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ArizonaSunSwitch -> RE: Religion (4/15/2009 1:40:37 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: james051
I've developed a rather atheistic outlook over the past few years. An understanding of evolution and especially quantum theory suggests an accidental origin of humans. That is, whatever the ultimate source of the existence of the universe is, it has nothing to do with us, and we are secondary, or emergent. From this perspective, the man-made nature of the historical religions becomes patently obvious, with all of the major tenants of world religions being accidents of natural selection. It is especially obvious that religions, including Christianity, are in general concerned with petty human issues. In response to our innate fear of death, which is itself a necessary result of natural selection as a survival technique, we subconsciously accept superstitious, irrational beliefs at a young age, tricking and bypassing our own logical circuits. In doing so, we quell some anxiety of death, but permanently alter our world view to accept magical or supernatural explanations exclusively in relation to god. When this logical trick is observed consciously, the concept of a personal god becomes, at least to me, utterly ridiculous.
I used to be a Christian, but after studying the Old Testament, I was hit with a brick wall of inconsistencies that eventually broke my faith. God ordered the Israelites to slaughter men, women, and children on many occasions, allowed them to own (and mistreat) slaves, and permitted them to take valuables and virgins from ransacked cities as plunder. These obvious characteristics of humans, greed and lust, suggest a less than supernatural origin of at least some of the Old Testament texts. Since the only evidence for the existence of the God of the Bible comes from the Bible, disbelieving portions of the Old Testament immediately destroyed the Bible's source of authority and allowed me to openly question God's existence.
Many people will scoff at such an atheistic world view because they think that it doesn't make any sense for the universe to come from nothing. I agree that, without some process to explain the evolution of the laws which guided our evolution, it is easy to consider something like a deistic entity having created the universe. There is a large, obvious flaw in this logic, however. Where did the deistic entity come from? Consider that the major critique of atheism is the reliance on the physical universe as being a direct expression of the "uncaused cause." Does it make sense that something even more complex, such as a conscious entity, being much more complex than a human, can be entertained to not require a source of existence? If this is plausible for a conscious entity, wouldn't it be even more plausible for an unconscious entity, such as a body of logical rules and mathematical relationships which leads to the universe in which we evolved? It just so happens that the fundamental laws of physics, which describe the origin, evolution of, and current state of the universe, as far as we understand them, can be derived from a fundamental fractal pattern in number theory. I find it far more likely that the universe exists merely because it theoretically exists as a mathematical or logical idea, and the confusion we are having as humans is that the mathematical dynamics of our brain have created for our consciousness an incredibly powerful illusion, based on nothing more than a higher dimensional relationship amongst information. In other words, I think, therefore I think I am, but I am not, no more than the number 2 is, or a triange is, or an algebraic equation is. Understanding this last idea requires knowledge of very advanced mathematics and physics, so don't worry about calling me crazy and moving on, I'm used to it.
Oh, and all of the above relies on our consciousness being entirely emergent from our physical brain. While neuroscience hasn't achieved a fully mechanistic and concrete understanding of the brain and how consciousness arises, it has amassed a huge body of evidence that all components of consciousness can be explained by the action of neurons, so I accept that as self evident from biological considerations.
I couldn't read past the first few sentences without squirting my milk out my nose laughing. Most quantum theory scientists are of the opinion, "if you think you understand quantum theory, you don't." As far as evolution goes google "precambrian explosion" sometime. Thinking either of these assertions proves or disapproves the existence of god is silly.
What isn't silly is the sentiment of religious intolerance that other posters have chimed in with. Tyrant governments can't allow any other form of authority to exist (including churches). We have plenty of people around here with the same lack of common sense 1930's German's had, with all the risks to liberty that implies.
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