I watched The Rite tonight, the excorsism movie starring Anthony Hopkins. It got me thinking about the philosophy behind religion, atheism, and science. The way I see it those are all belief systems - and yes, the lack of believing in something is still a belief - and they're all grounded in one thing: faith.
Now I'm not a relgious guy, in fact I've never attended a single church service of my own free will. However, I have friends that are very involved in their respective churches and some friends that have read all the different bibles several times. So I've been exposed to a few Christian things, but that's about it. However, the way I've come to understand relgion is that it offers explanations to unanswerable questions. Questions such as: where did everything come from, why are we here, what happens when we're gone, is enlightenment attainable, what is my fate, and so on. Honestly, nobody can answer these questions but we can have faith in whatever answer we come to.
The same goes for science. I remember a conversation I was having with a good friend of mine a while back. I was telling him about the Big Bang and how science believes the universe was created out of a singularity. He didn't like the explanation the Big Bang Theory offered, he simply said it's not enough for him because it doesn't cover what happened before the Big Bang. Therefore, the theory doesn't work for him. It's the same as any religion, there's an element of faith. Science has faith that the universe was created out of the Big Bang because observation has led science to that conclusion. It's just like how various religions have their various creation stories. And the roadblock that my friend came to with science can be reached with religion. God created the universe, ok what created God? Take any creation myth and just ask what came before it and you'll reach the same roadblock. It's all in faith.
As for atheists and agnostics, same thing. There's faith that a higher power does not exist and there's faith that human experience is the focal point of a belief.
I guess my point is whether it's God, Jesus, Allah, Zeus, Buddha, nature, yourself, or anything else it's all grounded in faith. And no matter what belief it may be, as long as it brings comfort and hope it's all good.
Faith is required by humanity because the unexplained is simply not acceptable. We need something to fill in the gaps. Instead, I’d challenge people to have some fun and accept that just because they cannot bring a logical explanation to table; it doesn’t mean the explanation does not exist. All that proves is that we’re incapable of understanding its explanation. So the answer is there. It’s just not meant for us. But I’d wager that no one would choose to accept this because humanity prides itself on bringing things to clarity. Which is cool I guess because hey! There’s always faith!
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