11 April 2008

Big Bang

The only way I can answer religious doctrine is to ignore it. All I can do in reply to religious writings is to ignore them. Human beings wrote it down and human beings are the doctrinaires: there I rest my case: human beings are not god. Period.

I simply do not believe in any god / any religion. I do not hate them nor despise them. I do not believe there is no god. I simply do not believe in any god. I have no religion. I do not believe in a future life, a system of future rewards and/or punishments, nor in any master plan, nor in any singular nor in any origin of / for the universe. I believe in no prophets nor angels nor powers nor powers of the dead / “Other” nor any entity waiting to do me a favor if I only pray. None of it “took” and none of it “takes” now.

Belief is easy: just accept “it” as if “it” was true and no more thinking is required about “it”. Just as I shall say I believe so and so will make a good or the better or a less the worst for president: I cannot say “I Know”. Pick one belief and there are thousands of other beliefs. Pick one belief and there are thousands of variations. Knowledge takes work. Trying to know takes work. Honesty takes work. Being able to say “I don’t know” is part of being honest. I am not a good liar. Being a good liar takes work. It is a different kind of work. Making a decision based on belief alone is sometimes all that can be done: It is a belief about what the “real world” is. A belief in the “other” world, the other world of god / religion is another thing altogether. Making decisions based on beliefs in the “non-natural world” applying some way or other to the “natural world” is also done. Human beings are doing it. I rest my case.

I believe all kinds of things and I do not apologize. Or I am shown I only believe in something and do not know and have to apologize. If I do not know anything I am honest enough to say so. Or I lie.

I accept no apology, explanation, defense, nor argument for god / religion: You/he/she/they believe it or not: The fundamental basis for belief is belief. Belief is not knowledge. Period.

God is not taken out of scientific argument nor out of the realm of scientific inquiry. NO! NO! I in fact argue that gods and religions must be studied. They are included in the history of ideas, defended or derided as a part of philosophy, studied as a part of human history such as justification and/or excuse for war and pursuing peace, for examples. That is: studied anthropologically or as a class of idea. There are those who study religions very carefully and have there own or none. History is necessarily concerned with religion. There is in fact an extensive enumeration of “religious” practices called The Golden Bough in thirty five volumes and he was being selective.

The study of nature excludes a study of god and religion as there is nothing there to study. “They” do not personally exclude so and do not have to personally exclude anything and thereby need not justify anything: there is no thing there to take samples of to measure: there is nothing there to exclude and nothing there to include if they wanted to. Period. You and I can guarantee they would if they could. People would have “samples” of god on their table tops at every meal! I would too! Or, they would refuse or fail to so do such. As it is, they might put symbols of god / religion on the table. That can only be studied anthropologically. If the study of nature is the study of god then there is no shortage of study. If the study of nature must include the belief in god, that is political, not science.

“Religion” has never screwed up anybody. People do the screwing. Religion is a cultural expression and a popular expression amongst a group of people: a social thing: and as varied as are groups of people. Pick one belief and there are thousands of other beliefs. Pick one belief and there are thousands of variations.

I do not believe there is no god. I am not a believer in a god to not believe in. “They” insist I am an atheist anyway. “They” are angry at me for not accepting their “beliefs”. I could lie down and mash my face into the floor before any image and shout “I believe!” and there would some “them” who insist I shall go to hell anyway for some reason or other.

As for the big bang: there is no evidence of any such a thing: it is a “working generalization”. It is a sort of “working” “assumption”. A way of talking.

As I hinted before: the universe cannot have a “beginning” based on our notions of time and space: “It”, the universe, the ALL, includes all times and all spaces by definition. There is no time, space, cause, effect, or “thing” left over. To assert a “cause” or “beginning” to the universe entails some extra-universal thing. Call that god. But god did not “cause” the universe to exist. God had not created causes before god created the universe. Therefore god created the universe and did not “cause” it to be. God cannot exist in our world of causes and effects. God created causes and effects. God created time. It is “said” “when god created the world” only because we use our limited language. God did not “start” as there was no where for god to start and no time for god to start as god had not created times nor starts nor where’s nor there’s. God did not cause the universe by creating it because creation is not a cause. No thing can be a “reaction” to the “cause” of god because god had not created anything until god created it and that includes causes and effects and reactions. Therefore there is no “starting time” for the universe nor a "starting time" for god. Even the middle ages monks in monasteries knew that!