Does God Have A Place in the Future?

 by Oliver Wilkinson

Do you believe in God?

If so, which god?

Tens of thousands of gods have been worshiped and admired throughout history, and many more are reverenced by the human population today. Across time, each civilization has had their own set of gods which they exalted continuously for decades, centuries even. In ancient Greek mythology, for example, there were 14 major gods, or ‘Olympians’ as they were once called, who were supposedly reported to have ruled the universe. Each one of these ‘Olympians’ had numerous offspring, leading to the ancient Greeks having a god or goddess for almost everything: to name a few, we have Dionysus, son of Zeus (god of the sky) and Semele (goddess of the Bacchic frenzy), who was the demigod of wine; Morpheus, son of Nyx (goddess of the Night) was known to be the demigod of dreams and finally Zephyros was the renowned god of the West Wind. In short, the ancient Greeks had an abundance of gods.

What am I getting at?

Well, you will see that when we look through history, at all the different religions and ancient mythological stories, one pattern seems to crop up that coincides in each and every one of them. Eventually, all the gods and goddesses, all the countless stories and all the rules that were meant to have been followed by that ancient civilisation, seem to be transferred into a state in which none of them are deemed believable any more.

But surely this is preposterous? What right do we have to honestly say that our respected religion is the correct one and all other religions are inferior to ours? Now, I know that many of you may be thinking, 'Well, it could just be because how utterly ridiculous it sounds to have gods for such unimportant objects like wine or dreams.' But, in all honesty, what sounds to you: having a demigod of wine or having a supernatural being who magically created the very world we stand on in just six days?

However, it's only fair to acknowledge that religion influences, and always has influenced, society in ways that benefited the citizens of their respective times - well, mostly. It is an undeniable fact that through time not one culture has existed that has not supported a religion of some kind. It does seem that it is part of human nature for them to exist. However, I still believe that in many ways manipulation and trickery fuelled the fire that ultimately started this trend of believing in a god.

Firstly, we'll look at the Bible, the famed holy book of Christianity. The contents of the Bible were written over a period of 1,400 years by numerous authors from every walk of life: philosophers, poets, holy men and even peasants, to name a few. What does this mean? Well, this implies that the Bible isn't a historical documentary of sorts but more of a scrap book that was slowly but surely pieced together over time. But, no, this by no means defines the Bible as complete fiction. It is with confidence that I say that there is a high probability that a man called Jesus existed roughly 2,000 years ago. However, with the Bible being eventually compiled in 200 AD, this leaves an abundance of time for the documents to be altered or changed in some way.

To prove my point further, let's have a look at the stories portrayed by the Bible. First, let's look at the famous story of Noah and the Ark. This particular story, found in Genesis Chapters 6-9, is extremely popular with Christian children, as it is one of the many demonstrations of God's almighty powers. However, if we observe, from a critics' point of view, we will find one very peculiar fact: the story of Noah's Ark shares astoundingly close similarities with the Epic of Gilgamesh. Yes, okay, well, what does that mean? The surprising fact isn't the similarities; it is the fact that the Epic of Gilgamesh was written hundreds of years before the supposed birth of Christ. Surprisingly, what is meant to be a non-fictional recount of history seems to have been copied from a book written many years earlier, before the Christian religion was even 'started'. Now let's look at some of the similarities between the two stories.

In both stories:

1. God decided to send a worldwide flood to drown the entire population of the Earth, including all the animals and birds;

2. God ordered a hero (Ut-Napishtim in Epic of Gilgamesh) to build a colossal ark to hold two of every species of animal;

3. a great rain covered the land in water;

4. the ark ultimately landed on a mountain in the Middle Eastern part of the world;

5. the first two birds returned, while the third didn't as it supposedly found dry land.

So, now that we can see that the story of Noah and the Ark shares some striking similarities with a book written centuries previously, let us look at the facts of the story. Let's start with the animals. In the world currently there are 8.7 million species of animals. However, since many species have, unfortunately, become extinct, it is almost impossible to calculate the exact weight of all the animals combined, but, with today's numbers, the mass of two of every animal in the world is over 2 million billion tons. That is a LOT of mass, especially if it is expected to be carried by a wooden ark. Of course, there is no real way to prove the non-existence of this event, but I do think it is highly improbably that something like this has ever happened or ever will. Don't you?

Now, moving on to my second major point of argument, can science completely rule out God?

