Vacuity of Religion and Personal God : Introduction

If god is willing and able than why is there evil?
If he is willing but not able than he is impotent?
If he is able but not willing than he is malevolent?
& if he is neither able nor willing than why is he god?

I decided to start of the blog with these words of philosopher David Humes for they show the self-defeating basis of most religious dogmas. The belief that the earth is a battle ground of good and evil and that we humans are mere pieces in this epic never-ending battle is I think a huge insult to not only the human race but indeed to the entity we call “GOD” cause of we look around we can clearly see that god is not that omnipotent at all. Far from it. Indeed the whole concept of
this battle in itself is a victory for devil since all it brings is death to innocent human beings. Indeed the number of people who die a horrible everyday from diseases,murder, rape, genocide, military conflicts ………. far exceed in their scale and significance then the number of so called “miracles” that we hear about.

Now the immediate response of any deeply religious soul to this accusation would be along the lines, of course.. but god doesn’t cause murders & strife, devil does, we are with god on this ( you devil worshipper) , or that God is far more mysterious than human mind can fathom & his cryptic ways are not open to human understanding. Some more rational believers may go on to argue that my argument of universal evil in it self proves that since clearly there is evil there must be a god.

The first kind of response is what I call conspiracy theory where 2+2=4 is not a fact but an intricate conspiracy. Let me try to explain this using an example. Few years ago working as a front desk I bumped into this fellow who appeared to be high on drugs. He calmly started talking to me but then all of a sudden, in the middle of conversation he started shouting at the empty space besides him. Totally puzzled by this I asked if everything was alright to which he replied somewhat absentmindedly if i saw the person besides him who was trying to get him. I tried to convince him that there was no one besides him or even within 100s of feet except me. Even after I tried to show him there was no one around he never believed me, far from it he blamed me of trying to help the killer ! To him all the proof I provided wasn’t a factor against fearing his hallucination but instead it reinforced his faith in the power of his imaginary assassin and the grand scale of the conspiracy ( of course … the clerk is with him !!).Before thinking about this analogy note that devil
and god basically just different sides of a coin to say that devil exist is to say there must be a god and vice versa. Religion works in a similar way as our example where devil(anti-god) is the mysterious killer for people on faith. So when someone tries to convince the people high on faith that there is no devil that to them is incomprehensible since the devil is a thing taken for granted without question just like god is. A unique concoction of fear and denial their mind comes up with the ultimate defense against truth, some more blind faith and a conspiracy theory labeling the messenger of truth as devil’s advocate.

The second type of argument is an inexplicably redundant one. The one that assumes that no matter what we do god is bigger than what we can imagine and works in mythical ways. This has always been the strongest defense of religion. Exalting god above the status of human somewhat exempts him of any skepticism and places him in a forever safe expanse of the unknown. Historically religions across the world when confronted with skepticism have resorted to a safe haven of the unknown but when knowledge blows the cover of unknown hence demolishing the myth, religion moves
further out in this abyss. Earlier we used to believe that gods & angels live high in the clouds, when rationalist thoughts made evident to the thinking minds this could not be the case religion simply elevated the supreme being deep in the galaxies and star formations. As these covers are continuous blown religion has been hard pressed to find a new one. The latest of these covers seems to be a this thought that is so all-encompassing that it inadvertently goes on to explain nothing. People who use such arguments must consider the following … lets assume there is a god who is far superior in his capabilities and thought as opposed to the incapacitated humans. That in itself does not explain at all why we need to practice a specific religion since all of the religions are written by humans. If you assume that human can’t understand god than why do we hold on to the words of prophets who were after all mere humans. All the religions were either written by a human or were the interpretation of gods signals by one (a prophet). And even if the religious texts were sent directly form heaven, believing/interpreting its verses should be a futile and horrifically wrong practice, we wouldn’t be able to get it if god himself came and explained it to us. The argument basically tells us that we trying to figure out god is impossible when the fact remains that humanity has already achieved some of the greatest feats comparable to those possible only by gods in ancient scripture ( flying, healing mortally wounded and more recently creating life! ). The question proponents of such logic need to ask themselves is that how can nescient humans even recognize god when they see him or why do they think such an advanced being cares about human life which to it would most certainly be no more than a retarded maggot.

The final ideology is the most easy to refute since it is so fundamentally naive. The assumption here is that the evil that I talked about is present and that if I believe in evil than how can one not believe in god . Answer to this is very simple, the opposite of evil is not god .. it is go’o'd. Automatically associating evil to the devil and good to god is a universal tendency though a false one. This is no different than thinking that Gandalf the white (from lord of the rings) exists since there is good and Sauron also must exist because of evil.

Understanding the universe we live in, finding our purpose in life, finding happiness and inspiration in times when there is none to be found, doing good just for the sake of it & living a harmonious and fulfilling life, All of these are wonderful things that make us human. Traditionally, We have labeled them down under the name of the religion which ultimately has lead us to do the exact opposite , admonishing intellect, living in blind faith, worrying about how we will go to hell & spreading hatred and intolerance through our crusades. If we stop narrowing down life to such minimal standards then we can function better as a society and even better as humanity.

….. to be continued.

~ by raffeljose on January 17, 2007.