I’ve decided that there isn’t and never has been a reason to fear any of the thousands of Gods the human race has worshipped. The worshipers on the other hand, are a completely different story.
I was dealing with a worshipper the other day and was challenged in a way that I don’t think I’ve dealt with before. I’m not saying this particular argument hasn’t previously been thrown out in defence of faith, but this time I must have mentally decided to explore it because I found myself replaying the discussion in my head while I was showering.
Shower thoughts are deep and need to be addressed. Sometimes I just let the hot water run and stand there in an altered state while the thought process runs its course.
The challenge was, ” If you don’t subscribe to any religious theory then what alternative do you propose.” I’m being generous in my description of how the challenge was presented. The actual language was something along the lines of , “Do you have a better idea?” I ignored the opportunity to pounce on the assertion that religion was an idea because I was struck by a deeper realization.
A realization that required some shower time.
Three separate thoughts struck me about the question. The first was why the onus is on me to provide you an alternative. Lets say you have an oxycontin problem. If you realize you have a problem after I point out to you that the oxy has a few flaws, and maybe even a downside, then why is it up to me to provide you with Percocet?
It’s not.
The second shower thought was why the entire world is continuously in search of or fighting over spiritual opiates. This question is an easy one to answer. We search because we’re scared shitless of dying. That fear is legitimate though. Every mentally competent adult on the planet has had a three o’clock in the morning, staring at the ceiling moment where the realization you’re mortal is profound enough to be genuinely terrifying.
Well, maybe not everyone. If you were indoctrinated into a belief system early enough and forcefully enough then you may have been spared the three in the morning scenario. I seem to be at odds with a good portion of the populace because I truly believe it’s a shame that spiritual indoctrination stops any further quest for answers. Not because credible answers are provided but because any more questions are forbidden. Then, once questioning becomes sacrilege the fighting begins and we’re off to the Crusades or on Jihad.
Because we’re scared of dying and religion is easier for the masses to grasp than science, we take the intellectually lazy path to explain the unexplainable. It doesn’t matter how outlandish the belief system may be just so long as the fear is quelled, and you’ve got to shake your head when you look at some of the absurdities that have achieved God status. Over the course of recorded time, humans have believed that the Gods take animal forms. We’ve built temples to lightning and worshipped volcano’s. We’ve believed in resurrection and angels and miracles and yet I’m sure that the skeptic in all of us has to be thinking , “man, this is bullshit.” If a person takes the time to think about the sheer number of Deities we’ve invented, then the skepticism I just mentioned obligates us to consider that if anything is possible then it’s entirely reasonable that nothing is possible.
Speaking of nothing, my third shower thought was about nothing. Because whenever I venture down the “what’s it all about” rabbit hole I always end up dealing with the concept or paradox of nothing. It’s a pretty basic thought that becomes more complicated the longer you think about it. Over time our definition of nothing has seen considerable alteration. Ask a person from three hundred years ago what they saw in a droplet of blood. The answer was a drop of blood and nothing else. The same question now with an assist from science and the answer is going to be platelets and white blood cells and D.N.A. Ask the same question in another two hundred years and the answer is likely going to change again.
The lesson being that if you see nothing then its probably a good idea to keep looking.
So, we develop tools to allow us to see what was previously unseen. That concept should teach us to always have an element of doubt that our understanding of anything is complete. But there’s still another piece to the nothing thought that drives me crazy. Namely, if the big bang mechanism created our universe then what existed prior to the big bang?
Nothing?
Also, how the fuck did the conditions that allowed for the big bang exist in the first place? My thought process then creates a cascading effect moving backward in time and I always end up in a place where I try to envision a void. Even if I can conceptualise the idea of this void, this nothingness, I’m still left with the dilemma of what force compelled the void to organize matter and eventually grind out planets and people.
I just don’t get it. Eventually I settle for the idea that there cannot be nothing. Some law of logic or physics compels the void to be filled but it’s way beyond my grasp.
I think that the inability to comprehend the concept of nothing is why we settle for religion. It’s easier than staying in the shower for your entire life I guess.
I’ll admit that it’s a sad circumstance that the pinnacle of my spiritual exploration is identical to the premise of Seinfeld.
That it’s about nothing.
But it’s the best I can do.