“what if God was just an idea? like how good and bad are just ideas of concepts?”
-James
The short answer:
I don’t really see how it matters.
The long answer:
In college I once found myself taking a few classes on Japan, mostly because it is not often that a course description contains the words “ninja” and “samurai.” One of the few non-ninja, non-samurai facts that I learned was that Christmas is a popular holiday in Japan, despite the fact that less than one percent of the population is Christian. While they still celebrate family, romance, and togetherness, it is much more commercial in Japan than it is in the United States. Apparently, the traditional Christmas dinner is KFC, followed by a specially-made Christmas cake. (That was not a joke.)
Undoubtedly, all the Christians who live in Western countries are appalled by this and think that they should get back to true religious values, such as putting a pine tree in your house, putting toys in big red socks, and (SPOILER ALERT!!!) lying to your children about Santa Claus. But, in case it is not clear from my flippant remarks, I certainly don’t care how people celebrate the holiday, and I’m not sure why anyone else does. Of course, that’s easy for me to say since, even though I celebrate Christmas, I’m not at all religious.
Frankly, I don’t understand everyone’s obsession with religion and God. Even though I’m an atheist, I don’t go around telegraphing it (or should that be cell-phoning it?). Whenever one of the first words out of someone’s mouth when describing himself is a religion, I am taken a bit aback (unless he happens to be a religious authority of some sort). Is your religion really one of the best descriptions of who you are? I suppose you could argue that it just gives me a quick summary of your core values, but since most religions advocate being a good person in roughly the same way, the only thing I really learn is whether you’re busy on Saturdays or Sundays.
Likewise, I’m not sure why people care so much about whether God exists. Why does it matter? Would the world be fundamentally different if there were or were not a God? Given that it isn’t clear whether God exists or not, it isn’t clear what effect the existence or non-existence of God has on our world, so I don’t see how things could be different in any concrete way. In other words, if I, as a non-believer, were to imagine what a world with God was like, I could see it appearing exactly like it is now, and I still wouldn’t believe in God. Likewise, I feel like a theist could imagine that a world without God could appear exactly like the world is now, and she still would believe in God. (Of course, it would make a difference if everyone knew whether or not God existed. But since it is apparently in the nature of God not to reveal that there is a God, and it is also in the nature of the absence of God to not reveal that there is no God, that’s never going to happen.)
Therefore, given that it is impossible to know for sure whether God exists, I find it hard to rationalize how the existence or non-existence of God can affect anyone’s life. Some may believe that, as is famously attributed to Dostoevsky, “if there is no God, then everything is permitted.” But really, if you need the existence of something imperceptible in order to be a good person, then I’m not sure how you can convince yourself that you’re a good person even if God exists. Of course, perhaps you don’t believe that there can be a notion of good and evil without God, but I feel that the fact that even rabid atheists can believe in right and wrong indicates that morality isn’t something determined by God.
Instead, perhaps morality is simply something that has become hard-wired into our brains through years of evolution due to its usefulness in sustaining the human race. Perhaps then the notion of God is something that, too, has stayed around because of its benefit to humanity. Or maybe it’s just stuck like that jingle in your head that you can’t get rid of. Or maybe God really does exist and I’m going to hell. I guess there’s no way of knowing for sure, and like so many other puzzles that have no answer, I feel better not thinking about it; it isn’t going to change the way I live my life or celebrate Christmas. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t think about it, so if you like, ponder it over your next bucket of fried chicken and let me know.
This post was a little heavy-handed, but I figured this question had been lying in my inbox for long enough. As always, if you have any deep or fluffy or personal or random questions and you want to hear my take, leave me a comment and I’ll do my best. I especially encourage questions about ninjas.
Cheers,
-qm
