Process Part 1

In order to make my research as objective and scientific as possible I will be confronting this issue from a sociological perspective. I will not take sides in the argument of whether there is or isn’t a god, but rather will be analyzing how people come to their own personal conclusions. I will more specifically be examining how individuals stray from the accepted majority theology or doctrine from which they classify themselves. It should be common sense to believe that people are led to one denomination over another from mostly social forces . It is actually very rare for an individual to first examine all sets of religions and then accept the one that makes the most sense to them. This does not however deter some people from excepting many of the tenets of their religion as facts that impact their lives dramatically. The majority of people will more likely gather their religious beliefs from a variety of sources, including family, friends, media, senses of obligation or rebellion, and their faiths will be tailor fitted to their lives. This should stray significantly from a direct match of their denomination. Any other outcome would be a unlikely coincidence. There just simply has to be more dissent from accepted religious doctrine than we expect. That is why for each person that I survey I will be conducting a thorough interview, and examining what truly makes up their beliefs in totality.


A good place to start would be with myself. At the very least it would explain any subjectivity that might slip out, and give the reader an idea of why I decided to undertake this examination. My answers are in the same interview format with the same survey that my data was collected.

Do you believe in god?

Well here we already have a problem because I consider myself an agnostic non theist. That means that I don’t believe it is possible to know whether god exists or not, but lean towards believing that he does not. Unlike many people who take the agnostic position to express that they haven’t made up their mind on considering god, or are struggling with doubts about god, my stance is firm that I will never know. I understand that my brain is simply not wired to accept beliefs without a very large, if not impossible amount of evidence. I am a skeptic about everything.

I may try to follow up with questions like “On a scale of 1-10 how sure are you about gods existence?” or simply “why?” if I am not satisfied or receive a yes or no answer. For the agnostic or atheist my questions will be much different from theists surveys. The next question for me
would be;

Do you believe in the supernatural? Or in other words, can everything be explained by science?

When I was younger I would have simply said no. In my opinion there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of anything supernatural. The more we learn about the world around us the less unexplainable phenomenon there is. The majority of people who publicly tout miracles are either trying to get donations, or sell you a copy of their book. Many people who experience the supernatural are either lying or confused. No matter how extraordinary a supernatural occurrence may seem to someone, it could easily be reproduced by chemical alterations to the human brain. This means that not even seeing is believing. Later in my life however this last realization struck me in a different way. If we cannot be certain that anything we experience is genuine, and everything that we experience is just an interpretation by our minds, than no view on reality can be discredited. Any explanation, including god has to be taken as an equally likely possibility. There are several popular scientific theories that I am a fan of that I will explore later in this study. I don’t believe them to be more likely truth than any other theory, but they are very interesting. So to summarize my answer, in the natural world there is no evidence that anything supernatural has ever occurred. If another reality exists beyond the natural world, which is currently immeasurable by our capabilities, supernatural powers or deities may very well exist.

What happens when a person dies?

This question is probably the most challenging personal thought that anyone will ever deal with. I am completely terrified of death. When I was younger it was worse because the only possible outcome that I believed was the void. I believed that when you die your consciousness completely stops, and there is no more personal existence. I always thought that it was ridiculous that everyone around me wasn’t just constantly curled up in a ball on the floor crying and screaming in fear. How is it even possible that we go on in our day to day lives when we know that death is inevitable? My next beliefs were mostly a coping mechanism. I wrapped myself up in the thoughts that science will cure all diseases, and eliminate death entirely, hopefully within my lifetime. I do believe that this will eventually happen, as Clarke’s first rule dictates that every scientific advancement we could imagine will someday be possible. I am a little weary over whether this will happen in my lifetime. But it made me feel better then, and it still does now, and in the meantime I could always just be cryogenically frozen when I die. My most recent thought about death are oddly even more comfortable than my hopes of simply escaping the void. Today I believe that the void doesn’t really exist. That’s because I don’t really believe that life exists anyway. My reasoning for this is that human beings are nothing more than just a complex arrangement of naturally found elements. Life is only what we perceive from how we function. We have a vast memory that we can reference, and a powerful central processor that interprets all of he data we collect from our senses. Although we are extremely complex, we are still simply carbon. Someday we will be able to build a machine that is indistinguishable from ourselves. Or even more likely we will replace all of our carbon matter piece by piece with silicon, and continue to perceive life forever. To summarize, life is most likely an illusion, so why think that it has a beginning or an end?

Why are we here? Does life have a purpose?

