In an ongoing effort to be in dialog with those who think and believe differently than I do, the following conversation has been initiated between a friend and I over the nature and beliefs of Christianity and atheism. It started out as an email dialog, but he has graciously given me permission to post our conversations on the blog. The original documents that we typed in became fairly unwieldy due to interleaving of comments whose threads were often difficult to track, so I have tried to tidy up the conversation by compartmentalizing it topically. The first sections of correspondence will be listed chronologically, but as the thread gets more cumbersome, I will likely have to break it down with new, thematic postings (listed above this one) and their related entries. Other than these categorizations, none of my interlocutor's words will be edited or altered in any way unless it is for clarification and flow. Any of those amendments will be clearly demarcated by brackets [such as this]. This will not change the meaning of anything and indeed is the literary standard for clarification purposes. Even so, these will be kept to an absolute minimum.
Thanks for reading. May the journey continue.
-CL
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What started the conversation was EL's sharing a book with me by John Krakauer, "Under the Banner of Heaven" , which is written about some particularly vile segments of the Mormon religion. Below is my response. And we're off...
ReplyDeleteEL,
ReplyDelete...Yeah, I liked Krakauer's book too, for the most part. I certainly wouldn't argue that religions don't do damage at various points. Nut jobs abound no matter what faith they do or do not claim to follow. I think that most religions are false (at least on key points), but to say that all are false because we find several that don't hold up goes well beyond logic and enters into faith itself.
I know you don't want to talk about churchy stuff, so I won't force you. I don't think I could even if I wanted to anyway. And I really appreciate that you don't want to offend me. I hope you know I don't want to rub you the wrong way either, but to be honest, I wish you wouldn't worry about offending me. You don't have to treat me with kid gloves about this stuff. I am devoting my life and career to this Jesus fellow, so I feel that if there is something you want to say about it, you should. I value your input, even if I disagree with it.
At the same time (if you'll excuse my pride) I think that I am probably ONE of the most educated Christians you'll ever meet. And thus far, I have yet to encounter any position against Christianity that is not fatally flawed. I've been searching for one, and keep coming up empty. You're a pretty smart feller too, so I'd really like to talk with you about it. I think you'll find that I make few (if any) ad hominem moves. Neither one of us has anything to lose, and everything to gain if we talk about it.
The problem with most dialogs between Christians and their counterparts is that the two sides are trying to "win" the argument (usually in front of an audience looking for some entertainment), and they have no real bond between them. I feel like if you and I could never be reconciled about atheism and Jesus (or anything else), at the end of the day we'd go back to being friends and go have a drink. But I won't force you to engage the issue with me. I'm here if you ever want to talk about it. I hope we can someday.
That's a standing invitation.
-CL
Oh, Corbin, I suppose I should go back and look at how our conversation for your school project ended (or more accurately, was put on hold,) and we can pick it back up at some point. But really, I tire of defending myself and having to explain to everyone all the time why I don't want to follow Yahweh, or Allah, or Zoroaster, or the Bhudda, or Joseph Smith, or David Koresh, or Joel Osteen, or or or or. People never seem to understand my complete lack of fascination with their particular strain, but really, why should I be obligated to endlessly discuss and examine the arcana of whatever religious theory happens to be hurled my way at any given moment? And of course, everyone says THEY are different because THEIRS is right and the others are false prophets... perhaps I could completely demolish all Baptists in a logical argument, but then I'd have to get started on the SOUTHERN Baptists who consider themselves totally different from regular Baptsits based on some smattering of minutiae which I have no interest in parsing.
ReplyDeleteThere's no way a nonbeliever can win an argument that is based on faith, just as no "believer" can win an argument based on fact. It all reminds me of the poor guy that was a junior Dallas police officer on the scene of the Kennedy assassination, became obsessed with what he considered to be the unfair criticism of his police department's work on the scene, and spent a 40 year career gathering evidence and writing and eventually publishing a massive (I think it was 7000 pages) debunking of all the conspiracy theories, rebutting in exhaustive detail and complete research and footnoting some 200-300 different theories. What should happen almost immediately of course, but dozens of new conspiracy theories emerged, some entirely new and many simply modifying the previous conspiracy theories to work around the author's discrediting (and thereby become even more convoluted and implausible, but still, I suppose, theoretically physically possible.) Do you think that if the poor man were to write a Volume II, further debunking all the new and newly modified conspiracy theories, that it would in any way change the game? Better that he had spent his energy writing something else, I say. At what point, do you think, I ought to be left alone not to have to debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and instead see a good movie or have one of these beers which seem to be much in your mind of late?
With all that in mind, I'd suggest you try the book "God is not Great," which I believe is one of the audiobooks I gave you. I'm reading it myself currently... I'm only on chapter 3 or so, so I'm reluctant to fully endorse it sight unseen, but it is good so far. I do wish the author built his arguments more logically rather than relying on so much anecdote, so I wouldn't consider it likely to convince anyone of anything, but it will give you some interesting food for thought.... although it may test you on your statement of whether or not you get offended...
Regards,
-EL
E,
ReplyDeleteWell, cool. I think it has the potential to be pretty interesting. I don't want you to cringe every time an email from me appears in your box. I hope to type more, later, but I'm behind in my online class and have to try and catch up today.
"God is not Great" my have to get moved up on the list so I can keep pace with you. Killer Angels is enormous, so I may take a break. But I am going to make a prediction about "Not Great" and we can see if I'm anywhere near the mark. I'll bet the author cites a bunch of wars and atrocities that people have done claiming to follow a god, and cites specific writings from those various religions "proving" that they in-fact condone the violence. I also speculate that he takes verses from the Bible out of context and holds them up as "proof texts" with almost as much embarrassment as I witness Christians doing this to "prove" their own pet theology. My final preemptive criticism is that just because someone CLAIMS to be following Jesus, doesn't mean that they really are. It is a logic miscue to judge God by the actions of confused humans who are not acting as Jesus would have them, but SAY/THINK that they are. I'll be amazed if I hear something new about the God that I try to follow. Maybe this book will prove me wrong, but I doubt it is very original.
-CL
E,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the depth of your earlier reply, and I am thankful that you haven't got too annoyed with me. You mentioned maybe picking back up with some of our previous dialog on the issue, but that might be a lot more work, and I don't know which parts you fully read and which ones you discarded. I'm ok with whatever you want to do and I think I saved most of that conversation, but we're both pretty busy with more headaches than we need, so there's no need (or desire) to make it a chore. Maybe we could limit the subject-specific emails to once a week or type & send letters in the regular mail. That might even be kind of fun, but whatever. It's not like we have a limited time horizon. Just let me know what works.
I don't really know how to start off again unless it would be to offer a glimpse into my motivation. Everybody thinks that their own way is right. I freely admit that I am not particularly different on this issue, but I make very few other distinctions within Xianity (Christianity). From my understanding, it doesn't matter if a person goes to a Catholic or Protestant church nearly as much as their relationship with Jesus matters. There are core issues and then there are peripheral issues that allow for some wiggle room, so you won't hear me condemning other Christian denominations or the differences between the Baptists and the Southern Baptists etc. etc.
