(no subject)
Cracked keeps promoting Four Things Both Atheists and Believers Need to Stop Saying at the bottom of my browsing pages, and I finally broke down and read it through.
It seems to me that the big problem with it - well, other than the fact that the title is misleading, and it's more like "Two things for believers, and two for atheists" - is one that's been on my mind for the past few days.
Thing Number One that (they argue) people should stop saying is "God Hates X," followed by an argument that says, basically, that there's no way you can hope to really know what God hates, because you're just a poor little stupid mortal with some unreliable text for groundwork.
And maybe that makes sense, if you're going to hold to some kind of Kantian divide - "Oh, we just crawl along here in this material world, and maybe there's a vast, unknowable realm beyond us, but it's foolish to claim any real understanding of it." It certainly makes sense if you're going to fundamentally characterize God the way the author does:
For a moment, take a step back and forget all the ideas that come to mind when you hear the word "God." Forget about organized religion and everything that flows from it...
Just a force in the universe, not only more powerful than humanity, but greater than anything we have known. Something beyond mere biology with the ability to create worlds and predetermine tomorrow's history.
Sure. If God is a vast, omnipotent force, there's no real reason to believe our ideas of him are anything like correct.
But suppose God is, in addition to being a transcendent Power, also a real, knowable person. Suppose further that he's a person (or persons) with the desire to communicate - to be known by what he's made.
And that's, I think, one of the central components of the Christian understanding of God - that he wants to be known by people, and that he has by various means made himself known to them. In such a case, it'd be foolish to claim that we didn't know anything of God - that despite his best efforts, he hadn't managed to communicate even such basic things as his likes and dislikes, or to preserve his message despite its passing through time and human hands. If true, we can know what God loves; by the same token, we can know what he hates.*
And thank heavens. If the alternative is a God about whom, fundamentally, nothing can be known - about whom any opinion is as good as any other - well, that's a God that doesn't really matter to anything, does he? There's no sense in trying to please him, or obey him, or know him better - you might as well decide every action and belief with a roll of the die, and hope you're one of the lucky ones who gets it right.**
I'm not saying that we should cast aside humility - that we should be unwilling to consider where we're hearing our own wishes and giving God's name to them. But humility isn't the same as ambivalence, and faith needn't be grown from ignorance - and at its core, to know God is to encounter something so certain that everything else in the world combined should not outweigh it.
* - Note that this is not the same as saying, "And we should jeer that at grieving families, Westboro Baptist-style." One of the things that can be known of God is his compassion.
** - It may be objected here that that's all faith is, anyway - "You've got your religion, and they've got theirs, and you both think you're right. Aren't you rolling the dice anyway?" And perhaps I can't argue irrefutably that one of these should be trusted over the other - though it seems to me that the evidence does point inescapably to a single answer. But I can't prove to you that you are incapable of levitating, either, even if I know it to be true and can offer evidence to support my argument - is that a roll of the dice, as well? Should both our claims be treated as equally valid, and the whole affair greeted with a shrug and a, "Well, we can't really know anything for sure," or can we agree that at least one of us is wrong, that there is a truth of the matter, and that knowing the truth might be important?
It seems to me that the big problem with it - well, other than the fact that the title is misleading, and it's more like "Two things for believers, and two for atheists" - is one that's been on my mind for the past few days.
Thing Number One that (they argue) people should stop saying is "God Hates X," followed by an argument that says, basically, that there's no way you can hope to really know what God hates, because you're just a poor little stupid mortal with some unreliable text for groundwork.
And maybe that makes sense, if you're going to hold to some kind of Kantian divide - "Oh, we just crawl along here in this material world, and maybe there's a vast, unknowable realm beyond us, but it's foolish to claim any real understanding of it." It certainly makes sense if you're going to fundamentally characterize God the way the author does:
For a moment, take a step back and forget all the ideas that come to mind when you hear the word "God." Forget about organized religion and everything that flows from it...
Just a force in the universe, not only more powerful than humanity, but greater than anything we have known. Something beyond mere biology with the ability to create worlds and predetermine tomorrow's history.
Sure. If God is a vast, omnipotent force, there's no real reason to believe our ideas of him are anything like correct.
But suppose God is, in addition to being a transcendent Power, also a real, knowable person. Suppose further that he's a person (or persons) with the desire to communicate - to be known by what he's made.
And that's, I think, one of the central components of the Christian understanding of God - that he wants to be known by people, and that he has by various means made himself known to them. In such a case, it'd be foolish to claim that we didn't know anything of God - that despite his best efforts, he hadn't managed to communicate even such basic things as his likes and dislikes, or to preserve his message despite its passing through time and human hands. If true, we can know what God loves; by the same token, we can know what he hates.*
And thank heavens. If the alternative is a God about whom, fundamentally, nothing can be known - about whom any opinion is as good as any other - well, that's a God that doesn't really matter to anything, does he? There's no sense in trying to please him, or obey him, or know him better - you might as well decide every action and belief with a roll of the die, and hope you're one of the lucky ones who gets it right.**
I'm not saying that we should cast aside humility - that we should be unwilling to consider where we're hearing our own wishes and giving God's name to them. But humility isn't the same as ambivalence, and faith needn't be grown from ignorance - and at its core, to know God is to encounter something so certain that everything else in the world combined should not outweigh it.
* - Note that this is not the same as saying, "And we should jeer that at grieving families, Westboro Baptist-style." One of the things that can be known of God is his compassion.
** - It may be objected here that that's all faith is, anyway - "You've got your religion, and they've got theirs, and you both think you're right. Aren't you rolling the dice anyway?" And perhaps I can't argue irrefutably that one of these should be trusted over the other - though it seems to me that the evidence does point inescapably to a single answer. But I can't prove to you that you are incapable of levitating, either, even if I know it to be true and can offer evidence to support my argument - is that a roll of the dice, as well? Should both our claims be treated as equally valid, and the whole affair greeted with a shrug and a, "Well, we can't really know anything for sure," or can we agree that at least one of us is wrong, that there is a truth of the matter, and that knowing the truth might be important?