Expanding on discussion in the comments in the post below, it may be time to remind ourselves there is no such thing as a politician who functions at arm’s length from their personal religious beliefs. Even those who claim to leave their individual religious principles “at the door” when they enter the halls of government have accomplished little more than to trade them in for someone else’s.
Even the atheist must take the same leap of faith before declaring that no God exists as the person who declares that He does – it’s merely the path taken and the conclusions drawn that differ.
Thus, in any discussion involving religion in politics, it is a mistake to allow the self-defined “secular community” to assume the default position against which all others are measured, because, in so doing, we are permitting nothing less than the raising one religious belief system to reign supreme over all others.
With the precedent set, it is simply a matter of time before the secular default is replaced or modified to suit the political ownership of the day. Indeed, it’s not hard to make a case that the phenomenon is already in progress, and that we are witnessing signs of the emergence of “extremist secularists” in Canada and the bastardization of the core ideology into a movement that is increasingly repressive and dogmatic.
In modern democracy, all religious viewpoints must be provided a place in the public policy debate without fear of reprisal or official scorn (so long as they are not intent on undermining the very democracy that permits them to speak – there is a difference between religious tolerance and societal stupidity.) It is our duty as citizens in a liberal democracy to condemn the secular intelligencia and their voices in the media in the same matter we would any other extremist group who would silence other religion based opinion – for any system that would disallow an evangelical Christian or orthodox Jew or devout Buddist a voice in the political process, including the right to cast a vote in Parliament with the full respect of all members, is putting their own rights to religious freedom – including the freedom not to “believe” – in jeopardy.
Christian tazpayers are forced to pay for the abortions of others through their taxes so it IS OUR D*****D BUSINESS.
Hey Wimpy! You are very interesting. I just wish I could figure out what the heck you are saying.
What I was hoping to convey was that, although
I disagree with people who base their
philosophy upon a belief in god(s), I do
not necessarily disagree on their moral stances.
The philosophical discussion concenring the
basis of their beliefs I do disagree with;
their moral outcomes I maybe agree with.
I think they got the right results for the wrong
reasons.
I do think that most “social conservative” moral
stances are actually quite natural, human
positions. I disagree with their argument
from religion as there are no gods, only humans.
When I first read Bertrand Russell, I thought:
“Hey, this uy thinks just like me”, not
realising that he was a great humanist guru
and I a mere nothing.
Hope this puts it in perspective.
I’ve always said Moral Relativism is just another moral standard.
“Christian tazpayers are forced to pay for the abortions of others through their taxes so it IS OUR D*****D BUSINESS.”… I think this is the fundamental argument for privatizing health care. Having a publicly funded health care system forces an unnecessary involvement of the state/public in the lives of private individuals because, quite literally, your ‘unhealthy’ actions are costing taxpayers money. Hence the draconian anti-smoking measures currently being taken, the ‘war on fat’, etc… I think it’s a conflict of interest for the people/system who pay for your health care to also be able to legislate your private actions.
I submit that we have more to fear from religious extremists than secular ones. A fair and consistent test for any political view that may be deemed extremist is whether such views conform to the Charter and on this test I would fear religious extremism over so called secular thinking.Posted by SEC
SEC,
It wasn’t religious extremists who brought us the practice of state funded killing of the most innocent and vulnerable of all human beings.
You saw nothing wrong with that? How could one expect you to get excited by the mere theft of public funds(and elections) by the ruling party?
Confrorm to the Charter? By whose interpretation? For example, “security of the person”: “the right to teminate the life of your unborn child and to have the porcedure paid by the state under the gusie it is essential, not elective, medical care.”
SEC, you are either too naive or too cynical for words.
“bald is a hair colour”… you’re right, bald isn’t a hair color, but it is a hair style!
The Charter is so wide open that it could concievably accomodate any views on any subject. The only frame of reference we have is the interpretations that the liberal judiciary has handed down for the past 20 years. To say that something is “extremist” because it does not conform to the Charter is to label ANY position extremist, on ANY subject. ANY and EVERY position is a potential violation of the Charter, as all depend on the viewpoints of the Supreme Court Judges at the time. Look how many split decisions there are in Supreme Court rulings. What I would like to know is how the hell a majority ruling on the Supreme Court bench completely over-rides a majority ruling in the House of Commons. And by the way SEC, the Charter is clear in one area; freedom of religion. While vague on issues of equality, freedom of religion is spelled out quite clearly; one of the few unambiguous clauses in the entire Charter. To excercise my so-called Charter right and be called an extremist because of it is a little odd, don’t you think?
Kate said: “I don’t believe in a “God”, either, but I know of no evidence to support my belief that is more compelling than those who do.”
Kate, I don’t know what you mean by ‘evidence’ here, but there *is* a very well established argument in philosophy against the existence of a *benevolent* deity — it is called the ‘problem of evil’ (or ‘theodicy’). It has been around for many centuries, and was famously presented as a deductive argument by the Oxford philosopher John Mackie in the mid-20th Century.
