Monday, April 21, 2008
Built into our genes?
It has always seemed to me that a significant morality was instilled into human beings from the start. A morality, and an awareness of the idea of God was there. It can be rejected and covered over, but it is still a potent, transcendental force for most of us. This morality burgeons forth when needed to solve the problems of life, even when unbidden, and even when unwanted and ridiculed.
Similarly, a good education from the early years on most often predisposes one to seek one’s own way, and to live by a code that is agreeable to the self. If that education is slanted by religion, informed by religion, and instilled by religion, it too will burgeon forth with or without conscious assent in future years.
Thus there are these two factors—inherent morality and education—that are not really capable of being totally suppressed by the minds of most people. They can be an embarrassment to conscious thought as well, particularly if one has decided to run counter to their moral instincts and teachings. It is a massive internal struggle, I believe, that each of us has to go through (or to avoid, by accepting the morality, accepting the religion, and accepting the teachings without challenge.).
Rejecting God, Jesus and The Holy Ghost, and all of the rituals, ceremonies, dogmas, miracles and trappings of formal religion is indeed a massive mental and psychological undertaking. I suspect, however, that the truth is as I have said—it is all still there, that religion, just lightly covered over with evasions, counter arguments, misbelieving, and misunderstandings.
One question I posed to myself is: why does the universe, life and man exist at all? Is there a purpose, or not? I find it exceedingly difficult to ascribe it all to pure mechanism.
Labels: Atheism. Christianity, Worldview
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