An Anti-Response to An Atheist
Over at Ebon Musings, one atheist writer offers a challenge to theists who claim that all atheists are closed-minded and exhibit their own brand of fundamentalism. Although he (I’m calling the write a “he” for brevity’s sake alone) must agree that there are closed-minded atheists who are fundamentalists, I think he is right to defend the possibility that not all atheists are the same. To prove that he is open-minded, he is willing to convert if he could be convinced of the truth of any particular religion.
I would like to comment on the article. He puts two categories that proof would fall under: the first category deals with “things that would absolutely convince me of the truth of a particular religion“. He says that he would “convert on the spot” if any of these could be shown to him: verifiable fulfillment of prophecies that couldn’t have been contrived; scientific knowledge in holy books that wasn’t available at the time; miraculous occurrences, especially if brought about through prayer; any direct manifestation of the divine; aliens who believed in exactly the same religion. The second category he calls “circumstantial evidence“, which, if he was shown any of these, might cause him to rethink his position even if he doesn’t convert: a genuinely flawless and consistent holy book; a religion without internal disputes or factions; a religion who’s followers have never committed or taken part in atrocities; a religion that had a consistent record of winning its jihads and holy wars. The third category deals with things that would not convince him at all: speaking in tongues or other pseudo-miracles; people’s conversion stories; any subjective experience; the Bible Code or other numerological feats, creationism of any sort.
That’s the summary of his article. Frankly, I like it and generally agree with all his points. I don’t believe in God because of any of the items in the first category (verifiable proofs). Neither do the items in his second category (”circumstantial evidence”) impress me to stay or leave. And his third category are incidental. They don’t matter.
I totally identify with something that T.F. Torrance wrote in his important work, Theological Science:
If I may be allowed to speak personally for a moment, I find the presence and being of God bearing upon my experience and thought so powerfully that I cannot but be convinced of His overwhelming reality and rationality. To doubt the existence of God would be an act of sheer irrationality, for it would mean that my reason had become unhinged from its bond with real being. Yet in knowing God I am deeply aware that my relation to Him has been damaged, that disorder has resulted in my mind, and that it is I who obstruct knowledge of God by getting in between Him and myself, as it were. But I am also aware that His presence presses unrelentingly upon me through the disorder of my mind, for He will not let Himself be thwarted by it, challenging and repairing it, and requiring of me on my part to yield my thoughts to His healing and controlling revelation.
What Torrance writes cannot be proven or documented scientifically. “God” has pressed upon my life and my mind. It is beyond science. Beyond knowledge. Beyond proof. Like I wrote yesterday, even the most impressive and seemingly perfect arguments for or against God are limited. There is a Wisdom that is beyond all human thought and discussion. I realize that this will be frustrating to some atheists who see it as another subjective theistic cop-out and to some theists as a cowardly compromise. My response will be unsatisfying to everyone, even me. Of this other Wisdom that presses upon me, what more can be said?
The painting, “Face Emerging From Tree“, is the creation of my artist friend Tina Newlove.
If you liked this post, or would like to use it, please buy me a beer!Tags: art, atheism, naked, pastor, theology, torrance
The atheist writer surely deserves to be commended for attempting to be open-minded, though his requirements for proof would cause even his own belief-system to fail.
I love that quote, I’m sure you’ve posted it before. It’s worth reading again and again.
I enjoyed reading your thougthts, very rich!
thanks heidi
Dave – last year the head of the atheist association here in the UK got saved and chose Jesus! The outcry from his fellow believers because he had chosen to believe in something because he had done as this man had said.
Robbie williams, a UK singer last year wrote in a major newspaper that he had tried all the major beliefs of the world but christianity. He asked if anyone could show him a good reason to believe in God – he would! Not sure but maybe I should have a go!
I can identify with the quote you refer to. I am not convinced it is generated by an external spiritual entity.
My question is, even if it was, how do you know that this perception (which is all it really is – is it not) of (a) God is the God that is reflected in the Bible? How do you know it is not Zeus incarnate, or Osiris or any of the other Gods which aroused identical emotions in people in the past?
Unlike Heidi, I don’t commend the writer. The first two paragraphs of his article show that he is close-minded as the believers he talks about. His conditions are impossible to achieve under any belief system, whether theistic, atheistic, polytheistic, or panentheistic.
He says I will judge the eternal based on mind and matter. Belief in a spiritual existence is alogical.
I don’t follow any organized religion because there are so many, they do disagree, and are shaped by their times and interpreters. That doesn’t mean their roots in a universe of meaning is untrue. It just means people are human and will change and color their experience based on who they are and what they believe. But as Galileo is rumored to say, we can only say It moves.
Zeus and Osiris may not be the best examples of gods that could incite the same feelings as the writer had when he implied that God is not offended by the disorder of our minds etc. These gods had contemptuous human traits. I have a modest collection of books on Greek and Egyptian myths..they make great bedtime stories! I doubt they aroused identical feelings that the writer is claiming.
Rick: I agree with the writer because, in a strange kind of way, he is right. These things cannot ultimately convince me to believe in a god or not. Which leads me to insist that human thought and argument cannot aproximate God.
Jake: Anselm’s dictum, “Faith seeks understanding” makes sense to me. For me, understanding didn’t lead me to God. At a certain time, I became acutely aware of being known by God, which lead me to try to understand. I’ve since become certain that this was Jesus, whom I humbly say I’ve come to know. And the scriptures, though a human document, is the best pointer to him.
You could call me a simpleton on this topic, and you would be right, but there are a few very simplistic things that come to my mind.
It always amazes me how you can just go outside, look around and not believe in God. To think that all of this is random, to me, is completely illogical and senseless.
I also think you have to consider some things such as the many medical laws in the Old Testament that were well beyond scientific knowledge at the time, regarding what people were to eat, germs, etc. How would they just dream up all of these concepts? They were not known to other cultures of the time.
We just had a wonderful speaker at our church last week, a representative from “Jews for Jesus”. He said he did an extensive research paper in college to disprove Jesus’ divinity, and by the end of it, he had come to know that Jesus was, in fact, divine. I hope the atheists out there try to keep those minds open as he did, and come to know in their own way, in their own time.
As our family went through the loss of my son’s good friend in a tragic accident last week, we remarked on how terribly difficult it was, and how impossibly difficult it must be for atheists to go through the trials of life without the faith and hope to guide them through.
Hello all,
I’m the author of the essay this post is responding to. If I may, I’d like to offer some thoughts.
First, on Heidi’s comment:
“The atheist writer surely deserves to be commended for attempting to be open-minded, though his requirements for proof would cause even his own belief-system to fail.”
Do tell – why do you say that? The items I listed are applicable only to supernatural belief systems, which atheism is not. Atheism is, rather, the default position. It is what we should rationally conclude if no religious faith can offer persuasive evidence of its truth.
And for Rick Cockrum:
“His conditions are impossible to achieve under any belief system, whether theistic, atheistic, polytheistic, or panentheistic.”
Again, I’m puzzled by this comment. My conditions are impossible to achieve? So you’re saying it’s impossible for prayer to have any measurable effect on anything? It’s impossible for God, if he exists, to simply show up at my doorstep in a form I can perceive? It’s impossible for a god who inspires holy books to convey any knowledge beyond what was already available in the culture at the time? Not only do your statements imply that God is not omnipotent; they imply that he is completely impotent. And how is a god who cannot affect the world in any way substantially different from a god that does not exist?
“He says I will judge the eternal based on mind and matter.”
Yes, that is exactly right. And I say that for one very simple reason: mind and matter are all I have. I cannot make decisions based on evidence I cannot see, senses I do not possess, or knowledge I do not have. Of course I make decisions using my own mind based on the facts that have been presented to me. What on earth do you imagine is the alternative?
Of course, I know what you’re going to say: faith. But faith is not a means of gaining knowledge at all: it is a way to convince yourself of the truth of beliefs you already hold, nothing more.
David Hayward’s post is a good example of this. Mr. Hayward says he believes in God because he perceives God as an immediate reality not dependent upon evidence. Surely he is aware that millions of people have relied on that same method throughout history, and through it have come to diametrically and often violently opposed conclusions about the identity, nature, and desires of the being they claim to be perceiving.
The vast divisions and endless squabbling among humanity’s many religions show clearly that religious experiences do not reflect a single, unchanging reality. If they did, our beliefs would have converged by now, but they have not. In fact, religious confusion and division are more rampant than ever, and unanimity seems farther away than ever. Compare this to science, which in just a scant three hundred years (compared to the many millennia already allotted to theologians) has reached an astonishing degree of agreement about many of the most fundamental facts regarding the nature, origin and fate of the universe we live in.
Mr. Hayward, you say that God has “pressed upon your mind” in a way that is “beyond knowledge” and “beyond proof”. I invite you to consider the possibility that, fervent and sincere as your beliefs plainly are, they are mistaken. As a human being, and particularly as a Christian, I assume you agree with me that human beings are fallible, and that we can be wrong even about things which we deeply and passionately believe to be true. I propose for your consideration that this may be one of those things. Clearly you’ve had some kind of powerful experience; I would not seek to deny or downplay that. But I would politely suggest that it may not represent what you think it does.
Ebonmuse: Thanks for visiting my blog to comment. I don’t feel my beliefs are fervent and sincere, nor would I presume that I am not mistaken. However, I do know that I am known, somehow, and Jesus seems to me to be who God is. In other words, the scriptures mostly confirm what who I know, and nourishes this knowledge. We are agreed that all proofs of God are insufficient to lead to God. But we do not agree that insufficient proof must lead away from God.
Hello Ebonmuse! The reason I said what I said is that I’ve always believed that even atheism requires a type of faith in order to believe that it is the true state of things. To clarify, I would define “faith” simply as believing in something to be true. In this case it would be believing that there is no God.
With this being my personal perspective, I have a problem with thinking of atheism as the default position. It’s just another belief system or world view.
Thanks for asking, and I mean that. It’s a bonus to see this discussion go further with your added thoughts.
Dear Naked P: I also “know” deeply..deeply, I tell you, that the planet Neptune is populated by 600-foot tall talking pink elephants who will dispense endless margaritas out of their trunks should you be lucky enough to visit there. At this time, I can only offer insufficient prrof of this truth, but please — for the sake of your thirsty palate – do not lead yourself aeway from this truth.
Abundant Blessings: It always amazes me how you can just go outside, look around and not believe in God. To think that all of this is random, to me, is completely illogical and senseless.
I would consider myself illogical and senseless if I stood outside my door and thought that everything I saw around me was random.
That doesn’t get me from A to B(elief), however.
I think a point that may be confusing is whether someone who declares himself to be atheist means 1) I am convinced beyond all doubt that god does not exist (strong atheism), or 2) I have yet to hear a convincing argument or see convincing evidence for the existence of god, & until such happens I will take the default position of assuming god doesn’t exist (weak atheism).
I suspect Heidi assumes Ebonmuse is a strong atheist, while somewhere on his web pages I saw him explicitly state that he was a weak atheist.
I feel very inadequate to address the rational, scientific, and wise points articulated by Ebonmuse. I do think that being an atheist in light of the complexity of creation (both on an infinite universe-sized level and on a microscopic atomic level) requires some amount of faith in something–even if it is faith in the ability of random pieces of matter to assemble themselves into something complicated. After years of trying to present evolution as fact, scientists have yet to provide verifiable proof of recurring macro-evolution by compiling a list of missing links. If evolution could be clearly and rationally “proved” wouldn’t everyone accept it without question?
I have often wondered what happens if I die and discover (or actually don’t discover) that there is no God? What if after death, contrary to what I’ve been taught, nothing happens? And if at that point I could think or reason which, of course, atheists probably believe I would not be able to do because I would be nothing but decaying matter…I believe that I would be disappointed to not see God as I expected to. But I think I would also feel that living my life according to Biblical standards–even if they are shown to be false–would have been fulfilling and helpful to me. Yes, you read that right. If Christ and His teachings are untruth, I think I will still be satisfied to have lived my life by falsehoods. And worms will devour my flesh and that will be it.
What do you say Ebonmuse? What if you die and discover that there is a God? What if He at that point finally manifests Himself to you supernaturally? What if He says He longed for you to have faith in Him and to share a personal relationship with Him and to spend eternity with Him? Do you feel, given this new knowledge, you would be able to say that living your earthly life according to atheistic standards was satisfactory?
I am guessing that perhaps though we are very different about what we believe and hold to be true, we are very much alike in our passion and our comfort our individual systems of thought and belief. I wish you the very best as you continue to raise points we should all be raising and as you attempt to open a dialogue with those who think differently from you. You are helping us all to reevaluate our belief systems and definitions. Thank you for that.
Sorry, that should have been “our passion for and our comfort with our individual systems of thought…”
My fingers are succumbing to the weariness of a long day.
Hello all,
Interesting discussion, I’m a bit late but I’ll wade in if that’s ok?
By Heidi: “The reason I said what I said is that I’ve always believed that even atheism requires a type of faith in order to believe that it is the true state of things. To clarify, I would define “faith†simply as believing in something to be true. In this case it would be believing that there is no God.”
I’m afraid that your definition of ‘faith’ is simply wrong. Faith is “Mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without proof supporting the claim” (Wiktionary). Without proof. This is what makes atheism the default position. We are atheists because we have no evidence for any gods.
By TTM: “What if you die and discover that there is a God? What if He at that point finally manifests Himself to you supernaturally? What if He says He longed for you to have faith in Him and to share a personal relationship with Him and to spend eternity with Him? Do you feel, given this new knowledge, you would be able to say that living your earthly life according to atheistic standards was satisfactory?”
The question wasn’t addressed to me, but I’d like to answer it anyway, if you’ll be so kind. I would say to God, “If you wanted me to believe in you, why did you want me to have faith? Why didn’t you just present yourself and say, ‘hello’? Why all this faith business? You presented yourself to Moses, why not me? You’re the all powerful creator of the universe, and you know everything, so you knew when you created the universe that I wouldn’t believe in you, because that’s how you made me. Why didn’t you just create me to believe in you? And if you’re all powerful, why did you either cause or allow such horrific things to happen to your creations? Why did you let good people die of horrible diseases or be killed in earthquakes and hurricanes?” I would have more questions, than anything else.
And yes, I could say my life based on “atheistic standards” was more than satisfactory, because I based my beliefs on reason, logic and evidence, not faith, gut feelings, wishful thinking and guessing. I valued human beings in their own right, spoke out for their happiness and rights to freedom, and spoke out against their suffering.
ttm wrote
“If evolution could be clearly and rationally “proved†wouldn’t everyone accept it without question?”
In fact it was conclusively proved over 100 years ago. The problem is that many religious people feel it threatens their belief systems and so deny it.
ttm also writes
“After years of trying to present evolution as fact, scientists have yet to provide verifiable proof of recurring macro-evolution by compiling a list of missing links”
It is impossible for a highly educated person who has studied evolution to write such a statement honestly. Unfortunately in the modern world it is all too common for people to make outrageous statements which can easily be checked and discovered to be entirely false. Why THIS is so I must admit is a complete mystery to me.
Heidi said “Zeus and Osiris may not be the best examples of gods that could incite the same feelings as the writer had when he implied that God is not offended by the disorder of our minds etc. These gods had contemptuous human traits.”
So did the god of the Old Testament – angry, jealous, cruel & a mass murderer to boot!
