of God
Today, I did intercardiac perfusion of 14 mice with my professor together. It was yet another bloody affair. Basically, I have a cocktail anesthesia which I inject into the mice through the peritoneal space, and then once they get groggly, I "crucify" them on a board and cut them open while alive. I then cut open the whole rib cage, snip the right atrium a little, and then inject a syringe needle into the left ventricle and pump PBS solution through it. This tricks the heart to pump PBS solution through the whole body while blood (and eventually PBS solution) drips out of the right atrium until the whole mouse does not contain a single drop of blood. And then I remove the brain and spinal cord and spleen and yada yada yada...
After I finally isolated all the lymphocytes from the central nervous system, my professor began to talk to me about her kids. My professor said that her daughter was told by her classmates: "Jesus isn't happy with you because you aren't a Christian". The naive girl went home and asked her parents who on earth "this guy" was. Well, both parents are Jewish, medical professors, and coincidentally, atheists. My prof told me that she told her daughter "Jesus is a guy that people invented so that they can go to heaven even if they did wrong and repented by believing in him, and a person to ask for solace when one needs it". (yes, quite an extreme answer I know)
The conversation drifted to religion and it was quite in-depth, owing to the fact that I finally found someone else who had read Descartes' Meditations and Dante's Inferno etc... It seems that my prof had extremely religious Jewish parents but they were conservative to the point that they believed their daughter shouldn't be studying so much and should just "find and marry a good husband". She rebelled against them her whole life and went on to get her M.D and Ph.D before marrying her husband whom she had met at medical school. She called her parents to say that she was getting married to another Jew but the wedding ceremony wasn't gonna be religious. Her dad refused to attend the wedding but eventually did after much friction and quarrels. The whole wedding was an ugly affair cos her dad was enraged that the newly-weds were both Jewish but there wasn't even a rabbi around.
Granted that Christianity has had an extremely violent and tumultous past (though quite conveniently put out of sight by the modern church), it is quite obvious that it is the dominant (as in by number of believers) religion of our era. Many religions around the world endorse the concept of an almighty Being up there who controls the fate of Mankind. The most common model consists of an omnipotent, omniprescient and omnibenevolent being. The most common philosophical argument against such a being is the problem of evil, because a being with these 3 qualities would not allow the existence of evil. Unless one is willing to deny at least one out of the three qualities, God does not seem to exist logically. (sorry, I have no time to explain the problem of evil argument. you can probably google it or wikipedia it)
My prof's story struck a chord in me because both my parents are Buddhist but they sent me to a Methodist primary school for 6 years. They also gave me no religion on my IC because they wanted to let me choose. When I was in primary school, one of my classmates came up to me one day and said "You are not going to heaven because you are not a Christian". I wasn't angry. I just continued to attend church sessions at school though I never converted into a Christian. At the end of high school, I realized that the main problem I faced was that each religion had its own story to tell; and supposedly its own historical backing to show that it was the true one. A simple inspection of many religions yields such an observation. People can claim that they saw Buddha gain enlightenment under the bodhi tree and record it in scriptures, which then gave rise to Buddhism in India and then spreading to give the two main classes we see today. For Jesus, the problem is even more confounded. The same person is the son of God in Christianity and simply a prophet in Islam. Both religions claim to have people witnessing his miracles (but in their own context). Some people claim that, wait, there is the Bible (or the Koran). But the Bible and the Koran were both written by disciples long after the death of Jesus. It seems unbelievable to me that these people could write down the exact words that he said, although this isn't the point at all. The point is that each religion has its own "truth" to claim and there doesn't seem to be a logical way at getting to the bottom of this.
At this point, it may seem like I am arguing on the atheist side, which is not true. Most of my philosophy classes that dealt with religion gave a balanced view of religion. The most common argument is that something cannot come from nothing. There must be a "first mover" who first moved something or else nothing else could move. There must be a "first maker" or else nothing else could be made and changed from. (a criticism of this view is that there need be no reason for a first mover for things to move and so on and so forth)...
