Over the last week or two I have been writing posts which some people have responded to with the claim to know that something is a revelation from a god. This is a baseless claim, as I said in a recent comment, and it is time to address it straight on, because this claim is at the root of most of the evil of which religion is a source — an amount that is not small. In a fairly well-known essay, Richard Rorty once pointed out that religion is a conversation stopper. As soon as God is introduced into a conversation, there is nothing more to be said. In a comment on the last post, Bob Wheeler has this to say:
The human race cannot simply go on, century after century, ignoring God’s Law and exploiting each other for our own selfish purposes, and expect that nothing will happen to us. The fact that God is a God of love does not mean that He simply ignores evil. At the end of the day someone has to pay the piper.
You see? Conversation over! All it takes is the claim that there is a law that we are ignoring, and that there is a price to be paid for this ignorance, and what more can be said? It is as if Bob is sitting on the papal throne, and he is speaking ex cathedra. He knows, and so he gets to tell us all what is true, period, end of story.
What possible basis could he give for making this claim? He would have to refer immediately to a tradition in which such a claim might be made, a tradition which, in turn, would be countered by someone from a different tradition, who has received a different law, and walks humbly with a different god. What could either possibly say to the other which would be convincing? The Muslim refers to the Qu’ran, a book which is largely a pastiche of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian sayings, only partly assimilated, and often poorly understood. The Jew refers to the Tanach, but especially to the Torah, and its commandments, a loose assemblage of different writings spanning centuries, or, as Tom Thompson suggests, is a very late collection deliberately used to define a people who were to occupy Palestine for Persian colonial interests, no doubt incorporating local myths and stories to add plausibility. The Christian then refers us to Jesus, and to the words and stories about him contained in the New Testament, a book which has that name because of the Christian belief that the Jewish covenant (or testament) is now null and void — though it is plausible to think that Christians misunderstood their Jewish predecessors (as well as their contemporaries) very badly. And try as they might, Christians cannot simply expunge that meaning from their sacred text. And the stories about Jesus are so worked over that they only doubtfully refer to an historical person, even if there was someone at the begining of the story-telling around which the stories cystallised. So, limiting ourselves to these three monotheisms, we have first, the Jews, to whom God’s promises were made; we have, second, the Christians, who hold themselves to have received God’s new promises in Christ, and who also hold that those promises were sealed in the blood of God’s son, Jesus Christ, whom, by their perfidy, the Jews killed; and then we have, third, the Muslims, who believe that they have received a final revelation from God, and that God’s word to Jews and Christians is no longer a living word of the only god, whether or not this is the same god who encountered the Christians and the Jews.
And then, of course, in addition to all this we have all the other religions of the world, small and large, with their sacred traditions and stories, and commandments by which they are told to live. Many, if not all, of them, toil busily in that field labelled “Revelation,” whose harvest is so mixed that it is impossible to sort out what might and might not be revealed, supposing that some of it is. I can understand why someone within a tradition might think, in ignorance of other claims, that there is something objective about the demands that the tradition makes upon them. But once you have encountered another sacred tradition, then you must hold either that that other tradition is in itself inherently evil, because opposed to yours, which, of course, is the truth, or you have to face the fact that there is nothing that you can point to that the other cannot also point to in order to claim that this (for any this) is a revelation from God.
But it gets worse than that. For there is not a religious tradition that has not commanded people to do evil things, things which we can all agree to be evil (if we set aside for a moment our bias in favour of our own tradition). And no one gets off scot-free here. Believers as well as unbelievers have done evil things, basing themselves on their belief or unbelief. It is hopeless to try to weigh objectively the evil that believers and unbelievers have done. Of course, most of the evil in the world has been done by religious believers, since it is only recently that unbelief has been a live option for more than a very very few, and even now unbelief is a minority pursuit. But the real trouble is that the laws that people believe come from a god have often commanded evil. Notable cases include the commandment to Abraham to sacrifice his son — a story which is only meaningful if Abraham actually intended to do it, and thought it was commanded by God — the various genocides in the Jewish scriptures, the antisemitism of Christianity and Islam, and the horrible things done by Mohammed in the name of his god, not to mention the entirely numbing repetition in the Qu’ran of the fate that awaits those who will not submit to Mohammed’s god.
