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September 26, 2005
how to find God in three arduous steps
1. Be Honest About The Facts
a) The scientific evidence cannot prove or disprove His existence, because science is an innappropriate tool for examining the supernatural. Anything science can detect is, by definition, natural.
b) Don't be unnecessarily disdainful of people who have come to the conclusion that there is a God. I know this can be a lot to ask, considering you've probably met some of the types of believer that I've met. But to be disdainful is to predispose yourself to the opposite conclusion, regardless of what the actual truth of the matter is. In a sense you are allowing them to sway your decision. This question is for you to search out; it has nothing to do with the obnoxious believers you've met in the past.
c) Recognize the overwhelmingly anecdotic quality of the evidence you have gathered; indeed this applies to the evidence that all mankind has gathered throughout history. The evidence gathered by those who believe in God is anecdotic in the extreme. By the same token, the evidence gathered by those to disbelieve in God is also thoroughly anecdotal. There is too much of All That Is™ for anyone to present his or her experience as anything remotely like statistically relevant. To claim otherwise is to assert that the portion of All That Is™ which we have not seen behaves exactly like the part we have seen. There's no compelling reason this should be true.
The facts we can gather about the existence of God from the natural world are not only inconclusive, but logically must be so. We can't prove or disprove the existence of God through scientific means.
2. Be Honest About Yourself
The honest truth, if we will look at it squarely, is that the existence of God is not a question which inspires apathy in most people. Most of us are relatively serious about this question one way or another. Even many agnostics are positive blowhards about their thesis that you can't know. For one who believes God exists, it is perhaps understandable why he or she might care about pursuading others; it may be pertinent to their peace of mind, salvation of their soul, eternal destiny, etc. But why should so many atheists care about pursuading those who believe in God? (Remember that to argue is to love, for we don't argue with those in whom we see no commonality with ourselves; and we don't argue when we harbor no hope of pursuading.)
My point is that everybody cares about this question. The vehemence of emotion on this subject may correspond to a need or a desire, if you look at it carefully. Do you secretly wish there were a God? Are you filled with loathing and dread at the thought that he might exist? If you have an emotion about this question, you'll have to examine that emotion, and understand why you feel that way. Until you understand the emotion, you won't be able to understand your own capability to examine the question.
This is not to say you must get rid of the emotion before you can address the question in a logical manner. That would be poor advice indeed; human emotion, when suppressed, inevitably exerts its pressure elsewhere, and the end result is more confusing than the first. But without attempting to manipulate the feeling, you must come to understand it in order to understand your own motivations. And this leads to a general point I wish to make: when it comes to arguing about the existence of God, everybody, and I mean everybody, has a motive, an agenda, an engine. And that engine is usually more potent and more personal than an easygoing fondness for spirited repartee.
3. Ring Him up.
This is the step where perfectly rational men take steps which may leave them indistinguishable from lunatics. If you're going to believe in God despite seeing no angels through the scope of an electron tunnelling microscope, you will feel foolish. You will even feel afraid. In my experience it is the worst kind of terror. To knock on that door and hear no answer means you have become the universe's punch line, the queerest of nature's toys; a natural creature which conceived of something unnatural, and then set out to find it. If you don't find this proposition thoroughly frightening, then you're not really knocking.
But think about each of the possiblities. There are four. When arranged in a grid, we see that two possibilities are controlled by ourselves, and two are controlled by reality.
| You | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| don't seek him | seek Him | ||
| God | n'existe pas | 1. Nothing matters | 2. Sucker |
| exists | 3. Whoops | 4. ??? | |
If you decide to seek Him, you're really only considering options two and four. Two is the frightening one. That's the one which makes you nature's laughingstock. The courage to believe in God if he does not exist is noble perhaps, but ultimately tragic. However, possibilities 1 & 3 are also dismal, are they not?
There are certain assumptions we must take up in order to make a search for God worthwhile. Besides assuming that He does exist, we must 1) assume He is findable, and 2) assume He can interact with us. If we get to the end of the search and find our God is a hunk of lint fallen behind a washing machine in another universe, well, that's not a very exciting find. It certainly doesn't fulfill the desire which drove us beyond all natural sense and evidence to seek Him. Paul said "...beleive that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." That's the whole shooting match. This had better be worth our while.
But What if I don't believe? How can one simply decide to "believe" if he doubts? This is a big question, and it has bothered me for years. I am convinced that faith is one of those frustratingly intangible things which can only be observed objectively after the fact.