But all of that is getting too far down the wrong road. My motivation is this: If we believe that there is an objective reality, it will impact us both whether we like it or not. Like you, (and most everybody else) I tend to think that the way I have selected is best and most consistent with that objective reality. As such, I believe that we both will be impacted by it at some point. This is not the "Turn or Burn" tactic. I am not arrogant enough to tell anyone that they're going to burn (this is where much of Christendom has gotten totally fucked up). So I am not going to threaten with hell (as if I had the desire or power), and I'm not going to offer a carrot on a stick (heaven) either. I believe that both "places" are real, but they are deficient motivators and usually only work with little kids in Sunday school. Ultimate punishment or golden streets almost completely avoid any connection to our present experience in life, and that's not what Jesus has in mind. So my motivation is to share the idea that Jesus/ God is able, willing and wanting to enter in to a relationship with us, not in the past and not in the future, but right here and now (and forever). With good reason, I am convinced that we are connected to something bigger than ourselves, and that this so-called "god" is the ultimate source of good and that "he" means something important, amazing and wonderful.That's why I can't seem to drop it, not to put a notch in my Bible, but because I care and I want you to experience this with me. If I didn't care about you, I'd just let it go, but I don't have the option of not caring about my brother.
That's it. That's my motivation and about as an emotional appeal as you'll get from me. Admittedly, it's far easier to argue for or against specific points, but very few people really enjoy "arguing," especially with family members. I hope we can talk legitimately about some competing ideas when they come up, but I hope we don't argue in anger. It sounds like a lot of people have wanted to pick a fight with you about this whole God business, and that's not what I want. I don't know how to make that any more clear. If nothing else, our conversations may serve as only the loyal opposition can serve. Christians' reasoning tends to get fairly muddled if they only talk to themselves about it. Maybe atheists' reasoning does too.
Finally (at last!), belief for or against something is an act of will, not just logic or reasoning. No matter how good or poor of a case I may make for Christianity, you will always have the ability to choose for or against it. I have no designs on tricking or trying to manipulate you. All I ask is that you give me the honest chance to dialog with you about something that I consider to be of immense value. But I ask you to push back on anything and everything too. No holds barred. I can take it. I think you have some pretty legitimate gripes, but I also think that you'll find that God is not always who Christians have made him out to be. So thank you for tolerating me here. You've got nothing to lose, but I am pretty convinced that you would not be so accommodating to the Jehovah's Witnesses if they knocked on your door, or our parents either, for that matter.
with sincerity,
-CL
Ok, let's have a dialogue then... if you can accept that it will have to be in slow motion due to all the other pressing demands on my time (work, kids, etc.) .
ReplyDeleteI guess the first thing to address is, since you are the antagonist here (and I don't mean that in a pejorative sense, but only in the sense that you are the one who seems to feel that you cannot leave me to accept my own conclusions that are different from yours and be at peace with your own conscience in doing so,) if you want me to adopt your beliefs, then you need to convince me that your beliefs are in some way founded on reality and something that will actually benefit me if I adopt them. You said that "belief for or against something is an act of will, not just logic or reasoning. No matter how good or poor of a case I may make for Christianity, you will always have the ability to choose for or against it." I suppose your statement is true on the face of it, but I think you're missing the point. If I have three dollars, I can choose not to accept that, or to believe that I have five dollars, or ten dollars, or a billion, but when I go to the store, I am still only going to be able to buy three dollars worth of stuff. (For purposes of my hypothetical example let's ignore the options of credit cards and shoplifting.) So there is an objective reality, whether I choose to believe in it or not, and no matter how good a case I make against it, it is still going to affect me. By recognizing reality more accurately, and ignoring the arguments of any hucksters who try to make me believe that I have a different amount of dollars, I certainly do not change reality, but I can adjust my own behavior so as to most successfully adapt to the actual situation (i.e., I build my weekly grocery budget around $3, and don't splurge all $3 on one meal, or conversely starve myself because I believe I have zero dollars.)
The allegory is a crude one but I think you can see my point. Whether or not there is a god, and whether or not he cares about humans, and whether the particular human-caring-god is the one depicted by cathloics, buddhists, muslims, protestants, hindus, etc., however much you and I debate the point or choose to beleive one correct or incorrect theory is not going to change the actual reality one bit, (unless you want to make some very new-agey type of argument about all things being true at once on multiple planes of reality, which I don't think is what either of us believes.) If the christian tradition which you uphold is correct, my sunday mornings would be best spent going to church and singing praise, etc. If certain wahabbist beliefs are correct, however, I'm grossly behind in my acts of martyrdom and really need to spend my sundays preparing suicide bombing vests instead. Under my view, however, sunday morning is best spent sleeping in relaxing with beer and porn. mmmm, beer and porn.... sorry, got distracted there for a moment. (ok, ok, insert your personal tastes instead, if it makes you more comfortable with the example... "snowboarding and hiking," shall we say.)
I think you could agree that *IF* my view were correct, my choice of action would be the best way to spend a sunday, and that it would be a darn shame to spend a whole life in abstinence, reservedness, trepidation and prayers to a nonexistent entity, when all that time could have been spent drinking and..., er, sorry, shredding snow and walking around on uncomfortable rocks at altitude. Contrariwise, *IF* your view were correct, then what is a single lifetime of sundays of ease and relaxation compared to an infinity of golden sunshine and so forth?
So I think your comment about belief and logic completely misses the issue. The issue is what is most likely real. Based on everything I have observed in my life, I have made a judgment call about what seems to me to be real and what seems to be fairy tale. Based on most of the people I encounter with profound religious beliefs, I am continually reassured that I have made the right decision by their lack of intellectual rigor, failure to understand the history or development of their own religious traditions, lack of ability to coherently articulate a rational foundation for their own beliefs, and overwhelming tendency to become hostile and critical when these fragile foundations are revealed in conversation. I often have to wonder, even if the overarching narrative of christianity were true, would these people really qualify under its terms? Does their willful ignorance and ability to bleatingly accept the improbable narrative they have been trained in really make them a more heaven-worthy person than I, with a curious and skeptical intellect? Has god set out to rule out of heaven the deep thinkers who observe that the fantastical narrative of the bible is completely at odds with every other physical property of nature and the universe that he designed? How sadistic of him.
Can I say with absolute certainy that I'm right about everything? Of course not. But what is life besides a series of decisions based on the best information you have at the time? If someone is able to show me a core sample and a map to the big rock candy mountain, then I'll certainly go check it out and see if it's valid. Until then, I have better things to do.
Regards,
E
I appreciate your use of the term "antagonist." Got it. Thanks. Ultimately, I must be able to leave you to your beliefs. I realize that I am unable to force you to do anything, and I wouldn't change that if I could. I could let it go right now if you insisted, but as you said, I couldn't be at peace in my conscience. I think that your reasons for rejecting Jesus are based on misunderstandings, and that this represents possibilities for our discussion. We really have nothing to lose and everything to gain here. That alone is pretty attractive. But please don't mistake my goal. I don't necessarily want to get you to think like me about Jesus. How boring! There is always a bit of wiggle room on the unknown, and that is what makes being part of the Christian tradition so interesting. We know some, but not all. We get to take our experiences and culture and add it to the ongoing discussion that has been taking place for thousands of years within the church. It is a very exciting thing for me.
ReplyDeleteBut I digress. I get your point: "however much you and I debate the point or choose to beleive one correct or incorrect theory is not going to change the actual reality one bit…." I could not have said this any better, and I make no "new-age" assertions either. But you and I seem to have two different ways of thinking about reality, and as far as I can tell, they are rooted in belief and logic. How does this "miss the issue"? You have said that the real issue is "what is most likely real." But how do we determine that if not by incorporating a degree of belief and logic?
We may be closer than you think, for I too have made a judgment call based on everything I (and others) have observed in life. The difference between us seems to be that "and others" part. This is particularly interesting since you later admit that you do not know everything. I do not claim to know it all either, but I think that this knowledge should, at the very least, force me to consider the experiences of others. In the grand scheme of things, I must realize that I have experienced and observed very little of what has gone on in the world today. This is increased exponentially when considering what has happened before my life intersected with human history. It would seem to be fairly ignorant and arrogant for me to discount anything that I had not personally witnessed. In that sense, we ALL take an awful lot on faith.