I believe in the scentific views of the workings of the universe, because they rest on scientific evidence. I do not have faith as in blind, unsupported belief in anything. Pieces of matter can sometimes assemble themselves into something complicated, but that has nothing to do with religion or a creator. Science has shown this to be perfectly possible under the laws of physics. Science has compiled lots of lists of links between different speicies (). In fact the right word is transitional. If missing links are found, they are not missing anymore. So a missing link will allways represent a gap by definition. But how do think you explain anything by saying a gap is there because a god made it?
Scientific theories can never be proved only falsified. But if you have no falsifiing evidence and lots and lots of evidence in favor of a theory there comes a time when one must conclude that the theory is almost certainly right under the “current conditions”. With “current conditions” I mean that if we ventures into new territory (higher energies, new livingplaces, higher radiationflux, smaller scales etc.) things might chance and the theory can break down like Newtons does under high velocyties. To a scientist this is always exciting: New land and new possibilities. But remember the old theory is still usefull under the old conditions.
Evolution is proved as good as Eisteins relativity-theories () and in reality as good as any scientific theory can be. Some new additions to the theory of evolution could (like it has done before) very well make it better, or perhaps a new theory could turn up that explains things even better like it happened to Newtons theories on gravity with Einsteins theories of relativity, but rocketengineers often still use Newtons laws because they are good enough for many, many apllications. The fact is that the theory of evolution explains a lot of things and scientist are using it every day ().
And no. Everyone does not accept reality. That is why some people of religious faith do not accept the theory of evolution. They percieve it as counter to the religion and allthough the evidencescore says Religion: 0 Evolution: 10000 (at least), they cling to there religion and discounts facts. Many believers will be more rational and accept the facts without letting it break their religion.
What happenes when we die? Of course noone knows for sure, but I think we revert back to the state before we were born: Nonexistance. Like other atheists has often said: People does not seem so troubled about the billions of years of nonexistence before their birth, but most are very anxious about death and the probable nonexistance after that event.
If I die and suddenly stands before some pearlygates and a god says: “Why didn’t you believe me?” I wil say: “Lack of any kind of evidence, man!” And I would be glad for my athiestic, freethinking life.
To me religion is a prison for the mind, because religion discourage thinking outside the box. Faith without evidence is a virtue in religion, and freethinking, forming ones own opinions is generally not a seen as a good thing in religion. The priest, imam, rabbi tells you what to do, think and believe. Religion gives people a comunity but excludes people with different thoughts, so to me religion seems divisive. It risks installing hatred and bigotry against people with other takes on life, though thankfully not in all believers at all. All this doesn’t mean I think believers are evil, just that they believe things without evidence and that that can be dangerous. If I believe I can walk on air without evidence it is very likely to lead to my death, if I choose to act on that belief.
To me truth matters. And I know of only one way of knowing the truth: Examening facts and evidence and form hypothesises, theories and experiments based on that. Let others examine your results and conclusions. In time all this will condense into almost certain and objective truths. That is called science. You might get consolation or community out of religion, but I can find that with friends, family, work and science too. Religion do not give objective truths only percieved truths, wich might be good and fine for some, but not for me. Give me something from Ebonmuses list of evidence and I might chance my mind, but I have never experienced anything comming close yet.
Oh I was just going to read the comments quietly but since my name was brought up 3 times, I’ll shake the morning cobwebs from my head and try to respond.
Jim Baerg: I made no such assumption and I’m not sure that a distinction between a weak belief and a strong one is relative. I’m also not convinced that atheism is the default position. It’s still a chosen world view in that it’s how one has chosen to interpret the world around them.
tobe38: I don’t see anything in the definition of faith that you gave that is contrary to my given opinion. An atheist accepts that there is no god without proof that there is no god. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the word “faith” because of it’s historical attachment to religious beliefs which pertain to God.
bassmanpete: Point well taken!! I’d be a fool to disagree. But if there was a contest between the gods weighing out their “good” and “bad” traits…..
This debate will go on until the end of time because every facet of society and science is open to speculation. Some things, love for example, will never be able to be scientifically proven.
Some comments on the T.F. Torrance quote :
“To doubt the existence of God would be an act of sheer irrationality, for it would mean that my reason had become unhinged from its bond with real being.”
It’s amazing how much people will distort their view of reality rather than face the possibility of being mistaken. The speaker does not realise that he is already unhinged from reality, and so twists his reality to fit in with his beliefs.
“Yet in knowing God I am deeply aware that my relation to Him has been damaged, that disorder has resulted in my mind, and that it is I who obstruct knowledge of God by getting in between Him and myself, as it were.”
Is there some hope that reality is starting to filter through?
“But I am also aware that His presence presses unrelentingly upon me through the disorder of my mind, for He will not let Himself be thwarted by it, challenging and repairing it, and requiring of me on my part to yield my thoughts to His healing and controlling revelation.”
Alas, no. Put the blinkers on, deny the evidence, and continue to believe erroneous dogma. Poor chap.
Heidi, there is a subtle difference between the statement “I do not believe there is a god” and “I believe there is no god” – atheism is in fact the former position, a lack of belief. The onus of proof is on the party making the claim, and hence the default position is to withhold belief until proven otherwise.
The latter position is impossible to prove unless we have total knowledge.
Tobe38:
I appreciate your thoughtful response to my thoughts. You said: “I would say to God, ‘If you wanted me to believe in you, why did you want me to have faith? Why didn’t you just present yourself and say, ‘hello’? Why all this faith business?”
Maybe God is saying “hello” in the things you don’t trust…the Bible, Christ, the experiences of others who do not share your definitions of truth and reasonable beliefs.
You wrote: “You presented yourself to Moses, why not me?”
How do you know God presented Himself to Moses? Have you discovered a historical document (other than the self-proclaimed word of God) which verifies this even actually occurred?
You said: “You’re the all powerful creator of the universe, and you know everything, so you knew when you created the universe that I wouldn’t believe in you, because that’s how you made me. Why didn’t you just create me to believe in you?”
I don’t think I would want to serve a God who was just a puppeteer pulling my strings. I believe that God himself values freedom and grants human beings the autonomy to accept or reject the truth He offers.
You wrote: “And yes, I could say my life based on “atheistic standards†was more than satisfactory, because I based my beliefs on reason, logic and evidence, not faith, gut feelings, wishful thinking and guessing. I valued human beings in their own right, spoke out for their happiness and rights to freedom, and spoke out against their suffering.”
Despite our differences, we have much in common, tobe38. We both have strong points of view. We both value human beings in their own right. We both want people to be happy and to be free. We both speak out against suffering. And we both are doing the best we can to find reasonable answers to the questions which have been pondered by human beings throughout the centuries.
Thank you for giving me a few things to ponder today.
Isn’t it safe to say, Darren, that no one can prove that there IS a god (even if all the facts are in), but also that no one can prove that there ISN’T (because it is possible that all the facts aren’t in)?
Well, my links to the TalkOrigins-website and the PZMeyer-blog has disappeared. Anybody in need of factual information on evolution can look here for a start:
talkorigins.org
scienceblogs.com/pharyngula
Best regards
Voice of Reason:
It’s interesting to me that secular humanists and evolutionists avoid answering straightforward questions by attacking the intelligence and sincerity of Christians. I think your implication that people of faith are under-educated fools making outrageous statements serves only to prevent honest dialogue.
Would you please provide information or links to information proving the “fact” of evolution with those of us eagerly reading this blog?
Since I will probably struggle to understand the highly intellectual and logical concepts, perhaps you wouldn’t mind attaching a dumbed down, paraphrased verson for me? If you could just explain it the way, say maybe a third grade Science book would, it would be great! (And visuals are always helpful, too! I like books with a lot of pictures. Pictures are fun!)
Thanks.
Nakedpastor:
No, it’s not safe to say that. If all the facts are in, then we have total knowledge and we can say definiteively something exists, or it does not.
ttm: your third paragraph appears to undermine your first. Are you capable of understanding evolution, or not?
Thank you L. Neilson. When I posted my comment I didn’t realize someone had already provided a link regarding evolution. I’ll have to check it out later today. But I might be back to ask you for clarification if you don’t mind.
nakedpastor:
As Darren said: “The onus of proof is on the party making the claim”
The burden of proof is on the religious. Since noone anywhere have ever produced a single piece of evidence (even just circumstanciel) there is almost certainly no gods, as Richard Dawkins puts it in The God Delusion. If you will turn the table of the burden of prrof you have to agree wtih me that the universe was created by the great pink unicorn with golden ears, because you cannot disprove that such a creature with unlimited power exists.
Well, Darren, I’m not sure. I may think I can understand it, but someone more educated might say that I don’t possess the capability. Once an instructor has labeled a student unable to move beyond existing knowledge because of a disability, the instructor’s assistance becomes useless. And what student assesses his own knowledge rightly? It’s the teacher who creates and grades the tests.
I was responding to Voice of Reason a bit tongue in cheek because as the one with the knowledge–he or she will have to plan the lesson for me unless he or she believes it is not worth the effort because it seems (from the instructor’s assessment) that I am unable to move forward in my thinking. It would be nice if VOR referred me to a source of knowledge who specializes in Special Education, but that probably won’t happen. I may just be lost in the educaitonal cracks forever…
Rational thinkesr do not have to abandon their sense of humor, do they? I suppose they do if a sense of humor cannot be quantified and verified by outside sources!
ttm, don’t be so hard on yourself. I asked if you had the capacity to understand, not the knowledge, and I’m sure you could understand the subject matter if you applied yourself to the task. Unfortunately, the religious tend to take the path of least resistance, and accept the unproven word of the mistaken or the deceitful. For those possessed of an enquiring mind, there is a natural inclination to understand, learn, and actively seek out better teachers, even if that teacher turns out to be oneself.
Thanks, Darren. Apparently we agree that those who actively seek shall find the truth.
Indeed we do, ttm. However, I’m genuinely interested to know how that spirit of enquiry manifests itself in the religious when all that seems to matter is the contents of a millenia-old book. Surely that is looking backwards, stagnating, and not forwards to new boudaries?
“I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen—not just because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.” C. S. Lewis
Here is a piece that might be of interest on this topic:
The Faith of an Atheist
A discussion with Alister McGrath
http://www.christianodyssey.org/faith/atheist.htm
One observation I’ve noticed about this discussion is that atheists are just as capable of making sweeping generalizations and faulty assumptions about Christian belief methodologies as Christians are of atheists. (not sure that’s a grammatically correct sentence??!)
nakedpastor said: Over at Ebon Musings, one atheist writer offers a challenge to theists who claim that all atheists are closed-minded and exhibit their own brand of fundamentalism. Although he (I’m calling the write a “he†for brevity’s sake alone) must agree that there are closed-minded atheists who are fundamentalists, I think he is right to defend the possibility that not all atheists are the same. To prove that he is open-minded, he is willing to convert if he could be convinced of the truth of any particular religion.
I am an atheist (the past 8 years) and former bible believer (25 years). I will forever be perplexed at believers who claim that non believers are closed minded. The very claim makes no since.
I have to ask this; if a person has faith in a god, (let’s say the God of the bible) and “knows” that their faith is based on “truth”, will they be open to the idea that their faith may be misplaced? Will they be open to the idea that the God they have faith in may not actually exist? If they are not open to that idea, can we classify them as “closed minded”?
As an atheist, I do not believe any gods (supernatural supreme beings who command and/or deserve my adoration and praise) exist. And it would take considerably more than words in a 2,000 year old book to convince me. But I could be convinced that a god does exist. I do not at this moment know what evidence I would require. I guess similar to what I would need to convince me that alien UFO’s have visited planet earth.
Honestly people, I like the idea of an afterlife. I could waste hours daydreaming about that…but I won’t, not until I receive some evidence.
Now, are there any believers here who are as open minded as I am? Are there any believers here who can honestly make the statement; “I may be believing in a myth.”
If they can’t make that statement, are they open or closed minded?
Darren:
I can understand how from your vantage point basing an entire life on an ancient manuscript seems asinine! Really…what kind of idiot would base philosophical, intellectual, sexual, financial, social, medical, and other lifestyle decisions on a musty, old, outdated book surrounded by such controversy?
I’m not sure what that book means to you, if anything, but to me it’s a loveletter from God’s hand to my heart. I want to hear what He has to say. I’m eager to read his words of encouragement and of warning. Because I feel loved by Him like I’ve never been loved before, every word from Him is precious.
I totally understand to someone outside of that kind of relationship with God, the book is mere sentiment–laughable pap. Yet, what you can’t help but see as stagnant and irrelevant, I can’t help but see as a cherished treasure which gives me hope until I can be held safe in His arms.
I have a collection of loveletters from human beings, too. And even now, years later, when I read them something in me is set aflame. Because in looking back from my current vantage point, I can see the value in those starting points even if they didn’t end in eternal love. They were the beginnings of new understandings, new boundaries, and new horizons.
Abundant Blessing:
“I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen—not just because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.†C. S. Lewis
Marvelous sentiment. It reafirms what you already believe and probably gives you a nice sensation of warmth in your solar plexus.
It’s also completely unpersuasive, like the rest of C.S. Lewis.
Here is a piece that might be of interest on this topic
I didn’t find it that interesting. Alister McGrath has barely a fingernail’s grasp on scientific epistemology and, like so many apologists, completely misundersands evolution. This was a “ho-hum” re-heating of leftover apologia. I’d be happy to dive into specifics, if you’re interested.
For some rigorous examinations of the epistemelogical underpinnings of metaphysical naturalims, try:
* “The Problem of the Soul: Two Visions of Mind and How to Reconcile Them”, Owen Flanagan
* “The Illusion of Conscious Will”, Daniel M. Wagner
and “Sense and Goodness Without God”, Richard Carrier.
Unlike most of the people who frequent this site, I’m not Christian, and a theist only occasionally. That doesn’t
Darren: Your differentiation between “I do not believe there is a god” and “I believe there is no god” would better suit an agnostic than an atheist. The first statement leaves the position open. The second statement does not, and as you say, cannot be taken as fact unless all the evidence is in – an impossibility in an infinite universe. That would tend to show that agnosticism is the default position, not atheism.
Ebonmuse: I see no reason to change what I said. Assuming there is a personal God, to demand he or she step up to your door and say “Dude, I’m for real. You’ve got to believe in me.” is like calling up your wife and saying “Jane. I don’t believe in you. Prove you’re real.” and expecting her to come running.
Again, assuming there is a personal God who is omnipotent, the ability to act doesn’t imply the necessity, or even the desire to act. You may as well start a game of chess and change the rules in the middle in random ways.
Religious groups, like materialistic groups, are composed of people. People love, hate, desire and despise. Most of the wars we no about have little to do with religion per se, much to do with wanting what someone else has, wanting to control what someone else does, or fearing someone else because they are different. Stalin didn’t kill tens of millions of his own people for religious reasons. Mao Tse Tung didn’t carry out the Cultural Revolution for religious reasons. The Romans and Alexander didn’t carry out the building of their empires for religious reasons. Asoka didn’t carry out his conquest in India for religious reasons. The list could go on. but most war has little to do with religion, even when it is painted that way.
