4 posts tagged “god”
Recently I've had some time and been cleaning out my files. I found a two year old English Comp. essay from before I made up my mind about god, but after I quit going to church. The assignment was supposed to be about a personal experience related to a hotly debated subject and I was to convince the audience that my actions/choices were correct. It was basically supposed to test our understanding of ethos as a tool of argument and I naturally chose the subject of religion and why it's bad. Anyway, after a little polish, I thought I'd share.
Jesus On The Cross
I grew up in a very Catholic family, and so, naturally I grew up to be a very Catholic person. This was reinforced by my family being so close-knit and comfortable together. We rarely go longer than three weeks without seeing one another and as much as we're together, so our meetings are permeated with religion. Every meal at grandma's house is begun with the familiar family prayer. Someone who is said to be a "friend of the family" is a friend from church. Everyone's house bares weaved Lenten palm fronds and attending mass on holidays is as common as bread rolls at the dinner table. It has always been taken for granted that we were Catholics in the same way we call ourselves German. It is an unstressed but inseparable connection. Those who don't attend mass regularly are no less Catholic for their decision than they would be German if they denounced Germany. Simply belonging to the family is enough to ensure your everlasting place in the Catholic community.
Community is an apt word for it, because I never just went to church regularly. Being a part of the church was a big portion of my life and I spent a lot of time there. I took classes, volunteered on various projects, went to parties, met friends, taught classes, attended Girl Scouts, listened to lectures on politics, and I even received a scholarship from the church. It was the hub of my life around which all my family, friends, and interests revolved. Most importantly, it was a calm intellectual place where I could think about my life and decide what I want. Peacefulness and comfort radiated from the walls and made me feel safe. I sometimes just spent afternoons lost in my thoughts there.
And so, I was fascinated with the church, its teachings, and its functions. I listened intently to the father's homilies, making it a point to take notes and ask questions. I involved myself in every aspect of the church in attempts to understand it better. I was entrusted with duties in the service of the church which normally went to much older people. I was even chosen as a delegate to the bishop's first Diocesan Synod for Phoenix, in which we were researching an overhaul of diocesan methodology in order to advise the bishop.
And so for a few years I spent my time at church casually introspective, until my Confirmation began to loom and I knew I had to get serious. You see, in the Catholic Church there are certain spiritual rites that are said to elevate one's soul. They are a very serious matter and among them are Baptism, Communion, Reconciliation, Confirmation, and Marriage. Now Confirmation is when a young adult, being now an adult, consciously decides to continue as a Catholic. It's a spiritual commitment, blessed by the bishop himself, and is generally preceded by a year of contemplation on the matter. So at this critical crossroads, when I was charged with deciding my spiritual fate, I asked myself the one question I had been avoiding in all my past years of happy ponderings. Do I believe in God? Tricky.
What I finally did just before my Confirmation is separate from that question two concepts: trusting in a god to guide my life and believing that God exists as an actual entity. And once I had made that simple distinction, the question was suddenly very easy. I don't believe in god, though that doesn't mean he couldn't possibly exist. The second part is irrelevant because nobody can know if god exists, and whether he does or not has minimal bearing on my life. What I really mean by claiming that I don't believe in god is that I don't have faith in him. I don't put my trust in any superior being and I can't remember a time when I ever have. When I'm scared or alone, I look to myself not god.
Since I made that decision I have considered the church not a place of worship, because I don't worship god, but a place to gather my thoughts and study theology as a philosophy of life. This is a necessary part of anyone's life, one can't think or do anything without knowing why or how. Humans need a cohesive philosophy of how life works so they can fit themselves in it. It's a compass, a moral compass, and with this realization about myself I proudly and happily went through with my Confirmation with every intention of committing to Catholicism, even if I am indifferent to god. So let it be eminently clear that when I finally did break with the church, it was over irreconcilable philosophical differences, and has never had anything to do with god.