Like you, I have also come to similar conclusions about reality and fairy tales, and I have had similar experiences with atheists who equally suffer from a "lack of intellectual rigor, failure to understand the history or development of their own religious traditions, lack of ability to coherently articulate a rational foundation for their own beliefs, and overwhelming tendency to become hostile and critical when these fragile foundations are revealed in conversation." But I think it would be best if we don't judge opposing perspectives on the basis of their worst representatives. The illogic of such a move is astounding. This is something that people like Richard Dawkins never seem to grasp. Nevertheless, I cannot discount atheists' beliefs just because they are ignorant of their weaknesses. The claim that God does not exist could reflect reality, even if an atheist's reasons for thinking as such are impoverished. However, I have yet to come across any fundamental atheistic position that did not incorporate a degree of faith, maybe even blind faith. As such, it would seem that Christianity and atheism start on a very level playing field. It is never a question of faith vs. no faith, but rather faith in Jesus vs. faith in something else (or faith in atheism or something else).
But this is where I need your help in understanding. I know more about your criticisms of Christianity than I do about positive statements for your own philosophy. If you align yourself with atheism it seems to me that you are following somebody (or several some-bodies). It may not be Jesus or anyone else in that list of alleged "holy" men, but atheists aren't exactly blazing their own trails here either. Marx, Nietzsche, Russell, Hume, Sartre, Feuerbach were all well-known contributors to atheism, and I imagine that you have incorporated some of their thinking, maybe without even knowing it. I have experienced a similar situation as I have studied men like Augustine, Luther and Jacobus Arminius. Maybe you could tell me more about what philosophy you try and live by?
Next you wondered about the worthiness of willfully ignorant and sheep-like Xians who lack a skeptical intellect. You are making some pretty broad and suspicious generalizations here that belie your bias, but of greater concern is that you seem to think that Christianity is about humans' styling themselves as more (or less) worthy for heaven. That's Islam, Judaism and Mormonism, but not Xianity. Going "to" church has nothing to do with anything. In Xianity, grace is the free gift of God. All you have to do is accept it, but even then, your acceptance of the gift does not make you the one responsible for giving it. The issue runs a lot deeper, but we can talk more about that later if you want.
In the meantime, you have suggested that God has automatically ruled out deep thinkers and that his actions are at odds with the physical universe that he created. Again a curious bias seems to have surfaced, and it shows ignorance of the Christian tradition. There are deep thinkers on this side of the discussion indeed. You may be surprised at what you find there. Maybe we can talk about some of them in the future too.
But it seems that you are suggesting that no deep thinkers have ever encountered what you call "the miraculous"? I'll need you to support that claim if this is what you are saying. Or perhaps you define "deep thinkers" as only those individuals who never have claimed anything miraculous. If so, it would seem that you are employing a conspicuously underhanded definition.
Furthermore, if we say that what is called the "miraculous" is at odds with God's creation only demonstrates what a narrow, contextual view we have of the universe. If God created a universe in which he can move in and through, then it poses no dramatic suspension of reason to think that he should be able to stir the pot from time to time. If we had access to ALL the information, I suspect that knowledge of a specific miracle might seem rather pedestrian.
Finally, I mirror your self-disclosure that I do not know that I'm right about everything. I too have made my decisions based on the best information that is available. Nobody gets discounted just because I have not seen what they have seen. I am open to what anybody has to say until I have a reason not to be. If my reasons are poor, then maybe I will give them another shot. So far, Christianity does the best at explaining the world as I (and some others) experience it. The cool thing about life is that there is still time to change the road you're on as long as your mind is moving. (Pause for Led Zeppelin). If you make a solid case for atheism, who knows, maybe I'll change things around a bit. That's why I'm checking things out too. I'd love to find a faith-killer that did not depend on faith itself. This is perhaps our highest calling as humans: to think deeply, to question and seek answers. All too many of our fellow bipeds drift in and out of life without ever exploring a bit deeper. This zombie-like mass has included Christians, atheists and all points beyond, but it is at their own expense. There is nothing better to do than to explore this stuff. We can't afford not to.
your friend,
-C
In between the previous email/posting and the next one, E and I had a conversation on the phone. His feeling was that Christianity incorporated some inherent weakness because of its reliance on a degree of faith. I responded that all belief systems, philosophies and religions incorporate some faith (even if they think that they do not). For example, science itself requires faith that observers senses are reliable. This is taken for granted, but it IS faith. Below is E's response:
ReplyDeleteCorbin,
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about our conversation yesterday. While I feel it may be a valid point that every belief is to some degree based in faith, I think there are two weakensses to your viewpoint:
1) If all belief is based in faith, then all belief is relative to the "faithfulness" of its adherent, and it is impossible to say that one is any more meritorious than the other. I have faith in the absence of a creator; you have faith in a particular brand of protestant christianity; my wacko hippie neighbor has faith in Zeus and other pagan myths. Sure, we all have "faith", but this does not refute the point that in this view, there is no justification for you to say "My belief is better/truer than yours and you should therefore discard yours and adopt mine." It's just a matter of picking something arbitrarily and deciding to have faith in it. This is hardly an argument for accepting protestant christianity over any other religion, or lack thereof.
2) Further, while atheism may requrie some faith in the purest sense, I would argue that it requires the least, because it is based on educated guesses from all the sensory experiences collected by an individual and by the scientific community of the human race. If I find dinosaur fossils and so forth and date them to 65 million BC, and can trace the evolutionary progression of different dinosaurs, then it would seem most likely that there was such a creature as dinosaurs and such a process as evolution. Now, yes, I have to have faith in my eyes and in what I see, and in the accuracy of the scientific method and the processes I use, etc. But I would argue that unless you are going to reject all sensory input on the basis of some radical and unprovable theory ("all my perceptions have been an illusion on the Star Trek Enterprise's holodeck, programmaed by aliens to make me think this way," or "the earth is merely 4000 years old and those dinosaur bones were put there by satan as a trick to make people believe in evolution," etc.,) that accepting the world around you as it is is probably the most logical course for understanding existence. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I would propose that that we should accept that it is in fact a duck. It is impossible to completely rule out the possibility that it is instead a robotic holographic illusion foisted on my consciousness by aliens, the devil, or some other entity to confuse and mystify me and lead me astray, but given all that I have experienced in my life (seeing ducks, feeding ducks, observing the birth and death of other living creatures, etc.,) I think I have to give much higher credence to the former possibility than the latter. Certainly, all my experiences to date could be leading me to the wrong conclusion, so I may be in error, and therefore yes, I have "faith" to some extent, but I propose to you that faith based on 1) actual perceptible experience, and 2) repeatable demonstration and prediction (aka the sicentific method) is superior to faith based on any theory that does not have those elements.
E,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your last email. You’ve raised some good points about truth, faith and the scientific method. I happen to agree with almost everything that you wrote. My responses are numbered in relation to your perceived weaknesses of my perspective on faith. It’s long, but I hope you read it all.
1) If all belief is based ONLY in faith, then your critique would be valid indeed. How could we ever judge one system to be better (or worse) than any other? If we cannot, then this is hardly an argument for accepting atheism over Protestant Xianity or any other system. And yet we still make choices. Did you choose atheism by cogitating the necessity of faith in something and then throw a dart at a world religions diagram? I didn’t think so. Neither is that how I came to elect Xianity. The problem with this way of thinking is the phrase: “ONLY” faith.
