No, not something about the President of the United States, this means to wander around.
Usually, people don't trust me talking about religion, but since I mentioned that I wouldn't be talking about it in my last post, I've been asked twice (Yep, I got requests!) to actually write a post about it. So here it is. Before I start it, I'd like to just formally state that the opinions expressed in this post are purely my own unless stated otherwise. I do not intend to infringe on anyone else's beliefs, and I'd like to apologise if anyone is offended. Now that I've got my little "disclaimer" over with, I might as well begin.
I'm as tolerant as the next person with regards to religion - I believe that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and as long as they don't try to convert me or force their views down my throat, I'll let them just get on with it. It's not hurting me. But there is one thing recently that's been getting on my nerves quite a bit. I'm an Atheist, and I'm not ashamed of it. But I hate (I don't use that word lightly) being told by people that if I'm close-minded because of my faith or lack thereof.
I'd like to respond to this with a bit of backstory. I was brought up as a Christian. My father was of Church of England denomination, and my mother Roman Catholic. Up to the age of around fourteen, I was a devout Christian. It was at this point that I began wondering whether there was really a God, and started thinking about the world around me (I'll get onto this in more detail a little later in the post, just bear with me for now), and decided to convert to Buddhism.
Upon converting, I became a little happier with who I was. This may have something to do with the intake of healthier substances, or rather the lower intake of unhealthy substances. For a while I thought I'd found the faith for me. But, as I do, and as my level of scientific knowledge was increasing, I began thinking about the Afterlife. I mean, I was put off of Christianity because I didn't believe that a God existed, or more that I didn't want to. There was equally little evidence to support any form of Afterlife. After this realisation, I went through a brief phase of being unsure before settling on Atheism.
My life went very much off the rails here. I had no rules or religious laws to follow, and I felt a little chaotic inside and unsettled. But once I began to get used to myself and my lack of faith, I felt more comfortable than I'd ever felt in my previous faiths.
Ok, I'm now going to go into a little more detail into my reasoning. Christianity believes that an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent being, outside of Time and Space has laid out a divine plan for us all (to put it bluntly and in a rather generalised nutshell (forgive my generalisations here)). I struggled to believe this for several reason. I'm going to use a very basic argument here, because I just couldn't get my head around this, and it is one of the most fundamental arguments against Christianity. The presence of Evil.
(This may also apply to most of the monotheistic doctrines too) If God allows Evil, He is not omnibenevolent. Some may interject here, saying that He is allowing Evil as a test of faith. If it is a test of faith, why does it have to involve Evil? Surely as an omniscient being with a divine plan for everyone, He would know whether someone's faith to Him is strong. Thus, He is either not omnibenevolent, since He is allowing the Evil to exist; He is not omnipotent, since He is unable to prevent the Evil; or He is not omnipotent, since He does not know that the Evil exists. This was the main problem I had with Christianity, and it threw me. And, in my still-young mindset, I couldn't deal with a religion that had such a massive flaw.
Of course, as I am older and wiser now (Well, only marginally wiser, but wiser nonetheless), I can see that for Good to exist, Evil must also exist as somewhat of a measuring point. Without Evil, Good would become somewhat of a norm, and so paradoxically Good would not exist. I'm not quite sure if I'm making complete sense here. Since Good and Evil are the two extremes, our norm is somewhere in the middle. But without any Evil to balance out the Good, the Good would become our norm, and there would not be any extremes either side to measure from. It's a confusing concept and I'm not sure if it's making complete sense, but it's still there.
My second experience with religion came shortly after my Christianity bombshell. Buddhism is a religion that doesn't focus on a divine being (though it is still monotheistic because there is one primary religious deity - that is, the Buddha), but on right intentions and living a good lifestyle. I was intrigued by this religion because, not only was I studying it in school at the time, I liked the idea of a religion the focus of which was just to live a good lifestyle and do wrong to no one, including yourself. The main turning point for me was, however, the Noble Eightfold Path, being the Fourth of the Four Noble Truths. I'll outline the Four Noble Truths first, and then the Noble Eightfold Path.
The Four Noble Truths
1) Life is or is leading to suffering in one way or another.
2) Suffering is caused by craving.
3) Suffering will end when craving ends (by achieving Enlightenment)
4) Reaching Enlightenment is achieved by following the Noble Eightfold Path.
This was a fairly straightforward and logical way of teaching the way of a good life. "To eliminate suffering, you must achieve Enlightenment by following the teachings of the Noble Eightfold Path."
The Noble Eightfold Path
1) View life as it is, not as it appears.