The argument is pretty straight forward, and I use it to introduce undergraduates to basic logic. It holds, roughly, that suffering (‘evil’) exists, including both ‘moral evil’ (suffering caused by human beings, e.g. murder, rape, etc.) and ‘natural evil’ (suffering caused by natural events, e.g. diseases, famines, tsunamis, etc.). The basic problem is that widespread suffering cannot be reconciled logically with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent (or just) deity. It is one of the two most compelling arguments against belief in a ‘traditional’ God (the other holds that the very idea of ‘God’ is logically incoherent). All leading contemporary analytic philosophers working in the philosophy of religion — including, of course, theists — recognize the strength of the ‘problem of evil’ argument. There are a few responses out there on behalf of theism, but none are especially impressive, in my opinion (however, I do not work primarily in this field).
Of course, from the fact that this argument against the existence of a benevolent deity is logically compelling, it does *not* follow that people who hold religious views should not be treated as equal citizens, with an equal right to contribute to the political process! Holding logical beliefs cannot be a requirement for full citizenship — if it were, there would be very few citizens around.
However, the argument does show, I think, that atheism is *not* simply a system of belief with no greater justification than, say, Christianity or Islam. The arguments *against* the existence of a benevolent deity are logically compelling; the arguments in favour of the existence of a benevolent deity are not.
Some other quick points:
Greg (outside Dallas) had a long post on the Declaration of Independence. However, what that post failed to mention is the fact that the Declaration has no legal standing whatsoever in the American system of government.
Moreover, it is worth keeping in mind that many of the leading forces behind the creation of the United States — Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Madison, and other — were *not* Christians, but Deists (which was about as close to ‘atheist’ as you could normally get in the pre-Darwin days). Jefferson famously produced a version of the New Testament that removed all the miracles, and once claimed that future generations of Americans will regard the story of the virgin birth with as much credulity as they now regard the myth of Athena leaping fully armed from the head of Zeus.
If you want an example of an ‘aggressively secular’ form of government, one could not do much better than to look at the foundation of the U.S. (Ohhh … the ironies of history.)
As for etownie’s comment about ‘Moral Relativism’, I should mention that there is absolutely no necessary connection between the (philosophically incoherent) view known as ‘moral relativism’ and nontheism (atheism, secular humanism, whatever). This is a bugbear often raised by the religious right against ‘secular humanism’. However, it lacks any justification whatsoever.
Dear dailyakrasia: you present the so-called “problem of evil” as the irrefutable, last word to shut up Christians. It’s the “ah, ha, now what are you going to say you weak-minded zealot. You say, ‘your God is good’ and I can prove that ‘He’ couldn’t possibly exist when there is so much evil and suffering.”
You and your like are the imbeciles. It is a matter of elementary theology that the world God created and called “good” is now fallen. This does not call into question God’s inherent goodness. Rather it recognizes humanity’s inherent shortcoming called “sin”. In other words, instead of avoiding the subject or hiding in embarrassment from it. Christianity faces it and fully recognizes the dysfunctional nature of this world’s present order. Evil exists because of humanity. Yes, you could say God made this possible to happen because he created humanity as free moral agents, with the ability to choose right from wrong. However, Christians believe that God did this so that a greater good might come out of this.
Now tell me that you are going to sit in judgement of the God of this universe and tell Him that YOU would have done it differently. If so, then you and your like are the most arrogant SOB’s I can possibly imagine to walk the face of this earth. Good luck on judgement day!
Thank you for your polite and considerate reply, Jack. Please know that, contrary to what you might think, many devout Christians (and Jews, and Muslims) are acutely aware of this argument, and grapple with it. I might be an ‘imbecile’, as you put it, but I know many people of faith for whom the argument is deeply troubling. (It has not led them to abandon their faith, but they recognize its logical force.)
The ‘free will’ defense has often been raised by theists in response to the problem of evil. Leaving aside the question of whether genuine ‘free will’ can exist in a universe created by an omniscient and omnipotent being (i.e. it is not clear how ‘free’ one can be if our creator created us knowing *everything* that we will do ahead of time, including Adam’s perilous bite), it fails to address the problem of ‘natural suffering’ (i.e. evil caused by natural events, or so-called ‘acts of God’). I fail to see how ‘free will’, for example, can vindicate the suffering of infants born with severe spinal cord disorders. Similarly, I fail to see how ‘free will’ justifies all the suffering caused by the recent South Asian tsunami, or the suffering of innocent children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic in Africa.
As for the ‘it-is-all-for-a-greater-good’ argument, that implies a *limitation* in God’s power (isn’t He supposed to be omnipotent, and thus capable of achieving his Ends without all this suffering?).
