atheism and god

i recently attended a conference on nontheism among friends (a.k.a. quakers). now, i am a self-proclaimed atheist, or at least, that is what i was when i went there, and i am also someone raised in the quaker religion (also known as the religious society of friends) who still attends quaker meetings from time to time. i left that conference knowing that there is a place for me in quakerism, that quakers need people like me, and i need people like them, too. what they believe, whether it is all correct, that is not what is most important. nobody is perfect and nobody has perfect beliefs. quakers are good, peaceful, nonviolent, honest, nonjudgemental, tolerant, loving people, the kind whose moral values are much better than the “religious right” (you know, those who believe that curing diseases is bad, global warming is false, gays go to hell, and all that other good stuff). but i have never been quite at ease with the quakers, or really known if i was a quaker myself. for one thing, quakerism was started by george fox, an extremly devout believer in god and follower of jesus christ, and early quakers were, like him, the most devout christians ever. our nickname comes from the fact that we were said to have so much faith, our bodies would quake with the power of god. i am still not capitalizing god, but for different reasons now. god is just a word, at least to me. at least, if you are talking about the english word “god”. so i am not disrespecting any diety with this lowercase, which was my intention in previous posts, where i was trying to show disrespect for the god that i proclaimed my disbelief in. but there are many gods, or at least many possible gods that could be spoken of, even if most people only believe in one and disbelieve in most others. but a few gods cannot be disbelieved in. some people think the universe itself is god. well, i believe the universe exists. some people believe all living things, as a whole, are god. well, i believe in living things. some people believe god is love. well, i believe in love. and so on. those are the gods that nobody can dispute the existence of, but people can cast doubt on whether those things actually are gods or not. but what of the one true god, the only one who is worthy of the title of god? is there such a being? well, i still believe in my proof that the all-powerful, all-knowing god cannot exist, because when he predicts the future, that precludes him from having the ability to act in any manner deviating from the course he predicted. christian fundamentalists, and fundamentalists of other monotheistic faiths as well, all believe in this type of anthropomorphic god, a humanlike figure who is far superior to any of us because of having unlimited powers and knowledge. that is the god i do not believe in, the god i am an atheist with respect to. but many people speak of another god, defined differently, as the one that they believe in, and when they hear the word “god” spoken in a monotheistic context, they interpret it to mean whatever they have come to believe in as their god. i do not have a god, or at least, not one that i believe in. for me, the word still means an anthropomorphic, omniscient, omnipotent diety, one that cannot possibly exist, so i can still call myself an atheist. but i could just as easily say that i believe that god is nature, that god is life, that god is the universe, that god is the laws of physics, or that god is the universal set from set theory. then i would believe in such a god, and therefore be a theist. so, based on this situation, it seems reasonable to declare the whole debate over god’s existence and the dispute over theism, atheism, agnosticism, etc., that whole debate is meaningless, unless the word god is defined. and the word “exist” also has to be defined too, by the way. without specific definitions for each of the words in question, ones that everyone can agree on, the question “does god exist?” is utterly meaningless, so the only reasonable answer is “define all 3 words in the question thoroughly enough, and then i will be able to provide the correct answer.” the debate over god’s existence then is rendered a useless semantic game with people arguing over definitions. i have encountered this phenomenon in discussions with other people on this matter. so from that context, it is meaningless to state that i am an atheist, unless i specify which god or gods i am denying the existence of. nevertheless, calling myself an atheist is a useful enough way to describe my point of view to people who are too simple-minded or too practical-minded to ever think about such abstract matters. i have realized that human language by its very nature has a divisive effect, since people cannot even agree upon what words mean, due to the limitations of the human mind and of our means of communication with one another. human language has to categorize and label everything, and is unable to capture the complexity of many things it attempts to describe. each of our finite minds has to know many words in order to communicate with others, both for understanding as much input as possible and for producing quality output. but our flawed minds only know data that has already been inputted to them through the 5 senses or deduced by the mind. the process by which we learn what words mean and how to understand language is not perfect, and leaves every one of us with a flawed understanding of our own native language, and even less understanding of other languages we study. and words carry connotations and sometimes are associated with images, sounds, tastes, smells, and/or emotional content. this effect is most easily