No. Well, almost certainly not. There is a small possibility that there is something beyond this life and this reality, but I don't think it is accurate to any of our religions today, let alone accurate to a certain book or books written down by humans. This is statistically unlikely for a start. Asserting a fundamental belief in a religion is goes against all odds in the hope that you're particular society happened to have chosen the one particular God that exists.
Furthermore, there is no good evidence to suggest any alternate reality at all. There are a few arguments for the existence of god but they are all flawed in my opinion. Carl Sgan said "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", and yet religion says that we should take it entirely on faith. However, they then undermine that very same claim by providing what they consider to be good evidence:
- NDEs (experiences that occur in all societies, usually true to the religion of the person. These seem to be something that can happen when the brain shuts down, but are certainly not sufficient evidence)
- Philosophical arguments
- Cosmological (The first cause could be The Big Bang. It does not prove any particular religion.)
- Teleological (Evolution explains this. Life is probably not uncommon. Multi-verse?)
- Ontological (A circular reasoning argument.)
- Miracles*
*The idea of an intervening God that will occasionally break the laws of physics to save one life is absolutely absurd. A little bit of Hume rejects the idea of miracles as evidence.
Weigh up the chances that the laws of physics have been violated in your favour or that a mistake has been made somewhere down the line. Or exaggeration. Or deception. Or fabrication. Furthermore, every miracle in favour of one religion has to be cancelled out against a miracle in favour of another religion.
Why would God create laws of physics and create incredible suffering, if every now again he feels the need to save on child or cure one person's cancer? The idea is absurd.
I also find that the problem of evil is a very valid criticism of god, that also counters the teleological argument. You cannot look in awe at a mountain and say 'God did that', without looking at cancer in children and the horror that is virtually all of human history and explaining how an omni-benevolent, omnipotent God could create this.
If you grant truth to any aspect of religion, a thousand questions are raised that must be tackled. If you say it is all false, everything is explained.
Is religion useful?
I think it can cause much evil. Although I would not say things like "Religion is the cause of all evil" or "Religion poisons everything". Religion can provide some good in people's lives. However, I do not think that it is in any way necessary.
Religion also gives people an excuse to commit evils that would not be otherwise accepted. To get good people to do wicked things you need something akin to religion in order to give them a reason.
What annoys me is when people argue that atheism means you cannot have morals.
Ethics can come from a sort of relativism or consequentialism - these are not evil, but sensible. I don't need absolute rules such as the 10 commandments. It seems obvious to me that morality comes from some kind of consequential maximisation of happiness, virtue, well-being, flourishing etc. It does not need to come from God. Furthermore, there is no evidence that religious people are more or less moral.
The argument that the evils of the 20th Century was caused by an outbreak of secularism just does not stand. Religious people point to societies that eliminated religion and did great evils. They have the facts all wrong.
- Hitler was raised a Catholic and says in Mein Kampf "I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator... fighting for the work of the Lord".
- Stalin trained to be a Priest and reintroduced religion when the Soviet Union went to war, setting himself up as the second coming of Christ.
The problem with these dictatorships is that they turned political ideologies into man-made religions. (Are the words "man-made" necessary before the word "religion". They surely go hand-in-hand). They gave themselves and their ideologies a God-like status. They often removed orthodox religion because it stood in the way of setting themselves up as God. But, we can see that when they wanted to, they were not afraid to use religion as a weapon. What better way to make someone behave immorally, than if they believe God is on their side?
This has been a general religion summary. My own unique ideas will come in later posts.
What annoys me is when people argue that atheism means you cannot have morals.
Ethics can come from a sort of relativism or consequentialism - these are not evil, but sensible. I don't need absolute rules such as the 10 commandments. It seems obvious to me that morality comes from some kind of consequential maximisation of happiness, virtue, well-being, flourishing etc. It does not need to come from God. Furthermore, there is no evidence that religious people are more or less moral.
The argument that the evils of the 20th Century was caused by an outbreak of secularism just does not stand. Religious people point to societies that eliminated religion and did great evils. They have the facts all wrong.
- Hitler was raised a Catholic and says in Mein Kampf "I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator... fighting for the work of the Lord".
- Stalin trained to be a Priest and reintroduced religion when the Soviet Union went to war, setting himself up as the second coming of Christ.
The problem with these dictatorships is that they turned political ideologies into man-made religions. (Are the words "man-made" necessary before the word "religion". They surely go hand-in-hand). They gave themselves and their ideologies a God-like status. They often removed orthodox religion because it stood in the way of setting themselves up as God. But, we can see that when they wanted to, they were not afraid to use religion as a weapon. What better way to make someone behave immorally, than if they believe God is on their side?
This has been a general religion summary. My own unique ideas will come in later posts.
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