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 Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 9:44 pm
I wrote this not all that long ago and thought I did a pretty damn good job. In any case, I wrote this to encourage discussion. Basically, here are the questions I want to ask and do sort of address in the discussion.
1) Do you believe in a God/Goddess?
2) If so or if not, why?
3) I don't have to spoon feed questions, you figure it out.
Reverend Never: Do you believe in God?
Me: I'm not too sure if I do.
Never: Why's that?
Me: The idea that an intangible being created everything just seems to much like a copout. Instead of actually trying to find an answer, some people just seem content to just place all under the 'God' file.
Never: Well, you could just be making thing more complicated then things are. It could be just that simple.
Me: It could be, yes, yet science makes new discoveries every day. They're constantly figuring things out.
Never: Sure, they figured out that it's gravity that's keeping people from floating out into space, but they have yet to where or why gravity works.
Me: You're going to dredge up that old argument?
Never: Well, it's not only that. What about atoms? We know they make us, but what makes the things that make the atoms?
Me: Some scientists have noted that the electrons or whatever they are called come in and out of existence.
Never: First, so? Why do they come in and out of existence, and how does random electrons doing as they please form us and the universe? Second, why only some scientists?
Me: Well, some scientists are just as dogmatic as religious folk; sometimes even more so because they are supported by facts. They would hate to think that their law 'matter cannot be either made or destroyed' could be false.
Never: Before you answer my first half of my question, do you believe electrons come in and out of existence?
Me: Well, yeah. I mean, I can't be made of the same number of atoms I was made of when I was smaller. Or, take a tree. The idea that the same number of atoms that make up a seed make the tree. Where does all the extra atoms come from? If the 'matter cannot' law is true, wouldn't the universe be shrinking rather then expanding?
Never: So then you would agree with me that science can't explain everything?
Me: I never said it did. I just said I'd rather know an answer then assume one. I just said so in a rather roundabout way.
Never: So then why wouldn't the idea of a God satisfy your unknowns? If you don't want to assume an answer, then how do you explain things that you don't know?
Me: You mean like the way I explained why I didn't like the God Theory?
Never: Yes. You just can't explain everything away.
Me: I suppose it's how I view things. I see God as a logic puzzle of philosophy. Others view God as a fact. 'You cannot leave the observer out of the observation,' or however the quote goes.
Never: That raises another question. Is God a facet of spirituality or of science?
Me: Both. Spirituality is something humans feel and humans can be, just to cut the explanation a little short, experimented on.
Never: You mean, answers found to?
Me: Yeah.
Never: Spirituality is an emotion that people can feel. Emotions do exist, be they are chemicals of the brain or not. Using your train of logic, God exists.
Me: No, spirituality, the feeling that something greater, is real. If that thing actually exists is a different question. The being called 'God' is outside the emotion and isn't part of spirituality. If anything, God is more of a question of science. Still, it works for both. Of course, we could be asking the wrong questions.
Never: Huh?
Me: We keep asking if God exists. It's only part of the question. See, we humans and our universe live in finite space, and God, if the rumors are true, is a being of infinity. Our question should be, 'Does God exist in a finite environment?' The answer there would be no.
Never: How so?
Me: Infinity can't fit inside boundaries.
Never: But our universe doesn't have a wall surrounding it, does it?
Me: Depends on what scientist you ask.
Never: Of course, the Multiple Universes theory. But what then is in-between the universes?
Me: Well, this is where things get tricky. If you take a thing of finite space, say like a planet, that means there is less infinity then there was before because that infinity is being taken up. I mean, where does the infinity go when you put something in it? Can infinity be displaced? If so, where does it get displaced to?
Never: Well, I…uh…
Me: Infinity can't be displaced; it has nowhere to go. So, there is no such thing as 'infinity' and would mean that God is logically impossible. Unless you can believe in less infinity then before…
Never: Err, logically, then, perhaps. But, God can do whatever. All-powerful, isn't--
Me: All the terminology we put to God is human. God, if in existence, isn't human and not subject to human thought or words.
Never: So, what are you saying?
Me: God could exist, but if It does, probably not in the way humans think.
Never: So, you're agnostic about the whole thing?
Me: Didn't I mean when I said I wasn't too sure.
Never: I suppose so.
