[Agnos]

Let he who is unwavering in his convictions, he who is replete of faith, come forward to assert that a world without God is a world without consequence; a world of vague ethical boundaries; a world awash in sin. Such an assertion, be it brash and full of pessimism, is not so dissimilar to that of the assumption of the existence of God, and of equal measure, the nonexistence of God. It is pessimistic in the sense that one must believe – in conjunction with this belief of ‘a world without God is a world awash in sin’ – that humans are, by nature, evil creatures; that only by way of divine doctrine may we be coerced out of sin. So distant this is from the truth, for anyone of healthy mind is quite cognizant of their own mortality; of their own surrender to love, hate, pleasure and pain, and through this they are endowed with what we shall henceforth refer to as implicit morality. There begins the rise of irrelevance, like a great stone pillar ascending unhampered into the sky, where beside it topple steeples and minarets; where within its shadow the concept of God itself is rendered as nothing more than a moot point. Nevertheless, to strive to acquire knowledge of such an all-encompassing property, such is God, should not be labeled a fruitless endeavor, and yet, by the same token, should not be given legitimacy on account of this ill-defined value called faith.

Implicit morality, simply put, can be defined as a framework of principles present in any sufficiently intelligent animal as an expressed condition of its biological existence. In other words, one knows it is wrong to kill because one does not desire to be killed. One knows it is wrong to rape because one does not desire to be raped. Granted, this system leaves room for moral dilemmas. In a situation in which one must choose to kill or be killed, there is a direct conflict with one’s own implicit morality – but this is merely an exception. In a stable society, one rarely finds oneself confronted with these exceptions. All considered, the next logical question would be, “What role does religion – or more to the point, the notion of God – play in our lives today?”

If we are to strip away the traditional and/or ritualistic aspects of religion, what are we left with? Motivations. Motivations through which the advantageous use of fear, the promise of an eternity of torment, manifest themselves. Motivations which, during the infancy of religion, may have been utilized with genuinely positive intentions, but which have since been altered in favor of political, economic, and/or chauvinistic ends. Though it would not be preposterous to assert that the world’s most well-known religious texts were written not by the hand of God, but by Man, and that these texts are in fact a direct reflection of the authors’ own implicit moralities, it would not be an effective maneuver either. To do so would be as bold as to claim with unmovable certainty that God exists, or, for that matter, does not exist.

One discovers, through the written work of philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Friedrich Nietzsche (among others), a system of ethics complacently devoid of religious influence, though most certainly inspired by implicit morality. In this regard, Man has thus filled the shoes of religion, of 'divine' doctrine, and of an unseen, unproven deity. Therefore, I once again offer up the question, “What role does religion – or more to the point, the notion of God – play in our lives today?”