Report Blog Entry
hi hi! im starting this blog just to yap, mainly for myself, but if anyone is to come across it, then hi welcome!
a thing i’ve been very obsessed with and researching a lot about is theology. especially as someone who was heavily religious, but now pretty much an atheist. though i am of the opinion that the existence of god cannot be proven or disproven, so this is no diss to faith.
the biggest problem with the question itself is— what is god? who is god? many, many religions and philosophies have their own interpretation of a god. so, what really is god, so we can determine if he exists or not? because if god is uniquely what has started the universe, that definition could be applied to a natural, mysterious event that provoqued the big bang, etc. so that would mean, god exists. but is that the definition of god? of course, many people hold different positions. from abrahamic religions, to hellenism, to hinduism, and so forth. so, who is god?
is he involved in human life? is he not? many of the arguments in favor of god can be summed up to the fine-tuning argument, and the uncaused causer. the unmoved mover. the creator of it all.
many rebuttals have been offered, but for me, i would first of all like to preface that in my opinion— these arguments are rarely why people believe. they are only used to prove themselves to whoever opposes them, but i am certain that most people believe because of upbringing and emotional circumstances. you hear stories of converts all the time, and i assure you most of them are not because they suddenly thought of an unmoved mover. it’s in the comfort of having someone who is all loving and all powerful by your side. to be able to confide in the skies when nobody else is listening. there is no harm in that, we are all human after all. and anyway— i cannot be sure faith is wrong.
but that same uncertainty is the one i hold towards other things, such as aliens or mermaids. we hold no proof that these do not exist, right? though i understand why the difference in standard. god, unlike them, is a certain philosophy, a reason behind existence.
however, if there were to be a god, i believe the most reasonable of all would be spinoza’s god— the one albert einstein also advocated for, and tried to concoct a mathematical equation that would allow us to understand how all this came to be, it is called the “god” equation. an equation, in only a line or so, to merge both theoretical and experimental physics, and come to understand the “mind of god”. so, who is spinoza’s god?
spinoza presented his idea of god as being the law of the natural world. god being all these laws of physics and math and nature around us. i am not sure if this falls under deism, universalism or a different label— but basically, his stance is that god isn’t some entity separated from us up in the heavens, god is everything around us. and of course he thought it quite deplorable to think that the creator of such a grand and mysterious universe would be occupied with matters of humans, like sin and deed. that also applies to the concept of judgment/afterlife, and whatever concerns humans.
and honestly, what intrigued me most is how billions of people out there have found certainty in different religions, so who’s to say this one is right and this one is wrong? can there really be only one true religion? and if so, is “god” purposefully letting the other billions be misguided to go to hell? quite cruel for an all-loving deity.
at the end of the day, it is a very subjective matter, as i know of people who found peace and purpose in islam, others in christianity, others in hellenism, others in simple atheism. it’s not a “one-size-fits-all” matters. to each their own! and it is quite condescending for people to try and pester others to convert to THEIR religion because they are certain it is the truth. and i also just feel bad for those same people who preach, because some of them genuinely live with this ingrained savior complex and responsibility and guilt of “letting people go to hell because of them”. because i am aware some really, really believe they are doing the right thing and saving people. but pause for a moment— who are you saving them from? and isn’t that very “savior” they need the exact one they need saving from?
okayy i think that’s enough for today >ᴗ<
Comments
Displaying 1 of 1 comments ( View all | Add Comment )
A
Hello friend!
Your blog post was very interesting!
I would love to go in on this more, but I am much too pressed for time so I'll pose some questions and respond to some of what you said (that will most likely be insufficient).
"we hold no proof that these do not exist, right?"
When you say proof, I am assuming you mean a fact about the universe that says God is real. Like irreducible complexity? I myself find those arguments shaky, and do not believe in God for said reason. But what do I mean by God?
My feelings are that any need to "prove" God is already misstep in what Christians (and other theistic traditions believe). For if God were to be proved he would not be God. For God as defined in the first millennia of Christianity was that which lies outside the existence of reality and created it. He by that definition could never be "discovered" in this reality in the empirical sense because to "disprove" God by saying the universe was created by the collision of two previous universes would still be trying to prove God within reality. This would be what they call a category error. For example, if I asked you to show me how cook food to make a Television, I would say that's preposterous! The reality we perceive, cannot (in my belief) be the only reality. And I will live it here, we know Haruki Murakami wrote Kafka on the Shore (I saw him in your bio), but to attempt to prove Murakami's existence from the story alone would be impossible.
Overall, I hope I did not come off as mean, and hope this was a gentle push back. Hope your day goes well.
hiii ! i am so sorry for the late reply, i just saw your comment ! not at all, i really appreciate you taking the time to share your opinion on this !!
and totally, i get what you mean ! that is the main problem with god. god itself does not have a set definition. like you said, if god is completely outside of existence and our realm, does that itself not clash with many theistic (abrahamic++) prompts? such as jesus being god, for example. god is a very flexible concept itself, and since the beginning of time, this word has been associated with someone, or something, being the source of something. this dates back to very old mythologies, where polytheism was most prevalent because people back then lived in tribes, and to them, a god associated to each thing made most sense ! and as we kept advancing, especially in lands where there was ONE ruler / monarch— the definition of god itself started taking more of a monotheistic turn !
like you said, proving and disproving god is so tricky, because what even is god? and yes, just like how from murakami’s book alone, you can’t really tell who wrote it. it could have been a team? or one writer alone? you would not have a proof of either, and we only know it because we have seen murakami outside of the book.
so god at the end of the day is a concept. where each person has their own perception of god, even under the same religion. spinoza’s god, a god who doesn’t bother with humans, simply set the rules and laws of nature and let it all happen! islam, christianity, judaism, they claim the opposite. and so on..
thank you lots for commenting!! its always nice to read other people’s thoughts :))
by lina ⋆˚࿔; ; Report