sympathy for the atheist part II
In my previous post, I promised two things. One is that I would
explain what I mean that "Everything points to God." I know that
that's a very large statement to make, and so I need a bit of time to
build up to it. So, instead, I'm going to tackle my second promise:
explaining the six pro-atheist arguments I mentioned in my first post.
Before I jump right into it though. I would confess to some horrible
arguments I've made in the past refferring to the existence of God. I
would look at websites which would have all the proofs for God's
existence and think that they were very rational in their
presentation; that presenting enough arguments for the existence of
God would have to convince anyone of said existence. Then I took
philosophy and found out that what Thomas Aquinas and the other great
theists were presenting weren't proofs for God's existence, but an
explanation of who he must be in relation to the universe. God must be
that which moves everything, that changes everything, that comes
before everything and desired by everything. But, that's a very
different proposition than saying that there must be something there.
And do you why we'll never come up with absolute proof for God's
existence? Because God is greater than what we can possibly ever fit
into our heads. So, he cannot be the direct subject of our sciences.
(Including philosophy and theology.) But, do you know what that also
means? The limit goes both ways for we cannot disprove his existence
absolutely either. The moral of the story is that if anyone says that
he has absolute proof for or against his existence, you can be sure
that he's either wrong or starting out with faulty assumptions. Still,
there is a certain value in these arguments. Arguments for God tell
something about God while arguments against God tells us something
about people.
So, what are the flaws in the arguments from my previous post?
"First, there are hardly any people who truly follow the tenets of
their religious belief. Second, the ones who do follow their religion
whole heartedly are visibly tend to be fanatics."
I included these two arguments because they apply to those atheists
who only see religion (possibly from person experience) as irrational
by it's nature and the ones who aren't irrational really aren't
following it in the first place. As pointed out, by Ruarc in the
comments of my previous post, there are many atheists who don't feel
that way at all about organized religion and actually see many
respectable and upstanding people. Quite frankly, I agree, of course
and would also like to add that many of the greatest minds in
Christendom at least saw no conflict between their faith and their
reason. (Aquinas, of course, being the prime example.) Also, even if
people are hypocritical, that's not quite an argument against
religion, per se, because no religion that I know of would actually
allow such hypocrisy. The most one could then say that a religious
life is impossible to lead. And, I would have to agree. Without the
grace of God, there would be no saints and no Church, so in a sense
religion is impossible to live, unless it's true or leads to truth.
And even if every theist ever was a hypocrite or irrational, that
still does not say anything about God himself.
"Third, there are thousands of religions in the world and they can't
all be right, so how can religion lead to any truth?"
Yes there are many religions and these many religions disagree. But,
to me, the more voices saying different things just makes it all the
more likely that one of those voices are right, not less likely.
There's still the problem of figuring out which one is true, though.
But, seeing so many choices and giving up before even seeing what they
have to say is the wrong way to go about it. To go into more detail
than this would mean that I'll have to go into a much longer essay
about Christian Catholicism, where I don't want to go quite yet. So,
I'll just have to leave it at that for now.
"Fourth, even if you pick a religion to follow, all it'll do is keep
you from doing whatever you want to."
And if you could do whatever you wanted to, you'd then be God and we
wouldn't be having this discussion. Seriously, though, if you find
your religion is making you do things that don't follow any rational
basis at all, like martyring yourself or murder or just the average
kookiness, just stop and consider that a reason to not follow THAT
religion, not ANY religion. Even though the faith presents truth
reason cannot know on it's own, it doesn't mean that those truths are
contrary to religion.
This argument also comes from those who are trying to get out of a
moral law that their religion holds such as no premarital sex or
abortion. I would argue that both of these cases can be argued from
reason without the need for faith. But, that, too is a whole other
post that I don't want to get into right now.
"Fifth, philosophy and science do not need God to operate. So, how
will believing in God inform my life?"
Science is great and all, but there are truths that our knowledge just
can't reach on its own. To say otherwise is just the same type of
arrogance that makes religious fanatics. Instead, of having God be
their idol, though, science is their idol. They would claim that
science hold all truth (at least truth worth having) and science will
cure all of humanities ills. But, this is ultimately a closed,
self-proving system that doesn't account for anything supernatural at
all, even the uniqueness of every human being. And if it did actually
satisfy anyone, there would be no need reason we should be asking the
questions science cannot answer.
"Sixth, there so much suffering in the world, that even if he does
exist, he probably doesn't care."
I've met many people who feel this way and each time I feel as if
we're looking at the same facts and coming up with complete opposite
conclusions. When I see suffering, it just reminds me that things
should be better than what they are. But, if all I have is a world of
suffering to compare suffering to, how can I possibly make that claim?
Yet to know that there's something wrong with the world, I would have
to make that claim. It's a sign that the world is not the way it's
supposed to be, that somehow it diverged from some sort of plan. And
if there's a plan, then there must be something with a plan. So, why
doesn't it react? Maybe it is and we just need to open our eyes to see
it.
What all these very short, possibly very incomplete, statements miss
though is a fundamental attitude of the mystery of the world around
them. And that mystery is going to be the topic of my next post. Feel
free to comment, criticize and talk back. If I'm wrong, I want to
know.
