Religion

Hi Humans,

You Humans have this concept of God which you express through an endeavor which you call religion. We animals, who live only in the present, do not have that concept or that endeavor. There was a time when you were blissfully ignorant like the rest of us. But then you developed the ability to speak which led to the ability to talk about the past and the future which led to the realization that none of us creatures (humans included) lives forever. It must have been scary to the first humans who discovered their mortality so many thousands of years ago. You even discuss it in the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the Bible. In those early days, primitive humans grappled with the idea of making sense and order out of a seemingly senseless and chaotic existence. And so they came up with answers that made the most sense to what they had to work with, namely the idea of gods that give order and meaning to everything. Ultimately, these thoughts evolved into a concept of one God which made more sense to some people, traditionally at first the Hebrew people, and ultimately in different religions to many or probably most of the humans in the world.

There are some humans called fundamentalists who believe that the books of their particular religion or religious sub-group are the words of God and the absolute truth. Therefore anyone who disagrees is not telling the truth (lying or ignorant). Some of them carry this insistence so far that they are willing to die for their beliefs or kill other people who disagree with them. Some humans believe that some religious shrine belongs to their particular religion and are willing to go to war to keep that shrine.

Then there are humans who believe in the basic ideas of their religion but not that every single word in their holy writings are the word of God and the absolute truth. They are known as non-fundamentalists.

Then there are humans called atheists who believe that there is no God. They point to all the evils that have been committed in the name of God. They generally think of religion in a fundamentalist way and in a way are themselves reverse fundamentalists.

Then there are humans called agnostics. They do not know whether there is or is not a God. You might say that they are non-fundamentalist atheists. Like the non-fundamentalist religious people, they allow for discussion.

Now if I were human and able to speak, my choice would be to consider the non-fundamental religious option. I think that best fits what those primitive early humans were looking for, namely making sense and order out of a seemingly senseless and chaotic existence. The question of whether God exists or does not exist is necessary only if you think of existence in only a material way. There is perception and there is hard material existence. Atheists and religious fundamentalists really think in a hard material way. For them there is a struggle between what comes first, perception or material existence. For non-fundamentalists and agnostics, it is an open question that can be discussed.

We think of scientific fact as having an independent existence. But the laws and theories of science begin with observations or in other words perceptions which form the basic premises on which logic and experimentation lead to new ideas and ultimately practical material chemicals, devices, etc. that contribute to the quality of life. But if there were no consciousness to perceive the environment, there would be no science. When the tragedy of a human becoming brain dead occurs, the bones and muscles are still there. The blood still flows. But there is no consciousness, no perception. For practical purposes that human is dead. Physicists have discovered all kinds of sub-microscopic particles with theories and technical equipment. They are believed to exist because of a line of thought going back to some human perception. For all we know there might be all kinds of material existences around us that are not perceived and have not been extrapolated. So what? Until they are discovered and given an impact on the perceived world, in a sense they don’t exist.

So, if I were human and had the need to make sense of existence, I would want to believe in God. But that would not mean slavishly following some strict set of rules. I would believe that the purpose of religion is to give meaning to existence and if one has found that life has meaning no matter how it turns out and how one has arrived at that finding, then one has found God.

Chloe