Why All Religions are Wrong, Atheists have Faith, and Agnostics don't Know Jack

The following article is a philosophical walk through faith and religion, or lack thereof. Many things I write and post here I am not completely happy with like the Art of Violence and Justice Series among others. I feel when writing many of these articles that I haven't fully done my job and found the complete answers to the questions posed. I always feel like I've found some though. The same may be said for this article and what I like about all my work is that it promotes thought on these subjects in others. We all have many questions in life that need answering even if we may not be fully aware of them all the time.

Why All Religions are Wrong, Atheists have Faith, and Agnostics don’t Know Jack.

Humanity throughout its existence has believed many things. There have been sun gods, gods of the underworld, spirits of good or evil, concepts of karma and reincarnation. Many religions have risen and fallen across humanity’s existence. What is constant from religion to religion is the belief of the people of each religion that their own is the one true belief system. It is a frustratingly complex task given the sheer number of religions and their varying denominations to choose among them the one true belief system.

What makes all religions wrong is this overwhelming belief by all of humanity that their religion is the only true religion. It is the arrogance and vanity of such belief that shows religions could only be created by humanity and not of divine origin. Only humanity would put forth the idea “that I, because I believe, am more worthy than the non-believers”. Religions claim the unreasonable.

Many people in the new world died without ever knowing of Allah, God, the Jews, Jesus, Zeus, Osiris, or Satan. Yet to not believe in Christian doctrine, among others, is to be damned. These individuals had no knowledge of the beliefs of the religion yet would be punished by such contrived rules of divine morality. Limbo was brought into being by an inspired mind as the waiting room of God for individuals so unfortunate as these. Still limbo did not and does not exist in many religions. The idea one should be punished for lack of knowledge and even opportunity to believe is in total opposition to the concept of an omni-benevolent deity.

The odds that one’s religion is the one true religion are extremely small when given all the varying beliefs that exist and have existed in the world. To have to choose between them is as good as saying “damn yourself with your choice”. Whichever one you pick you will likely pick the wrong one.

In reality very few people even have the opportunity to make a choice such as the Native Americans before Columbus’s time. In other places one either believes what they are told or dies. It is in complete opposition to the idea of belief to deny one a free choice of their faith. Such a choice is not a choice at all and the forced belief merely the shadow of faith. These individuals go through the motions without ever choosing. Are they damned by their lack of options like the Native Americans?

How many people even question their beliefs even if given the option? We are born into the societies we are by fate or chance. What beliefs are there we are taught and they become our own beliefs. What our parents believe we generally believe. We never set out to decide from the start what our beliefs will be. It is by happy chance that a human ever decides to question and then make a choice as it generally goes against everything one is taught.

What makes one so fortunate as to be born in such a situation that one is given the opportunity to know of God and the one true faith from birth or even to hear of it, learn it, and believe it later? A truly omni-benevolent God would want all to benefit so such a God is in complete contradiction to reality. An omnipotent God would have the power to make it happen yet it is not so. If a divine being exists then it must not be what many religions teach for such a being and our reality do not lend themselves to be compatible. Such a being is either not omni-benevolent or not omnipotent. If not omnipotent why call him God, if not benevolent then why worship him?

The best chance one has of choosing correctly is to say that all religions are wrong. There is good evidence that they are all contrived by humanity and to choose one among many is an exercise in futility. Religions go far beyond the belief and concept of a divine being they outline scores of rules and ways of behavior. Unlike believers of many faiths philosophers are not fools they do not attempt to argue over which brands of meat God views as abominable. They may argue over God’s omnipotence, his omni-benevolence, his omniscience but they know enough to say that it is completely arrogant and impossible to determine what God would have on his deli sandwich or which hole God prefers to stick it in. Taking a look at the odds there is a fifty-fifty chance of God, an all powerful being, existing. Also by the odds there is an astronomically small chance that God, an all powerful being, enjoys being addressed with male pronouns, prefers beef to pork, decided to take six days to make the world instead of one or maybe a billion. Each addition is just another coin to flip and continually adds to the improbability of the claim. When faced with choosing between the impossible and choosing against it we are better served if we choose to say that all religions are wrong for in each case non-existence/non-belief is always the alternative, we have a fifty percent chance of being correct.

