Fear, Spirits, Religion and Reason
Disclaimer: This post is heavily religious and philosophical. If this is not your cup of tea, don’t drink it. If this is your cup of tea, please drink till the very end. If you are out to preach or contend, don’t bother. I’m a staunch agnostic theist. These are simply my beliefs . Note that I am NOT out to preach or to brainwash. This is MY blog, so I am merely writing out my thoughts. So try not to be offended because I am not out to offend. Please remember this while reading. Thank you.
I just started watching an anime called Ghost Hunt [ゴーストハント] earlier today – and I have to admit that I’m so freaked out by it. It’s pretty interesting because the exorcists and investigators are lead overly-narcisstic scientific teen, who exorcises or cleanse spirits with the help of a Catholic exorcist, a Miko [巫女] a.k.a. a Shinto shrine maiden, a Buddhist monk and a girl who possesses the ESP (extrasensory perception) to sense spirts.
I have to admit that under all that fear is some fascination with the supernatural. As a child and a pre-teen I’ve seen some things that I cannot tell whether they belong to a figment of my imagination or are truly something else. The last ‘paranormal’ activity I sensed was four years ago – when I slept in a church which was converted into a temple and I heard some…one calling out to me. I heard it very clearly. And I was very sure that it wasn’t my imagination. It called to me six times, and got louder each time. It was the very first time I cried out of fear…
It was the result of that fear that I was dragged into that cult-like organization. But I eventually left. I don’t feel the need to belong to a religious organization. Having grown up in a family where my paternal side were staunch Theravada Buddhists and my maternal side Presbyterian Christians, religion was nothing more than family politics to me. I went to Sunday school on and off for seven years. I was never baptized. I went there to spend time with my grandmother. I went to temples on and off throughout my life. I went because I was dragged by my extended family. Though, just for a while I was very fascinated with Mahayana Buddhism because it didn’t seem to rely on faith. It was a way of life.
One of the biggest reasons why I cannot align myself to any particular religion is my dependency on logic. I am an extremely logical person who will try to reason out everything. As such, I am unable to make any leap of faith. To me if anything requires faith, there is reason to doubt. I simply cannot follow something that is unsupported. Even if I were forced to, nothing in this world can erase that doubt (except evidence). I cannot believe in something I confirm see with my eyes, hear with my own ears, smell with my own nose, touch with my own fingers.
Just as I am skeptical about the political nuances propagated by the world’s media, I am skeptical about religion. It is a scientific fact that the world was ruled by insects in the pre-cambrian era. It is a scientific fact that the world was ruled by dinosaurs. If God required our worship, why didn’t the dinosaurs worship God? Why didn’t the predecessors of today’s insects worship God? The proof lies with the fact that there were no Churches or temples enacted to worship God.
So sometimes, I think that religion is created by man and in some sense, the idea of God is also created by man. I somehow cannot shake off the possibility that man created God; not God to man.
Yet, despite all that reasoning based on scientific evidence, I still believe in the existence of God.
After watching Ghost Hunt, I have come to the revelation that humans feel the need to align themselves with the idea of a greater force because of fear. There are many things we still don’t understand about our world and our after-life. Out of fear of the unknown we will seek something to cling on to so we feel in peace. Out of fear of retribution, we will seek something to forgive us so we can rest our conscience in peace. Out of fear of being alone, we will seek something to watch over us so we can sleep in peace.
Having nearly died at the of 13, I felt peace with myself the moment I realized that my life may end. But, at that moment, it felt as if my soul, my heart and my body were merged into one being and acted on its own accord to survive. (Some of you may wonder what I meant by merging into one being. For me, at least, I feel that my my mind, my heart and my soul don’t always agree. At that moment, however, all three worked together instead of competed with each other.)
Personally, I have less to fear because death no longer scares me. I have less to fear because I have not done anything that will result in retribution. I have less to fear because I have absolute confidence in myself, my mind and my soul. My only fear is the fear of the world of the paranormal. Science could not explain it. Religion could barely explain it. And I can’t deny I have not sensed it. Perhaps this is why I believe in God despite choosing not to align with any religion. I’d rather believe something that has not been proven so that I don’t have to confront my fear – a fear where I have no power to overcome alone.
It’s an extremely humanist and egocentric perspective. But look into your souls before you chastise me. Not the mind because the brain can reason excuses. Not the heart because your emotions will cloud the truth. Your soul; the very essence of your being. I’m sure you too (at least some of you) will find fear buried somewhere in there.
So what are your thoughts on religion? On the paranormal? On Ghost Hunt? Oh and please refrain from bashing other religions – especially if you don’t want your religion to be bashed by others.