I went to church weekly and participated in my various activities, just as I always had. In fact, I did so with much more vigor and enthusiasm than I had before. I really looked forward to church because now I not only considered what the religion was teaching, I was also deeply concerned with my own ideas and developing those. And I didn't keep my thoughts to myself, I talked with long-time parishioners and the priests, and I wrote letters to higher clergy begging advice and clarification on certain aspects of Catholicism, and sharing with them my own thoughts. Some viewed me as a bit of an eccentric, but mostly I was vibrantly aware of my own mind and I did everything I could to make religion work for me in the way I thought it should. I think a lot of people were able to appreciate that, so rather than receiving a great deal of criticism for my probing, I was encouraged to continue my "inward journey" and was looked upon by most members of the church as oddly mature for my age. So I continued to listen to the Father's preaching, while bearing in mind that Noah didn't really fight the great flood, and Jonah wasn't really swallowed by a whale, and it didn't really matter if god existed. I took what I wanted from the stories and the sermons and the rest - well, that was all very childish, like the Easter Bunny.
It was then, when I began separating the morals from the myth, that I became interested explicitly in morals for the first time. What was meant by those adventuresome stories, and how did they relate to form a standard for living. One auspicious Sunday I was seated in the cozy pews, listening to a traveling priest recite the story of Abraham who was willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac. The story bothered me a little because I couldn't immediately see the moral behind such an obvious absurdity. I thought about it while the familiar narrative was being replayed, then leaned over and whispered to mom, "killing his son on an alter is a symbol of the great devotion it takes to implement god's word [read morals] in your life, right?" She quietly assented. Well, that was fine, I had first hand experience on the kind of conscious effort it takes to consistently apply rules you've decided are good in your life; there are always times when it seems so hard to be good, and so easy to fudge a little. But one can't just acclaim morals to be good and then not follow them, that's hypocritical and ridiculously useless.
The Father surprised me when he spoke of "sacrifice" and the "betterment of others" in his homily, rather than devotion to your own morals. He called us to "perform our moral duty as Catholics," which he described as working hard to be prosperous so one could provide for our family, our community and our needy. He described personal success and prosperity as the best means to self-sacrifice, that we should work for the poor. Supposedly, a successful man is to be the mule of the failure. I was repulsed by this man's view of brotherly "compassion", that I should bear a yoke in order to feed a demand for my work, sweat and blood for the benefit of the rest of humanity. And he was so very explicit in this manner, there seem to be no way to get past what he was saying. Why, I wondered, in order to be a good Catholic, should I not expect to reap the benefits of my own work, but to work continually for others? Then, he resounded, not only should we work for others, we are also "obligated to love all of our fellow man". Such a command turns love and respect, the highest honours we can give, into stuff as common as clay for any person who might happen to demand it of you. To do so defiles any value one's love and honour could give, because you have placed the unjust on the level of just in your heart. Can you imagine, for someone to say that they love you, not because you're worth being loved, but because you exist? How much lower could you feel? That isn't love, that isn't compassion, that is the systematic destruction of love and compassion. I was very upset by this experience, and didn't know what to think of it.
During the following week, I tried not to think of it altogether. I did my school work, read books, played computer games, went out with friends, and at all cost did not think about that sermon.
The next Sunday I dismissed the whole ordeal as the rantings of an insane priest. I figured there must be a few of them around, and I was bound to run into one sooner or later.
