I have been working as a researcher/writer for about 7 years and during this time I have had the opportunity to write on a wide variety of subjects, from the development of Caribbean linguistic traditions to the sexual behavior of the greater vampire bat. Far from making me an expert on any subject in particular, I have been impressed most of all with the immensity of all the things I will never know.
From time to time, I come across an issue that, quite simply, can never be known with any certainty. These are “black boxes;” issues that can only be examined indirectly because the knowledge necessary to fully investigate the issue is forever and entirely outside the realm of things that can be investigated.
Realizing the limitations of my own capacity for knowledge, these unknowable bits of knowledge have come to occupy a special place in my heart. Not actually “in” my heart, you understand. Cause who knows what’s in there. Probably not a box.
With Micah L. Issitt
Thing the First: Does God Exist? February 2010
This is old. The question of whether or not there is a God is one of the oldest
debates in human history. Prehistoric man first asked “Can I eat that thing?,”
then, “How can I get prehistoric woman to have sex with me?” and, finally,
“Is there a god?”
The answer to this question seems very important. After all, knowing the answer
with certainty could change human culture more than the printing press, sliced
bread and the Internet combined. It could be an atom bomb of cultural evolution
mutating memes with such rapidity that nothing would ever be the same again.
This is what is at stake. The very nature of our culture.
The god question also tends to be very divisive, with those on both sides of the debate believing fervently that they have arrived upon the only correct answer and that those on the other side of the debate are boobs. Among the educated and semi educated elite, the existence of God is a somewhat passe debate. This question, which was once fodder for the most fertile minds on the planet, is now cafeteria conversation for undergraduate college students. Still, no matter how tiresome this metaphysical mire may seem, and no matter how certain in either faith or reason, all of us occasionally turn our attention inwards and wonder: “Is there a God and, if so, will he or she do something for me?”
According to a 2008 survey from the PEW Forum on Religious and Public Life, only about 1-2 percent of Americans classify themselves as atheists. Another 2.4 percent or so are agnostic (or as they’re generally known among atheists, “indecisive bitches”) and roughly 12 percent don’t know what to classify themselves as, religious or otherwise. The vast majority of Americans describe themselves as religious and most have therefore made up their mind on the issue, deciding for whatever reason that there is a God.
The best thing about this eternal question is that you will ever know the answer. No matter how many times you read the Bible or Thomas Aquinas or how many times you pore over the eloquent arguments of Dawkins and Hitchens, you will be no closer to certainty. The best you can possibly do is to rack up some arguments that appeal to you and make up your own mind on the issue. In the end though, whether atheist or believer, there is no way to be sure.
“Wait!” you might say, “What about when I die, won’t I know if there’s a god then?” Of course not. To see why not, we must ask this question: “What are you?” Are you an incorporeal soul existing temporarily in a vessel? Some would say “yes,” and these people are wrong. Whether or not you have a “soul” or some sort of non physical component to your being, you are also flesh, bone, sinew and cells. You are also an animal, a biological machine, and these two things cannot be divided.
Say you have a friend, let’s call him Pete. Your friend Pete dies and, shortly thereafter, you see Pete’s ghost. Do you say, “Oh hey, there’s Pete.” No. You’re more likely to say, “Holy shit! There’s a fucking ghost!” The point is, without your physical component, you are not you. You become something else. Something that is gross.
Some people might say, “I know God exists.” We then ask, “How do you know?” They will say, “I know it in my heart.” In my opinion, the capacity for “heart knowledge” has been greatly exaggerated. This is not only true of the god debate, but many other questions as well. Whenever it seems that the answer to a certain question is beyond our intellect, people resort to heart knowledge.
I can illustrate the limitations to the heart knowledge issue with this simple test. Try to answer this question as fast as you can: What is the square root of 2,365,976? Hmmmmm. Your brain doesn’t know, does it? How about your heart? Ask your heart. Nope. No help there. You see, heart intelligence is not all its cracked up to be.
I’m not going to waste a lot of space listing the arguments stating that the existence of god is ultimately unknowable. Far smarter people than I have already scrawled enough ink on the subject to paint a hundred James Bond girls into early graves from skin asphyxiation. Even the religious often say that believing in God is a matter of faith, which basically means: “We don’t know either, but we choose to believe.”
Related things that you will never know:
Do you exist?
Does Santa Claus Exist?
Does God like you?
Agree with me? disagree with me? Write to my Ex Girlfriend and tell her about it. Sweet Revenge!
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Coming Next Month: Dinosaur People? You’ll Never Know!