Today on our radio show, we talked about how God was entirely indifferent to the pleas of Muslims in Pakistan, Hindus in India and Christians in Guatemala as an earthquake ripped open South Asia and a mudslide killed hundreds in Latin America. If you heard this on the show today or read some of my articles, you might assume I’m an atheist. I spend a good deal of time attacking the established religions. I think they are not only contradictory and counterproductive, but flat out wrong. But just because you don’t believe in organized religion, doesn’t mean you don’t believe in God.
The exact characteristics, wishes and goals of God are immensely difficult questions. And what exactly you mean by God is an even more difficult question. But I think some things are clear. God does not want you to kill your children if they curse at you. God will not cast you down to eternal damnation for eating shellfish or bacon. God did not favor Mohammed over the competing tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, nor did he whisper in his ear about taking dozens of the local women as his wives. Moses did not split the Red Sea and it did not rain frogs in Egypt.
But also, the universe is not random. There is clear and convincing evidence of order. E=MC2. In a right triangle a2+b2=c2. Pi is a mathematical constant that is used to figure out the ratio of every circle’s circumference to its diameter. Phi is the golden ratio. 2+2=4. For every force, there is an equal and opposite force. All of these things are indisputably true and indisputably not random.
Where does order come from? Is it created? Does it exist outside of time and space? What is its nature? I do not believe that these are unknowable questions. I think we can.
However, the first step to rationally figuring out the reality of an existent order is to put aside the nonsensical mythologies of yesteryear. The major religions of the world were concocted at a time when we had almost no scientific knowledge. They were our guesses in the dark about what might have created us. With the benefit of hindsight and what little scientific advances we have made, they now appear to be comically bad guesses.
They were adopted because they provided some degree of hope in an otherwise cold and unforgiving world. They were sustained because the human child is particularly susceptible to being programmed at an early age.
The fact that a great percentage of us happen to believe in the specific religion we were born into is a testament to the power of brainwashing. What were the chances that you happen to be born into just the right religion? Could it be instead that you believe what you were born into is the best answer for universal questions because that is what you were brainwashed to believe ever since you were born?
The fact that e=mc2 does not translate into woman must have been created from the rib of man. In fact, it takes a great deal of brainwashing to make that entirely irrational leap of faith.
What I am saying here is that there is a logical reason to have faith. But there can be no faith without reason. Without reason how could we determine what to have faith in? And when you use reason, you cannot justify any of the organized religions. Ironically, it's time to get beyond religion, so that we can focus on God.