You assume that mind and matter are all you have. All knowledge starts from experience, but all experience is colored by knowledge and assumptions. To say all I have is mind and matter, shows an assumption that matter is actually all there is, as otherwise mind would be the ghost in the machine. To believe that matter is all there is, is to believe you don’t have free will because matter does act according to law. From what I’ve seen, people do make choices. These choices are colored by their history, but not determined by them. The belief in a existence of a non-physical dimension to the universe is, to me, a pecondition for free will.
This is all air, though. There has been sufficient evidence of reincarnation to show, if not its existence, then its possibility. Most people don’t accept it. Any evidence of telepathy, changes resulting from prayer, psychic healing, is put down to coincidence. Any reports of out of body travel are labelled as delusory or dreams. What evidence for the non-physical there is, is not repeatable on demand, so it is discarded. The materialist-religious debate has been going on for millenia. It isn’t something that can be solved by discussion. The discussion can be enjoyable, and help clarify thinking, but it will never be persuasive. Each of us will make our personal decision and live their life accordingly.
In reply to the following question from ttm:
“Would you please provide information or links to information proving the “fact†of evolution with those of us eagerly reading this blog?”
By far the best introduction to the theory of evolution I have ever read is “The Blind Watchmaker”, by Richard Dawkins. Don’t be dissuaded from it by the fact that Dawkins wrote it. It is not a rant against the irrationality of religion. It is a beautifully written, logically compelling explanation of a subtle and complex subject.
Rick, “I do not believe there is a god” is not agnosticism. The agnostic statement would be something like “I do not know if there is a god”. The agnostic is someone that is ripe for an emotional misinterpretation that leads to belief, or to consider the facts at hand and come to a logical decision. Either there is a god, or there is not. As the burden of proof is on the claimant, then the natural state is atheism. Agnosticism is simply the inability or disinclination to make a decision.
Your references to non-religious wars does nothing to discount the fact that religious views have caused many wars. This is merely dodging the issue.
ttm, if the best love you have experienced is from an imaginary being whom you have never met, then I would urge that you look about you harder. There are some beautiful, kind, generous, loving people just outside your door.
“That book” is no more important to me than Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. An interesting tale, but nothing more. What distresses me is that people continue to kill and hate each other because of different interpretations of a story that claims itself to be true.
Ebonmuse: I see no reason to change what I said. Assuming there is a personal God, to demand he or she step up to your door and say “Dude, I’m for real. You’ve got to believe in me.†is like calling up your wife and saying “Jane. I don’t believe in you. Prove you’re real.†and expecting her to come running.
You’re analogy is dead on arrival. In what verifiable way does God even answer the phone to begin with, never mind refuse to come running? I’m pretty sure that if Ebon actually had a conversation with a being who he could reasonably presume was God, that would overcome most of his objections on the spot.
To believe that matter is all there is, is to believe you don’t have free will because matter does act according to law. From what I’ve seen, people do make choices. These choices are colored by their history, but not determined by them. The belief in a existence of a non-physical dimension to the universe is, to me, a pecondition for free will.
Except that
Randy said:
Now, are there any believers here who are as open minded as I am? Are there any believers here who can honestly make the statement; “I may be believing in a myth.â€
David? What say you?
Sorry. Bad edit. Please ignore everything after “on the spot”.
;o)
We all must concede that the object of our thoughts, conclusions, opinions and beliefs could be radically misunderstood and may not even exist. Agreed. But I still stand by my original post in which I quote Torrance, in agreement:
“I find the presence and being of God bearing upon my experience and thought so powerfully that I cannot but be convinced of His overwhelming reality and rationality”.
It is important that this statement says “presence and being” and not “theology of and doctrine about”.
ttm wrote
“Since I will probably struggle to understand the highly intellectual and logical concepts, perhaps you wouldn’t mind attaching a dumbed down, paraphrased verson for me? If you could just explain it the way, say maybe a third grade Science book would, it would be great! (And visuals are always helpful, too! I like books with a lot of pictures. Pictures are fun!)”
If you are at a third grade level of intellectual development then I would not like
to abuse you of belief in the tooth fairy, santa claus, or any other myths you might enjoy.
I assume you have access to the internet. There is plenty of material of the kind
you “seek.” It is dishonest of you to pretend the mateial is not easily accessible.
The truth is that you have no desire to understand evolution beacuse you see it
as a threat to your belief system. THAT is the problem.
But, Darren, I have met Him. Because of God’s pursuit of my heart and presence in my life, I must agree with Torrance and nakedpastor. He is real and I cannot be anything other than convinced.
I’m not at the third grade level of development, Voice of Reason. I was joking that you probably think I am. You do not have to assume anything…obviously I have access to the Internet or I wouldn’t be engaging in this interesting dialogue. I have access–that’s a fact.
And I am not being dishonest in any way. I am not pretending that material relating to evolution is unavailable or inaccessible. I am asking you, as a someone who claims evolution was proved 100 years ago to show me the proof. What I am asking is not really very different from what Ebonmuse asked in his request for proof of the truth of any religion.
I am not threatened by evolution. Obviously, you and I define the problem differently. I see the problem this way: you are trying to appear superior to anyone who doesn’t view evolution as you do while I am trying to learn more about your position through dialogue. When you attack those whose ideas differ from yours with inflammatory language such as impossible, outrageous, dishonest, and threatened you run the risk of being the only one left to hear what you have to say.
I wish you the best in your quest to share your truth with all who will listen.
Thank you for the book recommendation, Jack. I just happen to have a personal shopping day discount at a well-known bookstore which expires in two days. Now I have a reason to use it!
I appreciate your forthright answer to my question.
I am asking you, as a someone who claims evolution was proved 100 years ago to show me the proof.
Here’s some.
Here’s some more
And more
Where would you like to start?
Just got in from work to find I’ve missed quite a bit since this morning!
TTM, thanks for your response.
“Maybe God is saying “hello†in the things you don’t trust…the Bible, Christ, the experiences of others who do not share your definitions of truth and reasonable beliefs.”
Personally, if I were God and I wanted everyone I created to know I existed, I would not leave any room for interpretation. I would leave everyone in equally little doubt of my existence. “The experiences of others” is particularly tricky, why does God present proof of his existence to some, but not others? Isn’t this spectacularly unjust? Will the person who had an experience go to heaven while the person who didn’t burns forever in Hell?
“How do you know God presented Himself to Moses? Have you discovered a historical document (other than the self-proclaimed word of God) which verifies this even actually occurred?”
Very shrewdly spotted. I don’t believe the Bible is a true historical record or the word of God, but let’s just say that if I die and come face to face with God, I’ll accept that I was wrong.
“I don’t think I would want to serve a God who was just a puppeteer pulling my strings. I believe that God himself values freedom and grants human beings the autonomy to accept or reject the truth He offers.”
If what you say is true, then God simply cannot be omniscient. If we are free to make our own choices, then God does not know everything. I never consider the god I would want to serve or want to believe in, only the god I can find evidence for. On what grounds do you believe that God values freedom? He clearly endorses slavery, for example, in the Bible.
“Despite our differences, we have much in common, tobe38. We both have strong points of view. We both value human beings in their own right. We both want people to be happy and to be free. We both speak out against suffering. And we both are doing the best we can to find reasonable answers to the questions which have been pondered by human beings throughout the centuries.
Thank you for giving me a few things to ponder today.”
And the very same sentiments in return, TTM. I commend you for the liberalism you demonstrate, but at the same time feel compelled to point out that neither the teachings of the Bible, nor the actions of the God described therein are consistent with your values.
Thanks.
And to Heidi,
We can no more disprove the existence of God than we can of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Do you require evidence that Santa Claus doesn’t exist in order to with hold your belief in him? I with hold my belief in God, quite reasonably, until the evidence is present. The burden of proof, I’m afraid, is on you.
ttm, quite frankly I do not believe you when you say you have met him. What did he look like? When was this? Where? How?
Usually when people say they have met god, they actually mean they’ve misinterpreted an emotional response, or had a dream, or a hallucination. I think you are not being honest with yourself, or me.
tobe38, I’m not quite sure where you got the notion that it is up to anyone to prove anything to anyone else. The burden of proof is actually not on me, any more than it’s on you.
Hey and don’t mess with my belief in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny! They’ve been very good to me over the years.
I’m not at all surprised you don’t believe me, Darren. If I were you, I guess I wouldn’t believe me either.
Actually, when God make Himself known to me, I couldn’t see Him. I can only describe it as a blind person might describe a situation when she suddenly senses she is not alone in the room. If you want to know the physical sensations–goosebumps, raised hairs on the back of my neck and arms, a racing heart, a sudden empty pit in my gut, and a lump in my throat. The emotional sensations? A feeling of excitement and dread at the same time and a weird feeling of “What will happen next and will I survive it?”
This event occurred six years ago. I was alone in a dark room in the middle of the night. The house was calm. I was going through a lot of anguish from a failing marriage and was becoming exceedingly frustrated with the “easy (but to me insufficient) answers” my church and my Christian faith were providing. You might suggest that I was in an emotional and needy frame of mind so I fantasized something “real” which would give me hope. I would say someone real suddenly presented me with a truth overshadowing the questions I was asking at the time.
Although I was raised in a Christian family and charismatic, fundamentalist church, attended a Bible college, and had professed the Christian faith for years, it wasn’t until this experience that my intellectual assent of God’s truth became deeply personal. All of my ideas about God suddenly didn’t really matter…what mattered is that He was there with me filling the room, my soul, and my spirit.
I am sure that you will consider my experience an unreliable, emotional response. That’s okay with me. I can see how you would see it that way. But please don’t accuse me of being dishonest.
Thanks for the links, schemanista. I’ll add them to my rapidly growing list of things to read. I appreciate your help in helping me to better understand another point of view.
ttm said: But, Darren, I have met Him. Because of God’s pursuit of my heart and presence in my life, I must agree with Torrance and nakedpastor. He is real and I cannot be anything other than convinced.
This discussion began as a result of someone accusing “all atheists” of being “close minded”…I think.
ttm says; “I cannot be anything other than convinced” with regards to the actual existence of the God he or she believes in.
Perhaps I am confused here. Perhaps someone needs to define “closed minded” to me.
If I believed in the Great Pumpkin with such conviction that I proclaimed “I cannot be anything other than convinced” to a Christian who was trying to tell me about his or her God, they would probably accuse me of being close minded.
Years ago, when I was a bible believer, I invited some Mormon missionaries in to my home. They spent several hours trying to convince me that Joseph Smith was indeed a prophet of God. I was not persuaded. At one point, in anger, the larger of the two missionaries abruptly stood up, pointed his index finger at me, and shouted “You are closed minded”. Well, in fact, I was. I believed in my God, not his. And my belief was so strong that I was not going to be persuaded. They could not offer me any actual evidence that would convince me that J.S. was anything more than a nut. Of course, the fact that I was well read in the apologetics against Mormonism, didn’t help their cause either. My mind was made up before they even came through the door. Neither I nor they were looking. We had our feet firmly planted in the mud of our respective faiths and were not looking to change. We each had “the truth”. We were all closed minded.
I am no longer closed minded with regard to faith. My mind is wide open. I will not submit as a result of a tearful testimony, third party proclamations of miracles, supposed answers to prayers, feelings of any kind, especially a “burning in my bosom”. I am open to any and all historical, scientific, and photographic evidence. But just as no one here would accept my testimony of how much the Great Pumpkin loves me and cares for me (Peanuts 3:16), I will not be able to accept such platitudes as anything other than empty emotional outbursts. Christians will demand evidence for the existence of the Great Pumpkin God that I worship, yet they will suspend such requirements for their own God.
Please people, please tell me who’s mind is open to persuasion, yours or mine? And if you are so totally convinced that your God is real, please don’t call me closed minded if I am equally convinced that your God is not real. Play fair doggonnit!
Randy, who here accused “all atheists” of being “close-minded”?
This isn’t one of those “you picked on my kid brother and my posse will make you pay” knock-down drag-outs, is it?
Geez, guess I didn’t see that one coming at all!
Actually Randy, I don’t believe anyone on this site called atheists closed-minded. That all began when Ebon Musings responded to that accusation in an article he wrote titled The Theist’s Guide to Converting Atheists. Ebon Musings invited responses to that article. This is how this post all started. Of course, we are all selectively closed-minded. But I also think we are all selectively open-minded. Thanks for your comments.
So let me get this straight, ttm. You were under considerable emotional stress, late at night, alone. You were indoctrinated from an early age into believing the Christian god. Your body displays the physical symptoms of a fear response, and you interpret this as having met your god?
This is precisely what I mean when I say you are not being honest with yourself. Is it not more likely that you were stressed, tired and on the edge of sleep? Or did you consult a doctor to explain such an apparently unprompted physical reaction? Did you exhaust all other possibilities for your experience, or were you looking for something to justify your beliefs and teaching? Are you open to the possibility of physical and psychological causes of unusual sensations? Do you attribute all unknown and unfamiliar feelings and experiences to the god you were taught about? Can you honestly answer the question posed by Jake in the fourth post of this thread?
You said “You might suggest that I was in an emotional and needy frame of mind so I fantasized something “real†which would give me hope. I would say someone real suddenly presented me with a truth overshadowing the questions I was asking at the time.” – at least you can recognise an alternative explanation. Can you tell me how a feeling, felt late at night, in the dark, can possibly be honestly representative of “someone real” or “meeting” your god.
Your stressed and tired mind is playing tricks on you, and you interpret the experience to conform to the erroneous dogma you were taught as a child.
It saddens me to realise you will never admit this because you desperately want to believe, or fear being mistaken your whole life. You seem to be a good and intelligent person, labouring under the worst of misconceptions. Will you explore the alternatives?
I did say that, based on his article, Ebonmuse was as close-minded as the believers he talked about. That may be the source for Randy’s remark.
Heidi:
What you believe behind your own eyes doesn’t matter to me (although it might be interesting to study what people believe) and therefore I will of course have no interest in demanding proof from you, as long as your belief stays there.
But as religious factions fight over religion, try to make laws founded on religion, demand special treatment and protection from criticism, try to harm education or discriminate against people with a different take on life then the rest of us must demand evidence that their claims are true. They claim a god has created all the creatures on earth. If that is to be taught as a plausible explanation to our children then they must provide some evidence. Noone have. Evolutionists claim evolution is the explanation and they provide mountains of evidence for that. Your claim means you have the burden of proof. That cannot be otherwise. If you think so please revisit my claim of a divine great pink unicorn with golden ears further up. If your claim has any influence on someone else it is up to you to provide the evidence for the truthfullness of your claim.
ttm:
Most people get the same religion as their parents. Don’t you think the following is probable?
If you had been born in Denmark about 1100 years ago such expeerience would have made you feel the presence of Odin, Thor or Freja. If born in India you would feel some of the Hindu goods or perhaps feel Allah by your side. If you had been born 2000 years ago in Rome you would believe that Jupiter or Mars had presented themselves. If born in the Amazon jungle 400 years ago you would feel the company of some junglespirit. Why don’t you think it was Odin who was with you? If you say that Christianity is the one true religion, then please provide the proof of that.
You are dishonest to yourself if you do not acknowledge that this is possible:
You where by your own acount in a stressfull state and you had been raised in a christian family, associated with a fundamentalist church, attended bible college, proffesing christianity for years and looking for answers in your church and faith. Your brain which (like every other human brain) are a master of deception and delusion react to the stress by presenting you with the feeling that someone bigger and more powerfull is there to help you. I would have been surprised to learn that someone with that history didn’t either meet their god(s) or loose their faith completly.
