The beginning of wisdom is the statement “I do not know.” The person who cannot make that statement is one who will never learn anything. And I have prided myself on my ability to learn.
– Thrall (from the Warcraft series)1
A common argument by theists is this: the universe exists. It couldn’t have appeared out of nothing, so there must be a creator. That is, God.
However, we used to be equally sure about the divine origins of, say, the weather. Storms? It was obvious that the gods were angry, or fighting among themselves. But now we know better. We may not know everything, but a lot of it has been successfully explained by science… and, guess what, it’s all natural, so far. No divine intervention required.
Science has been widely successful. It has moved us from the cave to the hut to the skyscraper, more than doubled our life expectancy, and explained a lot of phenomena — once attributed to gods or demons — as natural. But it is not perfect. And it “knows” it. It is always prepared to discard an hypothesis when it comes up with new data that contradicts it. While some would accuse science of “flip-flopping”, of not providing us with absolute, final certainties, that is actually the best thing about science: it’s about understanding reality, but it’s reality itself that is “in charge”, and no scientific hypothesis, or even scientific theory (which is something a lot stronger — tested against available evidence, peer-reviewed, etc. — than what the word “theory” suggests in common language: merely an idea or wild fancy, as in “I have a theory…”), is ever set in stone.
In short, science is capable of saying “I do not know.”
In the opposite corner, ladies and gentlemen, we have religion. Religion doesn’t know the words “I don’t know;” it replaces them with “God did it.” Both in primitive times, when little was known of the workings of the world, and now, religion always claims to have a perfect, complete answer to everything. “God did it.” How? “Who knows? God works in mysterious ways. No need to understand; just have faith.”
What is the origin of the universe? God. How did life appear? God. Where does mankind come from? God. What is the source of morality? God. What happens to us after we die? God.
“God”, as an answer to a question, is nothing more than the fear of saying “I do not know”, even to oneself. Apparently, such an honest admission is scary to many theists; it is much more comfortable to cease all questioning, stop any investigating, turn your mind off, and say “God did it. That’s good enough for me.”
Good thing it wasn’t “good enough” for many people throughout history, or we would still be living in caves, huddled in the dark, afraid of terrible demons and unknowable gods. We don’t live like that anymore, however, all because some people were honest and brave enough to say “I do not know”… and then went and did something about it: they began to learn.
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Brilliant essay. No other words necessary…
Very good article. This should be handed out to kids in every school to read and discuss.
And of course the theists have not actually answered anything with those claims since all of the same questions can be posed as to the creation of “god.” The answers there are usually “It has always existed” which if acceptable, must be acceptable as an answer for the universe, thus negating any need for the introduction of this “god” notion.
yeah, there was that one picture you put on a blog a long time ago…
Cool to see some WarCraft on here!
That is a good point though. Theists seem to see it as their greatest strength that they already “have all the answers” when it is that very mentality that weakens them and society as a whole.
Only when you start learning you realize that there’s so much you don’t know. Infact, you can’t even imagine how much you don’t know. In short “You don’t know what you don’t know”.
Priceless post! Keep up the good work.
I don’t know….
that’s easy for me to say…
I don’t know (in a scientific sense) if there is or isn’t a God…
do you? If so… How?
How do you know? How certain are you (in statistical terms)? Where is the formula?