Religion is a topic I've thought about most of my life, and I've had a lot of thoughts about it. Because of the shear breadth of my thoughts on this subject, it most fits here as a showerthoughts. I'm not going to make a serious attempt to structure this in a way that makes sense.
I've been some variation of Christian since as far back as I can remember. My parents tell me that they had to switch to a Baptist church from a Catholic church because I wouldn't shut up during sermon because I was a literal baby. I remember doing a retreat on the UCSD campus when I was either 4 years old or in 4th grade, crying during a prayer because I thought I had found God. And I stuck with the church for many years until high school came around. I was still going to church, but I had long since burnt out and stopped caring about stuff. I don't remember the exact date, but I do remember one sunday I was sleeping in and my parents didn't want to wake me up, knowing how late I had been working and how little sleep I had been getting. So they left me to sleep and went to church by themselves. That was the first of a very long stretch of weeks where I did not go to church, either sleeping in or pretending to sleep in because I didn't want to explain to people why I wasn't there that week. But even before that, I dropped bible drill and choir much earlier because they both felt like a waste of time. This was around the same time I stopped going to gongfu and piano classes.
It was around middle and high school that I started getting into contrarian youtube. Watching College Humor led me to Adam Ruins Everything, a show where Adam talks about how capitalism causes all problems, actually. From there, that led me to Atheist YouTube. I didn't stay in Atheist YouTube very long, but I do distinctly remember a handful of videos by GeneticallyModifiedSkeptic. One video that still sticks out to me to this day is the video in which he talked about arguments against religion, talking about how to debunk them and discuss how things work. It didn't help that one of the leaders of my middle school church sermon loved to argue about why God was real, actually, and I tried to argue back but would always end up not knowing how to respond. But I do remember one week where we were asked to hand in cards of questions that would be answered next week, and one of the questions was about evolution. He looked at me, and I looked up at him from playing Bloons Tower Defense (i think?) and shook my head. Because my question was not about evolution; it was why does this matter? And that question was never responded to.
But this false dichotomy between atheism and theism was one of the reasons I proudly considered myself atheist when I was in my early teens. But today, I would not call myself an atheist, or a christian, or any other religion. Adults, including one video by Extra Credits, often argued that atheism is premised on the same kind of faith as christianity, but that the faith is placed somewhere else, and it took me years to fully wrap my head around that concept. But 12 year old me had fully bought into the notion of "religion" vs "science", that you either believed in evolution or you believed in creation, and of course there was gray area but overall, that dichotomy is real: it's one or either, and to deny evolution is stupid and bad and wrong. But 12 year old me is not 21 year old me, and 16 year old me is not 21 year old me. Hell, 20 year old me is not 21 year old me. 21 year old me has had many many years to toy with these ideas from the perspective of a true believer or from the perspective of an avvowed but closetted atheist or from the perspective of someone who's generally interested in history and humans.
I've been working on an article about science and history for a while, and the central premise I have in mind is that science and history are both attempts at answering a "why". Science produces answers like F=ma or e=mc^2, where history produces answers like "the Founding Fathers decided so" or "it was Walpole". And science can point us to trends like Newton's Third Law or General Relativity, where history can point us to trends like race relations or the boom-bust cycle. But one thing I've come to understand is that religion performs the same function, but in a different way. In some ways, religion is fundamentally based on superstition: believing that stepping on even a single crack will literally break your mother's back at that exact instant is about as silly as believing that saying words to some guy in the clouds will literally and magically fix your mother's back. But, sometimes, someone does step on a crack in the sidewalk on the same day their mother's back breaks. And sometimes, a paralysis patient does get better and regain bodily function after prayer. Me 9 years ago would've said it was coincidental, obviously, but not so fast, Allen, you silly stupid goober. The point isn't that this is actually true, but that this is what leads to these kinds of superstitions forming. And when enough superstitions come together, often it can become a religion.
But religions frequently aren't based on superstition at all, certainly not solely. The story of Icarus isn't a lesson to not grow wax wings and fly to the sun; it's a story about how it can be dangerous to get too close. Getting too close to power can frequently lead to corruption, getting too close with food or money can lead to shortsighted or self-destructive behavior, getting too close to love can risk being taken advantage of. The reason the Old Testament is so fucking long is that a lot of the lessons and weird rules in the Torah actively did directly help people. One of the history lessons I learned in church is that one of the reasons for antisemitism in the second millenium is that a lot of the Old Testament rules did lead to a measurable decrease in cases of bubonic plague. This lead to allegations of poisoning the population, and later, pogroms. Because while a lot of the rules in religion are based on superstition, the ones that stay and still get followed are, more often than not, actual rules that do help people, even if the actual mechanism is not religious at all. Let's talk about prayer.
Here's a sentence: Scientific research into prayer demonstrates that it has no meaningful impact on raising recovery rates. And that's a true sentence, technically, but there's a second part to that sentence, after the comma. The full sentence should be: Scientific research into prayer demonstrates that it has no meaningful impact on raising recovery rates, after controlling for attention payed by loved ones and caregivers. Because yes, taking time to think about someone's case often leads to taking the time to visit them, care for them, and be invested in their care. And bedside visits by loved ones or friends are very correlated to better outcomes. I don't have any data to back this up, but speaking from my position, I would much rather have my parents or partner praying for me than not. Because even if the prayer itself doesn't do anything, it means that they're thinking about me at the lowest point of my life. Hopefully they'll come to see me or bring gifts or provide services, check if I'm okay, run and grab a nurse if I'm flatlining. Even if I don't believe prayer itself does anything, I can still recognize that they are taking the time out of their day to actively think about me and check up on me.