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just my thoughts here…
while i do believe that a god exists, i also believe that religion is created by man.
the god that i believe in doesnt require anyone’s worship, loves us unconditionally whether or not we believe in him, because he doesn’t NEED our love (he is god, remember? heh heh)
i can’t believe in the “type” of god that some religions preach, because he seems more petty than human beings sometimes. and if there are mothers who can forgive murderers for killing their child(ren), how can there be a god who cannot forgive us for (insert sin here)?
basically i dont believe in an angry, spiteful, jealous god.
i believe in a loving god, because that’s all i feel. love.
and i don’t need a religion to feel that love. ^^
I’m an agnostic theist as well. I believe that the existence of God (or any other divine being in various religions) cannot be proven by science or any physical means, but somehow I believe on His existence. I grow up in a Buddhist family, with both parents being devout prayers (we even have a GuanYin altar at home). I’m more or less a free-thinker, I celebrate festivals of other religions when I feel like it
I’m just puzzled by why many people think that the religion they choose to believe in is a burden to them. For example, why couldn’t devout Buddhist celebrate Thaiphusm with their Indian friends (I have some friends who said it’s forbidden or something, and I label them as religious extremists). And like many people, I turn a little more towards the help of a divine being at difficult times – I see religion or the belief in one as a safe heaven to seek solace from when we’re in trouble or in dire need of emotional help and spiritual enlightenment.
Hmmm, divine being. Speaking of which, I remebered an awkward scenario back in college. Over a few weeks, we were being taught evolution (a very tricky topic, in terms of religious aspects) for biology and existentialism plus intelligent design for general paper. My biology teacher, who owns a blog, got flamed by students who stronly believe that being a Christian, she should not be preaching about a scientific theory (evolution is not a fact yet, but a highly credible theory as it has not yet been disproven) that they think Christianity disagrees wtih. I revolted at their flaming because I don’t see the need to make one’s life miserable just because the flamers believe that evolution is utter crap.
I choose to believe in the existence of God (although I also believe that His existence could not be proven through physical and scientific means) because of a life-changing event – just like you, I diced with our dear Mr Grim Reaper when I childishly jumped into a 2m deep pool (and it’s deserted, my parents are still in the changing room and there’s no lifeguard on duty). I remembered choking on water and then slowly losing consciousness. Suddenly I saw a bright light (as if someone is floating above the pool with a xenon bulb), and an unknown and strong force started to push me up and towards the surface and the side of the pool. A close brush with death indeed, and it doesn’t only make me more appreciative of life, but also to make me believe that there’s really some extent of divine intervention at certain times. Maybe it’s not quite the time for me to leave, I guess.
Same here, I would believe in something that is unproven. Knowing the cold hard truth behind it might just be too much for me to handle.
Whoa that’s a very good post. I’ve been hoping to voice out some of my opinions about religions and the paranormal in my blog, but still didn’t because I am not very confident in my writing skills yet. I might get a little sarcastic and offend some people too.
Therefore, that post is still my ‘draft’. Haha.
I am an atheist, and I do agree with many points that you have mentioned.
I almost became a Christian years ago when I attended services in some churches, and believed that I was a Taoist or Buddhist when I was young. But somehow along the way, as the years go by, I just didn’t believe in the existence of god anymore. Heh.
I don’t believe in praying. I don’t really believe in supernatural stuff yet, despite hearing many encounters and stories from people around me. Like you, I am an extremely logical person who will try to reason out everything.
Sometimes I even try to challenge the presence of ’spirits’ by opening my eyes wider to look around (in the dark), in case they might be lurking around the corner.
Anyway I’m happy without believing in the existence of god, nor belonging to a religious organisation. And how do I explain shocking coincidences or miracles I encountered in my life? Well, I guess they happen all the time everywhere, and I’m just one of the few to experience them.
The term “God” has been subjective throughout the human history; i.e., cavemen must have had some type of gods they worshipped in. Like in Buddhism, Native Indians and many other races believed in elemental gods. So did men create gods? No one will ever know. How about religions? Probably. They’re all similar in teachings anyway.
People need to believe in something to have peace and stabilities in their lives, so belonging to one of them is actually good for some.
I’m Catholic, but my way of thinking is more of Buddhism I believe in karma and reincarnation rather than Heaven and Hell. Besides, if “my” God is indeed all-forgiving and merciful, Hell would not be needed.
Wow, that was actually one of the few posts I found interesting from the start to the end.
