God and all that

Posted on 2004/02/26 22:26:09 (February 2004) by john.

I'm hoping for a debate with no real point whatsoever.

As I write I'm watching a spectacularly popularist and sound byte laden debate on the television about religion. Strangely though, I'm finding it very enjoyable. I am now going to attempt to write an ill-thought out reactionary piece of text provoked by this, without having any real solid viewpoint, in the not unrealistic hope it will spark some kind of debate. Let's face it, the 'maison needs some controversy, following the previous few weeks of near stagnation.

Oh, by the way, I've been drinking as well.

Typically, I would start some kind of row by stubbornly airing an unusual lefty sort of utopian hypothesis which is totally unworkable and really gets everyone's goat. Disappointingly, however, my thoughts on the whole religion issue are decidedly wooly, to the end that I can't provide you with the sort of narrow minded sweeping generalisation that normally results in a great big verbal punch-up.

So, where do I stand regarding the religion question...? I've had a number of conversations with my Dad over the past couple of years on this subject. In terms of actual observable behaviour, I'm not at all religious. I don't go to church or anything, and I don't own a bible, (or any other kind of religous text, unless you count that book about Franz Kafka). My Dad on the other hand can officially write the word reverend before his name, which one assumes makes him at least mildly pious. Now then, for me this is something of an issue. I still consider myself as fairly young, and therefore still imagine my parents as the font of all knowledge in terms of general life skills. It is therefore very bizarre indeed to me to be so at odds with someone whom I normally assume to be utterly right about everything. Incidentally, when I was growing up, my Dad wasn't particularly religous. So I had no real pressure or anything, both of my parents were agnostic, and they left me very much to make my own conclusions.

Anyway, talking to my Dad about the whole thing has been very interesting. It seems religion is one of those things you can actually put off thinking about altogether until a conversation with someone else brings it back into relevance again. I tend to think of myself very much as a scientist, and the thing is, as a scientist, unlike the traditional stance people might assume, I actually think you can't be an atheist. Science to me is largely about appreciating what you don't know, and accepting that there are many things beyond your sphere of knowledge that are yet to be understood. So, admittedly, there isn't anything that scientifically proves god does exist, but equally there isn't anything that prove he/she doesn't. Given that so many people do buy into religion, it does seem pretty plausible that there is something out there.

So there's the open mindedness side of it.

On the other side of it though, I can't get away from the "why do you need it" debate. A muslim friend of mine once postulated that in a society where everyone was good, you wouldn't need religion. For someone who does actually consider themself religious, this seemed like quite a surprising comment. Personally, I'm sitting fairly firmly in the same camp. As (bizarrely) Terry Pratchett once pointed out, we all have a voice in our heads that gives us a fundamental idea of what is right and wrong - I'm pretty sure in any decision there is a simple universal metric that can be applied to decern whether or not you are doing the right thing. If you have two decisions, one of which makes other people's lives worse, and another which makes other people's lives better, it is quite clear which is right. Altruism really doesn't have to be a massive intellectual or spiritual achievement, it's really just consideration for others. So, if an individual lived their entire life, always trying to be good to other people, what more do they actually need? Can devoting your life to improving the existence of other people, but never going to church, really be worse than somebody who is a complete selfish bastard but still has a little pray now and again and says sorry for it...? As Stephen Fry once said, it must be an incredibly vein god if he needs all the little people to keep telling him how good he is all the time. And isn't it better that people are being good just for the sake of being good rather than because they think they'll get some kind of reward when they die for it...? People who lead blameless lives because they think they'll get to heaven are still fundmentally selfish, aren't they?

Well I don' know in the end, but whether or not religion is necessary, I can't get away from the fact that simply being a good person ought to be the first priority, and almost something quite distinct from religion.

On a slightly irrelevant note, on the program which spurned this pointless diatribe, they had a satelite link with Nigeria so they could feature Cardinal Arinze. Apparently he is tipped as a strong contender for the next pope. Personally I think this would be spectacular; at times during the program he spoke like Yoda (off of Star Wars). Certainly I've never seen a more convincing advert for catholocism.

