One of the valuable things about teaching or writing is that it forces one to formalise concepts that were previously held in an informal or intuitive way. It's not much use talking about (or evangelising) things that you haven't got sorted in your own head. In the process of teaching, these concepts gain in solidity, become refined or even significantly modified. Every time I've given a presentation or seminar at school, university or work I've come away understanding more about the subject I've been teaching.
I've been ranting about religion and related matters for years now but since writing in this blog I've been obliged to revisit a number of concepts so I can express them more clearly. One of these is faith versus agnosticism versus atheism. There's been a lot of talk about it all recently and for my part I've been thinking about it a lot; in particular my own position.
In an earlier post I described myself as an agnostic because for years I've simply labeled myself as such. I'd not given it much thought for a long time and it could be said I'd "rusted" onto the position in rather the same fashion as many who profess a religious conviction. I've been confronted with the need to reconsider my position and obviously if I'm going to move it'll be in the direction of atheism. At first I thought I was experiencing a backlash against all the religious hoohah that's besetting the world right now and felt a little embarrassment at the thought of championing atheistic dogma at the cost of my "scientific integrity". However...
When I was a child I believed in God because I was told to. The same people told me about the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Bogeyman and others. As an adult I would be considered retarded if I claimed that I believed in any of the above except God. Why is that? What's so special about Him, other than that the writing about Him is in larger books with smaller text and no pictures? (And where does He get off with taking ownership of a personal pronoun?) I may as well believe in Ganesha ("Mr Simpson, please do not offer my god a peanut."), the Invisible Pink Unicorn or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. All are equally believable and their existence unverifiable.
Once again I find myself thanking Bertrand Russell for putting this in context by positing the celestial teapot - a suitably absurdist analogue of this conundrum.
There's lots to say about God but lately I've reached the point where if you asked me what or who God is I'd have to say "God is a spiteful, petty, hypocritical and vindictive bastard who's got serious self-worth issues." If God exists I want nothing to do with him and may he strike me down for saying so. If he doesn't and I get to finish this post, then he doesn't exist (or is a total wimp) and thus I am utterly justified in being a newly-declared atheist.
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