Well, everything is subjective in this world. And like you, I can’t connect to one particular faith and yet I don’t call myself an athiest either, because I can’t say there is no god nor can I be sure there is a god. Science seems to be the opposite of faith. It reasons out every possibility, whereas faith is based on… well, faith! Not knowing.
But like you said, there’s something inside of us, our deepest core, which innately knows there’s somethign greater out there. I think some people call this innate feeling god. whereas some people think god is a human-like figure which created man in an instant. I also think words confuse things and misinterpretation of religious text over thousands of years have produced even more confusion.
But yeah, god is too subjective. I can’t say I follow a man-made faith, but I know in myself that there’s a purpose to our days.
Definitely a very strong post, strong objectives and different views. I am a Christian, and though there’s tons of good points on the comments, I’m just not one for debating. Not that I fear that it breaks me down or breaks down my beliefs, but I am more passive in that, and therefore is not good sometimes.
I believe in Ghosts and Demons, and for all of that, I do think that most of the religion is man made, but a lot of things if you look at it “logically” it does work and make sense. I’m not going to sit here and defend why there is sin in this world. A testimony to that is the flaws of humanity, and though some argue that God is created by humans to be something perfect, why is it so hard to believe that maybe there was someone perfect that created humans?
Compassion is the hardest thing to understand and grasp and people fail to realize that though there’s suffering, there’s still hope and life. We look at the other side of the world and see that there’s hardships, deaths, and pain everywhere. But we cannot see that these people who endured this also found God, hope, and a savior.
This is a definite hard platform to stand on, but I respect your views.
Even though I don’t align myself with a religion, I don’t doubt that there is good and evil in this world. For an overly logical person like me, sin, compassion and suffering are all faculties that belong to human nature – not to religion. Religion just establishes an external measure and control of re-assuring our conscience because some people lack the discipline to give up their desires for the sake of others.
And for someone like me, suffering can only be alleviated by the actions of man. Someone with a heart big enough, a wallet big enough and a lifespan long enough to make changes.
Even for Christians, there is a saying “God helps those who help themselves”. God can’t personally hand out food to starving children. It’s the people, like you and me, who will. God or the Idea of God plays the role of educating people to become more compassionate like us so that we will carry out the duties necessary to alleviate pain and suffering – be it our own or our neighbors’.
Believing is one thing. Materializing a belief is another. And for some people like me, we skip that step of believing and materialize compassion because it is in our conscience, embedded in our souls, that being kind is good for everyone. I have no need for affirmation that my conscience is correct. And I have the utmost self-discipline to carry out my beliefs.
So I hope you don’t confuse agnostic theists with mean jerks who have no care for others. To us, compassion and has nothing to do with God, it has something to do with being able to smile and pat ourselves in the back at the end of the day. Long story short: we do good because it makes us happy.
I agree with you and I can’t shake off the thought that God is created by man. Religion is like pre-mature form of law to stop people committing crimes by working with their conscience and then used to manipulate people, gain power, authority and political purposes. I guess it is so believable because it sort of takes away people’s fear of the unknown.
i don’t believe in any religion that sends unbelievers to hell. i don’t believe in any religion that says one can only communicate through … i.e. a priest … etc etc. but I do believe that there’s a divine power … rather than being.
well you already know what I think
Logically I don’t believe in a lot of stuff, but then there’s the part of me that goes, what if? I hate being alone in my apartment or house/basement, I always convince myself there’s ghosts even though I don’t believe in them, lol. fear’s weird. humans are interesting creatures
Just wanted to point out some items of interest:
1) Logic is not the same as sense nor reason. It is simply a tool to see whether different parts and levels of argumentation stick together and is/not valid according to certain axiomatic principles. Even though it is very useful, it is very handy to point out inconsistency for example, it is not better than the facts you put in it. Think of it as an algorithm for checking your Expression Of Facts/Statements/Etc. Which leads us to my second point:
2) Science is not static. Paranormal simply means inexplainable with the current base of knowledge (or ‘outside the norm’ which suits Einstein very well). So I beg to differ; ONLY science can explain the paranormal.
I’m not thinking about big, dusty books here either (and you’re intelligent enough to already know this). I’m talking about you and me: creators, critics and inventors of science.
I’m not trying to step down your experience. Heck, I had a near-death experience last year when I was almost beaten to death (it all went very well but it might just as well have gone the other way). But it still doesn’t principally exist in a realm outside science. If it does practically, science today is not wide or specific enough and will be mended so science tomorrow can.