I ‘sit in judgement’ of God because he gave me a capacity for reason, and using that reason, I cannot reconcile his ‘benevolence’ with brute facts about the world.
Finally, I strongly urge you to read *The Brothers Karamazov* by Dostoevsky sometime. Dostoyevsky was a devout Christian who recognized the strength of the problem of evil. His character Ivan vividly discusses the suffering of innocents in the novel. Interestingly, Dostoevsky, despite rejecting Ivan’s conclusions, cannot refute Ivan’s arguments.
The idea that any higher consciousness must be simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent is only a conceit of man. “Can” is not the same as “must”.
IrC — I am not sure what your point is, but it is irrelevant with respect to the argument I presented earlier. The ‘problem of evil’ says nothing about ‘higher beings’ (super aliens?) that are *not* omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent. The argument is simply directed against the *traditional* conception of God, as found in the main monotheistic religions. According to traditional Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, God *is* omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent.
If there is a God that is, say, merely omnipotent and omniscient, but *not* benevolent, that would be quite interesting. However, I can see no reason to *worship* such a creature.
Just to be clear — my earlier post was merely in reply to the idea that “atheism” is simply “one religion among many”. I was trying to explain that it is not. Religions like Christianity and Islam require a “leap of faith”, whereas no such “leap” is required for atheism (or agnosticism).
As for the *political* process, it is important for citizens who disagree with other about broader religious and philosophical matters to nonetheless try to deliberate *together* in order to decide fundamental political questions. What undermines liberal democracy is not religion or atheism per se, but rather extremism. I understand extremism to be a failure to recognize the fact that people who disagree with you on religious or philosophical matters can nonetheless be rational, decent people.
Reasonable citizens, of any faith, are not extremists, and will try to find mutually acceptable solutions to common problems. (Of course, there may be some ‘tough cases’, e.g. abortion, where this seems impossible. But it is nonetheless an ideal worth striving towards.)
jack – I think there is something fundamentally flawed about using theology to argue with an atheist (i.e. the original meaning of ‘begging the question’).
dailyakrasia – My own belief in God has lapsed but I’ll argue in support of God (in the full biblical sense, smiting and all). First, I think you do a disservice to your undergraduates by introducing them to logic with such a loaded argument (sorry, ad hominem). I think a more fitting introduction to logic would be to write on the board: “This sentence is false”, and discuss the ramifications (but then of course they may never come back).
The fundamental question here is: What is this thing called “logic” that you are using to disprove the existence of God? I went and looked it up and “valid reasoning” seems to be the general consensus. So how do we know what “valid reasoning” is? Something along the lines of “reasoning according to the correct rules of inference”. So how do we know what these “correct rules of inference are”? Aristotle et al. gave them to us. How do we know that these rules are in fact “correct”? They are axiomatic! In other words we don’t *know*, but we take it on *faith* that they are correct because they seem correct and useful.
So what is “logic” – my own take on it (and math) is that it’s purely a product of the human mind, an attempt at formalizing our own thoughts, evolved because it has some utility in dealing with the (macro) environment and each other but having no objective existence outside of us (this is of course subjective and debatable since it can’t be proven). So what’s the most objective way to determine the scope and limitations of logic – logic itself. Can logic prove or disprove the validity of logic? No. Can logic prove it’s own incompleteness? Yes.
So logic can say nothing about it’s own correctness but (definitively) says that it is incomplete. It seems to me that using logic to disprove the existence of God is logical flawed since both are founded on nothing more than our own beliefs (except of course that it’s currently fashionable to believe that one is superstition and the other irrefutable).
Some colloquial evidence/justification for what I’m trying to get at here: the other day I was going through one of my old university text books and there was a chapter where the authors attempt to codify/formalize ‘rationality and utility’. In a side bar they present the case that “people don’t always behave rationally” and their evidence is a survey where people are given the choice between A. 100% chance of $3000 or B. 80% chance of $4000, and the vast majority of people all chose A, then they presented a nice little ‘proof’ of why this means that that people are irrational (complete with making use of the utility of $0 and deriving a contradiction)… completely and totally obvious to the fact that this isn’t evidence for or against the rationality of people, but is actually the complete crucifiction of the utility of their own model of utility and rationality (and this book was written this decade by Ph.D.’s at Berkeley and forced on me by U of A).
I think there is alot of this in contemporary thought, and we are for the most part completely oblivious to it. I think we exist in a closed system of thought and lack the means to reason about what is outside it or even to properly introspect beyond what is already included.
