Karen (not a Muslim) 

Just one thought I would like to mention to you. 

    How long has religion been around in one form or another?  Have the overwhelming majority of human beings believed in some kind of God throughout history?  How does your intellect explain this? 

     Which is more logical to believe..... 

1)  That all these people were and are intellectually inferior to you (sorry to sound sarcastic) and a few enlightened others?  or.... 

2)  That human beings need to believe in a deity, the spiritual. 

      If you agree that the second statement is the more logical, how do you explain this?  Has evolution fail us so miserably that it has left us with an incredibly strong need for something that does not exist?  Is this the logical thought?  Is there any other human drive of this strength that is so purposeless?  I propose that it is not illogical to assume that this need exists because the spiritual exists.  

      Manmade religions are one issue.  It is very easy to expose the many flaws in their attempts to define this deity.  The existence of some kind of spiritual plane is another issue. 

                                          Karen 

BTW...I am not a Muslim 

Dear Karen, 

The fact that the majority of people believe in something is no proof of the truth of that thing. As Bertrand Russell said, considering the silliness of people, a crazy thought would have a better acceptance than a sound one. As a matter of fact many cultures do not believe in any God, e.g. the Chinese and the Buddhists are agnostics or atheists. 

Until a few centuries ago all humanity thought that the Earth is flat and they had this belief for thousands of years. This universal consensus did not make their belief right. Of course this is no proof that my views are right either. But not because I am in minority I am necessarily wrong. We have to discuss the validity of the belief in God and religions by their own merits and logics not by the number of people believing in them. 

It is however true that many humans need to believe in a deity. But this does not mean that the evolution has failed us just because this deity is imaginary and not real. This very belief is a defense mechanism. The belief may not be true but the effect of that is very real.  

Children who are bullied often imagine a powerful friend who would come to their rescue and take vengeance on their behalf. In fact this is not reserved to children. Even adults who are oppressed have reveries of becoming superman and punish those who have oppressed them. These thought are not real yet they help the victims to cope and receive justice, even if that justice is imaginary. 

In the past the world was a very unsafe place to live (even without the Islamic terrorists). There were wars, neighboring countries often attacked and killed everyone. There were diseases that no one could cure. There were natural disasters (acts of God) that wreaked havoc. Vis-à-vis these disasters man had to invent a god and take refuge in that deity. Today we can prove that such god is an absurdity. It is a logical impossibility. Yet the belief in such manmade god helped humanity to get through its stage of childhood.  

This god was never real. He never came to the rescue of any one. He never answered any prayer. Innocent people suffered and injustice ruled. Yet the belief is a deity that would not abandon us was soothing and helped us to get through our dark moments of despair.  

So my answer is no, the evolution did not fail us. It helped us to get through our moments of need.  

Then why not keep this false belief if it helped us so far? Because now we are approaching the age of maturity! Today we no more need to believe in a deity that would come to our succor in our moments of despair.  

You also said, “Manmade religions are one issue.  It is very easy to expose the many flaws in their attempts to define this deity.  The existence of some kind of spiritual plane is another issue.”

 In this I agree with you. I do not believe in a god but I do believe that this universe has a spiritual dimension that is within us yet eludes our senses. I believe in the Single Principle underlying the creation. I have written few articles on the subject of God, if you read them you’ll see that I do not advocate atheism in the traditional sense of the word.  

Regards,

Ali Sina