Belief in a God: The Height of Inanity

It came to my attention the other day that the popular definition of the word inane has evolved over the years. Originally it meant empty, void, or insubstantial, e.g., the vast and inane reaches of outer space. Today it more often means asinine, pointless, or devoid of intelligence. It occurs to me that either definition works just fine to describe the phenomenon of belief in a supernatural being as lord of the universe.

All manner of philosophers, scientists and historians have attempted to explain why it is man appears so predisposed to religious belief. (Recent archeological finds in Turkey have unearthed what appear to be temples predating the Great Pyramids by thousands of years. These findings seem to indicate that before building any other kinds of structures, man built houses of worship! History In the Remaking, Patrick Symmes, Newsweek, Feb. 19, 2010) It has been said that more than ninety percent of the world's population believe in a god. Can that many people be deluded? The short answer is yes.

No matter which side of the faith/reason, theist/atheist debate one finds himself, it is generally accepted there is no rational justification for religious belief. That many theists will nonetheless lay claim to the existence of a god being logical or intelligent is both unimpressive and beside the point. It is much easier to respect someone who makes a leap of faith in the absence of evidence or reason than it is to respect someone who rationalizes his faith with nescient intellectualism.

As the irascible Bill Maher might ask, What's so difficult about saying 'I don't know?' Whatever it is that makes this modest concession so painful to articulate, it plainly has the power to sustain people's delusions. It matters not that the more temperate among believers—however few they are—might be a force for civility; they are nonetheless complicit in the crimes of the intemperate by advancing their most fundamental claims. In short, moderately religiously people have elevated irrationality to a respected art form. It really is a neat trick.

Will the next millennium bring with it a new Age of Enlightenment? One can hope, but evidence both affirming and denying this possibility is strong. On the one hand, atheism—characterized mainly by its reliance upon rational thinking—is now seen as less a taboo and more an acceptable and popular worldview than ever before; on the other hand, religious fundamentalists of all stripes are not going quietly into the night—to say nothing of the nihilistic extremists they spawn.

Religious faith is not likely to disappear any time soon, if ever. Perhaps it is not necessary that it does. What is necessary, however, is that those who do have such beliefs practice their faith without injecting it into the social machinery that must be acknowledged by everyone, most notably government.

Believing in a supernatural god—there may be no greater manifestation of the inane.

Unappealing, Uninspiring, Unenlightened

Like most journeys of self-discovery, mine began as a solitary endeavor. Long before I had ever heard of Richard Dawkins and The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens and God Is Not Great, or Sam Harris and The End of Faith, I was well on my way toward repudiating my earlier life and inaugurating a wonderful new kind of day for celebration, the Feast of the Renunciation.

It was important to me that I formally recognize my emancipation from religious preoccupation. It was a day worth commemorating. The stultifying weight of superstition, dogma and nonsensical thoughts being lifted from my overburdened shoulders provided so much relief, quantifying its soothing effect on my emotional well-being is difficult to do.

It took as long as it did for me to begin this journey of liberation because I was virtually set upon by my religious handlers for so long, and because religious indoctrination as a child - when done with the perverse efficiency it usually is - has a way of enduring both time and challenge.

The simple act of freely expressing my thoughts here on a lonely blog has provided immeasurable comfort as well as an increasing sense of belonging as I continue to find other well-rounded, free-thinking bloggers. To my pleasant surprise, the few religious people who have seen fit to comment have been quite palatable. It is my very intention to engage people of faith to propose to them that we celebrate what it is we have in common: our humanity and, hopefully, our love of life. Sometimes it seems to work; other times I am gently pelted with reasons why it can't work.

Three basic qualities about my former life of relative religiosity come to mind when I consider how empty it had become: unappealing; uninspiring; and unenlightened.

• First, it was unappealing to me because of its innumerable and incessant self-righteous affirmations, as well as its exclusionary tendencies. Dissent of any kind as to things substantive was not tolerated and left one with feelings of impertinence. Further, people who did not openly affirm their status as god-fearing creatures were not only socially alienated, but also told directly that their destinies were irredeemable. Very unappealing.
  
  
• Second, it was uninspiring to me because for all its attestations of wonder and magnificence emanating from a so-called god, it paled in comparison to the awe-inspiring sensations I would experience when contemplating the transcendent splendor of nature itself. The process of man's discovering and understanding things previously held to be mysterious was amazing enough in and of itself. Attributing all knowledge and understanding to a higher power was taking something very precious away from us: our natural thirst to achieve for ourselves that which lends to us the very knowledge and understanding we seek.
  
  
• And finally, it was unenlightened to me because propagating its core tenets was fueling so much hatred and disharmony in the world. We've got a couple of missing office towers in New York that speak to this very issue rather poignantly. Even moderate religious views were becoming more and more distasteful to me because, in practice, they unfailingly abdicated the ultimate responsibility of securing our own stations in life, as well as our destinies, to an entity other than ourselves. This is all to say nothing of just how unenlightened it plainly is to believe that morality is necessarily derived from a supernatural source. Further, any worldview that nominates religion as its guiding structure is simply ill-equipped to handle the challenges presented by a society based on diversity and pluralism.

Yes, it took a while, but I eventually found myself crafting an outlook on life that required three very different qualities. It had to be appealing, inspiring, and enlightened.

My old life was ever so close - yet ever so far away.