Young Writers Society

Imagine a grain of sand. What did you see? Obviously you didn't see just one grain of sand. You saw billions upon billions of grains sand in a beach. Now seriously think of only one grain. One solitary grain. Depending on your skin color it'd probably be hard to spot if it was placed on your hand. Now let go of the grain of sand and let it fall back onto the beach. That grain of sand was earth.The beach is the universe. In fact our solar system probably isn't even two grains of sand. Heck maybe I'm being overly optimistic in saying that we're even past half of a grain (which I'm not entirely sure how you would go about doing that. laser time!). Nonetheless whether it be a grain, half of a grain, or even just a mere atom of that beach, the universe is vast beyond anything we can measure. Just like it would be impossible to count every single grain of sand even in a mere children's sandbox.

As far as we know we are the only planet with intelligent life. For years ever since 1969 when we landed on the moon, we've searched extensively for intelligent life on other plants without success. Sure we've found water on certain planets. Sure we've found micro-organisms on other planets such as single-celled bacteria. But we haven't really found a green dude with antennas three, fingers holding a laser gun, and telling us to take him to our leader. Of course we may have already found it but not realized it since we can only use our limited definition of life on earth as a standard for all life elsewhere in the universe. Maybe life on other planets is completely different and too complex for us humans to notice. Or maybe they're so simple that we simply disregard them as candidates for life based on our knowledge of the essentials for life. For all we know the moon rocks we keep bringing home could be plotting against us this very moment (dun dun dunnnn).

Yet it begs the question, are we really special? Should we consider ourselves lucky to be the only planet that (we know) contains life according to our standards? Should we consider ourselves lucky to be the only planet that could sustain (our definition of) life? And are we really alone? Many people will speculate that we are special. Think of how lucky we are. It could've turned out so many ways. We could've been hit by an asteroid that wiped out the entire human race a long time ago. We could've wandered a little too close to the sun and gotten fried. There must've been a reason for why we're here.

Is there a reason for our existence? Did God put us here for a reason? Did the Universe save a special spot for us to thrive in the ways that we have? I guess the real question is, why are we here?

Humans have been on the planet for about 10,000 years. In those years we've evolved the most advanced civilization in the history of the (known) universe. We've developed wheels into wheelbarrows into wagons into cars. We've took a simple rock and used it to make tools, weapons, electronics, and just plain bashing our heads out.

But there is a downside. Because we are humans we wonder. Why does rain fall? Why does lightning come before thunder? Why do apples fall down? How do Cheetahs run so fast? How do fish breathe underwater? How can we do this easier? How can we make that work better? How can we develop a more efficient sex position?

And it is good that we wonder. If we never wondered the neolithic revolution would never have occurred which would mean agriculture would never have occurred. If we never wondered we would never have learned we could make a plethora of crap out of trees and rocks, which would've prevented the invention of countless products. And if that happened we would never have had the industrial revolution or the medical revolution (which occurred around the same time) which rocketed these countries' economies. And had the industrial revolution never happened we would never have had stuff like light bulbs, cars, weapons, bikes, houses, toothbrushes, allergy pills, vaccines, surgery, clocks, beds, or (worst of all) hustler magazines!

But when it comes to the larger issues which our minds cannot fully answer we run into a problem. Humans are so developed that we are actually the stupidest animal on earth. Ironic eh? And I know you're yelling at your monitor saying "what the fuck is this guy talking about?" but think about it. Has any animal killed another animal just because they answered the wrong question to the god question? Has any animal killed another because it was cheating on him/her? Humans have. But that's another story, back to the issue at hand.

