Philosophy of Irreligion

I get the impression that people seem to think of disbelief in God as a cold, stagnant position ("there is no God, period"). I couldn't disagree more. I think it's a very interesting, dynamic, and thought-provoking position to take that raises a lot of questions.

As a non-believer, one of the most interesting statements about religious/spiritual faith I've encountered is the assertion that it is a "universal human phenomenon" -- a phrase likely to appear often in the theology classes in my school; it is not the real question whether one believes or not, but what exactly one believes in. In my philosophy of religion class (no doubt my favorite class this term and the inspiration for this post), this was summed up as an "ultimate concern" that all human beings share.

Now in order to accommodate all the godless heathens in this kind of picture, it becomes necessary to step back from the usual, more specific notions of God (good, omnipotent, forgives sins, hates gays, etc.) into the more abstract concept of an ultimate reality, a transcendental "something" -- a very loose idea more effectively captured by the Filipino word kuwan, to which all people, regardless of religious affiliation, must eventually turn to justify themselves.

I have only ever discussed my religious beliefs (or, rather, non-beliefs) to a handful of trusted people, but when someone asks me what to make of this, my answer is that the existence of a kuwan is absolutely no problem to me. I don't deny that there is some sort of standard for certain things -- like, for example, morality, ethics, and one's sense of purpose in life -- that one could definitely say to be ultimate or transcendental.

But I think the better question to be asked, whose answer could have massive implications,  is whether such a standard exists within or without of ourselves. It's easy, almost natural, to accept this kind of Ultimate that represents perfection and everything that is greater than us; but whether this is an objective reality that exists independently in the cosmos, as opposed to an idea deeply ingrained in, and therefore inseparable from, human consciousness -- and indeed, such an ideal kuwan is real in either case -- is a question that the alleged universality of faith says little about. Either way whether an absolute exists or not as an objective reality is besides the point, I think; quite frankly, it's a tired old question that we can do without.

So it turns out that I'm not denying a transcendental reality. Doesn't this make me a person of faith?

An important theme in atheism, at least in my opinion, is rejection. This is what makes the important distinction from the passive fence-sitting and indifference of agnosticism. Obviously rejection here does not mean a state of objectively knowing that there exists no God (I'd rather not get into the near-incomprehensible philosophy involved of knowledge); nor does it mean denial, which only means actively believing something that is true to be untrue. I think rejection in this case means nothing other than resistance, even in the face of knowledge of  God's existence (in the hypothetical event that God does exist).

Therefore the acknowledgment of some ultimate reality, I'm inclined to believe, is independent of the acceptance or rejection of it. So the question arises: what exactly about ultimate reality is there to reject in the first place, and why?

I think that as profound and optimistic the idea of a universal, transcendental absolute is, it is just too general and abstract for human understanding and says nothing of the traits commonly associated with God (love, compassion, etc.). In class, it was argued that to speak of an ultimate, transcendental absolute is to speak of the unspeakable (indeed, this is exactly what religion tries to do, quite poorly). Religious people who are intelligent and rational will acknowledge that the language of faith consists in symbols -- concrete representations of the inconcrete (for example, the myth of a literal, heavenly kingdom as a symbol for final unity with God). And this is perfectly natural because our limited human understanding can do no other than to contain the infinite in finite terms.

But does this not create a serious, dangerous problem? To concretize the inconcrete is to make what should be the infinite, the all-encompassing, one thing; and if something is one thing, then it is not another. That is why varied, conflicting religions and beliefs about God exist, even though the more optimistic among us will say that these are but different paths to the same destination. Are they really? In any case, none of us can even agree on what exactly the destination is; and this is scary and dangerous because it is the reason how, in the face of a vast and obviously indifferent universe, some people can so candidly keep society from progressing by believing in an all-powerful, infinite God who has an opinion on such mundane things as sexual preference, birth control, or scientific advancement. Clearly this is something to be rejected.

Does this mean the best course of action is simply to avoid speaking of the unspeakable? Maybe. The dynamics involved in comprehending an incomprehensible absolute is frustratingly mind-boggling to say the least, not to mention a vicious cycle: we attempt to understand because we are human, but being human, we cannot understand the beyond-human. What am I trying to say? That to bother with the kuwan is nothing but trouble. Such a simple point after such a long, rambling blog entry! This is not to say the ultimate and transcendental is not useful for giving purpose to morality, human benevolence, and our every action in this world; the question of "why do what we do?" is something that has left many thinkers stumped, and in this case, the kuwan seems to make perfect sense. But to give it a name, to ascribe human qualities to it, to worship it, to pray to it, to capture it and manipulate it and turn it into a personal God -- these I just can't agree with.