Contemplations of a Theist Exploring Irreligion

From Wikipedia:

“Irreligion (adjective form: nonreligious or irreligious) is the absence of religion, an indifference towards religion, a rejection of religion, or hostility towards religion.^[1] When characterized as the rejection of religious belief, it includes atheism, religious dissidence and secular humanism. When characterized as hostility towards religion, it includes antitheism, anticlericalism and antireligion. When characterized as indifference to religion, it includes apatheism. When characterized as the absence of religious belief, it may also include agnosticism, ignosticism, nontheism, religious skepticism and freethought. Irreligion may even include forms of theism depending on the religious context it is defined against, as in 18th-century Europe where the epitome of irreligion was deism.^[2]

“A 2012 survey found that 36% of the world population is not religious and that between 2005 and 2012 world religiosity decreased by 9 percentage points.^[3] The Pew global report in 2010 noted that many that are not religious have some religious beliefs and the majority of nonreligious come from Asia and the Pacific.^[4] According to one source, it has been estimated that 40–50% of non-religious people hold belief in at least one deity, or in some higher power.^[5]”

As compared to:

“Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.^[1] In a more specific sense, theism is commonly a monotheistic doctrine concerning the nature of a deity, and that deity's relationship to the universe.^[2][3][4][5] Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of God as personal, present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe. As such theism describes the classical conception of God that is found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism. The use of the word theism to indicate this classical form of monotheism began during the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century in order to distinguish it from the then-emerging deism which contended that God, though transcendent and supreme, did not intervene in the natural world and could be known rationally but not via revelation.^[6]”

As a member of the Honors Society with Utah Valley University while I was working on my Associates of Science degree a few years back, I was exposed to a new way of thinking thanks to the philosophy-based program, small honors classes, and wonderful (non-LDS) honors professors. I began to discover a new, non-theistic way of thinking that I had not been exposed to as a lifelong Latter-day Saint that grew up in Utah County. With the current trend in today’s religious world presenting a decline in theism, I have been interested in the practice of irreligion. I wanted to know why theists believe in God, and why the irreligious do not. I wanted to understand the logic and thought processes of both sides in order to more entirely understand the world (and the people) around me, and also to help me determine and define what I believe for myself. Here is what I have discovered.

You Can Find Evidence To Support Any Idea. The Idea That You Have Chosen To Support Defines Your Personal Relative Truth.

Throughout the course of my exploration, and over the last several years, I have had the opportunity to converse with many different people with many different beliefs. I have come to realize that, especially during theist/irreligious confrontations, conversation tends become personal and no longer about logic and thought process. Generally, these arguments arise because both sides have defined truth differently; therefore, they have found evidence to support their belief but the evidences do not necessarily correlate because they are in different realms of thinking. The disconnect in these conversations stems from where the evidence is being pulled from to support one side of the argument or the other. Apples are being compared to oranges. The irreligious believe that science provides evidence to support the idea that God does not exist. And theists believe that their understanding of religion provides evidence that God does exist.  When in reality, both ways to provide evidence are valid; because evidence can be found to support any truth if it is being researched in the corresponding places. Evidence for history is found in fossils. Evidence for chemistry is found in a lab. Evidence for astronomy is found in the universe. Evidence for religion is found in God’s resources (because if God existed, He would have provided religious resources including scriptures, prophets, etc. for the benefit of His followers). So the religious use said resources to provide evidence of God just the same as the irreligious use the ideas of a renowned philosopher to provide evidence for the idea that He does not.

Science Cannot Define Absolute Truth Because Science Is Subject To Change And Absolute Truth Is Unchanging.

