Many Worlds

What is Atheism?

Minah — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:42:37 +0000

The universe – perhaps even multiverse – is colossal beyond the imagination of any living human. Its greatness, its complexity and its poetic beauty are beyond the boldest dreams of our very best and brightest minds.

Science is the quest for understanding of this colossal reality. It is a quest, which has taken many generations and which will take many more. In fact, there may be no end to this journey.

Faith, on the other hand, is the arrogant proposition that the intuition of an average human is enough to understand the universe. “I FEEL the presence of God, therefore I KNOW it exists and I KNOW it created the universe.” That is the ugly face of human arrogance at its worst.

Atheism, in contrast, is the honest admission that nothing humans can come up with today – not faith, not gods, not even modern science and mathematics – can do the universe justice. It is an expression of humility before the incredible reality of our world. And more than that, it is a tribute to the patience, the persistence and the personal sacrifices of those who embark on the quest of science. It is a tribute to those men and women who take the first steps, who struggle to ask the right questions even in the face of their fears, knowing full well that they will not know the answers in their lifetime. All of this, so that our children and our children’s children may one day find understanding.

Faith is an expression of the darkness, the savagery which still lurks within all of us – an expression of selfishness, arrogance, fear, and very often of aggression. Its very existence is a reminder that we have to make it a lifelong effort to hold out against that darkness. But while individual scientists may not always measure up to ethical standards, science itself is an honest and courageous pursuit for the betterment of humanity. It is an expression of the very best in us, which religious faith so presumptuously brushes aside. Science is a testament to the fact that we can truly be more than we are, and Atheism is its loyal and humble companion.

That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why I could never be anything other than an Atheist.

“Religion”

Minah — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 06:33:06 +0000

From an article by Paula Kirby:

Religion is a parasite that feeds on all that is good in humanity as a whole and then proclaims it as its own gift to the world.

Norway calling

Minah — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:23:02 +0000

Media reactions to the Utoya massacre were predictable, and yet we should be very concerned. Mr. Breivik was a right-wing extremist, an unscrupulous murderer who extinguished the lives of young people without remorse. It’s not like fascists haven’t done this type of thing before (anyone remember the concentration camps?). Those who ask how something like this can still be possible in the 21st century, are asking a very valid question. It needs to be asked, and it needs to be answered. But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, we see the media focus on one issue more than anything else: Mr. Breivik’s “hatred of islam”. Lists of critics of islam are produced, and collectively accused of fostering right-wing violence.

Once again, we’re led to believe that the only options available to us are acceptance of islam or acceptance of fascism. Thank you very much. I don’t intend to choose between two right-wing ideologies.

After every terrorist attack during the past 10 years, we were reminded that not every muslim was a terrorist. Well, guess what: not every fascist is a terrorist either. But the latter doesn’t make fascism any less disagreeable, and the same holds for the former and islam. I reject the ideology that invented crusades as fiercely as I reject the one that invented concentration camps. They’re not opposites, they’re evolutions of each other.

Reading the qur’an, as well as the manifestos of early Italian fascists, was an enlightening experience. The family relationship was striking. Both go out of their way to hide vicious fanaticism under a veil of innocence. Both mask the worst kind of arrogance humans are capable of, as humility and self-sacrifice. And both create layers and layers of deception and pretense in order to manipulate the reader into falling for appearances – while ignoring the obvious and utter lack of substance. They occlude the best in humans and bring out the worst in us.

True, not every fascist or muslim goes off on a murder spree. But their ideologies spread dangerous delusions and promote the superiority of one group of humans over another, based on those delusions. They provide a fertile breeding ground for just the kind of violence we’ve seen in Norway, in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Fascism and its sibling, islam (as well as other so called “religions”) have scored too many easy victories lately. Those of us who oppose fascism in all its forms have been negligent. Norway has sent us yet another one in a long line of wakeup calls. It’s past time that we hear them. It’s past time that we draw a line and make it clear to savage ideologies that we will let them move no further, that we will defend the fragile seeds of civilization, which generations of forward looking humans have worked for so hard – that we will defend them by any means necessary.

And it’s past time that we stop reacting and start taking this fight to their home turf. A movement that converts Saudi Arabians to Atheism? I’m in!

A World Without Religion – One Question

Minah — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:15:49 +0000

Lately, I’ve been taking advantage of conversations (in my doctor’s waiting room, among other places) to confront random people with the following question. Before I write up a summary of some of the interesting answers I got, I’d like to see if I can get some feedback from religious people on the net. Feel free to use the comment function. Or send me an e-mail, I’ll keep your identity strictly confidential.

Here we go:

Imagine you were under some kind of control that prevented you from doing four things:

praying (including one-liners such as “dear god, help me”), seeking out religious places, and consulting religious literature or people

using mind-altering substances, including alcohol and psychiatric drugs

hiding from life, e.g. by going crazy

taking your life

How big an impact would having “no escape from reality” have on you? How would you adjust your strategy for dealing with problems and challenges in your daily life? Who would you turn to in times of crisis? What alternative sources of comfort and empowerment would you explore? How long do you think it would take you to adapt to these new circumstances?

I realize that no method of control with such properties exists in reality, this is totally a what-if scenario. On the other hand, imagining oneself in unusual, even impossible situations can be an entertaining and useful learning experience. So why don’t you give it a try? I’d really like to hear your comments!

Gods deconstructed – Pantheism

Minah — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 07:20:12 +0000

Central statement

“God is in everything.”

