Atheism, Science, and Spirituality. Bridging the Great Divide.

"In the beginning, all was darkness. Then, God said 'Let there be light' and there was, and it was good"

People cringe at quotations from the bible due to the atrocities committed in its name. Many feel that these "mythologies" are detrimental to common sense and human advancement. Like all things, there are two sides to the story.

My belief is that all "myths" and all religions are nothing more, or less, than attempts to explain the inexplicable in terms that limited minds can comprehend. Not everyone is on the same level. Imagine Einstein trying to explain the universe to people 6,000 years before his time. Prophets were the geniuses of their time. Mutants with hyper-evolved understanding of something nine had ever glimpsed before.

What if the "darkness" before creation was a super massive black hole and the "light" was the light of an unfathomably ancient galaxy swallowed up by it? Though it may be hard to conceive of such a thing, it is scientifically feasible. What if the big bang is just one in a chain of explosions of universes being born inside of other universes seemingly swallowed into oblivion of another black whole? The particles which started the big bang had to come from somewhere after all...

There is only so much of the universe we can perceive, and even that perception is a relative thing. Matter is mostly empty space made substantial by a smattering of particles held tenuously together by fields of energy. Light is the fastest thing we can perceive and seem to be a universal constant because the closer you get to it the more slowly "time" moves and nothing can ever reach that speed because, if it did, everything would simply stop, the illusion of time-space would fall away you would step into the realm of pure energy which exists everywhere and at all points in the past, present and future simultaneously.

Funny how, if you think about it objectively, that is not unlike how many believers would describe God... How anyone could claim to understand and believe in science but reject any semblance of religion or spirituality truly baffles me.

Perhaps it is due to their resentment of conventional forms of religion, likely stemming from psychological or emotional trauma connected with early experiences in the church or among its members. It seems some people blame the despicable actions of individuals on an idea they claim to uphold and by extension all others who associate themselves with that idea are viewed in a dimer light. In my opinion this is no different than sweeping distrust of all people of a certain race or assuming something is "wrong" with all people who live a particular lifestyle. Attempt to justify it all you will, but when it comes down to it, it is just prejudice, pure and simple.

Religions do not make people fanatics, fanatics tend to flock to religions, and there are plenty of fanatics on the non-religion side of things too. Abuse of any kind stems from personal issues which often leads back to another case of abuse. Though some would use religion to justify their actions, it is not the religion which caused them to take that action. All too often people who claim to be atheists appear all too clearly to the objective observer to be little more than anti-christians. I have heard them say that they believe "push-back" to be necessary in the case of christianity because it is the pushiest of religions and that they leave religions like paganism (a family of religions, not a single religion btw) and others alone because they do not bother anybody. Cognitive dissonance at its best, I think, for these same individuals openly admit to abuse at the hands of supposed christians. Again I say, the religion is not the abuser, no matter how much the abuser tries to justify their actions with the religion. And when has "push-back" ever actually worked? Does the pushiness of people claiming christianity make them any more appealing? Does it ever make their ideas or their causes seem MORE right and righteous?

The prophets of old were serene. Their knowledge, their wisdom, spoke for itself. Ideas cannot be killed, but they can be changed. When you go to war, you have already lost, because war always has casualties. Go to war with an idea and there is no chance for victory. To insure victory one must be immovable and absolute. Nothing is more absolute than truth, for truth is independent of belief. The small minded may believe anything they wish and you cannot force them to expand their mind, but you CAN uphold truth in the face of falsehood. The mountain does not push back against the wind, it simply stands strong no matter how it howls. In this way many a christian has defeated the arguments of an atheist even if their "truth" is based in falsehood and small ideas.Perhaps if people, all people, could look past their hate and let go of their pain and resentment of each other and their ideas, we could all enjoy a bit more of that serenity.

