I love thinking, I love words and I love exploring. When I was very young, I explored the all the hallways of the hotels we visited, and at home I enjoyed visiting every small downtrodden path between the houses. As I got older it was the mind which needed exploring. At the age of 13, I foolishly thought I had solved every major riddle of my own consciousness Little did I know that I had just been handed over the key. This key is called the ability to think in abstracts. And this has been my guide to atheism.
One of my lecturers said it plainly. (And I paraphrase:) "A part of becoming an adult is to know where your own ideas emerged, originated. To find the reason you think and act the way you do, so that you may decide for yourself what to believe."
A couple of years have passed, and in the mean time I have learned the inspiration for many of my ideas, many of my likes and dislikes and in the end my beliefs. But not those beliefs you might associate with religion, no, instead I have become a stronger "believer" in atheism. This blog post, is a shot at putting in words some of the processes that helped show me the way to my current belief, why this is so, and what lessons should follow.
Thought I concider my self as one of those blessed with and unmistakably happy childhood, with parents of one of the more find- your- own- way- of- life ways of up- bringing, and plenty of support for what ever sport I decided to try that week. But there are always going to be those discoveries within yourself which are harder to handle than others. Everyone will have these hurdles. Some of them are apparent, and some of them so illusive that you won´t find them until some seventeenth century bloke smacks them in your face.
We cannot know beforehand what perilous ideas may lie in our own minds. I would say, that just as when falling in love, you take huge emotional risks. But it is still worth it. It just takes a bit of courage.
Courage to me, is not something we don in a cold night, and hold before us as a shield. To me it means applied confidence. You can use the belief in yourself to help cut through injustice, and wrongness, but also the confidence in yourself to delve into your thoughts, and face what is really there.
There are many powerful academic ideas that helped me along the way, but to elaborate on them would take too much time. There is one however which we cannot, and should not, do without. This theory is called "cognitive dissonance".
The theory of cognitive dissonance in fact, was first used to describe how people in the near vicinity of an accident (but not in any immediate danger) invent a reason for their fear to avoid inner turmoil. Instead of being afraid without knowing the reason why, it was discovered that one was liable to invent a reason for one self. Humanity probably has this earths greatest capacity for thought, abstract and concrete. We have the possibility to search our minds, and where we find ideas we don't have any basis for, we ask questions. Humans are incurably inquisitive. Just ask a four year old. Fearfull questions rapidly comes to the forefront of our attention, as; What is sickness and death, and is there any way to avoid this? How can I assure that my child will grow up, and wil a rainstorm destroy my crop? Some of the more fundamental and universal questions of every culture seem to have found an answer in religion
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The truth is that most animals in this world die alone and often in agony, and so do many humans, but we are the only species capable of creativity, fantasy and culture, and we use it for all it's worth.
If I were to allow my self a epistemological leap of faith, it would be that we humans are natural builders of cognition, and that networks of internally consistent ideas are harder to break down than those unbound by logic. It doesn't seem as much of a leap of faith, does it? But behind assumptions as grand and general as this, there lies oceans of knowledge and research, and this does either not exist or is currently beyond my grasp. Imagine, if you will, a Babylonian tower, representing our vast and unsearchable minds. The walls and pillars represent ideas and knowledge. At the foundations we find those facts and assumptions which in time have become axioms or nomotetic knowledge, such as that gravity pulls us down and the earth spins around once a day. Further up still we build structures of familiar consistencies. Social "laws" of causality and such things. By the time we are adolecents, and ready for abstract thought, reflection and foresight, our tower is emense. While we are still trying to get to grips with what we learned before, the tower grows even higher. But down in the lower levels of our tower, thoughts are still crude, and the pillars are all early assumptions - much needed when the complexities of the world is towering above your grasp. Our mind is not locked off. We have access, if sometimes unwittingly, to all parts of it. With reflection, we have the ability to delve deep into those forgotten cellars, and rebuild and refurnish. But problems may arise. You may find supporting pillars, on which other assumptions are based, full of cracks and ready for removal. A real world example could be that you logically find that you are not your parent's biological offspring. Huge structures of thought can be built upon this presumption. What happens when you suddenly tear away the supporting wall? Perhaps you will need to keep it erect a bit longer.
Ibsen said in one of his plays that "Deprive the average human being of his life-lie, and you rob him of his happiness.” But I don't believe that us humans are so frail, so weak and unadabting. We are built for a adaption. We unremarkably substitute opinions every day, and often what made you afraid before will seem undaunting and simple in the future.
When I first started inspecting, and then disassembling religion in my own neural networks, I was not afraid. I had not held a candle of religion in front of me for protection, and there was no sacred room of worship built on those weak foundations. So for me, when I look at that internally "consistent" web of Christianity, I actually saw flaw after flaw, which provided an entry gate for my suspicions.
Believing in something, and making it a very important part of your life, without trying to find out nearly everything about it seems odd to me. Reading about the foundations upon which the Christian religion is founded we find many inconsistencies. No other contemporary documents mentions the name Nazareth, there was no nationwide census around the birth of Christ, and stories that were written about him which are now part of the bible were written years after from memory (inspired by each other). The books of the bible were selected with care, hundreds of years after and more.