I should probably make it clear that I have no religious agenda, but I am not a committed atheist either, so you can trust that everything you hear is not biased to either cause. For many years, scientists have fumbled with numerous questions that (currently) seem to have no answers. Is the universe infinite and eternal? Why does everything seem to follow the laws of mathematics and, most importantly, why does the universe exist? Hundreds of years ago, back in the thirteenth century, the renowned Medieval philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, wrote a book titled Summa Theologica, which presented countless, valid arguments for the existence of God. In his book, it is seen that Aquinas observed that all objects can change from potentiality to actuality - a child can grow, a flower can die - but he thought that the cause of this change must be something besides that object, for example how warm air melts ice and how food nourishes an animal. Aquinas then concluded that there must be some transcendent Being that initiated change, something that was ultimately unchanging itself, something that possessed the power to manipulate time and space. He claimed that this entity must be eternal because it is the cause of all change that nothing else could have caused, and, unlike all the worldly objects, the transcendent Being is unnecessary - therefore, God must exist.

I must say, this is a very compelling argument. In fact, it was used by many scientists as a theory to define the universe until the early eighteenth century. The theory was later renamed the Kalam Cosmological Argument. However, I feel that, in order to understand Aquinas' argument further, we first need to work on our definition of God. God, in a monotheistic sense, is thought to mean a Supreme Being, Creator and Object of Faith that supposedly created and designed everything to be just the way he wanted it to be. God is usually thought to be four words:

Omnipotent (all-powerful)

Omniscient (all-knowing)

Omnipresent (all present)

Omnibenevolent (all-good)

Added to this, it is also thought that God is an eternal and necessary existence, meaning that without him there would be no world, no universe and ultimately nothing at all.

So, now that we fully understand what a god is portrayed as being, let's see whether we can find any errors in this way of thinking. Firstly, right off the bat, it is clear that there are two types of errors in the Summa. The first are of the type caused by a medieval understanding of science and biology. The second are actual theological dead ends. The most famous of both has the first causing the second. Thomas believed that the entirety of the body was in the man's "seed". Because of this, he argued that the Virgin Mary was purified from sin in the womb. The current Catholic teaching, of course, is that the purification was at conception. After that, it really does become difficult to say that there are "points of doctrine in the Summa that don't line up with Eternal Law". There are competing perspectives which have been proposed, but that does not mean that Thomas was wrong, simply that there are other, valid views and vocabulary which have been used to express the same thought.

Now, let me tell you a story. When I was in primary school, in Year 3 to be exact, I had a friend who was a devoted Hindu. She had been brought up knowing that anyone who didn't believe in her faith was to be deemed unusual and they would supposedly live eternally in hell for the rest of their afterlife. However, one day she started to doubt her religion and to wonder whether there really were any gods, and, more than anything, she wanted to know what it felt like not to follow a religion. All her life, she had feared angering her gods, but at the same time she was curious. Was life really different when you didn't believe in a god? So, slowly, step by step, she stopped praying to her gods. She began eating some foods that she had previously thought to be forbidden. She started to live to the fullest any 8 year old could! And what did she find? She found absolutely nothing. There was no difference. There was no bad luck, no loss of friends; the only thing she did gain was freedom.

But surely this is preposterous, you may be thinking; if that were to happen, in my religion, my (G)god(s) would intervene! However, let's look at the world around us. There really is no other way to say this: the planet is going to crap. We're causing whole species of animal to go extinct, we're polluting our atmosphere, we're hoarding animals in order to slaughter and ultimately eat them. There is war, there is death and, among other things, there is hatred. Surely, if there was a God, he would have intervened by now? Surely, if he really cared about our planet, he would have saved us? Unless there were never any g(G)od(s) in the first place. It seems to me, and I am sure it has struck you, that religion may be a big gamble. Every year, billions of dollars are donated to churches because of a gamble. Every year, terrorist attacks take place because they believe in this gamble. Every year, millions of people die fighting for a gamble. Countless innocent lives lost, because of what? A big gamble? Now, I cannot be certain what you think about this, but to me it seems like religion is a gamble that is not worth taking.

We can't be certain about anything in life. Yes, we know we'll eventually pass away, but we don't know when. Yes, we know that one day we will grow old and frail but we don't know when this process will start. My point? Everyone, everything on this planet, is unique in its own way. Everyone on this planet has a right to believe in what they want to believe. Everyone on this planet is entitled to their own opinion. But, as stated before, we can't be certain about anything. So, I have no right to be telling any of you not to believe in so-and-so. But I can try to persuade you to see the facts. Millions of people are massacred fighting for their religion, innocent lives lost just because they are caught in the crossfire of terrorist attacks. This is a terrifying fact and what makes it even worse is the fact that we can't even be sure whether their G(g)od(s) for whom they are fighting actually exists. In my words, religion is a gamble that results in the death of numerous lives. And, if we truly want to eliminate war, if we truly want to eliminate poverty, the first step is to eliminate religion. It will make the future a safer, freer place for all of us.