“What use is believing in God & religion in the age of modernism & science?”
Every single human being on earth, believes in a religion. You read that correctly.
What is the definition of religion? if we go by the dictionary, there are a few:
(a): the service and worship of God or the supernatural
(b): commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3archaic : scrupulous conformity : CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
(Courtesy of Merriam-Webster).
If we look at what is religion and what constitutes to religion, religion is merely a set of beliefs and values one holds. Religion doesn’t have to be a from the top 4list of most popular religions such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism or Hinduism. It doesn’t have to have a label, neither does it have to be systematic. Something as simple as “stealing is wrong” is a religious belief regardless of whether you believe in God or not, or whether you believe in a religion or not. All human beings, families, societies, cultures, nations, and finally humans, have a set of beliefs and values in which they believe in.
So why believe in “religion” in this day and age where science is at the forefront of religion? the answer is simple, we don’t have much of a choice. Having a set of beliefs and values whether it is God, spirituality, morality, values, or anything along those lines, is inevitable. If we all gave up on religion altogether, all of us would be nihilistic in our approach towards many issues. This is exactly an issue with the proponents of atheistic narratives.
Most critics of theism simply fail to understand all the above mentioned points. They fail to understand the nuance of such topics. The nuance of science, philosophy, religion and the role all three have played in being where we are today, hence why at times you get this dogmatic atheism which simply sees any set of beliefs, in other words religion, as backwards, and it’s followers as intellectually incapable. They do not realize that they are guilty of exact same finger of blame they are pointing. They forget to question their atheism and it’s consistency. What do I mean by that?
The irony is that most critics of theism and proponents of atheism tend to adopt more liberal/secular values. They forget to evaluate and question their own commitments, values, morals and beliefs because they find refuge and comfort in the fact that living in modern times, their atheistic packaged with a liberal/secular narrative is more in line with the status quo. Therefore, they feel no need to question or doubt themselves in their atheism and may even at times, feel as though it is the theism that owes the answers. However, atheistic narratives really, doesn’t change the fact that they still have a set of religious beliefs as defined above.
As far as science goes, science does not explain how things ought to be. Science is a tool we use to determine how things work, not how they originated necessarily. it also does not explain the origin of existences. The role of science is to simply explain the mechanics of how things work once we have the thing in question. We use this science to help better improve our lives and make our lives at ease. Science has been doing this ever since the existence of humans. The only difference is, it’s being done at a larger scale now. This is what the tool known as “science” is meant for. It isn’t meant for anything more than that, and it is most definitely not the ultimate and the only way to discovering the facts about the world around us.
So the question to ask is, where do we go from here? what is the purpose of these points that have been made? the purpose is to illustrate the fact that the finger of blame that theists and religious people often have to face is the same finger of blame that every human being on earth is “guilty” of. Really, the whole purpose of the above arguments is directed as a response towards those who ask the question as mentioned in the title.
Keeping in mind, there is nothing inherently wrong with “religious beliefs”. Many critics of religious beliefs tend to imply that there is some level of backwardness or negativity associated with religious belief. In fact, religious tradition can actually help us in many ways which is another topic to discuss. Much of our tradition, values in the whole world come from some religious scripture. Rather than showing disdain against religious beliefs, it could prove more fruitful to embrace them.