An example: we have a fool who has decided that folks would buy doogizmos if only someone would manufacture them. And he is very excited about his idea. And while he tells everyone he meets about his idea, no-one can see any way it would work. At this point, the fellow is indistinguishable from a fool.
Fast forward five years. The chap has four factories, pumping out 7 million doogizmos a week, selling like gangbusters and demand is only increasing. He appears on the cover of Forbes, eWeek and Time, and is celebrated as a visionary. Now when people look at him, they have the sense they are seeing a genius.
What changed? The fellow did not morph from a fool to a genious. The doogizmo is essentially the same. The only thing that changed is everyone else's perception of this entrepaneur and his doogizmo idea. But until he succeeded, he couldn't be distinguished from a fool.
In a similar sense, belief cannot observed except when it is the engine of an action. To believe is not to change your mind, or your feelings. It's no good to trick yourself into thinking differently. To believe is simply to act on the assumption that something is true.
If there is a God, what would you want to do about it? Would you have some harsh words for him? Would you put out a fleece or deliver an ultimatum? If you found you had a meeting with Him, would you have gracious words of praise and thanks for a beautiful world, or deprications for eons of human horror and suffering?
It doesn't matter. Say anything you need to say. Only make sure that whatever you say, it is the truest thing you know. If he is a wicked, evil god, he may as well not exist. He certainly wouldn't be worthy of us, for we, as a race, already have a sense of justice. But if he is just and good, moreover if he loves what he created, then he oughtn't to mind anything we say if we say it as truly as we can, for if we are really true to what we were created to be, how could He refuse to hear it? Say the truest thing you can say.
Now that I reach the end of the third step, I see that either step three is more arduous than I anticipated, or there is a fourth step. If we express it as a fourth step it would be Look for Him to answer you. What is the point of believing in God, actively searching for him if you can't get any answer out of Him? Better question: why seek Him if finding Him isn't a good thing?
The mechanics of "ringing Him up" are, of course as diverse as the people who seek Him. Me, I looked up alone at the full moon and asked him to show himself to me. Suddenly, nothing happened.
It was several weeks later that He hit me broadside out of the clear blue, shattering my depression, shifting the course of my life through a dream. It ain't science, and it wouldn't comfort me if it were. Given the choice between a hunting trip with my dad and a DNA test proving his paternity I'd choose the former, every time. That's the way it is with God.
Posted by joel at 03:08 PM | Comments (34) | TrackBack
September 20, 2005
altruistic atheism?
More cross-pasting™ I'm sad to say. The debate at TRA's Sept. 12 question of the day snarls on, and after a few days absence I jumped back into the fray...
I'm trying to figure out what all this dogma means. Several times in the comments above, various commentors have said something along the lines of, "belief in god is irrational, because there is absolutely no evidence he exists." Rocketman said, "If I make a statement that all crows are black, and someone demonstrably shows me that there are white crows in the universe, then I am wrong." But the truth of the matter is that Rocketman could go his whole life and never see a single white crow and still be wrong. The subset of all available evidence of white crows to which he has access is infintesimal. There could be white crows huddled in the extinct calderas of Io, and Rocketman might never know it. And if he said, "There are no white crows" every day until he died, he'd be wrong. (I'm not picking on Rocketman in particular, it's just that he introduced this delightful concept of white crows.)
What has actually happened throughout most of athiestdom™ as nearly as I can tell is something like this: 1) a religious dude claimed some connection to a revealed God, 2) a questioning dude examined religious dude's claims, and found them disappointing. His claims were shallow, inert, contradictory or even mendacious. 3) The questioning dude may or may not have repeated step two several times, experiencing disappointment each time. By this time he has developed a strong emotional reaction to religion or to any dudes who claim to be hooked in with the Almighty. 4) the questioning dude decides to believe there is no such thing as god, and thereby becomes our hero, Atheist Dude™.
My point is threefold: 1) atheism seems to exist mainly not as a avenue of new discovery so much as a reaction to religion. 2) This reaction seems very often to have a strong emotional basis rather than being based purely on cold logic as is popularly implied or claimed. 3) When Atheist Dude™ has examined 17 major religions including eight flavors of Evangelical Post Tribulation Ecumenicalism, he has not nearly borne the burden of proof necessary to be able to say, "I have proved there is no god." We can look inside a cookie jar, see no jelly beans there, and then reasonably claim we have proven there are no jelly beans in the jar. But the universe isn't as small or as simple as a cookie jar, and God, if he exists, would probably be a bit more complex and mysterious than a jelly bean.