You are neerly there as you say: “You might suggest that I was in an emotional and needy frame of mind so I fantasized something “real†which would give me hope”
Darren:
You’re quicker than me
Rick Cockrum:
How can you call Ebonmuse close-minded? He is the one starting all this by showing a clear will to consider evidence and change his mind.
Your remark is born from a belief that nothing on his first two lists will ever happen. Then please tell me why you believe that, if you hold a religious faith? Don’t you believe in religious prophecies, miracles, divine intervention, effect of prayers etc?
Heidi,
The burden of proof is always on the positive claimant. If I claim I can fly like superman or run 100 metres in 7.4 seconds and I want people to believe me, then I have to provide evidence to support my claim. Nobody else is obliged to prove me wrong!
Exactly the same principle applies when we say “every man is innocent until proven guilty”. The person making the accusation is the person making the claim, he has to provide evidence of guilt, not the other way around.
Extroardinary claims require extroadinary evidence. The existence of God is an extremely extroadinary claim. If you want to believe it on faith, that’s up to you, but if you want people like me to agree with you, you’ll have to provide evidence.
By the way, sorry about what I said about Santa – was just kidding
What if you die and discover that there is a God? What if He at that point finally manifests Himself to you supernaturally? What if He says He longed for you to have faith in Him and to share a personal relationship with Him and to spend eternity with Him? Do you feel, given this new knowledge, you would be able to say that living your earthly life according to atheistic standards was satisfactory?â€
Yes, because I believe my beliefs are based on the best evidence I have available to me. If I’m wrong, well I’m wrong, but I will have I hoped lived my life well and according to my personal identity and not according to what somebody else says my life should be like. I value the freedom to examine the evidence and come to my own conclusions, rather then having conclusions force-fed to me like so many religious people have had done to them. If my conclusions are wrong, well, I’m human, I’m going to be wrong sometimes, it doesn’t change the value of thinking for yourself.
Personally, I feel that if there is a god, and he wants me to believe he exists, he can come over here and tell me himself, I don’t accept the Bible as “proof” of anything, because it is self-contradictory and appears to be heavily influenced by the governing culture of the time. I don’t accept anybody else’s subjective experiences because I have some idea about how easily the human brain can fool itself into experiencing things that aren’t real. It’s going to take a lot more then “visions” experienced by people in emotional and suggestible states to convince me, something like something seen by dozens of people who are not in an emotional and suggestible state, which is caught on camera by a person who we can reasonably assume would not tamper with the film. Yes my requirements might seem rigorous to you, but as Carl Sagan has famously said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence!
Randy:
You seem to be very open minded and receptive to evidence as long as it fits the parameters you’ve established. I appreciate your desire for fairness. I’m curious as to how atheists such as yourself would view “the heart”. Not the physical heart–but a place of emotion and feeling and essence unique to each individual. Is there such a thing? Or are we only able to experience things with our minds–no heart, no soul, no spirit?
TTM,
We know that our emotions and consciousness exist, but they can all be accounted for physically within the brain, as neurons firing etc. We don’t need to posit a soul or anything else supernatural to explain them. Does this cheapen our emotions or devalue the power of our feelings? I don’t think so, if anything it makes them all the more amazing.
Darren,
I appreciate your back and forth dialogue with me about my experience of meeting God for the first time.
I don’t know that I would say I was “indoctrinated” as a child though perhaps I was. I have always been a questioner who doesn’t like formulaic thinking and was a real pain in the butt to my teachers and parents when I suspected I was being fed drivel.
I was stressed and both physically and mentally exhausted at the time in question. I did consult a doctor to deal with the symptoms I was feeling and everything was found to be medically all right. I also met with a therapist for a time who concluded that I was not delusional or schizophrenic or even just weird (Well, maybe he thought that but was kind enough to keep his thoughts to himself and the notes in the file…)
Let’s see…”Did I exhaust all other possibilities for my experience?” Hmmm. I’m not sure what they might be. I had no reason to be afraid prior to feeling the presence of God. There had been no sirens, loud noises, or nightmares waking me. I had been sleeping.
Was I looking for something to justify my beliefs? Maybe. (This point deserves more thought on my part.)
Do I attribute all unknown and unfamiliar feelings and experiences to the god I was taught about? No! Sometimes I attribute them to eating too much chocolate or to thinking the guy across the restaurant who caught my eye is a real hunk!
Question by Jake..fourth post. Just a second….let me scroll up…All I can say is if it had been Zeus, he probably would have killed me and raped my corpse. And wouldn’t there have been lightnings bolts so that I could see him in all his glory? And if it had been Osiris I imagine he would have shared with me how to keep that damn fungus from killing off my plumbago plants. So I doubt it was either of them. It may take some time to rule out the rest of the gods…especially when I get to the Hindu list!
Seriously, I believe it was the God of the Bible. You bring up a good argument for why I would believe that as opposed to believing I had been visited by any other god (which I don’t believe exist.)
I know you are not able to understand how a feeling late at night can be respresentative of meeting God. I see how you, from our perspective, would attribute such an event to a stressed mind and an overactive imagination. You were not there, so I wouldn’t expect you to be able to interpret it from afar. Only God himself and I can attest to what happened.
The fact that you are saddened by my acceptance of what you view as a delusion is a gift to me. I guess, perhaps, I have wrongly believed that atheists are heartless people. The fact that you want the best for me–that you want me to find and know the truth–helps me to see that just as all Christians cannot be lumped into one narrow category, neither can atheists. You appear to be a kind and compassionate man, Darren. Thank you for challenging my assumptions with courtesy and thought-provoking questions.
L.Neilson,
I totally agree with you that it is highly probable that children will follow the same faith as that embraced by their parents. We agree on that point for sure!!
I do believe that Christ is the only way to eternal life, and I also believe that all religions and philosophies contain elements of truth. I did meet the God I had been doubting that night and I did not lose my faith.
Can you clarify what you mean by “You are nearly there…”? I’m not sure I’m following your train of thought.
Let me clarify, too. The quote you attributed to me was in response to Darren’s comments….I was predicting that he would say I was inventing a crutch because my own mind was discombobulating. And his response proved my prediction to be correct.
What I experienced that night…and many times since…was not all in my head even if you don’t believe it. That’s all I can say. And I know that for you and many more reading this, it’s not enough. I hope that each one of you find what IS enough to make you content in this life and in the next (if you find there is one…)
L.Nielsen said:
“But as religious factions fight over religion, try to make laws founded on religion, demand special treatment and protection from criticism, try to harm education or discriminate against people with a different take on life then the rest of us must demand evidence that their claims are true.”
It may surprise you to know that I’m right there with you on this one.
No where in my comments above have I claimed anything, so I respectfully reject the notion that I’m responsible to provide evidence. I don’t even look at the issue in that way. Words like “influence” and “evidence” aren’t a part of my thinking in regards to Christianity. I’m not actually out to prove anything, not because of a pompous “I’m right and you’re wrong” attitude, but simply because it’s not the point.
Whoa baby, take your time to write a response and wham, you get wayyyy behind!
I’d better grab a cuppa java!
tobe38, you sent me into a spiral of despair over Saint Nick, but I’m glad to see you were just joking.
I don’t think I implied anywhere that I wanted people like you to believe me, though I’d have to go and reread what I said….but don’t make me do it….I’ve already spent wayyy too much time on here today!
I think one of my recent comments clarifies this better. Now I really must go get a cup of coffee because you all are really puting a lot of thought into your comments and therefore they are LONG!
I must say, everyone, that I am generally quite impressed with the quality of discussion. Thanks.
Tobe 38,
Thanks for the ongoing dialogue…
God doesn’t seem to do things the way I would either. I used to really struggle with why He would present Himself in parables and metaphor more than in cold, hard facts. It’s my personal opinion–NOT a dogmatic doctrine to which I hold–that He might do this just to keep things interesting. Relationships take time and people are revealed in layers–not all at once. So I think God might want to keep us guessing a bit and not put it all out there right away.
It would seem unfair for God to present proof of His existence only to some and then judge the rest for not believing. I believe that God does present Himself to all–that He allows everyone equal access to His truth. Can I prove that? No.
Regarding heaven and hell, I am no expert.
I have struggled for years to reconcile God’s omniscience with man’s free will. I don’t think I will ever be able to understand it, but I will say that I don’t believe it’s an either/or situation. I think God can foresee the outcomes of all the choices we might make, but he doesn’t interfere with our ability to make them.
As far as God valuing freedom and the slavery issue here’s a relevant link:
http://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-slavery.html
I was always taught that the “slave” of Bible times was similar to an employee. The Bible encourages “slave owners” (similar to employers) to treat slaves fairly and well since they, the owners would have to answer to their own Master (God) one day for their actions. When I said that God values freedom I meant that God offers us freedom from sin and freedom to live eternally in His presence (thereby freeing us from sadness, sickness, tears, and death).
It was Christ who encouraged the fair treatment of women…God who commands us not to neglect the poor and to feed orphans and widows…God who insisted that field owners leave part of the crop behind to be picked up by hungry gleaners…God who said men should not take advantage of one another by charging interest…Christ who attacked the Pharisees for their rigid thinking and superiority complex toward Samaritans…How are my values inconsistent with the teachings and actions of God?
I appreciate your willingness to share your thoughts.
Let me say this is a very peacefull thread and I am glad to participate. It is nice to hear all your opinions.
ttm:
Exactly. I was referring to your prediction that others “might suggest that I was in an emotional and needy frame of mind so I fantasized something “real†which would give me hopeâ€.
In other words: You can see what I and others think happened to you. If you could see it that way yourself, your “knowledge” of a divine spirit standing by your side could vanish. But I know it is very hard to drop religious belief or part thereof, so perhaps the road is longer than I imagine, when seeing it from my side.
If this doesn’t make you doubt just a little, can you imagine something that would make you doubt? And what would you think could convince me or atheists in general?
Heidi:
You said to tobe38:
“tobe38, I’m not quite sure where you got the notion that it is up to anyone to prove anything to anyone else. The burden of proof is actually not on me, any more than it’s on you”
and I took the liberty of chiming in because if a claim has consequences for anyone beside the claimant those other people have the right to examine the claim and demand evidence for its truthfullness. Religious people very often asume they have an argument when saying “You can’t disprove God”, when it really isn’t worth anything.
Please excuse me for quoting myself (2 sp. edited):
“If you will turn the table of the burden of proof you have to agree with me that the universe was created by the great pink unicorn with golden ears, because you cannot disprove that such a creature with unlimited power exists.”
If someone said: “God has ordered me to collect 1000$ from every person in Texas and use it on churchmatters (including a luxury house and other good stuff for myself).” Wouldn’t you think demand of evidence would be a very good idea?
If a claim has no consequences for anybody but the claimant I couldn’t care less, and then you are absolutely right. Then no one will need evidence or proof, allthough I think if the consequences for the claimant are very severe (like f.ex. a very strong fear of hell!) I would perhaps try and help.
ttm:
If it was Christ who encouraged the fair treatment of women, why do many christians see women as inferior to men?
Now I must end for today. Its past midnight here and I got a long workday tomorrow. Good night and thanks all.
L.Nielsen:
I’ve been asking myself that question for decades…all I can surmise is that many Christians misinterpret the concepts of authority and submission.
Thanks for spending your evening dialoguing…I’ve enjoyed it and learned from your comments.
Hi TTM,
“Thanks for the ongoing dialogue…â€
My pleasure, and thanks to you too.
“God doesn’t seem to do things the way I would either. I used to really struggle with why He would present Himself in parables and metaphor more than in cold, hard facts. It’s my personal opinion–NOT a dogmatic doctrine to which I hold–that He might do this just to keep things interesting. Relationships take time and people are revealed in layers–not all at once. So I think God might want to keep us guessing a bit and not put it all out there right away.â€
If this were the case, then God would be condemning millions of innocent people to death each year that he chose to “not put it all out thereâ€. People die every day in wars that are happening because people can’t agree on who or what God is, and what he wants. If God is able to step in and stop all the fighting and death, but chooses not to, he is evil.
“It would seem unfair for God to present proof of His existence only to some and then judge the rest for not believing. I believe that God does present Himself to all–that He allows everyone equal access to His truth. Can I prove that? No.â€
Not only can you not prove it, the evidence is spectacularly against you. For every Christian who swears blind they have experienced God, there is a Muslim who will swear blind that he has felt the touch of Allah. You can not both be right, but you can both be wrong. And no, they are not the same God. It is one of the few things that both the Bible and the Quran are very clear about.
“Regarding heaven and hell, I am no expert.â€
You don’t need to be. No human being can cause an infinite amount of suffering, and yet he receives infinite punishment in Hell. Most of the modern civilized world agrees that a punishment should bear some proportion to the crime. God, it appears, would disagree.
“I have struggled for years to reconcile God’s omniscience with man’s free will. I don’t think I will ever be able to understand it, but I will say that I don’t believe it’s an either/or situation. I think God can foresee the outcomes of all the choices we might make, but he doesn’t interfere with our ability to make them.â€
Your last sentence is a complete contradiction. Either God created us knowing what choices we would make and, therefore, made those choices for us, or he gave us the ability to make our own choices and doesn’t know what they are until we make them. You can’t have it both ways. Whichever way you choose, you can’t give God his omniscience and keep free will for us.
“As far as God valuing freedom and the slavery issue here’s a relevant link:
http://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-slavery.html
“I was always taught that the “slave†of Bible times was similar to an employee. The Bible encourages “slave owners†(similar to employers) to treat slaves fairly and well since they, the owners would have to answer to their own Master (God) one day for their actions. When I said that God values freedom I meant that God offers us freedom from sin and freedom to live eternally in His presence (thereby freeing us from sadness, sickness, tears, and death).â€
I don’t have time right now to write a detailed response to this, but I think it splits hairs. Slaves treated humanely were still slaves as they were deprived of their freedom. People who choose to be slaves are not slaves – if you can pack up and leave at any time, you are not a slave, you are an employee – that’s the difference. It shouldn’t matter that social dynamics have shifted. If the Bible offers us the perfect morals it is often claimed to teach, it should condemn all forms of slavery, clearly and unequivocally. This is a poor effort to disguise the fact that the Bible is out of date because it was written by humans who lived thousands of years ago.
“It was Christ who encouraged the fair treatment of women…God who commands us not to neglect the poor and to feed orphans and widows…God who insisted that field owners leave part of the crop behind to be picked up by hungry gleaners…God who said men should not take advantage of one another by charging interest…Christ who attacked the Pharisees for their rigid thinking and superiority complex toward Samaritans…How are my values inconsistent with the teachings and actions of God?â€
I don’t deny that there are examples of great humanity and kindness in the Bible, and your examples clearly illustrate that point. But if it were the word of God, and proud possession of a perfect religion, it would contain only that. It doesn’t. Take a look at the following references:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/int/long.html
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/inj/long.html
I don’t think these can be reconciled with an all powerful, loving god.
“I appreciate your willingness to share your thoughts.â€
Always a pleasure, never a chore.
ttm writes
” I am not pretending that material relating to evolution is unavailable or inaccessible. I am asking you, as a someone who claims evolution was proved 100 years ago to show me the proof.”
