Pensives & Ruminations

Whether it’s the power of prayer, or faith healing, or astrology, or life after death: the same pattern is consistently seen. Whenever religious and supernatural beliefs have made testable claims, and those claims have been tested — not half-assedly tested, but really tested, using careful, rigorous, double-blind, placebo- controlled, replicated, etc. etc. etc. testing methods — the claims have consistently fallen apart.

From Greta Christina’s blog (some language and URLs NSFW)

The strongest reason I gave up religion when I was about 13 was realizing the hundreds of competing religions could not all be right. Not to mention all the religions that were no longer in place, but that had thousands or millions of followers at some point in time. Think Zeus, Thor, Isis, etc. However, I still believed in some sort of indeterminate god, Taoism most closely fit what I felt:

In Taoism, Tao both precedes and encompasses the universe. As with other nondualistic philosophies, all the observable objects in the world – referred to in the Tao Te Ching as ‘the named’ or ‘the ten thousand things’ – are considered to be manifestations of Tao, and can only operate within the boundaries of Tao. Tao is, by contrast, often referred to as ‘the nameless’, because neither it nor its principles can ever be adequately expressed in words. It is conceived, for example, with neither shape nor form, as simultaneously perfectly still and constantly moving, as both larger than the largest thing and smaller than the smallest, because the words that describe shape, movement, size, or other qualities always create dichotomies that are only parts of Tao.
…
Tao is often compared to water: clear, colorless, unremarkable, yet all beings depend on it for life, and even the hardest stone cannot stand in its way forever.

Perhaps it is because I grew up near the ocean and have lived 37 of 38 years within 30 miles of the ocean, mostly within 5 miles, but water has always had a strong attraction. I like swimming, sailing, fountains, watching rivers and waves, pretty much anything to do with water.

I think the leftover ideas of god as a powerful force in the universe made me want to believe in the Tao, the Force a la Star Wars, or some sort of universal energy.

Now I know there is lots of energy in the universe, but there is no evidence it has any sort of conscious effect on our lives or the universe. There are “four fundamental interactions (forces) may be assumed: gravitation, electromagnetism, the weak interaction, and the strong interaction.“, which hopefully the LHC can provide some more insights into. Those forces shape our bodies and expand the universe. They keep atoms together and let them bond to create thousands of molecules. Those forces are powerful and awesome, but they are not god. They are simply the way the universe works.

Any attempts to show the effects of prayer, crystals, homeopathy, Tarot cards, dowsing or anything similar, consistently show failure or, at best, the same chances as randomness.

Many people have written on this, many far more eloquently than I. However, I think in this day and age, just as homosexuality is finally becoming less and less of an issue (although still big, at least they are not sent to mental institutions for it!), I think that being an atheist is pretty much reviled. I think there will always be superstitions, but if we got to the point where that was the strongest version of religion, I think that would make life better for everyone. I hope that “outing” myself as an atheist may encourage others to do the same and make more people understand the issues of religion.

Peace.