Returning to the original point... The universe is vastly amazing, more so than most people can ever imagine. Many of the most brilliant scientists have held some form of religion or spirituality. Many were even mystics who believed in and experimented with magic, sometimes even leading to real scientific discoveries. Rejection of "myths" only limits the possibilities one is willing to entertain and contemplate. It is possible to look at science with an eye toward the mystical and see religious truths unfolding as scientific facts and astonishing possibilities. One can easily have a discussion on religion or quantum physics with the simple exchange of the words "God" and "energy" so why must one be true and the other false? Our scientific understanding of the universe is far from complete, and the more we discover the more magical it sounds. Maybe we were not formed out of mud by an intelligent designer, but we ARE made up of the same stuff that makes every other thing in the universe, connecting us in a very real and tangible way to EVERYTHING, which is pretty damn amazing.Furthermore, we still have no idea how the anomaly we call "life" took place, we only know that all living things share a common source. Ancient peoples believed this too, that all life shares a common source and that everything is connected to everything else. Science knows this to be true, but gives no name to that source or that connection. Ancient peoples at least tried and spiritual people uphold these ancient beliefs to this day. We are not illogical nor are we ignorant of science, we are simply daring to see beyond the horizons, to accept that more exists in this universe than we can yet perceive. Long ago no one had perceived germs, so sickness was blamed on "demons" yet both are invisible creatures that cause sickness, at least until you look through a microscope. The thing is the same, we just invented another word for it and suddenly it stops sounding as silly, but "demons" would not sound as silly if we had kept using the word and just applied it to the things we understand now as germs. In the end it is just an argument of semantics. Whether you call it God, Allah, or Wakan-Tanka it is all the same. You can believe in karma, wyrd, a mystical web of light, or quantum entanglement and STILL you are talking about essentially the same force. The way in which we understand it is far less important than our acknowledgement of it. The name by which we call it does not matter. What is important is that we know it is there because it means that there is something bigger and more magnificent than us, yet we are still-- ALL of us-- a part of it and, therefore, each other. We tend to hate in others what reflects those aspects of ourselves we would rather not think about. If something about another person or group offends you, take care that you are not doing the same thing or lashing out at a part of your past. Move on, and have mercy and compassion for that which you have moved on from.

If you claim to believe in science, then you have to accept the unfathomable and unproven within it. There are things we know to be fact, yet have no way of explaining, and explanations for things that seem impossible and otherworldly. You may be beyond the need for any religion, but there will still be things that are only explained by the mystical and the mythical, and only those religious and spiritual people will have even the foggiest understanding of the mechanisms behind them. You can wait your whole life for science to make sense of it all, and die without ever knowing for sure, but that is no reason to deny that something more certainly exists. For now, all we have are our guesses about something like a "God" and an afterlife. We have no idea what happens to our sentience or our consciousness after the body shuts down, but we know the brain remains active for a time, and that thoughts are energy, and that energy is endlessly transferred from one thing into another. We have no idea why we are alive, we only know that we are, and so are plants, animals and fungi, yet for some unknown reason we have not seen even the slightest evidence that the phenomenon of life exists anywhere else in the observable universe. I find it hard to believe that it is just a fluke. There must be something we are missing or some reason or purpose to it all. I have said before that the idea of heaven or hell, or any eternal existence in a single form seems juvenile. Still, something must happen to our consciousness, otherwise, why would we dream? We retain our memories, thoughts and feelings on either side of sleep, why not on either side of life? Maybe the hereafter is not eternal, but rather timeless as in the way light, our universal constant, exists. Time is only a product of a finite existence and space is only a product of finite perception. Both are relative, both require a fixed point from which to reckon them and a perceiver to do the reckoning. What use is any of this? Why bother understanding anything if all we do is fade into nothingness? Why should something capable of formulating such questions or seeking the answers even exist in the first place? Chaos? Chance? A random anomaly? Why would these things come up with ideas about a creator and an afterlife? Are they really just a means of coping with their short and futile existence, or is it possible that they stem from some vague knowledge encoded in the DNA that harkens back to another existence, another form that is so different from this one that no words or theories we now have quite do it justice? Maybe matter and light are just a small part of the grand tapestry. Maybe life itself is comprised of yet another kind of particles. There is an inexplicable force which animates us and grants us sentience. We call it the spirit, the soul, the essence. Maybe we are the particles of God.

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