I walked into the warmly lit lobby, greeted by acquaintances, feeling fine again. I performed by usual routine of checking the sign-up sheets, making sure all the lay ministry jobs were taken care of, and chatting with friends before I found a seat with my family. I was sitting in the middle section near the front waiting for the father to begin with the familiar welcoming prayer and as I stood up I noticed the giant statue of Jesus on the cross hanging above the alter in front of me. I had never paid much attention to it because it is such a fundamental part of the church, it's always there, so I guess I never saw it clearly. But that day I noticed Jesus was writhing in agony, his spine twisted and his head bent upward. He had blood, sweat, and tears beading down his chest and his mouth was opened in mock scream. It shocked me how violent and gruesome the figure was compared to the calm of the church, the muffled prayers, and the serene bent faces. For the first time I looked at the cross and I didn't see Jesus and His Amazing Adventures, I saw a man gasping, dying, bleeding, groaning his life out in pain. And I saw everyone around me worshiping it, bowing down to it, begging it to forgive them while they pounded in the stakes. It occurred to me that this is the model of the perfect man to them, and they call for his destruction as a means to save everyone else. We are taught in Sunday School that not only did Jesus die on the cross, it was necessary for him to do so, that to appease our sins one man, the perfect man, must be slaughtered. And this was to be my model? This was how I was to live a virtuous life, continually strive to be great, and toss my greatness as alms to save the poor of wealth and spirit.
I left the church and declared myself atheist two weeks later, I did so out of sincere moral outrage, and with the fullest awareness of saving my soul.
The reason the system works is because it's based on hundreds of years of rationalizing. It rests on the thousands of brilliant men and women that tried to make a bad thing work for them in the way they thought it should, without ever considering that they could do so much better without the weight of dogma on their shoulders and with the ability to think for themselves.
So, I watch this guy's videos because he's funny, intelligent and makes a decent shot at being right before he opens his mouth. This week he said, very summarized, that both theists and atheists are wrong, except atheists are particularly annoying in the venture, and only agnostics have got it right. Then he dared his audience to convince him otherwise. I'm kinda expecting to win the idiot of the week award again, but I can't keep my mouth shut when I know I'm right. It's a problem and this is my reponse:
Alright I'll bite, your double doggy dare is just too great a temptation. But I don't guarantee that I'll convince you, there's no accounting for some people's reasoning skills. ;-)
You're right that there is absolutely no evidence either way; whether it's a Rational Theologian or an Atheist kidding himself with some shaky claim of proof, it's two different sides of the same idiot.
So, I'm going to try to illustrate my point in a concrete way first. You said that we have no evidence for there either being a coin in the box or not. You're right, I have no idea if there's a coin there or what type of coin it may be. What I do know is that we are talking about coins. You know, I know, and anybody who has ever seen, touched, or used a coin in their life understand the concept "coin". I don't know what god is and neither do you. In fact I dare you right back to somehow share with me what "god" is, given that you have no evidence of its existence. I don't mean I want a list of what you or the local prophet postulates as to what it may be, I've heard it before and with your example of the coins you show that you already know the worth of people's differing opinion on the matter. No, I mean I want to know what you see in your head when you say "god" besides a blank spot, or folk stories.
What I'm trying to illustrate with this point is that god is a purely abstract concept. It has no relation to reality and this is the point that I really want to stress, that truth is not what we can imagine and it's not what we immediately see in front of us. Truth is what we rationally establish from what we see and there is nothing that I've seen in order to establish "god". On those grounds I am an Atheist. God is not a something, it is a nothing.
Agnosticism gets points for admitting there's no evidence, but promptly loses them for admitting the plausibility of evidence when even they have no idea what it is they're supposed to be looking for. At best Agnosticism is the world's biggest "I don't know, so I'm not going to think about it anymore". I don't mind, so long as they admit that's what they're doing.
A little over a year ago I posted my ponderings over the validity of a metaphysically existent god, ie. in this plane/universe/realm/dimension. I wanted to know the answer to the question, "does god exist?" I concluded that to exist one must literally be in existence, that is, the modern notion of god as an infinite-unknowable-ethereal-being is ludicrous. But I was stumped by the claim that god is in existence, is knowable, and does have a definite identity all of which we simply don't yet have conclusive evidence.
What confused me about such an argument is that I knew arguing for either the proof or disproof of god on no evidence are both impossible and silly to attempt, but I didn't yet grasp the implications of that impossibility. I didn't understand where to go from there and I was stopped at the false dichotomy without a proper understanding of the correct third option. I guessed it had something to do with how one goes about gaining knowledge [epistemology], but no clear idea of what that meant.
