God is on Life Support....

I find it odd how people cling to the idea of God. Not out of true belief but because they desire something greater than themselves to latch on to. God has become a necessity for many. Rarely is this devotion brought about through sheer love, rather it is often a mix of several factors; being alone, lacking a source of love, imagining that this world is all they have to look forward to, the desire for a purpose. But in reality such an approach diminishes not only the religious but also humans in general.

At most this mode of thinking reduces god to a glorified nanny. Someone who's there to clean up our messes, to offer support, and to make us feel better when we stumble. This notion is undeniably selfish. It reduces belief to a mere act of building up self esteem. In order to have self-worth we must have faith in some unknowable deity? Truth be told holding such beliefs is comforting, the idea that we are not alone in our struggles, that there is something out there watching over us, but at a certain point such belief can be debilitating. For one it often requires that people adhere to ridiculous ideals and traditions, and if not that it limits our ability to use reason. How empowering is it to rely not on your own mind, but on some set of standards created by someone else as interpreted by a middle eastern prophet from ancient Palestine? Perhaps the greatest quote I've ever heard from a Christian was "God gave you a brain for a reason." Truer words have never been spoken. Is it that far fetched to imagine that we could come to concepts of morality without the aid of some ancient tome? From our own experiences we see how our actions affect ourselves and the world around us. Reason will tell you that even independent of laws, killing someone has negative repercussions for society and yourself. Yet for some reason we require "God" to dictate what constitutes morality? With so many interpretations of "God's will" is it really wise to leave morality up to "spiritual" standards? Wouldn't it be much simpler and much more effective to leave it up to our own intellects? The problem with "spiritual morality" is that it starts with a set of boundaries and then asks us to decipher their meaning...Instead we should operate from a position where we establish the boundaries after logically deducing the effects of certain actions. We do not need to live in a society where robbery is legal to deduce that such a society will not work.

Perhaps an even greater problem that we face when confronting the necessity of god is the idea of purpose. Given the rather sadistic nature inherent in the act of "creating" sentient beings, it would seem that we are no more than playthings created to glorify the ego of some all powerful spirit. If our purpose is dependent upon God, then what purpose he possibly give us? One concept of "purpose" is what something was created for. So in order to discover our purpose we must discover God's reason for creating us. First of all if god is truly a perfect being then he would have no desire to create as desire is subjectively a human characteristic. However, leaving such a notion aside, deciphering God's purpose for creation is subject to the same types of multiple interpretations as God's Will, meaning that humans must determine what they think God's reasons for creation was. Thus humans end up making their own purpose either way.

My argument is not against God its self. Certainly there is a possibility of God existing. My contention is that God is not necessary.