Corta
17th August 2009, 12:52 PM
I called this Over and Above I believe for obvious reasons once you see the length of this "letter". It's just thoughts I wanted to put down and didn't know exactly where to put them. ;)
I call myself an intuitive atheist. I did not believe in a god or gods even when I was a “believer” I know that sounds strange but considering the audience I’m telling this to maybe not. I guess if the church wasn’t so rigid and if they perhaps considered the bible as a book of metaphors they might have kept me there a little longer, but as a natural born sceptic, they couldn’t. I questioned everything as a child and it drove my parents and my teachers, (religious and otherwise) insane, to the point were I lost interest in them as they refused to answer my questions properly, you know the “because it just is” answer. I didn’t do well in school I continued with creative pursuits such as music and long conversations about the meaning of it all to anyone who would converse in such depths and at length, but again I did it intuitively, laziness had set in from authority spending to much time preaching at me instead of teaching me to learn. We all understand this in our own way I believe.
I have spent more time catching up with the modern sciences. I find it amazing that people even need to entertain the idea of a god once they learn even the basics of the awesome planet we find ourselves residing on. Let us praise the people that take us into the future, not the ones that drag us into the past.
I absolutely believe there is no “god” or “creator”. I believe the proof is not only in the enlightenment of science but in the actual spread of religion itself. I will use Judaist God as a basis but I will also touch on the others on the way through. I don’t want to start from the “beginning” that should be obvious to anyone how understands Darwinian Evolution.
I also want to say that these ideas are probably not even original, great authors like Hitchens, Dawkins and many others may have stated these ideas (or proofs) I actually haven’t read “God Delusion” or “God is not Great” yet, but I will. I’m going to try to keep this as simple as I can. Because I am a simple person, not because I believe you are. I’m writing this for me as much as for anyone who might read it.
Let’s start with the Romans, I think we can all agree this is the cradle of the christian myth. As Constantine decided the christianity would be the religion of Rome and it’s empires from that time on. (There are other theories about the Celts as well from this time period but I’ll let you, kind reader, look for that if you wish.). The Romans as we all know conquered much of Europe, Northern Africa and the Britons, taking their politics and religion with them. I think we can safely assume (because history has shown) that the “Church” would use the soldiers to rally the local inhabitants of the newly conquered area, and start conversion through a mixture of different ways, through simply “asking” the locals to deny there beliefs and convert to the Roman Empires religion “the only true religion” or be killed as a heretic, or maybe as subtle as placing the locals children into the “care” of the church and from there the children would be indoctrinated into the “true religion”, and from then on the children’s children, and so on, would know no other religion as “true”. From here we see the spread of the “christian society” where whole nations, because their King or Queen is christian, especially the Britons, the Spanish and the French as they explored and settled.
These 3 major groups mentioned also had deep roots with the Catholic or newly formed Church of England. They all had advisors in the highest ranks to advise them on God’s will on everything from taxes to the exploration of the New World. As both Protestant and Catholic churches did not allow their followers to learn for themselves the texts that were being taught, it looks as if the churches had a fascist hold over their flock during this period. (And it’s really in the last 100 years or maybe less that we as humans can even make these informed decisions on the truths of the supposed holy book they claim as the proof of god.) These 3 major groups explored and settled many regions in the world but could only hold onto to the “most primitive” parts i.e. The Americas, Australia and small islands around the world.
The fact that India or China didn’t spread themselves out to other parts of the world is the reason why their religions are not the major religion in other countries other than their own. Until, at least, immigration started playing a big part in reshaping or societies and the non practising but still believing western religious started integrating with these other nationalities and taking parts of what they liked about their religions (Hinduism, Buddhism etc) and discarding what they didn’t, the new age was born. I think Tantra would have been very popular with the free “spirited” of the sixties especially. (I realise that is a very simplistic way to look at it but I think at a basic level it is true).
I have heard people state that we have a religious centre in us that needs these beliefs. I completely disagree I believe we people have a longing to understand the world around us and up until recently religion was the only means to understand this world. Now, thanks to great minds such as Darwin, Newton, Maxwell and many, many others we can fill this “need” with real world truths, evidence. The archaic beliefs in a god of any sort becomes false in itself as it can not stand up to any of these truths, science or the method of science is new to this magnificent human race, but religion is old and ingrained in our societies as truth.
We must keep science alive in or schools and conversations, stay true to your arguments don’t fall into arguments with the religious if you don’t have the knowledge to do so. You can already take pride in the fact that you are not as gullible as they are. We should really concentrate on the non practicing of these groups as they have already questioned their beliefs of a sort, and might not know they have the option of thinking, “there’s probably no god so stop worrying and enjoy your life”. The thing we need from these fence sitters is for them to stops sending there kids to Sunday Schools and other religious camps etc, (maybe science camps and such would be cool, I know I would of loved to go to space camp if I could have when I was a kid) also maybe creating secular celebrations around religious holidays. As for the lazy non practitioners, I don’t believe either group can do anything about them, Steven Seagal movies and Paris Hilton should keep them busy really.
As for the afterlife someone else can deal with that, as I am a carbon based life form that has a lifecycle that will run down or be cut short. I don’t pretend to like this but I do accept it as fact.
