The Risk of Non Belief - By Lloyd Duddridge

            It was Blaise Pascal who gave the world a famous wager. Pascal said that one must believe in God. The reason for this was that if you die and God doesn’t exist then nothing would happen to you. Yet if God does exist and you don’t believe in him, you will suffer an eternity of torment. The non-believer lives in light of Pascal’s wager. He is warned of ‘judgement’ and hell. He is often told he is a bad person, or that he is living his life the wrong way.

            It is often said that having faith in God is the hardest thing that a human being can do. Yet I am going to argue that non-belief is at times a far more challenging and scary position to take. The fear of death governs us all, but death like almost all fears is disguised. For fear of death is really fear of the unknown. This is the starting point of the difference between the believer and the non-believer. For they both have different ways of responding to the unknown. The religious person has an answer to the unknown. He switches the unknown to God. This position has it advantages for sure; the main one being that it offers comfort. It offers comfort both in life on earth and on the one that is promised to come after. On earth it leads to the idea that God has a plan, so even in this dark and murky world, this is part of the eternal goodness of God’s ultimate plan. They also do not fear death, as they have an eternal paradise to come. The believer gets to bask in the glory during his lifetime, knowing that he will end up alongside God.

            The non-believer does not have this comfort, for the non-believer the suffering that people experience in the world is puzzling. This sensation of confusion is deep, it hurts the non-believer, and he has no plan to fall back on. When the non-believers child dies, he cannot say that he is ‘now with god.’ The non-believer also has no sense of the life to come after, for him death is the end of any kind of conscious existence. For many this position seems dark, and the non believer is often asked, ‘ Do you really believe this is all we get?’ The non-believer has no easy comfort. The non-believer has no get out clause. This is without a doubt a scary position, and the punches keep landing from the believers.

            For without a doubt the believers have numbers in their favour, non-belief is a minority position. Humanity longs for comforting answers, and religious belief delivers them.

            So why is it that in face of most of the world thinking I am wrong, and the fact that my position being difficult, that I am happy to say I am a non-believer? I would be lying if I didn’t say that sometimes the religious argument does scare me. I do ask myself like Pascal did all those years ago, what if I am wrong? I have attempted to educate myself in as many world religions as possible. For I have always thought it was madness to not agree with a position without attempting to understand it first. Yet even in the face of these fears I do not believe.

            The first comfort for the non-believer is our greatest friend reason. Now many people have different definitions, for just what reason is. For myself reason, is the use of the evidence in respect to an argument. Reason is the act of looking for the evidence. For me there is no strong evidence for a deity in the universe. Many will disagree with this statement, yet I stand firmly alongside it. There is no argument I have found for Gods existence that has not relied on faith. Aquinas attempted five and Anselm attempted one also. Yet the combination of time and reason has shown both of these arguments to be fallacious. So the religious argument moves onto faith, which is a fair position. Many a believer will say I have faith also, a faith in reason. Yet a faith in reason alone is not the answer. Reason is a method, without external evidence it is nothing more than mathematics. For me Reason is the starting point, yet for the religious person, God is both the start and the end. The non-believer only asks that life be looked at like a court case, where argumentation is based on reason. Nobody would like to be convicted of murder on the basis that somebody else had faith that they had committed the act. Now the person accused of murder would ask for a position that relied on more than faith, they would ask their case be judged on the evidence available. That is all I ask people do in the question of God existence. As the great Bertrand Russell once said when he was asked what he would say if he had to face God after death. He would simply say “ not enough evidence God, not enough evidence.” If I had to meet a vengeful God I think I also would have to echo Bertrand’s remark.

            The second argument I have as a non-believer is this. Christianity is the major world religion; by this I mean it has the greatest number of followers. If what is right is simply a question of numbers, then this is the religion that the non believer must be most fearful of. On the afterlife, Jesus said that the only way to the father is through him. This means that the only people that will get into this promised paradise will be Christians. This would mean that however a man conducts his life, if he is not a Christian he is going to suffer eternal torment. As a non-believer I can see the madness in this, we with non-belief can judge people by acts rather than by faith. The Christian believes that even the greatest Hindu or Muslim is going to hell. They can have given to the community, cared for their family; even have tried to bring about world peace. Yet they are going to hell, do I really need to point out the madness in this? If Heaven is just a club for Christians, I want no part of it. I will suffer Hell with my fellow non-believers, and the other religious that were ‘wrong’. The non-believer can judge a person by their actions and that is possibly the greatest gift you can offer anyone. As a Christian remember the next time you meet a Muslim or Jew or Atheist you really like, that you think they are going to spend eternity in torment.

            The last argument I have is that life only gains meaning in the face of death. For if we all lived eternally, then much we love would become obsolete. Little things such as giving up time to help someone would become a futile gesture. For what is the sacrifice in giving up time, if we have an eternal bank of time? Look at something such as marriage, a marriage is such a beautiful thing because, a couple promises to spend their life with each other. The beauty is in the sacrifice of ones life with that person. If we have eternal life, then marriage also loses beauty as either one of the couple have endless time to change their minds. Love relies on death; it is given life by it. The non-believer realizes that he must enjoy the life here on earth. He must treat everyday as something important, as his time is not endless. Time gives birth to beauty.

