Midnight-mindwanderings Posted August 12, 2009 Share Posted August 12, 2009 Firstly, I wrote this on a blogging site and got a few responses. Not many, but a lot for me (I don't blog there very often). It came after a month long raging debate between a very Christian Blogring and a few atheist friends of mine. The few people I had to deal with made me really respect my friends out there that deal with sometimes hundreds of ignorant idiots every post, every day. Honestly, I would loose my mind if I dealt with them all the time. I even tried to make it accessible to theists, though they did not see it that way it seems. I have been reading two books - I don't have enough faith to be an atheist and God Delusion and the contrast in argument, logical presentation and evaluation of the evidence between the two is astounding. The former makes me call out the logical gaps and balk at the shameless preaching, but the latter sothes my irritation and almost seems to respond directly to the problems of the first. The problem with <religion> Christianity is their beliefs are wholly immune to logic or evidence since God of course can defy all known logic, science, mathematics and historical record. Problem still remains, how do they know they have the 'right' God? When all our normal means of judgement and evaluation are irrelevant, what is left to base these decisions? Near the begining of The God Delusion Dawkins describes the spectrum of 100% belief to 100% disbelief from 1 to 7. He admits that very few people occupy the 100% nonbelief - the '7' position while many people occupy the 100% belief '1' position. When asked if there is a God, people tend to want a simple straight answer, yes or no. This is demonstrated in I don't have enough faith to be an atheist where the author describes a college class discussing the Old Testement. At the end of it, he asked his professor "So is there a God?" and the Professor simply answered "I don't know." This is a quote from the book: "I could have respected a qualified "yes" or "no" with some reasons given, but not "I don't know" - I could get that from an uniformed man on the street. I expected a lot more from a university religion professor." pg 19 Thing is, atheists or agnostics or skeptics will rarely answer this question with certainty, and that is why people go to religion. Because if you are looking for an absolute answer given by someone certain in their opinion, you will not find it in the honest atheist, but you will find it in an evangelical preacher of the gospel. It has always been the purpose of religion to give answers to questions beyond our understanding, to input meaning into the meaningless. Dawkins, in laying out the definitions of the terms he uses, describes theism as a belief in something(one) supernatural - a intelligent creator who governs existence and interacts with us, his creation. Then there are deists who believe the universe was created by an intelligent designer but such a person does not interfere and may or may not even be aware of our current existence. Pantheists don't believe that "god" can be separated from what is real and physically exists. God is the universe and everything in it. This is an entirely different definition of God than what either the theists or deists use. Atheists just make it a bit simpler and forgo the term 'god' all together. These same distinctions are made by Geisler and Turek though they combine deist and theist as the initial premise is the same. Thus far by both their definitions, I would consider myself pantheistic, which is of course scarcely removed from atheism. Dawkins describes it as "sexed up atheism" (pg 18) and I enjoy that distinction. I do not believe in supernatural beings or being nor supernatural events as all such things have been increasingly disproved in favor of natural explanations. Pantheism is a sort of combination of prehistoric reverence for the forces of nature that govern our lives with the modern increase in knowledge and understanding of those forces. Its purely a personal preference on my part and is more a variance in definition of terms than a belief system. After both books have to go through such lengths to set up terms, define them and check to see if they have completely covered the spectrum of human belief and disbelief it all starts to seem somewhat superficial. One thing is for sure, religion throughout the ages has undergone as many changes as there have been human beings. Even within a single religion - take Christiainity - the significant changes of theology, philosophy, dogma and practice from the first century to the 21st should be more than apparent to anyone. That is why there are so many divisions within it, and even within the divisions not everyone agrees on even basic questions. Even within a single congregation, the slivers of different beliefs are present. What do I take from this? That beliefs are highly subjective, and that anything claiming to be exact and universally binding fails to account for the magnificent variety that is the human experience. Many people have discussed the negative results of fervent belief - the violence, the ignorance, the bigotry. But in the end each person is responsible for their actions, good or bad. Religion stokes the fires of hatred and violence, and possibly inspires people to do good works as well, but in the end its just a reflection of humanity that is independent of religious preferences. I like the idea that religion has evolved from naturalist personification of animals and nature, into pantheons of gods and goddess like the Egyptians, Norse and Greek, then into a monotheistic God (uppercase "G" is very important) of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The next logical step seems to be dropping the last remaining deity as so many have been dropped before it (him?). So far as I have seen (which I understand is not really very far) religion doesn't change who or what a person is. Because we are all human and nothing exists in one of us that does not exist in all of us. There is no personal savior that requires telepathic communication except in the mental realms of the individual believer. There is no holy spirit influencing elections, healing (some) of the sick or granting money to (some) of the wishful. Probability is constant, randomness is governed by natural law and not by divine intervention. But thats okay! We can take comfort that our humanity connects us more than our chosen (or indoctrinated) religious beliefs divide us, if only we allow ourselves to see it that way. When I was a child I thought that if the god in the Bible was true, outside sources would point to him, and to the Bible as the best authoritative source, and that this indication would surpass culture, education and personal experience. There would be some sort of objective way to discern that it truly was the truth, because otherwise it would be unfair to those born in different times and places, and to those with limited education. I believed in the Bible at this time, but planned to try to reach its conclusions without it, because I knew that to do that would validate them and would have more impact to nonbelievers. This is the rationale and purpose of apologists. But it is evident that not everyone can get to the Bible by working from outside of it, since many people who try, as I did, do not end up back there at all, but rather completely away from it. It fails to live up to universal standards that fair and just God would have assured his "children". What do I know? We are human. Life is short. We are stuck here for the duration of that life and we all probably want to be able to live it as happily as possible. As for the rest, I'm okay with uncertainty. Is there a God? Random girl on the street says, "I don't know." And whether I live my life as though there is a God or isn't, I will be the same human person doing the same human things. And so will you. Starts to make the question irrelevant doesn't it? Original posting with the few comments I got: http://rain-of-mystic-sorrow.xanga.com/707235300/is-there-a-god---why-i-am-starting-not-to-even-care/ I was kind of proud of it, wanted to see what you all thought about it. 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FiddlingAround Posted August 13, 2009 Share Posted August 13, 2009 I like it. It reads well, deals with good points, and from the looks of it generated a lot of discussion on your blog. Nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted August 13, 2009 Super Moderator Share Posted August 13, 2009 Nicely done! Keep writing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Posted August 15, 2009 Share Posted August 15, 2009 Thing is, atheists or agnostics or skeptics will rarely answer this question with certainty, and that is why people go to religion. Because if you are looking for an absolute answer given by someone certain in their opinion, you will not find it in the honest atheist, but you will find it in an evangelical preacher of the gospel. It has always been the purpose of religion to give answers to questions beyond our understanding, to input meaning into the meaningless. This is a good point. Believers demand certainty. The rest of us are willing to accept that we don't have all the answers. I also like what you said about pantheism. I feel the same way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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