So say Simon and Garfunkel. I love the song but then I don't necessarily agree with them. As we grow up, we give up St. Nick, the tooth fairy and the closet monster but why is it so difficult to give up the concept of heaven and hell? Aren't they all in the same league? Aren't they all fairy tales, we were taught as children?
I have not come to terms with the concept of praying as well. I find temples awkward places to be at. I have never been able to understand most of the rituals there, they seem frivolous to me and i somehow can't get myself to do them. The base problem though is that the concept of God in general, does not appeal to me. I think that God was created by early man to attribute things that he did not understand and the concept has just stuck around for too long.
Think about it originally man did not know about the sun and the moon so they became Gods. Then the planets, then earth, fire, wind and water. As our understanding progresses we don't hold these things in awe and how many people today really think of the sun as a God. In a way, as human knowledge increases, it kills a little part of God. Even today, we attribute things which are beyond our control or things we don't understand to God. Take creation of the universe as an example. We have conflicting theories, the big bang being the most popular but no real consensus. The simplest explanation that remains is that God created the universe.
People pray for and do penance for things that they expect or want in the future. Our lives are complex and modeling our lives is probably impossible. The sheer number of variables controlling our lives and situations that make out lives are so many that it is impossible to predict an outcome for the situations or our lives. But the other side is that if you get your way it is easy to attribute it to something or anything because it is difficult to prove what had and what did not have a tilting influence on some outcome. So it could be God who put in his 2c to get you what you want or it could be the planets exerting their influence.
That said I personally would like to believe that it is my effort that most influenced the outcome of any situation. I don't like sharing my glory with God or the planets. Why should I? I have worked hard for what i earned. Similarly if something doesn't go my way then it is probably because I left some stone unturned or I made a mistake or I was being plain stupid. I think I am strong enough to accept that and deal with that. I don't need a safety net in terms of God or the planets to blame. I really cannot get myself to believe that asking a stone idol or an unknown "creator" for help in changing the future or influencing outcomes of situations is a worthwhile effort.
I don't buy the argument that I was created by an intelligent creator. To me there is no watchmaker, blind or otherwise. The basis of the watchmaker analogy is that all complex things like a watch are created by intelligent design and cannot occur randomly or by chance. Another argument is that of purposeful design, that is the designer makes things to solve a certain purpose. For example the hands of a clock require to be moved so there is a spring to hold power, similarly humans have eyes to take in the environment around them or limbs to move around. I do own a copy of the Origin of the Species and even though it is a seriously boring book, I have read through most of it. I think Darwin wins hands down and he convincingly disproves all these arguments.
Mutation and natural selection explain biological creation and why we are as we are with our eyes and limbs. Similarly it also provides a plausible explanation of how complex things and life itself can evolve and need not be created by an intelligent designer. There is empirical evidence to back this up all around us and the evidence and the argument just gets stronger everyday. For me the creation vs. evolution debate has a clear and unambiguous winner. Moreover, if an intelligent designer created me then he must be more complex than I, who created him? Is it not a circular problem?
I don't have a problem with people believing in the presence of a creator, everybody is entitled to their own view. Moreover the concept of God has a multi-billion dollar industry around it. The Tirupathi temple has a budget running into a few hundred crores. The industry does provide employment to millions and does have its philanthropic benefits. The problem I have is that this industry is based on fear and fear can be used to exploit people. How many times have you heard people say if they don't shell out cash, God will make bad things happen to them. The second problem is ignorance and blind faith. How many people you know who argue about the existence of God have actually any idea about the concept of evolution or have a open mind to even read about it. This is what troubles me the most.
In essence what i would like to do is chip away at God and eliminate the unknowns rather than pray. That should get a place in the books which is better than a place in heaven. I am happy being an atheist but for the non-believers, God bless you and Mrs. Robinson.
6 comments:
Didnt you fracture your hand in school? I think Christanand had one of his God-does-all lectures and you missed it.
It piques my interest a lot and
I will write about it later.
Yes, I did and I dont remember that lecture. Though I do remember Sunu's watchmaker lecture at MIT. Maybe you missed that one :).
I am looking forward to reading what you think.
I was watching a program on dinosaurs and NatGeo's analysis of why they might've gone extinct. I didn't really pay much attention to dinos till that time. Man, 200 million years!
200m years since they're gone. I just can't imagine the scale of periods like those. Their evolution took 200m years as well!
How can something as amazing as God be so inefficient?
And how come suddenly that dude started creating wonders since technology became so pervasive?
I would need more space than the comment space - so obviously posted it to my blog
http://jingocheetah.blogspot.com/2008/02/evolution-or-not.html
A student might be deceived by the accuracy of mathematics and then generalize and consider all the subjects included in philosophy, including metaphysics, to be as accurate. I pray to God to guide you to the right path to protect from knowledge that is of no use to you.
I read through your post more than once and I have heard most of the arguments before. We may have decreased in size but who is to say whether it is a good thing or bad. I can always argue it is a good thing because it allows for more people on the planet. Evolution is not about bigger and stronger, it is about survival. Ask the dinosaurs!
As I read through, I realized that you in many ways corroborated my argument that the easiest way to get around something we don't understand is to attribute it to God. You have done that more than once in your post.
You talk about the human brain, many a times I look at my hand and I am in absolute awe of it. There is a long way to go before we can build something even close it but that does not automatically imply a designer. All I said in my post was that there are serious problems with the idea of an intelligent creator and in comparison Darwinism makes more sense to me because it has more empirical evidence. I understand though that both are theories and haven't been completely proved or disproved. I just took a side that appeals to me most and I gave my reasons for it.
The questions you have raised have been answered more once so i will not go into that but your post really got me thinking about a couple of things. Oh, but I do suggest that you do take some time and read the origin of the species completely. That should clear up a lot of things and help you understand the theory better. Your knowledge of the theory seems "second-hand".
One question that pooped up was with your reference to the Quran. I am really wondering if religion and the concept of God can be decoupled. Can you be a religious atheist? Why do we always have religious interpretations of God and why are most religions based around a God?
The other question is as humans can we do something that is against the laws of nature. Humans are an integral part of nature, so how can we do unnatural things? If the cheetah disappeared from India how do we conclude if it is a good thing or a bad thing? It is something that happened in nature. I am sure it has happened before as well with some non-human species eating away some other species lower down the chain. What I am trying to say is the word natural is defined by us humans based on our limited knowledge of nature and then we self-righteously crib about things that don't fit into that definition. Don't you think that is absurd?
What disturbed me about your post though was the last line. You talk about useless knowledge. That scares me to extents you cannot imagine. Who are you or I to decide if knowledge is useful or useless. How can you predict if something I learn today, however useless it might seem at this point, will not come in handy later on. If we go down this road then where do we start drawing the lines. You will be a parent soon, will you prevent your child from reading Darwin because you think it is useless? Is that not severely curtailing exposure and is that not depriving your child?
I don't believe that any knowledge is useless. At the end we are the sum of our experiences and our knowledge. The more of both puts us in a better place to make more informed and hence better decisions. I STRONGLY DISAGREE with that last line and I think that it sets a very dangerous precedent.
I like to interpret this line out of context as either sarcastic or as a metaphor. Sarcastically taken, it could really be an insult to fools who devote themselves to an insubstantial or false cause. As a metaphor, "heaven" would be success or prowess, while "praying" would be hard work and devotion.
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