I do contend that all belief is based partly in faith, but not ONLY in faith. As far as I can tell, human knowledge and faith are built on 4 things: personal experience, human testimony, reason/logic and the scientific method. All of these things are interconnected and can yield reliable data, and they break up into a nice quadrant. Because of the interconnectivity, it IS possible to say that one belief system is more meritorious than another. For example, I contend that Christianity is open and makes a better accounting for ALL of the evidence that are found in these 4 components. In a perfect religion/ faith, all of the pieces from each of the 4 corners would harmonize and that is the reason why I continue to explore Xianity. So far, I have yet to find anything that cannot be accounted for to greater or lesser degrees. This is not to say that I have it all figured out. There certainly are ambiguities in Christianity, but that is not the same thing as a contradiction, denial of evidence or a suspension of reasoning.
By contrast, atheism tends to be far more closed-minded as it arbitrarily rules out components of personal experience and human testimony that do not fit neatly into its own interpretive framework and a-priori faith commitments, namely that there is no God or gods and hence, that miracles are impossible. More on this in #2 below.
Admittedly, some current and past groups of the Christian Church have also stood in stark (ignorant) opposition to the reason/logic and scientific method corners of the box, but (happily) they do not speak for all of us. As time goes on, some of these Christians and their denominations are, in fact, amending their positions. The text may be somewhat static, but certainly (and thankfully) our understanding of it is significantly more dynamic. Even if the biblical text was perfect, it does not follow that our understanding of it would also be perfect. The political, environmental and human rights atrocities committed by the church over the millennia certainly demonstrates our inability to always get it right. Nevertheless, atheists and other non-Christians don’t exactly have a sparkling record here either.
2) Regarding your second point about atheism’s superiority (because it requires the least amount of faith), this assumes that faith itself is a bad thing and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. I understand the sentiment, but is there any evidence or scientific methodology that you can enlist in support of your opinion? Could it be that you simply have faith (or knowledge?) that having MORE faith implies some sort of weakness when contrasted with having LESS? How have you come to such a conclusion?
Secondly, as I hinted at above, atheism categorically includes educated guesses and sensory experiences collected by individuals and the scientific community that agrees with its a priori faith commitment (that the God of the Bible is not real), but that it categorically rejects similar components when they disagree with its dogma. Not exactly the unbiased following of evidence that atheists often try to rally behind.
As a related issue, I contest the ability of science and its methodology to say anything for or against God. Can you tell me of a single way to “test for God” or point to any evidence that the scientific community has found regarding the issue? The spheres don’t seem to overlap much as far as I can tell. If science only works with the testable, repeatable, predictable and observable, and God does not fall neatly into these categories unless he chooses to do so, then it would seem that, officially, science has nothing to say about God. But how often is this line crossed illegitimately?
This is where authors like Dawkins and Hitchens shine and have completely snookered their readers. They desperately try and make it seem as though atheism is a natural consequence of the scientific method and its discoveries. But nothing could be further from the truth. It makes me wonder if they even know who Christians think stands behind a creation that operates according to the “laws” of biology and physics. Someone should tell them that it’s God and that he won’t undermine himself. Nevertheless, there is a serious disconnect between the physical (even hypothetical) sciences and philosophy/religion. Atheism goes well beyond scientific evidence and plunges deep into philosophy, faith and religious-like dogma too. But people like Dawkins are loathe to mention it very often, if at all.
Furthermore, I disagree with your assessment that atheism requires less faith. After all, it incorporates a huge amount of faith when it comes to rejecting other religions and belief movements. For example, short of proof, it requires a significant amount of faith to believe that Jesus was a lunatic, liar or myth. The best explanation for Jesus and what was written about him is that there was something powerful and unique about him. It takes more faith, not less, to presume that one of the other theories is correct. And Dawkin’s impoverished, pet spaghetti-monster is a red herring designed to shift the focus away from his own, secret faith and towards an entity that no one believes in anyway. This is an odd and puzzling game of his that far too many readers perceive as a legitimate challenge to Christianity. Furthermore, Dawkins might think I could get the same results from my bed lamp as I do from Jesus, but that really only demonstrates his confusion and befuddlement about the source of every good and perfect gift. Human ignorance is simply incapable of limiting (or procuring) God’s actions.
Moving on, your dinosaur example is well aimed. I thoroughly agree with you, I do place a degree of faith in my sensory experiences, and I believe that accepting the world around me is usually the most logical course for understanding existence. I certainly don’t see demons and angels behind every blade of grass, and I apologize if I have unintentionally led you to think I have been suggesting something else.
But before we get too far down the road here, I want you to know that the legitimacy of Christianity is not threatened AT ALL by evolution nor a Universe that is a shade on this side of 15 billion years old. Like those Christians caught in the midst of the Copernican “Revolution” some contemporaries Jesus followers have come to equate things like a young earth and a literal, six-day creation as a sine qua non of their belief system and will fight tooth and nail to ignore or defeat challenges to these ideas at all costs. I do not feel obligated to join their ranks, and it is not mandated by the Bible either.
Anyway, I am encouraged to hear you admit that you do possess some faith, even if it is faith that God does not exist. This alone is more than most atheists are willing to come to terms with. I can also echo your honest assessment that “all my experiences to date could be leading me to the wrong conclusion, so I may be in error.” This is the first admission that any of us has got to make if we intend to be open to where the evidence truly leads. I freely admit that I may be confused about Jesus, which is why I am thankful that you are taking the time to dialog with me about him.
But a question I have to pose to you (or anyone else) is this: What would it take for you to place your faith in Jesus as he is represented in the Bible? It seems that the only possible answer MUST start with: "Something." For if we respond with its opposite "nothing" then we sacrifice all objectivity and any ability to learn or genuinely discuss "anything" that challenges our own perspectives.
Regarding your last two propositions, you said that, “I propose to you that faith based on 1) actual perceptible experience, and 2) repeatable demonstration and prediction (aka the sicentific method) is superior to faith based on any theory that does not have those elements.”
I wholly agree with the first of these and limitedly agree with the second. But your first proposal begs the question of “Whose perception of actual events do you count as valid in establishing faith?” Do you mean only your perception, or can you include others in that as well? As a corollary, do you imagine that the disciples and other witnesses did not use their “actual perceptible experience” when they apprehended the events of 1st century Palestine? Given your statement here, it seems that you must at least consider the possibility that the original authors of the New Testament happened to be telling the truth about what they actually saw and heard. If you are only willing to believe the things that you alone have perceived, then this may put you in an awkward, epistemologically paralyzing position. I hope that isn’t the case.
Additionally, your commitment only to faith that incorporates the scientific method suggests that it is the only valid way of knowing something. I agree that it is ONE way to certain kinds of knowledge, but it is impotent when it comes to historical inquiry and things like love and ethics. Do you love your sons? (Of course!) But can you prove it scientifically? Is it wrong or right to abuse the young or the elderly? Can we press the scientific method into supporting our judgment on this? You have faith that God does not exist but is there any scientific evidence at all to support this hypothesis (or is it a conclusion)? Can you put together a test to determine what you thought about on a specific Tuesday afternoon in the spring of 1983, or last Tuesday for that matter?
The scientific method is a great tool for knowledge, but it is only one, and it is quite limited in scope. And despite its best efforts, the scientific method has yielded some poor conclusions, contradictions and down-right silliness. The trouble is that we sometimes don’t know which is which until it is too late.
Finally, God can choose to be observable, even testable perhaps, but this is only at his will, not ours. Do we really expect God to ask us "How high?" If we tell him to "jump"? I don’t have that much audacity, and I don’t expect that God would oblige if I did.
I propose that a philosophical / belief system that offers the best explanation of all the data encountered is the one preferable to its inherently limited and partial counterparts. In this regard, Christianity is vastly superior to atheism (and spaghetti monsters too).
I look forward to your response; thanks for continuing to engage with me here.
-CL
At this point, E focused in on Richard Dawkins' teachings. He sent me a quote from Dawkins, but I accidentally lost it.