I find it amazing how these things seem to take on a life and evolve from one extreme to another. I find what Paul said to be prudent to this discussion, for by the law is knowledge of sin, and we uphold the law because of faith.
dailyakrasia (1:25 AM) criticized my Declaration of Independence post. Doesn’t anybody ever get any sleep?
a) I never said that the Declaration was a mere “legal document”. I would rather describe it as the United States of America’s mission statement.
b) I never once mentioned Christianity. My reference was always to the Declaration’s “Creator” and I mentioned that no other specific particulars were referenced, simply that we could learn a lot about what the founding fathers meant about Creator by examination of the rest of the Declaration.
c) I never suggested that some founding fathers weren’t deists (or Freemasons). However, founders all believed in a Creator.
The Declaration can accomodate Christians, Deists, Jews, Transendentalists (Emerson), and also Native Americans, among others.
My purpose was to demonstrate that it is quite possible for a government to have a reference and orientation to a view of divine existence without being unsuccessful or a theocracy.
America’s founding fathers wrote about a “Creator” in the Declaration, and it is there, throughout the centuries, for all to review if they wish.
And if you know anything at all about the American founding fathers, you will know that the absolute truth is that they meant every word of it.
>Naked Ape> You may feel my comments ludicrous, but I still feel that siding with Hitler on SSM and abortion feels wrong.
>
>lrC>Just because Hitler held a position on an issue at one time for his own reasons, everyone else who holds that position must be Hitler?
>lrC>Congratulations. You have the powers of reason of a cucumber.
Since you don’t seem to do that whole subtlety thing, I will get out the crayons for you.
You seem to have grasped the fact that Hitler, Stalin, Sadam, and Pol Pot were claimed to be atheists. Perhaps you even think it is true, I don’t agree and I attemped to correct this missinformation, but that is not the point.
Perhaps a paraphrase of your own words will shed a little light on this:
Just because Hitler, Stalin, Sadam, and Pol Pot held a position on an issue (eg: atheism) at one time for their own reasons, all atheists must be just like Hitler, Stalin, Sadam, or Pol Pot?
Of course not.
You really would have to have the powers of reason of a cucumber to fall for that codswallop.
Funny how you saw fit to comment on my extended analogy (which I freely admit was just as false as the analogy it was based on), and yet you completely missed the inadequacy of the first arguement.
Dailyakrasia:
I can’t agree with your statement that “Religions like Christianity and Islam require a ‘leap of faith,’ whereas no such ‘leap’ is required for atheism (or agnosticism).” Agnosticism, properly speaking, is the only “knowledge-stance” towards questions of ultimate existence that does not require a leap of faith. Atheism claims knowledge of the non-existence of a Supreme Being based on very limited evidence — what we can test and probe about the Universe from our own tiny vantage point. To truly say “there is no God” is to assume godlike knowledge of all existence, including any possible (and as yet, inaccessible) transcendence. It is a faith-stance (not to mention internally inconsistent).
I’m a “weak theist” at best, but I have unbounded respect for agnostics. The few “true” atheists I’ve met in my lifetime spent too much time at coffee joints on the U. of A. campus, trying to impress the chicks. 😉
dailyakrasia,
On the argument of a benevolent deity, an argument can be made for one if one accepts this life as a test. In other words, the way we, as individuals, react to evil, man-caused or otherwise, is part of the reason why we are here. That these challenges, such as the boxing day tsunami, are there to test our own morality, in addition to developing who we are.
Of course, this POV assumes that life has a purpose, but that is no more illogical than the assumption that there is a God (or there is no God).
Naked Ape,
The point isn’t that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, etc. were atheists. The point is that these men were secular extremists. It undermines the position that we have more to fear from a religious extremist than a secular extremist.
Garth Wood,
I second your position on the logic and agnosticism. It is impossible, logically speaking, to say that something does not exist. You can’t prove a negative. At best, you can only say that proof is lacking (ie, fail to reject the null hypothesis).
To dailyakrasia:
The notion of “natural evil” is irrational. Nor does is “evil” a synonym for “suffering”.
The existance of “evil” requires an opportunity for an individual to choose between outcomes.
So far as finding evidence to prove the existance or non-existance of God, humans immediately find themselves face to face with a gigantic impediment. Understanding the evidence to prove the existance of a self-aware force with the omnipotence of a “God” is probably beyond our capacity.
Consider “string theory”. How many physicists in the world are gifted with the capacity to explore the latest theories in quantum physics? How many average people have the capacity to understand what they find?
When we learn about quantum physics, most of us make a “leap of faith” that the information is understood by those more gifted than ourselves.
Yet, the athiest would be so arrogant as to presume they have the capacity to accept the evidence disproving the existance of God?
I’m not.
By chance Tech Central Station currently has a piece online about this very debate: “On ‘Legislating Morality’: The Anti-Conservative Fallacy” by Edward Feser.
>no such “leap” is required for atheism (or agnosticism)
The “leap” is that everything came into being somehow. Anything unexplainable must be accepted on faith if it is to be accepted at all.
“I still feel that siding with Hitler on SSM and abortion feels wrong.”
You speak of the now, in which case your statement is foolish. Did you intend to speak of the past?