And this is where religion comes in. Religion tells you that God put you on this earth to serve him. Religion tells you that there is a mystical force that guides the laws of the world. Religion tells you that you are here for a reason. When I said we are the stupidest animal on earth this is what I meant. We are arrogant When humans don't have an answer to a question, that angers us. It especially angers us when the answer is rather negative and doesn't reflect too well on us. "Why do guys like boobies?". Well it's because we're human. "NO! THAT CAN'T BE. IT MUST BE FROM SATAN". In fact we've made a list of 10 things that are normal human behavior (well except for the killing) that we're supposed to be ashamed of. Why did we make that list? Because we couldn't accept the fact that those things are naturally occurring in humans. Lust, wrath, envy, all of them hardwired in us.

And just like we don't want to accept that lust is a human thing that we needed to make a law condemning you to death if you showed lust, we don't want to accept the truth of our existence so we make a God to sprinkle glitter over the purpose of life.

So what does this have to do with the

1) We are alone. Like I said earlier we are the only (known) planet in the (known) universe able to sustain (our definition of) life. We have explored many galaxies, supernovas, planets, none which are sustainable for (our definition of) life. This loneliness creates a feeling that for some reason we were chosen to be in the only spot in the (known) universe to be able to sustain (our definition of) life.

2) Humans need an answer to things. When we don't have an answer, we feel angry. And when we have an answer that reflects badly on our existence? We get even angrier. As a result some people may not like to hear certain truths. Just like people want to deny a celebrities death or instantly accept a death of a terrorist. So we make religions to tell us the answers when they are really answers humans have made to make us feel better about ourselves.

3) We are arrogant. This sort of goes with our need for an answer. We like to think we're special. That somehow we're better than all other creatures on earth. And to some extent we are. But when something contradicts with our perception of reality our ego throbs and we get angry. For example when we hear that humans have hurt the earth more than any other creature on earth our ego throbs and we don't want to accept it even though it is true. And conversely when we hear that we are the most intelligent creature on earth it assuages our ego. And so to compensate we create a God that loves us and puts us on the only planet with life so as to feed our ego and make us feel better.

So I think most of you already know what I'm going to say and I think most of you know this but you don't want to accept it, simply because of the three reasons that I have listed up above. We are here out of coincidence. We are here out of luck. There is no why of why we are here, why would there be? Would God create humans just so they could worship him and he could decide who to send to heaven and who to hell? Then what's the deal with animals? To make us happy? Well sins make us happy. Why aren't they ok? Would mother nature create us to serve the planet? Well then wouldn't she have already riddled the earth with magnitude 10 earthquakes, grade 10 hurricanes, grade 10 tsunamis, and grade 10 tornadoes?

There is no why we are here.

But is that a reason to be sad? No. I say it is a reason to rejoice. A reason to live your life out. We're lucky to be living on the only known planet that can sustain our definition of life (parentheses removed!). Maybe one day, we'll discover a planet that can sustain our definition of life. Maybe one day we'll be the first known species to live on two planets. That day is far away. So rejoice. We're here. With a purpose or not. You want a purpose? Make one. Whatever your heart desires. It's your life. Live it.

Hi!
I really enjoyed reading this! It was fun and rather passive-aggressve but halarious all the same.
It got me thinking of an arguement I had with a peer.
She told me that if you did not believe that Jesus saved you, than you will go to hell.
So I replied, "So if a child-molesting rober believed in God and was a murdering phyco, he would go to heaven?"
She told me that if he knew what he did was wrong then he would go to heaven.
I was baffled by her ignorance, but you made me realize that she believes that she is as right as I think she is wrong. And that we will always argue and only believe in our own opinion.
Thank you so much for posting it and it was a pleasure reading it.

Chelseam before I answer your questions I'd just like to say I'm glad my essay made you think. Same goes to you lovethelifeulive That was the whole point. However to be honest some of the questions are answered in the essay and asking them after I've already answered them does make you seem kinda silly.