            So yes the non-believer’s position is often scary. You often feel the outsider, and are faced with many dark predications about yourself. You are told that you are living a sinful life. Or that all non-believers are really negative people, chained by reason. The non-believer should simply turn around and say 'No, you are wrong'. Firstly there is no empirical evidence for either Heaven or hell. Stop talking as if your faith is a fact. Faith is a position that should never be confused with face. You should also say that as a non-believer you believe in fairness, you try and judge people by their acts rather than religious beliefs. This you believe is the mark of reason. You may also say that I have found meaning in life, in the fact that this is all we have, that we should appreciate all the experiences that we have. We should not hide suffering behind Gods plan, but we should try and lessen it. So yes Pascal the road to non-belief may be dangerous and challenging, but I am willing to take on your wager.

By Lloyd Duddridge

The Value of Philosophy

The great philosopher William James once posited the question: Why think at all? The answer he arrived at is that thinking was useful; that only through thinking could we attempt to grasp our environment, understand our existence. Now if Philosophy is the study of thought, or the love of wisdom, if we follow James it can't be anything else but useful.

Thus immediately we arrive at a position where we understand the value of philosophy. So long decried as the province of the the lazy, the cloud dwellers, philosophy can fight back. Philosophy can say that if thinking is useful, then thinking about thinking must be equally as useful. For it is only at this point that we can attempt to make justified decisions about anything. Philosophy and its strength lies in its refinement of thought, and how can this not be practical?

Against Philosophy many will cite science and its results. Yet let me ask you the following question: What is science? Science is a method, and that method is philosophical. It was a philosophical decision that thinkers would start to use evidence collected from the senses. This may seem an obvious victory or progression now, yet it was not always the case. For it does not take long to revert to a tyranny of superstition. Superstition reigns when people refuse, or are unable to question. Its lifeblood lies in ignorance. You can only defend science and its results philosophically, there is no other way.

Philosophy is also immensely useful as it can alter our states of mind. By this I mean that it can gives us the opportunity to see things in different ways. This is the starting point of the democracy that most of us cherish. For we can only be democratic if we do not become violent once we understand peoples ideas may differ from our own, and agree that they have the right to hold an opinion that does not match ours.

Philosophy teaches us this. It shows us the different ways that thinkers have approached the same problem. The best way I can learn these alternating approaches is by being taught by those that understand those individual thinkers and their ideas best.

In regards to the closure of Humanities courses in universities, I have this to say. The closing of any department on the pretence that it is not practical, is to decry all thinking. For it is only through Philosophy that we attempt to gain a foothold on thinking. If you agree that thinking is useful, then you must agree that getting the best, most reasoned thoughts is also highly useful. That is what philosophy attempts to do (the best of philosophy in any case). It refines thought from its native, chaotic state into something useful, something that affects our everyday lives. A parallel is this: Pure thinking is like the materials needed for the building of a house, it is the bricks, it is the glass for the windows, yet it is Philosophy that orders these raw materials and moulds it into something we can use.

Scientists, you may think that philosophy is always picking apart your fine work, this may annoy and frustrate you. Yet it is only philosophers who can defend you, for it is after all philosophy that gave birth to your method. Just like any parent we may at times annoy you, yet you are also one of our finest accomplishments. To defend philosophy is to defend thought; it is to say I am not happy to be left at the level of superstition, that I am not happy at not being able to understand others ways of thinking. So to shut down any Philosophy department is to disagree with James. Thus to those who are arguing that thought is useless, if you have reached this conclusion you must really question what kind of University you're running.

Lloyd Duddridge

They are dominated by fear

‘They are dominated by fear, everyone pretends that there is reason behind their actions, will, kindness, but in reality there is only terror. If you think about it, every action everyone takes is dominated by fear’.

                  
 Imagine these were the words a little evil devil twas whispering over your shoulder, telling you that essentially it is in human nature to be a coward. So, do human beings act out of an instinct of ‘not being hurt’ rather than a transcendent instinct? How about the so called heroes in history who have risked even their own lives in order to protect an ideal and have shown blatant courage?

                  
Fear is a feeling which has huge amounts of control over people, think of religion and how much it uses fear in order to control the masses. Think of how terror has kept systems running in an absurd manner. For example, only fear can allow thousands of people to succumb to the power of one single individual, instead of fighting his power, like in the case of dictatorships. Are our morals based in fear or in striving after ‘goodness’?

