Many people often ask me what my religious belief in "god" is. So here's my explanation of current views and its history of reasoning.
I wasn't raised with any specific religion, though my grandma in Germany taught me a prayer once that we'd say every night before bed. Interestingly, my grandparents married with different religions (Protestant and Catholic, I believe) and back in their time this was seen as heresy, but they were in love and determined. Today people could care less about "mixed marriages" (the topic today is same-sex marriage). This must've caused some difficulty between my grandparents deciding how to raise their children, because in fact, both of their children (my mom included) turned out to be non-religious. My dad had a pretty different experience. His father followed "Christian Science" and pushed those views pretty harshly (not allowing my dad to enroll in science classes in high school). Neither of my parents followed in the traditional footsteps of their own parents. And obviously, my parents didn't care what religion I chose, so I was free to believe whatever I wanted (though there was an influence toward logic and reason).
Most of my life I believed in some type of higher Being because so many others did too, it just seemed "normal", but wasn't very sure what it meant. During my mid-teens I began to question these things and wondered whether I was possibly an atheist. As I started solidifying my beliefs and aged into my early twenties, my stance changed into agnosticism. The main reason for doing so was in realizing that the claim that "NO god exists" is made with the same lack-of-proof as claiming "god exists". Even arguments like Occam's Razor cannot justify the claim that there is "no god" when lacking proof. Atheists tend to like ideas about proving negatives (see
evidence of absence), but that's not very sound logic because it's omitting a possibility when
"some claims cannot be falsified because they are ultimately unverifiable"
It is these unverifiable claims that always seem to linger as humanity holds tightly onto them hoping they are true. Eventually I was left in a stage of not knowing whether "god" existed, but continuing the journey to search for logically sound ways of making progress and accepting that some things just may never be known during my lifetime.
Define "god"
Around age 24, I learned about
Ignosticsm. This philosophy talked about how most current religions assume too much about what "god" is.
"God" lacks a clear definition; how do you define "god?"
If you're not really sure where to start, here's something to provoke your thoughts. In an attempt to answer the question myself, assume that one day a Being crosses your path claiming to be "god", and says,
I am god, and I can prove it to you by granting you any wish. What would you ask of me to prove myself to you?
How would you respond? Would you ask him to bring a relative or friend back from the dead? Teleport you to another galaxy? Show you an event from the past/present/future?
Think hard about this for a minute before reading on...
I've tried to think of many questions, but have never been able to pin one that WOULD ACTUALLY PROVE any Being was indeed a "god." This is mainly because any of those acts could plausibly be performed by a more advanced being of our universe, not necessarily a "god" that created it. An entity of higher intelligence could posses the advanced technological capabilities to manipulate space/time/matter far beyond our current scientific understandings or engineering capabilities (a being born in this universe just like us humans). If an intellectual alien species were to have just 1000-2000 years of advancement beyond ours, there's no telling what they could be capable of... NO idea, especially when considering that technology advances exponentially
NOTE:1000 years is a minuscule time frame in comparison to the age of the universe, there could be species out there which are orders of magnitudes more advanced than our tiny minds can even begin to comprehend.
To put this into perspective: if you showed a caveman a lighter, he'd think you were a "god" for being able to create fire in the palm of your hands. If you showed him a modern smart phone, he wouldn't even be able to comprehend its significance, let alone be able to predict its usefulness thousands of years later.
My point here is that it's difficult to distinguish between
intra-universe technology and
extra-universe "powers". In fact, "playing god" is something we humans do all the time. By farming plants we impose governing rules/restrictions on crops by seeding them in soil, watering them, exposing them to light, harvesting them, etc. for our own benefit/consumption. In a similar way, all of us must also adhere to the
governing laws of physics; a
cage we're all trapped in, but for what purpose? We can't see what is creating or enforcing these laws, maybe it's a higher intelligence manipulating us, but even if that were true, the Being need not be at the top of the command chain/pyramid to control us in our trapped environment.
Anyway, the definition of "god" (as most current religions define it), assumes too much knowledge about what "god" actually is. I think a major criterion people accept is that "god" is out-of-this-universe. Meaning any Beings that evolved within the universe (ourselves included), no matter how advanced and awesome, wouldn't be eligible as gods. A true "god" would have had to create the universe. But is that
really a "god" or just another advanced species? Does it matter? Maybe a "god" is the one at the very top tier of ALL creators, but is that even possible? Who/what created "god" and when does it end? Maybe "god" is that which has always existed, never having been created. These questions may be the
very last ones that science can ever possibly
hope to answer!