observed by seeing how dogs are trained to follow commands that are spoken in human language. the dog learns to associate hearing the sound of the word with behaving in a certain way, after being trained through pavlovian conditioning. the same process takes place in humans, except at a much more advanced level than in the primitive dog brain. only the human mind could even come up with such a complex idea as a god. all lower animals are by definition atheist, since how can they believe in a god when they cannot even understand the very concept of what a concept itself is, let alone what the concept of god is? no matter how you define god, it is still a concept, still a word, still beyond the reach of a primitive animal brain. perhaps a gorilla that knows sign language or some other advanced creature may be able to understand god, but it would be quite a feat to teach a religion such as christianity to any of the beasts of nature. religions and ideologies are very complex systems, built of words that symbolize ideas whose meaning is meaningful to people. i do not believe any such system, built from the human imagination, could be correct if it is not scientific, and not provable. and by correct i mean, completely correct, or infallible. however, i do believe that some processes for finding the truth are superior to others, and i believe in processes like the scientific method. so, while the fruits of science are not infallible, they are closer to infallibilty than any other information available to humanity. everyone knows we humans have a penchant for writing fiction, novels, fantasy, sci-fi, etc. that is what movies are all about, and what most books are about. all products of the human mind are tainted with our penchant towards fantasy, our almost irresistible urge to avoid dealing directly with reality the way that it is. the main process of science, the scientific method, corrects for these errors, and other processes in science, like having other scientists independently perform the same experiments to verify the results, make the likelihood even higher that science finds the truth, or at least something close to the truth. religion and most ideologies, however, have much of the same basis as novels, movies, and other stuff that is made up. an interesting argument i have come up with is, if a movie or tv show is live-action, and you can actually see the characters (or the actors playing them) saying things or doing them or whatever, then is it not true that whatever you see in the movie or tv show really happened? i mean, it was actually filmed, and the movie or tv show is documented proof of what happened, right? how can anyone deny that what happened on an episode of seinfeld actually really did happen? the truth is, all that stuff did happen, but the people were not living their daily lives, they were actors, and behind them was a set, not a real apartment. that does not take away from the truth that what was filmed actually took place, however. you just need to understand it in the proper context. each episode of a show is actually some sort of made-up story that is acted out, with some sort of message or parable, or at least some sort of entertainment value, or something that makes people want to watch it. it is in this sense that you can read a book such as the bible, or the holy books from any other religions out there. not everything in those books necessarily happened like those books say, but someone did think about those things happening and write them all down exactly the way they thought. were they thinking about things that really did happen, and then writing down their accounts of what had occurred? or were they making up stories, like novels and such, or like the tall tales of american folklore, little tales to teach children (and/or adults) lessons? children have santa claus, the easter bunny, the tooth fairy, and jack frost... adults have god, jesus, the holy ghost, satan, angels, demons, and the lands of heaven and hell. we have tales of virgin birth and resurrection, of water turned into wine, and many other miracles in the new testament. frogs raining down from the sky, the nile river running red with blood, manna falling from the sky for the hebrews to eat in the desert, and many bizarre supernatural things like that are in the old testament too. and almost all other religions have similar sorts of stories. greek and roman mythology was blessed with an overabundance of such stories, many of which still survive to the present day. but people need not believe in such stories. properly understood, a religion is actually just an organization of people gathered around common beliefs, a sociological phenomenon, a type of mass movement. in a way, this makes it no different from an activist organization or political party, but a religion concerns itself primarily with how each of its members live their own lives. if a religion seeks to change the outside world, this is only a secondary goal, secondary to the goal of having each member live according to the beliefs and practices of that religion. an activist organization or political party primarily seeks change in the outside world, and focuses on specific things it would like to see done, the lists of which are always changing, and people are in such organizations out of commonality of purpose, in order to achieve common objectives. religions are more about finding a purpose than actually going out and achieving one; they are more about teaching you what to believe and how to act than actually carrying out the process whereby people act upon their beliefs. most of them try to program you to be a certain type of robot and then set