God Bless.
explain what I mean that "Everything points to God." I know that
that's a very large statement to make, and so I need a bit of time to
build up to it. So, instead, I'm going to tackle my second promise:
explaining the six pro-atheist arguments I mentioned in my first post.
Before I jump right into it though. I would confess to some horrible
arguments I've made in the past refferring to the existence of God. I
would look at websites which would have all the proofs for God's
existence and think that they were very rational in their
presentation; that presenting enough arguments for the existence of
God would have to convince anyone of said existence. Then I took
philosophy and found out that what Thomas Aquinas and the other great
theists were presenting weren't proofs for God's existence, but an
explanation of who he must be in relation to the universe. God must be
that which moves everything, that changes everything, that comes
before everything and desired by everything. But, that's a very
different proposition than saying that there must be something there.
And do you why we'll never come up with absolute proof for God's
existence? Because God is greater than what we can possibly ever fit
into our heads. So, he cannot be the direct subject of our sciences.
(Including philosophy and theology.) But, do you know what that also
means? The limit goes both ways for we cannot disprove his existence
absolutely either. The moral of the story is that if anyone says that
he has absolute proof for or against his existence, you can be sure
that he's either wrong or starting out with faulty assumptions. Still,
there is a certain value in these arguments. Arguments for God tell
something about God while arguments against God tells us something
about people.
So, what are the flaws in the arguments from my previous post?
"First, there are hardly any people who truly follow the tenets of
their religious belief. Second, the ones who do follow their religion
whole heartedly are visibly tend to be fanatics."
I included these two arguments because they apply to those atheists
who only see religion (possibly from person experience) as irrational
by it's nature and the ones who aren't irrational really aren't
following it in the first place. As pointed out, by Ruarc in the
comments of my previous post, there are many atheists who don't feel
that way at all about organized religion and actually see many
respectable and upstanding people. Quite frankly, I agree, of course
and would also like to add that many of the greatest minds in
Christendom at least saw no conflict between their faith and their
reason. (Aquinas, of course, being the prime example.) Also, even if
people are hypocritical, that's not quite an argument against
religion, per se, because no religion that I know of would actually
allow such hypocrisy. The most one could then say that a religious
life is impossible to lead. And, I would have to agree. Without the
grace of God, there would be no saints and no Church, so in a sense
religion is impossible to live, unless it's true or leads to truth.
And even if every theist ever was a hypocrite or irrational, that
still does not say anything about God himself.
"Third, there are thousands of religions in the world and they can't
all be right, so how can religion lead to any truth?"
Yes there are many religions and these many religions disagree. But,
to me, the more voices saying different things just makes it all the
more likely that one of those voices are right, not less likely.
There's still the problem of figuring out which one is true, though.
But, seeing so many choices and giving up before even seeing what they
have to say is the wrong way to go about it. To go into more detail
than this would mean that I'll have to go into a much longer essay
about Christian Catholicism, where I don't want to go quite yet. So,
I'll just have to leave it at that for now.
"Fourth, even if you pick a religion to follow, all it'll do is keep
you from doing whatever you want to."
And if you could do whatever you wanted to, you'd then be God and we
wouldn't be having this discussion. Seriously, though, if you find
your religion is making you do things that don't follow any rational
basis at all, like martyring yourself or murder or just the average
kookiness, just stop and consider that a reason to not follow THAT
religion, not ANY religion. Even though the faith presents truth
reason cannot know on it's own, it doesn't mean that those truths are
contrary to religion.
This argument also comes from those who are trying to get out of a
moral law that their religion holds such as no premarital sex or
abortion. I would argue that both of these cases can be argued from
reason without the need for faith. But, that, too is a whole other
post that I don't want to get into right now.
"Fifth, philosophy and science do not need God to operate. So, how
will believing in God inform my life?"
Science is great and all, but there are truths that our knowledge just
can't reach on its own. To say otherwise is just the same type of
arrogance that makes religious fanatics. Instead, of having God be
their idol, though, science is their idol. They would claim that
science hold all truth (at least truth worth having) and science will
cure all of humanities ills. But, this is ultimately a closed,
self-proving system that doesn't account for anything supernatural at
all, even the uniqueness of every human being. And if it did actually
satisfy anyone, there would be no need reason we should be asking the
questions science cannot answer.
"Sixth, there so much suffering in the world, that even if he does
exist, he probably doesn't care."
I've met many people who feel this way and each time I feel as if
we're looking at the same facts and coming up with complete opposite
conclusions. When I see suffering, it just reminds me that things
should be better than what they are. But, if all I have is a world of
suffering to compare suffering to, how can I possibly make that claim?
Yet to know that there's something wrong with the world, I would have
to make that claim. It's a sign that the world is not the way it's
supposed to be, that somehow it diverged from some sort of plan. And
if there's a plan, then there must be something with a plan. So, why
doesn't it react? Maybe it is and we just need to open our eyes to see
it.
What all these very short, possibly very incomplete, statements miss
though is a fundamental attitude of the mystery of the world around
them. And that mystery is going to be the topic of my next post. Feel
free to comment, criticize and talk back. If I'm wrong, I want to
know.
God Bless.