Those that are atheist constantly claim that they have lost faith and no longer believe in God or an afterlife. The problem is that they fail to justify a disbelief in both. Every reason for becoming an atheist I have read has always been in objection to the religion not to the existence of God or the existence of an afterlife. There is a distinct difference between a religion and God. There is a difference between God and there being an afterlife. Atheists, on the whole, fail to use reason and philosophy to argue against there being a God. Even in rejecting all religion one does not have to reject the existence of God or an afterlife. God is not inextricably tied to religion nor is the concept of an afterlife to God.

Atheists fall for the same poor reasoning that believers of religion do in their belief. They attempt to claim more about the divine than they reasonably can. It is simple to reject religion for it can be shown to be nothing but the desires and arrogance of man. It is another step and another thing entirely to say that an omnipotent being does not exist. There is no way to disprove such a belief beyond doubt and in an existence of limitlessness, in time or space, one, the other, or both, it is reasonable to say that one has existed, does exist, or may exist in the future. On the other side of the coin, the one atheists blindly leap to without due consideration of the former consideration, there appears to be no indication that such a being is actively doing anything involved in our existence in the present.

It is the same with the idea of the afterlife. Atheists seem to leap to the conclusion that their existence will enter a permanent state of cessation just because there is no God. It apparently never occurs to many of them that there does not need to be a God for there to be an afterlife. In an existence of limitlessness it is arrogant to say that you will never be, never exist, again.

Before I get accused of leaping to a conclusion like atheists and believers let me say that there is no reason not to believe in the limitlessness of existence. This is not the same as ceaselessness as one may cease yet one may also come into being. I exist now, I continue to exist, I have evidence which suggests many things existed before I became aware, I have every reason to believe I, the parts of me, shall continue to exist even after I cease being aware. If the universe had a beginning and will have an end then I see no reason another could not begin or ours begin again. I may yet still exist as part of that universe or one of the many after. If the universe is continuous, without end, then I will without a doubt continue with it. The form in which I do so is irrelevant and in a limitless existence one may have many, similar, and the same form or forms. In these forms I may be aware, or not, yet it is a distinct possibility that in some I will be aware.

At the same time there is no argument to refute beyond a doubt that everything simply ends at some point. I can reasonably argue that believing everything comes to nothing is futile because in believing and arguing for such a thing one’s argument is pointless. The believer, belief, and argument will end up not existing and there is no logic in believing in something that isn’t there, like a mirage. But on the coin of reality existence and non-existence are equal fifty-fifty chances.

When the coin comes into play, then so must faith, in order for one to believe in either the existence or non-existence of something since there is nothing to recommend one choice over the other. Hence, all atheists have faith they merely choose to believe in the non-existence of things rather than in the existence of them. In reaching this faith they commit the same type of errors as believers in leaping to say “since my belief in this religion is wrong then my beliefs that there is/are a God, gods, or an afterlife is/are wrong as well” and in so doing believe unreasonably.

Given what we know, that those of faith, whether of religion or atheist, believe unreasonably it seems reasonable to adopt an agnostic stance to existence, or lack thereof, of the divine. When the answer is admittedly beyond our determination, withholding judgment, suspending belief, and striving to come to a better understanding from which to make a determination is the best we as human beings can do.

In reality agnosticism means “we don’t know jack”, we can never know. That is something that human beings cannot possibly accept because of our nature. We must come to an understanding at some point if we merely collect enough information. It does not factor into our drive for understanding that there may be no way to collect enough information or analyze that which we have thoroughly enough to reach an answer. It seems absurd to us that we could live in such a universe where not all answers may be obtainable.

For salvation from this unceasing cycle and feeling of being trapped where we are in our understanding we turn to faith. We choose to believe in something rather than to withhold belief. Faith is by no means a wrong to have as it can by chance lead to the right answers but it is wrong to take a leap of faith. To take a leap of faith is to choose faith over knowing the possibilities and the likelihoods. If we ignore them then we limit ourselves to being unreasonable. When the possibilities and likely hoods have ended we can choose between agnosticism and faith. But when doing so we do not forget that our faith is merely faith and not truth. It is important that our truth be only what we can reach through logical thought for otherwise we have rejected what we have learned and all reason. It is a human thing to be unreasonable but it is not a desirable thing.

