Of big questions, the now and random rambling of a sceptic’s mind pt.3

There is no God. There, I said it. And as much as it pains a part of myself that was brought up by deeply religious mother, I have to admit it - there is none. This is not my belief - let me be clear about that - belief needs my agreeing. As if my concurring makes it more real. No, I am talking facts. Facts do not care, if one believes in them or not. They hold true no matter what. Recently, I watched a video on Youtube.  It was a long monologue of some Imam trying to demonstrate with logic how islam is somewhat different from other religions. He stated that truth can be for some 1+2 =3 (true) and for some 1+2 =4 or 1 (seemingly true). He said the latters are close to the truth, but only one is truly correct, thus justifying the correctness of Islam. There were several mistakes in his approach, but I will only note this one. He stated believers that 1+2=1 or 4 are close to the truth. I know what he meant by that, but he used a wrong analogy, and there is the irony. In mathematics or science there is no “being close to truth”. Something is either true or not. That is how concept of truth works. There is only one. The one of facts - what happened when and where! Implications these facts produce are a subject to an objective and logical inquisition to prove or disprove them in order to get a deeper understanding of reality. There might be only one truth, however, there are countless interpretations of it. And this is in a way what I am talking about here.

I have met an older lady recently; she is an artist and works in a prestigious design school teaching accessories design. She is a believer, not in a god, but in “something more than this”; additionally she sees the humanity as a lost cause and rational thinking as a false answer. She asked me, if I do not believe in something that is beyond this world, in something that science cannot explain yet, like a lost knowledge or something our brains can do, but forgot how to do it. I asked her to define the word “beyond” and pinpoint its position. I also asked her to explain to me how “not believing in levitation” is any different from “not believing in the assumption the earth is flat.” The latter was disproved by observation, the first not … yet. Science works like that. There is no secret knowledge for the chosen ones. There is no secret knowledge at all, only not having yet an answer. If something like levitation would suddenly start occurring on Earth, there would be a scientist working on it, who would then explain it and changed something we considered supernatural (beyond natural) a month ago into simply natural. Science would give us the knowledge of how to levitate ourselves so levitation would become something we do. All of us! To go into an extent and call something supernatural just because we do not yet understand it is immature and irresponsible. Science does not interpret reality. It explains it. This is what these people do not understand.

I told her that science has no problem with levitation. If enough force is used -because gravity always happens between two bodies of mass - something could indeed levitate, thus defying the gravitational pull. However, that was not the levitation she had in mind. She thought of those levitating guys, who do not use any force to do it (not the guys on the street with clever construction and wardrobe to cover it). I said that levitation without the use of any force would break one of the fundamental forces of nature that is the cause for everything in this universe - and that I have troubles with. Claiming the laws of nature broke down for one person in particular is absurd to me, as forces of nature do not choose whom to obey to, therefore if there is a way to levitate without the use of force, it should be accessible to everyone. She agreed with me on that. I told her that a levitating person - a product of its surroundings - works with the forces that make him possible. He is intertwined into the fabric of cosmos; therefore his doing has to have consequences that are measurable and observable. She dodged the answer claiming she knows of a boy that can move things by telekinesis. I replied I have no problem with that. Physics would thrive on that possibility and would gladly examine that. She said defensively the parents of the boy would not want for him to become some lab guinea pig. (Well, there goes our proof! Why is that all the gifted are the most selfish?) And even though I said science would embrace that kind of knowledge, had it happened to be real, studies have been already made and claims disproven times and times again. Yet, people always find an excuse to continue believing, may it be in extraordinary circumstances or the conspiracy of academia.

She then continued, what about personal experience? She could not lift up a person from floor with a group of 8 people. I said, I have no troubles believing that, but she should allow me to have a personal experience of my own also and not just expect me to believe her on the word. Personal experience is important, apparently, as it is the believers’ final defence line. When I am in a group of men unable to lift up a 100kg man, then I will believe this experience. But! I would still ask myself why. I would reason that, if that were true, either his mass would have to suddenly increase, which could be measured with a simple scale, or gravitational pull would have to suddenly become stronger for that person only, which is essentially impossible, since the change of mass of the Earth would have consequences everyone on this planet would feel. I doubt that kind of fluctuation would happen on demand. How come these people do not look into what happened from all points of view? Why they consider only what fits their description/interpretation of reality, already? Do they need to believe in something at any cost? And if so, why? I would look into this using psychology, particularly, mass delusions. One cannot but observe in awe how mass delusions work. We have Hitler’s Germany as an example. But enough about that. What I am saying is science has no problem with any claim as long as it is not exclusive to selected conditions. Or if it is, it always works in them. Science doesn’t kill magic, it just shows it never was there in the first place. There was no magic before, we invented it out of ignorance. That is also what these people tend to forget. Like brains and world of magic were developed before the emergence of consciousness and we are now just catching up. There goes the evolution theory.