Now, a year later, I've learned a lot with the help of excellent conversation with my friends Nick, Coire, and Peter. Now that it seems so clear I kind of wonder, rereading John Stark's comments, why it wasn't so obvious then. So, I'm going to explain my new understanding, though I don't think I'm saying anything new to those of you who understand the issue already and to those of you who don't, I don't think I can say anything which will make you understand if you haven't yet thought about it. This is purely for my own benefit.
We as humans very literally can't know anything on no evidence; or to put it positively, we know by evidence. We make observations and find the logical implications of those observations by reason. In the absence of observation there are no logical implications to discover, no conclusions to be made, literally nothing to say.
Put it another way: The conversation that helped me to finally glean this insight was one about truth in which Coire asked, if a man is proven guilty and sentenced but is later released on the grounds of new evidence which proves his innocence, is the original verdict true? Assuming the jury made no errors in judgment given the evidence they were provided, it was the introduction of new evidence and not the realization of faulty reasoning which proved the man's innocence.
The answer is yes, it was true within the context of the given evidence. And what about within the context of that same evidence plus that which was discovered later? It is silly to say. It is like asking if there are snow storms in North Dakota to which the proper answer is yes, then asking if there are snow storms in North Dakota in July, and claiming a "no" answer refutes the truth of the previous answer. They are both correct, both true, but only within the context of the evidence given for the conclusion.
Truth is not reality. Reality is as it is with or without our knowledge of it. Truth is what we correctly derive from our observations reality, but our observations are neither infinite nor boundless.
And so, when asked whether or not I think god exists, my answer is no longer a no [I don't think it was ever a yes]. My answer is: there is nothing I can say about god.
Comments Posted on Original Blog:
- Amanda Carlson said...
-
I didn't say I wasn't sure. In fact, I am finally sure.
- John Stark said...
-
I'm glad to be enlightening, even if after the fact. :)
"And so, when asked whether or not I think god exists, my answer is no longer a no [I don't think it was ever a yes]. My answer is: there is nothing I can say about god."
I would still make the distinction you make at the beginning of the post: that a supernatural being [which is generally what is meant by a "god"] can't exist.
A natural entity, i.e. one with identity, one that exists, that a person chooses to call a "god," would be using that term pretty loosely. [I would strongly suspect that the person was trying to smuggle in the actual definition of "god," otherwise, why use that term?] Even so, if a person claimed there existed some entity with identity, existing within reality [not that anything could exist elsewhere], and called it a "god," it would be completely up to them to show evidence that such an entity existed, and you would rightly have nothing you could say about it until then. [And they would have nothing they could say, either; they could only make sounds that are similar to words in a certain order.]
- Amanda Carlson said...
-
You're right, John. It was a small point of uncertainty. But I think it was necessary to address because if I were deeply religious [in a wacky delusional world] it's the argument that I'd make. And besides I've met people who have claimed god is real.
While I was trying to figure out what exactly god is supposed to be I talked some Mormons into telling me about their god [surprisingly undifficult :-)]. When they said god exists with a body you can touch I asked where, and they told me his home is on a planet circling a star called Kolab.
I am almost entirely convinced that god does not exist. Almost. I am an atheist and have been for a year, so this may seem a belated statement to some...
But god was not a part of my decision to break from Catholicism, and by extension - religion. I thought quite a bit about the matter once I became old enough to seriously consider it. After years of casual pondering, a short while before my confirmation, I came to the conclusion that 1.) I don't 'believe' in god (i.e. I have no faith in him, no trust), and 2.) the metaphysical existence of god was beyond my comprehension and concern. But I believed in morality, right and wrong; so despite my abandonment of the concept of 'god', I still wanted religion.
