All right, I'm not saying there's no God. I'm not saying you can't do or say anything you want. All I'm saying is religion is all about making sense of existence, and everyone tries to make due with what they think they know.
What I think we know, now, as a society, is... a lot. We know why it rains, we know what makes up most of what we can see in the sky. And I say "know" as opposed to "think we know," because its not only generally accepted, it's also accepted by me, and this is a primer on what I believe.
The seed to my philosophy is science. Science pursues truth in a very democratic, very self-empowering thru self-relying way. Science divines truth through reflection, checks and balances, and thus evolves, which furthers truth. Put prosaically it's called the scientific method. And the first step is to come up with a hypothesis.
Now then, a good hypothesis is an educated guess, one that takes in all we know, and will give us resulting insight. And if that resulting insight is in coordinance with what we hypothesized, we will get a sense of validation, and what's wrong with that? That validation can never lead to fanaticism as long as one remembers with science any outcome can be overthrown, as it should be, as science is changing and always moving.
Now, in my experience, Occam's Razor has always been the best way to get a good hypothesis. Occam's razor, by Random House Webster's College Dictionary, is: "the principle in philosophy and science that assumptions introduced to explain a thing must not be multiplied beyond necessity, and hence the simplest of several hypotheses is always the best in accounting for unexplained facts."
Why are things the way they are? Because that's the way they are, and there's no reason beyond that. Now, don't think that's just wishy-washy cyclical sophistry, the validation of existence is a big thing. And needless to say the invalidation of inexistence is as well.
Why does it rain? Because water condenses into clouds.
Yes, but why does the water rise into the clouds? Because of diffusion and moisture levels, thermodynamics, etc. etc.
Yes, yes, but why are the moisture levels the way they are? Because
of climate zones, birds flapping in
Yeah, well who came up with these laws of the physical universe, or the universe itself? Random chance, if anything.
How is this deep complex view of the world, that even when reduced to the smallest iota, gets even more complicated with quantum theories and string theories and etc. etc., the "simplest of several hypotheses"? Isn't God did it, much simpler? No because if "God did it," he'd also have created all the other complex stuff too. In other words, "God did it," just adds one extra level of complexity that doesn't need to be there. God is a vestigial left-over of our intellectual evolution as much as the appendix is of our physic evolution.
But, of course, I could be wrong... And still be right... While you could be wrong, and would still not be right.
I don't get it. It's because I'm not saying Occam's Razor is always true, just a way to approach things. Science, as I see it, is more than just finding something concrete to latch onto, who says you need to latch onto anything to get by in life? Science, as I see it, could in fact prove god exists, and it would just have to revise itself to through in some divine influnce into its quantum calculations. Hell, it could throw out calculations all together, go under a new name and a new way of finding answers, and it will still be "Science" to me.
I don't get it. All right, how about this. Let's take the rain analogy. We (i.e. white people, to be simplistic) would think it pretty funny if we saw Bob in accounting, drink a psychotropic brew and dance and chant in a wolf costume, so that it would rain, so he wouldn't have to go to his wife's planned social gathering in the gazebo. We may not laugh when we see native people do it, and not just to be PC, but we still think they are wrong, and are fruitlessly flapping to save their crops instead of trying, say, irrigation. We think they should defer to science, why should we not do so ourselves?
Now, I can't help but think what if an alien race were to visit our planet (which Occam's says probably won't, but Science doesn't deny can, happen), and they sat in on a Roman Catholic mass. They'd see its fancy and elaborate ornaments, rituals, and symbolism, and probably think it of it like we do of other "backward" customs. A little silly, but understandable considering what the culture knows.
But we know so much now. I think Christianity was (and is) a pretty good system, but it's only evolved so far since the middle ages, and I think we should place our bets on this relatively new system. And my system, as I apply it to myself, keeps much of the philosophy of Christianity. I believe in non-violence, and helping my fellow man, and humility, and patience, and more in accordance with the fundamentals of New Testament interpretations. (And were I not raised Catholic, I might not have reached these ends. It gave me the foundations, but its very rigidity made me dismiss it's absolutism, which was hard, but so necessary for my intellectual growth.)
That said, I do not think you should do good for others for God, but for yourself. You can be a murderer, or a tax evader, it doesn't matter. All that matters is you realize the more you fight against society, the harder your road. One must decide how much he's willing to fight, and how much he's willing to go along with. Luckily, our society promotes philanthropy, and its gotten pretty far with it, so that's further reason to adopting it into your own philosophy.