Considering all these things with some dispassion, the suggestion that any of these supposedly sacred texts and traditions contain revelations from a god is simply ludicrous, and the claim should stop being made. While it is true that, once the claim has been made, the use of human reason and even evidence can be brought into play to unfold complex and nuanced understandings of the supernatural realms supposedly revealed in the purported texts and events, and how these supposed realities are related to human life, it is simply preposterous to suggest that there is any basis for believing these texts or those events to be revelatory of something beyond mere human understanding. What we have, in each case, is human understanding attempting to protect an area of absolute certainty from question or dispute. Of course, even that is unsuccessful, for every known revelation has had different interpretations, and dispute has reigned even at the centre of the traditions. Attempts are made by some religious institutions to outlaw dispute, and to define in clear and unambiguous terms the truth supposedly revealed. The Roman Catholic idea of the Magisterium is arguably, with some qualifications, one such attempt to create a pretended objectivity.
It should no longer be possible, in this day and age, when we have sources of such reliable information and systems of knowledge which not only describe in detail the fabric of the universe and the web of life, but can actually be put to use in improving the conditions of life for us all, except that this will only be possible in the long term only if we have the will to control things like the consumption of resources, and the steadily increasing population of the world which makes the former all but impossible. The fact that we know how to do it, is a staggering difference between knowledge before and knowledge after the scientific revolution of the last four centuries. It is interesting that it is religion, primarily, which opposes birth control, and the means necessary to control populations, the failure to do which could bring disaster, not only upon our own species, but upon the life with which we share the world. Yet two great religious systems, the Roman Catholic and the Muslim, refuse to countenance the control of population, and the freedom of women which would make this possible. Basing themselves on the almost unbelievable hubris of the religious mind, both Muslims and Roman Catholics (and Eastern Catholics as well in the Orthodox tradition), and many Protestant evangelical fundamentalists, believe that they are commanded by their god or gods (for how could we determine the identity of gods?) to multiply without controls of any kind, to populate the earth and subdue it. Many of them even go so far as to suggest that God would not have commanded this if we should have come thereby to any harm. The blindness as well as the hubris of religion knows no bound!
And yet, we are told, it is based on a word from God himself! What else do these gods command? So many many things, foolish, mad things as well things which are sane and good. Strange rituals of submission, times of prayer, positions for sex, rules about marriage, honour, subordination of women, condemnation of homosexuality, belief in other gods (whichever god you adhere to, your adherence is condemned by the adherents of some other god), apostacy, disbelief, blasphemy (loosely interpreted to mean insulting gods’ messengers or prophets or servants, holy books, buildings, geographical sites, etc. as well as gods’ names), a veritable caravanserai of prohibited and encouraged or commanded things. But if you were to ask one of the adherents of these different gods for some evidence that these things were either prohibited or commanded, they would immediately point you to something said or written by men (and perhaps a few women, though mostly religious texts have been written by men).
And of course it shows! For in holy texts women are almost uniformly disadvantaged and second listed. Religions are created by men, and many of their rules and prohibitions are used to control the lives of women. Women, sadly, many of them still not liberated from these male creations, and still believing that at the heart of these religious traditions a god has spoken to some man, who has, in turn, written down at god’s dictation or inspiration, are content to permit their lives and the lives of their children to be moulded and perverted by something entirely made up by men. Doubtless, at the heart of these traditions there are experiences of real value, experiences which, for some, are transformative and compelling, but they nevertheless have the effect of binding everyone, or nearly everyone who comes into contact with them. There are good evolutionary and psychological/neurological explanations for the powerful binding effect of religious stories and their promises, but there is nowhere a satisfactory demonstration that any of these complex cultural products originate with a god or gods, no sign or demonstration that these are genuine revelations of the mind and purposes and will of a god. This is no longer an acceptable move in the argumentative game. Whenever anyone tries to tell us, as Bob Wheeler does in the portion of a comment with which I began, that there is a law of God to which we must pay attention or pay the price, the first thing that must be shown is that a god established these laws, and that they can be reliably and confidently traced to that god’s dictation. Otherwise, it is as if nothing more has been said than that these are rules which are observed and commended by the person who attributes them to his god. To which the only reasonable answer is: “Okay, now what?”
My last comment in the other thread is apropos here, but I won’t repeat it.
The issue is quite simple.
First, prove that god exists. And don’t try the presuppositionalist dodge. You have to show that any god exists. This is a tough proposition.
I’ve been asking for years for theists to meet a single primary challenge. Describe what god is. Not what it does. What it is. What is the nature of the thing? And how do you know what you’re saying is true?
Omni-attributes are meaningless. Vague woo-filled pronouncements of “ground of all being” and “love” are worse than meaningless — they’re tripe.
No. I want to know what god is. What is its ontology, to use the fancy word. And for you to prove it with enough evidence that a reasonable skeptic can only agree with you.
No theist, sophisticate theologian, preacher, or mindless god-bot has been up to that simple challenge. Describe what god is made of. Then we can start.