I didn't feel very satisfied after the philsophical treatment of religion. It seems to me that most people who have a religion believe that their religion is the one and only right one. I have a few close friends who are Christians (the only reason why I keep quoting Christianity is because that's the religion I have most closely examined from my philosophy education here; I have no other agenda for that) and they all claim that Christianity is the right religion and that they would have chosen Christianity out of their own choice. I can't help but disagree. Whether or not you like it, religion is most often a legacy from your parents and your environment. Imagine you growing up in a deserted corner of some Tibetan mountain and your parents have religious belief A. They would teach you and bring you up in the ways of A, which slowly becomes ingrained in you. Some years down the road, you may see many more other religions, but it is MORE LIKELY (I assert, more likely; I am not making a sweeping statement here) that you believe in A. Put in any religion and it's the same.
Look at Descartes for one. We have a lot to learn from him (although Meditations was a logically flawed piece of work) because at least he's willing to entertain the possibility that everything he has believed in initially might be false. If one cannot accept that possibility, then one cannot truly understand his religion, because that would be a blind faith. I would sincerely like to believe in a religion (and the right one) if there is one. But right now, I an neither an atheist nor a Christian or Buddhist. I am torn (or some skeptics would call me a skeptic) but at least I am not in the dark. I don't claim superiority; in fact, I am almost definitely wrong because I don't stand on either side. I just think that the first step that is so critical is to accept and understand other possibilities.
A functional view of religion seems blasphemous to most religious people, but you have to admit that this stance has strong explanatory powers. Religion keeps society in check by the promise of a heaven/hell/purgatory/whatever-else through an after-life (in most models) or a removal from a cycle (for circular models). So sometimes you hear people saying "Don't do this because you will go to hell". Or "don't do this because god is watching you". The truth is, moral values ARE intertwined with religion to the extent that it's hard to tell apart if a staunch believer is believing in the universal truth of morals or the universal power of that being (think about it). This also explains why religion is dirty; it has always been dirty and continues to be so. Why would communist China form their own church and appoint their own Bishop from the party? And do you know the bloody history of the crusades or how the Roman Catholic church came into power? (again, Christianity as an example because of my background, not because of any other apparent reason) And have you ever read the Koran? It contains one of the most beautiful and kind teachings in religious texts (although the Bible seems to carry much more "truth" in it because of its affinity with the more developed nations in the world) but it still got distorted in the name of Jihad and hence became synonymous with terrorism (what a shame). Precisely because of its function, what we get nowadays is most probably NOT the true story. Religions evolve like people do. By the time it has been passed on to this generation, countless generations have used and mutated it for their own purposes. To deny this is to deny that gravity exists (which can be true if that Being does exist and chooses to change things a little).
An anthropological review of religion might be even more chilling (or warming, depending on which side you are on). Examining the social aspects of religion, it is evident that the "popularity" of a religion is not simply associated with the god it endorses only. Take for example Christianity (again, due to my education and no other reasons). Christianity is a rapidly declining religion in the developed Western world (Finland changed from a virtually 100% Lutheran country to a roughly half-Lutheran country within a few decades) but continues to grow in the poorer regions in South America, Africa and Asia. One reason for its success is its social program. The church is a place to meet people and obtain positive encouragement/comfort. It is also associated with "being Western" (or modern) by some people (I said SOME people, so don't jump. I am writing this the way I write my philosophical papers and I try my best to put forward ideas in logical steps) and hence desirable. The affluence of pastors that travel to Central Asia has put many other local religions "out of business" because more often than not, there are economical benefits that follow religions (I do not postulate that this is done knowingly; I observe that this is happening and empirical data agrees) such as Christianity. To say that each and everybody chooses a religion purely because of his belief in that God is not a plausible one.
To me, Christianity (and most religions) is declining in the developed nations because with knowledge comes power. People feel empowered to control their lives and hence do not need a greater being to turn to (of which it may or may not exist). The whole picture of history and society is one that evolves from many gods to a single god and finally to no god (empirically observed). Putting together a functional and social approach, the existence of a god in our lives correlates strongly with our NEED for one, as a whole society. A simple study of primitive fisherman living in the same area for several years gave a simple result: those who fished in shallow waters had less rituals performed for their gods while those who went out to choppy dangerous waters dedicated a large amount of time to their religion. There is no way one can deny that religion is unfortunately, not purely religious.