ReplyDelete-CL
Unfortunately, I closed our IM chat screen and lost all of our conversation and your Dawkins quote, so I can’t quite remember all that was said. Maybe it would behoove our dialog if you repeated it and your understanding of it.
ReplyDeleteBut in general, here’s what I think about Dawkin’s opinion on probability as I can remember it. His “argument” seems to go something like this: The universe is extremely unlikely (but it exists) therefore the God who is purported to have created it is even more unlikely (therefore he does not exist). His conclusion is not supported by the premise in any shape or form. In fact, the very statement calls into question his thesis. The only thing we can conclude from this “logic” is that extremely improbable things can happen, and indeed have proved to have occurred. How this precludes God’s existence remains conveniently unexplained. I might as well counter that creation of the universe and intelligent life is VERY probable given the existence of an all powerful God who likes to bring things to life. It’s a wonderful thesis and opinion, but it doesn’t really prove anything to anybody who doesn’t already think this way.
Tell me what you think when you get a chance.
Ok, I’m out.
-CL
I'm afraid I may not have explained Dawkins argument well, as you're msising the point. Let me see if I can rephrase:
ReplyDelete1) It is true that we don't understand everything about the universe scientifically yet. The first nanosecond of the big bang and quark theory, in particular, are dimly understood areas. However, this doesn't mean that science CANT explain those things, just that it hasn't yet. We are continually refining our scientific knowledge and hope to one day be able to patch the holes, just as it was once thought that the Sun revolved around the Earth but the scientific method eventually revealed that this was not so. As we make scientific progress, we realize more and more that the traditional religious explanations (i.e., the god Mercury carries the sun around the Earth each day in a flaming golden chariot) are inconsistent with our scientific learnings, unless one makes great leaps of intellectual contortion (i.e., the roman myth about Mercury was an allegory for the physical force of gravity, or Mercurary uses gravity as his proxy for sun transportation, or Jehovah uses evolution as his proxy for intelligent design, etc.)
2) What we DO know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that all complex, intelligent organisms have evolved from a previous species of slightly less complex and intelligent organisms, who evolved in turn from an even less complex group, etc., all the way back to unicellular organisms, and in turn before that the unicellular organisms came from the primordial ooze, and before that a lifeless big-bang generated universe which took billions of years to cool down and generate the necessary conditions for life to arise.
3) It is certainly possible that there are aliens out there who have had a billion more years of evolution than we have and have reached levels of sophistication we can only dream of, and who may in fact be capable of desigining whole species and even universes. Similarly, after another million years of scientific progress, humankind may itself attain such god-like powers. However, the progress of an extremely highly evolved species, though it may appear god-like to an untrained observer, does not mean that it instantly came into being as a god; rather it means that it evolved to that stage through some combination of luck and determination, and even though that species may conquer death and mortality via genetic engineering, etc., the term "god" is probably not appropriate... although, certainly, an uneducated peasant from the year AD 100 who was somehow transported to 2008 and observed jet planes, space shuttles, bullet trains, iphones, and so forth would probably conclude that we were all gods.
4) So, while under a very loose definition of the word "god", we might be able to assign these properties to an alien species or our own race someday, the key point is that we would have evolved to that stage billions of years after the big bang. Evolution (and the big bang) are absolutely essential ingredients to get to that stage, with all the intermediate steps of unicellular life, etc. along the way.
5) Therefore, any belief/religion which posits a god that pre-exists evolution and/or the big bang is many times more implausible than a belief which explains such a being through known evolutionary and cosmological means. In other words, the traditional christian god who created the universe and all species was himself an extremely complex being (he would have to have been to have done all that designing) and there is no way to explain where he came from if he did not evolve himself or have a universe to evolve in. So, while there are admittedly some remaining holes in cosmology/evolution that have yet to fall into place, the overall jigsaw puzzle is coming together nicely... but the theory of a non-evolved got that just happens to "be" in the first place is completely in contravention of all known science and physical laws. It is fashionable amongst christian circles to reply that well, god is "timeless" and "without physical properties" and so forth, but such pseudophilosophical buzzwords sound nice but don't really explain anything. You could say the same thing about the unknown properties of the big bang, and that wouldn't satisfy anyone either.
So, to sum up: Evolved species which come into existence after the big bang are improbably but explainable through known means, and we know that however improbable they are, they do exist in at least one case (planet Earth.) Non-evolved species which spontaneously generate themselves or exist without regard to time, and furthermore are so complex and powerful that they are capable of designing universes, and exist prior to said universe, are wholly inexplicable under all known science and have never been observed to exist except in unreliable ancient text accounts dating to a time when people believed in all manner of fairies, dragons, miracle-workers, and so forth.
E,
ReplyDeleteOnce again, this is good stuff. Thanks for your openness to listen, explain and challenge. I am going to respond to this latest email, but first I want to address two mildly annoying issues that I have encountered consistently in discussions with atheists.
A) Subject shifting
The first of these annoyances is the tendency to quickly switch subjects without really responding to what religious and philosophical opponents have said in response to an initial question or issue. I don’t necessarily think this is always done because an individual knows the game is up on a certain issue, but rather because they have so many questions and problems that they simply cannot wait to prattle off what is in their heads. Many Christians suffer from this same malaise, so I don’t want to point any fingers. However, I do want to be sure that we fully explore the areas that have already been brought up and addressed in part. So please make sure that you read my previous [posting] before we shift the subjects too much.
B) Proper English grammar
Unlike the noun “atheist” which is not supposed to be capitalized, “Christian” is a proper name and should always be capitalized. The “Bible, Jesus, New Testament” etc. also fall into this category, but not adjectives like “biblical.” Things like the “Torah, Talmud, Qu’ran,” and the “Bagivadghita” should also be capitalized. I have found that many atheists refuse to follow these grammatical rules. Sometimes they do so only when referring to their opposition, but are precise in capitalizing their own sages such as Russell or Dawkins. This latter habit is somewhat underhanded and deserves to be challenged. But in general, whether atheists do this out of arrogance, ignorance or laziness is not always known. It is nevertheless difficult for me to take a person’s ideas too seriously if they can’t seem to track with basic English conventions. You and I aren’t exactly writing for Christianity Today here, so I don’t want to get too technical or critical of your typing/ formatting habits. I make mistakes too, but a more grammatical approach would help me know that you have at least a little respect for your opponent even if not everything that he places faith in. I don’t want to assume that you are of the same caliber that other atheists I have dialoged with reflect, but I would appreciate it if you could capitalize things like “Bible” or “Christians” or at least use an easy substitute like “Xians”. Thanks for understanding my history here.
But on with the show. The numbers below correspond with your recent enumerated challenges.
1) Limitations and Faith in Science
Yes, it is very true that we do not understand everything about the universe. It is also true that current science cannot explain those things yet (if ever). But once again you seem to have defaulted to a position in faith that science will be able to explain these things some day. I might counter that someday you too will refine your understanding of God and that if this does not happen before your death, it will certainly happen afterwards. This is also a faith position built on the prospect of future evidence.
But the problem with science is that it is a fairly capricious undertaking. Even empirically verifiable evidence can be tricky. Any observation has to be processed through the human mind, and that has demonstrated to be anything but 100% logical 100% of the time. And if our peer reviewers' senses are just as flawed as our own, then of course they would get the same results as we did, but they haven't "verified" anything except their similarly corrupted interpretive framework.
Then there is the "self-correcting" nature of scientific atheism/ materialism or whatever we want to call it. New evidence comes out that corrects and replaces a previously "proved" scientific truth. So now we all get on board and throw the dethroned over the rail. All well and good. But what about the poor people that took the previous dictum as truth? They were believing in what was tantamount to a lie, even if an unintentional one. And what about the possibility that new evidence will overthrow the self-correcting feature we just discovered? It seems that there is no end to the mistruths, new truths and former truths. History is awash with examples of belief in now deposed "truths."
