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Science. Everything is material and comes from the natural, physical world. The world can be understood through the natural and social sciences. The universe came to be through the Big Bang explosion, and human beings evolved from primates. When we die our body decays. Spirits, Gods, demons, afterlife, astrology, souls and other unproven concepts are non-existent. Stuff can only be plausible through research. To treat illnesses, medicine and therapy can be used.
Religion. One supreme God created everything; the universe and every single human being within it. Different morals must be followed in order to go to Heaven in the afterlife; if these morals are not followed correctly than you will go to Hell to be with Satan for all of eternity. Illnesses can be treated through the power of prayer and belief, and through asking God for forgiveness. Clairvoyance, tarot cards, witchcraft and other forms of divination are all of the Devil’s making.
Spirituality. The natural world is important, but there is more to it than meets the eye. Humans evolved from primates, and the universe did come from the Big Bang. To some, a greater metaphysical deity created everything. To others, the universe simply is the highest force, and we are all bound by a greater energy in the circle of life. Healers that use metaphysical unexplainable forces or herbs can cure illness and diseases. This cannot be explained through western medicine. There is no necessary set of rules to be followed; as long as you connect with your God/Higher Power and yourself, you are good and you are one with the earth.
Religion becomes dangerous when it ostracises people for going against what their religion believes is right. It makes people follow certain rules and orders and rigid lifestyles. It claims that the oh-so powerful Creator of the universe is super preoccupied with something as insipid as human genitalia. It makes people think that their true happiness and freedom is going to come in some absurd after life, where we somehow survive the deaths of our brains and are taken to a magical land where we become drones that serve and worship the Almighty Creator forever.
Nevertheless, there are a few good aspects to it. I have never been religious or brought up to follow a certain religion (thank God; no pun intended) but when I was 14 I went to Church and a Church Youth Group for a couple of months (the reason being Whitney Houston had just died and I had been inspired by seeing her sing in the church and thought that would be a great idea). I did pick up on the love, togetherness and community that rang through being in the church. Everyone there was lovely and welcoming. But I remember asking a girl if she believed everything in the Bible to be true, and she said yes. Despite all the love, I couldn’t buy into all of the ignorance that came with it. How people can actually believe that the world was created in seven days by a controlling lunatic who then killed a bunch of people by flooding the entire city is just – well, it doesn’t really make sense.
Note: I am talking mostly about the Abrahamic Religions because they’re the most followed in the world and exert the most control. They have collectively been linked to war, slavery, and dogma across the world. I think that thousands of years ago, people made stuff up to explain stuff they couldn’t understand or prove, and a bunch of rich men wanted to control their wives and homosexual men who seemed a ‘threat’ to masculinity, so they made up all these ridiculous stories in order to scare people into submission. If people thought that if they did everything wrong they’d be thrown in a fiery pit forever, then they would have no choice but to follow said orders. Ah, who could have guessed that the real monster in the Bible was God, not Satan?
I’m no Scientist – in fact it was my least favourite subject in school, but even as a child we learnt about stars and dinosaurs and evolution. I just took it all as common sense. What other alternative explanation is there, really? As in, one that actually seems plausible and has been tested and proven by other people.
People who have researched, studied and been to school would (I assume) know what they’re talking about when they discuss the laws of gravity and evolution. But people who literally made stuff up without any evidence and used it to control and manipulate people (especially women and homosexuals, for some odd reasons) clearly cannot be trusted.
Spirituality is a subjective word; my above definition is flexible. To me it means inner peace. I accept that we are all part of everything and each other; to quote The Lion King, ‘we are all connected in the great circle of life.’ I’m in AA, and people do blabber on about God to the point where it has pissed me off, but now I see that ‘God’ is just a metaphor. The word God, to me, simply means all that is greater than us. The universe, the trees, the wind, the earth, Mother Nature. The love and humanity of other people. I don’t believe that some magical creator created everything, because the universe is too vast and anyway who created that creator? And that one? And that one? And why does there need to be a creator? Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
We are all made of energy and atoms, and we all bounce off each other and contribute to each other’s existence. And maybe that’s enough? Krauss’ A Universe From Nothing suggests that perhaps the universe did just arise from a deeper ‘nothingness’ and just came about, as in order for there to be something there first had to be ‘nothing’. If you’re building a model, you start from scratch. First there is nothing, and then it all comes together. To think that a highly intelligent mind was there in the first place and then pieced everything together just poses the question of where did that ‘creator’ come from?
But I’m not a scientist, and I don’t really care if there’s a literal God or not because to me it doesn’t really make much difference. I want to be at peace with myself in the world. I consider myself a secular humanist, and believe that once we open our hearts and accept each other as one, we won’t need to believe in make-believe dogmatic fairy tales, and will just realise that we’re all part of each other.
