eatbees blog

I believe in God but not in divine intervention. God doesn’t send prophets or holy books (these are the creations of humans trying to understand God). God doesn’t answer prayers — in fact, God may not be paying attention at all. Humans are part of God’s project, but not a particularly essential part. In fact, there are most likely many races far more advanced than us. God didn’t make humans in his image — God made the universe to evolve, and we are one of the things in it. God isn’t focused on us. God stands back like a scientist, watching the universe dispassionately to see what happens.

I believe the best way to know God and God’s intentions is through science, because the physical laws of the universe are the only clues we really have as to God’s will. The only thing we can know for sure is that God willed a universe (assuming there even is a God, which we can’t know for sure) — and this universe has a complexity that favors life. Life exists here because it is possible, which wouldn’t be true in most of the universes we can imagine. And when something is possible, it will eventually happen. My leap of faith is to imagine this universe was set up on purpose for life to happen.

What I’ve discovered is that this viewpoint of mine, which to me seems frankly to be the only reasonable one, tends to annoy both atheists and traditional believers. The believers think I’m an atheist because I don’t believe in their God with his rules about washing your nose and feet before you pray (Muslims) or not switching on electricity one day a week (Jews) or requiring humans who speak in his name not to have sex (Catholics). I am absolutely, 100% sure that God doesn’t give a damn about petty rules like these — and while God is no doubt loving and compassionate as all the religions claim, it is really up to us to organize our societies and daily lives, and work out our laws of morality for ourselves. Nor do I believe there’s an afterlife, a place our selves go after death, where we can meet Grandma again or rap with Jesus in person. Nor will there be some vast showdown in the sky between Good and Evil at the end of the time, since Good and Evil only exist finally in our own minds. All of these things, and my refusal to accept any religious “truths” without questioning them from every angle, make most religious people think I’m a nonbeliever. And it’s true, I don’t believe in their religions the way they do — though I love to read holy books for their creative power.

On the other hand, a lot of atheists start at the other extreme, and assume there’s nothing good in religion at all. So when I try to talk to them about the purpose of the universe, and how it’s evolving toward ever-greater complexity and perfection so as to grow closer to God, they wonder what I’m doing mixing religious mumbo-jumbo with honest science. They think, “What a waste of a fine mind, to be mixed up with all that superstition.” They don’t want to hear about Sufis or Hindu saints and the revelations they had about the essential unity of all being, including us. They certainly don’t see any particular value in updating these ideas for our time, using all the latest theories of the Big Bang or the natural selection of species. It doesn’t add anything in their minds to speculate on the “unseen” because the unseen isn’t there — only what can be measured and proven is worth talking about. All the rest is an irritant and a distraction to them. Human knowledge is moving in one direction only, and the religious ideas of the past (which for them was an age of ignorance) are best left behind in abandoned monesteries, covered in dust.

(To be continued…?)