Now, I realize that the irreligious also use science as evidence in addition to philosophy. While they do indeed utilize science as a resource, it is irrelevant to this argument because we only understand science to the degree that we understand the evidence. So science cannot possibly be synonymous with truth. Science is generally accepted to be truth because of the evidence ("proof") that it provides for a specific idea. But science changes. Ideas change. What people once thought to be true we have come to find out are not. Things are assumed to be true because there is more evidence for the one solution that there is for the other. But no revolutions in science ("fact" or "truth") would have come to pass had no one ever questioned the idea with less evidence to support it. That is to say, evidence is perceived to prove truth because we understand it - to the degree that we can understand science. But as we come to understand more about science, "truths" change because we find more evidence. If we all just kept pursuing truth the same way, if no one was ever willing to take an idea that had significantly less evidence on its side and pursue the idea that it could be true instead, there would never be advancements in science. The Nash equilibrium. Gravity. Energy equals mass times the speed of light constant. Heliocentrism.  These were revolutionary ideas in science that were rejected at first because there was not nearly as much evidence for them as there was for the ideas that had been studied and peer reviewed for hundreds of years. People only understand science to the degree that they understand the evidence. But we know from the history of scientific development that if evidence proved truth, we would still believe that the world was flat. If God did exist, it would make sense that we, as humans, would not be able to comprehend the evidence for his existence (e.g. our ability to understand that divine truth could easily and potentially be far beyond the realms of our current scientific understanding and ability to comprehend).

Now, generally speaking, the irreligious believe that theists are closed-minded, one-dimensional thinkers since they have yet to reason and logic their way out of their belief in God (and, therefore, religion). But would it not be less open-minded for someone to decide that one side of this argument was more true than the other? Because that would mean that they are just assuming that something is true (in this case, irreligion) simply because there is more evidence for it (science behind it, "fact" or "truth" to back it up). But we just established that we only understand truth to the degree that we understand the evidence. So taking this position would therefore inhibit one from coming to a better understanding of truth if it is available, yet still undiscovered. And it is a very audacious belief to think that any person has reached a state of complete and perfect understanding based on any scientific, technological, or medical standing. Or any understanding, for that matter.

Lack Of Evidence Cannot Be A Supporting Argument If The Argument Is Based On Obtaining Supporting Evidence To Define Truth.

This is an interesting logic that took me a long time to understand: while the irreligious’ beliefs are based on fact and evidence, the foundation of their argument is lack of evidence to support the existence of God. When at the same time, no supporting evidence can be made to prove the belief that God does not exist, either.  This organization of logic conveniently sets irreligion up to never fail, because it says that truth is only valid if it is defined one specific way: by a lack of evidence on the opposing theistic belief, while their truth is simultaneously lacking proof as supporting evidence for the non-existence of deity. There will always be a lack of evidence. On both sides. What it comes down to is that the irreligious can provide evidence for their belief just the same as theists can provide proof for theirs; the difference, and the most significant part of this exploration, is where the evidence is coming from. Because both sides are flawed, and both sides are sound.

Theism Is A Philosophy. Not A Science.

Different thought processes are used to define religion or irreligion; and while the logical processes are sound each on their own, they cannot be crossed because they don’t make enough sense that way. That is, a historian might approach an astronomer and ask him to prove that the earth revolves around the sun. Because the historian believes that the sun revolves around the earth, like the ancient civilizations did. The astronomer would begin to give supporting evidence for how he knows that the earth revolves around the sun, but the historian would stop him and request that he provides evidence in fossils. Because fossils are what the historian knows. The astronomer would of course respond that he could not provide evidence for the earth’s rotation in the fossils. Maybe after a lot of searching and digging he could come up with some, but none nearly substantial enough to curb the historian’s belief that the earth is the center of the universe. 

Such is the disconnect between theist cognition and irreligious cognition. Now, this example remains true whether I chose to compare astronomy to history, math to literature, or philosophy to chemistry. I chose to compare two of the sciences in this example because this idea is supported further by the fact that scientific evidence is even specific within its own practice. The fact that I can make this point by comparing apples to apples validates the idea that evidence is specific to its own relative practice. Sure, I could have compared apples to oranges in this example since that is the overall suggestion that I’m proposing, but I would receive the same result had I asked a chemist to provide evidence for history. Sure, he may be able to provide a little evidence with carbon dating or similar practices, but in no way could a chemist use chemistry to prove that the abolition of slavery was the catalyst for the civil war in American history.  

