From Particles to Angels

This is the fourth article in the series From Particles to Angels . If you are interested in this article you should read the previous articles in the series in order, beginning with the first ( On Happiness ). Where does religion come from? In Cosmic Conspiracy - Part 2 - Strange Creatures we saw that some people have supernatural experiences, and sometimes these get written down or become oral traditions, and these become religions. Some people speculate on the religion and so these speculations are added to and become part of the religion over time. Sometimes the supernatural experience is an encounter with a supernatural being who explicitly states that they have come so that the person having the experience can start or add to a religion. A few others may have supernatural experiences that support the religion. The person who had the experience affirms the authenticity and importance of the experience, and convinces others who then become advocates of the religion, convincing...

This is the third article in the series From Particles to Angels . If you are interested in this article you should read the previous articles in the series in order, beginning with the first ( On Happiness ). In the previous article ( Cosmic Conspiracy - Part 1 - Deus Absconditus ) we speculated on why evidence of God and an afterlife might be hidden from us. To be religious requires us to believe not only in a God and an afterlife, but also in a vast cosmic conspiracy to keep such facts, if not entirely hidden, at least of a reality of permanently questionable status. Religion is therefore the ultimate conspiracy theory, and is therefore lumped together with all the other great conspiracy theories, like the hollow Earth, UFOs and bigfoot. What would constitute evidence of religion? One thing would be contact with god or other supernatural beings. These kinds of encounters are those recorded in the various religious texts. The Old Testament prophets of Judaism heard the voice of g...

This is the second article in the series From Particles to Angels . If you are interested in this article you should read the first article in the series ( On Happiness ). In the article On Happiness I attempted to define the necessary prerequisites of happiness, and suggested that they depended upon things for which we have no solid evidence. In this article, we take a closer look at this question of evidence. If we attempt to assert the reality of immortality, there are two basic approaches: "spiritual" or "religious". Here I use the term "spiritual" as some non-religious people use it, to refer to some extra-material reality, devoid of a personal god, but which may offer the hope of some manner of immortality. By "religious" I mean the belief in a god, theism, either as a solitary god, or as a chief god at the top of a pantheistic hierarchy of lesser gods and demigods. By a "personal god", I mean a personality, to distinguish it f...

Preamble - Religious Apology: Aside from its everyday meaning the word "apology" can also refer to a " defence, excuse, or justification for a doctrine ". This series of articles under the banner of From Particles to Angels (of which this article: "On Happiness" is the first) is an apology for religion. Since the Christian church stopped killing people for disagreeing with it, atheism and agnosticism have been on the rise, or at least have been more open in expressing themselves. The claims of rationality, materialism and physicalism have seemed to undermine those of religion. Religious war, the past burning and torture of witches and heretics, and continuing conflict with science and the freedom of self expression and diverse lifestyles, thought and learning have all put religion on the defensive. Add to this, revelations of the sexual abuse of children by priests and the corruption of churches in their handling of these, and "apology" in the...