2) Evolution
I agree with almost every aspect of this paragraph except for the leap to life from non-life. This part (as far as I can tell) is purely theoretical and has no current or previous scientific evidence, experimentation or observation to support it other than that this step was necessary for each and every subsequent component of macroevolution to stand on. I can quote my MSU biology textbook here if you’d like. The number of words and phrases like, “if” “perhaps” “had to” and “must have” abound in the section on early life. I’m not saying that this leap from the nonliving goo to you didn’t happen, but merely that this part of the equation is rooted in pure faith AND that even if it turns out to be the case, it poses absolutely no challenge to the Christian and Jewish paradigm as represented in the biblical text. I think that I have already mentioned that a 15 billion year old universe and the “Big Bang” are not in conflict with faith in Christ.
3 & 4) Aliens and Advanced Races
I’m having a hard time tracking with your argument here. Only in the sense that an infinite God is altogether different than a finite creation is he “alien” to us. You have a fundamental deficiency in this conceptualization of God. This is tantamount to a so-called “straw man” fallacy, whereby you assert that Christians believe something ridiculous and thereby makes for an easy target. The problem is that no real Christians hold to this view of God and as such, the critique is stillborn. God did not evolve, hence there is no evidence that suggests he did. You can suggest that God is part of the universe and that he is an advanced alien race who has duped us, but then the burden of evidence for this position is on you, not Christians.
5) Faulty Assumptions
This line of reasoning continues to insist that God himself (not just our understandings of him) has evolved, and as such it continues to be rooted in ignorance and is an innocuous attack against Christianity and who that faith claims God to be.
However, you then said that, “there is no way to explain where [God] came from if he did not evolve himself or have a universe to evolve in.”
I appreciate the nature of this challenge, even if not all its presuppositions. Asking deep questions of a faith system is vitally important. But it seems as though you have come to think that the universe has always existed. Astronomy (science) tells us that this is not the case. Via the Big Bang, the universe did “come into existence” at a single, microscopic, infinitesimally short point in what we now call “time.” The universe had a beginning, therefore this represents a sequence problem for this alien “god” of yours who would need to evolve in it so that he could then create it.
So let me attempt to clarify a Christian conception of God. Everything you and I readily perceive is contingent (has its existence rooted in something that pre-existed), but the Xian understanding of God is that he is a “necessary” or “non-contingent” entity, meaning that he is self-existent, not evolved, and it is thereby impossible for him not to exist. God didn’t “come from” anywhere. He has always been, and thus, once he created it, he has always been here in the universe too.
What you said next is of equal importance for our discussion:
“the theory of a non-evolved [God] that just happens to "be" in the first place is completely in contravention of all known science and physical laws.”
But your statement has two main problems: 1) It ignores the fact that knowledge and information can come from places other than the scientific method (I offered some examples in a prior email). 2) It ignores what scientists and astronomers say about what existed prior to the Big Bang, namely that “matter” has always existed, even though they know nothing about where it existed (because the universe was not yet here). In fact, if I were to take your next sentence and insert the noun “atheist” in place of “Christian” and “matter” in place of “God” we might be able to see the problems with your position:
“It is fashionable amongst atheist circles to reply that well, matter is ‘timeless’ and ‘without physical properties’ and so forth, but such pseudophilosophical buzzwords sound nice but don't really explain anything.”
The issue is that both sides come down to a position of faith. One side believes that God has always existed, whereas the other side believes that it is matter that has always been floating about somewhere in something besides the universe. And saying that “God did it” is not necessarily intended to squelch curiosity or to “satisfy” us. Rather it is to inspire us to explore deeper and to not be satisfied with our relative ignorance of HOW God has created what he has created. Even a cursory glance at the history of Western Civilization will reveal that it was Christians who were at the fore of the scientific revolution and dawn of Enlightenment thinking. Christians are not anti-science. Well, at least this one isn’t.
To sum up:
God is not evolved; “he” always has been. To believe that this God of the Bible is real does take faith, but no more than it requires to believe in the counter hypothesis that matter has always been. In fact, given the amount of information we have about this God through vehicles beyond the scientific method, I am quite convinced that believing in this God requires less faith than atheism does.
respectfully,
-CL
An addendum to the novella I sent you the other day:
ReplyDeleteI think the Bible is pretty clear about the stars, the Earth, all life, etc. having been created in six days plus one, which is fundamentally incompatible with the scientific understanding of the age of the universe, evolution of species, and so forth. This is another reason, perhaps the most significant reason, as to why I think one needs to either choose between evolution or the biblical story of creation; they just aren't compatible.
The only explanation I've ever heard offered about this is something along the lines of "well, the bible doesn't really mean a day, because a day to god could be a billion years or anything." But if you think about that, if that's really the explanation you're going to accept, how can you believe that anything in the bible means anything at all? "God created the heavens and the earth... in six days... and then he rested" is a fairly unambiguous sentence. Trying to say that it means something else reminds me of Bill Clinton hemming and hawing about what the meaning of "is" is. (Protestants sometimes similarly make the questionable assertion that the wine in the bible wasn't really wine, in order to square their own anti-alcohol fervor with the fact that their lord once drank it and seemed quite enthusiastic about its creation.)
More broadly, this is indicative of a general trend of people to accept current dogma in whatever and whenever the place they happen to live, and to easily dismiss the parts of the bible that are inconsistent with what they think. My favorite example (there are many others) is the verse - I think it's in one of the gospels - which basically says that there is no time to get married and such tihngs because Jesus is returning soon and he will be back "before the current generation passes away." Since that was 2000 some years ago, I would think people would take this as obvious evidence that the Bible is not true and is just an old relic of fiction - but no. Did you know that there is a segment of Christians who believe (and for many centuries it was accepted Catholic dogma, although I'm uncertain if it still is,) that somewhere there is a poor accursed 2000+ year old man who was doomed to walk the Earth undying until Christ's return, in order that this verse might be believed to be literally true? I guess at least those folks have come up with some kind of theory about how to square the circle... I'm not sure how others explain this comment away other than to just ignore it. Another of my favorites is Revelation, which people like to cite as evidence that the Bible is true and the end times are near because of "earthquakes and volcanoes and wars and stuff" just as it predicted. Surely that's a pretty easy prediction... but people don't appreciate the evidence about all the more difficult predictions that did NOT come true, such as when I say "Oh yes, for example jsut the other day I saw a Babylonian prostitute aloft on a flying serpent."
So if a day isn't a day, and wine isn't wine, and a generation isn't a generation, and (presumably) the whore of Babylon is not actually an Iraqi prostitute, how can one then go on to believe with any conviction that a sin is a sin, a death is a death, drunkenness is drunkenness, fornication is fornication, and forgiveness is forgiveness? Either god sent us a book with meaningful words in it or he didn't.
EL,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great set of issues and questions to bring up. I am so glad that you are willing to take a critical eye to the biblical text instead of prematurely rejecting it outright. So many people never get that far. One of the things I love about Christianity is that it does not prohibit questions, and serious, troublesome questions at that. This is a pretty big difference from Islam, and to a lesser degree, Mormonism as well. But I digress. Let’s get to it.
You said that you think the Bible “is pretty clear about the stars, the earth, all life etc.,” but I must kindly disagree. People, Christians as well as atheists have been struggling with this textual data for centuries if not millennia.