The point is: God is not a science. He’s a person. Religion is not a science. It’s a philosophy. And philosophy cannot be proven by science (that’s why it is philosophy). So the argument that God and cannot possibly be real because there is no evidence to support it is a logical fallacy. Because in no instance in today’s world do we try to use scientific evidence to prove the truthfulness of philosophy. Evidences do not cross the bounds of their personal realms because if they did, even if they could provide some evidence to support one thing or another, the evidence is not sound enough to prove ideas outside of their realm. The world does not look to a mathematician’s evidence to prove that a country’s history was accurately recorded. So why are we looking for scientific (or mathematical, or historical) evidence to prove the truthfulness of religion? Religion did not put itself in a science box (that is to say, religion did not claim to have the answers to physical science), the irreligious put religion in a science box in an attempt to make an argument against it. These evidences support their own understanding; not each other’s, and not religion’s. Religion supports religion, just the same as scientific evidence might support physical truths. Because religion isn't about science, or math, or history; it’s about individuals. So why are we trying to use scientific evidence to prove something that’s not a science? Of course that’s illogical. Evidence for religion is found in religion.

If Absolute Truth Does Exist, We Will Never Know. Rather, We Have All Personally Defined Our Own Relative Truths.

A wise BYU professor who had been greatly involved in research once told me that “every study fails at some point” (Dr. Anthony Sweat). He was making the point that every study is flawed, and researchers are not allowed to use the word “prove” in their findings because the evidence is just never sound enough to say one thing really does prove another. And every study can be torn down by a researcher studying the opposite theory. There are flaws in every study, and therefore in science (science is based on studies). So maybe there is absolute truth in science. We just wouldn’t ever be able to prove it due to the flaws in science. Just the same as there may be absolute truth in religion, but we may never be able to prove it due to the flaws in people.

This evidence brings me to the conclusion that if there is really, capital T absolute Truth, we will never know it. We can never know it. Research, facts, and statistics can be arranged in any way that is suitable for the argument being made. If a person’s definition of truth is based off of the current understanding of organized research, then their truth lies in relative physical evidences. But I’m coming to understand that we all do this. We all organize logic in a way that suits our argument. That provides evidence for the relative truths that we’ve decided to live by. Whether or not absolute truths exists, no one will ever know for sure; so it is left to each of us to define what truth means to us at an individual and personal level. For the irreligious, truth is defined by science and research (which is based on imperfect data). For the religious, truth is defined by testimony and confirmation of the spirit (which is experienced by imperfect people). But neither of them can be proved or disproved, which makes them both equally true in different dimensions and through different thought patterns. But different is okay.

Ironically, This Search For Absolute Truth Is What Divides People And Is The Reason That We Will Never See World Peace.

But the world doesn't seem to think that different is okay. The world tends to believe that there can be only one truth. And if we do not all participate in the same truth, then someone is wrong and someone is right. Especially in the argument of theism versus irreligion; which logic is consistent with the argument because either God exists or He does not. The conclusion that I’ve come to throughout my research and study on the subject is that it really doesn't matter. It makes no difference whether or not God actually exists. Because people are going to behave the way they want to behave. The search for God or Truth, this argument that the world is not willing to put aside, is simply an abstract idea that we as people feel the need to incessantly chase. But to what end? I am convinced that if we ever did come to a point where we could observe absolute Truth, it would make little difference in the lives of the majority of individuals in the world. Because just because something is true does not mean that it is the most important to every person.

At the same time, however, there is one truth that we all have in common; one truth that we all agree upon. And that is humanity. The only universal relative truth that I have been able to observe is the fact that we are all individuals. Every human life is as significant as the next. We are to look out for each other. Help strengthen and support each other. Try to be the best person that we can be, on an individual level, to help support and sustain our real, tangible, true, proven, existing humanity. If religion helps an individual be the best person they can be, which is the situation that I find myself in, I don’t see any reason for someone to pursue that relative truth as their foundational belief. Regardless of what religion it is. If someone feels that religion holds them back, and they would prefer to pursue science with the intent to improve humanity and the world that we live in, I see no problem with pursuing that relative truth. As long as we pursue the relative truth that betters us as a person, and make less of an effort to change the way someone else believes, I am convinced that it makes no difference whether or not absolute Truth exists. Because if the search for truth is diving people and distracting them from helping and serving each other, it is not worth finding anyway.