing the God theory by saying God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, thereby proving that God could have created the universe for us seeing that for us to survive, a universe would need to be created is absolutely flawed.
The whole theory of God is in fact, absolutely flawed. It is a theory of infinite regress(who created the creator? If God one day said, let's start, what day was it and why that day? What was God doing before that? Did God ever wonder who created him? Why does God seem all too human in our minds?). It is also a theory that can always rely on being untestable. Whenever a testable trait is brought up, religious apologists are quick to argue and bring up revised versions of God's prophecies and methods. In science, revising a theory is ok because, as I've said, our knowledge on the universe is always expanding. Modern science in barely 200 years old, yet it's achieved more in the field of genuine truth finding than religion ever has.
What I'm trying to imply here is that there is something very wrong with religion. It isn't a good thing. I can compare it to a fallback plan for the stupid, cowardly and ignorant. I can relate it to a virus, always looking to spread itself(just think the three religions trying to get into space to convert the first(if any) intelligent alien life form). I can see that it fits the evolutionary failure of believing in those you believe in, where it's original purpose was to make sure people put faith in their parents or trusted friends, they would learn something that would help them survive, religion however has festered and continues to be passed down in the same way.
2. Where religion would rely on belief before justification, atheists practice the opposite. With religion, there is a requirement to believe first. This is common in all religions. The creed is, belief first, then if someone asks you why, then justify. With atheists, we have a total opposite system, if you will, of beliefs. It's not an actual system, it's unorganized, it's decentralized, there are no preachers, there is no system of faith, it's completely up to the individual to keep learning and keep changing the way he or she understand how the universe works. That's why I keep writing.
Anyone who has followed this blog will know by now that I started off very agnostic. I was actually religious before that, and only stopped believing in God somewhere in October last year. Just over a year ago. But back to the subject at hand.
3. There are more contradictions within and between religions than there are within and between fields of science (philosophy not being counted as purely empirical science). Considering there are 3 major monotheistic religions, 1 major polytheistic religion, and possibly hundreds of off-shoots from these 4 religions as well as the hundreds of other belief systems(Scientology included) would imply the chances of one point of view being right would be 1 in a thousand(presuming there are that many different views). I would like to remind everyone that each and every religion presumes itself to be the one true religion. So on the off chance that the Mormons were correct, about 99.5% of the world's population will end up in hell. Think about that.
God is also said to be all-loving. This is almost universal across all religions. Assuming Christianity was the true religion, and God had the sympathy to allow every one from every offshoot of Christianity(collectively, the worlds most wide spread disease/religion) into heaven, that would still mean 2/3rds of the entire planet ending up in hell for simply not being born in the right place at the right time. That's 4,000,000,000 souls in hell. God's will? Maybe he's more of a sadist than a lover of all things.
Now if we change the rules a little bit, while maintaining the all-loving nature of God by saying God will allow any body with good intentions to enter heaven, granted that at the gates of heaven, he or she accepts God(or that version of God). If that were the case, then the most logical approach would be to reject God in our daily existence, and simply maintain benignity.
4. Theories and facts.
A scientific theory is a well supported body of interconnected statements that explains observations and can be used to make testable predictions
Scientists most often use the word "fact" to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence is so strong
With the above text in mind, we can dissect any apparent observation. I will now dissect 4 observations using the power of the internet and some facts that I already know of. The observations are gravity, evolution, emotion, and God. These observations, as you can tell, are increasingly difficult to explain, that is, gravity is explain quite simply, which is not the case for the explanation for God.
Gravity is and was a theory because there was a tendency for objects to fall. The first explanations for gravity by Greek philosophers are now considered obsolete. For a long time Newton's theories were considered as close a match to actual fact as you could get. Then Einstein came along with his theory, and up to this day, it is considered to be the closest you can get to to explain the FACT of gravity(sorry, I published it as "theory", I really meant fact).