I went through my confirmation with every intention of treating religion like a philosophy with lots of fairy tales. It was my job to sort through Catholicism and pull out the morals from the fairy tales, to find the essence of what is good. Religion was my ethics. I turned to science for everything else; the scientific method was epistemology, which was used to discover the metaphysics of the universe. That was about as sophisticated as I got at age 16 and I was happy with it. I wasn't entirely satisfied with my catholic ethics, but was content to settle down and unravel the whole thing.
The more I read the more critical I became of certain religious doctrines. But it wasn't until I read Ayn Rand that I questioned the innate goodness of religion, and by that time the only thing holding up my faith in religious ethics was my own rationalizations. These I promptly discarded after an emotional and somewhat dramatic experience, which I won't go into.
I have hesitated to call myself atheist, except out of expedience, because I still did not have any opinion or concern over the existence of god. After an argument with a friend about the nature of atheism (which I generally considered to be a form of idiocy) I decided to revisit 'god' and figure out the second part of the mystery.
The problem with this is the definition of god. There are two fundamentally differing ideas of what god actually is. First was the pagans, to them gods were metaphysical facts; literally super-humans. They existed in the same way the stars exist; obvious, but still incomprehensible to the technologically deficient humans.
Then there was a revolution and many pagan gods became one True God (Plato style). Many historians consider this revolution in terms of the number of god (i.e. gods vs. God, plural vs. singular). I think this misses the very key change in the definition of what god is. Suddenly god became something not of this world, literally super-natural, above or beyond the natural universe. Nowadays, god isn't described as something that humans don't understand, it is something humans can't understand. Any modern priest will balk when you ask him to point to god, because you can't point to god. God literally doesn't exist as we know existence; he is of a 'higher' existence.
Well, it's obvious that the latter 'god' doesn't exist; it is built into his definition. There is no other plane, realm, or universe; higher or otherwise. The universe is everything that exists. Everything. If you define god as not a part of the universe; as something that you can't, by its very nature, identify then it doesn't exist.
And that's all very well and good, but what if you define god as something that is in the universe, that does exist, that you can point to and identify and say "yep, that right there is god alright" as the pagans did. Then he could exist and we simply haven't yet devised a way to find him.
Now 'could' does not mean 'does', it means 'could'. That's what makes the former so easy to deal with and the latter so hard. With the former god, by definition, does not exist, but the latter is too open-ended for my comfort.
The only thing that I see resolving the issue is the idea that what exists must be proven to exist. In other words, (and I hate to divert a philosophical discussion towards the imaginary, but it demonstrates the point) just because one can't actually prove that pink unicorns don't exist doesn't mean that they do. The old cliché, "just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there" is wrong and misleading. We can't see air, but we can detect it; I haven't ever seen a million dollars at once, but I could; I have never seen nor detected god in any manner, but could I? That begs, how would I? I don't know. My gut reaction is to say that it's impossible and therefore god can't exist. But how it is impossible, I can't say.
Any ideas, I'm kind of stumped.
Comments Posted to Original Blog
- benshlomo said...
-
Just one detail - your definition of the universe as "everything that exists" isn't quite accurate in spiritual terms. The universe, as we're discussing it now, is "everything physical that exists". God isn't physical, at least by the Jewish definition.
- Amanda Carlson said...
-
adding 'physical' is redundant. What exists that isn't physical? What are it's characteristics?
My point behind this post is to say that if god isn't 'physical' then he can't exist. But what if god is physical. Well, then I don't know.
- junebee said...
-
I don't even get that far into it. If there was a god who was so benevolent and loving, children wouldn't die of cancer, floods wouldn't wash away people's homes, and 9.11 would have never happened.
- Glitz-Monkey Zuffie said...
-
Hmmm interesting comment. It's sounds like something neichze would have said, he was an atheist himself. I don't follow any kind of religion myself. When religion is in the media or the news it always seems to be the bad stuff.
http://mizubara.blogspot.com/
Mike Zwarts - Amanda Carlson said...
-
Well, that's assuming god is benevelent. Or wise. If he exists, he could just as well be a malevolent prick.
- Amanda Carlson said...