Walking down a sidewalk, ants are crushed at random. Tsunami, and humans are crushed at random. Where is the religious difference?
Religions seem to be clubs where people begin practices of doing good. Then some elders insist on doing good a little differently. Heated arguments ensue. Suddenly there are two seperate churches. They grow in size and power.
The churches go to war to prove once and for all which one is more holy.
The Sunis kill on the basis of who is Sheite and vice versa.
We need to dissolve all religions and agree to a world order of table negotiation and debate.
The motivation of killing to get ahead seems to be the gain of massive wealth.
The Saddam family had that wealth, yet to hold on to it they felt the need to randomly shoot suspected traitors and gas whole Kurd villages.
Having unconcionable wealth seems a nasty hobby to me. Hard on the nerves. In this country, any motivated lawyer could separate you from your surpluses.
Personally I am a non-joiner. A non-empire builder. Prefer to invest in music and photography ability and cabinet making.
Religion? Aside from extra business from fellow church goers, I am missing the advantage.
Is there a God? I honestly don’t know so can’t decalre I’m saved.
I suspect there could be one when the order and beauty of nature blooms all around.
73s TonyGuitar
Years’n’years ago, Bill Cosby had a skit in which he suggested that there were very few people who believed in God. Until there was an earthquake. When the ground starts shaking big time, people tend to look up and say,
“Oh My God!”
Well, this is an interesting thread and seems to have diverged quite a bit from thinking about how theological issues should or should not fit into the context of government.
I would like to mention that there are an enormous number of different ways to be a believer or non-believer. Exponents of Christianity, for example, include Paul Tillich, Jimmy Swaggart, C.S. Lewis, Edgar Cayce, and Billy Graham. All of these men profess to be exponents of Christianity, and yet the bases of their faith (or experience) have enormous differences. We have theologians, mystics, psychics, preachers, and scoundrels.
The same is true of professed atheists. Ayn Rand is a different kind of atheist than Jean Paul Sartre, who is different than Bertand Russell. In fact, some atheists can believe in an absolute. For example, “Necessity” is said to be the god of atheistic existentialists. This is one of the reasons that Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were admired by French existentialists. It is even said that Buddhism is an atheistic religion.
Some have joked that for a married man, his Wife’s Desires are his god. (I have discovered that at least in small ways there is something to this. 🙂 )
It has been said by a physicist that for our universe to have originated without the hand of Intelligent Design would be like a tornado hitting a junkyard and producing a 747.
As others have pointed out, no “leap of faith” is necessary for non-believers. Faith means belief *in something* in the absence of evidence. Atheists simply note the absence and decline to accept, on faith, that this posited entity (God), exists.
I contend that the “leap of faith” has nothing to do with God per se, but is rather required to believe something other than that of the dominant socio-cultural worldview.
Kate said: �The notion of “natural evil” is irrational. Nor does is “evil” a synonym for “suffering”.
The existance of “evil” requires an opportunity for an individual to choose between outcomes.�
Well, the term �natural evil� is *not* �irrational�. It is simply archaic � we no longer use the term �evil� to apply to suffering. The term �natural evil�, however, has a long philosophical pedigree � including such important theistic philosophers as Augustine and Aquinas.
If you prefer, you can simply use the term �suffering�, and the argument still works.
Kate later said: �Yet, the athiest would be so arrogant as to presume they have the capacity to accept the evidence disproving the existance of God?�
It is not arrogance, but simply logic. The traditional religious believer claims that God has properties X (omnipotence), Y (omniscience), and Z (omnibenevolence). The existence of widespread suffering � *not* caused by other �free� agents � indicates that either: God is unable to stop this suffering (not-X), God is not aware of this suffering (not-Y), or God does not care (not-Z). In short, the existence of suffering is incompatible with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent God.
Of course it could be the case that there is some mysterious �higher purpose� to all this, about which we are unaware. This is the �leap of faith� that religious believers must make. But there is no *evidence* for this �higher purpose�, and thus we have perfectly rational grounds for believing that a God with the properties X, Y, and Z does *not* exist.
If I am arrogant in using logic and evidence in forming my beliefs, then arrogant I shall gladly remain.
etownie: Don’t understand your point. Do you mean the dominant socio-cultural worldview has all the evidence on its side so that faith is necessary to go against it? If so, I have a far dimmer opinion of that worldview. All you need in order to oppose it are eyes, a brain, honesty, and courage.
Garth Wood said: “Agnosticism, properly speaking, is the only “knowledge-stance” towards questions of ultimate existence that does not require a leap of faith. Atheism claims knowledge of the non-existence of a Supreme Being based on very limited evidence � what we can test and probe about the Universe from our own tiny vantage point. To truly say “there is no God” is to assume godlike knowledge of all existence, including any possible (and as yet, inaccessible) transcendence. It is a faith-stance (not to mention internally inconsistent).”