In summation, all religions are wrong, atheists have faith, agnostics don’t know jack, and its ok to believe in something as long as we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

The Desk

More to the surface than meets the sense of touch.
More that is not seen.
We do not know what.
The shine of metal gleams
and emptiness presides through time.

-The Major

The Art of Violence and Justice 3

If you have not read at least the second post on The Art of Violence and Justice then please do so before reading this or you will be lost.

In answer to the first hypothetical scenario of my last post the prisoner would always be morally right in not killing the guards in his attempt to free himself. Such an individual would be a martyr of a sort. If the prisoner kills the guards then it is my belief that he does not become evil even with the fact that the guards are good individuals. The reason for this is when one does evil then one’s right to not have evil inflicted upon one in return is nullified. The guards, even unaware of this, have opened themselves up to the possibility of retaliation against themselves by their actions and choices i.e. holding an innocent man captive. The prisoner is, of course, taking his own chances in this moral system by escaping. In the guards’ reality the prisoner is the evil one forfeiting his right not to be harmed by what they believe he has done and by inflicting harm upon them in an escape attempt. So in the end no one is doing any wrong here as far as the prisoner and guards are concerned.

While I do not make the claim that killing is purely good in this instance of the guards and prisoner I do make the claim that it is morally acceptable or neutral. Killing in self-defense I should think would be viewed in much the same way as the defender does not likely enjoy having killed his/her attacker but deemed it as necessary to his/her wellbeing and in line with an individuals moral rights.

The essential rule of this moral system is demonstrated in the following example. Suppose one is attacked by another individual and that individual is intent on killing you. You would be on sound moral ground if you killed that individual. Now suppose that you had the option of instead of killing this individual in return to merely subdue him with a reasonably high chance of success say around 99.99%. By taking the action he has this attacker has forfeited his right to not be killed but the defender has the option of killing the attacker or sparing his life. So killing the attacker would be a neutral action because he has forfeited his moral rights but sparing his life would be a good action because it was not necessary but went a step further.

Acts considered evil in one instance and neutral or good in another lead us to the conclusion that it may possibly be that the end justifies the means. This is not supported at all as the moral system here is situational but also governed by a rule system. When one is committing evil acts one is morally open to them being inflicted upon oneself. While those acts may become neutral and forgiven in the end (or after the fact) when the results are clear the present shows them to be immoral and unjustifiable. It may be entirely up to moral luck as to whether or not the end result comes out as something good as well. So when one does evil one is essentially taking a gamble with one’s essence as to whether or not one is good or evil in existence and not just taking one single wrong action. This brings in the situational aspect. When one has other options it is inherently wrong to do evil therefore the ends do not justify the means as long as there are other means.

Now as to the second example the person involved is free. As such this individual has other options than to initially kill the guards and help the prisoner escape. Following this moral system the individual should exhaust all other means to free the prisoner before killing the guards. Though if all other means are exhausted then such an action would be acceptable.

These examples unlike in the original post of The Art of Violence and Justice do follow true justice as all actions happen merely to establish equity and give those wronged back what they had lost or were threatened with losing. The original post dealt with an example of a person without options other than vengeance and possibly vengeance with equity. I’m not entirely sure I made that distinction well but it was meant to be there as that individual was meant to be recouping loss rather than merely inflicting it back upon others.

I believe I have sufficiently answered these moral dilemmas and introduced the system of moral rights. I intend to go more in depth with this system in later posts.

The Art of Violence and Justice 2

In my previous post The Art of Violence and Justice I discussed a hypothetical scenario involving an individual who was in an irreconcilable situation from which there was no apparent escape without the use of violence. In the end of the line of thought I found that violence was unnecessary even in that airtight hypothetical situation. However, I also found that the individual was left with the options of defeat or committing illegal acts. Illegal was found not to be the same as immoral. I also wrote that even though this hypothetical situation did not pan out to leave the individual with a violent option as the only recourse to extricate one from one’s problems, it was conceivable that there were other situations in which one might be forced to do violence without having violence first done to oneself. Since writing that post I have continued to think on the subject and have come up with a couple more hypothetical situations.

