Thursday, June 2, 2011

Agnosticism

Life is so hard. There is so much suffering and pain here on earth. Is this fact not proof enough that there is no God, or at least not a good God? What kind of God would let small children die from torturous cancer? Is this fact not proof enough that there are no angels or other spiritual beings out there with the power to help us?

Life can’t be a school. Which school would torment their students in this way? Life can’t be a prison. Life is certainly not a party. However, how could the earth’s rocky crust turn into living matter? Isn‘t this strange?

Is it correct to say that the earth is nowadays thinking, dreaming, and wondering? Is it correct to say that the earth has created consciousness, or does this just sound contrived? How do you explain this? Which explanation is the best? What do you think?

Do you believe that God created the plants on the third day and all the animals on the fifth day? Do you believe that extraterrestrial beings came here and sowed life seeds some three billion years ago? Do you believe that cosmic consciousness existed long before the earth was formed and that this cosmic consciousness has somehow created the world? Do you believe that the world is but an illusion, a mirage created in our overheated minds?

Do you believe that life began with a very improbable coincidence? Do you believe that a cell was accidentally formed in the primordial soup, that this happened once, and that this magic has never happened again? Do you believe that all life forms stems from this cell?

Which is the correct explanation? What do you think? Which proof are you able to produce to support your theories? Aren't all explanations unproven theories created in the thinking mind? Aren’t all explanations fantasies or mental speculations? What can we do but inventing explanations to help us through the day?

Isn’t it better to say to a child with terminal cancer: “See you in heaven soon. Have fun with all the angels?” What can we do but create optimistic explanations?

No one would say: “Goodbye my child. We will never meet again. Your life here on earth was nothing but suffering and pain. And soon you’ll be gone forever. Soon they’ll burn you in an incinerator. There are no angels and there is no other side. These are just fantasies. These are just explanations, things we say to make life bearable” No one would say this even if it was true.

However, things change when you are able to understand that you don’t know anything at all about life and death. The world doesn’t work the way you think it works. The truth is that you have absolutely no idea what life is all about. All your explanations are nothing but explanations, words, misunderstandings, misapprehensions or ungrounded theories.

We simply can’t stop speculating. To speculate and come up with explanations is obviously in our nature. This urge to find explanations came when the evolution gave us a language.

It is so liberating to realize that our explanations and speculations have absolutely nothing to do with the true nature of things. Those who claim to know what life is all about are either lying or seriously deceived.

You can’t prove that God exist and you can’t prove that he doesn’t. You don’t know if life is a school or if it is a prison. You don’t know how life begun here on earth and you don’t know what will happen to you when you die.