There are many reasons why one might *reject* the existence of God — as traditionally understood by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The ‘problem of evil’ argument is one. Another is that the very idea of omnipotence is incoherent (“Can God create a boulder too heavy form him to life?”). And so forth.
Just as we can have strong reasons why phlogeston does *not* exist (viz. its existence is incompatible with what we know about the world), so too we can have strong reasons why God, as traditionally conceived, cannot exist (viz. His/Her existence is incompatible with what we know about the world).
There is no “leap of faith” in recognizing the force of the arguments *against* the existence of the Christian, Muslin, or Jewish God.
Of course human reason is fallible, so it is *possible* that the traditional God might exist despite these arguments. But that is true of *any* belief that we have. The mere fact of fallibilism should not prevent us from accepting beliefs for which we have the strongest reasons.
As for the possibility that there might exist a God/creator that is *not* benevolent — well that does not seem too implausible.
lrC wrote: The “leap” is that everything came into being somehow. Anything unexplainable must be accepted on faith if it is to be accepted at all.
I have no evidence that existence “came into being” at all and therefore have no need of explaining it. Even if I did see a need, “God” would be no better an answer than a million other equally arbitrary possibilities. For people who do have such a need, I wonder why they think it’s impossible that existence itself is causeless and eternal but perfectly reasonable to say that its cause is causeless and eternal?
Mark Wickens – “… honesty, and courage” is exactly what I mean. It requires some amount of effort to believe something when everyone else disagrees with you (and is violently dogmatic about it). “Honesty, and courage” are required to oppose the mechanisms that keeps social norms and values in place (even when those are to the detriment of the individual and/or the larger society). I’m saying the first step feels like a “leap of faith”, no matter what it is you’re opposing, whether it be God, atheism, or those damn socialist Liberals. I think having everyone (or most people) agreeing on something is actually the strongest form of evidence we as humans respond to, regardless of the basis for the common belief.
Both sides of this argument were saying that the other side required a “leap of faith”, but I think it only requires of leap of faith for them because they didn’t believe it to begin with. And atheism feels like it requires requires less of a leap of faith only because we are part of modern western society where atheism is king.
I haven’t got this all reasoned out, but I have a feeling that if an omnibenevolent God kept on fixing everything for us, our experience would make no sense to us at all, and we would never develop the necessary powers of reason for fascinating discussions like this one.
Getting back to the idea of giving all viewpoints a place in debate, this commentary is not quite on topic, but related:
A commentary on a “list of 10 most harmful books of the 19th and 20th centuries”
http://www.qoheleth.uklinux.net/blog/?p=53#more-53
The Whole is Less than the Sum of the Parts � A book-burning party? RASAP!
dailyakrasia – The (accepted) fallible of human reason doesn’t strike me as a “mere” fact if we’re using reason to debate the existence of a being that supposedly created reason to begin with.
In theology, Theodicy is derived from two Greek words meaning ‘deity’ and ‘justice’ and deals with attempts to justify the goodness of God in the face of what some define as evil. One of the classic ways of stating the dilemma:
“Either God is able to prevent evil and will not, or he is willing to prevent it and cannot. If the former, he is not merciful; if the latter, he is not omnipotent.”
People have been wrestling with this since Plato.
The four sort of classic ways of trying to consider this dilemma (and each has many variants and elaborations) are:
1) Evil in the world is because of sin or rebellion against God by another deity or some other creature, either angel or man.
2) Evil is a necessary aspect of any finite order where you have free beings in some kind of stable physical order.
3) Evil is actually is an illusion of finite or temporal experience and might not be seen as evil from the standpoint of Eternity.
4) There is no theoretical answer to the mystery of what some call evil, and it can only be met by faith in an omniscient God whose knowledge about our circumstances and the universe is impossible for finite beings to understand. I believe Theodicy was started by Leibniz.
I’m sure you can look up all these terms on the Net should one wish to. In theory, some of it is not too hard to understand. After all, we are constantly met by the paradox (which this logically may be) of someone whose behavior we feel that we consistently understand, only to be shocked by something they do that seems completely out of character, as we are not privvy to their motives. If one ascribes this to a beingness of infinite intelligence then it is not likely that we would understand these actions.
Wars are full of the necessity of brave generals with integrity who care passionately about their men finding it necessary to send troops into a situation knowing full well they will be killed, as a diversionary action to secure a higher good.
It’s a huge subject and one that offers lots of opportunity for study and reflection.
