Rational Empiricism and Religion

I thought I’d talk for a bit about one of my favorite subjects: Religion. It is perhaps odd that that the subject would interest me as I am not a religious man. I suspect that it is of interest because it so distorts the world around us.

In order to start the discussion I first have to talk about how I think I know what is true about the world. This is a topic the philosophers call Epistemology (see that four year degree was worth something after all). You might call my system rational empiricism. I think the things that are known about existence are all based on a rational consideration of the evidence of our senses. I am a big proponent of peer review. I think it’s always worthwhile to consider other folks appreciation of the same evidence. I am also a big proponent of what’s called falsifiability. That is, for a thing to be entertained as true in my system there must be, in principle, a method that could show that it is not true.

Almost all of the religions I am familiar with require a being that is outside of my system. These beings are outside nature, they are supernatural. As a formal proposition I have to discard the idea on this basis. My system does not permit supernatural objects. This does not say that the gods don’t exist. So I am not formally an atheist. My system says that the gods are not knowable and so are not permitted in the group of things considered true. So, in particular, there is no method that could, in theory, prove that the gods are false, failing my falsifiability test. This is because the nature of the idea is outside the permitted rules of evidence.

All that said, I think I know why humans want religion to be true. I have two arguments. One is centered on human perception. The other is based on fear. Human perception is structured on pattern recognition. Our brains always try to force the evidence of our senses into patterns that are comprehensible to us. So we think that all the aspects of the world around us should fit into a set of patterns that make sense to us. We extend this idea beyond our day to day lives to encompass all of our existence. We think everything fits into a pattern we can understand. I understand why we want this, but I see no reason for it to be true. It seems perfectly reasonable for there to be a lot of things about existence that are not comprehensible. For instance: where did the universe come from?

The fear aspect is interesting. For a lot of people (me for instance) being at the mercy of an uncaring universe scares the crap out of them. It must not exist. There must be a loving, caring being out there that will save you from all the nastiness if you do the right things (which vary from religion to religion; several of them required killing a chicken).  The thing that gets me is that there should be a demonstrable quid pro quo. If you absolutely do the right prayers, kill the right chickens, whatever is kosher, you should absolutely get the relief you’re seeking. Evidence shows this is false.

So is this cause for despair? In my view, no. The universe isn’t trying to harm you (well it is, but not intentionally). It isn’t trying to help you. There is no being there that cares one way or the other. Your life (my life) consists of working with yourself and the people around you to carve out a meaningful existence. You make this life mean what it does.