You admit the evidence is available yet you choose not to study it. This indicates lack of intellectual honesty. Are you prepared to state exactly what form of proof you would accept? Whatever it is, it is almost certainly within a few key strokes on the internet. But of course you are too busy to read it.
A common misunderstanding concerns FACT versus THEORY.
On the one hand there is the FACT that evolution has occurred. The evidence is simply overwhelming and of various different types: the fossil record, the genetic code, experimental confirmations, structures in living organisms which are of no current use but once were, faulty “designs” that are explained by “blind evolution” but that no sentient being would create, predictions that are tested based one the hypothesis it has occurred etc. The earth is 5 billion years old and for most of that time the flora and fauna were very different from what we now observe. An honest person can’t dispute the FACT evolution has happened and continues to happen.
Then there is the THEORY of evolution which purports to explain the facts. The theory is beautiful, elegant and full of detailed subtleties. Sometimes various details of the theory are changed to account for new discoveries. Unfortunately the general public do not distinguish FACT and THEORY. The fact that evolution has occurred certainly predates Darwin, it was his explanation of HOW it happened that was the breakthrough.
It is a bit like the FACT things fall to the ground and the THEORY of gravity. Probably you don’t dispute the former and don’t understand the latter.
Finally, as a professional truth seeker, I find ttm’s quote
“Apparently we agree that those who actively seek shall find the truth.”
very naive. If only it were that easy I would be rich and famous.
ttm, I’m pleased to find a believer that appears to be intelligent and introspective enough to at least recognise the non-theistic reasons for your misinterpreted spiritual experience. I cannot help but wonder why you would choose to interpret this experience (which sounds to me like that fuzzy, disorienting transitional state between sleep and wakefulness that we all experience from time to time) as meeting your god. Perhaps it was indeed a fear response, fear of losing your god and all the attendant social networks you have surely built around it? Faced with the prospect of denying everything you have been brought up to believe, I can perhaps understand why you would convince yourself to go running back, eager to believe and be accepted.
I agree with L.Nielsen’s sentiment that you are “almost there” – close to realising that this is the only life you have and that all your effort should be directed at living it well for it’s own sake, close to realising that you are strong enough as an individual to face the world without the psychological crutch you call god, close to realising that you are a good human being in your own right, close to realising that your own successes, failures, loves and fears are yours and yours alone, not attibutable to an imaginary creator. Be strong. Make the break.
Voice of Reason:
Then there is the FACT that you continue to use inflammatory language such as “lack of intellectual honesty,” “too busy,” and “naive” and my developing THEORY that your arrogant attitude may be what is preventing both riches and fame from making their way into your life.
If I don’t respond to any more of your comments to me, it’s because I’ll be very busy searching the internet for more FACTS. Thanks for telling me how to deconstruct my misunderstandings. Most likely you will dispute the former and doubt my ability to follow through on the latter.
Darren, thanks for your encouragement to be strong.
As I don’t carry enough theological weight to help my fellow believers in this debate with evidence or valuable dialog, and I was never able to cement myself in mt attempt to be an atheist, I can only say that when I tried to de-construct my belief system and embrace the scientific angle, it fell flat. I have read apologetics on both sides and found both wanting. To say that evolution was “proven” 100 years ago is to disregard the fact that even Darwin doubted his own contentions(as he states in origin of species), for every bit of scientific evidence for evolution there is scientific evidence against it.(more or less, I haven’t kept a number tally). The same can be said for religion. As David said, I am also acutely aware of God’s presence in my life, in the same way that I became acutely aware of gravity when I fell off a roof once. I laid there in a lot of pain and there was no doubt about the effect of gravity at that moment. As there has been no doubt about the work God has done in my life. That’s the best way I can explain it. Someone asked if we could consider alternatives. I have……. and I still eventually came back to Christ. As to the question, “why would God reveal himself to some and not to others”, (paraphrasing), well, I don’t have a good answer and no one else does either. But I do know that I can answer to the idea that we believe only because it gives comfort or security. (again paraphrasing) Since I have devoted my life to God, it has been anything but comfortable and secure. He weighs on me in a way that I never thought possible. I can’t explain it, nor can I offer a ‘for instance’ that can’t be punched full of holes, but its there. I can’t shake the desire to run from Him and I can’t shake the intense burning in my conscientiousness to run to Him, either. So that idea doesn’t really hold water either. This could go on for days and probably will, but it is all mental masturbation in the end. We’ll just have to agree to disagree, i guess. I am just pleasantly surprised at the peaceful and respectful tone of all of these responses. Well done to all.
Chris,
Thank you for your honesty. I agree with you about the pleasant tone of this debate, and I echoed your congratulations to all on the much smaller satellite discussion on Ebon Musing’s blog http://www.daylightatheism.org .
Darwin had doubts about gaps in his theory because he didn’t have Mendel’s genetics available to him. We do, and the discovery of genetics has confirmed almost everything that Darwin suspected.
How do you explain AIDS without evolution? Diseases and viruses mutate, that is why we are constantly having to look for new vaccines etc. Almost all of mainstream medicine and biology breakdown if evolution is false. If you don’t believe in evolution, you need to present another theory that so neatly and elegantly explains all this data.
How do you know that the God whose presence you feel is the Christian god? Muslims feel the same way about Allah, and if you take the Bible as the literal word of God, as they do the Quran, then they are definitely not the same god.
I completely agree with you about believing in God for comfort and security. I think that most theists believe in God because they think he exists and believe the claims of their religion, regardless of whether it comforts them.
To say that “for every bit of scientific evidence for evolution there is scientific evidence against it.(more or less, I haven’t kept a number tally). The same can be said for religion.” This is just false. When the evidence is fairly and openly analysed, it is overwhelming in favour of evolution, and as far as religion goes, against the existence of God. If you want to believe in God on faith, that’s up to you, but to try and pretend that the evidence is 50/50 is just kidding yourself.
Thanks again.
About 3 years ago I dropped into a black hole – four months of absolute terror. I wanted to end my life, but somehow [Holy Spirit], I reached out to a friend who took me to hospital. I had three visits [hospital] in four months – I actually thought I was in hell. I imagine I was going through some sort of metamorphosis [mental, physical & spiritual]. I had been seeing a therapist [1994] on a regular basis, up until this point in time. I actually thought I would be locked away – but the hospital staff was very supportive [I had no control over my process]. I was released from hospital 16th September 1994, but my fear, pain & shame had only subsided a little. I remember this particular morning waking up [home] & my process would start up again [fear, pain, & shame]. No one could help me, not even my therapist [I was terrified]. I asked Jesus Christ to have mercy on me & forgive me my sins. Slowly, all my fear has dissipated & I believe Jesus delivered me from my “psychological prison.†I am a practicing Catholic & the Holy Spirit is my friend & strength; every day since then has been a joy & blessing. I deserve to go to hell for the life I have led, but Jesus through His sacrifice on the cross, delivered me from my inequities. John 3: 8, John 15: 26, are verses I can relate to, organically. He’s a real person who is with me all the time. I have so much joy & peace in my life, today, after a childhood spent in orphanages [England & Australia]. Fear, pain, & shame, are no longer my constant companions. I just wanted to share my experience with you [Luke 8: 16 – 17].
Peace Be With You
Michael
Truly there is a God, although the fool has said in his heart, there is no God [Psalm 14]. And it assuredly exists so truly that it cannot be conceived not to exist. For it is possible to conceive of a being which cannot be conceived not to exist; & this is greater than one which can be conceived not to exist. Hence, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, can be conceived not to exist, it is not that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, but this is an irreconcilable contradiction. There is, then, so truly a being than which nothing greater can be conceived to exist, that it cannot even be conceived not to exist; & this being you are. O Lord our God. [St Anslem]
Peace Be With You
Michael
From experience I speak. Belief over-shadows what are the available experiences of the world. We are all content when our world models provide a sufficiently durable context for us to act in the world. Trauma provides the basis for questioning belief only after we try to squeeze the difficulty into our current belief systems – and fail. I wonder, as the child grown discovers that their parents are not infallible, how we discover what truth there is to be had when we are so haphazard in our pursue of it. The biggest difficulty is belief creates a blind spot, the nature of which is to cocoon us in darkness while convincing us we are dwelling in total light.
Peace unchecked is death and death is nothingness.
Michael: are you telling me that you were mentally ill, and that led you to believe in Jesus? Is that supposed to be convincing and rational? If you were strong enough to recover from mental illness, then why would you insist on attributing your own strength of character to a mythological figure?
Also, why do christians think that quoting chapter and verse proves anything? Your St Anslem passage uses a lot of words to say nothing more than “I believe in a god. I can’t think of way he couldn’t exist, so he must exist. I can think of things that don’t exist, so this god must be better than them. Therefore, god is the greatest” – this appears to be vacuous nonsense, aimed at the gullible. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood? Could you enlighten me?
Alexander: “Peace unchecked is death and death is nothingness.” – what? Is this aimed at the fearful? What is this comment trying to convey?
ttm said: Randy, who here accused “all atheists†of being “close-minded�
Forgive me. I did not mean to insinuate that the accusation came from someone here. And nakedpastor reminded me it came from comments to an article at ebonmusings.
tobe38.
“Darwin had doubts about gaps in his theory because he didn’t have Mendel’s genetics available to him. We do, and the discovery of genetics has confirmed almost everything that Darwin suspected.”
“How do you explain AIDS without evolution?”
In Origin of Species there is a passage where Darwin expresses fear about the entire idea that he posits in the book and fear about the possibility of being held accountable for it.(he references the possibility of the Almighty in this passage) I can’t point to it because my copy of the book is a 1000 miles away from me right now. His doubts and fears go much deeper than just sketchy evidence, he had something nagging at his conscientiousness that was an echo his days in Seminary. I have no proof, but I believe that nagging came from God. Mendel’s genetics are compelling, however, they are not convincing to me. Genetics shows that the more narrow a gene pool is, the higher the likely hood that a negative mutation will occur.(insert your own, southerners backwoods joke here) So Mendel fails, in my mind, to adequately account for the very narrow gene pool (read single-celled organism) that the theory of evolution begins with. Also, the AIDs virus mutation, as-well-as the flu, common cold, etc. etc, are inherent survival mechanisms the the virus possesses. Just like a fox will turn white in winter. These seem to me to be far too clever to have occurred accidentally, but rather, by clear intellectual design. That’s my opinion, belief, conclusion…. I realize others can use all sorts of logic and reason to counter this, but to say that my ideas lack reason would just be unfair.
“If you don’t believe in evolution, you need to present another theory that so neatly and elegantly explains all this data.”
Sorry my friend, but I don’t really need to present another theory here. Especially when the current theory isn’t very elegant itself. (more below on this point)
“How do you know that the God whose presence you feel is the Christian god?”
My answer my not satisfy you, but all I can say about feeling Christ’s presence in my life, is that it is something I can’t not do. Like trying not to blink or breath. He’s just there, and I have tried not to feel it, but He’s still there. I know that won’t suffice, but its all I have on that one.
“…..This is just false. When the evidence is fairly and openly analysed, it is overwhelming in favour of evolution, and as far as religion goes, against the existence of God. If you want to believe in God on faith, that’s up to you, but to try and pretend that the evidence is 50/50 is just kidding yourself.”
I’ll give the 50/50 idea. Like I said, I haven’t kept a number tally. Having said that, let’s be fair. A lot of this evidence, when examined alone could be compelling but a lot of it is very sketchy. Lucy is not compelling because the skull is very clearly an primate of some sort and decidedly not human and there is an entire evolutionary step [in mankind] that is based around a computer model that began with a single tooth. Computers can only develop what we tell them to, and so the results is this one are suspect and subject to someone’s agenda. Seeing a man’s foot print in a stone creek bed complete with a primitive shoe sole right next to a dinosaur foot print makes the time line of evolution very suspect. The laws of angular momentum are proven repeatedly in the lab. So if the big bang happened, then several objects in our solar system are rotating in the wrong direction and thus violating these laws. Also, Who wrote all these laws. Not man, they just discovered them. These are just some of the examples that lead me to believe that evolution is in correct. I personally feel that the theory of evolution has just as many questions, if not more, than my faith does. I realize that I can never give you enough evidence to satisfy your disbelief and I don’t intend to try. Nor do I hold up my ideas as being 100% solid. These are just some of the conclusions I have come to while studying these things. At this point in my life I am satisfied with these conclusions and I am no longer compelled, at this time, consider them further. I believe this debate to be a waist of time, personally. I had not intended to get into it, but I could not ignore your polite and honest skepticism. I won’t be adding anything further to this discussion, but I will certainly keep an eye out for your response and give it it’s due consideration. However, I am sure that, like you, in the end I will still feel that same way.
ttm said: Randy: You seem to be very open minded and receptive to evidence as long as it fits the parameters you’ve established. I appreciate your desire for fairness. I’m curious as to how atheists such as yourself would view “the heartâ€. Not the physical heart–but a place of emotion and feeling and essence unique to each individual. Is there such a thing? Or are we only able to experience things with our minds–no heart, no soul, no spirit?
I am receptive to evidence, and I guess we all have set parameters. If we don’t set parameters, we will believe anything…I guess?
As for the “heart”, I don’t think there is such a thing, other than the blood-pumper. I do not “believe” in souls or spirits. As best as I can determine, all the we feel, experience, enjoy, hate, love, etc, takes place in that little area between our ears…as best as I can determine.
Now, if we have a soul or spirit, does it reside physically in our head and have to submit to the operations of the brain? It must, as best as I can determine, because when a person is in a coma or is “brain dead” the spirit or soul seems to lose it’s ability to do anything.
Believe me, I do not enjoy being so clinical. I would love to read that science has discovered an “essence” in side all of us that will not die when we die. But I just can’t force myself to believe. I am just not a believer. I am no longer a person who “believes” things. I much prefer to know things now.
I am enjoying this dialogue.
Randy:
Forgiven. Again, I appreciate your fair-mindedness and willingness to answer the questions posited by those who think differently than you do. Thanks.
“These are just some of the examples that lead me to believe that evolution is in correct.”
oops typo’s everywhere. this should read;
“incorrect”
Chris said: I realize others can use all sorts of logic and reason to counter this, but to say that my ideas lack reason would just be unfair.
Hi Chris. I am not a scientist. I barely graduated high school. I have never gone to college other than one semester 10 years ago at my local community college. I tell you this so as to add credence to my next comment – I am an idiot.
Now that we have that out of the way, let me ask you some questions.
Do you not agree with me when I say that life on our planet got to where it is today by evolution?
If you do not agree with me, is it because of a few pages at the beginning of the Christian bible?
If that is why you disagree with me, I muct ask, why do those few pages mean more to you than the millions of pages produced by scientists over the past hundred+ years?
Do you trust scientific discoveries that led to air and space travel, greater food production, sanitation, medicines, energy efficiency, surgical procedures, etc, because those discoveries do not contradict what you believe (because of what the bible says) but you dismiss science that indicates life on our planet evolved because it does contradict what you believe (because of what the bible says)?
If this is what you believe, don’t you see that what you believe is based on a few pages in a 2,000 year old book? Don’t you see that children, 4, 5, 6 year olds can come to the same basic belief as you have, and they do not arrive there by using reasoning abilities, but are usually lead there out of fear or love, two very powerful emotions?