Question 1: why is everything here?
well i guess this is a good question. i answered why WE'RE here but now why EVERYTHING is here. Well even though I didn't specifically answer that question it's about the same as why we're here. There is no reason. but i guess your question is how everything got here. Well we don't know. There is a theory of the big bang theory but that just how our universe got to the way it is now. it does not explicitly explain how the universe was created. The big bang theory says that all the universe was compressed into a tiny atom and then the atom expanded and created what we know today as the universe. However the mass in that atom and the mass in our universe is exactly the same due to the law of conservation of energy, which states that you cannot create or destroy matter. so as to how the universe came to exist is unexplained.

Question 2: do you think we could've gotten any luckier?
yeah. we could've been born with antennas and a tail. and take our god damn appendix out of the equation. but on a more serious note, well like I said your specifications only match our limited definition of life. To us life requires a stable enviroment with a temperature range of about 0 degrees to about 110 degrees at a maximum, though there are social communities that live in much colder than 0 degrees Fahrenheit. It also requires a source of food. Which means that the region must have edible plants or animals. But sometimes in regions like Alaska you need more than that. You need a spear to kill bears and a net to catch fish. So life sometimes may require utilization of your environment. However like I said how do we know that a rock isn't alive? What if aliens breathe carbon monoxide and drinking a mere cup of water can nearly drown their internal organs (if they even have any). What if rocks are aliens, but their lack of ability to move or communicate hinders its ability to qualify as a living being?

Question 3: Shouldn't we obey God's laws if he did exist (which you believe).
Well first just because God exist doesn't mean he is the God/Gods of any present religion. If he does exist I would say with almost absolute certainty that he isn't part of any religions on earth right now. But I suppose that's not the question. Why shouldn't we obey the Christian (sorry if your not christian but that's my best guess) God's laws if he gave us life? Well that would be okay if 1) some of his laws weren't so gruesome and immoral (condonning homosexuals, sabbath-workers, adulterers, infidels, and any violation of the 10 commandments), 2) if eternal hell wasn't the punishment and 3)if his book didn't contradict itself so much. Just for a second pretend God is a parent. Your parents gave life to you right? So your parents should be allowed to make rules around the house right? Sure. And some of them are good rules. Don't kill, be good to your neighbor, don't steal, be good to your parents etc. etc. But some of those rules are stupid like you're not allowed to be gay, you're not allowed to do your homework on sunday, you're not allowed, and you can't conform to any other religion. Furthermore if you broke any of these rules they would ground you forever and everyday they would stick needles into you (fire metaphor) everyday. And not only that but they went out and they killed, stole, and raped people. And adding on to that no parent makes you obey their laws forever. Eventually you need to live an independent life with your own rules. Sure some of them may have been derived from your parents but you will pick a few out and add a few in. This is very similar to the manner that God acts. Plus these rules go against your very nature. Like I said we are lustful creatures. We are envyful creatures. We like to cheat and lie when it benefits us. And nothing can stop that . Not even God. It's like programming a robot to walk and then telling it to swim.

Question 4: do you think it's hard to imagine something not having a beginning?
Well what was God's beginning? If he is allowed to be always eternal why can't the universe be all eternal?

Question 5: How far do you think the universe stretches?
A loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong ass ways away from here. Plus the universe is still expanding. Probably still will for another few billion or even trillion years until it starts contracting again. Then again that is just a theory. We can't necessarily prove that the universe will contract at one point. Maybe it'll just expand forever.

I hope you weren't offended by any of my questions. However I do suggest you look into the bible and what it says. It has some pretty gruesome stuff.

Hey Skwagg, this really did catch my attention. A quick note before I start here: I do not want to turn this into a debate. The things I say here are all honest opinion, and a few pointers along the way. (Of course, if you feel the need to debate any of what I say here, PM me. I don't want to turn your topic into a huge debate- we have a forum for that.)

