ATHEISM vs RELIGION

by Simeon Nkola Matamba ( Follow on Twitter )

 We cannot pretend to understand the world when we overlook the elements that constitute it. The world is made up of people whose lives are controlled by their beliefs, their values, and that is what drive their acts. Speaking about the world today does not only refer to the earth as a planet, but to a dynamic set which comprises different people, different views, different laws and cultures. With this approach I am going to speak about a topic which is of great concern to me: Atheism and Religion. With the development in our way of living, materialism has had a strong impact on our minds and has led us to believe that the natural craving for the unseen and the supernatural is a foolish thing, that only what we see and prove can be established as true. All this needs to be discussed and we have to look at this issue very seriously.

When we look back in history, we get acquainted to discovering that all civilizations of old allotted a great importance to the divine and the unseen, they all had a certain concept of God which they defined in their cultures and religions by rituals and forms of worship. It is also noticed that philosophers like Socrates-one of the pillars of western philosophy- and even those who came before him, believed in the existence of a God. Socrates is associated with the famous "Know Thyself", which referred to God or gods. Another great philosopher, Descartes, came to realise the existence of God when he divided our ideas in three categories: ideas that we receive from others, ideas that we create ourselves and ideas that we are born with. He discovered that he was born with the idea of perfection that he declared came from God himself. But on the contrary, today, science and wisdom mean rejection of any idea of God. Only mentioning these two great men, we see that their work and ideas explain a very natural thing: man's desire to worship, man's knowledge that there is something somewhere that we are pursuing. This aspect shows that man is not just a mass of flesh like any other animal, but men are given a supernatural element that enables them to connect with the unseen.

Now, atheists will tell you that there are many religions and many gods. It is true that in their quest for the supernatural, men have come across many discoveries. That quest being a journey, like explorers, they have come to places and so forth, they have seen many things, each one tried to describe it in their own way, gave it names according to their own understanding. When an equation is given for people to solve it, the fact that each one finds a different answer does not tantamount to the answer not existing. It is rather the greatest proof that the answer is there somewhere.

Atheists will depict us as blind believers and people lost in the wilderness, but that is not true. I met someone as I was travelling in a train; he told me something of paramount importance. He said "always believe in something, either it is right or wrong". I don't encourage people to believe errors and false things, but the principle of believing something cannot be neglected. Yes, atheists are also believers, and they're blind believers too. When you read about the BIG BANG, you have to wonder whether the people who believe in it where present to witness that oh so great event. And even when they mention the evolution of the universe and the evolution of man, they are really believers in something, except that their belief has to be seriously questioned. In terms of logic, you can't say that creationists are wrong because they believe in creation. The Big Bang that atheists believe in is their explanation of the creation of the worlds that we have today. They are creationists too, because the very elements from which the universe and men evolved had to be created first!

Athesists ask for a proof that God exists! That seems to be a stronghold in their mind. But what is essential about it is that they are asking only for scientific proofs while they know that everything cannot be proven scientifically. And before something is scientifically proven, it already exists even though you are not yet aware of it. Television was discovered not long ago, but waves always existed. We were late to discover how to grasp them and have images displayed on screens. Man is too slow to grasp all the good things that God put down here. The story of Galileo Galilei is very telling. People who have the ability to discover things that are contrary to the common way of thinking are treated as fools. The point here is that as long as all the elements have not been explored, calling oneself an atheist is a wrong conclusion. To refute the existence of God you must explore and master everything. And as long as atheists are still asking for the evidence of God's existence, which evidence they may get one day very soon, it does not make any sense that they quickly decide to call themselves atheists. 

I therefore conclude that atheism is based on materialism, an approach that has totally denied the supernatural self of humans and has lowered them to the level of beasts, flies or any other kind of animals. Atheism denies human nature, atheism is against the world, atheism is against life (because there's no life without a Source of life), atheism is one of the worst ideas and philosophies that ever came out of someone's brain, and unfortunately many people have fallen for it. Religion is one of the greatest things that happened to mankind. Doctors will tell you that it plays a role in having a good health. Religion is the first step to unlocking the mystery of God, the universe, and mankind. Religion remains. Contrary to Nietzsche God is not dead, He remains alive while Nietzsche is dead and will never live again.