In this post we will be exploring the following reasons people give for being an atheist:
Reason 1: There is no scientific evidence for God (Polled 56 votes)
Reason 2: The religion was inconsistent with reality (Polled 46 votes)
Reason 3: Real miracles don’t happen (Polled 12 votes)
Reason 4: I couldn’t find a good reason to believe in God (Polled 11 votes)
Reason 5: Animals don’t talk (Polled 6 votes)
Reason 6: Reality is not dependent on any God (Polled 4 votes)
Reason 7: Science disproves God’s existence (Polled 2 votes)
Everything you know about the nature of the universe, all of your knowledge, exists as patterns on your brain that have developed via the input of senses.
Unfortunately, these senses are vulnerable to being faulty or manipulated. Should they all be faulty and or manipulated, you would have no way of knowing for certain if anything you are experiencing is real. Even the five people who you ask to verify your senses could be a manifestation of your faulty or manipulated senses.
So where does that leave us? What you are left with is that the only thing you can be even remotely certain of is that you exist. This is called Solipsism.
Why then should we believe anything at all?
Personally, since my senses seem consistent, I can manage to pull from them some semblance of my existence potentially being meaningful, and I innately value the potential meaningfulness of my existence.
Even should my senses start to become somewhat inconsistent, for example, should I get a brain tumor that causes me to hallucinate, so long as I can account for the defect enough to ignore it, I can manage a meaningful existence.
So we can manage to get past our lack of certainty in reality by deriving valuable meaning from the consistency of the patterns in our brain. So naturally, any information we manage to gather through consistent observations of our universe is immensely valuable.
Though there is an issue. Namely, the reality we observe suggests that, at some point, the universe will essentially cease to exist. Thus our existence will ultimately be meaningless making the meaning we pull from our observations paradoxical.
How tragic that everything in our observed reality points to the ultimate meaninglessness of it all.
One may be tempted to wonder if there exists something beyond what we have observed which can save us from this seemingly inevitable fate? However, the moment we choose to believe in such a thing lacking observations, we will have rejected a piece of knowledge made meaningful through the only thing we have, consistent observation, and, in doing so, we will have rejected the value of consistent observation itself. If we choose to reject one consistent observation then why believe any consistent observation at all?
I agree with this sentiment. I choose to accept the reality I observe. That reality being that I will die and the universe will evaporate into oblivion, and any meaningful existence is to be had in the time I am privileged to be alive. I cannot accept God as a part of the reality I observe, for I have not observed God at all, let alone with any amount of consistency, thus I cannot assert to know that He exists.
However, such a matter does not discard God’s existence from the table of possibilities. It merely categorizes the existence of God as a hypothesis and nothing more.
Theories require some matter of consistent observable evidence and the best evidence we have is records of claims which cannot be replicated without God’s collaboration. Such collaboration, should there be any, would seem to have been withheld from public observation; restricting concrete evidence to chosen individuals. The testimony of individuals, which cannot be replicated with consistency by everyone, is not viable evidence for classification as a theory.
Therefore, God’s existence, while possible, lacks any compelling evidence which would demand belief on behalf of anyone who desires for their perception of a consistent reality to maintain meaning and value.
Hope, on the other hand, one can find hope in the possibility of the hypothesis of God’s existence without compromising the value and meaning of consistent observations; so long as God’s existence is never asserted as anything more than a hypothesis, hope is not intellectually compromising.
So, where my observations tell me that the meaningfulness of my life is subjectively temporary, I can combat the paradox through hope in the possibility of the existence of a benevolent God.
Likewise, I can hope for the possibility of miraculous events, a miracle hypothesis, without compromising the reality I observe.
In conclusion, our existence is meaningful because we can seem to gain knowledge of reality through consistent observations. To reject the reality we observe in favor of something we have not observed is to undermine the meaningfulness of our existence. However, where meaningful existence is threatened by what we observe, further meaning can be gleaned through hope in the hypothetical. So long as those things hoped for are never held in the place of scientific theories and laws, and so long as they do not compel you into willful ignorance, they do not compromise the meaning one gleans from that which is consistently observable.
The question we are then left with is whether or not God is worth hoping for. In the next post, we will dive into the issue of God’s neglect and the effect that has on the worth of hope for the existence of God.
Next Post: Hide and seek losers go to Hell
Previous Post: Introduction
Questions for my readers:
What are your thoughts about the assertion that humans are incapable of certainty?
What are your thoughts about the reason I give for why we choose to believe our senses?
What are your thoughts about the idea that if we reject the reality we can observe with consistency in favor of something we cannot, we are undermining the meaningfulness of our existence?
What are your thoughts about the notion that one can hope for that which remains unobserved without undermining the meaningfulness of our existence?
I'll give some thoughts on meaningfulness -
ReplyDeleteMeaningfulness is subjective, and ultimately another human construct. You suggest it seems that life will be ultimately meaningless because the universe ends, and that God's existence could add meaning. But I think that's a belief that can be challenged.
Life as we know it is impermanent, and like every other form of life we have an inbuilt drive to prolong our existence. But in clinging to the need for life, it is easy to ignore the value of impermanence. I would argue that impermanence is an absolute requirement for value and meaning in our lives. We experience life through our responses to a range of stimuli, which shapes our human experience. We experience countless opposites, which each rely on the existence of each other. For example, we understand happiness by comparing it to other emotions, e.g. sadness. Without a capability for sadness, we could not comprehend happiness as its existence relies on that comparison. The concept I'm using in this example is the same as my reasoning for the importance of death.
Death is the ultimate underlying motivator for our existence and experiences. Death is the opposite of life, and neither can exist without the other. The potential reality of death is what forces us to pursue meaning, not to mention that life and death are the driving forces of evolution. My point is that impermanence is important, and without it our lives could not carry meaning in the same way. We have an evolved drive to want to live forever, hence the universe ending makes us very uncomfortable. So I can understand the want to believe in God. But I don't agree with the concept that our lives are ultimately meaningless if God isn't real. We are just one piece of the bigger picture, and no less important than anything else. The energy we are made of doesn't get destroyed after we die, but our structure is lost. We lose the physical capability for life and thought, so in a subjective sense we have undergone a loss. But nothing has been lost from the universe itself. In a physical sense we are no more or less meaningful than anything else. Believing that our existence is meaningless is a subjective choice, not a truth.
So I think the need for a benevolent God is highly dependant on an individual's world view. Humans, like the rest of the universe, don't objectively hold or lack meaning. But we can choose to see a lack of meaning when faced with the reality of the inevitable end of the universe. However, we can also choose to see value in impermanence, and find a different sense of eternal meaning without God.
I agree with you 100%. Looking back over this with your input in mind, I will update my phrasing to "the meaning of life is subjectively temporary" as opposed to "life is ultimately meaningless". I would like to open myself up more to considering a "different sense of eternal meaning without God" as I do not feel as though I have been allowing myself to do that for the sake of not cutting short the journey this blog covers.
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