Religion or Reality

The Who

    "All religions are branches of one big tree. It doesn't matter what you call Him, as long as you call."

-George Harrison

    God is responsible for the creation of the universe. Bold statement, I know, but follow me for a bit.

    There are only two ways to think about God; either you lump everything into one being like the Western religions, which would make you monotheistic, or you can separate the different aspects of God, which would make you polytheistic. There is no third option.

    What about atheists?

    I hate to burst the bubble of anyone who claims to be an atheist, but I must. There is no such thing as atheism. An atheist, which is a person who claims to disbelieve in God or gods, is either unmotivated or a stubborn polytheist who wants to use their own specific vocabulary. Before anyone gets offended, allow me to explain. If you were to ask an atheist about their thoughts on the creation of the universe, they will either dodge the question by saying it's too much to think about or they don't care, which makes them unmotivated, or they will offer up their own depiction, which will undoubtedly include a description of God or the gods without the words 'God' or 'gods', making them stubborn polytheists.

    Nature is responsible for the creation of the universe.

    Energy is responsible for the creation of the universe.

    Randomness is responsible for the creation of the universe.

    The Big Bang is responsible for the creation of the universe.

    (Insert your preferred label) is responsible for the creation of the universe.

    It really doesn't matter what you want to call God or how you want to categorize God, the result is still the same. Our universe exists, so I'd like to explore the driving force behind its existence.

    So what is God like?

    That's a good question. We already know that the monotheists of the West believe God is a single being, some sort of supreme deity who is capable of being loving and merciful while simultaneously being jealous and vengeful, but those are simply characteristics. Popular culture in the US, which largely follows the Christian belief system, is responsible for the physical description of the monotheistic God; an old white man with a long beard who rules the world from the sky, kind of like Zeus. I'm assuming that this thought was the result of attempting to attribute human qualities on something that is clearly not human. The Christians refer to God as their father in heaven, following the example that Jesus set for them in his famous prayer. Since fathers are old and heaven is in the sky, this probably led to the image of the old man ruling in the sky. This is the God that atheists lack belief in, because in their eyes he is no different than the old man who dresses in a red suit and delivers gifts to children by breaking into houses through their chimneys. The result of such an affiliation creates an unfortunate bias against the word 'God'. Instead of applying their own definition to the word, I believe many people default to the 'man in the sky', which, being a weird concept, makes them feel weird about God.

    On the multi-god front, polytheists seem to completely contradict their single-God-believing counterparts. Although this book is dedicated mainly to exploring the three big monotheistic religions, I think it's beneficial to understand the reasoning behind the polytheistic structure because it will help clarify the mechanics behind science as a religion. As I mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, polytheists are those who think of the creator of the universe in a number of different parts, often called gods (lower-cased because it's not a name). Instead of one God being loving and vengeful, there can be a god of love and a god of vengeance. Instead of one God ruling over the entire universe, there can be a god to rule the sky and a god to rule the seas. This type of belief system can easily be seen in the religions of the Greeks, the Norse, and the Romans.