2) Right intention
3) Right speech (truth and harmlessness)
4) Right action (non-violence)
5) Right livelihood (harmlessness)
6) Right effort (making the effort to follow the path and improve)
7) Awareness of life with clear conscience
8) Right concentration (to achieve Enlightenment through meditation)
These were the two things that really interested me and pulled me towards the religion. However, Buddhism follows a teaching of a cycle of rebirths. If you do not achieve Enlightenment in this life, you continue to your next life. If you lead a good life, you would move up a heirarchy of beings sorted by quality of life, and if not, you would move down. And, if you achieved Enlightenment, you would leave the cycle of rebirths and enter a state called Nirvana (or Nibbana) meaning literally "Cessation". The ceasing of suffering and craving.
I struggled to believe this because there appeared to be no proof of this. I know. It was a very childish and intellectually immature reason to struggle, but it made the religion difficult for me. My reasoning was simply that I struggled to determine between "soul" and "consciousness". I struggled to understand why a soul would not carry forward a cumulative knowledge of what had been learnt in previous lives to aid with reaching Enlightenment.
And so, I moved onto Atheism. Maybe as a wisened young man, I might have less of a problem with religion, but I'm happier and more comfortable with myself than I ever was when I followed any religion. Maybe it was down to just teenage hormones, maybe it was down to the religion. I'm not saying that it was primarily either of them, it's most likely to be a mix of both and goings-on in my life at the time. But right now, I'm comfortable with who I am, and I'm not going to be changing my faith just because I'm told that I'm close-minded due to my faith. Ironically, it would appear that atheists (as a generalisation) are more open-minded. Ask a theist (a believer in a religion) what it would take to change their faith and you will invariably get the answer; "Nothing will change my belief, for I have faith in my God/religion" or some variation thereof. Ask an Atheist the same thing and you'll probably get an answer along the lines of "Some proof" or, again, something similar. Theists are more close-minded (again, as a generalisation) since instead of accepting that some people might not believe in their faith, they just don't believe that these people exist. They believe that people either believe in their religion or just haven't realised that they believe in it yet. They are close-minded because, unfortunately, they have been taught to be close-minded. Most religions teach that it is a sin to follow another deity, thus perpetuating the cycle of close-mindedness.
It is such an unfortunate thing, and I am wholeheartedly glad that most of my friends that are religious are open-minded enough and intelligent enough to accept that not everyone follows the same religion.
As a final, completely unrelated note, I have been listening to some Bob Marley tonight, just relaxing with it. And so, I'm going to end this blog with the final words of the legend himself spoken to his son, Ziggy Marley;
"Money can't buy life."
Thank you for a most intriguing, courageous, honest, reasoned, well-reasoned and elucidating post.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that it will surprise you that, from a Christian perspective, there are responses to the ‘Problem of Evil’. Principal among these is free will: we can choose to do good (to seek our true nature) or to give in to temptation and to sin. The explanation for much of the moral evil immediate in the world is that, all too often, we choose the latter. The point of free will is that chosen good done despite evil is more meaningful than a spotless Creation in which good were only done because there was no alternative. There are many more things that could be said about this, and you have indeed touched on it briefly, so that will do. As you can see, I am no theologian!
I agree wholeheartedly that any accusation of close-mindedness based simply on your belief would be a grave misjudgment (the standard of your post proves it), and that to impose a belief onto another person would also be wrong. However, might I suggest that dialogue about belief is very important, and therefore that we are not necessarily to ‘leave’ people alone to their beliefs? What I mean is that, in a spirit of friendship, we ought to educate ourselves about these alternative propositions and their foundations (this is something you have done). But it is also good, I think, to discuss and perhaps challenge them. Otherwise we might end up with ignorance and mutual mistrust! That is why I do not think you should be afraid to post about religion (pray continue!!) – as long as everybody concerned is willing to be reasonable, why should we not discuss it? It is about the truth, after all.
Sorry - having published that comment I can see it is almost as long as your original post! I must remind myself that this is YOUR blog!
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly agree that free will is prominent here, and is certainly a response in its own right. Of course people will often choose the latter, since the moral evils are often the ones with short-term benefits. That is, they surrender their reward instantly, while veiling the repercussions that will follow. So, to most, they appear to be just a win-win situation, which is why people often choose to take the path of the evil, as opposed to the good path.
ReplyDeleteHowever, surely a God could possibly unveil these repercussions a little, to help show that no bad deed, as well as good, goes unpunished. To implement a sense of retribution, as it were.
Yes, absolutely, belief is as important, if not more than faith itself. To educate about religion is to eradicate ignorance and baseless prejudice against particular religions or even religion itself. However, sadly, a large proportion of the world already has this ignorance about particular religions. And one of the worst things is that the extremists who bring attention to the religions are always the ones who feel the need to cause destruction, pain and anguish to get their point across, which just perpetuates this cycle of prejudice against religions.
Sorry, the first line of that final paragraph should be somewhat separate, haha! It is largely unrelated to the rest of the paragraph.
ReplyDelete