I will never forget my freshman year when I sat in Prof. Richard Smith's last class (Human Evolution). He talked about a biblical professor in Cambridge who had years ago derived the exact date whereby Earth was created (it dated some tens of thousands of years back, but the day coincided with Cambridge graduation day, which made it sound absurd) from the bible. He questioned its truth because simply isotope dating shows the Earth to be several billion years old. Prof. Richard Smith felt triumphant in his argument but a logical line of thoughts would show that this only means the biblical professor is wrong and nothing else. But then, he began to talk about how Noah's Ark could fit a pair of EVERY SPECIES on earth (starting with elephants, grizzly bears, lions, hippos... you get the idea)... The best interpretation seems to be that if you want to accept a religion, you have to accept that this is based on faith and faith alone. It is not a rational choice (yet), but that does not mean it is an irrational choice. Taking any religion literally would just backfire (think about the bible's treatment of menstruating women, or remarriages, or Sundays and sacrifices). You have no choice but to selectively accept and interpret what you want to believe (I do not judge anyone for this) because that just applies to all religions (how many Buddhists are actually vegetarians and how many Muslims have never masturbated or drank wine when they shouldn't. or the current Pope who is considering allowing contraception for Catholics through condoms; you would think that the Pope ten generations ago would have died of a heart attack before he could kill him on hearing that). I am not implying that we lower standards to suit our times; I am saying that religion is a matter of pure faith (in the most literal sense) and claiming logic or rationality at this point of time is premature (even though each religion teaches us to claim logic and truth for it). If people of all religions can accept that, then I guess this is a first step for humanity (think of the harmony this would bring, and the diversity we would embrace, be it skin color, religious beliefs or sexual orientations or acts that break the social norms).
After working til late evening tonight, I came home feeling all tired and worn out (mainly because of the surgeries on the mice, but partly due to the intense moments with my prof). As I was heading towards the road to my house, I saw a group of people protesting with banners outside the cinema. It turns out that they were trying to stop people from watching the Da Vinci Code and their banners read "The Da Vinci hoax" etc etc etc. At that point of time, I couldn't help but think: The Da Vinci Code was published as a work of FICTION, not as a documentary. I may be ignorant, but at least I am not completely insecure. I would like to believe if there is one, but for now I can only think, which at least guarantees that I am.
After I finally isolated all the lymphocytes from the central nervous system, my professor began to talk to me about her kids. My professor said that her daughter was told by her classmates: "Jesus isn't happy with you because you aren't a Christian". The naive girl went home and asked her parents who on earth "this guy" was. Well, both parents are Jewish, medical professors, and coincidentally, atheists. My prof told me that she told her daughter "Jesus is a guy that people invented so that they can go to heaven even if they did wrong and repented by believing in him, and a person to ask for solace when one needs it". (yes, quite an extreme answer I know)
The conversation drifted to religion and it was quite in-depth, owing to the fact that I finally found someone else who had read Descartes' Meditations and Dante's Inferno etc... It seems that my prof had extremely religious Jewish parents but they were conservative to the point that they believed their daughter shouldn't be studying so much and should just "find and marry a good husband". She rebelled against them her whole life and went on to get her M.D and Ph.D before marrying her husband whom she had met at medical school. She called her parents to say that she was getting married to another Jew but the wedding ceremony wasn't gonna be religious. Her dad refused to attend the wedding but eventually did after much friction and quarrels. The whole wedding was an ugly affair cos her dad was enraged that the newly-weds were both Jewish but there wasn't even a rabbi around.
