Sunday, December 02, 2007

God

On this utterly insignificant little blue-green planet (as a certain Mr.Adams famously put it) where the sapient life forms have barely evolved, it is utterly predictable that their idea of God has barely evolved as well.

The so called ‘lively’ debates concerning the existence of God have given rise to many arguments. There are several arguments in support of the existence of God, like the anthropic argument, which is based on the anthropic principle involving "superlaws". The argument that there was a "first cause" that is identified as God is also known as the cosmological argument for the existence of God. The teleological argument argues that the universe's order and complexity are best explained by reference to a creator God. All of these and many more such arguments have been and will continue to be rubbished by science and reason.


Let us try and discuss some of the more basic ones.

Probably the most basic problem is that there is no universally accepted definition of God. Theologians gleefully claim that people with faith constitute the majority in this world. But when you pick out randomly a hundred such people and ask them what the definition of God is and why they actually believe in God, the answers differ staggeringly. In contrast, when you ask them the shape of the earth or whether the moon is made of rock or cheese, the answers are uncannily similar.

These varying opinions can actually be used to explain the basis for the existence of a plethora of religions. Most religions are social institutions that take it upon themselves to ‘rid the earth of all sin’ but in the process, cause bloodshed and wars, and result, most undesirably, in causing wide-spread cultural and behavioural polarization. Modern religion conveniently denies the demonstrability of the existence of God on the basis that proof denies faith. How absurd. How very annoyingly absurd. And there is of course the popular argument that religious teachings form the basis for the moral behavioural code of man. Where do you get your morals from Mr.Atheist? The most popular answer to this popular argument can be better explained by quoting Mr.Richard Dawkins, if I may. He once made a remark that contained the words “vindictive, blood-thirsty, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully” to describe the God of the Old Testament, and if you are getting ready to check your dictionary for revisions made to the meanings of these words, or for looking up some very polite names to call Mr.Dawkins, you would be surprised to know that the holy scriptures do contain references to activities of this sort. So, given that, you would expect an extraordinarily large number of believers in monotheistic or polytheistic dogma to be amoral and resort to racist and genocidal activities, wouldn't you? I mean, we do have sufficient examples of holy wars and oppression of women, don’t we? But in all fairness to people with faith, most of whom are respectable and responsible citizens, they are able to filter out "the bad" from the Holy Scriptures for themselves, without instructions from anyone else. Need I say anymore about where morals actually come from?

I do not wish to elaborate any further on the misuse of religion and its negative influence on free society.

This, in a way, leads us to the God-is-a-personal-experience argument for God’s existence, conveniently eliminating the possibility of a counter argument based on the lack of a common universal definition of God. There is this claim made by some of the so called ‘great thinkers’ of this planet that there are God-related experiences that are either a means to realise the ‘self’ and subsequently realise God, or a means to attain salvation or liberation, and these experiences are apparently quite personal. A state of concentrated attention of the mind, involving the empirical phenomena of moment-to-moment conscious experience in order to make our sense of ‘the self’ vanish and thereby uncover a new state of personal well-being, does exist. Scientific experiments have proved beyond doubt that this is actually a state of bliss which the human mind is quite capable of sustaining and is achievable by stopping the continuous chain of thought through meditation, thus putting an end to this absurd argument to prove God’s existence.

We could go on like this but clearly the point is that there is no verifiable evidence for the existence of God. I would also like to add here that, contrary to popular sentiment, belief in the creator God actually removes the zeal and the passion from life itself, in that it attributes thoughts, actions, art, nature and in general, the beauty life, to some sort of imaginary creative intelligence or super power which is apparently unfathomable to our petty little minds, thereby making man seem quite impotent and a lot less powerful than he actually is. Imagining that God created man for a definite purpose, removes from life, the joy that man can derive by shaping into existence a purpose for himself and working towards its fulfilment.


There is a long way to go before a majority of the barely evolved sapient life forms on planet earth are convinced about the power of reason. But gradually, in the minds of many earthlings, a hope is building up – a hope of strengthening and arming the resistance against faith.

Peace.
AMD

11 comments:

Ritu said...

what IS with this fixation to redeem one's standing wrt one's faith? why the urge to convince anyone that they are 'wrong' and one is 'right'? if i remember correctly, that has been the source of all wars and suffering on this tiny planet.
tell me - the birth of a creature is fairly scientific and reasonable, but what is the "mind" and when and how does it come into existence?

AMD said...

