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Everyone wants God on their side. Every nation that has ridden into war in chariots, tanks, or stealth bombers has claimed that God (or the gods) is on their side. The creator of the universe has been dragged into countless human struggles for thousands of years, whether he/she/it liked it or not. How has humanity repaid this scapegoating of God, this spilling of blood on the Almighty's hands? By denying God's existence! To many, the idea of God is simply a convenient way to validate one's actions, just as the Devil is routinely blamed for the darker behaviors.
But here in the late 1990's, it seems like disbelief in God has reached fad proportions, right up there with piercing and being bisexual. Not that there aren't genuine disbelievers, just as there are those with legitimate claims of non-traditional sexual orientation or reasons for self-scarification.
The difference between the learned, thinking atheist and the trendy follower is just that: thought! If a person has given deliberate consideration to their disbelief, testing the waters of supposed eternity and finding them not to his or her liking, then so be it. But when one wanders today's malls and sees young fashion victims sporting anti-religious slogans on their store-bought clothes, one has to suspect that they just might be being spoon-fed their skepticism. At least the hippies made their own protest signs and shirts back in the sixties, right?
When did it become brave to not believe in God? Doesn't faith take courage? Isn't it braver to have faith than to have none? But what is courage, and bravery for that matter? Is it facing fear and depression and angst with a bit of consistency and the determination not to bend when someone tries to change your worldview? That's one definition.
There is such a thing as blind faith, which is as foolish as blind disbelief. TRUE faith and TRUE disbelief share at least one trait: one should study oneself deeply before making a decision either way. To do otherwise is to rush unthinking into an ideology.
And why is it such a sign of free thought to not believe in God? If someone is a free thinker, shouldn't he or she give equal consideration to all things? Isn't that open-mindedness, something free thinkers routinely claim to possess?
But true atheists have a point. Religion has caused much trouble on this planet. But try a momentary change of perspective: human beings ruined religion, not a god. Religion is not flawed, but humanity is... Religion is like any other human tool. A hammer can build a house or smash someone's brain's out. The fallible humans who have ruled organized religion over the centuries are as much to blame for atheism as any devil. Using the name of God to sanctify grisly acts such as holy wars, the Inquisition, assimilation of native peoples, and genocide is not the fault of any god, but of humanity. And those responsible, by claiming to act in God's name, have scarred the idea of religion forever. Self-righteousness is, to me, the greatest of sins. Those who claim to know the will of God are the culprits behind religion-spawned atrocities. They have also caused the perversions they supposedly so despise through over-suppression of human instinct. This is one of the denied ironies of religion. Anther is that religious leaders often commit the acts they supposedly abhor. Thus the irony called hypocrisy. But, as I always say, life makes hypocrites of us all. Contradiction is sometimes inevitable. That's human. But I digress. Again, humanity spoiled religion, not God.
Consider this: What if God is on everyone's side? Impossible? Ah, but ask any true believer if God is all-powerful, and they should agree. So if God is all-powerful, can't it do anything it wants? The Christians say that Jesus is the Only Son of God. This is because the Bible tells them so. The Bible is thousands of years old, and has possibly passed through the hands of those willing to change the "Word of God" to suite their purposes, despite all warnings against doing so. Again, such is the selfishness of humanity. Now, take Mohammed, who supposedly never claimed and is never portrayed by Muslims as being a Son of God. Don't you think it is possible that both could be a piece of the same divinity? Both "Sons of God," whether we believe it or not, and the texts that hold their stories so muddled by tampering that their common divine ancestry has been severed?
Now, consider this: What if every religion on Earth is a piece of a puzzle. What if this puzzle, when constructed of an amalgam of the world's religions in such a way that they would still retain their individuality, would form the true face of God? What if this were the ultimate goal of all the separate religions? To find commonalties instead of differences? To finally reconcile those differences and realize that each religion brings a unique aspect of the divine to the table? Would this not be the ultimate dismissal of human selfishness, and thus the ultimate test of human virtue that could be administered by a God? If tolerance is to be achieved, we need to stop demonizing what others consider holy because their God has a different face.
In the end, what if God does not exist? Some think that we don't need the concept of God anymore, that we have advanced far enough intellectually to do away with such an idea. Well, I would agree, if I could actually look around me and see people treating each other with respect, love, and tolerance without the need for the threat of fire and brimstone. Until we can do this without the crutch of religion, we might have to use it for a while longer, and learn to walk right with that crutch, while were at it.
Blaise Pascal, a Seventeenth-Century mathematician, developed an arguement known as "Pascal's Wager". His arguement posits that it is indeed logical to believe in God. He thought that if one believes in the divine and it turns out there is no God, then what does one lose when he or she dies? Nothing. And there is nothing one can do about that. But if you believe, and there IS a God, then there is everything to gain. And some modern physicists, such as Fritjof Capra, believe in God because every time they find what they think is the smallest particle, another smaller one is always right behind it.
God cannot be proved or disproved. But just because something seems impossible, doesn't mean one can't strive for it. It used to be impossible that the earth was not the center of the universe, to harness the power of lightning, for humans to fly, and to walk on the moon. Not to say that we should try to prove God exists. Why take all the mystery out of, as Douglas Adams might say, "life, the universe, and everything"?
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