A Christian and an agnostic died and arrived before the heavens. “I told you so!” said the Christian.
But should the atheist be vindicated, does anyone have anything to be joyous about? Why are the atheists so triumphant about their beliefs? Do they honestly think they are better off than their fellow counterparts who placed their faith on the supernatural?
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In a documentary titled ‘Religious’, Bill Maher (a comedian who I have come to be a huge fan of) explored the different religions embraced by the people his country. There are obviously the Christians, the Catholics, the Muslims, the Mormons, the Scientologists. Hell, there’s even one guy who believed that he’s the second coming of Christ and has, amazingly, a significant following of thousands. The question I found myself asking myself is this, “Just where is the line, beyond which an ‘average’ human being will deem beyond rationality, and if there is such a line, how close will it be to what another ‘average’ human being classified as insanity?” Or when it comes to religion, does logic even matter at all?
Aside from those highlighted in the documentary, there is the Jehovah Witness. The Chinese believe in a mixture of Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism, that sometimes it becomes really hard to term his or her belief. Even within the Christian circle, believers are separated into various divisions and denominations, each with their own practices, culture, and sometimes even teachings. And I’m sure the same applies for Muslims too.
In America, a huge portion of its people believes the world is made in 5000 years. Evolution is just a hypothesis. Global warming is a myth. Some justify the last statement by suggesting that a global epidemic is not possible because God promised Noah that there will never be widespread devastation. Several years ago, Bush halted stem cell research because a group of cells (smaller than perhaps a pea) is considered to be life. Priests go to Aids-stricken nations and advocate against the use of condoms. It’s when I learn about all these, did I understand Maher’s agony. Here is the United States of America, a country that he loves, torn apart, literally because of the 911 incident, economically and socially when voters elect their congressmen and senators by what the candidates believe in. Instead of an election that is dependent on how policy makers are going to handle the failing economy, Maher got an election that is based on the debate on gay rights.
In Singapore, I think we are lucky that religion has not stepped over the boundaries in the creation of our policies, even though the not-too-long-ago AWARE saga seems to point towards in the opposite direction. We are fortunate that as a conservative society, we could escape the homosexuality debate for a while, but as we moved towards to become a more free and liberal society, that’s when the social fabric has to be stretched. I know people who are homophobic, and to them I pose the question, “We claim to be a country that everyone is entitled to his or her own beliefs, provided they don’t adversely affect others. Is that just hypocrisy? Can you really answer that they adversely affect you because you can’t stand the sight of them?”
A lot of atheists and agnostics discredit religion by blaming it for a great deal of unnecessary violence. They point to the numerous jihads and the crusades throughout civilization and lament that lives need not be lost if not for such senseless behavior. In certain countries, people stone adulterers because their Scripture told them to do so. In others, people justify genocides in the name of God. The defense put up is that these attacks are not religious by nature, but actually political. But the sad truth is that it’s the religious people, who believed blindly, that allowed themselves to be made use of in the first place.
Nonetheless, the question to ask ourselves is not if such mindless slaughter will stop should religion be non-existent, but religion can ever be non-existent in the first place.
One only need to look at Hitler and his holocaust to know that people don’t just kill in the name of their God. In the last 10 centuries, millions of Chinese died in the endless wars between the Chinese states. Did all this happen because of religion? Definitely not religion as we know it today, but it is religion because they believe in something that is worth the destruction of millions of lives.
So why have religious people been eager to persecute each other? Why have people condemned Galileo when he disputed the geocentric model of the world based on observed facts? And even so today, why are people so adamantly denying evolution although the fossils are evidence clear enough? Perhaps because this is no longer just a simple argument about theories and hypothesizes. Instead, they are arguments that will directly affect the people’s lives, not only lives belong to this “mortal” world, but the after-lives that they do and have to believe in.
“And this brings us to the unique paradox of the human condition: that man wants to persevere as does any animal or primitive organism; he is driven by the same craving to consume, to convert energy and to enjoy continued experience. But man is cursed with a burden no animal has to bear: he is conscious that his own end is inevitable, that his stomach will die.”
People often compare the Homo Sapiens to animals and wonder why humans seem to be the only species killing each other, or even just killing for pleasure. Are humans worse than animals? But I think if you go deeper into the psychological motivations of people, it only seems natural that the reasons for areas which make us ‘better’ than animals (smarter, ability to reflect, e.g.) are the same reasons for areas which make us ‘worse’.
Man needs to transcend death, and he does so “not only by continuing to feed his appetites, but especially by finding a meaning for his life, some kind of larger scheme into which he fits: he may believe he has fulfilled God’s purpose, or done his duty to his ancestors or family, or achieved something. This is how man assures the expansive meaning of his life in the face of the real limitations of his body”.
After all, “what Man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance”.
My point is that religion is here to stay, whether we like it or not. Even for atheists who opt not to believe in a higher being is culpable of believing in something, be it his own achievements or philosophy etc. Richard Dawkins, an atheist and writer of The God Delusion, has to believe in something, and for him I presume it is Science. And if you think that’s much better off than believing in some God, so did Hitler. After all, aside from the religious extremists, who is to say that religion will not change people for the better? Lots of criminals have been reformed due to religion and not because the possible jail-time or the cane scare the hell out of them. And who is not to say that America’s liberal social system might also possibly arise because the religious people believe that everyone who is God’s creation should have his or her rights too?
But at the same time, we should realize that it is very important not to let religion be involved in politics (I think that’s what got American politics into such a mess), not to allow any religious agenda to be part of it, and not to just vote for someone because he believes in the same God as you. Firstly, you do not know if he’s just pretending. Secondly, it definitely does not mean that he has the ability to lead the country, or whatever he is supposed to do. Opinions should not be made into law. Neither should faith-based beliefs.
Our secret fantasy is for everyone around us to share our hopes, our ideals, our god or no god for that matter. But that is never going to be achieved realistically. Interestingly, the little amount of sanctuary in our first world nation (besides the Vatican) comes not from everyone having the same God, but everyone finally understanding that the person next to him to entitled to his or her own beliefs. And if this little peace has to come at the expense of allowing the other person to do whatever he likes without affecting us directly, I think I can live with that. I hope that you would too.
*quotes are taken from Escape from Evil, Ernest Becker.
