READ FOR MY ANTHROPOLOGY CLASS AND MY GENUINE INTEREST IN WHY GOD EXISTS, IF HE DOESN’T, AND WHY WE BELIEVE OR DON’T. PLUS FUN THOUGHTS IN THE END SO YOU DON’T GET OVERWHELMED WITH ALL THESE BIG THOUGHTS AND WORDS. FIRST PRINCESS TECHNOLOGY THOUGHTS WRITTEN OUT AND PUBLISHED ON GREAT WEBSITE MY FRIEND MIA MADE ME. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY.
I. Preface
I’m no writer. I don’t write out of pleasure or pain. I just write out of spite mostly. Or curiosity. Sometimes both.
II. Doubting God & Trying to Write it Nicely
I don’t know of anything. I cannot tell you why the wind whistles as it does or why a baby cries in the arms of its mother. So, I cannot understand how to grasp the idea of there being an all-loving God who has created our beautiful yet incredibly flawed Earth. It would be wrong to continue writing this without admitting that deep down inside me, there's a glimmer of belief in a God of sorts, who is unfamiliar to me, but that I rely on. I don’t know his name, or his son, or what he has endured, but I know that there's a small chance that he's there.
III. We Chose Our Gods
“The human mind has mutated the capacity for religious belief.” There is some truth to this, since religious belief dates back to the origins of humanity; but I do not believe our brains evolved to validate it. Religion has been passed down from generation to generation, and we have either accepted or rejected the notion of an all-loving Father. My anthropological beliefs stem from the patron saint of no judgment himself, E.E. Evans-Pritchard. He professed: The western view of religion should be rid of the white man’s ethnocentric taunt — atheist or not. So, I disagree with the statement that religious belief is derived from primitive ideas and has been inherited in modern-day minds, rather than something that is believed because one wants to believe. It can be said for every deity, from Beyoncé to Hachiman.
IV. The Best Atheist in the World
TRUTH: “No matter how much science can explain, it seems, the real gap that God fills is an emptiness that our big-brained mental architecture interprets as a yearning for the supernatural.” Scott Atran's lack of spiritual belief battles his faith that being drawn to God is a natural process of thought. Now, we live in a modern age of technology, art, and science, where everything can be researched and answered on a platform as stupid as TikTok. I think as humans we are drawn to something greater than us as an answer; that's not so piercing to read as a dull scientific textbook response. Religions tell stories of laws, ethics, truth, creation, and death — the pocketbook answers to life. Humans are unreliable, but God (or insert deity) is always available. He would never cancel on brunch. So I agree. We do “yearn for the supernatural.” The Azande had no contact with the rest of the world up until the nineteenth century, and when they were discovered, they had specific spiritual divination techniques to answer problems (a fallen hut or a sick woman). For example, using the morality of a chicken via poison as a Magic 8 ball. It is “inevitable and eternal” for humankind to gravitate towards comfort. In this case, that warm blanket is religion.
V. Not About God but Go Look at My Twitter
Sources: Henig, Robin. “Darwin's God.” The New York Times Magazine, www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/odevolution.html. Accessed 12 May 2025.