you loose upon the world. political and activist organizations, on the other hand, try to bring in people who have already been programmed as robots earlier in life, who share compatible programming, and together they set out to achieve objectives compatible with what they were programmed to value and believe in, earlier in life. they also try to broadcast propaganda to reprogram other robots (the metaphor i am using for humans) to believe in other things and to switch sides. but for religions, there is much more focus on brainwashing those who are very young, and trying to make sure existing members stay, than any focus on getting new members to join; too many new members could foul things up by letting them all bring in new ideas, so the primary focus is to keep the existing ones in line and make sure children raised in the faith end up sticking with it the rest of their lives. political parties, on the other hand, want as many new members as possible, and do not care about it destroying any unity of belief that previously existed, because any expansion in size strengthens them. anyway, it is most likely the case that human nature is such that people would be utterly uncivilized and barbaric if they were not brainwashed into behaving themselves as young children. currently, religion plays a vital role in civilizing people. but people do not need a belief in the supernatural or a religion in order for this to occur; societies without religion can still raise children and teach them to be moral. religion fills this role for the uneducated masses, those who are not yet sophisticated enough to understand the basis for morality. the true basis for morality is human society. any human society needs a set of moral rules to live by or it will fall apart completely. religion provides a justification for moral rules, but they could also be justified by logic or practical concerns, or they could simply be enforced strictly enough to make it pointless to try to argue. now, for an example of a religion that is structured in such a way that it is quite difficult to evolve with the changing times, i shall of course point to islam. unlike other major religions practiced today, islam has not adapted its beliefs significantly in order to agree with the changing customs and beliefs of modern society, nor are they willing to reconcile themselves with modern science. they hold an unquestioning devotion to the prophet muhammad and the koran, and to various other things such as the hadiths or even sharia law sometimes. the exact theology is not always the same, but all muslims accept the prophet muhammad’s unquestionable greatness and the infallibility of the koran. to do otherwise is blasphemy, and it is not allowed; anyone who does so has committed apostasy, the punishment for which is execution. christianity used to be like this, several hundred years ago, but it has evolved past this stage, in no small part due to the fact that jesus was very nonviolent and accepting of people from different backgrounds, preaching a gospel of peace and love. of course, people bastardize the message quite often in order to use christianity for evil purposes, but at its core, the original message is basically good. most religions are like this. and in most religions it is ok if people question things, at least nowadays, in today’s world, and this does not mean execution. islam has not evolved to the same stage as christianity yet, and part of the main reason for this is probably the fact that its leader, the prophet muhammad, was a violent general who killed people and raped women, according to the koran that he himself wrote (with some help from allah and the archangel gabriel, of course). for people to worship this bloodthirsty warrior, who commands them to kill infidels, as someone they should model every aspect of their lives after how he lived... well that is just asking for trouble. we can’t all go around acting like atilla the hun or ghenghis khan or the vikings or the janjaweed of today’s darfur, but that is exactly what islam is asking its followers to do. islam is a religion of war, exactly the kind of religion a general would want each of his (or her) soldiers to believe in, in order to maximize their usefulness on the battlefield. quakerism, on the other hand, is a religion of peace, and pacifism and nonviolence are central testimonies of quakers. also, quakerism believes in continuing revelation, and that people can always find new answers, a better way, and that not all the answers are written in old books from the past. continuing revelation is one of the most central parts of quakerism. it is why quakers no longer dress in funny clothes or address everyone as “thee” and “thou”. that was once a required practice for all quakers, but eventually quakers realized it was archaic and made them seem like out-of-place outsiders from the past, so it was done away with. and quakers have no required dogma that all members subscribe to. quakers have democratic processes, instead of having an elitist hierarchy that dictates everything to its members. quakerism is one of the most progressive religions, if not the most progressive one, and not even god is a requirement to be a quaker. so, the religious society of friends is a social movement, a religion, that is capable of evolving to change with the times, probably even capable of doing so faster than almost all other religions. it is a religion that makes no claims of being the one true religion, that recognizes that it has no claim on infallibility, and does not disrespect other religions by claiming their followers will go to hell or that they cannot find the truth no matter how