I know that there are a lot of things one has to accept on faith in any religion, but what should those be? Should we also accept on faith that which we know to be wrong? To even have a faith you are asked to accept on faith supernatural happenings, and I'm fine with that; because in those cases there is no other way than believe. But seems wrong to me that you also need to accept those fenomena that are natural, and we know to be untrue.
The unraveling and scruitinizing of one's cognitive presumptions may seem difficult, tedious or scary, but to me it is about laying off one's childish ways and becoming and adult. One of my most painful decoveries has been that my mother and father probably lived a loveless life togther for at least a couple of years before they parted ways when i were nine or ten. But to deny something even if it hurts us at the time, I believe to be even more hurtful in the end. If I were to give anyone advice in the search for faith, it would be; to be your own religions hardest critic, because if you aren´t, then someone else will surely come a long and do it for you, and maybe in not so nice words. That does´n not mean that you have to give up your religion entierly, there are plenty of things unconfirmable or unknowable, supernatural and wonderful to believe in, but to me those things must be things which you have to believe in, and not things you know. Looking into your mind this way doesn't make you more intelligent, but I believe that thinking, delving, scuitinizing and learning will make you wiser.
It is not desirable, or for that matter possible, to systematically go through every memory or thought in your brain in search of every little detail you once got wrong. This post is ultimately inspired by cognitive dissonance. The thoughts you are looking for, are the ones that clash with what you at the time believed to be correct. A memory in which you, when you were younger, made an odd conclusion. Anywhere you find those thoughts; I dare you; pause a while, see what there is to learn. Take the thought out for a spin with your friends. Search a bit on wikipedia! But no matter what you encounter, don´t automatically fill in that hole with unquestioned belief! Here is what my mind for some reason fails to understand about human nature: Why, in an age where knowledge is so plentiful that if you had a hundred life- times, you could not learn a fraction of it, do we need to answer those questions with religious belief?
I remember, when I was first given the key to my own mind. As you know I was about thirteen at the time. All these ideas started welling up in me. I started to "see" my friends, started to know in a conscious way why I didn´t like a certain person, or fell in love with another. But the ideas were so big, and my mind was so small. So I pulled out the only tools my school had showed me how to use; my brain and my pen, and I started writing poetry. Not quietly and carefully as one thinks a debutant should; but with big words and big feelings, as only a teenager can. All of us have the power to investigate. We need only to dare do it.
When I say that it would take hundreds of lifetimes to learn, you must take into account, that this is only knowledge that other people, with ernest minds and hard work, have found for us. It is not perfect, but with openness and honesty I think many of the sciences collectively have come pretty far. So far I believe that what we should take from science goes something like this: Take care of your fellow human beings, the animals and the earth. Have humility, but be critical. Behave properly, but do not show undue respect and so on. To me morality is not separated from knowledge, but part of it.
Hobbes says that there are two parts to an action. The will, and the execution. For the action to happen, we need both. I have not thought so much about this, but could it not be so also with a moral action? You can do something good unwillingly or unwittingly, but to do a moral action you must believe that what you do is good, and also do it. But herein lies the problem. If we don't know what the truth is, or what the consequences of our actions are. What good does good do? What harm does harm do? No one can be omnicious, we can simply try to do our best, and nothing more.
If there is one thing we thorugh moral phiolosphy have been searching for, it is a way to discern which ideas are good. I don't believe they got the correct answer in any time period, even Kant had some obvious flaws to his logic! Even if you have in the most ernest way tried to find out what is really true, you can be wrong. What you may believe to be the simplest of truths, may be wisked away with a single word of wisdom. What I am now trying to shear are ideas, but not nessesarily truth. If it is true or not, we simply cannot know. In that sense we always answer our questions with belief. However I think it is our to seek the best "belief" possible, and that entails to not stop questioning what you believe in.
As for taking advice, someone once told me never to take the advice of only one person. (Whereupon I sadly did not think upon to turn around and ask the next person if this was true.)
I certainly would not take advice from only one book either. The quality of the morals we encounter are always tested on the knowledge we already have. I just wanted to elaborate on this point, because I have to say, this applies to deities also! As long as you remain within your mortal coil your actions thought will remain subjective. In the end the responsibility always falls on you to make your own choice.
I have heard from some, that their faith can be of comfort to them.
Unraveling this, not so mysterious, mystery was not scary for me, but I do appreciate that facing death can be a challenge for anyone. However with no real belief in the eternal, there was nothing to really be afraid of. After all, I was dead for billions of years before I was born, and didn't notice. If there is one fear guiding me from leaping over cliffs with handkerchiefs tied with string to my back, or speeding down curved roads; It is not being alive.
Of what lies beyond I will only say; that the imprint of your life will, as long as there is culture, be carried on in a small part, and that if you had one creed only, it would have been to contribute positively to this one great heep of humanity.
