As I have mentioned before when I got excited about Christmas and annoyed at Rachel Reeves on Question time, I am an atheist. If you are interested, I will go through the reasons for this. Actually, I will be doing so anyway, even if you’re not but obviously you don’t have to read it if you’re not interested.
When I was little, I was quite inquisitive. One of my favourite fictional characters was (and still is) Sherlock Holmes. I was always very keen to understand the world around me and to know everything. I didn’t know everything, so I chose to study philosophy at university in an attempt to find some answers.
In fact, all I got were loads more questions. Descartes made me believe that nothing else existed, and all of the possible answers to this failed to satisfy me. Other areas of philosophy I found too pedantic or bizarrely at times illogical. The best thing I took out of my degree was an interest in social philosophy and therefore in politics.
Going back to Descartes, all of the scepticism and attempts to overcome it led me to come up with my combined theory of how the world came into existence, what we are doing here and what awaits us after death.
I like to call it the “I’m Never Going to Fucking Know Theory of the Universe.”
This theory, basically, does what it says on the tin.
One of the things I took away from my degree was Occam’s razor which, in short, suggests that the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected. It’s a little more complicated than that, but I used to help me differentiate between the following two hypothesises:
1. The universe just exists.
2. The universe was created by God who just exists.
Occam’s razor trims off the second hypothesis and leaves us with the stubble of the first.
Now, obviously, there are several arguments around this used by religious people. I have heard some of them. I’m sure there are more that I’ve not heard.
But in all honesty, I don’t really care. No disrespect to anyone who wants to argue against my theory, but I feel that I will never have enough proof one way or another and hypothesis one is the simplest for me to go about living my day to day life.
There are many things that I do like about religion. Mainly the visual elements. I enjoy religious architecture and some of the imagery is very powerful. And Christmas, obviously.
I feel there are many benefits to my theory.
I am amazed at how the world happened to come into existence the way it did. As stated in the title of my theory, I will never know how, but I can be astounded that it did. No amount of watching Brian Cox will even give me the vaguest inkling because, if I’m being honest, science isn’t my forte, and I am quite happy with this. I am filled with much more awe at the natural world than I think I would otherwise be.
Another bonus is that the part of my degree that I enjoyed the most, the social philosophy side, allows me to form all my own decisions about what is ethically right or wrong. I’m not implying that people who believe in religion follow blindly, but as there is an ethical code already laid out, if I believed in it, I would be less inclined to construct an ethical code for myself based on what I thought was right and which therefore makes me have more confidence in the fact that the actions I am doing are the right ones to do.
This is again, all from an entirely personal point of view. Other people might not get these feelings, feel confident enough to come up with their own ethical code, but that’s not the case for me.
I have formed my opinions on the basis of all the information in front of me. It may well be that growing up in a household that wasn’t particularly religious, that I was predisposed to view the information in a certain way which would lead me to become an atheist. I am fine with this. Someone from a stronger religious background may have seen all the same information I did, read all the same books, attended all the same courses as me and used it to assume the existence of a god or gods. I am fine with this too.
I am not an agnostic, although I am willing to be proved wrong on this. However, the amount of proof needed from either side in this discussion is ludicrous and I believe impossible. Being agnostic would suggest that I want to think more about whether or not there is a god. I don’t. I have had enough thinking about it, discussing about it, arguing about it.
I’m Never Going to Fucking Know, so I have moved on and I am living my life in the knowledge that this is one piece of knowledge I am never going to obtain (at least not whilst I am alive).
Other benefits to this include the fact that I can spend my Sunday mornings doing more productive things, such as recovering from my hangover, having a lie in or playing Sunday league football.
Note: One of the things I really hate is people who feel like they are forcing their views on others.
My intention in writing this is partly to explain to anyone who might be curious why I have my point of view – I did the same with my vegetarianism a while ago, and partly just to get everything out. Sometimes, if you don’t have to articulate things, you are not completely sure of what you actually think.
Lots of other people try to force their views on people which I find annoying. I am happy for people to discuss issues or ask people if they are interested in learning more, but the ones who – on both sides – try to pressure people into believing the same thing as them, or making insensitive comments are dicks. Militant atheists such as Dawkins and the religious suicide bombers fall into this category.
However, it is important not to class everyone in the same group as these extremists. All atheists are not as dickish as Dawkins, all muslims are not suicide bombers and all catholics are not kiddy fiddlers. Classing people based on an extreme element is a bit like saying that because they support Liverpool, every fan is going to try to bite other people.