I am very jealous. I tell this to many people when we discuss the reality of religion. They explain the concept of faith in order to understand how a God could exist. I listen and am envious they could believe in something that can’t be logically explained. They tell me this is the way it I, has always been, and will always be. I rarely argue with them because it would not do any good and it would also not relieve my stress that I know there is a God but not the God I have always been taught has always existed and will always exist.
I consider myself a logical person. I understand how when our species was able to survive in tribes and families we put a stick in the ground during the fear of night in order to be closer to the sky. I understand we had to follow a concept that we would survive because we were put on this planet for a specific reason including to represent an almighty God.
The problem is the concept we are all special living beings in special times led by an entity that considers us all very special. In reality we are not. Throughout the history of our species we were basically lucky. We survived whereas many of our fellow inhabitants on our planet failed.
Every living thing on this planet is built the same way. We are all made up of cells that are made up of the same chemicals. All living things are and include the same systems that make us, us. One of the evidence of evolution concerns these similarities of chemical composition. DNA is the molecule that unites all living organisms under the same rules. Many religious people have told me this means nothing. They tell me a God set up the system that allows us to live under ‘his’ rules.
OK, I can accept this. I suggest we go further. Lets break down DNA into its component parts. Then lets break down these parts into even smaller parts. I understand the best way to understand how something works is to break it into its fragments. We end up with the concept of atoms that make up all matter. These atoms are held together by energy that is simply the concept of allowing things to happen. Again, I am told that God set up this system in order to demonstrate he exists.
Science has a tendency to question everything. Religion has a tendency to question nothing. I believe this is the definition of faith. In order to understand how something works one has to continually break it up into its parts. It is like trying to understand how a fine watch works. To accomplish this task one has to break the watch up into its component parts. The best way to do this would be to use a hammer and smash it. Scientists use this concept with their particle accelerators. The better the accelerator the more parts we discover.
With the improvement of technology scientists look into space in order to see if they can compare what they discovered on Earth to the Universe that surrounds us all. This is similar to having primitive man put a stick into the ground in order to be able to reach into the sky and thus understand why we are here. Today we are finding things we couldn’t have imagined finding just a few years ago. We now have a better understanding of black holes, dark matter, and even how the Universe began at the beginning of everything. They do this by predicting what will happen from what has happened. If the prediction proves correct man’s mind wants to go further into the past that that hopefully will define why we are here.
Most of my friends and neighbors who state they believe in the God of their choice find my argument foolish because how dare I question the concept of faith? As I stated before I don’t understand faith and am jealous of anyone who could have faith in his or her faith. I’ve not made a lot of friends with this argument.
How does one profess to be a person of non-faith yet believes in God? This is an easy question. Scientists through their prediction of the present have demonstrated an understanding of what happened in the past. In other words, they have a good understanding of what happened at the precise time of the beginning of our Universe or, in other words, when time began. The problem is no one knows what happened before that beginning of time. Maybe as a species we can’t understand this because it is so simple, so beautiful as a species we don’t have the capacity to understand it.
This is the reason those who study science and were not born with the ability to understand and accept the concept of faith are the most religious people I’ve ever had the honor to associate with.
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