On Religion - 30 January 2018
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It has been quite a while since I have written my last phlog. I have not
been preoccupied with anything lately, my life is just mediocre; I work
in the food industry and when I am not working I tend to spend my time
adrift in the stupidity of the internet. Most of the time I do not feel
as if I have anything of worth to write about, so I don't write.
Recently however, my mind has been pulled to the topic of religion, and
that will be the topic of this phlog.
I am and have been an athiest for years, so if any of my non-religious
readers would feel "turned off" by the topic of religion, please
continue, as I feel that I have some interesting things to say. I have
never been a true beleiver of any religion --- I grew up in a mostly
secular household; my parents were christian but we rarely went to
church and we only ever prayed before thanksgiving dinner. My mother
deliberately raised us without indoctrination, so that we might choose
for ourselves our religious views, and that is something that I am
tremendously grateful for. I have shown some interest in worldy
religions in the past such as buddhism and wicca, but these were only
fascinations; I never truly beleived.
Recently my political and ecomonic views have shifted, and I have found
that I am becoming a conservative. I have been watching a lot of
video's on youtube about conservative ideology; but with that ideology
frequently came an agrument for judeo-chritsian values and religion. I
found people like Dennis Prager, Steven Crowder, and Ben Shapiro so
agreeable that I felt like I ought to give their religious views some
consideration.
So why then might an athiest join a church?
The first argument is of a philisophical nature. Drawing from the
terminology of mathematics, everyone religious and non-religious has
certain philisophical axioms, things in which we beleive that have no
further derivation or proof. For an athiest this might be things such as
the belief in free will or personal purpose, and for a religios person
this might be things like the belief in god or divine purpose.
If one considers it illogical to accept the existence of a supernatural
god on the basis of having no evidence, one should also consider it
illogical to believe in any system of morality or philosphy on the basis
of having no evidence. We live in a meaningless universe governed soley
by the laws of nature, and to believe in any notion of morality,
philosophy, or purpose is fundematally illogical. This is not
necessarily a bad thing.
It would follow then that any system of belief is equally valid, as it
is equally illogical and unprovable. But why choose christianity over
any other religion? Many people claim that christian values are the
backbone of western civilization. There is also the argument of moral
cohesion -- the idea that morality is subjective, but it must be
subjective on a societal rather than indiviual level for a civilization
to function properly. Since I live in the United States, a christian
dominant nation, it may be a good thing to share the same ideas about
morality with everyone else.
The second argument as to why an athiest might join a church is that of
earthly benefits. I could not care less about eternal salvation, as I
think that when you die you simply stop existing; However, churches can
provide things that are hard to find elsewhere, such as a feeling of
community and higher purpose. These are things that I crave deeply, and
is most likely the biggest reason why I feel drawn to the church.
The final argument is that I never truly understood christianity. I have
spent years telling myself that the bible is full of inconsistencies and
terrible things, but I have never even read the bible. How can I call
myself a rational person if I simply reject things which I do not fully
understand? If nothing else, learning about christianity will strengthen
my ability to refute it.
These have been my thoughts lately, something that I just can't get out
of my head. Perhaphs I'll go to church next sunday; Hell, I might even
make a gopher version of the bible!