The German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche had a lot to say when it came to good and evil. He made a distinction between good and bad and good and evil, and he also asked us to go beyond this; humans beyond good and evil. He claimed that the good/evil distinction was made in ancient times when the first division between the high classes and the lower classes was prevalent; the ‘noble’ upper class and the ‘wicked’ lower class. The rich acted as if being poor was a bad value and you had to live under fear of the self righteous upper class. This was a very effective way to maintain power. Then the good/bad distinction appeared hand in hand with ethical religion, which was more on the side of the lower classes, who suffered and were promised eternal salvation in exchange of their subjugated existences in the face of Earth, making the upper classes the bad ones. This role reversal made the lower classes the good and the upper classes the bad, but if you acted according to the religion’s rules, you could be in the good side again.

When we understand this and consider it, we can take a step out and say I am not evil, I am not a sinner, I cannot be told what is right or wrong anymore. To Nietzsche, and to me to be honest, an understanding of how morals are created liberate us and give us the tools that free us from fear and therefore allows us to imagine, to plan, to create, to be without the ghost of being constantly wrong. So we can be our own angel upon the proverbial shoulder whispering: ‘They are acting out of courage too, look at them. It is so cold this morning and they are out, mothers working hard for their sons and daughters, lovers declaring their feelings, how brave are they, actions can come out of dreams and fear of failure can be forgotten because hope can be stronger, we can go beyond this paralysing spell, we can transcend.’

Eliza Verethilo

The purpose of suffering and the positive value of pain

If our purpose is not to suffer, we are ill fit to this world

Everywhere there is suffering, for it to be meaningless is absurd

Your woes may seem extraordinary, your miseries unique to you

Yet this sadness coats the globe; everybody steps in poo.

Our cause is such that we do not notice

That which is agreeable to the will

We notice the pinch inside the shoe

And when cold-ridden sinuses start to kill

In this sorry world there is no gain

Happiness is the absence of woe

For human kind there is only awareness of pain

Its positive didn't ya know

You expected that kiss to give life new flair

But it felt like putting a slug to your teeth

And the needle you put in your arm for a dare

Caused you rather an unexpected dose of mischief

(Things turn out worse than expected for those who care)

But how do we get through the miserable day
Schopenhauer offers only one way
'The only means to sally through it
Is to laugh at people whose lives are more shit'

Time and pressure

Time! TIME the great taskmaster
Only the bored are free from its goads
Urging ye to strive on faster
Down infinities stretch of all-pointless roads

Yet without this chronological curse
There comes the direst aftermath
Our arrogance expands to the size of the universe
We need this pressure to keep a straight path

Utopia

The utopian world inside your dreams
Where whims are passed at a moment
Is far darker than at first it seems
Soon those sweet boons you shall forwent

What is sex but three seconds of pleasure?
What is a quaff of sweet red but the tiniest measure?
Of liquid ambrosia before the hangover
An hour of pain brings one second of leisure

The only happy ones on this plane
Are badgers and bunnies and mice
We live our sorrows again and again
They never live the same agony twice

Man intensifies his needs through luxury
Gambling, drugs and sex without blame
Then ends her life in usury
Ever aware of honour and shame
What people think of her causes her pain
(Another woe not felt by an elephant.)

Knowledge makes life more painful

Oh to be a petunia bush
Or a clump of rose
And if I were a pile of mouldy mush
I would pen my delights in elegant prose
Flowers and grass is the most gay
The less you know the more you gain
Man is only misery
Intensified by his mighty brain

And to the little youth at lifes curtain
Unable to see the malaise that awaits
I can easily say, absolutely certain
Behind that velvet lies hells gates

Everyone desires old age
Turn the page, and get it over with

Jehovah fails miserably

Jehovah could never hold a creation class
Look at the wretches outside; are they the best
This apparently perfect God could amass
In every person I see a grotesque
Their lives are full of misery
Their dreams are mere exaggeration
And the only good thing about Christianity
Is its penchant for constant flagellation!

Imagine for a moment there was no pleasure to sex
That we were fully rational agents of sentience,
Humanity would die out long before spawning anew
Oh pity the next generation and spare them the pretense
Of being happy in a world of chaos and hell
That was merely one of Brahma's accidents

Our very existence is punishment
Humanity is seven billion sad stories
Its very much like the fall in the bible
Only without any pretentious allegories
Prisoners shouldn't be locked away
We are already compagnon de miseries
Earth is one great penal colony
You'd notice if you weren't such busy bees
(And I don't mean bees literally;
Otherwise you'd be happy with your lot!)

The vanity of existence

Time is infinite, and space too
The present is relative and fleeting
You think you're big but what are you
An unsatisfied set of desires bleating
(Inside time everything becomes nothing and loses value)

No longer is the same as has never been
The now is realer than the past
The most dismal present is something to nothing
Yet we still feel something of us will last

We are unceasing motion, frustration
We are unresting minds, vexation
No ending state for man or nation,
Only orderless change and mass confusion,
Diffusion, conflation.

At last, its finished!

Finally we come to the end

Like life,
Meaning and value were all pretend
For strife,
Was all there was and not
A purpose,
Sex led to death and rot.
Be not nervous;
Life is just a process of disillusionment.

By Selim 'Selim' Talat 

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