Personal Perspective
As
implied by the title, this discussion is a personal perspective and,
as such, it reflects my own agnostic views about religion. Although,
this entire website might be described as a personal perspective, it
has endeavoured to undertake an honest duty of inquiry on all subjects
discussed. So while my own perspective is not intended as some thinly
veiled attempt to convert anybody to some agnostic or atheist calling;
it cannot help but reflect my own personal interpretation of the facts.
Therefore, the first of the three discussions below considers why some
people need to believe in some sort of God, while other people believe
that they have little choice but to face up to the reality of the universe,
for what it is, and not what they would like it to be:
Within the scope of this overall section, we have tried to reflect on how people come to any particular worldview of life. Along the way, it has been suggested that we form our worldview based on the axioms of philosophy, theology and science, albeit to varying degrees. On this premise, we have generalised that theology is representative of our beliefs; while philosophy reflects our logic and science the verification of facts. While it has been accepted that this is possibly an over simplistic summary, it still appears to provide an adequate framework to start the discussion. Although it might be worth pointing out that once we establish our worldview, we often appear capable of using the logic, as associated with philosophy, to either justify our beliefs in any given religion or our acceptance of almost any scientific assumption. As such, it might be argued that many people are polarised towards either their theological beliefs or their scientific beliefs and subsequently used philosophical arguments to address the uncertainty in either position. In this respect, the core of many worldviews is often centred on the attempt to resolve issues that we really know cannot be resolved, at least at this time, although it has also to be recognised that the collective worldview of any given society can be just as much a product of indoctrination as education. However, in the context of this personal perspective, it seems sensible to narrow the scope of all possible differences in our worldviews to just one central issue:
Does God exist?
However, if we could just put all relative positions on this issue to one side for just a few seconds, might we accept that most religious belief, as defined by ancient scriptures, have their origins at a point in time when there was little real understanding of the wider universe or the mechanisms that are now known to support life. Equally, while accepting that science has taken huge steps in its understanding of the mechanisms at work in the universe and those that help to sustain life, it still cannot really explain the existence of life or the universe. As such, it would seem that certainty cannot be claimed by either perspective, at least, not on the issue of God. If so, there appears to be some room for further logical conjecture, which within this personal perspective has been divided into the following two discussions:
Of course, it is recognised that my perspective has no more claim
on righteous certainty than any other, possibly less, given an acceptance
of a limited knowledge of all the related arguments that surround such
topics. However, this is true of most people and ultimately even the
collective wisdom of an entire society does not guarantee certainty
on any given topic. Therefore, ultimately, we have to choose either
to accept the worldview of the majority, which may be culturally biased
and little more than a system beneficial to the powerful, or endeavour
to follow our own personal duty of inquiry.