My Curious look on Belief as an Atheist
I am an atheist, or should I say a rationalist, agnostic, whatever you want to call me. I don’t like to believe in anything and try to avoid believing in things without scientific evidence. God, religion, spirituality, astrology, mythology… the list goes on. So obviously, I get into many heated discussions with my believer friends and family. The same thing happened a few days back. I was discussing with this friend of mine. He said, “You think you don’t believe in anything but in fact, you believe in science that’s the same thing!”. Well, my obvious answer was NO! Science is not a belief. But then I started to wonder, what is belief? Something which is not scientific? That is a dodgy answer.
Once you learn that…
“When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and you’re job is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
Steve Jobs
I am typing this blog on a laptop which was designed by a company in the USA and manufactured in China, almost opposite ends of the world. The software it uses, was created by thousands of engineers with different skillsets. I bought it online on the internet, which is a result of a science experiment!, using a currency based on rather scientifically unimpressive material, gold. And yet money is just an imaginary concept. My lap-top was manufactured and shipped using an insane network of cargo ships/ ports! All I want to say is that this is the 21st century. For these simple things, there’s an insanely complicated and unfathomably large system is at work!
It didn’t happen overnight. It has thousands of years of history, and millions of curious minds!
Why am I bringing this up? To show you how the world is moving faster than ever. As living humans, it is our responsibility to keep the momentum going. If we fail to do so, and if we fail to understand global warming our next generation will not even have proper food (be super rich that’s another option).
Yet some entities are holding us from keeping the momentum. Anything related to belief, I mean. This blog might sound pretentious to those who believe in something. But my goal is to tell them in an unshakable way possible. It is not a debate of science vs religion. If I am successful, by the end, you will start to think more about what you believe!
Some things I want to say in here are slightly uncomfortable for some of us. These are my thoughts (and my website), my observations and I do not want to hurt anyone. If you don’t agree with them, it is fine. You can leave whenever you want.
But if you stick till the end, I must say, either you are a calm reader or an imperfect person like me. Let’s see what I mean by that, shall we?
Belief
From my perspective belief is something which has no evidence but still we tend to follow it, just for the sake of bringing order to life.
There are three types of beliefs from my perspective.
- God: the creator
- Religion: a way of living life
- Collectivism
1. God: the creator
Most people believe in the creator, god. Although the number of non-religious people is increasing, it is still not even close to the major religions. Besides, I am not saying it’s a good/bad thing. I want to understand why is it so? Why do people believe in the creator? Even a few scientists! There are two answers to it. The first one is they simply, well, they want a simple explaination to our existence.
Belief has all the answers (?)
Who created us?, Why are we here?, What do we suppose to do?, these questions have no answers in science (yet). So they just stick an entity to it, that is God!. Now, if we can answer the existence with this entity, why should we not use it to answer more questions? People started sticking it to the other things. How was the Earth created? How were humans born? Different people had different versions of the story, religions were born!
2. Religions and the paradox
Many churches/mosques/temples help people around the world. They create funding for the poor and feed the hungry. Many even run a cleaning camp, where they bring out people from a filthy, cocaine rich life. Religions, when they were created, brought some happiness to the life. It was very messy back then, a lot harder to live compared to now. So they formed a way to help and bring some equality to their society. We can’t say for sure it was a progressive idea, but hey, for now, we can consider it a effective system for that time.
Paradox of religions
Fast forward to thousand years later, in this modern age, living in a world where we have had many wars based on religions. We have seen suicide bombers who want to kill people in the name of God! And whenever anything bad happens because of these religions, we hear Our religion doesn’t teach that. And to be honest, it is right! No religion teaches to kill someone.
But then why do we have this problem? The simple answer is, religion is a belief system. And all belief systems are by default fragile.
Belief Systems are by default fragile
That book we consider holy, the religion we think perfect, the God we believe the ruler and creator of the world, can not fit into the all the complexity of the universe! It can not answer every question. So whenever we don’t get answers from it, we become unstable, either we can do extremely good or extremely bad things in the name of religion.
3. The Belief Collectivism
Ask most of the Indians, if they drink alcohol. Almost all the major religions in India will not allow you to drink alcohol. Maybe for a good reason too. It is not healthy for health. I don’t drink it too. But I resent the way people look at those who drink. It is almost a taboo. You are Bigda Hua Aadmi (spoiled man) if you drink or smoke and if you do any illegal stuff. And if you are a woman/girl and smoke/drink, all the best!
Who creates these rules?
The story doesn’t end there. We have obsession with indulging everyone’s love life. You can’t live with your partner before getting married, can’t have sex (and hence kids). And obviously can’t marry someone other than your religion (or caste). Don’t think this is just applicable to India. Every country and every part of the world has some beliefs like this. Why do they exist?
