It’s an interesting thought, but one which
certainly has earth-shattering connotations. It is something which, once
realised, will prevent you from ever living your life in the same way again. It
is, truly, one of the most cataclysmic thoughts I have ever had, and one which,
accordingly, could spell the end of humanity as we know it.
Well, perhaps that’s a bit over the top for an
introduction, but at least it caught your attention.
The thought which struck me today, however, was
something which surprised me and, if I am honest, appalled me somewhat.
Easter has long been and gone... and it has
occurred to me that I never heard Jesus mentioned once.
Now, dear reader, you may be wondering what all the
fuss I’m making is about. In the current age of widespread atheism, does
religion even matter? Can’t we just, as a race, see Easter as a couple of days
where we can gorge on chocolate until we’re sick and all have a jolly good time
of it?
I would like to disagree. I have always prided
myself on one particular aspect of my being, and that is that I will never
criticise another’s beliefs: I preach that there is no such thing as ‘good’ or
‘bad’ taste in films, music, sports or food. Is it not, then, perfectly
possible for us to treat someone’s religious views in the same respectful
manner? Yes, it is true, we constantly have scientists such as the ‘great’
Richard Dawkins telling us that there is absolutely one hundred percent without
a doubt unquestionably no such entity as God. All the scientific ‘proof’ points
in that direction – we cannot see, measure or physically encounter God and,
therefore, accordingly, he does not exist and, as such, it is quite clear that
the only true religion is that of science. The Big Bang created the universe.
End of story.
But is this way of deciding whether something
exists or not actually as believable as we are led to believe? Science does
not, after all (or should not) talk in terms of ‘what we know’, but rather in
terms of ‘how we currently understand things’. It could be argued, therefore,
that religion was the science of the historic world, could it not? Surely,
however, science has now progressed away from worshipping an omnipotent,
omniscient, omnipresent being. Dawkins and Darwin are now the true ones to
worship, yes?
I would disagree. As I have discussed earlier, the
standard belief is that if you can’t see it, it doesn’t officially exist; we
can’t see God, therefore there is no God. However, I would now like to draw
your attention to a little, widely-accepted scientific term known as ‘dark
matter’. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, dark matter is ‘matter
which has not been directly detected but whose existence is postulated to
account for the dynamical behaviour of galaxies or the universe’.
Check it if you don’t believe me.
What this definition implies is that dark matter, a
substance ‘which has not been directly detected’, i.e. has not been proven to
exist, is an accepted scientific hypothesis which helps us to understand the
way the universe works. Translated, if dark matter doesn’t exist, a major body
of science, therefore, is in itself highly flawed, i.e. ‘wrong’.
Now, this is not intended as a religious thesis,
nor is it intended to imply that science is wrong and that we should all
convert to Christianity – the entire point of this article is to draw attention
to the fact that, in the current time, we seem to have lost sight of ‘respect’.
Who is anyone, after all, to criticise views someone holds dear to them simply
because we believe something different? If you follow science, then that’s
great – there is a lot of evidence to support a lot of the things your field of
belief covers. You should still realise, however, that there is a still a lot
in this universe that we do not understand, and that cannot be explained away
by science. Dark matter is just one example – scientific views and beliefs keep
changing as new studies are performed and new evidence comes to light; science,
in reality, it could be considered, is not, in itself, an exact science.
I have a friend at the University of Liverpool
studying evolutionary anthropology, and I suppose you could say this article
was partly written to annoy him or to spark some intellectual debate when I
next see him; but the reality of the matter is that I was genuinely appalled to
find that, over the period of Easter, a Christian festival, I could not find
any programmes focusing upon that oh-so-well-known story. It seems to me that,
as atheism increases in prominence, the values and beliefs of our treasured festivals
are being overlooked in favour of simply keeping said festivals in existence
purely for their most enjoyable parts. But it would be so much better, I feel,
if there continued to be some kind of resource provided for the religious among
us, so that they may celebrate their festivals faithfully and enjoy them in
their own way, while everyone else can ignore it all if they choose and still
find an excuse to eat chocolate continuously.
Easter is not the only example of a blatant
disregard for what is still, believe it or not, a very prominent belief system:
Christmas is now purely commercialised in this country (although not in our
homes, I wish to stress – there is no reason why Christmas must personally become driven by capital gain
if we as families choose, as mine do, to make it more about the enjoyment and
the familial entertainment than about having the biggest turkey in the street);
similarly, St. Patrick Day is now just an excuse for all to become incredibly
inebriated without even knowing who St. Patrick was or why he is an important
figure, and we do not even have to have any hint of Irish blood in us.
Christianity is not the only religion hit by this,
of course; in a world where atheism is quickly becoming the norm, all religions
will have to put up with jokes about ‘believing in magic’ or ‘worshipping an
invisible man’ – but, need I remind these comedians, a pretty hefty bulk of
science is built upon invisible things anyway. I may not be a devout follower
of Christianity and organised religion myself, but I do think it’s time we
began to learn how to respect someone else’s views (which are, of course, very
important to them) again.
WIlliam D. Green
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