If this is one of your main reasons for rejecting Christianity, then I am truly excited to let you know that being a Christian does not require that you believe in a 7,000 year old earth, or whatever it is that Young Earth Creationists are saying these days. Christianity, even if on the periphery, is moving in the same direction as scientists who have discovered a very ancient earth. Additionally, I happily admit that I have believed in a multiple-billion year old universe since I was in jr. high. I even got into an unintended debate with a youth minister over the issue once when I was 14. He was actually a great guy, but his science was a disaster. But the more reading I have done on the issue, from both Christian and non-Christian sources, points to the same very old earth conclusion.
But let’s be clear about what you mentioned concerning how some Christians “explain away” a literal, 24 hour creation day. Let’s look at 2 texts (NIV):
Psalms 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
2Peter 3:8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
Please not that simile is employed here. It says that a day is “LIKE” a thousand years. This is not a definition that says a “day” IS “a thousand years.” It is fairly clear that the exact length of time is purposefully unspecified. As you can see, Christians are given an interpretive suggestion from within the Bible here. But even if the notion was external to the text, this doesn’t mean that Christians couldn’t accept it. Most Christians believe that if anything is true, then it is not opposed to God, or even belongs to him. Whether it is found in the pages of the Bible or not is a somewhat secondary issue. Science and Christian faith are not at odds.
Secondly, I think you’ve confused Jesus’ drinking of the wine he created from water (John 2:1-10). The text doesn’t say that he drank it, but it wouldn’t matter either way. Your mordant criticism of selective teetotalers’ interpretations is apt. Many people have pressed the text into serving themselves and their own pet ideas, but this should reflect poorly on them, not the God of the Bible. Would it help any if I told you that I believe that Jesus made some excellent, alcohol-content wine? There’s really no reason to believe otherwise. Same goes for the communion wine later on in the Gospel narratives, but in theological terms, this just isn’t very important.
Next, you mentioned the “Jesus generation” quote (Matt. 24:34, Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32). But I think you have mixed up some of the details again. I didn’t see the don’t get married part, so I’d encourage you to offer Bible references in the future and look at them before you try to paraphrase them. That’s just a suggestion, not an underhanded slam. I want your biblical criticisms to be well-aimed.
This “generation” business is a legitimate question, but I think you need to look at the verses before and after this one. Get a feel for the context and see what else Jesus has to say here. It may surprise you. Let’s take this issue up again after you look at the context. I suggest that you start with Matt. 13:1 and read all the way to 13:35. There is a dualism here that should not be neglected. Let me know what you think afterwards.
As for your 2000+ year old man, I have never encountered this. Can you offer me a reference point? Unless it’s in the Bible, I’m not sure I could say anything about it, but I am curious. As we’ve said already, some people WILL go to great lengths to force the text to say what they want it to, but this has no impact on the integrity of the text itself. And have you considered since the church left in these difficult sayings of Jesus, that maybe they are more authentic than you have been led to believe by some critics? After all, it would have been far easier for the church to edit out these troublesome parts if they had possessed the opportunity to do so and combined it with a lack of respect for what had already been recorded.
Dogma, Doctrine & Adiaphora
Are you familiar with the term “adiaphora”? It’s basically a fancy theological term that means “peripheral, indifferent” or “non-essential” things that have as much to do with personal preference as they do anything else. Dogma for example is who Christians worship (the Trinity) and why (salvation). Following dogma is doctrine, and this is a larger and more negotiable set of beliefs depending on which denomination or major Christian division one adheres to (Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, for example). There are also additional multiples among the Protestant denominations. Doctrines are perhaps most often connected with Christian practices like morality. Finally, adiaphora is the outer, most negotiable and largest circle of Christian beliefs. These are things that are fun for conjecture, even debate, but remain as somewhat open and non-essential for salvation, irrespective of what position a person might assume. God’s foreknowledge, predestination, baptism via full-dunking vs. pouring of water over one’s head or the age of the universe might qualify as representatives in this last category. Of course these designations are somewhat flexible, and some will vociferously debate what belongs where, but the fact remains that most of Christianity does not press every single issue into the realm of core dogma, salvation sine qua non.
Interpretive Frameworks and the Age of the Universe
Some Christians do get all bent out of shape over the age of the universe, and try to assert (as you have) that it’s a slippery slope once we start down the path of selecting only the parts of the Bible that we are comfortable with and explaining away everything else. This can be a valid concern in general, and I affirm the care that must be exercised here. But in particular regard to the first 11 chapters of Genesis, well intentioned demands for a young earth makes a completely unnecessary interpretive leap.
The fact is that even if we had an “inerrant” or “perfect” Bible, this in no way, shape or form means that all people everywhere will understand it perfectly. As such, we have made a LOT of mistakes in interpreting the text over the past 2000 years. We still make them today (myself included). I hope this isn’t a shock to anybody.
What you may find interesting is that you yourself have engaged in the process of biblical interpretation on these passages in Genesis (probably elsewhere too). But the Bible itself makes no claim concerning the age of the universe or the earth. Some people have inferred that IF all “yom” designations in the Bible mean the same thing as a modern definition of a literal 24 hour “day,” THEN the cosmos must be X amount of years old, but this is a pretty BIG “if” for us to hang our hats on.
In your last post, you have tried to trap the definition of “day” and then drawn a parallel with Bill Clinton’s definition of “is.” I understand how this might look from the outside, but there are some things we should consider. First of all, this sandbagging of definitions is the same thing that some Christian fundamentalists do, so I think it is somewhat ironic that you take a similar stance. But even more importantly, you and I are from the same historical setting, language, culture, nationality, and race as Bill Clinton. We are in a VERY good position to evaluate and judge what he says and his definitions because we know the code and every other subtle nuance that goes along with it (not the least of which was that Clinton’s rear-end was in a sling). But Genesis is from a vastly different zip code and time zone. We have none of the same luxuries concerning the ancient Hebrews as we did with Clinton. We are simply not in a good position to evaluate “yom” or an unspecified period of time with 100% linguistic or cultural fidelity, especially as the same word is used to speak of different amounts of time in different places in the Hebrew text.
As most Christians affirm, I also believe that we should consider ALL of the biblical text as inspired in one way or another, and that if we only consider some passages at the expense of others, then we do the Bible, ourselves and others a grave disservice. Nevertheless, this does not require that we bring the same interpretive framework to all biblical texts regardless of their genre, languages, family structures, power structures, economic structures, audience, geo-political cultures and historical settings. Indeed, to treat everything the same, as literal or allegorical or poetry or history etc. or to force our own definitions, grammatical, syntactical and Western English rules on the texts would be one of the worst and least honest things we could do.
So, by saying that a “yom” in the creation account is equal to a literal 24 hour period, is to bring a certain interpretive framework to the text. While this alone does not have anything to do with the framework’s quality per se, it should at least point out the fact that it is NOT the ONLY framework we could use. Indeed, as I (and others) might argue, a literal interpretation that hinges on a much later definition of “day” does not treat the first chapters of Genesis with the respect that they are due.
But without getting too mired in that argument, let me highlight a few reasons why we should consider that “day” as used in the English translation of the creation account does NOT mean a literal, 24 hour period:
From an educated biblical perspective We need to be aware that whoever recorded the first chapters of Genesis wasn't an eyewitness. God communicated what he needed to get across in a way that they would understand. No time to discuss what a billion means when a day will do just as well. We can still firmly believe that God created the cosmos and every good and perfect gift AND that he took his time doing it. After all, since God is eternal, what is a few billion years? We're the ones that usually get hung up about time.
Secondly, a common conservative Christian and Jewish rationale for 6, literal days is that the Hebrew word for "day" (yom) is used to mean a 24 hour period in some other places in the Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament. While that is interesting, it does not prove a point. It would be like me saying that since my previous Hondas were great cars, then ALL Hondas EVERYWHERE are great cars. It seems logical (and I really do think that most Hondas are good vehicles) but there are certainly exceptions as well. All it would take to burst my bubble is to see one lemon Honda, and I have heard that such a thing is out there somewhere.