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Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 3:16 am
Well, I'll start off answering the first question, but after that, the second question explaining why will come up a bit as I address the rest of your post and so for the moment I'll mostly be keeping to addressing that (because just posting straight out on why people do or do not believe in a god/goddess/gods/goddesses or whatever other form of mystical explanation I think has already been done quite a bit in other threads in this subforum. However, if you believe some kind of weird conspiracy theory where you for some reason choose to give a deity-like title to some kind of creature/creatures along the lines of the Vorlons and/or the Shadows or something else along that general simply "more advanced creature(s) pulling the strings in semi-secret," then that would be a bit of another matter . . . )
To begin with if we really have to draw up our lines of who stands where on the issue before we even start, no, I don't believe in and god/goddess/gods/goddesses or any other kind of mystical creatures and/or sources for the workings of things.
Now to get down to business. First thing I'd like to note is not every proposed deity/deities have been said to be intangible (lots of the older ones now referred to commonly as "mythological" weren't I believe.) Thing is, I myself am of the suspicion all the "intangible" deities business came about as a result of all the tangible ones being patently empirically disprovable and they wanted to try to avoid being directly disproved. But after that, yeah, the rest of that line I rather agree with. I think historically people were capable of forming questions about the world around them, but not yet able to begin to fathom the answers to such a vast majority of them and that that probably left the really feeling vulnerable, lost, confused, and scared. Thus, they made stuff up with insufficient evidence just to give them some peace of mind to get about their lives more easily. Eventually though, people got so dependent on these old answers for comforting them that they didn't like the idea of real answers and advances coming along because it threatened that which had been keeping them from feeling terrible and being rendered almost unable to act.
Next major point I have a contention with is an assumption being made unnecessarily that has major consequences. There are questions of "why" a lot of things are the way they are. The question "why" is directly related to case and effect. Cause and effect though are general rules of how things operate with each other in existence. I think it is unwise to think that ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING must always be able to be asked "why" of, to always be examined and further broken down to find another cause behind it. Examining things is good, but I think after a while you will get to some things that are just "how it is" with nothing else behind it, things that are just basic, fundamental principles of existence. What more too I said cause and effect is how things react with each other in existence -- cause and effect is a property of existence, I don't think there is enough reason that I've ever heard to justify a demand for a "cause" for existence itself.
Next, I'd be curios if you have any particularly good, well explained/documented web pages about this electron thing. I haven't heard of it before. Is it part of quantum physics? -_-; As for the tree thing for example, that I've got to laugh bout how simple the answer is though. Seeds do not generate matter from nothing, they absorb matter and energies from the soil, sun, and rain and incorporate it into themselves to use, to recombine into new forms that are part of them to survive and become an increasingly larger plant over time. Also, the universe doesn't shrink in this process of the tree growing any more then taking a piece of metal and melting it to create a new alloy creates a vacuum left behind where the old piece of metal was. It's the same as taking a box from the bottom of the pile and putting it on top, you move one thing elsewhere, other things shift to fill the gap if they can and nothing is gained or lost.
Now on the issue of "how do you explain stuff you don't know yet?" Earlier I said I can understand how early people who had many questions and almost no answers would feel scared and confused, however, does claiming alone that a box you see sitting on the street contains a squid so you have an answer for its content really going to mean the box does have a squid in it? You'd be especially unwise to go on continuing to act as if it had a squid on it if you were near a famous land mark and you heard the box ticking. Worse yet, you actually saw somebody open the box and that it contained a bomb, but you stuck around and debated if nobody came to claim it making calamari out of it for dinner. My general answer for what to do about unknowns is admit the truth, that it is unknown to you and/or people in general at this time, but that you and/or other people will try your best to really figure it out eventually.
Also, the expanding universe idea could be wrong though too, the evidence for that theory perhaps could have alternative explanations. I don't recommend even if you could prove that one wrong equating it with "therefore, a deity exists." As for feelings, those are subject to cause and effect. Ask yourself "why" about those, why what people feel what they do, when, where, and why. If everybody was dead on right all the time in what they claimed was the source of their feelings, all psychologists and psychiatrists would go out of business. People make mistakes and/or dodge admitting things to themselves frequently unfortunately and add on top of that cases of honest misinterpretations of external things (like weather balloons mistaken for alien space ships for example) and the ground is well laid for people to profess they have seen or felt "miraculous" things that just aren't accurate (or other things that just aren't accurate of a nature not perceived as being magical or holy ).
