But I don't believe in God, so I can't be saved

[vovat]

I've been thinking about doing an entry on why I'm not religious, and I might as well go ahead and do that now. Mind you, I'm not against religion. I'm against some of the actions committed in the name of religion, and against people trying to force their religion on others, but I'm not opposed to religion itself. Indeed, there are times when I wish I could be religious. I'm just not, though. I don't really see adequate proof that God exists, or that following any particular moral or legal code is going to get you into God's good graces. It's fine if you do, but I have a different opinion on the matter.

I have heard of Pascal's Wager, which basically states that you should believe in God because you have everything to gain if you're right, and nothing to lose if you're wrong. The main problem I see here is that it seems to support PRETENDING to believe. It's hard to force yourself to believe something. Even if I went through the motions of religion, I would still know that, deep down, I don't really and truly believe. And if I'm not fooling myself, surely I'm not fooling an omniscient God, either! I guess I'm more of an agnostic than an atheist, because I don't necessarily dismiss the idea that God could exist. I don't actively believe, though. If that's a prerequisite to salvation, then I guess I'm not going to Heaven. I can only hope that, if there really IS a being who judges everyone, this deity will have pity on generally good people who just can't believe. I'd have to say that I consider such people to be more worthy of eternal life than those who claim to be religious but simply go through the motions, or those who commit atrocities in God's name. I doubt my opinion would really matter to this god, though. I just don't have much respect for the "Believe what I believe or you're going to Hell!" philosophy.

The other problem with Pascal's idea is that it doesn't take other religions into account. What if you become a devout Roman Catholic (Pascal's religion), and it turns out you're worshipping the wrong god? I get the idea that a lot of people follow the religion in which they were raised. If you're constantly told by your family, friends, and preachers that a particular religion is the right one, you'll often come to believe it as well. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this, but I get the feeling that some religious people essentially believe a particular thing out of ignorance. I've seen people argue that casting doubt is a bad thing. I refer you back to this entry for an example of this. As I said then, isn't someone who evaluates the arguments of doubters and still believes in a particular religion a more loyal follower than someone who only believes because they don't know anything else?

Many religions give the role of creator as one of God's most important functions. The Bible starts out by saying that God essentially created the Universe out of nothing. Apparently, God is infinite in time, but the Universe is not. It's pretty much a cliché by this point to ask, "If God created the Universe, who created God?", but I think it's still a valid point. Why is it so much easier for some people to accept the existence of one eternal being than to think that the Universe itself might be eternal? This certainly doesn't disprove the existence of God. It's possible that creation was a local phenomenon, or that God came into existence WITH the Universe. This does, however, cast some doubt on the "God is worthy of worship because He created the Universe" types of arguments.

I could go on about what I find to be inconsistent, unlikely, or outdated in the Bible, or probably just about any other holy book, but I won't. Not right now, anyway. I certainly could be wrong, and maybe I'm destined for damnation because of it. I have my reasons for not believing, though, and I thought you might be interested in them.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

I think the standard response to "Who created God before he created the universe" is that "he willed himself into being". Which, um, is kind of a copout, since, well, it's sorta hard to will yourself from a state of non-existence to existence, what with one of the hallmarks of non-existence being, y'know, Not Being Able To Do Much Of Anything Nor Even Be Aware Of That. So... yeah. (Anyway, think about stuff like inbreeding; like, say, you don't come out so good if your mom and dad were brother and sister, right? So, jeez, how must it be if you're your OWN mom and dad... and then again, later, when you go and find some other lady to have sex with and then give birth to yourself? I mean, really, that can't be good for the divine genepool...)

One of the things I often think about when it comes down to creationism versus evolution is just the way human beings are put together, y'know? Because, well, it seems to me that we're not really designed/shipped-out all that well -- for example, hormones can be out of whack, giving birth is incredibly painful, women can grow breasts large enough to mess up their backs (and this isn't a rare thing), defects in general, mental illnesses, or even just a lot of the things that a Perfect Human Gets Out Of The Box, like the thing about how if you are attempting to lose weight and starve yourself, you'll put on _more_ weight[1]. ...but here's the thing; for being put together by a lot of random chance (yeah, simplification), human beings are _pretty fuckin' amazing_, and the various problems are written off, since, well, there's no one involved in the design. I dunno. I'm too tired to make this Stock Flip Answer actually funny, but I'm still fond of it. Perhaps I'll give it another go at some point.

But yeah, I've often thought about Pascal's Wager, and he's got a point, but... it's so much trickier than that. Mainly for the reasons you put forth (which god; wouldn't s/he/it _know_ we were faking just to get in s/he/it's good graces; would that even matter? Is god so petty that s/he/it doesn't care why, just so long as you play by the arbitrary rules?). I kind of like the idea put forth (I think it's more-or-less an aside) in SubGenius mythos, where there's hells and heavens for all different religions. So, like, if you didn't believe in anything, you'd be left out of the entire mess; if you were a Catholic, you'd go to Catholic heaven/hell (depending on whether or not you played by the rules), if you were a Protestant, you'd go to Protestant heaven/hell, if you were a Buddhist, you'd go to Buddhist hell, then go on from there as per their rules, and so forth. Which is a pretty neat idea, as it sort of gets around the whole "Wrong God" issue. Unfortunately, the other religions tend to not like that with those pesky "I am the only god at all!" clauses. But oh well, sucks to be them, I suppose.