-
I am not familiar with Neichze. Could you explain?
- Greg said...
-
What you are talking about is the conundrum of faith itself. There is no such thing as not having faith- it is what you have faith in. There is no way to prove God, and no way to disprove Him. But nevertheless, one must choose, and that is what their faith will be in. If there were a way to prove or disprove Him, why would there be a need for faith at all?
You and I are on different sides of a choice of faith. I have faith that God exists, and you have faith that He doesn't exist. I can see how you could come to your conclusion, I just came to a different one.
- Greg said...
-
Sorry I didn't read your announcement about visitors before I made the comment. If you want to know about me you can go to my blog at kgbandersons.blogspot.com - I am a new father and have a week old son, so pardon all the pictures.
- Amanda Carlson said...
-
"There is no such thing as not having faith- it is what you have faith in."
Can you define 'faith'? I ask because I define faith as 'granting the truth of a thing without, or in opposition to, proof' and any conversation we could have would be pointless if we couldn't even agree upon that.
So, I just want to make sure that you understand that, by my definition, you are asserting that humans are incapable of aquiring knowledge (the opposite of faith). The entire history of mankind is proof against your assertion. Does a man discover how to build a skyscraper or move a mountain on faith? Man knows by reason, not faith. I wish to know if god exists.
But, lets humor the notion for a bit and simply consider the matter of your post, discounting human history. How, then, do you propose a man make the decision you're referring to without the use of reason? How do you choose between having faith in god versus faith in non-god? On faith? Does one flip a coin; heads - I beleive in god, tails - I don't?
This is exactly what I was referring to in my post when I said that there was a revolution in the way we veiw god. You say that there is no way to prove/disprove god. If that is so then god cant't exist, it would be metaphysically impossible. I have already explained this in my post, please reread it if that isn't clear. But what if it is possible to prove/disprove god and we simply don't know how. What then? That is where I am stuck.
"If there were a way to prove or disprove Him, why would there be a need for faith at all?"
Indeed, there isn't.
I would just like to note that you are incorrect when you say that mine is a conundrum of faith. I have resolved this years ago. I have no faith. I want no faith. And I think people who indulge in such things are morally weak, because they take no responsibility for their thoughts and actions. The man who has faith defaults on morality just like the murderer who claims 'I was just following orders'. (Morals being defined as that which is necessary and proper to live as humans)
ps. you have an adorable son; beautiful bright eyes.
- John Stark said...
-
"The only thing that I see resolving the issue is the idea that what exists must be proven to exist. In other words, (and I hate to divert a philosophical discussion towards the imaginary, but it demonstrates the point) just because one can't actually prove that pink unicorns don't exist doesn't mean that they do."
This hits on the fact that you can't prove a negative, which I won't go into here, but relevant to this discussion is the role of arbitrary statements such as "pink unicorns exist on Neptune" or "God exists".
An arbitrary statement is neither true nor false; it is literally random noise and must be dismissed as such. It has no relationship to reality because the concepts aren't used as abstractions grounded in reality, they are literally used as the sounds of words that normally would have a meaning, usually with the hope of the listener trying to apply meaning to the sounds, and then, because there is no way to judge the arbitrary declaration, with the hope of the listener abandoning their independent judgement and just taking the declaration as true, on faith.
- John Stark said...
-
By the way, I would highly recommend reading Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology if you haven't already.
- Amanda Carlson said...
-
Hello John~
I think you're right. When I first came upon Peikoff's (fairly sure it was Peikoff, correct me if I'm wrong) 'arbitrary statements' I thought he meant arbitrary as in 'unimportant'. Of which I was in total agreement at the time.
So, thank you, I'll look at that again.
I tried to read ITOE last November, but I could hardly follow past the first page. I hate simply reading words if I can't understand them, so I decided to start smaller and work my way up to it. I am currently reading OPAR, which is easier to understand.
I think you're in a good place... I reckon God can handle us not being sure about his existence.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006 8:15:00 PM