Granted that Christianity has had an extremely violent and tumultous past (though quite conveniently put out of sight by the modern church), it is quite obvious that it is the dominant (as in by number of believers) religion of our era. Many religions around the world endorse the concept of an almighty Being up there who controls the fate of Mankind. The most common model consists of an omnipotent, omniprescient and omnibenevolent being. The most common philosophical argument against such a being is the problem of evil, because a being with these 3 qualities would not allow the existence of evil. Unless one is willing to deny at least one out of the three qualities, God does not seem to exist logically. (sorry, I have no time to explain the problem of evil argument. you can probably google it or wikipedia it)
My prof's story struck a chord in me because both my parents are Buddhist but they sent me to a Methodist primary school for 6 years. They also gave me no religion on my IC because they wanted to let me choose. When I was in primary school, one of my classmates came up to me one day and said "You are not going to heaven because you are not a Christian". I wasn't angry. I just continued to attend church sessions at school though I never converted into a Christian. At the end of high school, I realized that the main problem I faced was that each religion had its own story to tell; and supposedly its own historical backing to show that it was the true one. A simple inspection of many religions yields such an observation. People can claim that they saw Buddha gain enlightenment under the bodhi tree and record it in scriptures, which then gave rise to Buddhism in India and then spreading to give the two main classes we see today. For Jesus, the problem is even more confounded. The same person is the son of God in Christianity and simply a prophet in Islam. Both religions claim to have people witnessing his miracles (but in their own context). Some people claim that, wait, there is the Bible (or the Koran). But the Bible and the Koran were both written by disciples long after the death of Jesus. It seems unbelievable to me that these people could write down the exact words that he said, although this isn't the point at all. The point is that each religion has its own "truth" to claim and there doesn't seem to be a logical way at getting to the bottom of this.
At this point, it may seem like I am arguing on the atheist side, which is not true. Most of my philosophy classes that dealt with religion gave a balanced view of religion. The most common argument is that something cannot come from nothing. There must be a "first mover" who first moved something or else nothing else could move. There must be a "first maker" or else nothing else could be made and changed from. (a criticism of this view is that there need be no reason for a first mover for things to move and so on and so forth)...
I didn't feel very satisfied after the philsophical treatment of religion. It seems to me that most people who have a religion believe that their religion is the one and only right one. I have a few close friends who are Christians (the only reason why I keep quoting Christianity is because that's the religion I have most closely examined from my philosophy education here; I have no other agenda for that) and they all claim that Christianity is the right religion and that they would have chosen Christianity out of their own choice. I can't help but disagree. Whether or not you like it, religion is most often a legacy from your parents and your environment. Imagine you growing up in a deserted corner of some Tibetan mountain and your parents have religious belief A. They would teach you and bring you up in the ways of A, which slowly becomes ingrained in you. Some years down the road, you may see many more other religions, but it is MORE LIKELY (I assert, more likely; I am not making a sweeping statement here) that you believe in A. Put in any religion and it's the same.
Look at Descartes for one. We have a lot to learn from him (although Meditations was a logically flawed piece of work) because at least he's willing to entertain the possibility that everything he has believed in initially might be false. If one cannot accept that possibility, then one cannot truly understand his religion, because that would be a blind faith. I would sincerely like to believe in a religion (and the right one) if there is one. But right now, I an neither an atheist nor a Christian or Buddhist. I am torn (or some skeptics would call me a skeptic) but at least I am not in the dark. I don't claim superiority; in fact, I am almost definitely wrong because I don't stand on either side. I just think that the first step that is so critical is to accept and understand other possibilities.
A functional view of religion seems blasphemous to most religious people, but you have to admit that this stance has strong explanatory powers. Religion keeps society in check by the promise of a heaven/hell/purgatory/whatever-else through an after-life (in most models) or a removal from a cycle (for circular models). So sometimes you hear people saying "Don't do this because you will go to hell". Or "don't do this because god is watching you". The truth is, moral values ARE intertwined with religion to the extent that it's hard to tell apart if a staunch believer is believing in the universal truth of morals or the universal power of that being (think about it). This also explains why religion is dirty; it has always been dirty and continues to be so. Why would communist China form their own church and appoint their own Bishop from the party? And do you know the bloody history of the crusades or how the Roman Catholic church came into power? (again, Christianity as an example because of my background, not because of any other apparent reason) And have you ever read the Koran? It contains one of the most beautiful and kind teachings in religious texts (although the Bible seems to carry much more "truth" in it because of its affinity with the more developed nations in the world) but it still got distorted in the name of Jihad and hence became synonymous with terrorism (what a shame). Precisely because of its function, what we get nowadays is most probably NOT the true story. Religions evolve like people do. By the time it has been passed on to this generation, countless generations have used and mutated it for their own purposes. To deny this is to deny that gravity exists (which can be true if that Being does exist and chooses to change things a little).