If you do follow some rules, like if you study hard, get a good job (and not start your own business), drink water and eat veg (not the beer or chicken). And marry a girl your mum wants you to marry (and not try out your luck and find love) instruct your children only your religion (and not every religion). And tell them to follow the same rules those you have followed (and if they succeed too). Our community will look at you with a certain respect! We believe that is the only way to gain respect in society.
Respect is far-reaching
That respect is far-reaching to sustain life (scientifically too). If society thinks like this, we should too! This is one way to look at the collective mind! Who created these rules? Did everyone have some round table meeting somewhere? Probably not.
My grandparents tell me to do this, so I am doing this. It’s the best answer we can have.
The rulebook is not a necessity
But here again, we have a paradox. Most of the revered individuals in the world today, didn’t follow most of these rules. Most of the rich started their own business, including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos etc. It’s practically impossible to find any good musicians who never did illegal stuff, Led Zepp, RHCP, you name it. When you look at ultra-rich families, marrying in another religion or cast is normal (maybe because they have already broken the societal rules to be rich!). People like Isaac Newton and Leonardo da Vinci were gay (being gay is not considered respectful at all in society). Many well-known scientists don’t/didn’t believe in God. Many poets, painters, designers… the list goes on. You won’t find a single person on the planet who never broke the societal rules and became a pinnacle of their field.
But do we not respect them or their work? We do!
Do we really need to be rich or genius to break out rules? I don’t think so.
Beliefs paralyse our mind
When these all three things play together, they paralyse our mind. It is like prisoners paradox, showed perfectly in the movie Shawshank Redemption. Prisoners feel their jail is now their home after living there for a long time. Don’t misinterpret, I am not comparing religions/beliefs with prisons. I am simply saying, once we stop looking beyond our comprehension, we tend to feel religious about our space and life. And universe has no space for this order. It simply doesn’t care!
Curiosity: Another way to tackle disorder
Whenever you start to learn something, it always feels messy. Any field of study, art form, is always chaotic at the beginning. (I can’t imagine how many times I had a feeling of punching my screen when I started learning maths, haha) but once you begin to unravel it, once you begin to peel off the layers one by one, it starts to some together! Little by little, the equations, the painting, and the goal become simpler and sweeter. If we can do this for our careers or exams, why shouldn’t we apply this to the life? Why do we have to dodge the questions? Why can’t we experiment with life? Is anyone stopping us?
Start with Why
Ask yourself, Why am I following this? Does this really make sense? And if you don’t have a proper answer, find it!
It will be frustrating life at the beginning for sure. And no sane mind will tell you to go that way. But if you are stubborn enough, if you are curious enough, you may get an answer to your quest!
For thousands of years, people believed heavy objects fall faster than light objects. But one day, one curious and stubborn mind wanted proof of that. Gallelio proved they both fall at the same rate! Religions used to believe Earth is the centre of the universe. Copernicus proved, it is in fact way more complicated than that (and way more beautiful). Do you want more? Leonardo Da Vinci had studied the entire human anatomy before painting Monalisa (which he never sold till he died) it was prohibited to open the human body at that time because it was unholy. You can attach many examples here. And they will all fall into the category of sheer acute curiosity!
Conclusion
Those rules are there for a reason. They are designed such that, if followed correctly, our life would have a certain amount of order. But it quickly becomes idiotic once we start applying it too much.
It is about disorder
The universe was created because of disorder! Scientifically speaking, our entire life runs because of a chaos. We are living in an extraordinarily uncertain world. You never know when will a supermassive asteroid hit the world! It is impossible to bring order!
As we chew over, every belief system is fragile. Supporting our entire life based on these systems would be disastrous. (Well, we can’t avoid an asteroid hit by praying to God, can we?)
As we spoke in the beginning, the world is insanely complicated. Thanks to human curiosity! Without it, we would be still living in a world of faith. I must avoid debate over science vs belief here. I just want to indicate that curiosity made us who we are! Finding answers to the questions and generating questions from the answers is what human endeavour is!
It is about unread books
Curiosity is about wanting to read unread books. It is not about believing in only one holy book and consider others garbage. Holy books simply can’t illustrate quantum mechanics! Instead of accepting that God created the universe, we should ask why was the universe created? Find out why are we still unanswered?! In no time, we would be looking at the books far more fascinating and captivating than those beliefs.
It has only one side
It might sound one-sided, and it is. You must have understood why it has no other side to it. Because you can not be curious and a believer together (superposition is impossible). Our knowledge is imperfect, we are not perfect, and we have yet to discover and learn plenty about the universe and ourselves. Hundreds of years of science and technology are in critical hands now. It is this time when we have to decide. How are we going to use it?, to discover new questions or shut down the source of answers.
Thanks for reading. If you are still here. Why don’t you give me your views at [email protected] or hit me on Linkedin!
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