Nowism

A key component to religion is personal survival after bodily death; that our "soul goes somewhere". One could view religion as a risk/reward situation, in which, the risks of living a "good" life, avoiding the temptations of "badness", are rewarded with an eternal afterlife. The pious gain an eternity of goodness, and the evil an eternity of suffering in the common view. The neutral? Hard to say. As morality can be attributed, at least in part, to religious principles, what would be the point of being moral, of being good, if there was no afterlife? Is it even plausible to consider that religion could survive the extinction of an afterlife, that once we die, we die for all time?

With the prevalence of religions ascribing a continuation of life beyond the grave, one could assume that no religion could "survive" without allowing for a continuance of life. The very concept of an afterlife plays upon the apparent human vanity of needing to believe that something lies beyond our comprehension, beyond simple mortality. It is akin to gamblers spending their money on the "sure thing", hoping that eventually it will pay off.

It seems impossible that a religion could be viable if it did not offer something for its worshippers that did not entail supernaturality. The struggle would be to convince people that while this is the only life that they will ever know, that once their mortal life is over, nothing comes after. As such this religion must find a compelling argument that it is in this existence that a person can find a kind of salvation that has meaning. And this is where the religion without an afterlife must find a way to counter the warning of Shelley's Ozymandias.

This religion, call it Nowism, must be founded on the belief that it is in this mortal life a person must strive to become the purity of its god. Since there is no afterlife to segregate the pious from the non, reward and suffering must manifest itself in the now, and be a direct reflection of the individual. If a person lives his/her life poorly, evilly, then the person will find naught but evil returning and plaguing his/herself.

Nowism has many examples as tools to convince people of its possibility. One could argue that the vanity, the covetness, of people have brought great suffering to the world. Global warming, wars, genocide, and crime in general, are indicators of evil wrought by one's own hands. Nin attributes it to maleness and passivity of women. It is not the role of god to end these violations, but squarely in the hands of the followers. If they were to examine their lives, as Socrates urged, they would know that they have not lived in piety, but in irreverence, and as such, the forces of the universe have repaid them with the penalties of their actions.

Instead of offering salvation at some later time, Nowism could offer salvation every day with every action. At the same time it would offer damnation at every action as well. Nowism would border closely to the Sartreian maxim of man, in the absence of god, creating himself. But man creating himself would not be to establish morality from situation to situation, but through reflection of end results. If killing a bad person would save a community from evil, then is it the moral thing to do? Hegel has made the point that the punishment of the criminal must not be determined as though he were a "harmful animal" that must be made harmless.

Since that is so, punishment is regarded as containing the criminal's right and hence by being punished he is honoured as a rational being. He does not receive this due of honour unless the concept and measure of his punishment are derived from his own act. Still less does he receive it if he is treated either as a harmful animal who has to be made harmless, or with a view to deterring and reforming him. (Philosophy of Right, §100).

It puts the emphasis for actions squarely in the hands of the individual.

And an interesting possibility for Nowism is that a god of some sort would not be necessary. In this regard it would more closely approximate the Eastern religions which weigh a person's life by their actions. What would be missing from Nowism though would be reincarnation. It would be an escape from Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence. A person would have but one shot at living a pious life, to generate as much good as possible. Since humanity seems to need something beyond the grave, Nowism could emphasize the reward of eternal recognition, much the way that Gandhi is venerated. There is no proof that Gandhi lives in some supernatural world, but memory of his actions and of him are quite alive still.

As interesting as Nowism would be, it would most likely fall by the wayside, would lose out to the religions that offer something more beyond this life. Nowism would face an uphill battle to win converts from the self-obsessed, from those that an afterlife must exist for. It is because of this that a religion without an afterlife is not viable. It offers mankind nothing more than is available now. And yet, Nowism appears to be a more plausible answer to the question of life.

Epistemology and Analogical of the Teleological Argument

The epistemological and analogical methods of the teleological argument are attempts at proofs for the existence of a god. Epistemology (knowledge) relies on the Platonic idea that knowledge is composed of truths and beliefs. It is the beliefs part that makes a proof for god difficult, if not impossible. Analogical arguments rely upon building logical proofs that combine humans with natural entities, cosmos. A common objection to this method is that humans are not like natural entities.

An argument from belief is deux visage in nature. Belief generally can not be provable as probable. To counter this argumental style, one could assume that the belief portion would be the easiest to target. Because of this, it is upon the believer to prove that one's beliefs constitute fact, as in:

I believe in X.
There must be at least one X.
Therefore, X is true.

The believer could use the tactic that belief is not something that can be measured by scientific principles. This is a quite defensible position. Semantical arguments, Wittgenstein's language games, sever a need to justify belief by the standards of science. The basic argument is that belief is written in the language of a divine being, and science is an artificial creation by man. As such, they are not cohesive nor interchangeable. Belief becomes a function of a purely religious realm.

In reality, disproving that “at least one” is key. The reason for this, is that for every argument made against belief, the believer can counter. Also, because belief is not tangible, it is a theoretical possibility. More simply, if someone believes that god is a rock, and states that there must be at least one rock that is god, the disproof of god being a rock is impossible. But one could show through a preponderance of evidence that no known rock is god. Following Ockham's Razor, because no known rock is god, then it would go to reason that there is no rock that is god. And even so, the argument can quickly turn circular. The believer might then simply counter that while every known rock is not god, one has not found the god rock. While Ockham works for science, it does not necessarily work for belief. And again the argument swings back to language games.

For analogical arguments, a logic proof is established. It systematically develops from the regularity of the universe, to its relations to humans, the to necessity for a god. For example:

The universe is ordered by laws.
Man is ordered by laws.
Laws are not spontaneous.
Neither the universe nor man created these laws.
Therefore, a creator established the laws.

Another version of the argument is to claim that:

The universe is ordered and like a machine.
Man is ordered and like a machine.
A machine can not create itself.
Therefore, a creator made both man and the universe.

This method of argument uses both induction and scientific fact to support itself. As one is unlikely to disprove scientific fact, the inductive process must be found fallible. While it is both true that man and the universe is bound by laws and have machine-like qualities, it is not necessarily true that those laws and qualities are the same. But even so, variability in law or quality does not disprove the theory. Given that:

A is non-B
C is non-B

are both perfectly logical. It is the conclusion that can be fallible. To state that A and C are non-B, requires extra steps to prove so, because while neither is non-B, there is no necessitation that A and C are the same. Doing so, is a false analogy and possibly tokenism. Does either system of argument have merit? The epistemological argument appears to be the most fallible of the two, in that, arguing from belief and trying to incorporate it as fact is improbable and most likely, impossible. If belief was an acceptable argument style, then anything would be possible. One could claim that they believe that they are god and as such then, would not be disproved. There are simply too many inherent flaws in the epistemological method.

As for the analogical argument, establishing a valid logical proof is also difficult. It is the transition from observable, scientific fact to supernatural necessity that is questionable at best. To make the leap that one can go from the observable to the unobservable is comparing disparate things. An orange is not an acorn. It seems also, that the analogical argument is better window dressing on the epistemological argument. But what it can not avoid is belief. Something that is unobservable requires an element of belief. And yes, belief has been responsible for amazing scientific discoveries, but those discoveries did not stem solely from belief.