Translation

“The universe itself is a living organism.”

Analysis

A definition of life most people could probably accept would go as follows: something is alive if it has either consciousness or a series of other properties including metastability, the ability to metabolize external substances and/or energy, to respond to stimuli, to procreate, and to adapt to a changing environment, possibly only over the course of more than one generation. The latter set of criteria relies on the presence of an external environment, which would require a universe sized creature to be embedded in a larger multiverse.

Flaws

Given our current knowledge, the possibility of the universe being a primitive organism with a simple order of intelligence is remote. There is no evidence whatsoever for the presence of a metastable, metabolizing, procreating system that would interact with an external multiverse in an adaptive fashion. Nevertheless, its existence cannot be ruled out completely at this point. The situation, however, is different for a being with the kind of advanced intellect required for consciousness. The distribution of matter and energy in the universe is largely consistent with the predictions of the Lambda-CDM model, not with an adaptive system that is responding to external stimuli. In the past, some scientists have suggested that dark matter might be a manifestation of some kind of an external force, but observations of, among others, the bullet cluster do not support such conjectures. If the universe is alive, then we can say with near certainty that despite its vast size, it must be a simple form of life.

In addition, certain parameters of our universe are well established. Among these is the speed at which information travels, namely the speed of light. Exceeding this limitation would require exotic physical phenomena which would be easily observable (wormholes anyone?). Consequently, it would take an intelligent universe sized organism billions of years, possibly more, to form even a single thought. Unless we manage to increase our lifespan by about 10 orders of magnitude, this all but precludes any meaningful interaction between this hypothetical entity and humans. The possibility of such a creature willfully intervening in the lives of individual humans – or even the development of the human race as a whole – is zero. Ironically, the reverse is not necessarily true. If the universe had a mind and if we had access to sufficiently advanced technology, it could very well be possible for us to manipulate that mind from the inside. We would literally be the masters of the universe.

Towards a Reformed Atheism

Minah — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:45:47 +0000

Religions hold that an advanced alien culture (one or more so called “gods”) had a hand in the development of the human race. Atheism (and sometimes agnosticism) disputes these claims on the grounds that they are implausible: there are no indications that our planet is an artificial structure. For that matter, there are no indications that the universe is even remotely artificial in nature. There are just too many badly designed, woefully inefficient processes in nature, that someone with access to the fabric of the universe could easily optimize. And as for biological development, there is a known process called “evolution”, which can be observed in the real world as well as in simulations, and which explains our presence on Earth to a satisfactory degree.

There are other arguments against the existence of gods, rooted in both observation and logic. I can subscribe to almost all of them, and they appear to suffice for the majority atheists. Not, however, for me. Reformed Atheism (for the lack of a better word) must go beyond probabilities and make a definite statement that no gods exist. Here is the first of many:

The emergence of consciousness was a turning point in the evolution of our distant ancestors. Everything else – philosophy, technology, free will (if one believes in it), the ability to travel through space, even the (hypothetical) ability to create an entire universe with a single thought – may be an improvement on this one key development. But none of these improvements represent the kind of fundamental threshold humans crossed when they experienced self-awareness for the first time: the threshold between existence as chemical machines and personhood.

The insight that anyone who has passed that threshold deserves the same respect, is the first step towards civilization. Is the life of someone who chooses to, or has to, live in a tree hut in an African jungle, and who knows nothing about computers, worth less than mine? To me, and to any other civilized human, the answer can only be a strong no. Anyone who is a person, from caveman to computer wizard, is equal in worth. It is an answer that all humans will eventually have to give.

In the meantime, science and engineering are making remarkable progress. It won’t be long until computers and biotechnology will provide us with the tools necessary to create artificial life from scratch. Primitive life at first, and there are bound to be setbacks: technological problems, political problems, moral problems. Nevertheless, one day we will go beyond primitive and create progressively more complex lifeforms – until one of them becomes fully conscious. If not in 10 years then in 50 years, or in 300 years from now, but it’s bound to happen eventually.

The question then arises as to how we are going to treat this new life. Do we consider it inferior and force it to worship us, serve us, allow us to control it? Or are we prepared to treat it with the same dignity and give it the same opportunities for self-fulfillment that we claim for ourselves? Again, the only valid choice for a civilized person is the latter. Any self-aware being, regardless of intellectual sophistication, physical appearance or origin deserves exactly the same respect as we do. All forms of sentient life are equal in worth and in rights.

All forms of sentient life are equal. This unconditional rejection of one life’s superiority over another, is the beginning of modern atheism. Even if the traditional arguments against religion were false and intelligent aliens did influence our evolution in one way or another (as mentioned above, the probability is extremely remote), reformed atheism would still hold. Because by its very definition, such hypothetical creatures are our fellow sentient beings, not deities. They are people to be contacted peacefully, if possible, not gods to be worshipped; people to be learned from, not prayed to; but also people to be reminded of basic civilized behavior, should they attempt to interfere with our development.

It is highly probable that we are the most advanced – and perhaps the only – lifeform in the local universe. And if other forms of intelligence do indeed emerge on Earth or nearby, then it is highly probable that we will be their progenitors, either through our own evolution, or through the “intelligent design” of engineered organisms. Our treatment of the beings we will one day create, and of each other, will determine the future of life in our part of the universe. If the continuation of humanity and our ultimate legacy are to be founded on civilization, as opposed to savagery, then the understanding that all sentient life is equal – and consequently atheism – becomes a basic and immediate necessity.