Also, the text goes on to say that there was "evening and morning, the [#] day" (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13 et. al.), but we should reflect that “daylight” and “night” can take up to 6 months when standing at the north or south pole. Are we then to believe that God was "standing" on the equator during midsummer when that first "day" came around? Could it be that “day” is akin to an anthropomorphism? We can’t stamp these days as literal without making some very questionable assumptions.
Fourth, if we sequence that first "day" in relation to when the text says that the sun was created, it becomes somewhat obvious that the original source of light was not the flaming star that we call Sol. Because it “came” later, the time measurements for the first "day" cannot be grounded in the same measure that we use today (a 24 hour revolution of the earth’s surface at the equator).
Fifth, we need to consider that in Genesis 2:17 (regarding the Tree of Knowledge) God tells Adam, "...in the day that you eat of it you shall die," but that Adam went on to live until he reached the age of 930? The NIV conspicuously changes "day" to "when", but the original Hebrew word here is "yom" or what English has interpreted as "day." There are only 3 possible conclusions we can draw from this: 1) God lied, 2) the whole thing is phony, OR 3) God told the truth, is real and doesn't always mean for "yom" to mean a 24 hour period. As such, I think the definition for a "day" in those early chapters of Genesis is somewhat fluid.
From the Bible to Science
That’s just the preliminary, BIBLICAL case for a more flexible understanding of “day.” Now, I’ll highlight the 3 major factors that nudged me towards an old earth even as a younger teenager. I hope you won’t disagree.
1) Continental Drift :
The same kinds of fossils have been found in the central, eastern tip of South America that paleontologists have found in the central, western corner of Africa. There is no question that these tectonic plates/ continents were joined in a previous epoch. But plate tectonics shift over long periods of time, and we have no evidence that these two southern continents trucked across the planet in a single, global push, even if we make an allowance for a massive, universal flood.
2) The Grand Canyon, Zion Canyon (and others) :
These canyons are made up of layers and layers of different kinds of sedimentary and metamorphic rock. Variations of sandstone make up the majority of these layers. Unlike igneous rock, sandstone is not formed from magma; it is formed from other rocks being broken down into grains of sand, settling on the bottom of a sea floor, being subsumed by other layers of sediment (and sometimes igneous rock too), being subjected to colossal amounts of weight and pressure (which glues it together) and then being geologically uplifted by plate tectonics and their related earth-shifts. The time it takes for a single layer of sandstone to be formed is almost unfathomable. When we consider that the Grand Canyon is made up of 23 layers of sandstone and other rocks we can begin to see the vast amounts of time involved. Even if we buy that the canyon itself was formed in a single flood-draining event (which is stretch at best) this cannot make any accounting for the periods of time it took to form and up-lift the sandstone foundations in the first place.
3) The Speed of Light
This is believed to be somewhat constant at 186,282.3 miles per SECOND. Knowing that, the farther we look out into space with our telescopes, the farther back in time we are looking. By the time it takes light to reach our eyes from extremely distant objects, billions of years have already elapsed in some cases. This is well documented and no self-respecting astronomer seems to disagree with this. This involves lots and LOTS of math. Because others have already explained this elsewhere, I won't reinvent it here. If you are still interested, I recommend:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe
Once I was able to grasp these ideas (mind-blowing for a immature teenager), I was able to see scripture with new eyes and conclude that it was still totally true, but not in the same way I had been instructed by some well-meaning fellow Christians (not least of whom was an old youth minister).
I would encourage the position that there is nothing to "trump" between science and Christianity. They are simply alternate means to truth. Their spheres rarely touch, and probably not very often in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, although I find it somewhat satisfying that scientific theories of evolution corroborate the general Genesis account of the stages/ progression of life on earth. Many myths, for example, give humans the first order of creation because they are the most important and best of the gods’ handiwork.
Science can hint at how God created the cosmos or how it operates, but it simply has nothing to say about his existence, or lack thereof, and thus it should not be pressed into service against him. There's no valid way to say that God MUST have or definitely HAD to have created the universe in certain ways just so we can squeeze him into what we think scripture has said. The Bible has never taught a young earth. Some humans teach that the Bible teaches a young earth. To be fair, it has never taught an ancient earth either, but that only proves that it didn't consider the subject of any theological importance. The text has bigger fish to fry, and we would do well to remember this.
Discerning Christians
Being a Xian requires a little bit of discernment. We are told FAR too often that if we are good, Christians, then we'll believe in a young earth and vote Republican, but neither of those "requirements" is required by the text at all. These things are made up by well meaning, but impoverished interpretations, and they make me cringe. In light of the scientific evidence, they should make all of us cringe. Science can (and should) poke holes all through our poor understandings of scripture. That it does so is a testament to God's corrective ability to prevent the text from being made into a science book and instead, uses it to get across what he wanted to. If only we have ears to hear.
In summary, you have offered a false dichotomy (either/or proposition). We can have BOTH a very old universe AND God's Word without any watering down of either category. If either one of us teaches the biblically UNsupported idea that the universe is only a few thousand years old, we set ourselves up to fail. We should not have to choose EITHER science OR Jesus. As Clement of Alexandria astutely noted, “All truth is God's truth.”
Unfortunately, whether it has been at the hands of some Christians or atheists, it sounds like you have had the Either/Or perspective shoved on you and have subsequently adopted it. I am glad that you have rejected the young-earth push, it really is absurd sometimes. But I am also glad to remove it as an obstacle in the path towards Jesus of Nazareth. You don’t have to believe in a literal, 6-day creation to be a Christian. I sure don’t.
your friend,
-CL
I would like to note that the entirety of the above conversation did not originally spool out this way, but rather that all of the comments have been cut out of their original context in a much larger back-and-forth email dialouge. Therefore, while I recognize most of the words attributed to me as my own, I am not especially happy with the way they have been re-ordered and re-assembled here. I'm sure the re-editing was well intentioned, but with my words taken out of context and/or placed in response to a paragraph that they originally weren't intended to respond to, too many times it seems that I'm dropping your arguments, throwing random red-herrings into the mix inappropriately, etc. For example, some of the editing has clearly conflated a somewhat sarcastic and flippant dustup over John Mccain vs. Barack Obama with a totally separate and more serious thread on whether evil exists. I'm not going to worry about this too much, but I'm inserting this comment as a sort of virtual bookmark, separating the portions above which were edited retroactively and without my authorization, and which may not accurately reflect my intended response to a given comment, and the portions below, which will hopefully reflect a more linear conversation.
ReplyDeleteI can certainly understand some of your frustration with the way this post has been ordered. This was my chief complaint to you in our original email conversation, but you insisted on committing the same sort of moves that you now decry above. However, I think you are remembering some things incorrectly, for the playful political exchange was precisely what started the conversation on good and evil. Except for your email to me targeting Obama's family member's immigration issue (which I clearly stated that I had lost), our thread's initial posts ARE exactly how they have been represented here on this blog.
ReplyDeleteContrary to what you may think, I've RE-connected much of BOTH of our original statements and comments into complete thoughts (which was often how they were written prior innumerable interleaved interjections to begin with) all in the sincere effort to have an on-going conversation that is readable and trackable by US, never mind anyone else who might stumble upon our windy wanderings.
I'm glad that we can go from here in a one for one format. I think that will help the pace and ease of typing to one another. I have always preferred a linear conversation, and that has been my intent from the beginning. Just so we're clear, I've not edited any of your words unless it was for privacy or flow, and EACH and EVERY one of those few emendations is clearly demarcated by brackets [like these]. At least now it seems that we are finally on the same page regarding format. Thank you for your continued dialogue.
Cheers,
-CL