As a nihilist this answer is a lot easier for me than for many people with religion or without. I don’t think that there is any purpose to our existence at all. Although it may be hard to accept, your existence is the result of everything that has ever happened before you. You may have a greater biological purpose, and your actions over your lifetime will undoubtedly impact the future. But in my belief I don’t believe there is any master plan, or fate for any of us. Existence is meaningless and short.

Are there any specific social practices of organized religion that you feel are negative?

I understand that organized religion can be vital to individuals and communities. There are countless programs and support networks that religious institutions use to improve their congregation, and ultimately the world. However I believe that whether conscious of it or not, religious groups can do just as much harm as good. I don’t necessarily like the way some major religions interfere with my nihilist existence, but I understand that the impact is far worse when they are targeting their own. Whether its Muslims treatment of women, the stringent rules of orthodox Jews, Catholics, and Amish, the out casting and hatred towards gays, the out casting of young men from the polygamist sects of the Mormon church, religion is constantly targeting its own members. It must be especially hard to cope with being punished or forced into complacence when you believe that your soul is on the line. This question becomes particularly more interesting when its focused on the persons own religion, whether they agree or disagree with the practices, and what actions they take..

Central Theme

All to often we will try to depict a common bond between people through agreement of the most common religious epiphanies. This is still however just an extension of the in grouping that leads to division. When people say that “we all may have differences but most of us believe that there is a higher power”, it is often meant to be uniting or healing statement. How is this statement not damaging to atheists or agnostics? They are alienated from the religious community. Their beliefs, which have been often more personally examined, are viewed as absurd because of their distance from the majority. To most statements like these sound more like “at least we believe in something”. Well atheists and agnostics do believe in something. Religion is simply an explanation for our existence and the nature of the universe. Atheists and agnostics have often mulled over the hardest questions with as tenacious audacity as the most dedicated theologians. Buddhists, followers of Confucius, Taoists, and many other spiritualities all have strong specific religious doctrine that do not revolve around deities. There are hardly any real common beliefs that can bridge the gap between all religious perspectives. The real common bond between people is that no matter the categorization or label of ones personal beliefs, they are always perfectly unique.

In the Beginning....

I am putting together a book detailing not only my personal thoughts and experiences with religion, but documenting an extensive project that I am beginning, exploring the unique nature of individual religious and spiritual beliefs. No doubt this journey will change the way I view religious belief, and perhaps even alter my personal beliefs. I hope that it has the same effect on anyone who cares to come along. The book will cover an extensive collection of religious and philosophical topics, as well as a deep analysis of the data I collect from one on one interviews. Here is the opening that I am working on. There is much, much more to come. Feel free to comment!


I am beginning this project on September 14th, 2009. As a society we are deep into a scientific awakening that will lead us into a world so unimaginable and advanced, that it’s mere description to us would be indistinguishable from heaven itself. As Clarke’s third law illustrates, where we can somewhat imagine or piece together the world of our past, with the current rate of expansion of scientific knowledge, even the not so distant future presents almost unimaginable possibilities. As a futurist, student, and witness to the discoveries of our most recent pasts, I cannot imagine anything to be impossible. Every technology no matter how far from our grasp is an inevitability. But one has to wonder in an age so scientifically rich, how is it that god still has an enduring, influential place in the majority of our lives. 125 years after Nietzsche, and 43 years after Time Magazine proclaimed that God is dead, at least 85% of Americans still believe in god. 150 years since Darwin’s Origin of Species, nearly a quarter of the last presidential elections nominees publicly and proudly admitted that they do not believe in evolution. Many of our national figures, as well as everyday people all over our country share their sentiments as well. In an effort to protect their theology from failing an unnecessary literal interpretation, they attack science, and ultimately progress. As I will illustrate later in the project this is an unviable argument for either side. Many giants on both sides of the debate agree. Stephen Hawking has maintained throughout his career that his scientific beliefs and even his own theories about the formation of the universe are not counter intuitive to possessing a strong belief in god. And recently Pope Benedict has come out against the mixing of science and religion in theological arguments. He has even upheld the validity of carbon dating, and explored evolution as a likely possibility. We have had a secular government with strong provisions for separation of church and state for 233 years, yet polls suggest that as a nation we are far from accepting an atheist candidate as a presidential nominee. If fact 43 of 44 presidents were protestant, JFK being the only exception as a Catholic and not without controversy. Just recently Barrack Obama, a member of the United Church of Christ had a huge obstacle to overcome, when conservatives even briefly floated the idea that he was a Muslim. How is a nation as advanced as ours so caught up in religious intolerance? In a world where science and innovation provide the creature comforts of a modern life, and limitless hope for the future, why is religion such a catalyst?