Continuing a train of thought that occurred last evening at two o'clock in the morning (celebrating Josh's birthday), during a conversation examining the relating factors of God, science, and reason, I debated uncertainty as an acceptable resolution with regards to one's spirituality and concept of death. I think that it is.In my religious studies course last semester, the instructor informed the class that certain anthropologist believe that a genesis for establishing religion occurred when our ancestors, with a new, more established ability to be self-aware than previous fore bearers, confronted the biological inevitability of death. The mysterious phenomenon undoubtedly conjured many emotions: fear, curiosity, sadness, etc.
But, perhaps the most important emotion (at least with relation to the eventual anthropomorphic creation of religiosity) was that of uncertainty. Without scientific evidence (a term and concept unknown to our ancestors, but nonetheless experienced in a more primitive form) the human mind was presented with a phenomenon, death, that could not be explained and organized by the human brain.
Our minds are in a perpetual state to make sense of, and organize, what we experience through the various senses and our own emotional state(s). Our languages, which are the most important ways through which we interact with one another, are based on organization, and show how the organizational process works. For instance, to construct a cursory example, we distinguish animals from humans, and certain species of animals from other species. Furthermore, we assign names to these different species so we may categorize what we see. Without this simple organization our minds would be in a state of chaos.
It is precisely this concept that would have affected those, and many today, who are confronted with the idea of death. How does the mind make sense of what it cannot explain?
This is one of the, perhaps most important, foundations of human religiosity: a filing in of the blanks, so to speak. Many individuals who are unsure as to what happens when our bodies expire (as we all are) will choose to "fill in the blanks" by establishing a specific, perhaps even detailed, account of what they are "sure" will happen when death overcomes our consciousness.
For some, it will include a pearly gate, a god with long white hair accompanied by an equally white untrimmed beard. Based on previous art inspired by Judaic-Christian notions of theology, it would appear that God would be Caucasian (although personal ideas of the Almighty will vary from each individual).
Others may believe that once death overtakes our consciousness, we cease to exist entirely (as if a light switch has been flipped to the "down" position).
Returning to conversation which took place yesterday evening, my argument and point rallied itself around this notion: uncertainty is not an unacceptable outcome. In more primitive years, some of our ancestors felt that stars were tiny windows looking into Heaven. That rain was poured upon from some celestial damn.
We now know that stars are not windows, but giant consolidations of gas. Rain does not come from the heavens, but from clouds, products of the Earth's atmosphere. As with the phenomenon of death, individuals attempted to create a reality when actual, true reality was lacking.
Isn't it far wiser to admit one's intellectual limitations? Isn't it better to answer the question, "What do you believe happens when we die?" with a confident "I don't know" than with some fantastic and delusional journey involving, but not limited to, virgins, a rapture, a pearly gate, or reincarnation?
It would be foolish to admit that none of the previous outcomes are impossible. They are not. However, they are far from probable, and most likely remnant ideas of primitive human development, based largely in part on the anthropomorphic establishment of religion.
Doubt should be welcomed, for it allows individuals to debate, think, and reason with whatever force that compels such doubt in the first place. Doubt begets thought. Thought begets intellectual growth, which, in turn begets human development. Uncertainty is acceptable.
It is far wiser than fantasy.