I guess what I am trying to point out is that, if we all could really examine what we believe concerning God, especially the “how” we came to believe, we would see that we got there, not by studying biology, but by emotional appeals of love and fear. Would any of us respect the scientific findings in any field if they used emotional appeals to make their case, rather than evidence?
At any rate, I am not trying to get you to stop believing. I remember well the feelings I experienced when I was a believer. I truly miss some of them. Others…not so much.
How about a couple quotes. Other people say it much better than I ever can.
I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, — blown and flared by passion’s storm, — and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and naught remains.
Give me the storm and stress of thought and action rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. Banish me from Eden when you will, but first let me eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.
–Robert G. Ingersoll
Anyone who, in discussion relies upon authority, uses not his understanding, but his memory.
–Leonardo Da Vinci
A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth.
– Edward De Bono
Chris:At this point in my life I am satisfied with these conclusions and I am no longer compelled, at this time, consider them further.
Too bad. I was willing to take you seriously up until this point. You’ve swallowed a whole dose of creationist/anti-evolutionist bunk. If you ever want to do something about that, pop over to Ebon’s site. We’ll leave a light on.
However, I am sure that, like you, in the end I will still feel that same way.
Well, at least you’re honest about it.
Randy, as reluctant as I am to go further in this debate, you bring up some interesting questions.
“Do you not agree with me when I say that life on our planet got to where it is today by evolution?”
No I don’t, for the reasons as stated above.
“If you do not agree with me, is it because of a few pages at the beginning of the Christian bible?”
No to this one also, again for the reasons stated above and below. The story of Genesis has a modern scientific theory attached to it called the young earth concept.(YEC) This theory, like evolution, can be punched full of holes. A lot of evolutionist make the mistake of thinking that all Christians take the bible completely and exactly literal. I’m not one of them. I believe that it contains several metaphors and symbolic principles that lead me to the truth about God. I believe it to be divinely inspired, but penned by the hand of man. My point to my posts above could summed up very briefly; I don’t know how we got here, but I believe that God made us and everything. I don’t know how He did it and I don’t really care. All I really know is that He is very present in my life and I can’t run away from that. Believe me I have tried. Also, the field of science has a tendency to establish theory as fact even when they can’t agree on most of its own principles.
“If that is why you disagree with me, I muct ask, why do those few pages mean more to you than the millions of pages produced by scientists over the past hundred+ years?”
These pages mean more to me because they are backed up by everyday life experiences. They are backed up by millions of pages produced by theologians and lay people alike for the past six thousand plus years. Further, I am always skeptical of people who contend to have a monopoly on the truth, while refusing to consider other peoples points of view. Even when those other people are fellow believers. (I’m referring to the evolutionist here, not you in particular)
“Would any of us respect the scientific findings in any field if they used emotional appeals to make their case, rather than evidence?”
You’ve apparently never witnessed an evolutionist debate a believer on this matter. Often they get very belligerent and start throwing insults because we don’t relent to their “reason, logic, evidence, etc, ad nauseum.” It is hardly the paragon of emotional constraint. Mind you, not all them are like this and I don’t mean to make a sweeping generalization, but this has been my personal experience. As for the findings that come in the form of research and reports they are mostly based on conclusions formed in the lab and based on only the parameters applied to the experiment. Any empirical evidence outside that experiment is usually discarded. btw; there are a lot of scientist who do not subscribe to the theory of evolution based on their own research.
Thank you for the questions. I know this wont convince you of anything and I am not trying to. But if you think back to those feelings you had as a believer, and de-construct the force, circumstance, whatever behind those emotions, you might even find that you had a good and logical reason for feeling that way. Just a thought.
schemanista
please, see above!
schemanista
Actually, I can’t, in fairness leave it at that. You make an excellent point. My statement can only give the impression that I have closed my mind to any new ideas. So I reword it for fairness.
At this point in my life I am comfortable with my current conclusions and, barring any new earth shattering evidence or sound deliberation, I will stick to this and focus my time and energy on other disciplines and studies. As I stated before, I feel these debates are useless and they almost never result in the changing of anyone’s mind. I repost this over at ebon’s as well. Thanks for calling me out on that one!
TTM,
No problem. If you’d like to leave our little debate where it is, fair enough. I can’t say that your conclusions are without reason, but I do think your reasoning is flawed and your assumptions ill-informed. However, if, as you say, you are content with them at the moment, then that’s up to you. If you change your mind, I urge you to read about evolution from the scientists who work on it, not intelligent design advocates interpretations of it.
You are welcome at my website any time. If you ever want to resume, my contact details are on it
)
All the best.
Chris said; At this point in my life I am comfortable with my current conclusions…
Chris, excellent point. I was a bible believer for 25 years. The first 6-8 years I was fairly comfortable. The last 15+ were not so good. I think it is because of those last years that I began to look.
You are not looking, with regard to the validity of your faith. Why, because you are happy with it. If it is working for you, why would you want to investigate it further?
My faith was enjoyable only for a while. Then I started to experience many feelings of guilt, doubt, frustration, all as a result of my dissatisfaction with my own “spiritual walk”.
But for a person who feels, perhaps, a closeness with his God, why would they want to tamper (question) with that just because some stranger asks them to. Why indeed.
My girlfriend is a Christian. She attends church every Sunday morn. Once a month or so, I’ll go with her. I feel so incredibly out of place there. She is fully aware of my atheism (but holds out hope).
She and I never talk about her faith or my former faith. She is not looking. She is happy where she is. As long as she is ok with the idea of me going to hell, why would I want to tamper with her contentment.
But, and it is a large but, if she was to ever ask me some questions, start looking, for what ever reason, I would gladly, gently, express to her my thoughts on religious faith.
So, I can honestly say that I think it would be best for us all if we never connect to the internet again…unless we are looking.
ps- if anyone would like to read my short journal, perhaps to get an idea of what the thought process is of a fundamentalist believer turning into an atheist, feel free to read mine here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rsjcmsweatt/journal_intro.htm
It is a short read due to my lack of discipline. Feedback is welcome.
lets_reason@yahoo.com
Randy, I appreciate your candor. However, you statement about my walk in faith is out of context and misses the mark by a lot. My comfort that I speak of has to do with my conclusions about evolution vs. God. It definitely doesn’t reflect my whole experience as a Christian. Far from it. I was dragged back into my faith kicking and screaming, no longer able to deny the power of God in my life.
“You are not looking, with regard to the validity of your faith. Why, because you are happy with it. If it is working for you, why would you want to investigate it further?”
On the contrary. The past year of my life has been a constant struggle to separate my doubts and my beliefs from my reason and faith. I am getting more comfortable with my faith because I have approached it from the idea that it is all false and that I shouldn’t believe any of it. So far I have ended up where I started and that is believe what every fiber of my contentiousness tells me. He is right here and I have to deal with it whether I wanted to or not. I read some of your journal and I agree with a lot of the problematic issues concerning the different denominations and man’s interpretation of the word of God and ideas about what a church should look like. I’ll save that for me and you, though. I will read more and send you an email.
Chris: On the contrary. The past year of my life has been a constant struggle to separate my doubts and my beliefs from my reason and faith.
I guess I was just going on your statement of being comfortable with your conclusions. Didn’t mean to generalize your Christian experience.
Again, I must say that I am impressed with the quality and humanity of this dialogue. If we can continue conversing without converting, I think we are on to something.
I’m with you on that one David.
Chris:
The YEC is born from the desire to come up with something science-like to support the bible, so it is because of those few pages in the bible, that you do not agree with Randy (and me).
YEC is much more full of holes than evolution. If YEC was right modern science including the fields of at least physichs, chemistry, geology, biology and astronomy would be wrong and like Randy implied those fields are integrated parts of modern medicine, computers, telecommunication, transportation (indluding spacetravel), massproduction, energyproduction, modern foodproduction etc.
And you do use your computer and the internet and probably satelite tv, transportation beyond horseriding, mobile phones etc.
You and others mention aids, flu and cold. There adaptability is really evolution in action. It is definitely not the same as a fox changing to winterdress. One fox has genes which are being expressed in the ability to change furcolor, because evolution has favoured foxes that are brown/red in sommer and white in winter. One virus-particle doesn’t change color, but as it procreates mutations in that process can make the resulting child-virus differ from the parent-virus, so that the child-virus is capable of infecting a human as well as the original host thereby opening the possibility for a new human disease. This is the probable story for the HIV/aids-virus, birdflu-virus and others.
You say that the laws of angular momentum tells us that a bigbang should mean all objects in the solarsystem should rotate in the same direction. That is plain wrong.
The main direction of rotation in a solarsystem depends on the way the original gascloud condensed. Two solarsystems born nearby each other can very well rotate in two different directions and besides that the two planes of rotation would probably be at some angle to oneanother. All this has absolutely nothing at all to do with a bigbang.
We do not know how the laws of the universe came to be, but I asure you that you do not explain anything at all by saying that a god wrote them. If I say I have a 5000 years old book claiming the Great Big Pink Unicorn with Golden Ears wrote these laws I have explained nothing. How did the GBPUwGE come into existance? How did it become so powerfull as to create universes? How can this claim help me with farming, new technology, handling natural events, avoid conflicts or understand the world around me?
If you really want to search for more facts and explanations based on facts and well-founded theories I will encourage you to search the web, libraries and museums. Here are some good places to start on evolution:
Books:
Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth R. Miller
This book is said to be good if you are a christian trying to form an opinion on evolution, but I have not read that myself yet I should say. I intend to, though.
Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
If you have heard that Richard Dawkins is a militant atheist, then it is wrong. Try and read his books with an open mind. You might not agree with him, but I can’t see a theist should feel offended by his writings unless they feel religious faith should be excempt from criticism and when he does that he Ãsn’t even arrogant. He just points out his opinions and points to the facts.
The web:
talkorigins.org
scienceblogs.com/pharyngula
sandwalk.blogspot.com
http://www.antievolution.org/cs
If I don’t find the time in the next couple of days to get into this discussion again I would just like to say to all of you: Thanks for a good tone and friendly exchange of opinions. If all conflicts in the world could be put on that track it would be a wonderfull world. I have learned from this experience, and to me the charm of living is to love and learn, so we are halfway there
.
Randy, it’s interesting to note that your girlfriend thinks you are going to hell. Does she also believe that you deserve to go to hell? Are you ok with that yourself? I refer to the idea that your girlfriend, who presumably loves you, may think you deserve eternal punishment. I’m not sure I would be comfortable with that. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
Well after reading through a few dozen messages, and then getting a little tired, there seems to be a pattern, at least to my little mind.
Atheists are heartless!
We’re always knocking down others’ sentimental experiences and blowing the cold wind of logic into the warm hearths of believers’ hearts. Not necessarily in tone or by being insulting (thankfully there’s been relatively little of that from both sides), but in that we require and unashamedly DEMAND real, objective evidence.
In comparison, most of the believers’ claims I’m reading here are of the romantic variety – divine valentines. Kinda’ like that kid who tells pre-schoolers there’s no Santa Claus just to make ‘em cry.
There’s some talk about atheism being a belief system and that we CHOOSE to believe a certain way. My response is that if being an atheist means anything, it means that Reason is supreme. Not that we “worship” it but that we use it, relentlessly, ruthlessly, holding nothing too sacred for scrutiny.
It’s not a choice. I follow the FACTS wherever they lead. If the facts told me that a giant dog spat up the universe, I’d be a Caninite.
I implore everyone here to use your intellects without restraint or bias and to boldly pursue answers without fear of where the trek may lead. Learn all you can about the Bible, evolution, comparative religion, and anything else. Don’t be complacent by thinking you already know the answers – you just never know.
My two cents.
Tobe38:
I think you may have incorrectly attributed the “I am content” quote to me when it was actually stated and later amended by someone else….
By the way, though many hours passed since our last conversation, I am not giving you the cold shoulder. I spent my day in various governmental offices trying to deal with some issues. And though it wasn’t as bad as I anticipated, I’d much rather have been here conversing about and considering these issues.
Thank you for the formal invitation to your website. I’ve already looked at some things there, but didn’t announce my presence with a comment. I also appreciate your recommendations about what and how to read as I explore the evolution/creation debate further.
Regarding your last comment yesterday to me, I’ll try to answer some of the questions you asked.
I’m not sure I explained my idea about God revealing Himself bit by bit very well. In my opinion, God wants to have a personal relationship with every human being who has ever existed, exists now, or will exist. But (also in my humble opinion) He doesn’t force Himself upon anyone nor does He hide out in a corner waiting for us to come to Him. The way I see it (And I expect many–whether theist or atheist–will not see it this way.), God is like a mysterious woman in a crowded bar.
She isn’t flashing an overabundance of skin, though she isn’t wearing a burqah either. She observes the surroundings and orders a drink. She dances. She chats. She watches. She listens. And, if some attractive man should make eye contact and raise his brows, she might quickly look away and then look back to see if he is still staring at her. If he is, she might smile and lean toward him a bit. She might uncross and re-cross her legs making sure the slit in the skirt inches just a little higher. This flash of flesh intrigues him and he offers to buy her another drink.
They strike up a conversation. She may brush up against his body. His hand may linger on the small of her back. This little game of seduction fuels both of their interests and get them excited about the possibilites for further interaction.
If she glances up at him and finds his eyes have strayed to another woman, she pulls away a bit. Or she may get a little more competitive, kind of catty with this other woman, trying to prove to the chap that she’s the better alternative. Which in some cases turns him off because he doesn’t really like to be told where to look or how to choose. And in some cases he might really like that–two women fighting over him! (Yep, he’s still got it!)
This game of seduction may or may not result in a longterm relationship, but if it does, I would be willing to bet that even ten years down the road there are still things that this man and woman are learning about one another that they didn’t know previously. Even things that they would have never anticipated or expected from the one they thought they knew so well. To me, that slow unveiling–seduction, if you will, is similar to how God operates with us.
You said if God were not to put it all out there right away He is condemning millions of innocent people to death. I don’t agree. I have never seen a woman stand in a public place, remove all of her clothing, reveal herself entirely and say “Come and get it boys. What you see is what you get!” If I did, I would assume she is either drunk or desperate! And I think most men would be turned off by that lack of mystery as well (but I could be very wrong about that…since I have not always had a great track record understanding men!)
Relationships are two-sided. God has a part. We have a part. When people do not show interest in Him, why should He be held responsible for that? If someone shows interest, He responds. If someone continues to blow Him off, He may or may not respond in kind. But that doesn’t make Him disingenous, does it?
Regarding your comment about people dying because they can’t agree on who or what God is, I share your frustration and sadness. When people kill in the name of God it makes me wonder how and why God allows things to get to that point. And I pray that somehow the senseless killing will stop.
You said, that “if God is able to step in and stop all the fighting and death, but chooses not to, he is evil.” Hmmm…I don’t know how to respond to that. Really.
There is much about God I don’t understand. I know on a theoretical, doctrinal level that the blood sacrifices of animals in the Old Testament had to involve the shedding of blood because those sacrifices, commanded but not eternally sufficient to cleanse the people of sin, pointed to–and were a pre-shadowing of the shedding of the sacrifice that WAS eternally sufficient–that of Christ. But on an emotional level, it seems that God appears quite bloodthirsty and cruel.