My point is that the question of God's existence has exactly nothing to do with what the religions of the world can or cannot prove. Suppose for the sake of argument, that we could demonstrably prove that each and every single religious person on the face of the earth was mendacious in as much as he or she believed or claimed to believe in the existence of God. This still does nothing to disprove the existence of God. So it is ironic to me that in this thread Steve G has repeatedly had to remind his worthy opponents that he hasn't said diddly-smack about his own religious flavor. The only thing he's revealed is that he is un-atheist. In this way he has given his worthy opponents a taste of their own medicine: atheism is un-relion-ism, and does not, cannot offer real proof that God does not exist.
This un-religionism makes the problem of meaningfulness problematic. If your credo is "I don't know what we are, but we're not like them," you still haven't answered the question of what you are like. All I see in the comments above are sentiments; appeals to emotional concepts like "helping others," and "the good of society." These are mostly just virtues exported from major world religions, dressed-down and rinsed out and dudded up like Darwinism so you can claim they are morality free. But the only atheists who bring anything original to the table are the intellectually honest, clear thinking ones who realize that if their goals could be furthered with a steep murder rate, then let us have murder. You atheists come in two flavors: wolves and sheep. If there is no god, and all the world's religions go down to dust, it will be the wolves who prevail, for they are not encumbered by vestigial moral sentiments like "helping people."
Posted by joel at 12:37 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
September 15, 2005
meaningful atheism
At eight days since I last posted to this blog, I'm ready to shamelessly cross-paste™ my own comment on The Raving Atheist's Question of the Day (see his right-hand sidebar, or just click here).
If I must find or create or assert meaning in my life for myself, then by definition it is localized meaning. Suppose I find meaning in helping little old ladies across the street. This may mean nothing at all to those who find meaning in mushrooms.
With no overarching, externally set value or meaning, we are each essentially alone. Some of the commentors in this thread understand that, and they are the ones who talk about distractions rather than meaning. If there is no God, then video games, drugs, masterbation or even middle management represent the more insightful approach to life.
Those who say there is no God, but are resolutely determined to "make a go of it," to instill into their lives nice meaningful things (like helping little old ladies across the street) are either not smart enough to see the need for distractions, or have merely chosen more socially acceptable distractions. It's all alienation, despair and death, either tack you take.
Long before I was convinced there is a God I realized there simply was no way for me to empirically prove the question one way or another. In the absence of clear evidence I chose the option which is more interesting. If there is no God we spend our lives like tadpoles in a drying puddle. If there is a God, who knows what that could mean?
Posted by joel at 03:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 07, 2005
one man's refugee
George Bush opposes using the word "refugees" to describe the victims of hurricane Katrina, presumably because they are Americans, still living in their own country.
Jesse Jackson opposes calling them "refugees" because he claims the term is racist and has criminal connotations (huh?).
News service Reuters has decided to continue referring to them as "refugees," presumably to spite Dubya and prove that nobody listens to Jesse Jackson.
The AP is still using the word also.
Posted by joel at 04:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 06, 2005
what is god
Dawn Patrol guest blogger The Raving Atheist wrote in a guest post at the DP:
The most frustrating thing for an atheist is to debate a believer who refuses to answer the question, "What is God?" It's the threshold issue in any theological argument. The discussion can't get started unless the parties address it.
I do not wish to unnecessarily annoy any argumentative atheists, and so I've been considering my answer to TRA's question.
As a believer in God I might retort that his question oversimplifies God. Mightn't I as easily ask "what is The United States of America?" A simple answer such as "a nation comprised of fifty states united by a federal government into a democratic republic" would be correct, but woefully uninformative, particularly to one who doubts such a nation actually exists. That short answer doesn't describe what living in America is like, it does not even talk about economy, ethnic composition, wars, industry, innovation or climate. Yet all such things are aspects or characteristics of The United States.
On the other hand I find TRA's question appealing inasmuch as it is fair. If God exists, then he must have certain charactaristics inherent to all things that exist, such as, for example, the charactaristic of having distinct characteristics. But what if God's characteristics are so bizarre, so remote, so other that they are completely undiscernable to humans? If the existence of God is completely unperceivable, if he does not in any way affect me and I do not in any way affect him, then perhaps concluding that he does not exist, while technically incorrect, is practically workable.
