To be or not to be

To tackle a subject as broad as "God," I would have to write my own novel. I will have to try to condense everything, unless someone actually wants me to write a novel. I wouldn't mind.

God: the ultimate power of the universe, the matter of all creation, the father of all being, or, simply an illusion. God is the factor that divides and paradoxically unites humans the most. For centuries, those believing that they are of righteous piety have struck down others with the claim that their god is superior. For what reason would humanity have so much devotion to a character neither seen nor heard?

This necessitates an understanding of the origins of the concept of god. The most well-known example of this would be the ancient Greek religion, whose mythology continues to strive in contemporary society. Greeks, unlike today's major religions, were polytheists. They deified rivers, oceans, mountains, and anything that seemed mystical or phantasmagorical. We can analyze their reasoning through a very simple idea: lack of scientific knowledge. While the Greeks were aware that the world was round and that the stars were (to some extent) heavenly bodies, most ancient peoples attributed all life to some creator. Many couldn't comprehend living on a planet, orbiting a sun, which orbits the center of the galaxy amongst billions upon billions of other galaxies. People were unaware of the structure of a living cell or natural selection. They believed what ego taught them to believe, and that is a subject all in itself.

Ego, the part of the self which creates personality, pride, and determination, one might say. It also allows us to be arrogant and obdurate. As Aristotle put it, man is different from animal because we have the ability to reason. That being said, it would then be logical to reason that because only man has the ability to reason that we are, by some standard, special. This raises the question of "why?" Why were humans chosen instead of deer, or platypus? This hearkens back to ego; the arrogant belief that nothing is chance. Thus, a higher being created us. Logical? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Skipping ahead a few millenia, past the cold-blooded killings of the crusades and the dank, unproductive time of the middle ages, we stop at a man called Nicolas Copernicus. Many (hopefully) would know that he was the literal beginning of the scientific revolution. While it may have been Galileo who was persecuted for believing in heliocentrism, it was Galileo who defended Copernicus' views on the solar system. As many know, it took the church approximately 500 years to issue an apology to Galileo.

Continue ahead to present day, past the discoveries of Newton, past the postulates of Da Vinci, past Kepler, past Einstein, to today, November 7th, 2009. Consider the great scientific strides made between the time of Copernicus and today: the invention of the telescope, the discovery of the animal cell, the invention of the microscope, the invention of the atomic bomb, planes, space shuttles, an international space station, and computers. One would think that with all those scientific innovations, religion would become less important as humans discover their place in the universe.

Pictured: Andromeda Galaxy

Instead, we see the persistence of theocracies and the denial of basic human rights based on someone's religion. We also see this (warning: not for those opposed to reason):


God is now the reason for everything. Some pray to him on daily basis, thanking him for bread. If that is the case, why not pray to the farmer who grows the wheat? Why not pray to the owner of the Stop & Shop, thanking him for importing this bread from Kansas? Hell, why not just pray to the cashier, thanking him/her for not telling you to go f*ck yourself? One can plead in court that one was "inhabited by the devil" when one commits a crime. Since when is NOT taking responsibility for one's actions the human action?

It is interesting to note that only one brain chemical separates the cognitive processes of apes from humans. One. Imagine if a different kind of ape had become the dominant species on the planet. Would they have worshiped the same gods we have? Would they have killed in their names? Would they have the same struggles that we do today? Possibly. One can only speculate how similar we are to our simian ancestors; however, one thing is certain: we may not consider ourselves animals, but at our core, we are not human either.

I could continue on this subject, but most people would not read it.

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