I understand on a theoretical level that God commanded lepers and other “defective” (God’s word–not mine!) humans to live on the outskirts of society so that there would not be massive epidemics wiping out His people. But on an emotional level, it pains me to think that God himself declared some untouchable or defective or unable to approach the holiest of places.
In the Old Testament God definitely is depicted as choosing some and rejecting others. This I do not understand at all. Some Christians today–strict Calvinists–believe that God predetermines who is chosen for salvation and who is not. It seems to me, Tobe38, that you if you were a Christian, you might share this view since you have alluded to God’s unfairness in revealing Himself to some and not all. The difference is the Calvinists are okay with that and you are not. Since I don’t consider myself a Calvinist or an Arminian–I really can’t address why that is.
There is much I don’t understand about God. But I tend to believe, because of what I stated above, that is simply because He is revealing Himself to me bit by bit. Just as I would not expect to know every characteristic of a friend or lover or to explain every motivation for their behavior or to approve of every act which they commit or fail to commit, I don’t expect to know those things about God. Perhaps my expectations are too low. But my relationship with God is good–even great. Because we have shared so much…because I believe Him to be a big, teddy bear under the sometimes rough exterior…because He protects me and is there for me…because I have seen Him sacrifice for others…I cannot even conceive of Him being evil.
I agree with you that the god of Muslims is not the God I worship. I would say that our faiths shared a common ancestry…the Christian faith coming through Abraham’s son, Isaac and the Muslim faith coming through Abraham’s son, Ishmael. The religions have much in common…but I believe you are right when you say we do not share the same God.
After spending part of yeterday and today running from governmental department to department, I might have to disagree with your statement that “No human being can cause an infinite amount of suffering.” Just kidding! Sometimes I think we are all blind to the suffering each of us does cause. Even one ill-spoken word can cause someone years of unspeakable suffering. Again, I believe you are right in your assessment that God appears to disagree that the punishment should fit the crime when it comes to eternity.
From a human point of view it seems ridiculous that a human being could torture, maim, and kill others relentlessly during her lifetime or that he could sexually abuse child after child with no remorse and then upon a sincere deathbed confession of Jesus Christ as Savior, be granted eternal life, no questions asked.
It also seems quite hard to swallow that a person could spend his or her life helping the poor, counseling the down and out, building homes for Habitat for Humanity, giving millions to charitable causes, assisting those with disabilities and mental health issues, and without a sincere acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior, be doomed to eternal condemnation and suffering, no getting out early for good behavior.
This doesn’t make sense to my human mind. But I didn’t establish the rules. God did. I can question them (which I often have), I can get pissed that God’s way of doing things means makes my friendships difficult, and I can tell God “I wouldn’t have done it that way” to which He shrugs and says, “I know. You are not me.”
I think we shall have to agree to disagree on the issue of omniscience and free will. I do not believe that one precludes the other. Perhaps I believe this in error, but at this point it is where I’m at. And I appreciate your comments which help me move further forward in understanding my own beliefs better.
On the slavery issue, I think we would both benefit from doing a bit more research before continuing the discussion. Your questions have me pondering whether I have really understood slavery as it was in Bible times and in recent years. I stand by my perspective at this point that “slavery” in the Bible was more a type of employment that was often voluntary. In fact, God commanded the Israelites to free all slaves every fourteen years or fifty years or something like that…like I said, let’s shelve that discussion for now. I can’t speak with any accuracy on the issue until I’ve done more research.
You made the comment, “If the Bible offers us the perfect morals it is often claimed to teach, IT SHOULD condemn all forms of slavery, clearly and unequivolcally.”
To that I say, “Why?”
Some in the atheist camp have suggested that Christians are unreasonable because they say “If evolution offers us the perfect explanation of how life originated and adapted to its current form, and is true, IT SHOULD, line up with the Bible’s explanation of the same.”
Christians are sometimes lambasted for demanding that evolution meet them on their terms within their frame of reference instead of going out of their frame to find the evidence. Aren’t you, by saying what the Bible, should, in your frame of reference, say, doing the same?
I thoroughly appreciate the links you provided to the skepticsannotatedbible! I haven’t had time to study them all, but think it would be interesting for Christians to read them, present counter-opinions, and see if the whole experience changes their understanding of who God is.
Thank you for continuing the dialogue, tobe38. I am really enjoying the opportunity to understand where you are coming from.
L. Neilsen,
Ok, I’ll let myself be drawn out one more time. In case you can’t tell, I have soft spot for honest skeptics.
“The YEC is born from the desire to come up with something science-like to support the bible, so it is because of those few pages in the bible, that you do not agree with Randy (and me).
YEC is much more full of holes than evolution.”
To these I said the following:…….(YEC) This theory, like evolution, can be punched full of holes.
I didn’t say I bought YEC, I referenced it as a comparison to evolution. Neither of which, I feel, stand on their own. Also, I didn’t mention the virus’s, I only responded to Randy’s proposal on this one with my own views.
On angular momentum you are not accurately restating the point I made on this. The gas cloud you bring up is useful to the discussion though. Most of the stuff I’ve read says that a planet’s moons come from the same gas cloud and therefore should spin in the same direction. But there are several moons in our solar system that spin opposite of their host. Again, not proof against evolution, but a compelling point to bring in some doubt.
Also it is not from just those few pages that I disagree with you but from many pages;
“These pages mean more to me because they are backed up by everyday life experiences. They are backed up by millions of pages produced by theologians and lay people alike for the past six thousand plus years.”
“We do not know how the laws of the universe came to be, but I asure you that you do not explain anything at all by saying that a god wrote them. If I say I have a 5000 years old book claiming the Great Big Pink Unicorn with Golden Ears wrote these laws I have explained nothing.”
Surely saying that God wrote them doesn’t explain it away, nor would I contend that it does. However, somehow the laws came to be and science can’t explain why, therefore it leaves the theory of evolution in question. I believe I found the answer outside the realm of science. Science describe behaviors in animals that can’t, yet, be scientifically explained with one word. Instinct. So I feel instinctively that there is something else at work where science fails.
As far as the books, I’ve read those and I did not find anything in them that has changed my conclusions or beliefs. I like to think of myself as open minded and willing to consider everything, but at this point I feel confident that I will be of the same opinion in the end. In all of the debates I have been involved in with atheist, no one has been able to come up with anything new that I haven’t already taken time to consider. Further, my life experiences have lead me to conclude that God does in fact exist and has considerable influence on me personally. I let you know if that changes. Thanks for adding, I’ve enjoyed it, but I think it is time to bow out of the discussion and return to my studies.
TTM,
Wow! Thank you for taking the time to write a response that was as detailed as it was candid.
Forgive me for not responding point to point. I’m confident that in terms of rationality, I can respond to most of your post in one paragraph: nearly everything you say commits the same logical fallacy – begging the question. Every argument you make stems from the assumption that God exists, and this is what you are supposed to be trying to prove.
I do love your analogy of God being a woman in a bar, but we are back to the same problems. I can perceive a woman in a bar with my senses – all of them. I can perceive a God with none of my senses (and I’m talking the 5 we know about, not speculative extras). This is a crucial difference.
In answer to your question “why?”.
Because the Bible is claimed to be morally perfect, and we know slavery is immoral. Back to logic, we can’t have it both ways. Either the Bible is not morally perfect, or slavery is not wrong.
We don’t claim that evolution is the perfect explanation, but we do claim that it is the best explanation we have. If, for the sake of argument, evolution is true, then creationism is false. True explanations don’t ‘line up’ with false explanations. Your argument is simply reversible – if Genesis offers the perfect explanation of how we were created, why doesn’t it line up with evolution?
To meet Christianity on their own terms is to do so on faith alone, without evidence. If we do this, anything goes and there can’t be a meaningful discussion. We may as well just say Santa Claus paid the tooth fairy to build us out of magic tooth glitter.
If you don’t mind me saying, I sense a lot of doubt mixed in with your faith. You even say as much yourself. You are what we tend to call a cherry picker (not derogatory) i.e. you pick the bits of the Bible you like and disregard the rest. How do you know you are picking the right bits? Why not just disregard the whole lot and decide for youself what your purpose is and what the best way to live your life is? You strike me as a very good, caring person. Do you need a God to please? A heaven to aim for and a Hell to avoid? Isn’t the satisfaction of doing the right thing because it’s the right thing enough? I think you are very honest and open minded, and I would be genuinely interested to hear your answers. My discussions with Christians don’t normally get this fa!
Do you think it’s worth carrying this on via email? I don’t really mind either way, but I feel our discussion may have gone beyond the scope of the original post.
thanks again.
Tobe38:
Since the discussion has taken some interesting twists and turns away from the original comment and an athiest’s request for proof for the existence of God, and since many of your questions asked for answers from my point of view; I felt I was within the parameters of our dialogue to present my explanations “as if” God exists.
In order to continue a meaningful discussion about the Bible and slavery, I believe we would first need an agreed upon definition of “moral” and some kind of agreement as to who determines what is moral and how that determination is made.
I think it might surprise you to know that many Christians do not consider doubt the deathknell of their personal faith. In my opinion, doubt is not necessarily the harbinger of Christian defeat. In many cases doubt drives my curiosity to learn more. And in many cases my learning only strengthens my faith. I do not want to assign doubt more value than it is due. Doubt is merely uncertainty.
I feel that sometimes non-believers use the concept of doubt to trap Christians into an untenable position. If Christians say they are “certain” of their faith– they are arrogant, intolerant, and close-minded. If they say they their belief system contains “uncertainty” they are ignorant fools who have abandoned reason.
This is only one of many reasons why Christians choose not to dialogue with atheists, agnostics, and rationalists.
Cherry-picker? I don’t think so. I do not disregard any bits of the Bible. I just don’t feel adequate yet in understanding each jot and tittle. Honestly, a man of your intellectual stature and prowess in logic needs a sparring partner with whom you are more evenly matched. I feel like a lightweight in the heavyweight division; this statement is not driven by a need to appear humble or to “earn points” with God or those longsuffering Christians still reading this thread by turning the other cheek and being meek.
With enough training, perhaps I would feel confident having another go at things in the ring with you. For the time being, I would prefer to enjoy your sport from outside the ring. But I would love a ringside seat so I might have a clear view of your fancy footwork!
I am very grateful for your standing invitation to come on over and check things out at your site. And for the special invitation to re-enter the ring via email.
I wish you the very best, tobe38. Your conversation has done much to challenge my thinking and to encourage me to boldly explore the issues we discussed. Thanks.
@ nakedpastor Again, I must say that I am impressed with the quality and humanity of this dialogue. If we can continue conversing without converting, I think we are on to something.
This is the first online conversation I’ve observed where both sides actually engaged with each other. It’s also been refreshingly troll-free. That says a lot about the quality of the online community you attract to your blog, David.
I’m reminded of some of the points Alonzo Fyfe was making in this post:
http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2007/03/priorities-and-bottom-49.html
@ Chris At this point in my life I am comfortable with my current conclusions and, barring any new earth shattering evidence or sound deliberation, I will stick to this and focus my time and energy on other disciplines and studies.
That’s not too far from my own position. I’ve been an atheist for 17 years. I’d like to think that I know what I’m talking about, although I need to be vigilant about policing my assumptions and “beliefs”.
As I stated before, I feel these debates are useless and they almost never result in the changing of anyone’s mind. I repost this over at ebon’s as well. Thanks for calling me out on that one!
I can understand why you think that these debates are useless. They certainly can consume huge amounts of time and energy. I’ve had my own clashes which have actually left me depressed for a short time.
On the other hand, if you keep a light touch and don’t try to ‘win’, it might be useful to remember that the party you’re most likely to reach isn’t the one you’re having the debate with.
schemanista,
Again, excellent point my friend! I had not considered that there are others who are probably being influenced a great deal on both sides of this issue. It tempts me to continue to engage in this debate, but I begin a new class tomorrow and I have to move on. Thanks for the authentic insight and dialog, its been a real treat.
Darren: Randy, it’s interesting to note that your girlfriend thinks you are going to hell. Does she also believe that you deserve to go to hell? Are you ok with that yourself? I refer to the idea that your girlfriend, who presumably loves you, may think you deserve eternal punishment. I’m not sure I would be comfortable with that. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
Darren, that is probably the main source of what little contention there is in our relationship (though we have discussed it very little, so the contention is mostly in my head). She is not sold on the idea that hell awaits all unbelievers, but, at the same time, she loves her church, where that is indeed preached. Honestly, my dear Linda is a simple lady, not stupid, but I think she does not take “doctrine” as seriously as I did when I was a believer.
We both came into this relationship fully aware of our differences. I am rather disturbed that she could love and worship a God who, according to my interpretation (or possibly misinterpretation) of what the bible says, would send me to eternal torment where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, simply because I can not find it within myself to believe in him. But I don’t think it is something she really thinks about much. She has many associations with Christians, and she can well see, and often tells me that I am a “better person” than so many of them. So, I can only hope that she is realizing that being a Christian does not make one a better person…in this life anyway
Polly:Well after reading through a few dozen messages, and then getting a little tired, there seems to be a pattern, at least to my little mind.
Atheists are heartless!
Polly, what wonderful thoughts. I have been a non believer for almost eight years now. I have wasted, I don’t know how many hours, trying to convince believers that they are wasting their time worshiping a non existent god. I am just now, in the past few weeks, coming to realize that, if I can’t contribute to another persons happiness, then I have nothing to contribute. I slip up from time to time. I even slipped recently, right here. It is taking a while for me to recognize it when it is happening. You know, some silly believer explaining why he or she is a believer
And without them even asking me to give my opinion, I chime in, attempting to shine the bright light of my incredibly vast knowledge of the innermost workings of their shallow, emotionally driven intellect. I am so full of it.
A couple weeks ago, I had to ask the vet to put a cat down. It had wondered up at my girlfriends home several months earlier, cold and starving. We added him to the three cats and four dogs that were already in residence. But poor Bootsy had contracted an always fatal virus. Linda and I tried our best to extend his life, but the vet told us he would begin to suffer. When he did, I took him in. I sat there in the waiting room, weeping like a child as Bootsy sat there looking at me, skin and bones, vacant eyes. Strangers came over to comfort us both. We had enjoyed Bootsy for only a few months before he began to show signs of the sickness. Why was I, a 49 year old man, so upset at the impending loss of a little cat that I had for only a few months? It really makes no rational sense.
While I am deeply in love with the discovery of facts, I think I am even more in love with what we may never know. Something’s I just want to be able to contemplate. When the facts are made evident, the wonder fades.
So, while I want to respond that I am not heartless, for I can feel it pumping in my chest, I must agree with you.
Randy:
I’m very sorry for your loss. Animals are a source of real ambiguity for humans. We love ‘em to tears (I’m speaking personally as well as generally) but we don’t accord them real “importance.” It’s an uneasy relationship that nevertheless benefits both immensely but the significance thereof can’t be acknowledged for some reason.
–”When the facts are made evident, the wonder fades”
Knowing HOW something works can take away some of the wonder.
An unexpected example: When I used to play classical piano music, I found that invariably, once I learned to play a piece, I enjoyed listening to it much less. It got to the point where I didn’t want to play anything I really liked.
But, when I studied the intricate interplay of the properties of various amino acids to form the kinks and folding patterns of proteins, that was immensely satisfying and introduced me to a beauty I could not have apprehended without specialized knowledge. It made me appreciate life on a whole new level – the mechanics of it.