But I believe that he exists, and that he is perceivable. I believe that he affects us, and is affected by us. I believe, in fact, that those charactaristics are integral to what he is.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [John 1:1]
Think for a moment about God identifed as "the Word." There are few things which distinctly identify us as a species more profoundly than words. We use language to abstract, encapsulate and transmit complex concepts from one person to another. When one person uses words to communicate with another person, he assumes that the little capsules of meaning which are words can be unpacked by the hearer and linked to the concept which the speaker intended. The speaker and the listener cannot communicate without this confidence that through the use of words as semaphores, they can synchronize their minds, and think about the same things, even experience the same emotions. Words bridge the gap which space and even time places between human minds. When one person reads or hears the words of another person, they are able to meet in the shared space of those words in a profound way that they could not otherwise do.
John writes about God not as one who chooses to talk to us in our words so that we can understand his meaning, but as the mode of communication itself, as a shared space; something partly from him and partly from us. God himself became that capsule of meaning, which he could understand, and which we also could understand. Language is as intrinsic to what God is as it is intrinsic to what we are.
If this is true, then the existence of God is not an incidental fact which may or may not be relevant to a particular human being. If this is true, then each of us is meant to communicate with him. As wordy as it is, that's as simple an answer as I can give.
Posted by joel at 11:33 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 02, 2005
would rudy do?
Robert N. Going writes that New Orleans and Louisiana have a leadership vacuum and what they need is Rudy Guiliani. A reader of his blog comments:
I am a resident of lower Manhattan and a witness to the events of 9/11 and as a Red Cross volunteer for 2.5 months at ground zero (where I met and had the privilege of working with Bob)I cannot agree that there is a correspondence to the two responses...[Rudy] presided over a much small disaster (emotions and politics aside), and in a city that was rich with resources and, for the most part, functioning. We had communications (my phone service and internet stayed up even though my central office was in the affected area), open transportation (a lot of public transit was running, albeit on a limited scale, by the night of 9/11). We also had a ready supply of talented construction labor, engineers, the largest police force in the world, a devastated but functioning fire dept. and countless other agencies and professionals. We had power, running water, and most services, except in the immediate area. And, even with that, the roads there were basically open and available to bring in machinery and supplies... I remember seeing the huge amounts of aid piled up by 9/12, and not only did we have space to store it, but the roads were open to deliver it, and to deliver personel to manage and distribute it. Katrina has devastated 3 states. NO is wiped out, with 80% under water, no electric, no communications of any sort (I understand all the emergency personel are sharing one police frequency, and many of them can't get their walkie-talkie batteries charged). Roads and infrastructure are wiped out, there are no supplies, no water, no sanitation. It's summer, hot, humid and rain has started...What could we expect from our government, after all the billions of post 9/11 spending, if we had another major attack, such as a dirty bomb, in my fair city? What if we didn't have open roads, utilities, personnel? I suspect, despite my knowing how New Yorkers react during crises, that we would be very much like NO, Rudy or no Rudy.
There's no question that the scale is different. Both were terrible, but Katrina is most definitely worse. But I think RNG's point is that however bad it is in NO, they've got to have real leadership now, or things will continue to spiral out of control and get worse.
It doesn't help to have the governor weeping and the mayor "sending out an urgent SOS." Notice that two days ago they were reassuring Louisianians "we will recover, we will rebuild." Now they are shrinking from the fray, and their entire leadership stucture is shrinking with them, right down to the patrolman who turns in his badge or simply doesn't show up for duty.
One of their critical failures was the decision (and it most definitely was a decision) to ignore the looting and focus on search and rescue. They misinterpreted that situation as a simple matter of saving lives vs. saving property. They dropped the ball: above all else you save order, or both lives and property will be lost in terrible quantity. Two days ago they looked the other way as looters made off with armloads of Levis. Today that license is returned to bite them in the dungarees.
Having given anarchy its place in the corner yesterday, today the city and state officials of New Orleans and Louisiana find themselves being pushed into a corner, with greater and more tragic loss of human life looming on the horizon. What should have been an orderly evacuation of the Superdome and convention center is turning rapidly into something more akin to a prison riot.
The Big Easy is quickly passing the point where a Rudy Giuliani could help. Soon what they will need is a Wyatt Earp.
Hat tip to The Dawn Patrol who featured Going's post. Furthermore a backstep: I inadvertently (or subconsciously?) chose the same headline Dawn used, but have since revised it to the derivative one you see above.
Posted by joel at 01:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 01, 2005
sept. 1 is blog for relief day
Please pray for the victims of the winds, floods and looters down in Louisiana and Mississippi today. If you wish to help, consider a donation to a trustworthy charity such as The Salvation Army. If you are a blogger, you can participate by writing about it, and by linking to Instapundit's roundup post and by registering your blog at The Truth Laid Bear's Blog for Relief Day registration page.
Posted by joel at 01:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack