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Edited on Tue Nov-13-07 10:27 PM by Mythsaje
We don't know where the universe came from. We simply know it's there and we exist within it. And as far as WE are concerned, we may hail from the bowels of the Earth, or may have originated from a meteor carrying bacteria from somewhere out there.
My argument is that none of that matters in the ultimate scheme of things. All too often those people who are obsessed with the idea of a "personal relationship with God/Jesus" are completely incompetent when it comes to dealing with other humans.
When you break it down to its basic components, the "holy" words of such notable prophets as Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Ghandi, and the like, boil down to one sentence. "Don't be an asshole."
Most religious fanatics don't seem to grasp that concept. This applies to the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Reverend Sun Moon, Fred Phelps, Osama Bin Laden, and the assholes who flew the planes into the WTC towers equally. It applies to everyone who ever hid behind the veil of religion to visit hatred and terror upon their fellow human being.
There have been some benefits to religion over the centuries. I think the Christian concept of the value of life gave rise to the humanist secularism that now dominates much of Europe--though Europe now faces a challenge in dealing with the influx of Islamic immigrants changing the landscape once again.
But let's be frank. When Jesus said "what you do to the least of these" it didn't get passed along in spirit very well. Christianity was used to prop up the so-called "divine right of kings" for centuries. If Jesus existed, and there is no real evidence he did outside of the Bible itself, he said a lot of things that could be construed in very negative ways. He did not condemn slavery, though he did speak out for the poor and oppressed. He did not condemn homosexuality, though he did speak out against divorce.
Allegedly.
Religion...ALL religion...is a mish-mash of superstition, political and social bias, philosophy, and wishful thinking. No one truly knows where we come from, or what happens after death. It's all conjecture.
To paraphrase Thomas Paine, All revelation is personal. Or it's worthless.
The only reason to assume we are here by the design of an all-powerful deity (or group of deities) rather than as some alien race's science experiment (and I have met people who believe this as well) is because some humans recorded their beliefs in oral and written stories that have survived the various conflicts they generated between various cultures throughout history. Which, when you get right down to it, barely exceeds the status of "accident." Christianity thrived through dark times partially because it offered hope to the hopeless. "It doesn't matter what your status is here in THIS life--everyone is equal in heaven." They used to to quell dissatisfaction among the serfs and freemen of Old Europe, they used it to placate and convert the African slaves to a variation of Judeo-Christianity. The rest of its success can be attributed to the fact that it was driven by a very militant mindset that degraded and devalued anyone who wasn't "saved." And the fact that it absorbed and made use of many of the holidays of the cultures and religions it was trying to supplant.
In the end, that there was probably the primary reason it was more successful than Islam during that time period. It was more flexible. It was willing to borrow a lot from other cultures, cannabilizing various aspects of their spiritual beliefs in order to strengthen itself.
When you get right down to it, I don't think any of it really matters. It obfuscates the reality of the situation. In the end, the quality of our lives have nothing to do with our alleged relationship with a transcendent being--if one or more should in fact exist--as much as it has to do with our relationships with our fellow human beings. We cannot KNOW the truth of our origins, or what might or might not await us after death, so the last thing we should do is afford those who claim knowledge of these things some sort of free ride to dictate our behavior or morals.
What should be the basis of our whole approach to morality is how we interact with our fellow mortals. Even if there is no God judging our behavior, rest assured, our fellow humans will do so. If you're an asshole, people will respond accordingly. It's not even any more complicated than that. It doesn't need to be.
WE are the minds and hands that direct our experiences, just in objective terms. When we do right, we're not following the "will of God." When we do evil, it isn't that the "devil made me do it." It's because we harbor both good and evil, in subjective terms, within ourselves. But you know what? When we approach the world with a positive attitude and a desire to do right by other people, we ease their burdens just a little bit, and it makes them that much more likely to do the same down the line. A tiny random act of kindness can have untold benefits.
And that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with humanity. And THAT'S what should be important to us, not the argument of whether or not there is a God. God isn't standing on the street-corner begging for spare change.
On the other hand, if you take a pantheistic point of view...maybe he is. If you want to do right by God, do right by your fellow human.
Either way, everybody wins.
edited to fix a minor grammatical error
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