I'm very anti-pope. I'm very anti-catholicisim. Not at all anti-God, though. For me, it's fairly certain the He built the universe. This doesn't have to contradict science. It doesn't have to mean bad things for good people. I *do* think the church is far too hung-up on sex, though, and that this is the cause of much suffering in the world (hence my whole anti-pope stance). I'm not a church-goer, but I find it disappointing that in this country, poeple who express any Christian tendecies or beliefs can face ridicule. You wouldn't do that to a Muslim, would you? Hmm. It's a funny old world.

Posted by Jimmy at 2004/02/27 24:23:49.

John - nice piece. Certainly not reactionary diatribe.

I find consciousness a hard concept to get round. The fact I have the ability to think (honestly, I do!) and have a sense of "person" makes me feel very ego-centric. Hopefully not in a bad way - just in the sense I have only one viewpoint all my life. With a God out there I am just one of many "under" Him. Perhaps others will find this comforting; it takes away self-determinacy. All is planned from on high.

I also have a problem with a "Gothic" type of God. You know, the one that demands people cart their sons off up a mountain to slaughter them as proof of faith, just so said God can give a reprieve at the last minute. That's not religious, that's just plain cruel. Now if *I* can think that at my lowly level, then I'm sure a God has been there, done that eons ago. He/She/It must be way above that. Surely a God can't demand a war for religious purposes?! That's counter to the basic tennet of being nice to people....

Which, to come back to John's point, is probably that it's better to be as "Nice" and as "Good" a person as you can, rather than be all biblical and evangelical, yet aspouse blowing someone up for believing in something different. Be as genuinely good and kind as you can, and then if there is a heaven. you'll get there. No stress.

Perhaps this is the religious verson of the financial "Look after the Pennies and the Pounds will take care of themselves"!

Posted by Nigel at 2004/02/27 22:29:35.

Hmmm yea I think people are probably going to be a bit reluctant to enter into a hoo-ha about religion... Back to lefty utopian politics then.

Posted by John at 2004/03/01 24:30:54.

God's not dead, no, he is alive.
(and living in Camberwell)

Posted by tom at 2004/03/01 13:25:45.

I think Monty Python's 'The Life of Brian' points out a lot of the problems with religion - especially the 'Judian People's Front' part, which ain't to far off the truth unfortunately.

Posted by Simon W at 2004/03/01 14:03:44.

I hope God exists... there'll be fuck-all for me to do otherwise!

Posted by Satan at 2004/03/22 23:02:45.

Gods are beings created by humans and given supernatural powers or attributes such as immortality, omniscience, telekinesis, and invisibility. These creations serve many purposes, such as imaginary protection from enemies or explanations for the origin of such things as good and evil, fire and wind, or life and death.

Gods are often the central figures around which religions are built. It is often claimed that religion began in fear and superstition. The same might be said for gods.

Some religions maintain that there is just one God and that all the gods of all religions except theirs were created by human beings. Yet, everyone who believes in a god of some sort believes their god is real.

Since gods are supernatural, they exist outside the bounds and laws of space and time. They can possess any of an infinite array of magical powers. Hence, there is no way to prove or disprove their reality. One might say: If gods exist, anything goes!

I got this from quite an amusing site: http://skepdic.com

Posted by Karl at 2004/03/22 23:05:50.

Just thought of another one...

In religion there is good and evil. If there is no religion then there can't be evil (or good for that matter). Do away with religion and the world would be a duller place in my opinion.

Posted by Karl at 2004/03/22 23:10:09.

With fear of cheapening things here, anyone remember this classic...

The Babel fish... is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious ental frequencies from this brainwave frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nervesignals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them.

The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own argument, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book Well That About Wraps It Up For God.

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

Posted by Karl at 2004/03/22 23:13:10.

In the central mountains of Azania lives the famously confused Fukawe tribe (as in "We're the Fukawe?") Their god is believed to reside in elaborately carved sticks kept in every household. The sticks are used in times of battle to beat enemies to death, and in times of peace they are simply used as walking sticks. a welcome support through the stony paths of life, especially as you grow older.

Is there really any more to it than that?

Posted by dave b at 2004/04/07 14:05:04.

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