The
idea of a God, and the lack of one, has been vital to my intellectual
prosperity; to understand this occurrence one must look at my
upbringing. In the early years of my childhood my parents were lenient
when it came to matters regarding religion. However this suddenly
changed about the time I was nine; by going to church my parents had
initiated an impregnation of our home with religious dogma, from the
ubiquitous holy imagery to the constant religious visitors. My
environment was being enthralled with religion.
The predicament with this is that religion has this intellectual restrictive property; that limits the range of one's ken greatly. Let me explain. Belief requires a sort of surmising that borders on the insane. In the realm of belief God is all-knowing, and the bible is the source of all truth. This leads to great limitations in education, for if the bible contains all truth what is the point of exploration. Why go to school or do research if you could just stay home and read the bible or any other holy text. This was the type of thinking inflicting my mind, and I was happily ignorant of this for five years.
Richard Dawkins abruptly stopped this period of complete ignorance one evening as I was reading his book called The God Delusion. Prior to this act of religious defiance one must get a feeling of the atmosphere leading up to this one moment. During this time I was exploring new areas of knowledge that were considered taboo to my religion. I was learning about the germ theory, big bang theory, and the evolution theory; ideas and concepts that labeled me an iconoclast to my community. However I kept on learning because these ideas were expanding my ken to new reaches that my religion could not and would not do. Furthermore, this new-found intellectual freedom catalyzed a hunger for more knowledge that persists to this very day. In this regard I find myself thanking religion for truly awakening the scholar in me.
The predicament with this is that religion has this intellectual restrictive property; that limits the range of one's ken greatly. Let me explain. Belief requires a sort of surmising that borders on the insane. In the realm of belief God is all-knowing, and the bible is the source of all truth. This leads to great limitations in education, for if the bible contains all truth what is the point of exploration. Why go to school or do research if you could just stay home and read the bible or any other holy text. This was the type of thinking inflicting my mind, and I was happily ignorant of this for five years.
Richard Dawkins abruptly stopped this period of complete ignorance one evening as I was reading his book called The God Delusion. Prior to this act of religious defiance one must get a feeling of the atmosphere leading up to this one moment. During this time I was exploring new areas of knowledge that were considered taboo to my religion. I was learning about the germ theory, big bang theory, and the evolution theory; ideas and concepts that labeled me an iconoclast to my community. However I kept on learning because these ideas were expanding my ken to new reaches that my religion could not and would not do. Furthermore, this new-found intellectual freedom catalyzed a hunger for more knowledge that persists to this very day. In this regard I find myself thanking religion for truly awakening the scholar in me.
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