The first situation is one in which an individual is falsely accused of murder, tried, convicted and imprisoned. The individual is not on death row as that would mean the possibility of violence would be visited upon him first and doing violence in self-defense to escape that would make a certain moral sense. The question in this case is if a person has a right to harm or kill others to secure one’s own freedom. Most specifically when one has done no wrong yet has been imprisoned. We’ll say that in this hypothetical society in which he exists he has no hope for an appeal or chance to be proven innocent and released. Suppose that this individual is held in a maximum security prison yet one day finds himself in a position with the chance to escape in a transfer to a new facility of equal security. The only problem is that to do so he would have to kill a couple of guards. In other words, he won’t get as lucky as Harrison Ford in The Fugitive and have them die of their own accord. This presents something of a paradox since in order to escape he must become a murderer even though he wasn’t a murderer to begin with. One might question whether or not killing these guards would be murder since they are in fact serving an immoral justice in keeping this individual imprisoned. But that begs the question of whether these guards are evil or not. It is not immoral to destroy evil so if the guards are evil then they may conceivably be killed without tarnishing one’s soul. It leaves the prisoner with having to judge the moral fiber of the guards. In this case, I will simplify the situation and say that one can be good and still serve evil though I think one would have to be almost totally deceived by it to do so. So the guards appear to be good individuals who have wives and go to see their children’s school plays. Our prisoner is not going to be able to get out of this one and still remain a good person. He is left with either suffering in his existence or becoming a murderer. Yet this again confuses our problem entirely because the individual is only seeking something good for himself and if anyone knew the truth of his predicament they would most surely seek his release. Yet we also are saying he cannot do it because by committing one (or two evil acts if you count it separate for the death of each guard) would make this individual evil. Maybe he escapes to a tropical island and has a pleasant existence for the rest of his days and isn’t caught during his escape attempt. It may very well be that after killing both guards the individual escapes and never kills/murders anyone ever again. So we are brought back to the problem of the guards committing evil acts without knowledge of doing so. We are working from the premise that one can be good even while one is or has in the past committed evil acts so that would mean that it is entirely possible our individual could still be a murderer and a good person. The other option is that acts matter and if you engage in certain ones then you are automatically evil. In the first case the individual could get away with murder because he isn’t evil though he might feel deep regret over doing so and in the other case he could kill the guards without pangs of conscience because they are evil by the fact they are committing evil acts. It seems that in this case violence is unavoidable save the individual taking upon himself another’s punishment till the time at which his dismal existence ends. This problem is deeply complex and I am unsatisfied with any of the options available.

The second situation is one in which an individual knows another is being held against his/her will yet to free him/her one would need to kill many innocent people. We’ll say there are guards at the prison who think this second person has committed murder. The guards are merely doing their jobs but they are undoubtedly committing an evil act by keeping this individual imprisoned. The free individual has a moral obligation to see that the other individual is not imprisoned against his/her will. Yet to carry out on that obligation one is forced to commit seemingly evil acts. As you can see we are left with the same quandary in this situation as the first one. The answer to these situations is in the distinction between evil acts and evil existences as well as good acts and good existences.

Finding the difference between these things is a complex task which I have set for myself. However, it is a vital question to morality and yes I have come to some conclusions about it. I ask that anyone who reads this thinks upon the problem of these hypothetical situations and once having given it some thought, then read my next post.

My Pro Obama Thing

Why not Hilary? White Water, has already failed to get one health care bill passed, voted to invade Iraq(then tried to rescind vote), I don't buy the experience thing(the first lady picks out china doesn't decide foreign policy WITH China), anyone notice how much Hilary likes to say she's for change AFTER Obama said it?, the crying thing was as phony as Guilliani's phone calls from his wife(put it on vibrate), did you ever plan to win any of the last 8+ states?(play it down play it down), wow she's really lucky to have avoided all that sniper fire, five letters supported by Hillary and destroyed the US economy Answer: NAFTA(I guess Ohio likes being in the rust belt), I don't want to hear another 4-8 more years of Monica Lewinski jokes on SNL.