(Sorry that I'm not more serious tonight; I'm real, real tired and can't actually form coherent arguments/points/whatnot, and so I am finding it easier to just throw out a bunch of jokes that I'm also too tired to form correctly. I just mainly wanted to reply, cause I liked this one.)

[1] Well, stuff like this was pretty useful in primitive times, but if we're talking about design here, wouldn't Said Designer know what'd happen and build in some sort of fail-safe on that? I mean, I know a lot of engineers who'd put in a machine some sort of "Do A, unless condition X arises, then do B" thing.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I've seen the existence of vestigial body parts used as an argument for evolution. Makes sense to me.

Yeah, the human design (and the design of Earth in general, I suppose) is pretty amazing. I can see why people would want to ascribe the design to some kind of Supreme Being, and the idea seems to be that any being powerful enough to do this is worthy of worship. On the other hand, would an all-powerful being really be insecure enough to require our worship? It almost seems like a powerful but imperfect god would be more likely than the omnipotent, omniscient one supported by the Abrahamic religions.

Most religions are composed of both mythology and rules. Since science has disproven some of the ancient myths, some modern religious types seem to separate the two. Creationists, on the other hand, are apparently unable to accept the rules of Christianity without also believing that God made the world in six days, a man out of dirt, and a woman from the man's rib. I guess one problem that they have with evolution is that the Bible constantly says humans (and especially men) are special, and the idea that they're actually animals tends to undermine this notion. Of course, the special status of humans raises some questions: How come God can make the Universe out of nothing, but needs raw materials (dirt and bone) to make the first people? If we're the only beings made in God's image, why do we look so much like apes? If the pains of childbirth are a punishment for Eve's sins, then why do a lot of animals have to go through them as well? And so on. I don't really think the Creationist/fundamentalist belief in the Genesis mythology is integral to Christianity, but those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible are obviously going to disagree. They're free to do that, of course, but putting that stuff in science textbooks is highly inappropriate.

Whether playing by the rules or actual belief is more important depends on your religion, I suppose. I think most Protestant denominations consider faith in Christ to be THE most important thing, but not all religions agree on this point.

As for the heavens and hells for different religions, what about those people who aren't religious at all? Do they just vanish after death?

Really, while I can see why people WANT to believe in life after death, I have a hard time buying it. Isn't "life" largely defined by the mind? Is the eternal soul made up of disembodied thoughts, or what? I don't know. I'm kind of scared of no longer existing after death, but I suppose that would be better than eternal torment.

[onib.livejournal.com]

I very much enjoyed your musings as well, and thought I would comment to some of your points. This might be a bit babbly, but I’ll do my best.

First of all, Pascal's Wager works fine for Roman Catholicism, which doesn't focus as much attention on inward change as it does on outward actions. Thus, swearing loyalty to God and following the Church's rules is sufficient, whether or not you believe in what you outwardly profess. In this scenario, you could be devout or you could be faking - it doesn't matter. I don't think I'm too fond of that idea.

I absolutely agree with you that doubting enhances one's belief system. I know a lot of people who get physically upset if you discuss anything outside of their narrow beliefs. I often get the feeling that they've never actually given their beliefs any thought and that even considering another possibility hurts their heads too much - like it's better to ignore it.

In a Christian perspective, I've heard too many leaders criticizes doubt. They like to use Thomas as an example and encourage people to not be like him - just accept what they tell you to believe. Yet, in the Biblical account, he refuses to believe without proof, so Christ appears to him and gives him the proof he needs. That's hardly a stinging rebuke to doubt.

I personally enjoy what I've read of C.S. Lewis' intellectual views on Christianity. He proposed such thoughts as (paraphrasing) the Bible teaches that to reach God, you must go through Christ, but what does that truly mean and how do we know there aren't multiple ways through Christ. He also talked a lot about almost every culture possessing a very similar sense of right and wrong that seems to be built-in. I'd like to believe that a higher power would be more sympathetic and less hypocritical than its followers.

As far as the role of creator vs. beginning of the universe is concerned, I don't really know where I stand on all of that, but I remember an argument from a book that I found pretty fascinating. It compared God to a computer programmer who created everything we know within a program. He existed before the program and exists outside the program and is unaffected by the outcome of the program. We, being on the inside, cannot conceive of what God's world is like because we have only our universe as a basis of comparison. While the program operates by a set of rules on an ongoing basis, God may perform miracles in the same way someone applies a patch to a program - it seems impossible to those used to the rules of the system, but God would be unbounded by such rules because he wrote them. The comparison has its flaws, but I find it intellectually appealing. It’s sort of an updated version of the “allegory of the people in the cave by the Greek guy.”

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I understand that Pascal's world was one where you were pretty much either a Catholic or an atheist, so the Wager pretty much worked out for him. It isn't really quite as relevant in our society, though.

I've seen Thomas used as an example by someone who didn't accept the resurrection of Jesus. His argument was that, if Thomas was allowed to be skeptical, why shouldn't he receive the same privilege?

As for right and wrong, I think a lot (but maybe not all) of that is based on humanity being a communal and cooperative species, meaning that it's usually beneficial to help other people, and not a good idea to kill or steal from them. I'd be interested in learning about universal morals that AREN'T based on that idea.

I've heard that early Christianity was heavily influenced by Platonic thought, so comparisons to the Greek guy might actually be apropos.