After that, you have to prove that the god you’ve demonstrated is your god.
Each and every god that is or has ever been worshiped relies on precisely the same proof of its existence. Revelation. Ra, Zeus, Quetzalcoatl, Ea, Osiris, Brahma, Allah, Yahweh. All of them and all the others, too.
Not one of them has been proven to be anything other than the imaginary friend of a people who didn’t understand where the weather came from. Created from whole cloth by the smart guys who figured out that a gig burning entrails in the temple was a hell of a lot easier than working in the fields or tending the goats.
But I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Start at the beginning. What is god’s ontology? And how do you know what you say is true? And how can I check your work?
Unless you can to that, everything else is bloviating. Another fancy word.
This is a baseless claim, as I said in a recent comment, and it is time to address it straight on, because this claim is at the root of most of the evil of which religion is a source — an amount that is not small.
It is indeed a whole lot of bare-faced lies. And told with all of the confidence and assurance of con-men and drug addicts. Seems that society has been far too tolerant of that for far too long and which should be responding more frequently with resounding cries of “horse feathers” – and other more pungent or pointed characterizations.
Considering all these things with some dispassion, the suggestion that any of these supposedly sacred texts and traditions contain revelations from a god is simply ludicrous, and the claim should stop being made.
Certainly rather ridiculous and rather surprising, although maybe not, that so few of the religious are prepared to deal with the current and historical record of alternate beliefs about the nature of god – even when directly challenged to do so; I’ve generally found that they tend to fold their tents and steal off in to the night in that case.
The blindness as well as the hubris of religion knows no bound!
Staggering, isn’t it? And highly problematic. If it were only the religious who might be chastised by the “flying fickle finger of fate” (karma) for that “sin” then one might be able to ignore them. But unfortunately that is, obviously, anything but the case. Reminds me of a quote from I believe a history titled “Israel” (Sir Martin Gilbert) regarding the assassination of an Israeli politician:
Herzog spoke angrily of the religious fanatics. “If the murder of such a man [Rabin], of a Prime Minister, does not set the very fibres of our national being atremble, if it does not shock us to our very foundations; if we have not vomited out the curse, and uprooted the cancer, and not done away with that group of insane zealots – that badge of dishonour for our people – we are, God forbid, in danger of seeing this nightmare recur. …. The fires of destruction are burning at the edge of the camp. If we do not together, hasten to extinguish them, they will destroy our entire house. [p599].
BTW: To forestall the obvious comebacks from those whose reading comprehension is poor.
None of Aquinas’ “Five Ways” describes what god is.
None of the other arguments for the existence of god describe what god is, either. (None of them are proof of anything anyway. Because, as the good Catholics at aquinas.org point out, arguments are not proof because they can be argued.)
I want to know what god is made of. Simple. We know it’s not made of protons, neutrons, electrons. Cuz that would be matter (the Higgs boson, too). And nobody is dense enough to claim god is a corporeal entity.
We know it’s not made of energy; because there is no such thing as energy disassociated with matter. Matter is required for the production of energy. E=mc^2 — the equation does not work in reverse (it’s not “normal” math).
So. What is it? And how do you know?
Kevin (#3),
We know it’s not made of energy; because there is no such thing as energy disassociated with matter.
While I generally agree with your other points, on that one, to quibble at little, I have to say, not as far as I know. Seems that photons are entirely massless, although that is apparently still “an experimental question”.
I can’t help think of this song by Peggy Lee, Is That All There Is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe9kKf7SHco
That’s my feelings on Christian theology.
Steersman: Quite right, except that photons are produced by the action of electrons moving from a higher energy state to a lower state. So, without the electrons, no photons. That’s what I meant by can’t be disassociated. And photons are “natural” in any event. We can measure them, predict their paths, etc — even if they do act weird (double-slit experiments).
At least that’s my understanding from “The Quantum World”. Maybe a bit heavy for airplane reading, but I got through just about all of it on a cross-country trip.
In short, if god is photons, then there has to be an electron source.
Somehow, reading between the lines–and maybe some of the lines, too–I get the impression that Eric doesn’t particularly like religion. Can I be right? Now, what’s not to like about religion? It enables people to live in a dreamworld where kind daddies in the sky will protect them from bad things, will tell them how to live so they don’t have to go to the trouble of trying to figure out hard things by themselves, and–get this, what a deal!– will make sure that they will be happy forever after. Where can I sign up?
I don’t understand theists– an omnipotent god would have no one to blame but himself if something disappoints him, right? Especially if he was omniscient and knew he’d be disappointed in advance.
articulett (#8),
I don’t understand theists– an omnipotent god would have no one to blame but himself if something disappoints him, right?
