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December 02, 2004

God is Love, Continued

In which the author continues his discussion with another blogger on the nature of God and the implications of logical thought.

Adding to his original post, IB Bill - in response to my first update below - says:

You're missing the point, Andy. I'm not saying I know and you don't. I'm saying if there is such a thing as an all-knowing, all-powerful, loving God, his actions might appear to be a mystery to all of us, especially over a limited observation period.

As I've indicated elsewhere, to say that something is good in a way that we cannot yet see does not absolve God of the fact that he allowed suffering to exist in the first place. A hurricane may destroy lives and homes, but be a boon to the construction industry, employing hundreds, putting food on tables, and helping pad my stock portfolio as the companies make money by the truckload. This, of course, doesn't mean we should be saying "thank God for hurricanes!" The hurricane was still a non-good (evil) event in that it brought death and destruction to people who were simply "in the way."

The horrible biological experiments of the Nazis on their Jewish, handicapped, and POW victims yielded some measure of useful medical knowledge regarding the human body; knowledge that can be used to help people today. Even with our hindsight - our long-term view some 60 years out - I don't think I'll find anyone other than a neo-Nazi who would claim that the deaths of those innocents were a good thing.

The act stands alone. The act was evil.

Further, to claim that it's a mystery and we should just accept it as beyond our understanding is rather like imagining Sherlock Holmes saying:

"It's a mystery, dear Watson. Let's go have some tea and scones. Say, do you hear the wailing of a hound? Oh, nevermind."

It also, as I've said before, implies that humans are incapable of divining good from evil in the world, that - since any event is simply part of the long-term plan of Jesus' papa - it makes no sense to be happy or sad about any of it, to say that anything or anyone is good or evil, to make any sort of value judgment at all, ever.

Yet, we do it. All the time. Because, despite the protestations of the irrational faithful to the contrary, we know better.

For comedic relief, one of IB Bill's readers, Chris, says the following in the comments:

Oh, and do you really think that he doesn't get the idea that whether or not God is hard to fathom, if he walks among us and tells us stuff about himself, then we can know that much?

If we can't understand God, how do you know it was he that was walking among us? Answer: you don't.

You can believe it all you want, but you have no rational claim to knowing it.

Granted, Andy thinks that it's a bunch of nonsense. However, you can only judge the internal consistency of a belief system by assuming that belief system to be true.

I can only tell if a belief system is logically false by assuming it is true (and thus logically true)? Errr...ok. Whatever.

In any event, I really wouldn't bother spending your time with someone who can concieve of nothing worse than pain and death. The only thing for a person like that is european atheist nany-statism.

Today's winner for Best Non-Sequitiur for December 2, 2004 is Chris! Congratulations!

Please, no one ruin Chris' delusional fantasy by letting him know I'm a pro-American libertarian sort.

Moving on to IB Bill's next post, he begins discussing first principles. Go read it. Come back. I'll be commenting on what I think is relevant to the discussion of logic and theism:

Andy's gone to that place in his mind where many of us have been -- he's tripping all over the contradictions, criticizing problems with extending the logic of religious principles, especially Jewish and Christian ones, and seeing religion as an self-contradictory, confusing mess. And he doesn't really understand why others don't see that.

Of course I understand why they don't see it; most people have not been taught how to think through an argument logically, how to move beyond surface impressions to examine the assumptions behind beliefs and how they, if logic is to be valuable to human thought, must play out.

The reason many people still believe in God is the same reason so many people still think communism is a workable economic and political model. They haven't thought about it enough to see that it clearly contradicts the reality on the ground

And, if they have thought about it to that point, well, then they're just being boneheaded.

I'm sorry that I won't accept a belief that is full of "contradictions" and "problems with extending the logic of religious principles" that create a "self-contradictory, confusing mess." You, of course, are welcome to do so, but you must give up any right to declare your beliefs based on logic and reason.

What Andy doesn't see is that many of us who have developed a faith in God have been through many of the same discussions, said the same things, and argued from the same premises as he has. We do see.

Apparently many of you have also argued rather poorly. I once had faith in God, attended Church regularly, even sometimes got the warm, gooey feelings that made me think I was in touch with something larger than myself. Once I learned to think, though, I realized how little sense it made, that the materialist explanation was more satisfying than irrational appeals to mysteries and magic.

There are seeming contradictions, or paradoxes, whenever you start talking about the nature of God. Language limits our inquiry, as does our ability to perceive. But at the end of the day, it's not easy to try to get around those words in Leviticus. So why try?

Because for human language to make sense, for the same words that lead people to believe in this god or that to make sense, those words in Leviticus matter.

Sidestepping the issue is not a resolution; it's an admission of defeat at the hands of enlightened thought.

If God doesn't exist, then the Christian scriptures shouldn't resonate deep within my heart. They should be just like reading anything else. Yet nothing I've read has ever touched my heart like the scriptures. That told me something.

If Allah doesn't exist, and Muhammed is not his One True Prophet, then the Islamic scriptures shouldn't resonate deep within the heart of a suicide bomber on his way to his 72 virgins.

Sorry, that's a non-starter. Next!

If God doesn't exist, then prayer should just be wishful thinking. I should pray and maybe feel good about myself if I'm just talking to my imaginary friend. But I prayed and things happened.

I bet you've also prayed and things didn't happen. What's your point?

Once upon a time, some scientists declared they had found the secret to cold fusion. They were unable to repeat the experiment. So was everyone else. Guess what happened to the idea that cold fusion had become a reality?

That doesn't mean, at the end of the day, that I have an answer for Andy for every objection. But as I've gotten older, one thing I've found is I'm more okay with the answer, "It's a mystery."

Fantastic for you, but it does make me wonder why someone who is "ok with the mystery" would bother engaging in a debate on the logical problems with theistic belief (not just Christian belief at that). It's rather like many other debates I've had, where the Christian is left without an answer, and thus declares "uhhh... it's faith!"

If it's faith, why the hell did they just spend half-an-hour and two beers debating with me on the rational merits of their belief? That's irrational behavior (which, based on everything I've said so far, is probably to be expected).

In scripture, there are logical traps that our minds fall into, because our minds seek after worldly wisdom. And then we never get out of them. Because faith in God is something that must be sought after first.

First, what is there other than "worldly wisdom?" How do these other kinds of wisdom differ from worldly wisdom and how do we recognize them? How can I substantiate your claim to a special, non-worldly wisdom regarding prayer from that of a pagan who thinks their special, non-worldly wisdom says to hug a tree, light a candle, and dance naked in the moonlight to effect change in the world?

Claims to some nebulous non-worldly wisdom, without the ability to define such wisdom, to explain how to recognize it, to defend its existence against equally vague non-worldly wisdom of others is, as are so many other things regarding "God-talk," meaningless.

Second, what you've closed with is essentially "you'll understand when you believe." This is the absolute reverse of how knowledge works. We, if we are rational, believe when we think we understand something. We observe, assimilate the data, and see how our current beliefs stand or fall in light of it. IB Bill has declared that his faith is a result of investigation, of empiricism - of the pursuit of understanding which lead to his belief.

Yet now he demands I do otherwise? I don't think so.

I once was a Christian. Based on what I had seen and learned, I thought my theism to be perfectly rational. When I took a more in-depth look, examined the assumptions I had made, compared what I saw in the world to what I had held in my mind, and sought to understand all of it, my belief in God crumbled.

Please, keep your faith if it makes you feel all a-tingle inside, but don't claim it's the result of a reasoned pursuit of the truth. Don't claim it stands on its own and then wave away the logical problems that knock out its supports.

Embrace your irrationality. It's the honest thing to do.