We can observe that changes occur when an organism produces offspring. We observe that a child bares resemblance to both sides of the family, hence, the same organism is not simply being copied and pasted, but recombined with traits from other organisms. The theory here is said to be evolution, that is, the constant test of survivability of genetic traits through the process of natural selection. Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin both had very different theories of evolution. Both of them had produced very close-to-fact explanations that seemed to fit the theory of evolution, but they were both incompatible with each other UNTIL the discovery of DNA. Since then evolution has been rewritten(by combining Darwinian evolution with Mendel's genetic model), tested and confirmed to be a fact; or at least to close to fact to be denied by any one with an ounce of biological knowledge or a Richard Dawkins book. To say that evolution is just a theory is to say that gravity is just a theory. Thus, we can conclude that although we cannot prove evolution, just as we cannot prove gravity, but the ever increasing evidence for both gravity and evolution must compel any sane person to believe they are both true, or at least as close to truth as we can get at the moment.
Emotion is next. We can observe that every living creature,on nearly every degree of sentience, has some degree of emotion or emotional response. The basic one being panic and aggression. We can observe insects to have both of these emotional responses at any rate, which is why I say they are the most basic. Let us also take into account the normal state of being, that is free of emotion, like when asleep(without a dream), or when idle. Since I already rejected philosophy as empirical science, I have to explain the phenomenon of emotion without the will to power theory. This might get messy. To test a basic emotional response such as fear, scientists have used artificially hatched chicks. By disallowing any 'teaching' from a mother hen, these chicks were hatched in a lab. A while later, a silhouette of a eagle(or hawk, I can't remember what they used) was shown to the chicks. As in, a figure of an eagle was made to seem as if approaching the chicks from above. The chicks responded exactly how you'd expect them to; by scattering and chirping madly. For more, read The Making of Memory. What we can conclude is that emotions are genetically imprinted to ensure the survivability of an organism. The moment an organism panics, all it's senses are elevated, it has the will to move with more agility, and therefore have a greater chance of escaping. It is not God's will, it's the organisms. If the genetics that are inherited by the chick(in this case) aren't best at what they do, then they will not survive to be passed down. We can now see that this testable hypothesis on emotion almost fits perfectly, but there is still much room for improvement, there probably already is, but I haven't read it up yet.
I will not go into the more complex emotions such as anger, love, curiosity and etc as I am not intrigued by any of them.
Sorry if I'm going off topic, but a possible theory for the existence of consciousness would be perhaps to master emotion, hence exponentially increasing the survivability of the organism as it should (but in our case only the Buddhists seem to get it) ensure the constant manipulation(control of emotion being a form of manipulation) of emotions to suite the situation.
Ok, last theory. God. We can observe that there are miracles, prophecies that seem to fit perfectly, signs of upper intelligence, a voice in the back of our heads that guides, a void that people need to fill, etc. So, God can be used as a theory. However, with all the theories above(I worked from the ground up, skipping chemistry, first with physics(gravity), then biology(evolution), psychology(emotion)), it can be seen that there doesn't necessarily need to be a higher power that works for the more complex systems of the universe by creating less complex systems.
The argument I'm trying to present here is that there is an assumption that God created us for the universe, which would mean God's objective would be our existence, and for that to happen, God would need to create all the other basics. This is a major flaw in the theory of God, considering the more basic theories already hint that the universe was made ground up, not the other way around.
Blanketing the God theory by saying God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, thereby proving that God could have created the universe for us seeing that for us to survive, a universe would need to be created is absolutely flawed.
The whole theory of God is in fact, absolutely flawed. It is a theory of infinite regress(who created the creator? If God one day said, let's start, what day was it and why that day? What was God doing before that? Did God ever wonder who created him? Why does God seem all too human in our minds?). It is also a theory that can always rely on being untestable. Whenever a testable trait is brought up, religious apologists are quick to argue and bring up revised versions of God's prophecies and methods. In science, revising a theory is ok because, as I've said, our knowledge on the universe is always expanding. Modern science in barely 200 years old, yet it's achieved more in the field of genuine truth finding than religion ever has.
What I'm trying to imply here is that there is something very wrong with religion. It isn't a good thing. I can compare it to a fallback plan for the stupid, cowardly and ignorant. I can relate it to a virus, always looking to spread itself(just think the three religions trying to get into space to convert the first(if any) intelligent alien life form). I can see that it fits the evolutionary failure of believing in those you believe in, where it's original purpose was to make sure people put faith in their parents or trusted friends, they would learn something that would help them survive, religion however has festered and continues to be passed down in the same way.
"[Religion has made] a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are intellectual slave holders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction."
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