The idea of a leap of faith can be attributed to Kierkegaard, a religious existentialist. It’s an oversimplification, but he thought that certain theological propositions were absurd and therefore one had to make a leap of faith to be able to be in agreement with them. (You might say that he thought that since the whole thing seemed crazy, it must be true. 🙂 )
Most people who have faith in God do not find it necessary to make a leap of faith. A huge number grow up in churches and synagogues where faith is passed from one generation to another. Many come to faith through an intellectual comprehension in the world of ideas related to divinity. (Not all theological problems are as thorny to deal with as Theodicy.) Some people find faith through introspection and inquiry relative to the source of their own inspiration or inner sources of security. Some find faith because of the effect the aesthetic value of natural beauty has on them. There are many different ways to have faith. Some feel that they are in a relationship with divine presence. There are even people who have divine revelation. The Catholic Church has critical bases on which they make determination for sainthood. There are probably hundreds of ways for people to have faith.
Logic has a lot of value, but it does not offer us a vehicle for dealing with these issues. I believe it may have been Jaspers who pointed out that man was irrational and that was part of our big problem. Logic does not help us in matters of love. Perhaps we would all be better off if we were like Spock, but it doesn’t happen. The field of psychology is full of people whom logic does not help.
It’s not surprising then that if logic does not avail for love, friendship, ecstasy and so many others that it would not suffice to arbitrate in many matters of faith.
Laura said: “I haven’t got this all reasoned out, but I have a feeling that if an omnibenevolent God kept on fixing everything for us, our experience would make no sense to us at all, and we would never develop the necessary powers of reason for fascinating discussions like this one.”
This suggests a limitation on God — viz. that he is not omnipotent, and thus ‘had’ to create us ‘this way’ in order for things to ‘make sense’. But if God really is *omnipotent*, he could easily have made us in such a way that things ‘made sense’, but without all this needless suffering.
etownie said: “dailyakrasia – The (accepted) fallible of human reason doesn’t strike me as a “mere” fact if we’re using reason to debate the existence of a being that supposedly created reason to begin with.”
I am not sure what you mean by this. However, given that we: (a) have reason, and (b) it is the most reliable guide to sorting out our beliefs, then (c) we should rely on it (despite its limitations, fallibility, etc.) when forming beliefs as much as possible.
So if I have good reasons to conclude that the Christian God does not exist, then that is what I should believe (despite the fact that it might make me upset, might disappoint my parents, etc).
(Of course if the Christian God *does* exist, He is both omnipotent and omniscient, and thus knew before time that I would use reason in this way, namely, to conclude that He does *not* exist — but who ultimately would be to blame for that?)
Greg (outside of Dallas) said, regarding Theodicy: “It’s a huge subject and one that offers lots of opportunity for study and reflection.”
Quite. And, as I mentioned in my initial post, the ‘problem of evil’ continues to be debated today by analytical philosophers.
The Oxford philosopher John Mackie presented the ‘problem of evil’ as a formal deductive argument in the mid-20th century. He claimed that it was a sound argument — viz. since its premises were all true, the conclusion (an omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent deity cannot exist) also had to be true.
Needless to say, Mackie’s formal argument has generated a lot of debate in the decades since it was first published.
The strongest reply that I know of on behalf of theism is that, despite all the apparent evidence to the contrary, it still might be possible that all the suffering we see in the world is compatible with a benevolent deity. According to this reply, the problem of evil is not a sound deductive argument, but rather a very strong *inductive* argument (one that people of faith must hope turns out to be wrong).
I find this reply utterly unconvincing, since I think that belief should conform to the strongest available evidence. But some people take comfort in it.
Greg (outside Dallas) said: “Logic has a lot of value, but it does not offer us a vehicle for dealing with these issues. I believe it may have been Jaspers who pointed out that man was irrational and that was part of our big problem. Logic does not help us in matters of love. Perhaps we would all be better off if we were like Spock, but it doesn’t happen. The field of psychology is full of people whom logic does not help.”
Another interesting comment, Greg.
Unsurprisingly, I disagree.
While there are many things in life that logic and reason cannot *determine* (or decide) for us, reason can, and I think *should*, regulate all of our beliefs (as much as is humanly possible), and our actions that are based on those beliefs.
To use your exampe of love, while reason cannot determine with whom I fall in love, it *can* help determine whether or not , as time goes by, I am rational is staying in love with that person. Perhaps she does not return my love, or perhaps the beliefs I had that led me to love her in the first place turned out to be false (e.g. I thought she was compassionate and caring, but in fact she is cold and calculating, and willing to dump me and cross the House for a cabinet position without any hesitation). If the beliefs that led me to love this person turned out to be false, I would be irrational not to reconsider my love for her.
The fact that we are irrational might be “part of our big problem”. But that does not mean that we should jettison the most reliable tool we have for belief-formation when it comes to the most important subject of all, namely, our religious beliefs.
dailyakrasia –
“(b) it is the most reliable guide to sorting out our beliefs, then”
“(c) we should rely on it (despite its limitations, fallibility, etc.) when forming beliefs as much as possible.”
“So if I have good reasons to conclude that the Christian God does not exist, then that is what I should believe.”
“I think that belief should conform to the strongest available evidence.”