The same principle applies to prayer in all sorts of ways. The prayer itself may or may not cause God to do anything, but it does help to take the time to think through a situation for myself, particularly since I am phrasing it in a way to communicate with someone rather than leave it as a blob of emotion. The way I see it, praying at the end of the day or before a meal may not actually make my day better, but it does help to anchor myself and go through a short list of everything I did that day to reorient myself. And it does help to be thankful for my food and understand that while food does grow on trees, most food does not, and certainly not the kind of food I order at a restauraunt or that my mom cooks. This helps from a societal standpoint too: a society of people who give thanks for things is a society that recognizes that not everything is deserved, and even many things that are deserved are not free. Food may be a fundamental right, but giving thanks for the food I do have does help to remind me that as much as I like food, there are going to be times when food is harder to comeby, or not necessarily the best, or has minor problems. And being thankful to another person reminds me that this world is built by humans, and to err is human. Sometimes I get a bone in my soup or have to wait in line for somebody to restock the beef patties, and I am reminded that there are human systems behind almost every interaction and that the guy who put the bone in there probably made a simple mistake, and not one worth ruining their day over. And that the guy who isn't restocking the patties is actively cooking them and is still trying his best, but he knows he can't rush raw food. I am reminded that people are people, and people make mistakes. People aren't perfectly efficient and never will be, and prayer can serve as a reminder that things given by people are not perfect, and only God is perfect. If even that.
But this process applies to more than Christianity or Judaism or even Islam. The concept of karma premises that being a good person will cause good things to happen to you, and while that's admittedly a very pop-culture definition of Hinduism, religions are typically based on ways to live your life. And karma is one example of a religious justification to do unto others as you would want done unto yourself. Because as you do to others, the world will do to you. If you accumulate bad karma, it will come for you. And if not you, someone else. There are samsaras anchoring you to this world, and it is only by being the best you can be that you can escape the worst samsara. I don't know much about Hinduism or Buddhism, and I don't claim to, but this interpretation of the way the world works can help to encourage believers to live a better life. Certainly, I would prefer my president understand that actions have consequences than not.
One common argument I've had when I've talked about this with friends is that there are still shared morality between people, and that therefore it's natural to assume there must have been a creator. If I were 12, I would respond "who created the creator?", but 19 year old me responded quite differently, and 21 year old me built on the response 19 year old me gave in a Mexican restauraunt in August of 2022. The real answer to that question is that yes, there are shared moralities between people, obviously. But there are scientific and atheist justifications for that too. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, I could imagine that a people that had a moral system where infantile cannibalism was considered morally okay would not survive very long, and go extinct pretty quickly. Humans are some of the most adaptable creatures we know of, but there are certain principles we typically follow, and which do help to spread tribal DNA. Humans have all sorts of moral systems, but most people would agree that if there were not enough food one winter, it would be morally wrong for a woman to feed herself rather than her child. But bears and fish don't feel the same way: when a mama bear doesn't have enough food for her cub, she will typically leave the cub to die. One reason for this might be evolution, because humans are social creatures and bears are not. If the mama bear were to give her cub the last of the food and leave herself to die, it's very likely that the cub would itself die. But if the cub dies, the mama bear is still capable of surviving and reproducing anyway. But a human child may not be able to provide for itself, but it does have a tribe of people that can. Healthier adults can starve themselves for the winter to provide for their children, who will hopefully grow up to be able to stave themselves to provide for their children. And those adults will know to do this because thats what their parents did for them. The point that I'm making is not necessarily that God doesn't exist or he doesn't have a hand in creation, but that he doesn't necessarily need to. God may or may not exist, and he may or may not be all powerful, but He is just one of multiple explanations for why the world is as it is. Some may argue that mine is the most valid explanation, but many Christians might argue that God is the most valid explanation there is.
Ultimately, the way I've come to view religion today would best be classified as agnostic, or perhaps descriptivist. I don't know whether or not God exists, and I don't know whether or not he created the world. I believe the universe was likely created 13.8 billion years ago in a Big Bang caused by quantum tunneling, but I will readily admit that that story doesn't necessarily line up with all the evidence, and there are still other explanations. But that's the thing; the Big Bang is still a story. As real as gravity is, it's still a story we tell about the world. And I personally think the Big Bang is the most compelling of all the stories. But just as Purple Guy may be William Afton may or may not be Henry Schmidt's dad may or may not be Fitz may or may not be the sibling of Vanessa, the stories we tell ourselves about the actual world can still be confusing or conflicting, and they're going to match up with certain evidence and neglect others. Maybe what sets apart a scientist from a priest is that a scientist is willing to admit that he is wrong, but given Einstein's view on God playing dice, even that's not necessarily true. Ultimately, the first author of a scientific paper has to place just as much faith in their story as the priest preparing a sermon for a 200 person congregation. A scientist's story may or may not be backed up by measurable evidence, and the priest's bible passage may or may not have actually happened in real life. But that doesn't necessarily make it wrong, and even if it is wrong, that doesn't mean they did bad science or bad religion. Because the point of scientific research is to gain knowledge, and the point of a religious sermon is to provide spiritual food. And if the scientific community still learns that dark matter is not just black holes, and if the congregation still learns to respect one another and give thanks, then maybe it's not my place to say that it's bad.
And I think that's a good place to hang it up. Thanks for reading!