Right/Wrong is irrelevant. I am only stating that I don't know and so I don't believe. I also do not 'believe' in the non-existance of God. I hope you get the point :-)

You are right when you say that the source of all wars has been some form of conviction. This is exactly the sort of thing that people should move away from. Don't believe in things without applying logic/reason. Conviction or belief should be based on reasoning & not medieval iron-age dogmatic 'values', contained in some book, which are quite irrelevant to our society. You only need to read a few pages from the old testament to understand what I'm talking about.

Now, about the human mind.. Well, there are theories that explain the evolution of 'consciousness' of the human mind and all these theories talk about some common mechanisms in the brain, to put it simply. Science is getting there, and we are a lot closer than we ever were. But, it would not do us any good whatsoever if we try and reason these things out using theories that involve some for of divine intervention!

I reiterate: I am open to new discoveries that might prove the existance of any form of super intelligence. I will be the first to accept it. But I will not assume its existance simply because science cannot explain some of the things, yet. This makes me less 'fixated', less 'dogmatic', less 'fundamental' and less 'irrational'.

Ritu said...

:) your line of reasoning is somewhat similar to that of "Guilty! - unless proven innocent". But I do get your point of view, coz my belief is not a result of a dogmatic history but some amount of "soul-searching", if i may use the phrase.

Maybe, I can sum up my point of view in the fact that I do not believe the sequence of events from the beginning of the universe (as we know it) are just one chance happening after another. That stretches imagination a bit too far - for me. I know your response to this, as well (going by your line of reasoning). I can just say - keep searching for the answer and if you're "lucky", you'll find it someday :)

AMD said...

I will keep searching, but I will not act as if I already know it :) That doesn't do any good to the process of searching...

Anonymous said...

The whole belief thing is a choice that is not existent.

There’s never been a beginning there never will be an end. Its just a nonstop ever existing cosmic play of matter(Shiv) and energy(shakti) or just plain cosmic content changing form from matter to energy and vice versa.

The play will go on because matter can not cease to exist.(What can not be created can not be destroyed)Cosmos will keep playing with itself dividing and subdividing into forms and at different levels , mass and energy keep mixing in different proportions.

One of the variant is human form.
This weird variant develops higher consciousness (like the variant called "metals" that develop fields around it) and begins to think it can "think". This variant of the mass and energy refuses to accept its like all other forms say like worms that are created, live, die, rot, and tries attaching higher meaning to every thing and churning out funny concepts like "GOD" like "destiny" like "purpose" like "meaning" like "Belief" like "Truth"- every thing but the reality which contains this form itself. Because this is too demeaning and lame to accept.

This is what the scriptures try to say. The whole thing is just Leela.
Reality is simple and lame and uninteresting. Realizing this is mokhsa. The end to making fuss or big deal of this life and universe.
Every thing we think we know or we are trying to sssoo reason out (Including GOD or no GOD) is Maya meaning non existent!

So next time you see soul harvesters/Theologians/non believers/athiests/philosophers/scientists have a nice hearty laugh.

AMD said...

@ anonymous
For clarity sakes: "holy scriptures" in my post doesn't include the vedas. I could write pages.. i don't want to go there..

Anonymous said...

No!'
Scriptures didnt mean Vedas :)
(Just because you saw words leela and maaya?)I wuldn't probably quote vedas for a maaya vaada -argument based on maaya b'cos

Vedas propogate God!!What I was trying to say is that the whole question is irrelevant - existence or non existence of GOD/definition etc.

The write up starts with discussion on idea of God wanders to correct definition of God(At this point is AMD convinced of God's existence?:)

well,
this is a little crazy claim !!
"belief in the creator God actually removes the zeal and the passion from life itself," as crazy as "Where do you get your morals Mr Athiest?" morals and sense of right and wrong have existed even before organized religions

OH AMD!! Not only is this write up mixing a lot of threads, like all other readers I am getting mixed up! in my thoughts in response to your search :)

Well what are you searching for AMD? GOD? Right definition of God? Proof that belief kills zeal for life? pls elaborate.

AMD said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

case against belief in a creating, interfering god. - thats something I can relate to!
that theory isnt mine i just relate to it! I was just passing by -

You shd write about the answers too I think. It will be interesting to share perspectives plus will be a good read hopefully thought provoking too.

Anonymous said...

AMD,

The mind can never accept. Mind loves its search. There is nothing called absolute belief!

you might like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe4uXqsytzs&feature=related

Anonymous said...

This is great info to know.