Oy, now the subject of infinity. True, you can't fit an infinite thing inside boundaries. If you ever wanted to suppose a deity existed, that idea of the infinite deity would pretty much have to be thrown out and have limitations put on for that reason among others. Now for more on infinity, I think "infinity" is something that exists primarily as just a concept. It comes from the conception of the word "not" and what it represents. We take a word like that and can imagine applying it to everything, but just being able to think of something (possibly not think of it too well though considering how many contradictions come up when infinity is thought of being applied to actuality and how many people have gone nuts contemplating it) doesn't mean it must exist. Our brains through concepts can apply ideas taken from reality and recombine them in all kinds of new ways that wouldn't really work.
Now once you're willing to throw all logic out of the question though, you get some really ridiculous and horrendous stuff going on. Start off with the funny idea that you had to use some kind of logic to conclude that for such an infinite deity to exist it would have to not have logic apply to it. You've tried to claim an exception to logic, but you only get to the point of such a conclusion with the use of logic in the first place. So as long as you're going about using logic to assume illogical things must be possible, you've now got no reason to stop there, at just "god." If anything illogical can exist, then you have no reason "logically" left to believe being illogical is any reason to stop anything from existing or doing anything or whatever else. Effectively, logically you'd have to conclude that logic had no reason to apply to or work for anything. Funny that a thing which may have been adapted to give people answers so they could feel like they knew stuff and were safer and secure and could survive would render people essentially helpless if really applied isn't it? But anyway, you will notice though that if you really examine it, stuff is in fact NOT all over the place and senseless. Two plus two will equal four every time, without fail (and yes, I'm talking whole positive numbers here before anybody tries to turn this into a semantic game to claim I'm wrong.) Fire is always hot. As long as people aren't color blind who you're asking (they don't count, they've got busted perceptual equipment,) red is always red and never green. A horse is a horse and never a forest. [the previous all assumes the current English language meanings again before anybody tries to play semantic games.] So seeing as the nature of the universe is observably not totally ridiculous, absolutely unstable and unpredictable no matter how much information you have, completely incomprehensible, wouldn't this favor, backtracking, the conclusion that a deity that is not subject to logic doesn't exist?
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Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 3:30 am
With all due respect, I elect not to choose an answer from those provided. I don't see "seeking" as pointless, nor overly redundant. If "the unexamined life is not worth living", we must begin seeking our own answers to the fundamental questions SoMeWhErE. And questioning our own beliefs, and the reasons for them, is a damn fine starting point.
As my hair grows greyer, I see patterns in my life. I worry less about what I'm doing, and more about technique. Then, ten or twenty years later, I worry less about technique and more about WHAT I'm doing (and why). And then the cycle repeats. This is true in my career, relationships, hobbies, cooking/eating habits, and even my beliefs.
Presently, I'm in a period where my faith is my rock. My extended family has recently suffered the loss of two strong figures, and a beloved grandmother. Do I believe in God? Yes. The "Why" part has taken a back seat, for the moment, while the grieving and healing begin.
I have always been, and anticipate to remain, very non-evangelical in my practices. My faith is more akin to a private one-to-one relationship with my God. I don't need to win any hearts or minds.
That said, I will try to address the "Why" question briefly. I see no need to be a tedious windbag. A certain "economy of words" is called for here.
I have had experiences in my life that shape my beliefs. And I have certain elementary, core models how the universe and life work that are 100% compatible with my religion. To build a universe that didn't have an "Unmoved Mover" would leave some big unanswered questions. It's rather akin to looking a very high contrast black and white photo of a face, some of its features lost, but still recognizing the face. Can I show someone else the face? Maybe. Would someone else think I'm filling in too many blanks, seeing what I WANT to see, "hearing voices in the static"? Perhaps. But like I said, I don't need to win anyone over. What's mine is mine, and what works for me may NOT work for someone else. And that's alright. That is the way life works.
Having been raised in a faith, seeing it warts and all, and then studying for years under different philosophy professors (who displayed varying degrees of skepticism), I see the value of the voyage -- the necessary expanding of one's horizons and rediscovery of one's own core values/beliefs/goals -- and I find regrettable the small percent of us who take on the challenge.
I'm sorry that more of us haven't answered your poll, given you more to work with. Not exactly a lively debate here. Might I suggest, if you actually want to see open discussion, another website:
sodahead.com
It's a community where you're free to set up a MySpace-like page, ask and answer polls (of ALL varieties), and earn "Raves" for the number of virtual kudos your peers pay to your polls and responses. Like all such pages, some people find it "addictive", so be warned. LOL
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