hard they try. even islam may someday reform itself, but it is structured in a way diametrically opposite to how quakerism is structured. that may also help explain why there are so many muslims and so few quakers in this world. quakers are often ahead of their time on many issues, such as slavery, women’s rights, racial equality, and gay rights. or even when they are behind their time on something, it is usually less so than other christian denominations. but quakerism is not even necessarily a christian denomination, although that is its origin. it is not set in stone what quakerism is, and members are free to explore all paths to the truth. so while i am still convinced religion often acts as a negative force in this world, i also realize the importance it plays in teaching morals and such to people who would otherwise be like barbarians. unfortunately, all too often religion helps people justify being barbarians, and sometimes even makes them more barbaric and cruel towards their fellow humans. quakerism is one religion that cannot be used to justify violence. (another is jainism, but that is another story.) and so, someone like me can decide to be a member, despite my so-called atheism and lack of belief in god as i have defined that word. i can always define it differently, as many others have done. it seems the only word that can bring out more emotion in people than god is fuck. or maybe nigger. or other negative swear words with bad connotations. but other words that bring out good emotion in people? perhaps the name of a loved one. maybe that loved one is god incarnate. maybe we are all god incarnate, since god might be what makes us alive, and if god is defined that way, it would be impossible for life to exist without being god incarnate. such a god would be a fragmented god, in many separate pieces. it is puzzling to me what would bind those pieces together into a single entity. or what if i defined god as that insect i smushed last night? if that insect was god, then i killed god. good riddance. that was one annoying, awful insect. i hope that insect was not god. maybe god is the one who will kill me the way i killed that insect, smushing me with his giant thumb that comes down out of the clouds. please don’t smush me, god. i was only doing the insect a favor by ending its pointless little life, and preventing it from spreading disease and leaving behind disgusting waste products and creating more horrible offspring to infest the world. now i suppose you could say the same things about me when you smush me, but there is a difference. unlike that insect, i can think verbally about abstract concepts, which means i can actually understand what is going on when i am being smushed. sometimes i have torn legs or wings off insects and observed their stupid insistence on continuing to move their existing limbs as if nothing had happened to them, unable to figure out how i have partially destroyed them. having no central nervous systems or capability for emotions, insects are indeed living things, but have next to nil moral value, especially since there are so many of them and they breed so profusely and have such short natural lifespans. a tree has much more moral value to me than an insect, even though a tree cannot think at all. now, i do think that fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals all deserve a much better kind of treatment. those 5 types of vertebrates are all capable of the same suffering a human being like you or me can go through. i only kill invertebrates, although i eat the meat of vertebrates. it is natural to recycle the bodies of the dead by consuming them as food, as long as they are of another species from one’s own. it is a type of recycling, which means it is good for the environment. :-) all animals are going to die anyway so what is the harm in having it happen early, if it is done in a humane way? it is different for people, of course... killing a person is wrong because it is disruptive to society, so society has established that rule and kept that rule for thousands of years, if not longer. so perhaps, we could say that today’s moral norms have evolved from those of the past, much like real evolution. but it is strange how nowadays, the fundamentalist churches are gaining numbers and so are the atheists, while the people in between the 2 extremes grow less and less in number. if moderation is not defended, we could all be drawn into a senseless conflict. so i see value in moderation and avoiding conflict, because when the passions cool, people can become more sensible, and then the religious right can be convinced that they were wrong, and we can all move on. the religious right, the fundamentalists, have alienated everyone else, and are driving many people out of religion altogether, even turning a reasonable percentage into complete atheists like me. like the islamist terrorists, the religious right feels it is necessary to fight against modernity, against science, against social progress. and anyone who opposes modernity, science, and progress must be defeated, so that humanity can advance further, without anyone getting in the way. that way, we can finally let science do its work unimpeded, to provide maximum benefits for the rest of us. that way we can cure diseases, develop ever more advanced technology, and do more and more research to find out all there is to know about the universe. not all religions oppose science, and it would be nice if those who doubt science would shrink in numbers each year instead of growing. science is the truest path to truth that humanity has ever found, and it would be nice for people to stop questioning that fact.