On Religion
“If man realized that the universe like him can love and suffer, he would be reconciled”
— Albert Camus
The universe, the world around you, isn’t very reasonable. You can’t rationalize with it. It won’t listen to you and it doesn’t really care whether you or I live or die. This is a frightening prospect considering that every single one of us is in the cross hairs of the next natural disaster. However, at some point in our evolution, I believe we created gods to deal with this fear. At some point, this fear of the unknown, uncaring universe became so great, we disembodied the horrible things that could happen to any one of us, at any time, and created beings that we could talk to, or point at, or look to in our time of need and ask why. At some point, it wasn’t enough that they were all powerful. These beings had to understand what it was to be like us, caught down here in the mud and the shit. That some how made these beings closer to us and able to hear us better and understand. We perfected this system so that we could continue to flourish and survive another day.
But then we found out that we had more to fear than just natural disasters. We had other tribes, our own tribe, our own family and even ourselves to fear. In times of war we called upon our gods to help us and fight by our sides. When we hovered over our dead, we lamented to our gods and asked why and we believed that gods cried along with us. When we spat on our enemy’s dead and cried for vengeance we believed our gods heard us and enacted righteous justice on our enemies. When we fought among ourselves, within our own tribes and our families, we sought guidance from our gods to show us the correct path that required us to do the right thing. We worshiped our gods together as a tribe and as a family and built a culture and a society based on our beliefs. And as for ourselves, when we were lonely and afraid, we called upon our gods to be with us. So we advanced our religion yet again and flourished even more.
My point being simple; all these gods are merely a product of us and our need for survival and evolution. The universe is doing what it does and we are merely interpreters of its actions trying to make sense of its nonsense. Things happen because they do. And yes, there are miracles; things that just can’t be explained. But it isn’t because of some benevolent being that loves you so much and cares for your well being. Think about it this way. For every miracle that does take place, there are tens of thousands of miracles that didn’t. It defies all “benevolent being that loves you so much” logic. At least it does in my book.
Faith in a religion, to me, is a product of our evolution. I do not look at those who still subscribe to a religion as stupid or deluded as many of my Atheist counterparts do. I could never feel as arrogant. I don’t see myself as “evolved” and those with faith as “less evolved” either. However, at some point, how man thinks of this archaic view of religion must shift. I do feel that it is pulling back the reigns of progress because of the very fear it was there to protect us from in the first place. Sooner or later, we will have to evolve our thinking again. But I am not positing the absence of a faith. Because I can assure you, Atheism won’t solve any of the worlds problems. And it certainly won’t make any of these bickering being tribes go away like many Atheist proudly herald. People, as they say, are people and they will always find reasons to kill each other over. I certainly have faith in that.
