Tiberius
[webpage]
A long time ago, I used to be religious. But not by choice. My parents went to church, so I went to church. In fact, I used to pretend I couldn't read so I didn't have to sing the hymns. Not out of contempt of the religion; indeed I was not old enough to form an informed opinion on religion, but rather simply because I didn't want to. Eventually we stopped going, I'm still not entirely sure why. Needless to say, I don't think my religious beliefs have changed since I was a young boy, I have simply become more solid in my convictions.
a�the�ism
n.
- Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
- The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
- Godlessness; immorality.
ag�nos�tic
n.
- One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
- One who is sceptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
- One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.
I'd like to discuss the meanings of these terms briefly. For atheism, the third definition includes the word "immorality." This, to me, is a clear indication of the religious roots still buried deeply in our society and our way of living. The definitions of these two words I pulled from dictionary.com, a site that you would presume to be relatively neutral. It is possible, however, that they have simply lifted their descriptions from another dictionary, one which is more heavily influenced by religion. I believe that the statement that being an atheist is "immoral" is in and of itself immoral. To say that something is immoral is imposing your judgements and your beliefs upon it, where you most likely do not have the right to do so. To see another example of this, one need only look at the cultural differences between our society and that of, say, the Middle East. Many would say that not allowing women to display any part of their bodies in public, that they must keep all areas completely covered, is immoral. To us, and to our way of living, sure, it may seem immoral. However, to them, this is something that has been practiced for a very long time. They no doubt see our society as being immoral, allowing our women to prance about semi-nude whenever and wherever they please. It's all a matter of perspective.
I included both definitions above to allow myself to stress where I stand on the existence of God. I sit somewhere in between atheism and agnosticism. While I do not outright deny the existence of God, I am finding it increasingly difficult to keep an open mind as far as God's existence. Granted, there are things that science simply cannot explain. However, I am a man of science, and therefore I would prefer that things be proven, not just accepted as fact.
To me, there is no proof that God exists. Way back, Aristotle said that there were a number of celestial spheres, each of which containing various things. The inner sphere was the Earth, outside that the Moon, then the planets of our solar system and the sun, and on the outer-most sphere, the stars. Now, in Aristotle's day, they were deathly afraid of two concepts: zero and infinity. Since they feared infinity, Aristotle stated that there must be a finite number of spheres in the universe. However, since these spheres turn (giving rise to the movement of heavenly bodies), there must be something to turn them. He stated that a sphere was turned by the sphere just outside it. But since there were a finite number of spheres, the outside sphere had nothing to turn it. To Aristotle, and the rest of the world, this was proof that there was something, God, which moved the outer sphere. This view stood for a very very long time. We now know that Aristotle was so wrong, today he would be chucked into a loony bin.
As yet, I have yet to hear of proof that God exists. Rather, there seems to be increasing evidence to the contrary, so much so that it appears to me that only two possibilities exist.
1. God does not exist. This, of course, brings up countless questions regarding the origin of the universe, etc etc etc.
2. God does exist, but does not want to be found. This is a bit far-fetched, I know, but I do feel that barring evidence that I have yet to see, this is still a remote possibility. The world of quantum physics is so strange and nonsensical that explanation is lacking in so many different aspects. The explanation that a supreme being of some sort is running the place could hold everything together if done right. I'm not saying that I believe it, in fact, that couldn't be further from what I believe. However, I do like to try to keep an open mind, and I think that this possibility should not be discounted.
Please feel free to retort or to agree with me. I'm very curious what other people think on the subject. And please expand on the topic as much as you can, I'm always eager to learn something new.
|
4:10 pm - Thursday, June 20, 2002
|
|
