I was listening to "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast (#179 w/ Duncan Trussell) and they brought up an idea that I just found fascinating. Basically, the idea goes like this:
What would we as humans make of God or spirituality or the supernatural right now, without any previous information about any religion, but with the scientific knowledge that we now possess about the universe we live in?
Say, for example, that all copies of the Bible, the Koran, etc were all lost hundreds of years ago and we have no prior knowledge of anyone's ideas about God or what happens when we die. What truths would we just sense? Would we re-invent a sentient God? Heaven and Hell? Or would we go in the other direction and completely spurn the notion of anything that couldn't be proven with empirical evidence? Could everyone agree on one thing or would we re-start the horrible, divisive and nonsensical violence that seems to be the inevitable result of people having strongly held religious beliefs?
Could anyone say in this day and age that their way that they JUST MADE UP is the only right way, given to us by God and if we don't follow it we are doomed to unending and unimaginable agony? However, if we DO follow it, we will be rewarded forever and never die? Would anyone believe that? Why did anyone EVER believe that?!?
For myself, I think I would become an agnostic, basically. I would be completely positive that there is more to life than what I can see and prove. I would be fairly certain that some part of human consciousness will live on past the expiration of the body. This I would base on the science of our "sea of atoms". Nothing is ever just GONE...all things transform. For example, ice doesn't melt and disappear forever, it simply changes states to water and then vapour. Since energy and matter are the same thing, and everything is made up of everything else, we all live on in some form. Whether we still retain our individuality is another question, one which I have no answer for. I'd never come up with clouds, harps, fire and brimstone, an old man sitting behind pearly gates in the sky judging us and his enemy that used to be his buddy but now hates him and so tries to trick people with uh...stuff. Not that it isn't all possible, but it sure wouldn't ever occur to *me*.
At the end of the day, there are countless ways one could speculate. MUCH, much smarter people than myself could come up with all sorts of fascinating theories. The only thing that I can be sure of is that I would never say that I was sure of anything! I'd never hold a belief! Just like in the movie "Dogma" I'd just have a GOOD IDEA.
There are things in this world worth fighting for, and even dying for! Protecting those weaker than yourself, preserving life, preserving human rights, free will, justice, the higher ideals! Religion doesn't make this list. All you zealots out there who think God wants you to hate your fellow man, knock it off! Why should we believe that people that lived thousands of years ago, who thought the Earth was the centre of the universe, who thought it was great to treat women and other races as subhuman slaves, who lived every day in violence, filth and disease...why should *I* believe that these people know more about the nature of God or spirituality or the afterlife than those of us who live now? Not only that, but if you don't believe what I believe, I'm supposed to convert you or kill you? Doesn't that seem ridiculous?
I'm just saying...and I know not even really for the first time...what WOULD we come up with if we could do it all now?
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