From what I see here, this entire thing is extremely shallow. Some people said it made them think... but it just wasn't all that provoking. The only feeling that this roused in me was irritation. Honestly, the whole purpose of this essay was to disuade a person from faith, or prove that faith is just nonexistant. I hate pieces like this for a number of reasons:

The first and foremost of these is how shallow the knowledge of religion really is. I'm a Christian, and I know for a fact that my religious group isn't the only one who would be offended or annoyed at this. You've just barely skimmed the surface of religion, my dear friend. Obviously, you don't have a full understanding of what it really means. Basic research and delving into certain sources isn't going to give you a broader understanding of anything. If you want to write a report or an essay like this, then you have to start trying to understand religion. Do your research, and rather than just look at those religious people who are self-righteous and arrogant, go look around at those who really know. The people who believe it with their lives, the people who aren't just using religion as a grappling hook to understand life or make them feel better about themselves.

I'm going to pick apart a paragraph here, just for a few examples:

And this is where religion comes in. Religion tells you that God put you on this earth to serve him. Religion tells you that there is a mystical force that guides the laws of the world. Religion tells you that you are here for a reason. First of all, there are many religions, Christianity among them, that don't claim this. God put us on the earth, and he let us choose whether or not we serve him. Second, calling God a “mystical force” just goes to show how shallow your understanding and knowledge of God really is.When I said we are the stupidest animal on earth this is what I meant. Stupid? Okay, so I've read things here that are offending and just plain ridiculous, but this is probably the worst so far. So far, you haven't actually proved your point of why we're stupid for believing. You haven't elaborated, and it's more or less like grabbing a crowbar and smacking us in the back of the head with it. It does nothing to prove our stupidity, it just offends and angers. Christianity, Islam, Judeasm, etc... all included in that list.We are arrogant When humans don't have an answer to a question, that angers us. Okay. Here we go. I really don't see how the word 'arrogant' ties in with this. According to my dictionary, and I quote: “Proud and overbearing” That's it. And then in the thesaurus: “conceited, disdainful, haughty, high-handed, overbearing, proud, supercilious” Since when is delving for answers any of that? So what if we believe that a God has the answers and is the answer? How is that arrogance? It doesn't add up to the definition. It especially angers us when the answer is rather negative and doesn't reflect too well on us. "Why do guys like boobies?". Well it's because we're human. "NO! THAT CAN'T BE. IT MUST BE FROM SATAN". Number one. I'm going to use an example from Christianity, as I know that the best. (Obviously) The bible has a line that says, “And may her breasts always please you.” Not only is this another extremely shallow understanding, it's an immature example. In fact we've made a list of 10 things that are normal human behavior (well except for the killing) that we're supposed to be ashamed of. Why did we make that list? Because we couldn't accept the fact that those things are naturally occurring in humans. Lust, wrath, envy, all of them hardwired in us. And then, by this, I'm pretty sure that you mean the Ten Commandments. And, if you mean the SEVEN deadly sins, it's not ten. It's seven. Another example of how you really haven't read up on your stuff. The Ten Commandments make sense, if you look at them like this: They were put there to better improve our relationships with people and with God. Every single one of those traits: Envy, lust, aduletry, killing, wrath... all of those can severely wound your relationship with another human being.

Now that that's finally out of the way....

Your little list of traits and attempting to disprove religion... Not to sound mean or anything, but a few of those actually made me laugh, that's how shallow some of it was.

1)Okay, so it's a decent point... but people didn't just create God out of need for companionship. We may be all alone in the galaxy, but there are well over 6billion people on this earth. Lonliness? Maybe. Honestly, though, near the end, I didn't really understand where you were going with this at all. At first, I had an idea... but then it all went south.

2)Hm. Yes, we need an answer. But again, I'm starting to wonder how well you even know your own religio-- er, “anti-religion.” Religious people aren't the only ones who are hungry for answers, who say and do weird things to get answers. Atheists created a theory that makes no sense, as well. The Big Bang? Honestly, there is really no evidence supporting that, either. What blew up? How did it get there? How did it blow up? You really need to do some research to avoid pit-falls like that.

