Subject:
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Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 15 Oct 2003 21:22:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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762 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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I have to believe that God is good. Anything done in God’s name that isn’t
good is suspect IMO. A fig tree bears figs, not dates. A Godly person’s
work is good, not evil.
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I know that you have to believe this, but I have to believe that I have
sufficient gas in the tank to make it to the next fueling station. Saying that
I have to believe something is basically equivalent to saying I really really
really want to believe it.
However, my super-duper rhetorical abilities tell me that this isn’t quite what
you meant. But can you accept that, to an outsider, this kind of statement of
religious faith is a logical weakness rather than strength. In essence, you’re
using the god-of-the-gaps argument, saying “I don’t/can’t know about (insert
unknowable thing here), so I’ve decided to believe (insert belief) about
(unknowable thing).”
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But it’s also (and probably not coincidentally) the period of greatest
technological advancement in human history; the downside is that our
societal development has not kept pace.
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We have replaced God with machines. We need both.
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I don’t have any need of God, just as I have no need of ghosts or astrology. I
don’t mean that to seem carelessly cruel or dismissive; I’m trying to reduce the
question to its essence, in my view.
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But can you say that every Jew murdered in the holocaust was killed by an
atheist? Every serf killed under Stalin’s campaign was killed by an
atheist? Every citizen massacred by Pol Pot was killed by an atheist? I
would suggest that, although the dictators themselves rejected/suppressed
religion, it is unlikely that all of their followers were equally atheistic.
Therefore, the actions of those non-atheist murderers must be explained
before atheism can uniquely be condemned for genocidal mania of this kind.
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I have no use for highlighting the barbarism of atheists but to merely point
out that atheism isn’t an advancement on religion.
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Perhaps my point wasn’t clear: these atrocities, though initiated by atheists,
weren’t actually committed by atheists, and one must explain how a religious
person could commit such acts before these acts can be blamed on atheists. “I
was following orders given by an atheist” isn’t sufficient answer, alas.
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You may indeed be correct, especially in the light of today’s muslim
terrorists who adhere to an understanding that is, for all intents and
purposes, 500 years behind the times. They certainly are using technology to
murder as efficiently as they can.
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But were all of the US pilots who dropped bombs that killed Iraqi and Afghan
civilians also atheists? It’s true the bottom line of that war wasn’t religion,
but the fact that US pilots were acting on behalf of a nominally secular
government doesn’t exonerate them from being people of faith who nonetheless
killed innocent civilians, intentionally or otherwise.
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I will never know until I die for certain whether what I believe is in fact
true. I don’t question my faith, because it is my faith that gives me
hope. It gives me strength; it gives me purpose. If I don’t have that, I
loose my reason for existing.
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My “reason” to continue existing is to enjoy the time that circumstance affords
me. Additionally, another “reason” to continue existing is to increase
happiness of others. I enjoy existing, and my observations have led me to
conclude that others likewise enjoy existing; therefore, part of my “reason” for
existing is to help increase that enjoyment in others.
Nothing in my entire experience has led me to conclude that there is anything
transcendent or metaphysical about my “reason” for existing.
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It is not intellectually dishonest at all to
stop questioning it, because my intellect does me no good in the arena of the
infinite. I think it is intellectually dishonest to reject the concept of
God because of lack of proof when in fact by definition this is not
possible.
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Indeed it is sometimes intellectually dishonest to reject something solely for
lack of proof, but not always. If I told you that God committed a fundamentally
evil act, would you believe me, even if I lacked proof? Probably not, because
that evil act would be a direct contradiction to your concept of God and
therefore a logical impossibility for you.
However, to say that I reject the existence of God is not quite correct.
Instead, I do not accept the existence of God, at least not based on any
argument or evidence or experience I’ve ever known. The lack of acceptance of a
thing is not the same as the rejection of that thing. This is a subtle point,
but it’s essential.
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Further, it is Science that is intellectually dishonest by not
acknowledging its own leap of faith with respect to the origin of the
universe. Belief in God and belief in Science both require faith.
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Yeah, but all of my experience tells me that, the overwhelming majority of the
time, my senses give a sufficiently accurate perception of reality to make
assumptions based on that experience. It is a much smaller leap of faith to say
“I believe that my perceptions are consistent with my experience” than to say
“An omnipotent transcendent infinite eternal entity created the universe and
every atom in it but left us no evidence of that act of creation.”
Further, such an occluded God would be a deceptive God, and I wouldn’t call
deception a pure good.
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I would assert when religion is eradicated, something replaces it, and
that something is not necessarily better.
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I would agree with that. Sometimes the replacement is better, sometimes
it’s worse, and sometimes it’s just another religion.
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I”m curious. Have you an example in mind of a replacement that is better
IRL?
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Respect for fellow creatures would go a long way toward answering that question.
Intellectually honest pursuit of scientific truth would be another good
suggestion (by which I mean science unencumbered by corporate or idealogical
agendas, for example).
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Can I, as an atheist, work to the betterment of humanity without doing God’s
work?
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Very interesting question. It is certainly possible in part. But I would
have to ask-- what would be the motivation for doing so?
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For the most selfish reason of all--because it feels “right” for me to act that
way. If it can be demonstrated to me that this is the incorrect course, then
intellectual honesty would impel me to amend my behavior. For example, it has
been demonstrated to me that capital punishment is wrong; therefore, I no longer
accept the death penalty as an appropriate response to wrongdoing.
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Though much of doing God’s work involves meeting people’s physical needs,
the Gospel also provides for people’s spiritual needs-- namely Hope,
Comfort, Courage, Strength. Such wouldn’t be provided by an atheist I would
imagine. Existentialism is a hard sell;-)
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Amusingly, I took a “What’s your belief” quiz at Belief.net, and I scored higher
on the Christian scale and also on the “generally spiritual” scale than three
born-again Christians whom I know. Either that test was really messed up, or
they were!
Dave!
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