Logic and reason really isn’t their strongest suit – otherwise they would have twigged to the fact, as Eric suggested, that other true believers have entirely different conceptions of god and different creeds and dogma: they can’t all be right.
And your scenario is equally problematic – one would think it likely to have induced some serious “cognitive dissonance” at best if not some Norman Bates type psychoses ….
Could an omnipotent God choose to forget what he knows? Just a thought.
I think people are missing the point, that Bob Wheeler’s lament (or tantrum?) is not about reason but about faith. We just can’t go on (he says) ignoring God’s law, because by implication not following God means ‘everything is permitted’, and our own evil rules the world.
Notice I said faith, not morality. And what is faith other than an appeal to authority, or obedience, or in other words, everything that is anti-democratic. It’s why Catholicism and Islam are so dangerous to democracy, because faith isn’t up for discussion, reasoned ethics or discussion is irrelevant. Conversation is at an end.
If religious faith goes beyond itself into the political sphere, and then rules over our modern democratic sensibilities and decision making, then any such authoritarian evils can be justified. You just can’t go on, reasonably, discussing ethics, and then appeal to faith.
And so Bob Wheeler’s appeal is fully ironic and lacking in wisdom, as we know fully and historically that appealing to scriptures and faith in the political realm leads to all kinds of evil. It is he who lacks moral wisdom.
If Bob Wheeler sees evil in the world, and yes it exists as an activity, then why does he not see the evils of his own religion? The covering up of child abuse, the persecution of scapegoats, such as Jews, homosexuals, women and others? All these evils are made on the appeal to authority and faith. Are not all these evils also selfish?
articulett,
Only if that God then made it so that no one could ever disappoint Him, which would mean making it impossible for them to ever choose differently than He would. Giving the ability to choose differently than God would want for us allows disappointment, but I doubt most of us would consider that sort of existence better. And you can still be disappointed in someone even if you know that they are going to disappoint you, so that’s really meaningless here.
Steersman,
Who says they/we haven’t? It’s just not all that important considering that in, well, every field we have the exact same situation and all the theories can’t be right … and that’s not even getting into arguments that they can indeed all be right.
verbose: what kind of relativistic horseshit is that? All theories can indeed all be right? You’re saying that the theory of intelligent falling is right as well as the theory of gravity.
Loosen your shoes, your brain seems to have fallen to your feet.
Frankly, faith is the dirtiest word in the English language. If there were one single shred of evidence in favor of anyone’s brand of “faith”, then faith would indeed be considered a sin.
Faith creates monsters who promote hatred of others merely because they worship differently from you. Even the same god.
Faith creates monsters who revel in disgusting bigotry against people merely because they’re different from social norms described 2000 years ago by primitives who had to wipe their butts with their left hand and who thought shellfish were yucky.
Faith creates monsters who crash airplanes into buildings in service of their deity.
Faith creates monsters who pray their children to death rather than get them the insulin they need or a $4 course of antibiotics.
Faith is the worst thing someone can have. Faith is not a thing to be admired. It’s a thing to be fought tooth-and-nail.
Besides which, Bob and those of his ilk don’t really have “faith”. They have self-centered narcissism wrapped in a cloak of blue-nosed self-righteousness. Their god always agrees with them and no one else. He’s a god of complete love who is going to come down and kick some ass one of these days.
“Faith”. Bleh.
That part referred specifically to all the theories about GOD that you claim can’t be right, despite the fact that some argue that yes, in an interesting sense they CAN all be right. I didn’t want to get into that at all, but did not in any way mean to imply that all theories always can all be right, which is of course absurd … but you could have asked me to CLARIFY what I meant before getting into insults and declaring that you knew what I was saying.
“Only if that God then made it so that no one could ever disappoint Him, which would mean making it impossible for them to ever choose differently than He would. Giving the ability to choose differently than God would want for us allows disappointment, but I doubt most of us would consider that sort of existence better.”
Which is why heaven is a dumb idea – be careful what you wish for.
Even with clarification, it’s still relativistic horseshit.
And not believed in any sense by 99.9999999999999999999999% of those who have any sort of “belief” in a god concept. Every person thinks their god is the correct one and everyone else’s god is crap. And everyone who believes in a god concept thinks the theory of no-god is crap. How can a god concept be both true and not true?
Pure unadulterated mental mush.
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.” — Thomas Jefferson.
The reason that faith leads to so many evils is because most people have replaced worship of god with worship of faith in god. Faith itself is seen as a virtue, and when that happens, this necessitates that self-deception is a virtue.