3)Okay, so how does believing in a power higher than us give us ego problems? Think about that for a second. Yeah, people are prideful and egotistic, but this is just plain... silly. Succumbing to a higher power and realizing that, hey, we aren't the most powerful, incredible things out there, is the exact opposite of what you're saying here. Just sayin'.

So I think most of you already know what I'm going to say and I think most of you know this but you don't want to accept it, simply because of the three reasons that I have listed up above.

.... Really? Seriously? After all of that, and you throw this at us. This sounds more like a stuffy, arrogant, eight-year-old arguing with a group of people that he doesn't agree with. (The run-on sentence didn't help, either.) This isn't proving a point, it's slapping people in the face. Those reasons are shallow reasons, and your “evidence” is all mere scrapings of what religion really is to us. Honestly, this essay obviously took thought, but not enough research. There wasn't enough of trying to think from both sides, to really delve in. You only disproved the very weakest points of religion... why not try to tackle the deep, inner-most reasonings and beliefs?

You're trying to disuade me, but you're going to have to do better than that.

Keep writing,
~~Ish.

Oh, man, I've said these same things my entire life. I've developed a theory, God has created other intelligent life somewhere, just nothing that looks like humans, this is because the Bible says that we were created in his image and that we are the only ones able to say this. Now, I think that there is no way that God stopped with us, he must have created life somewhere else, we are just not meant to find them, YET. Now I've always been the skeptic about aliens, but lately I've not been so sure. If one of you were the one that created the entire universe, would stop after you created humans? or would you continue to develop other species in other parts of the Universe? Here's the thing: We can see things way out in space happening, but a light year literally means one year that light travels. So, that means that if we see a star explode that is 10,000 light years away, that means it happened 10,000 years ago. That means that ,according to science, entire species of animals could have started on the earth like planets a couple of earth years ago, and we're still seeing that planet's ancient history, so, I'm thinking in a few hundred years, if the rapture hasn't happened yet, we may discover other intelligent life. Wow that's my longest post ever.

I read it. They're good points, skwaag, if all (everything and the universe) is for moot.

I hate to say it, but it's not, hence the existence of existence (woah). Why does existence exist?

There has to be a Supreme Rule-breaker somewhere in order for there to be rules. Think about it: what if God did not exist? Is existence circular (does existence spawn existence)? Where was the beginning, before the big bang? Are we qualified to even think about this sort of thing?

What makes Skwaag the judge of all human reasoning as seen from B.C.E. UVWXYZ till now? Are you saying that men like Martin Luther and Ghandi were dumb***es? There's an answer to everything, even if we can't figure it out!

It's a matter of ideology and common sense when I say: The answer is not, "There's no Answer."

"Only a fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' " Your idea of Human Ego being the creator of a Creator is flawed. You need to realize that your own ego flares when you say, "I AM my God."

Skywagg. From what I see from this piece, you're an atheist looking for a debate. You started this post talking about the insignificance of humanity in a vast universe, and that is a respectable - if cliched - line to take in a philosophical ramble.
However, you later made it about religion, and disproving god. Now I'm an atheist too, and there is nothing I like more than a good debate, but when you make a point to look down on your opponents (I'm guessing religious folk), and ridicule their arguments, blaming them on human ego, you not only offend a lot of people, but you fit the stereotype of the militant atheist, a pretentious twit. If you really wanted to disprove god, you would have taken the concept of him seriously, and then gone on to form an argument looking at both points of view.
Right now, it's as if you're trying too hard to be that deep philosophical person. It just sounds fake and shallow, to echo Isha up there. From your response to Chelseam I infer that you want to battle it out with a theist. Head over to the clubs section and check out the religious discussion clubs and atheism/agnosticism discussions up there.

My final comment would be to Formslipper. ^^^
You do realize that you are being openly insulting of us atheists when you say "Only a fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' I am bloody well my god. There, I let off an ego flare. Watcha gonna do about it? Also, if God made us, who made God. If there was God before the Big Bang, what was there before God?