I’m saying none of the above hold unless you accept them a priori.
“The fact that we are irrational might be “part of our big problem”.”
I think what we call ‘irrationality’ serves it’s purpose and we do a disservice to ourselves to cage our thoughts with Aristotle’s ‘reason’.
I’m literally saying that nothing can be said of God from an analytic viewpoint. That it is the wrong tool for the job, like peeling oranges with discrete math and harsh language.
“I’m literally saying that nothing can be said of God from an analytic viewpoint. That it is the wrong tool for the job, like peeling oranges with discrete math and harsh language.”
This is simply not true.
If someone were to approach you and proclaim: “I believe in Thor, because my god Thor causes lightning!” Would you not explain to him the errors of his way, in the hope of correcting him of his incorrect belief? How is that a case of ‘peeling oranges with harsh language’? It seems to be a very straightforward case of explaining that belief in Thor is, well, irrational.
If you grant me my ‘Thor argument’, then why should I, as an atheist (and ex-Christian — a Mennonite to boot!), not use reason in the same endeavour against the Christian (or Muslim, or Jew)?
If you reject reason for determining what ‘God’ is (the Christian, the Mulsim, etc.), then what is ‘the right tool’? If you say ‘faith’, then the natural rejoinder is: “okay, but which religion shoud faith pick?” And if you say, “The most rational religion!” — then are you not deferring to reason in the end?
In short: one can live in only one city: Athens or Jerusalem. I choose Athens, despite the discord. And even the citizens of Jerusalem feel worried by Socrates.
Albert Einstein developed a complex mathematical model providing scientific physical proof in the face of his contemporaries that matter and energy have similar properties in order to prove the possibility of the existence of an omnipotent god. This is an excepted axiom in today�s scientific community e=mc\2.
“If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing � but if you don’t believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist.”
� Bhushan Parulekar
June 19, 2002
Logical point I would say
dailyakraisia, you wrote: “perhaps the beliefs I had that led me to love her in the first place turned out to be false (e.g. I thought she was compassionate and caring, but in fact she is cold and calculating, and willing to dump me and cross the House for a cabinet position without any hesitation”
ROTFLMAO! Great example, loved it!
An ex-Mennonite? How far you have fallen! Mennonites aren’t known for their philosophy, but for their practicality. I married a South American Mennonite (with her relatives in Abbotsford and Winnipeg/Steinbach).
If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing � but if you don’t believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist.
What’s foolish (to pick just one obvious objection to the above) is thinking that believing in God costs you nothing if He turns out to be imaginary. Believing presumably means actually putting into practice the ethics of Christianity (or that of whatever religion your God heads up). A lifetime of sacrifice, loving your neighbor, and turning the other cheek makes no sense if maximizing the length and quality of life on this earth is one’s goal.
Dailyakrasia said:
“This suggests a limitation on God — viz. that he is not omnipotent, and thus ‘had’ to create us ‘this way’ in order for things to ‘make sense’. But if God really is *omnipotent*, he could easily have made us in such a way that things ‘made sense’, but without all this needless suffering.”
While I appreciate your arguments, I believe they rest on the premise that in order to believe in God, one must believe in “the traditional God”. The problem of suffering is indeed difficult. Many resolve it simply through their own personal experience of God as an ever-present help in suffering. I realize that if you examine this closely, you may find yourself asking the mind-boggling and probably heretical question, “who created whom?”, but then, if you delve into discussions of the nature of time, your understanding of that question might change…
All of which is fascinating and I am happy to watch the unfolding of opinion and understanding, but for myself I am satisfied to examine my own experience and ask whether the “tree bears good fruit.” The answer to this question seems clear enough when I look at the work of God in my own life, but rather inconsistent when I look at the work of the church in society through history. This brings me back to the idea that all individuals should have a voice in debate, regardless of their personal religious beliefs, but there is cause for concern when individuals give up their voice in debate by deferring (actively or by default) to an authority, be it religious or secular.
An interesting quote regarding suffering and the power of God: responding to the tsunami in December, the Moderator of The United Church of Canada said:
“I have come to believe that God’s ultimate commitment to the world and its creatures is not a commitment to control but a commitment to love. I believe that between control and love God must have had to make a choice. This is the same choice we all make. My own life as a parent of four has taught me this.”
http://www.united-church.ca/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=59&EXTRA_ARG=GO%3DGO&host_id=42&page_id=3277568&query=moderator+tsunami&hiword=tsunami+TSUNAMIS+MODERATE+MODERATED+moderator+MODERATORS+
Where Was God When the Waters Rose? | Peter Short
Well Mark maybe you should investigate what Jesus said about the matter of belief further because you seem to be missing the point. John 3:16 is fairly straight forward. Living a Christian life style can not honestly be called anything less than an ideal quality of life at least from a Christian�s perspective.