What I believe
There are many things that I believe in. I believe that sunsets are beautiful, that love is wonderful, and that rainbows are both beautiful and amazing - especially when you understand the refractive index of a raindrop. For me, understanding such phenomena only enhance their beauty and the wonder that I feel about them. Knowing that love is something that happens in the software of my mind that runs on the wetware of my brain does not diminish the awe I feel over this feeling.I lack any belief in a deity.
This is a "default" position for me. I have not found sufficient evidence to encourage belief in a deity. That doesn't mean that such evidence doesn't exist, somewhere. As soon as that evidence is presented I'll reevaluate my position. But it is as silly for me to believe in a deity "just in case" as it is for me to put bowls of milk on my doorstep "just in case" Brownies actually exist.
I have also seen that a coherent, falsifiable definition of God is yet to be given, by any religion. So talking about who God is, or what he/she/it wants is premature at best.
I will admit to the chance that our universe could have been created through intelligence.
The philosophers and scientists of the past who have said we were nearing the end of our journey of knowledge were wrong. I see us in the infancy of physics. And some of the infant ideas of physics include the hypothesis that universes are a "zero sum game" of quantum mechanics. That daughter universes can form out of the action of parent universes.
Some physicists have the idea that an intelligent action in one universe can result in the spawning of a daughter universe.
But this is not something we can prove one way or another now. I must admit that we might never be able to prove this idea.
In order, the three things I discuss here are given as atheism, ignosticism, and agnosticism. As you can see, these positions are not mutually exclusive. But they are not weighted the same.
To me evidence is key. I place much less weight on those ideas that lack sufficient evidence. I'm in large part an atheist due to an overwhelming lack of evidence. I'm Ignostic due to a lack of a good definition of deity. And I'm agnostic because I lack evidence that the universe was NOT created. However the evidence that everything in Nature came into existence through natural methods is so overwhelming, that the spot left over for an intelligent creator as described in modern religions is very small. I assign an equally small probability to my agnosticism.
2 comments:
Well....
If a full-blown naturalism does not eliminate our sense of awe at the universe, then it can never be said to drain existence of meaning, as some partisans on both sides maintain. A personal meaning will always be sought somewhere at the boundaries of experience, even if it stems from a 'default' position like the one you describe.
I conclude (you may found this counter-intuitive) that from both a functional and qualitative point of view this is something akin to religious experience, with or without any implied supernatural baggage. Your mileage might differ on that point.
One of the questions I might ask: just how important is the supernatural, really, to the religious life? Couldn't a sufficiently-powerful entity, or a sufficiently well-crafted Universe be up to the task of operating in an entirely lawful manner? Just because I don't know all the laws doesn't mean that the phenomena I observe shouldn't still be lawful.
We should down a few suds before I go to the Galapagos!
I very much agree that feeling awe and wonder is something like a religious experience. I accept Shermer's explanation that "religion" is a cultural explanation of the observed world with a possibly evolved component that leads humans to react in a religious manner.
And sure, a sufficiently powerful alien could be seen as being supernatural to us. We may be seen as a force of Nature and a mysterious supernatural power to the ants in our backyard too.
But do you whisper to that any that you are his personal savior? Do you leave him a confusing book of contradictory instructions on how to be a better ant?
Granted you might flood the anthill with a hose, or run over it with your lawnmower. But these actions can happen without you thinking about it.
If you really wanted to wipe out these ants you would more likely do it with some poison from Wal-Mart.
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