An anthropological review of religion might be even more chilling (or warming, depending on which side you are on). Examining the social aspects of religion, it is evident that the "popularity" of a religion is not simply associated with the god it endorses only. Take for example Christianity (again, due to my education and no other reasons). Christianity is a rapidly declining religion in the developed Western world (Finland changed from a virtually 100% Lutheran country to a roughly half-Lutheran country within a few decades) but continues to grow in the poorer regions in South America, Africa and Asia. One reason for its success is its social program. The church is a place to meet people and obtain positive encouragement/comfort. It is also associated with "being Western" (or modern) by some people (I said SOME people, so don't jump. I am writing this the way I write my philosophical papers and I try my best to put forward ideas in logical steps) and hence desirable. The affluence of pastors that travel to Central Asia has put many other local religions "out of business" because more often than not, there are economical benefits that follow religions (I do not postulate that this is done knowingly; I observe that this is happening and empirical data agrees) such as Christianity. To say that each and everybody chooses a religion purely because of his belief in that God is not a plausible one.
To me, Christianity (and most religions) is declining in the developed nations because with knowledge comes power. People feel empowered to control their lives and hence do not need a greater being to turn to (of which it may or may not exist). The whole picture of history and society is one that evolves from many gods to a single god and finally to no god (empirically observed). Putting together a functional and social approach, the existence of a god in our lives correlates strongly with our NEED for one, as a whole society. A simple study of primitive fisherman living in the same area for several years gave a simple result: those who fished in shallow waters had less rituals performed for their gods while those who went out to choppy dangerous waters dedicated a large amount of time to their religion. There is no way one can deny that religion is unfortunately, not purely religious.
I will never forget my freshman year when I sat in Prof. Richard Smith's last class (Human Evolution). He talked about a biblical professor in Cambridge who had years ago derived the exact date whereby Earth was created (it dated some tens of thousands of years back, but the day coincided with Cambridge graduation day, which made it sound absurd) from the bible. He questioned its truth because simply isotope dating shows the Earth to be several billion years old. Prof. Richard Smith felt triumphant in his argument but a logical line of thoughts would show that this only means the biblical professor is wrong and nothing else. But then, he began to talk about how Noah's Ark could fit a pair of EVERY SPECIES on earth (starting with elephants, grizzly bears, lions, hippos... you get the idea)... The best interpretation seems to be that if you want to accept a religion, you have to accept that this is based on faith and faith alone. It is not a rational choice (yet), but that does not mean it is an irrational choice. Taking any religion literally would just backfire (think about the bible's treatment of menstruating women, or remarriages, or Sundays and sacrifices). You have no choice but to selectively accept and interpret what you want to believe (I do not judge anyone for this) because that just applies to all religions (how many Buddhists are actually vegetarians and how many Muslims have never masturbated or drank wine when they shouldn't. or the current Pope who is considering allowing contraception for Catholics through condoms; you would think that the Pope ten generations ago would have died of a heart attack before he could kill him on hearing that). I am not implying that we lower standards to suit our times; I am saying that religion is a matter of pure faith (in the most literal sense) and claiming logic or rationality at this point of time is premature (even though each religion teaches us to claim logic and truth for it). If people of all religions can accept that, then I guess this is a first step for humanity (think of the harmony this would bring, and the diversity we would embrace, be it skin color, religious beliefs or sexual orientations or acts that break the social norms).
After working til late evening tonight, I came home feeling all tired and worn out (mainly because of the surgeries on the mice, but partly due to the intense moments with my prof). As I was heading towards the road to my house, I saw a group of people protesting with banners outside the cinema. It turns out that they were trying to stop people from watching the Da Vinci Code and their banners read "The Da Vinci hoax" etc etc etc. At that point of time, I couldn't help but think: The Da Vinci Code was published as a work of FICTION, not as a documentary. I may be ignorant, but at least I am not completely insecure. I would like to believe if there is one, but for now I can only think, which at least guarantees that I am.