Sorry to disappoint, Sigg3. Logic in this sense is the same as reason. As a political theory specialist, I obviously understand that logic is not the same as reason. But in my blog, I’m not using it in a philosophical way, I’m using it in a layman way, where logic = reason. The problem of my target audience is involved here. There’s no point using philosophical jargon in a blog where 95% of my blog readers haven’t even read Aristotle. While it may be familiar to you and me, using philosophical jargon will be as strange as an engineer using engineering words to explain physics to a normal person. What’s worse for philosophical jargon is that they seemingly sound like normal words but the denotation is very different. To avoid misunderstanding, I ALWAYS blog in layman’s terms. This tactic of writing to a specific audience is under the umbrella of rhetoric.
I know that paranormal can be explained by science…someday. Everybody knows that what cannot be explained now will be explained later. But that’s not the point I’m making. In my lifetime, if no progress in parapsychology is made, people and I will continue to hold the primal human fear of the unknown towards all things unexplained. Fear and its effects are very well documented for thousands of years. Fear of the unknown leads people is terrifying for human beings because we rely on information to act. And as John Locke says, humans live for happiness, and one of the foundations of happiness is security. Fear of the unknown is a type of insecurity. Since religion has been claiming that they understand the paranormal and they have had the solutions for thousands of years, a lot of people flock to religion.
This entry isn’t about being philosophically correct. This entry documents what I FEEL towards the paranormal because there is no other explanation available IN THE PRESENT. I couldn’t care less if the mystery is solved 80 years from now. I would be dead by then, and it would hold no meaning to me because I lived my entire life with fear of the paranormal. It doesn’t solve my problem, so there’s no point assuming it.
Besides, dogmatically believing that parapsychology can explain the entire branch of the paranormal isn’t wise. There must be a reason why it cannot be proven for hundreds of years. I cannot shake off the possibility that there may never be answer. Looking at the latest trends in research, it seems that more and more universities are closing down their departments of the occult and parapsychology. With so much less resources dedicated to parapsychology, our chance at understanding the unknown has dropped even more. There needs to be a source for our confidence in science. Where there is none, confidence is replaced with denial.
I guess I’ll be one of the few that will talk about Ghost Hunt! I watched that at night… the doll house one was scary! I could never stand psychological thrillers as a child. With a wild imagination, the “what ifs” haunted me.
Anyway, I don’t believe in organized religion either, although I’m not too sure whether or not I believe in god(s). But lately, it’s not a big deal for me. A more pressing question to me would probably be “do I exist” or “what do I mean by existing/being“? A very egoistical concern, to be certain.
With regard to good and evil, though, as Nietzsche writes in Beyond Good and Evil, “one may doubt, first, whether there are any opposites at all, and secondly whether these popular valuations and opposite values on which the metaphysicians put their seal are not perhaps merely foreground estimates.” Basically, that the ideas of good and evil and the values that surround them are also (possibly) human definitions. He goes on to say perhaps it is “evil” that actually has the higher value, or maybe even that good and evil are one and the same.
Of course, there are “good” and “bad” things in the world. But I don’t think they’re “good” intrinsically. They’re “good” because we categorize them as “good”.
I’m not trying to be nitpicky or philosophically correct either. I was just trying to point out that logics couldn’t help you in this instance for above reason(s), which you apparently were aware of already. What policies you run on this blog isn’t immediately apparent to your readership.
But I’m not one to go to war over a baseball cap:)
I don’t think fear is the main aggregate or primus motor of religion, but it surely can be. I think modern individualism has distorted or hidden away the (to my mind true) perspective of human nature qua group creatures.
On the other hand I do support you regarding some of fear’s more devastating sides… Like Frank Herbert said in Dune: Fear is the mind killer.
I’ve had experiences solely created on fear (sleeplessness and alcohol just don’t mix:). I think being hungry and tired after midnight can create all sorts of illusions of sound and perception.
This doesn’t make them less real. It’s their domain of reality that differs.
There is done serious science on UFO abductions as well as succubus demons within psychology and sleep study today. Seriously. Just have a look around.
He goes beyond saying that they are possible human definitions. By way of Also sprach Zarathustra he shows us the historical figure who conventionally invented the opposites of good and evil (way back in Babylon if I recall). Zoroaster/Zarathustra.. anyway. This is backed by pre-modern historians (such as Grimberg in the 60s).
/ducks away from Ivy’s layman broom!
Ivy, you mention above that there is a saying among Christians that “God helps those who help themselves.” This is not a Christian saying. That phrase was actually coined by Benjamin Franklin. Also, that saying has no basis in primary sources such as the Bible. In fact, many Christians will say that people can’t help themselves at all because they are so flawed and sinful.