Reason gives and Reason taketh away, blessed be Reason.
Wow… I must say that I’m just now reading these comments. I read the original post a few days back but didn’t actually follow through for the comments. I wish I had read these earlier. It has been said often in this thread that it has been a great example of engagement — and, even in my nobodiness (I just made that word up — one of my greatest gifts to mankind
), I would like to compliment the spirit (for the Christians) and attitude (for the Atheists) that is resident within the thread.
I have nothing to add because, well, I really like reading what everyone else is saying.
@ ttm:
Regarding doubts: Doubting your religion is also in my opinion a sign of capability to learn, so I think doubt is good. A good scientist will doubt hes own ideas and theories and continue to check up on facts and other developments, which can influence his own findings. Doubt on all things causes one to reexamine ones data and ideas and who knows, one might learn something new. As you say: “In many cases doubt drives my curiosity to learn more.” That is not being close-minded and it is not ignorance or abondoning reason. I certainly agree with you on this. When in doubt one should open up to reason, logic and facts.
On cherrypicking:
If you do not support stoning people working on sundays (and many other things) you do cherrypick the bible. Most christians do. And thank goodness for that.
@ Chris:
Concerning moons spinning the “wrong” way:
Well I can see I left part of my point out. The few objects (moons, asteroids or comets) doing that can be explained rather well by gravitational disruption of orbits under close encounters with other objects, collisions and captures. We might learn that our describtions of the laws of nature need further revisions, and that indeed we already know, but there is nothing indicating that any gods has a place in the universe. You might believe gods have a place, but there is no evidence for it. There is however plenty of evidence suggesting that odd orbits can be explained by the said reasons. And by the way odd orbits has very, very little to do with evolution.
And your
“These pages mean more to me because they are backed up by everyday life experiences. They are backed up by millions of pages produced by theologians and lay people alike for the past six thousand plus years.â€
still falls back on no evidence at all. 2 billion people can be wrong. No one has ever been cured by prayer, holy wells etc. for something wich couldn’t be explained by natural cures. There are still no reliable evidence for ressurection of dead people. There are no reliable evidence that Jesus even existed (http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm).
The theory of evolution will be in question if we find some facts that doesn’t add up with the theory, and to the extend that that has happened the theory has been adjusted and thereby it gets better and better. That is the beauty of science. The theory of evolution fits the facts very well and any better theory will have to include fit the facts at least as well. To say that evolution is in qustion, because man can’t explain where the laws of nature comes from is quite frankly… not reasonably (I am trying to be nice here). By the same token the theory of gravity should be in qustion. If there is no evolution there is no gravity. Would you go jump of a cliff? Evolution is being observed every day! That is a fact! Look at the websites I pointed to earlier:
http://www.talkorigins.org
http://www.scienceblogs.com/pharyngula
http://www.sandwalk.blogspot.com
http://www.antievolution.org/cs
Look at what I wrote about viruses. The theory of evolution fits all those cases of factual evolution like a hand in a glove. I am sorry to be this blunt but: Evolution is a fact. Deal with it.
And why do you think this argument of not knowing has anything to do with gods? If we don’t know how something came to be or how something happened religious like to say: “God did it”. This is called the God of the Gaps.
1)
I feel this is demeaning to the human curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Should we really just sit back at say: “God did it. That is all we need to know.”? I certainly will not. I want to learn. I want to se and understand all the wonders of the world. Understanding the mystery of the formation of the solarsystem doesn’t make that any less fantastic to me (we don’t know all yet but it just gets better the more we know). To say that a god did it and leave it there seems so empty. How did she do it? With what? How does her powers work? If she can interact with our universe, we can do science on that interaction.
2)
May I remind you that this God of the Gaps has been steadily on the retreat in the last few thousand years and especially in the last couple of hundred years. Everytime science has new insight the god of the gaps must step aside on that point.
3)
How do you know it wasn’t Thor or the indian Great Spirit who did it?
What makes a christian think it was Jahve who made the universe? How do a muslim know Allah did it? How do a Hindu know it was Brahma?
By the way: Are you religious not the least troubled by the idea that you cannot all be right. In fact as far as I have seen no two religions are compatible, so at the most one will be right. And the rest goes to hell or what?
You are certainly entitled to holding your beliefs and opinions, but I hope I have clarified some things and that you will think about some of the things I have said. Be openminded and visit those websites. And go read the books, too. There is no reason to fear evolution. It is just a part of nature. Good luck with your studies.
@ Randy:
I am very sorry for your loss too. I know exactly how you feel. I am not sure it is irrational to love your cat or dog or canary. Animals including humans are to a variable degree capable of bonding to other beings. An evolutionary explanation could be that both humans, cats, dogs, cows, whatever gets off better by working together (security, comfort, stable foodsupply, pestcontrol). Relationships between species has evolved in many places in nature, so there might very well be completely rational explanations for me weeping like a child when I must say farewell to a cat of ours. Our cats certainly give us pestcontrol, love, fun, comfort and food for thougth. They are great additions to our life and our family.
I cannot agree with you that the wonder fades with discovery. That happens so rarely to me, that I cannot remember when. No, to me the wonder grows with knowledge. The fantastic workings of the stars. The way life evolves. Like Polly mentioned: The workings of proteins and the significance of their folding. The workings of computers. The growing knowledge of the details of the climate on earth fills me with awe that such a place exists (without me looking one bit for a god I should add). The more we know and the more we learn what we don’t know the more I love the universe. It is so fantastic that adding gods to the picture belittles the universe in my opinion.
@ Polly:
“Reason gives and Reason taketh away, blessed be Reason” I love that allthough I think Reason only takes away ignorance and bad arguments.
But certainly: Blessed be Reason, Amen!
And about your “heartless-post”: I think that is exactly right as seen from many religious people. They feel we try to take away their comfort. Well, I really just try to give them confidence and knowledge to break the spell.
Good points, Polly.
Oh, and blessed be the Holy Giant Canine
TTM,
Thanks for the stimulating discussion.
To all,
Thanks for your hospitality and great discussion. Well done to everyone.
This is me signing off from the debate, but you’re all welcome at my blog any time.
All the best.
L. Nielsen:
“Well, I really just try to give them confidence and knowledge to break the spell.”
Exactly, I look on it as sharing the joy.
HGC grant you prosperity.
L. Nielsen: I cannot agree with you that the wonder fades with discovery.
Perhaps with me, knowledge seems to take a little of the magic away, but it does not mean I am now completely satisfied and can sit back and watch re-runs. But for some reason, the unknown, like what is around the corner that I cannot yet see, makes me feel differently, causes some excitement than what was arond the corner behind me, can no longer provide.
But, the antisapation I experience now is so much more intense than I ever felt when I believed that God was around the corner. (sorry…no spell check)
Chris write
“The laws of angular momentum are proven repeatedly in the lab. ”
“So if the big bang happened, then several objects in our solar system are rotating in the wrong direction and thus violating these laws.”
I can’t help but laugh when I read this nonsense.
If you don’t understand that the total angular momentum of a gas cloud is an aggregate quantity, but in fact there are local variations which can give rise to counter-spinning moons, and that in any case gravitational interactions between objects can produce retro-grade orbits then how in heavens name can you pretend to understand something as complex as evolution. And in any case retrograde orbits have nothing to do with the big bang. I bet you can’t even derive the conservation of angular momentum from Newton’s laws.
As for
“Mendel’s genetics are compelling, however, they are not convincing to me. Genetics shows that the more narrow a gene pool is, the higher the likely hood that a negative mutation will occur.”
This is just gibberish!
Who decides if a mutation is “negative” or “positive.”
Random variation produces organism with differential reproductive success rates.
In fact evolution is a mathematical theorem, it HAS to happen (given the hypotheses are satisfied: self replication, transmission of characteristics, random variation, differential reproduction rates)
“Also, the AIDs virus mutation, as-well-as the flu, common cold, etc. etc, are inherent survival mechanisms the the virus possesses. Just like a fox will turn white in winter. These seem to me to be far too clever to have occurred accidentally, but rather, by clear intellectual design. ”
Yeah, and the the blind spot in your eyes is the result of design by an idiot who, curiously, saw fit when “designing” the squid’s eyeball to get the design right and so the squid has no blind spot. Of course in reality this was just “blind luck” on the squib’s part. Or maybe your god is a squid??
http://eddie.mit.edu/~jc/humor/Squid.html
If you want to bluff at science you should do a bit more homework.
I hope people are still interested in this discussion and following it. If one says that nothing will come of this, then nothing will! I’d like to see if I, having just come here, can revitalize the discussion with my replies to some of you.
For the record, I’m 20 and have been an atheist for 4-5 years. Before that, I would classify myself as having been a Methodist.
Chris:
Darwin was fearful of his big idea because he still believed in the existence of the Christian god, and was extremely uncomfortable coming up with something that went against a literal interpretation of the creation story (I think. If this is wrong or just inaccurate, would someone please correct me?). His god wasn’t nagging at him–everything he had been indoctrinated into weighed heavily upon his conscience, and whatever nagging was present would have been of the same variety that anyone else would have if they came to believe something contrary to a gamut of interconnected, important ideas they had been told. The only difference with Darwin was that his idea not only clashed with that, it clashed with the foundation of an entire worldview. You see, positing his god as the one nagging at his conscience is jumping to conclusions. We’ve learned lots about the human mind. Let’s start there. There’s a perfectly fine and simple psychological explanation. In fact, you don’t even have to have studied psychology to give the explanation I did, which makes the proposal that it was a god who was nagging at Darwin all the more embarrassing, from my point of view.
voiceofreason explained the biological element of your post much better than I can, so I’ll leave that topic to him/her (including the parts about Lucy and the T-Rex footprint).
As for feeling the presence of the Christian savior in your life… that, too, can be countered with a psychological explanation. That which we were raised to believe impacts the way we interpret things. If you were raised to believe that such a person was real and that the Bible contained theological and historical truth, it would be extremely difficult to NOT interpret things from within that framework.
Here’s another way of thinking about this, and from my perspective as someone who likes to know how things happen (i.e. looks for mechanisms). We know what humans (i.e. people) are and what they can do. There are five senses we possess that alert us to the presence of objects external to our bodies. Have you sensed Christ with any of these five senses? If not, there’s a perfectly reasonable psychological explanation, even if you were to claim that he talks to you. And see, voices need to originate from things physical (voice box, etc.). If the voice is just inside your head, then it has to be your own, as there is no evidence that people can speak telepathically. Everything you’ve claimed so far can be explained with just a little logical reasoning and/or scientific knowledge.
Regarding he Big Bang and angular momentum…. I can’t claim to be providing certainly accurate information on this, since it’s been a while since I’ve done relevant physics reading (lay books, not academic), but in the early universe (before inflation went out of control) there were irregularities that gave rise to clumping, from which the first stars and galaxies originated. “Things” were “moving” in this early stage of the universe, and this motion by different “objects” produced angluar motion in different directions, causing the first stars and galaxies to rotate in different directions. As far as rotation of objects in our solar system are concerned, that was explained by another poster quite well, and there’s nothing further I can contribute to that.
You said: “Also, Who wrote all these laws. Not man, they just discovered them.”
The presupposition that a sentient being had to have come up with these laws irritates me. First of all, the laws are our explanations, and unless you believe that God writes (a physical act), humans wrote the laws. Many of them are tentative, to boot, as they just follow from numerous observations and may also be derivations from theorems and formulae. The laws tell us how we think the universe works. Assuming, for sake of simplicity, that the universe truly does behave as our laws tell us, what you’re really asking is “who determined how each elementary existent behaves?”, which is to say “who created these elementary existents?” The existence of a thing implies that it has an identity and an aggregate of properties that are distinct from those of every other existent. But why do you ask WHO created them? If you start the quest by presupposing God, you’ll be unable to end the quest on something other than God. So begin it with the question “how does this happen–what caused it?” Well, if you ask that and are careful about your reasoning and experimentation, you’ll wind up exactly where scientists have. Let me put it this way: “From theists’ perspective, natural laws imply their god’s existence. However, all interacting and existing things must interact in a particular way, because they have a particular nature (what it means to exist), thus the ‘laws’ must exist. So no matter what, as long as things exist, theists believe there is a god. Thus, to theists, there is no scenario under which the existence of things can be attributed to something other than a god. Hence, theists beg the question.”
Humans only discover laws (laws are always human creations, by the way) if said laws existed before their discovery. No, what we discover–or rather, what we think we discover–is how things work. The laws are our attempts at objective formulations of how things work.
Sorry if I’ve come off as being an ass with this post. I’ll be working more on my tone.
It seems obvious to me that theists start with “there is a God” and if they come up with reasons that convince some people that is a “bonus”, not a requirement. I do not know anyone who has “reasoned” there way to a belief in God (except in the most crass manner – Pascals Wager for example). The decision to believe is outside their conscious awareness, as is the basis for the decision. I think there is an equivalent circumstance with atheists with regard to “reasonâ€. Without reason there is no framework for fruitful discussion but the decision to commit to reason is outside reason itself.
This is not to say that those basis for discussion are equivalent. They are not. Reason is bigger than God, unless we are so hopelessly deluded in our experience of the world that reason itself is an illusion. To some extent the God scenario depends on that being the case. Where there is an entity that has the capacity to alter any or all aspects of our world both actually and/or our experience of it, negates reason, as reason itself depends on order. Without order the rest is meaningless (or perhaps the meaning is arbitrary).
The argument becomes – if reason is primary, does God exist? What is the evidence I would except that a God exists? Those questions are not part of the process that most people have in becoming a believer in the supernatural. In my case it was when I could not explain a part of my own experience with what I currently knew. Someone supplied an answer, which happen to include God. Later, after it had become a belief, I discovered that where was an alternative description of my experience that did not depend on God. The reasons I moved away from believing in God were not simply having an alternative description of my experience – as I believed there was a God it was no longer simply a matter of changing my mind. (But that is another story).
To: Darren,
My comment “Peace unchecked is death and death is nothingness” was really a response to Michael “Peace be with you”
There was no question as to what what was supposed to mean. However in a God context what sort of Peace is he talking about? For mortals the ultimate peace is death (as in “cross my fingers and hope I will live in heaven”). The death a person can measurably expect is the loss of all bodily functions including mind. So death is nothingness.
(an earlier version has been posted elsewhere)
There are no minds. Once you’ve seen through soul, you’ve seen through mind as well. Don’t focus on the so-called individual, but on culture and its net of inter-person communication, mediated mainly by language(s).
Xianity has taught dualism borrowed from Plato and Zarathustra along with with a perspective that “reality” must be built from the “inside” out.
Accepting presuppositions which should be overturned vitiates discussions on religion and theology. Metaphysical dualism / moral dualism / mind-body dualism along with a supposed self-evident reality of self-verifying mental states — no wonder so many attempts to understand Nietzsche fail.
“Beyond Good and Evil” and “Twilight of the Idols” deserve to be approached as radical attacks upon dualism and mentalism. (Not as tracts for atheism, immorality, and physicalism!)
Xianity is a syndrome caused by dualistic delusions and epistemological hubris. The mistaken respect accorded it must be swept aside to get at underlying rot. This is the ‘revaluation of all values’ [trans. Kaufmann] sought by Nietzsche in “The Antichrist.”
eye-of-horus
copyright asserted 2007