Surviving God

I’m pretty sure everyone wants to believe in God in some form or another, even if it’s just a strong sense of belonging or purpose. But I find myself among the ranks of those who have a practical mind and cannot find a place to fit God. All the main points are clearly laid out in many books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. See Ben’s recent post about it.

But I don’t want to go into the practical side of it, because I’ve already conceived myself that there is no God, at least no evidence for the God of the Bible, or the Torah or the Koran or any other holy book on this planet. The fact is those are all made up by a lot of (sometimes) well meaning people just trying to make life a little easier, or get themselves a little ahead in a time when those sort of things could fly. But they can’t now. And I’m sorry to be harsh, but if you still believe that when you die you will be ushered to the pearly gates of heaven where God waits to give you all the luxuries you never had on Earth, you’re in for a surprise.

But then again if you really do believe that, then you probably think I’m in for a surprise.


But that’s really the point of contention here, and kind of what I’ve got on my mind. Faith. I know people, including the pope himself, who believe science and all its wonderful discoveries to be true and accurate and still believe in God. See they always want to take science one step further. Those of a religious mind view scientist as lost children with a candle in the dark who are just shy of seeing God. If they would only shine there light just a little further God would become apparent.

But we keep shinning and shinning and still no God, God of the gaps, if you will. The point is, if you already believe God exist then you’re going to see him in everything. But if you don’t then you won’t see him in anything. Most scientists like to comply with Ockham’s razor, the idea that if there is no evidence for something then don’t make it up. Especially when there are perfectly reasonable answers available. And even if there aren’t you still shouldn’t just make stuff up.

The problem of course is people aren’t comfortable with the idea of lack of knowledge. And that’s reasonable because if you don’t know something you’re vulnerable to that unknown something. I’m pretty sure most things we do in our life come down to that one fundamental desire – to survive.

Freud said it was sex, but sex is just an attempt to survive, beyond you granted, and into the next generation but it is survival. People have always invented things to better insure their survival, houses, cloths, refrigerators guns and religion. But where as the former provide physical forms of survival religion falls into the same category as government and politics; the Elk’s Club and the YMCA. An institution created to give stability to life. Our religious institutions provide a peace of mind to people who are worried about where their next meal is going to come from, or whether or not they are going to get sick and die. Is it a coincidence that we are one of the most religiously zealous countries and at the same time the only country in the civilized world that doesn’t have nationalized health care? If the government isn’t going to take care of us who is? God? Do you think it’s a coincidence that the Axis of evil contains some of the poorest nations on Earth? Religion gives people hope, people that have hope in nothing else.

But we don’t live in a world that is void of hope. Somewhere along the line, perhaps when we started to crawl out of our intellectual shells and view the world for what it really was, God lost his relevance and now he is struggling to survive in a world that doesn’t need him for hope. Preachers lay claim to moral authority and truth based on ancient text. All the while threatening those of us who don’t buy it with hell fire, here on Earth or otherwise. But they have no authority over the truth, truth is created in the minds of men and men are changing their minds.

And the concept of faith is something religion has laid claim too as well. As if having faith exclusively meant having faith in God. Faith is that element of throwing sand in the face of logic and carrying on as a means of survival. It is neither good nor bad, it is a human defense mechanism. I have faith that mankind will abandon religion and come to its full potential someday, without any evidence for this other then circumstantial. And I have this faith because it is what keeps me going. If I lost all hope then I would have no reason to live. But this power of faith comes from me and from my brothers and sisters of the human race. We don’t need God. We can survive him.