Well, we still continue to interpret reality the way we want, disregarding factual reality of the situation on the way. God is one of those interpretations. I guess it started by trying to understand basic natural phenomena like lightning.  To me this says more about the will of a human mind to understand things than it does about anything else, like purposefulness of god. We slowly pushed god’s territory back by explaining more and more things. Now almost nothing is left for him to rule over, almost nothing with its imprint in design. Creationists cling to the missing links, anthropic principle or parts of evolutionary inexplicable occurrences, and find their proof in science not being able to answer those questions satisfactorily (I doubt it ever will, because….aha! what about that, and so on and on and on) But it will. Someday. Ironically, science could be the one that gives us the ultimate proof of god’s existence in the end, but that would throw him from his immaterial throne into the world of matter or anti-matter, which is not very much godly, is it? Regardless, I imagine there would still be people thinking god is the same thing as what they imagined. Oh my, I can’t even…this is absurd to even consider. Thankfully for now, as nature unveils its principles, there simply isn’t enough space for god. In this universe, for the way it works, he is not needed. So he (or she), by default, could not be a part of this universe. At all! Even if an inexplicable is proved, that it was made by the entity we call god, he would still not be a part of this universe. He is beyond it, and what is beyond cannot intertwine with our universe or we would have observed it. This is where physics with its eight proposed shapes of universe is laying, too - in the realm of probably never observable phenomena. However, science is not preoccupied with what implications any of proposed theories bring. They will accept whatever they propose. If theories are able to explain every phenomenon in this universe, predict its outcomes and after countless tests still hold true; and if they imply an 11^th dimension, multiple universes, alternative universes or … god, science will accept it. But it will never make something a fact just because it is not able to find an answer for it. This is how religion and belief work. Science doesn’t give up like that. We are observers, we look to the sky and wonder, and that is unstoppable. Answers will come.

Rational thinking would let you know that through history there have always been gods and we threw away 99% of them. Atheists, Dawkins says, just went one god further. The rational thinking will also quite clearly show that a God (religion) is not necessary for the society to go on. On the contrary, it would be probably better off without it. Moral is intrinsic. Just looking at the past easily proves that. Seeing how much was done in God’s name that we now perceive as wrong shows that religion has no special moral code one couldn’t find in Little Prince or any great literature for that matter. To repeat myself, no war has ever been started by science believers (if you can call them that, when there are only facts)    

I have been sceptical enough lately. I still am. I am a sceptic for bullshit and unrighteous justification - may it be god, homeopathy, chiropractic, super foods, probiotics, fortune telling, astrology, regression and other kinds of manipulation. I have to be, because I do not want to be misled. My dear friend once asked me why I love science. I did not know how to answer instantly, but then, seeing falling snow, I said something like this: “There might be a person telling you that snow is a product of a man sitting on the clouds and spreading his hatred or something and you would believe him because he would be convincing. And you would be fearful and ignorant. And you would be lost and not living to whole potential. I want to know why it snows and how snow is made, because I want to know the truth in order to not be manipulated or misled. I want to be fearless. There is too much stupidity being done out of ignorance, we need to spread knowledge. That is our only weapon. Accepting the truth, and acting according to it.”

I personally am not bothered by whether you believe in god or not. If it works for you, that is fine. You can live a highly moral life in spite of your delusion, be happy and die. But do not kid yourself in thinking he is necessary or believing in him makes you somewhat more special than anybody else. That is a given! Also, I do not think it is wise to make someone so distant (read absent or non-existent) as an excuse to hurt people that are present and whose potential could be used in a better way. I do not care, but I cannot have respect for it either. Like I do not have respect for the belief of people in asylum who believe in unicorns, or lizzards, or jew-conspiracy, or Xenu, or…) I only have a problem when people speak in god’s name or demand from me to act upon their religious views. I do not demand from you to act according to atheist’s code (what is that exactly?), do I? (I kindda do… but just because I think you would be happier! Aaaand … I am an apostol, dammit!)

You are lucky, that is all. If your belief makes you a moral person, that is luck. You could have gone either way, remember the fundamentalists (of any religion / belief / conviction, etc…). Everything is merely a perception of what is inside of you already. You make your own reality as you act through the day. You spread what you have. Being manipulated does not make your wrongdoing right. You are always responsible for the things you do. You are, in the end, a cause for the aftermath.

AA have a saying “Let go and let god.” I would make it shorter. “Let god go!” He wants to leave. Believe me. It is evident. He would not have made us so smart, if he hadn’t wanted for us to realise he isn’t real. However, nothing was done in vain. Wittgenstein says, if people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done. Now, enough of silly.

And there is that.