As we humans discover more of the universe, our perspectives change greatly, but "god" will always be used to define the unknown.
THAT is probably the best definition of "god" you'll ever find if you were looking for one...
If in fact I believed the fairytale-esque religious writings/folklore of holy scriptures, I would still venture to say that the "god" in all of these stories is either completely bogus or was a very advanced and strange/irrational being of this universe.
The Greek gods have long since been moved into the category of "Mythology." Why? Because that belief system has no more followers. Thousands of mythological gods have been
retired in this way. If you think about it,
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
We can reach the top of Mt. Olympus now and see no evidence of gods up there, but when we reached the "heavens" aka. the sky, people (instead of letting go) found ways to further their deep beliefs in heaven/hell. There are over 2000 man-made religions, all claiming to be correct. In essence, an atheist just believes in
one less god than a theist, of which they commonly agree that the other 2000+ are all false gods.
Whenever strong evidence contradicts the original forms of a superstition, that superstition either dies-off (as an untold many previously have), or more likely is
shifted to a new pocket of scientific ignorance where it cannot be tested/verified (yet).
Some choose to ignore altogether or demand overwhelming amounts of proof that contradict their beliefs, yet blindly have faith in things they wish to be true.
It's an interesting social dynamic because this shifting attempts to keep the old idea, even though it's now been transformed into a
new one, so as not to fully admit the old one was wrong. Scientific ideas do this type of
refining all the time, but science is
allowed to -- no,
required to -- by definition. Religion often wants to have it both ways: forcing people to hold onto archaic beliefs only when it's convenient and beneficial for some agenda/purpose. This type of manipulation is troubling.
One more thing that bothers me greatly is how willingly people will believe so-called "experts" from millenia ago, but not trust current
actual experts who are
vastly superior in outlook and knowledge.
On a side note, I've learned NOT to dismiss everything from religious texts as completely bogus either. There's definitely some interesting ideas and useful advice to be gained from some of the stories. If people actually followed Jesus' teachings of love, acceptance, empathy, and forgiveness, the world would be a better place, but often religion is interpreted to justify the
opposite. And that's another gripe of mine, that religion is open to interpretation and can be used to justify almost anything (in the name of religion).
Fiction vs. Science-Fiction
I once laughed at the bible claiming the Earth was created in 1 week on the basis that it was impossible
in general, but when I started to seriously consider it in terms of past/modern human technology and engineering capabilities, it seemed plausible with advanced technology. Don't get me wrong, enormous amounts of evidence suggest that the earth is indeed 4.5 Billion years old forming from after our sun went supernova. But don't take my word for it, just ask the <
Sarcasm> almighty omnipotent Google:
"how old is the earth"
Bam, there's your answer. Our current explanation is that Earth formed after our star went supernova and was brought together by natural physical processes which we understand pretty well. However,
in general a planet
COULD forcibly be created in 1 week with the proper technology; it's not impossible (it may seem like
sci-fi to us presently). Looking at creating the Earth from an engineering perspective, a planet could be created in 1 week. I can imagine that in a few thousand years, great advancements beyond our current technology could grant us the ability to construct planets if we wanted to (and didn't destroy ourselves first).
With great power there must also come — great responsibility.
-Stan Lee
I can envision it now, it could be called "Planetary Engineering." Things like terraforming, creating/harvesting and heating/compressing massive amounts of matter, or crashing smaller planets together could all fit into this field of study. I go even further to imagine that we could produce non-spherical planets, say ellipsoid-shaped. We could have oceans just along the equator region. No atmosphere at the poles (which would be great for space docks because those endpoints of high elevation are already moving faster). Gravity would be oriented normal to the planet's surface only at the equator and poles (pretty cool huh?!), everywhere else on the planet would feel like living on a hillside with the varying slopes depending on your distance from the equator/poles.
Closing Statement
In conclusion, as long as
unknowns exist, we will always have a place for the term "god". The definition may change over time as science pushes forward and reveals hidden truths, but I'm doubtful that "god" will ever be disproven entirely. I want to end with a closing statement from Carl Sagan, one of my heroes:
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