The Religion of Economy

    I really should be sleeping, but instead I woke up with these thoughts in my mind so I decided to write them down while they are still fresh on my mind.  This all started yesterday when I got on an online debate(stupid, I know) with someone about atheism.  See, the main issue was that it was not religion vs atheism as is a very common and one-sided fight, but rather agnosticism vs atheism.

     Atheism has always struck me as very childish and arrogant, both dumb qualities to take into consideration when determining a stance on an infinite universe.  It also always seems to be rooted in anger and fear, rather than curiosity and a desire for truth because I have a feeling that even if the day would come that science could determine of intelligent design they would just shift things to suit their paradigm.

     But anyways, one of the things that I was talking about is the benefits of religion and how it has created a standard of living whether or not you actually believe in the deity or not.  All forms of morality are rooted in abstract thought.  Without a foundation, everything is relative and is left to personal whim and speculation and logically this can be disastrous.

Here is an example, I could "scientifically prove" that some life is worth more than other on the basis of benefit of society as a whole.  Using this as my foundation, I could kill people who do not contribute to society for the "greater good" of then donating the organs(which were probably going to be destroyed by drugs and alcohol anyways) to key members of society who's health was failing them so that they can continue to be a benefit.

     With morality being relative and subjective, any number of actions that were prohibited by morality and the "sanctity of life" would be permissible with enough cold logic and reasoning.  What many fail to see is that we benefit from the moral standards established by various religions regardless of whether or not we actually believe in the deity or not.

     The economy is perfect example of this.  At one point in time, we decided that a precious metal had value to us and used it as a foundation to build the economy.  As inflation increases, money is no longer being backed by gold but still has worth because it can still be used to buy gold.  But what if one day we decide that gold has no value to us.  On an individual level, this would be meaningless.  Your five dollars will buy a meal regardless of whether or not you believe in the existence and value of gold.  But if we collectively deny gold, then our savings become arbitrary numbers with no meaning.  It doesn't matter how many millions of these imaginary numbers you have in your bank account, if no one attributes value to them then there is nothing that you can purchase.

     This is why I find arguments about beliefs and morality to be so amusing.  So many cling to their "established facts" like a little flickering candle in the midst of oppressing darkness, when there are anomalies that exist that bend even the fundamental laws of nature.  A true believer in the scientific method would approach the universe with curiosity and a desire to seek the truth, whatever it may end up being.