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Harv: "I myself would find nothing at all bright of a universe that emerges from randomness and disappears in randomness with death being our final end."
Listen, Harv, as far as feeling insignificant and worthless goes, lack of religion need not be a factor at all. Just look into the night sky out in the desert. Look at the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, realize that there are more galaxies in the universe than stars in our galaxy than grains of sand in all the beaches on earth, and try to wrap your mind around the sheer sense of scale regarding Creation's length, breadth, and age, and then see if you can entertain anthrocentric religious thoughts and keep a straight face.
Once I rejected self-serving assumptions about importance and significance in the cosmos-at-large, I found life much more pleasant and easier to live. It was my hanging onto a desire for importance in an incomprehensibly incomprehensible universe which drove me nuts in the past.
I find the fact that I live in a universe of infinite wonder, infinite splendor, and infinite possibility to be wonderful beyond description. It doesn't matter so much to me anymore whether this cosmic ballet's Creator exists or has anything pleasant in mind for me, as I have made some peace with the idea that our planet as a whole counts for approximately jack, God or no God. If oblivion is all that remains at this life's conclusion, I shall be content to exist as a cog in a cosmic mechanism's procession until I once again dissolve into the same formless void from which I emerged.
Is this to say that I am as happy with my "theology" as a fundie or a moderate Christian? No, certainly not. My view of humanity in general is rather negative and cynical, and I of course would prefer a benevolent God to a cold one, or none at all. However, this is where I am so far in my ongoing logical process, and the least I can do is try to find contentment wherever my mind brings me.
Harv: "Faith is the ability to predict nature in a way that is meaningful (e.g., afterlife, New Heavens and New Earth, 'endtime sequences', etc.), control nature in a way that is meaningful(e.g., prayer, angels, etc), and explain nature in a meaningful way (e.g., Christian salvation, theodicy, etc)."
Your talk of faith edifying and enriching human life is fair enough, however saying that you can utilize it to predict and control nature falls on the far side of absurdity. Faith's "predictions" and "control" are unprovable, unobservable, and unfalsifiable. So it merely provides the sensation of ability. (Whether or not the faith is correct is meaningless to this issue: its validity does not matter with regard to your sense of importance and control.) Is sensation all that matters? |