Note, your philosophy isn't, and shouldn't be, like mine exactly. All I'm asking you to do is consider my perspective, as it has given me a calm feeling about the worldand frankly, that's the most you could want from a religion. Everyone has their own philosophy, whether they chose to recognize it or not.
All right, again, doing good by others, even if not in your short-term benefit, will be in your long-term benefit, since we live in a society. And we are social animals, we are happiest being such, and as such we should be happy with being a part of a society. And we're also habitual animals, if we want to be good when people are watching, we also have to be good when we're not. Of course, you can try to short-term selfishness to someone else's detriment, beyond social acceptance, but its hard, and the more you do it, the harder it will be to make sure only good things are seen by others.
It's a balance, since I do things that are beyond social acceptance (atheism being one of them), but I try not to infringe on anyone else's rights. Still atheism is hard, but it's worth it, since I can be an atheist and still not want to hurt my fellow man, and I think people can accept that part of it. But stealing a candy bar when no one's looking? Not worth it, because even though there's negligible chance that someone will see me, there's a greater chance that I'll try it again in the future, perhaps when there's more chance of someone seeing me do it, and the ramifications, which I perhaps could control but with wasted effort, are not worth a damn candy bar. And if it applies to candy bars, it applies to everything above it, and probably below it, thus, I don't steal.
But I have a level, a level where I think stealing is least likely to be caught, and is in fact somewhat socially accepted (precisely because of this fact). But it's effort, because there are very few in society who want you to steal, and they have little control. Anyway, the point is, you can satisfy the needs of the many and in the end satisfy the needs of the few (i.e. you), by keeping a long-term perspective keeping in mind our habitual nature. And most of all, it all goes back to you, and that's validating, and validation can't hurt you as long as you understand the restraints/freedoms of "Science."
Now hold on, help yourself and help man at the same time, restraint and freedom, this is having the non-exclusive, hence inclusive, feel that is so appealing in sophistry. True, and I wish I had the terms to explain this in less seemingly contradictory way. I'm trying to be prophet, which is pretty hard when you don't think the spirit of god is guiding your typing hands.
So why would we necessarily want to make things "easier?" Why would we want to be a part of society, or want to achieve long-term goals, or any of that, when existence is pointless? If I'm going to be just dust someday, why care at all, why even want to be happy? Religious fundamentalists who kill themselves for their beliefs, at least seem content with what they're doing when they guide planes into buildings? If I believe you, I'm not going anywhere afterward, and there's no reason I'm here now, what's to keep me going?
Well, first of all, this idea of "is" because it "is," applies to why life exists as well. Life is basically genes. Some random configuration of peptides made a program that repeats itself and has safe-guards against it from stopping. The way it repeats itself is through procreation, and the way it safe-guards is by keeping variation through every generation. We want to keep our own genes going as long as we can, in ourselves, and in our offspring, just because that's the way it started, because that's how it needs to continue.
So why fight it? If you just want to be content, know that people are usually most content when their genes are continuing and thriving. Be content in that, why not? It's not against society, at least most of us want to continue our genes in ourselves or through offspring, hence we have strong feelings about the sanctity of life. And the great thing about society is you can keep your genes thriving without keeping someone else's genes from thriving, and they in turn will help you keep your genes thriving.
So what, fuck like rabbits, and try to live forever?
Well, no, don't fuck like rabbits, fuck responsibly. Too many baby bunnies can ruin the chances for the baby bunny genes to thrive and continue through more baby bunnies, and further, the more progeny a species creates the shorter their lifespanit may be correlation, but its enough to give pause. As for living forever, right now, I think I would like to. I think we science, in the conventional sense even, we might be able to in the near future. But I also think with age comes acceptance, in particular of death, which may be because we're hardwired to accept it because death has always been unavoidable through out evolution. And accepting it makes it easier when it happens. And it's more likely to occur as we get older, so it would make sense that we'd evolve an acceptance as we age.
Still, acceptance may not be necessary some day, someday we may be able to fuck like rabbits and live forever. I'm curious as to whether there would be acceptance, in oneself and society, if there was such an option. But for right now, you can want to live a long life, and have children, and do right by other people, without having God as a reason. I think we can be content without having a reason besides "it just is." I think we can defer to ourselves and our genes as the ultimate concern, without being selfish or thoughtlessly hedonistic. Most importantly, I think we can do what makes us feel good (i.e. doing good), without having to deny the methodology that most helps us in the practical, in the spiritual. Science and ourselves can be our own savior.
Awakening, like physical to spiritualselfish to selfless for self. Requires greatest faith in social contract, human nature, long term goals.