As you may have guessed, this is my response to The Philosophy of Religion by Hegel. To his credit, Hegel did have some interesting things to say about “truth”, but to this 21st-century brain I must declare his pronouncements metaphoric; he appears to equate “God” with “Absolute Truth”, and a “Unity” that at once attempts to be pure and singular. But given the state of knowledge in the late 1700’s, I feel I must excuse him otherwise; he basically did the best with what he had to work with.
What is “Truth”?
What indeed is “truth”? is it more than just a collection of “facts”? Does it not imply objectivity? Can “truth” be purely subjective? How can we know for sure that we are actually dealing with real “truth”? Can not “truth” be written down as a set of provable predicates?
It would appear that the meaning of “truth” is an ongoing debate among philosophers and mathematicians. Since I tend to sit in three worlds — science, mathematics, and philosophy — I must say that I myself have no firm definition of “truth”. However, I will attempt one here.
“Truth” is the instantiated objective reality, or some part thereof. By “instantiated”, it must require some actual existence in some realm. By “objective”, it must be more than just a thought in our minds. By “reality”, it must have some level of endurance. That is, it must be able to stand up to tests and challenge.
A religionist of the Christian faith would define “truth” differently, of course, and most likely closer to the lines of Hegel, that is, some aspect of “God”, or some sort of “universal absolution” having to do with “God”. I must reject this notion of truth, because it is based upon and assumes a truth of a myth, that is, of this “God” thing itself. It begins with the assumption, for the most part, that this “God” actually exists, and attempts to explain all of actual existence in terms of this unsubstantiated assumption. When pressed on this very issue, the typical religionist of the Christian faith falls back to — well, “faith”. But what is this “faith?” is is clearly nothing more than the belief in unsubstantiated assumptions, made mystique by the word. It is seen as something to “aspire” to, which seems ridiculous to this author. Truly, is casting aside logic and rationality something one should really seek to aspire to?
For those of us not so predisposed to embracing fantasies as a basis for thought, it does make sense that truth should be something measurable, testable in some realm, and amenable to logic. If we can’t agree on anything else, I think we can agree on that as being the starting point.
The Objective Reality of Atheism
Now that we — at least for the sake of this argument — have establish truth as the instantiated objective reality, what now? Is it possible to “objectify” our stand on Atheism? Of course, an Atheist need not objectify his stand on Atheism anymore than a Religionist needs to objectify his stand on religion. But the author deems it helpful to be able to objectify it, if for no other reason than to buttress to memes of Atheism against the overpowering memes of Religion. Most religious memes play to one central point: our emotions. Indeed, our emotions become the “instruction set”, borrowing from computer science, for the religious memes to “execute” — that is to say, the religious memes programs it religious hosts to think in terms of emotions rather than rationality, to not question rather than take a critical edge. The religious memes have a tendency to render its hosts “mindless”, and hence the author has taken to referring to said hosts as “Mindless Vessels of Belief”. This may seem like a harsh criticism, but many years of observation in many venues leads this author to no other logical conclusion. But the discussion of religious memes and “Mindless Vessels of Belief” are beyond the scope of this discussion and will be discussed elsewhere.
To firmly establish our stand on Atheism on the basis of epistemology, we need only ask one question: Which god? Out of a countless number of god-scenarios, of which one are we supposed to choose? Since this fabled “god” cannot be objectified, that opens up the entire panetheon to many, many, god-possibilities, including many that humans never thought of or have yet to consider. If you give credence to one god-notion over another, how can you possibly objectify that selection? This also nullifies Pascal’s Wager, because if you choose to believe in the wrong god, you still loose whilst having giving up something in life, and the chances of getting the choice correct in a set of “infinite” god-scenarios is — well, let us say you’d have much better chances winning the lottery!
But, to entertain Pascal’s Wager a bit more for what it’s worth, why not believe in all god-scenarios? Outside of your head exploding, how can you believe in the many you know nothing of, or can even be expected to know? Some god-scenarios may exclude others, such as is the case with the Christian god-scenario. Of those god-scenarios that are actually known to humans, there are literary thousands, and one could easily spend an entire lifetime learning abou them! Some may require more than just mere belief; some god-scenarios may actually require action of some sort. Quite simply, mere “belief” may not be enough. Also, if you knew for absolute fact that there was only one “valid” god-scenario, you obviously would have a way to objectify the existence of said “god”, so a “wager” would be unnecessary. In lieu of this, the actual expectations, looking at reality and not Pascal’s limited assumptions about “god-scenarios” would be to live your life as you see fit without reference to any deity. In other words, don’t waste your time.
The Actual Reality of the Universe
So now that we’ve stripped away any “justification” for believing in deities, what’s a poor Atheist to do? Is it really true that you must “believe in something”, as many religionist claim? Or is it possible to simply have no belief at all?
The author firmly hold that not only is it possible to have no belief in any deity, but that notion is the true definition of an Atheist — one who simply lacks a belief in any deity, in any of the myriad “god-scenarios”.
But some may still feel that there is “something out there” — basically, that there is more to the Universe than “meets the eye”. For sure, we diminutive humans simply do not posses all the knowledge of the Universe, though our collective understanding grows by leaps and bounds everyday. Our theories of cosmology are constantly being improved; our understanding of quantum realities is always being advanced, and we are growing on a daily basis in our understanding of complex dynamical/self-adaptive systems of all sorts.
And with all of that, the Universe still holds some deep mysteries beyond our grasp. So, there is still plenty of room for new discoveries and enhancements of our understanding. There are still many things to hold our awe and wonder. But because we may have an awe and wonder about the universe, does that obviate Atheism? Absolutely not! Atheism has to do with a lack of belief in deities; as long as we aren’t deifying some aspect of the Universe, we can still remain Atheists and still feel as though “something’s out there” — some deep mystery still left to be found, some profound universal truth yet to be uncovered. As long as we are willing to submit our questions and gleam to the rigors of the process of science, we may remain (and proudly so!) Atheists.
Conclusions
And so, there you have it. Atheism — really, healthy skepticism in disguise — is the natural choice. While beliefs in fantasies may have some limited reward, that “reward” is cheap in comparasion to the awe and wonder of the Universe borne out of understanding, knowledge, logic and reason. For this reason, I do posses an awe and wonder, but it is founded on the firm pillars of Mathematics, Science, Logic and Reason. I personally consider any other foundation to be null and void. Your opinions may differ, of course, and you are certainly welcome to them. But I see no better way of knowing, of ascertaining the truth, of having any certainty at all of making the correct choices in life that will affect myself for the rest of time.
So the choice is yours. My conerstones are Mathematics, Science, Logic and Reason. What are yours?