Sunday, July 15, 2007
My God ! !
As i am reading more and more about science and scientific research, the more and more my belief in God is slowly diminishing. Even at the best of times, i did not believe in God without a certain degree of skepticism. However, i did believe that there was some power which human reasoning cannot explain. However as more and more gaps in the human understanding are being filled up (and i am getting educated about them), more and more i am becoming an atheist or more accurately an agnostic. Also, I have never had a mystic or spritual experience. I do not believe in astrology, numerlogy or in paranormal phenomenon never having experienced one. I tend to seek rational and scientific explanations and even be aware of the limits to which science works. (for example it breaks down at singularities). I am fully aware science has limits.
You see Newton, Einstein and Stephen Hawkin have already explained how the world began. (it began with a big bang and time and space came into existence with the big bang). The end of the universe has also been very plausibly explained (the world will end with a heat death and with proton decay in another 10 ^ 30 years). Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins have explained how did we come about - a pimate species evolving on a 5 billion year old planet in a planetary system in one of the billions of galaxies of the universe. Scientists have now been able to recreate life (proteins) in a lab with non-living things so the mystery of life isn't really a mystery anymore. They have been able to trace the exact steps to how we came about from the first unicellular organisms.
I passionately believe that our lives have no higher purpose than what we make them to be. And that we are just a carbon-based life form passing through in a great cosmic drama. Nothing will really change in the larger scheme of the universe. In this context ethics and philosophy also seem spurious man-made intellecutal gymnastics. Yes i do accept that they have a very very important place in our lives, without which human society cannot function. Without which I am sure I cannot function. But essentially, at a macro level, they are meaningless. In a few million years (a speck in geological time) the human species will all be gone, either mutually self destructing ourselves in a world war or smashed to smithereens by colliding asteroid (which was bad news for the dianosours around 65 million years ago) or by some newer cataclysm.
I do not believe in an afterlife - that there is a heaven and hell where we will go when we are dead and be reborn. These are all human constructs and we are just one species among the 99 % species vanished since the dawn of life. The calculated average age of a species is 4 million years and we have already used up 1.5 million or more of ours.
I believe God is a human construct - a great defense mechanism to cope in times of adversity. A great psychological refuge to explain when things go wrong and things do not go according to the great moral compass we have. (It is God's will). Mind you God is very good idea. I undestand it can be a great bulwark of faith for people. And faith is very very important in our messy and difficult life as a human being.
I am not a card-carrying agnostic and do go to the temple somtimes. I pray and make my offerings. However i do realise that my belief in God today is rationally no better than the argument of an insurance agent. It is good to take insurance as one never knows. It is good to do a few things (pray sometimes, go to the temple sometimes) just in case. In case there acually IS a God, the prayer becomes a kind of an insurance premium. In case God does not exist the effort required to follow some of the simple rituals is so small (and they sometimes give me comfort/peace in just doing them), that i really do not mind. In that sense, i am proud that my religion - Hinduism - is one of the most non-organised and liberal in a way that it does not need any religious intermediaries. I can have a direct communion with the Gods in my religion. And so I continue.
You see Newton, Einstein and Stephen Hawkin have already explained how the world began. (it began with a big bang and time and space came into existence with the big bang). The end of the universe has also been very plausibly explained (the world will end with a heat death and with proton decay in another 10 ^ 30 years). Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins have explained how did we come about - a pimate species evolving on a 5 billion year old planet in a planetary system in one of the billions of galaxies of the universe. Scientists have now been able to recreate life (proteins) in a lab with non-living things so the mystery of life isn't really a mystery anymore. They have been able to trace the exact steps to how we came about from the first unicellular organisms.
I passionately believe that our lives have no higher purpose than what we make them to be. And that we are just a carbon-based life form passing through in a great cosmic drama. Nothing will really change in the larger scheme of the universe. In this context ethics and philosophy also seem spurious man-made intellecutal gymnastics. Yes i do accept that they have a very very important place in our lives, without which human society cannot function. Without which I am sure I cannot function. But essentially, at a macro level, they are meaningless. In a few million years (a speck in geological time) the human species will all be gone, either mutually self destructing ourselves in a world war or smashed to smithereens by colliding asteroid (which was bad news for the dianosours around 65 million years ago) or by some newer cataclysm.
I do not believe in an afterlife - that there is a heaven and hell where we will go when we are dead and be reborn. These are all human constructs and we are just one species among the 99 % species vanished since the dawn of life. The calculated average age of a species is 4 million years and we have already used up 1.5 million or more of ours.
I believe God is a human construct - a great defense mechanism to cope in times of adversity. A great psychological refuge to explain when things go wrong and things do not go according to the great moral compass we have. (It is God's will). Mind you God is very good idea. I undestand it can be a great bulwark of faith for people. And faith is very very important in our messy and difficult life as a human being.
I am not a card-carrying agnostic and do go to the temple somtimes. I pray and make my offerings. However i do realise that my belief in God today is rationally no better than the argument of an insurance agent. It is good to take insurance as one never knows. It is good to do a few things (pray sometimes, go to the temple sometimes) just in case. In case there acually IS a God, the prayer becomes a kind of an insurance premium. In case God does not exist the effort required to follow some of the simple rituals is so small (and they sometimes give me comfort/peace in just doing them), that i really do not mind. In that sense, i am proud that my religion - Hinduism - is one of the most non-organised and liberal in a way that it does not need any religious intermediaries. I can have a direct communion with the Gods in my religion. And so I continue.
