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..
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