I left out large portions of history not because they might prove me wrong, only because it just seems to repeat itself, in some cases very disturbingly.
I call myself an intuitive atheist. I did not believe in a god or gods even when I was a “believer” I know that sounds strange but considering the audience I’m telling this to maybe not. I guess if the church wasn’t so rigid and if they perhaps considered the bible as a book of metaphors they might have kept me there a little longer, but as a natural born sceptic, they couldn’t. I questioned everything as a child and it drove my parents and my teachers, (religious and otherwise) insane, to the point were I lost interest in them as they refused to answer my questions properly, you know the “because it just is” answer. I didn’t do well in school I continued with creative pursuits such as music and long conversations about the meaning of it all to anyone who would converse in such depths and at length, but again I did it intuitively, laziness had set in from authority spending to much time preaching at me instead of teaching me to learn. We all understand this in our own way I believe.
I have spent more time catching up with the modern sciences. I find it amazing that people even need to entertain the idea of a god once they learn even the basics of the awesome planet we find ourselves residing on. Let us praise the people that take us into the future, not the ones that drag us into the past.
I absolutely believe there is no “god” or “creator”. I believe the proof is not only in the enlightenment of science but in the actual spread of religion itself. I will use Judaist God as a basis but I will also touch on the others on the way through. I don’t want to start from the “beginning” that should be obvious to anyone how understands Darwinian Evolution.
I also want to say that these ideas are probably not even original, great authors like Hitchens, Dawkins and many others may have stated these ideas (or proofs) I actually haven’t read “God Delusion” or “God is not Great” yet, but I will. I’m going to try to keep this as simple as I can. Because I am a simple person, not because I believe you are. I’m writing this for me as much as for anyone who might read it.
Let’s start with the Romans, I think we can all agree this is the cradle of the christian myth. As Constantine decided the christianity would be the religion of Rome and it’s empires from that time on. (There are other theories about the Celts as well from this time period but I’ll let you, kind reader, look for that if you wish.). The Romans as we all know conquered much of Europe, Northern Africa and the Britons, taking their politics and religion with them. I think we can safely assume (because history has shown) that the “Church” would use the soldiers to rally the local inhabitants of the newly conquered area, and start conversion through a mixture of different ways, through simply “asking” the locals to deny there beliefs and convert to the Roman Empires religion “the only true religion” or be killed as a heretic, or maybe as subtle as placing the locals children into the “care” of the church and from there the children would be indoctrinated into the “true religion”, and from then on the children’s children, and so on, would know no other religion as “true”. From here we see the spread of the “christian society” where whole nations, because their King or Queen is christian, especially the Britons, the Spanish and the French as they explored and settled.
These 3 major groups mentioned also had deep roots with the Catholic or newly formed Church of England. They all had advisors in the highest ranks to advise them on God’s will on everything from taxes to the exploration of the New World. As both Protestant and Catholic churches did not allow their followers to learn for themselves the texts that were being taught, it looks as if the churches had a fascist hold over their flock during this period. (And it’s really in the last 100 years or maybe less that we as humans can even make these informed decisions on the truths of the supposed holy book they claim as the proof of god.) These 3 major groups explored and settled many regions in the world but could only hold onto to the “most primitive” parts i.e. The Americas, Australia and small islands around the world.
The fact that India or China didn’t spread themselves out to other parts of the world is the reason why their religions are not the major religion in other countries other than their own. Until, at least, immigration started playing a big part in reshaping or societies and the non practising but still believing western religious started integrating with these other nationalities and taking parts of what they liked about their religions (Hinduism, Buddhism etc) and discarding what they didn’t, the new age was born. I think Tantra would have been very popular with the free “spirited” of the sixties especially. (I realise that is a very simplistic way to look at it but I think at a basic level it is true).
I have heard people state that we have a religious centre in us that needs these beliefs. I completely disagree I believe we people have a longing to understand the world around us and up until recently religion was the only means to understand this world. Now, thanks to great minds such as Darwin, Newton, Maxwell and many, many others we can fill this “need” with real world truths, evidence. The archaic beliefs in a god of any sort becomes false in itself as it can not stand up to any of these truths, science or the method of science is new to this magnificent human race, but religion is old and ingrained in our societies as truth.
We must keep science alive in or schools and conversations, stay true to your arguments don’t fall into arguments with the religious if you don’t have the knowledge to do so. You can already take pride in the fact that you are not as gullible as they are. We should really concentrate on the non practicing of these groups as they have already questioned their beliefs of a sort, and might not know they have the option of thinking, “there’s probably no god so stop worrying and enjoy your life”. The thing we need from these fence sitters is for them to stops sending there kids to Sunday Schools and other religious camps etc, (maybe science camps and such would be cool, I know I would of loved to go to space camp if I could have when I was a kid) also maybe creating secular celebrations around religious holidays. As for the lazy non practitioners, I don’t believe either group can do anything about them, Steven Seagal movies and Paris Hilton should keep them busy really.
As for the afterlife someone else can deal with that, as I am a carbon based life form that has a lifecycle that will run down or be cut short. I don’t pretend to like this but I do accept it as fact.
I left out large portions of history not because they might prove me wrong, only because it just seems to repeat itself, in some cases very disturbingly.