Of Faith and Reason

"Are you a religious man?"

The question resonates in its own hollowness.

"What do you mean by religious?"

It's a simple question.

"Are you a religious man?"

As opposed to what, exactly? A secular man?

"What are you asking me?"

For a simple question, this sure is getting fucking complicated. Do I believe in God or A god? Do I read the bible and have faith in a being that started off as a murderous megalomaniacal incomprehensible being, then later saw the light of his own son and decided that perhaps killing His worshippers was not the way to build a following? Do I believe that an invisible entity so complex as to offer man two simple choices - the path to heaven or free will, effectively removing our free will by its own virtue, and choosing to abandon it, or more precisely, the illusion of choice (freedom to choose the path of no choice) - somehow communicated to any number of beings whose most notorious claim to fame in the ranks of Cosmic hierarchy is to make everything out of nothing, or as is more commonly related, making mountains out of molehills, such a simple choice clearly enough that he did not complicate the whole fucking thing?

In other words, do I believe that these books accurately convey the will of a supreme being whose very name we cannot speak (because nobody knows the secret password)? Seriously...is that the question posed before me?

I'm a reasonable man. I don't presume to know anything more than that which I see and may confirm visually on a regular basis. If I can't prove it, I can't propagate it. Reason tells me that to be a religious man is to engage in the most foolish of human follies - the arrogant practice of believing that such a higher power would even communicate with any one of us, and as if such a being would trust any one of us to understand his words without completely missing the point.

Reason dictates that, if I cannot even understand this being's name to the point that no one will even tell me what it is so that I can exercise that most fundamental of this God's laws - i.e., to choose whether or not to speak it, I cannot presume to know anything this being would say. And if I cannot understand it, then I cannot reason that any other human being could understand the being's words, angelic conduits notwithstanding.

There have been psychological experiments performed - we've all played this game at some point in our lives - that show that if words are passed between beings of varying intelligences, you can bet that some of the dumber ones are gonna fuck up the message. I whisper a sentence in your ear, and you whisper it into the next person's ear, and each time the sentence moves from lips to lobes, a single word is changed. This continues through a circle of people so many times that one word - any word - has changed no less than ten times and returns to the originator as a completely different, nonsensical statement.

If I start off with "Love every being as you would love yourself," it's going to come back to me as the ten commandments. I know this because I have participated in that game before, and someone always screws up a perfectly good sentence that ends up like "fourth grade rodents peel equine philosophers merry Todd Lincoln." If God has to go through nine different levels of angels to tell us to behave ourselves while he goes out of town for the weekend, we are going to get the holy fucking bible, King James Edition. It's only reasonable to believe that, somewhere along the line, someone misunderstood the message.

If God speaks to one person, I would assume that it would not be for sharing with the village. One thing about the mind of a supreme being (that we can safely presume) is that it is a reasonable enough entity that wouldn't trust a lesser being with a sacred message. I would presume that such a being would call us all together and tell us all at the same time, kinda like a great Cosmic pep rally without the ditzy cheerleaders.

I'm sure that Jesus was a very pious man. I'm sure that, assuming his existence, he was very intelligent, if not literate. He never wrote anything down. He preached, and other people wrote his message after he died. Compare that choice not to write it down for everyone to the choices of other spiritual leaders. You start off with Jesus Christ and end up with Joseph Smith.

If you ask me to illustrate the folly of religion, I need only point out that Scientology is based on a failed science fiction novel written 60 odd years ago. If that isn't a Cosmic Teapot, I don't know six from seven (a ravenous number, to be sure).

This is not to say that reason rules out a god. In order to disprove something, you must know the counterargument completely. If I want to argue against abortions, I better understand why someone would want to get one and argue vehemently for her right to do so. How am I supposed to understand the mind of God? Reason tells me that I cannot disprove it, although that is not valid proof for his existence, and his existence not being proof that he hath spake unto us.

Just because you talk to your dog doesn't mean your god talks to you.

These writings and religions are not right, that is clear enough. How can they be right if they can't understand? Is it wise to believe a man who claims to understand God? I do not see how, since history and politics tell me that men always change the meaning of words to their convenience, whether through ignorance (translating as closely as possible) or arrogance (editing the words). Whether innocent or intentional, the word of men cannot be trusted when it relates to their interpretations on the instructions from God.

So although I cannot reason out God, I can reason through faith. I can use reason to gauge where my faith should lie. I know myself well enough to understand myself, and if God ever spoke to me, I believe that it would be in a way that only I can understand, thus preventing me from relating it to the masses - provided that my reasoning remained stable. One thing I can assume from such an experience, however hypothetical it may be, is that it would be consistent from person to person. It only stands to reason that he wouldn't be cryptic with one and literal with the next, unless he is a sadistic god. Being superior, he would know our nature, thus would try to avoid creating such conflicts if he were truly benevolent.

If he is a malevolent god, then all bets are off, and faith in him would be nothing short of suicidal.

Given our inherent free will, it would seem that I have only one clear choice. A benevolent god would want to avoid conflict among men, so why should I be any different?

"Are you a religious man?"

See how it echoes?

"Reasonably so."