Monday, March 19, 2012

Let's Not Talk About It


What’s your religion? Show me someone who has never heard that question before…
People have an enormous need to classify others – it isn’t enough to classify by color, gender or physical attributes; there must be something else to point a finger at.

Religious people always preach that God exists, no matter which (religion or God) one, but that’s another story. Atheists always preach that there is no God at all, and the majority of them base themselves using science as arguments – for science is efficient and based on empirical facts. So, let’s get started.

Can Christians (for instance) prove that God exists? Can they say that there is empirical proof of it, that God has actually saved their lives or something like it? Can they use an equation to prove that there is a force that rules everything and everyone?

Can Atheists prove the possibility of a superior force as not viable? That is because, from my point of view, in order to say that something is possible you better prove it; nevertheless, saying the opposite also demands a reasonable explanation. There are also the Agnostic, subsidiaries of Atheism that prefer not to get involved in deeper conflicts and do not really care for either the question or the answer. If you ask me, as I don’t stand for any specific belief, I am agnostic, in case you want to label me with something: I don’t care.

So, let’s start from premises and develop the reasoning. In order to prove or refute the existence of God first there needs to be considered the existence of distinct religions, and therefore, distinct deities. As the aforementioned deities are forged under different concepts and behave differently as well, that leaves us with two possibilities: they are either true different forces or it is one and only force that is misinterpreted – and there comes the human factor – through various cultures.

However, there is one fact in common: God is a concept, an explanation, a theory. At this particular point religion and science are alike, and it’s worth reminding that they both used to be unwieldingly tangled at the origins of the history of human thinking under the shape of mythologies, and lately, philosophy, which unfolded into the other sciences with the natural evolutional pace of knowledge gathering. As it is a concept we have to know that, after its creation, it cannot be undone or erased, even though it does not exist in the material plan. It’s an idea.

You may say that a unicorn doesn’t exist – although I am pretty sure that you would be able to describe one with precision; that’s because it is an idea fully accepted without any objection. I, at least, have never heard of anyone arguing that the unicorn should have the horn in the butt or anything like it. What is the function of a unicorn? To inhabit people’s minds. Can it be described? Yes. Does it aspire to live galloping among the rodeo horses that we see around? No. As a concept, we can claim it fulfills its purpose and it is as viable as part of theoretical physics that discusses events that can’t yet be proven. “Oh, but in the future we are going to be able to prove the existence of supercords”, you’d say; I ask you then: can you affirm that a mutation that gives horns to horses is never going to be possible, not even if by whim, in laboratory, through advances in genetic engineering?

What I am trying to explain is that a theory, by itself, has life and possibilities, but it is our choice to accept it or not. Yes; there are aspects of science that are irrefutable like the fact that Earth is elliptical and not flat, but some other subjects must be accepted as concepts. Nobody knows exactly what anti-matter looks like, but it is widely believed nowadays that half of the universe is made of it. Is it correct to say that anti-matter doesn’t exist because it’s only theoretical? Or even disbelieve it?

Using scientific reasoning, the possibility of some force that permeates and controls our existence can be proved mathematically; indeed, there are several forces that permeate and control our existence: gravity, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force and electromagnetic force – and that’s only talking about the fundamental forces of physics, under the concept of force. However, if we plunge into metaphysic’s questions like “Why are we here” or “what’s the meaning of life”, we may find explanations in other disciplines as biology, chemistry, mathematics, or even by the chaos. Is it possible that everything is merely hap? Yes; who proves the opposite? Religious people? That would be ironic. Talking about irony, at last, I draw an ironic conclusion: regardless of all the collisions about Science versus God – encompassing all modern sciences in one word – apparently, they’re alike. Just think about it. And this useless quarrel maybe could be easily resolved by using one to explain the other. Why nobody does it? Now, THAT is a mystery…

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