Based on the subjectivity and the limitations of the human mind and its perception and understanding of reality, we humans can only know the concepts that belong to our own reality, dismissing those that don't belong to it. Since all the possible concepts of God we can have can only be based on human reality and experience, the existence of God (if true), while being unproved, is out of our understanding and out of our reality. Therefore keeping any concept of God in consideration is a way of taking its characteristics and turning them into human-like features, which by definition is nothing but blasphemy.
Therefore, every religion, as long as the existence of God is not proven, is blasphemous.
What is a blasphemy?
Blasphemy, according to The Free Dictionary, is:
| Noun | 1. | blasphemy - blasphemous language (expressing disrespect for God or for something sacred).
Discourtesy, disrespect - an expression of lack of respect
Profanity - vulgar or irreverent speech or action
|
| 2. | blasphemy - blasphemous behavior; the act of depriving something of its sacred character; |
The interpretation of this definition is, in my opinion, quite clear. Therefore, I will avoid going further or deeper on its meaning, taking for granted that it is clearly not open to any kind of misunderstanding and leaving it as simple as it can be: expressing disrespect for God and depriving something [God] from its sacred character. Let's keep this short and simple definition in mind, as I will go back to it later. And let's go into the definition of another important concept: religion.
So what is religion?
Noun
1.
- a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
- b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
According to the definition 1.a. (in italics), religion is the belief and reverence for the power or powers considered as creator and/or governor of the universe. This is, that whoever or whatever created the universe is also governing it and, in this case, we have religion as the way of worshiping it (/him/her/them).
In many cases, that I would like to keep out of the topic, religion is mixed with politics. All those groups using religion as a political tool are, in this case, not going to be discussed, but the thesis of this essay could perfectly be applied on them.
The third and most complex concept that I need to define now is reality.
What is reality?
As a supporter of the Wikimedia Foundation, I will give the first sentences of the wikipedia article on reality:
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. A still more broad definition includes everything that has existed, exists, or will exist.
Our reality and our perception of it is based on our intellectual capabilities and limitations, as well as our senses (in a primary way). Acknowledging this should take us to a new level in which we would understand how much our subjective perception and understanding of our reality depends on what we know and on the environment in which our intellect has been developed.
In other words, reality for a human being is understandable ONLY in human terms, which are human cultures, languages and environments, while other aspects of reality that are out of those terms are impossible to be acknowledged or understood without a proper and extense study in a scientifical way. Two good examples of this are the spatial dimensions and matter.
Our minds are adapted through millions of years of evolution to understand a way of perceiving the universe that fits to their survival. This means, we perceive the world around us in a way that helps us interact with it and survive. That's why we understand the 3-Dimensional model of space (plus time as the fourth dimension), but we can't imagine further dimensions, required to explain the Superstring theory, the M-theory or the Bosonic string theory, according to wich the space would have not only 3, but 10, 11 and 24 dimensions respectively.
The other example I wanted to show is matter.
Matter is formed by atoms, and they are formed by subatomical particles like protons and neutrons in the nucleus and electrons orbiting around them, which are, at the same time, formed by elementary particles. But if we observe atoms carefully, we will realize that most of the atomical structure is empty space in a 99,9999%. This means that matter is, in a 99,9999% of it, empty space. However, our mind has evolved to a point in which we perceive matter as solid instead of empty for adaptative reasons, which means our perception of reality is not only imperfect, but untrue.
So is reality something human minds can reach?
My answer is optimistic. As I said before, we can understand the universe better through science (which is a method, a tool). And by using this tool we can get to see what it all is about.
But there's another question. Is reality something human minds can completely understand in this precise moment?. I beg to differ, since our reality is still too limited to our daylife, human needs.
Not intending to fall into the clichè that says that "man created God in his own image", I can only but agree on it, as the only concept that there can be of a supernatural entity that is out of our nature by definition would also and obviously be out of our understanding. Therefore, any concept of God, as well as of any other deity will always and irremediably be human made and adapted to human intellectual limitations or it will be out of our reality and understanding.
In other words, religion deprives God or other deities, if existing, of their real nature, giving them inferior, human-made qualities and realities, which would be similar to an enormously and disrespectul downgrade of their existences. This, by definition, is blasphemy.
We can only accept that the concept of God, far from being explained scientifically (if it will ever be), is out of our understanding and the more we keep on developing our ideas and concepts about and around it is the further we will go away from reality.
Once again the only reasonable position on this topic is saying "I don't know" and leaving it like that. Otherwise we will end up going into an argument from ignorance.
References and related links
Argument from ignorance - en.wikipedia.org
Bosonic string theory - en.wikipedia.org
Dimension - en.wikipedia.org
Matter - en.wikipedia.org
M-theory - en.wikipedia.org
Reality - en.wikipedia.org
Superstring theory - en.wikipedia.org
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