Kevin,
Which, then, is why you focused entirely on that thing that I explicitly put aside and ignored the actual thrust of my entire comment, right?
If you haven’t already seen this video by Peter Boghossian it’s well worth making the time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIaPXtZpzBw
Faith = Pretending to know things you don’t .
I for one am eagerly anticipating some “thrust” in your comments.
I have yet to divine what on earth you are arguing for or against.
Do you even comprehend your own posts?
You first said that all theories are equally right. Then you said some argue that all theories about god are equally right. Then you said that of course you didn’t mean to say all theories are right — but you didn’t take back what you said about all theories about god being equally right.
Seriously. Shorter sentences might help you make sense of your own arguments.
Kevin,
And what I said FIRST was:
So, my FIRST statement said flat-out that the “all the theories can’t be right” argument wasn’t an issue — and so not a demonstration of poor logic — because all fields have that all the time. I THEN went on to say this:
Kevin,
Which was … what? Nothing more than “There are arguments over that that I’m not getting into”. Which, to make things clear to you, obviously doesn’t say anything about what _I_ actually believe or argue.
Verbose Stoic (#21),
And what I said FIRST was:
It’s just not all that important considering that in, well, every field we have the exact same situation and all the theories can’t be right …
So, my FIRST statement said flat-out that the “all the theories can’t be right” argument wasn’t an issue …
Looks to me like a serious case of comparing apples and oranges and a somewhat disingenuous attempt at misdirection.
Obviously there are competing theories in various sciences – Newtonian and relativistic physics; quantum mechanics and relativity; string theory and quantum-loop gravity; gene-centric and phenotype-centric theories of evolution; among many others. But each of those ones is generally built on solid facts and has its own range of applicability, an area where it makes valid and correct, if limited, predictions about reality, about nature, which we can use to tailor our environments to our needs. However, in the “field” of “theories” about the “nature” of god – the supernatural realm – that is obviously anything but the case.
In addition, maybe you can explain to me, as no Muslim and no Christian has ever really seriously addressed that question, how it would be possible for Jesus to be both literally the son of god and an integral part of the Trinity – in the view of most but not all Christians – and, in the view of some 90% of all Muslims, that he was only a prophet and simply a mortal. Not to mention how either of those “theories” has actually made any credible predictions borne out by subsequent observations and has any beneficial consequences – apart from the dubious benefits of setting the adherents of those dogmas at each others’ throats.
I usually only lurk at blog, but then and again the physicist in me flinches so badly that he has to lash out: Kevin said this:
Matter is required for the production of energy. E=mc^2 — the equation does not work in reverse (it’s not “normal” math).
Well, it does indeed work in reverse. Energy is mass, and mass is energy. Energy cannot exist without mass, nor mass without energy. Any kind of energy stored anywhere (be it an electric field, the bonds of molecules, the excitation of vacuum field, or anything else) will create a gravitational pull equivalent to that of a certain mass (given by E = mc²). Since our only criterion for mass is “something that pulls other masses” (or “something that has inertia”, which has always been the same hitherto), there is no difference between that energy in a field and a “real” mass. Photons, though possessing no rest mass, are always in motion (at the speed of light), and therefore possess kinetic energy, which is equivalent again to mass. Shoot light at a light-weight reflecting surface suspended in a vacuum by a thread, and you will see it recoiling, as if impacted by something massive, which can only be a beam of photons.
Somewhat more on topic, I believe there is nothing to add on the topic of revelation to that what Eric wrote. Revelation is not a valid argument, as it is indistinguishable from hallucination/wishful thinking or lying. There is no way to see any claimed revelation as only tangibly related to the real world without supporting evidence. And, as it stands, there is none to be found for any of the major religious claims.
Well, it is indeed an honor to be identified as the lead-off batter for the other team, and judging from the comments that have already been left on this post, it appears that my reputation has gone before me.
There is a very obvious and simple reason for believing in the existence of God: matter does not create itself. Atheism is compelled to believe that matter created itself, that order spontaneously arose out of chaos, that life appeared from non-life, and that intelligence arose from irrationality, all of this in contradiction to the know laws of genetics. No one has observed macroevolution directly, no one has reproduced it in a laboratory, and yet we are told it is a proven fact! Man is just an animal, and no special dignity pertains to his person. We live a meaningless existence in an amoral and irrational universe, followed by the cold grave. Atheism gave rise to modern totalitarianism. Frankly nothing in the history of western thought has been more destructive than atheism.
That brings us to the question, how do I know that the Bible is God’s inspired word, and not some other book, such as the Koran? In a previous comment on this blog I cited in passing a paragraph from the Westminster Confession of Faith which I think summarizes the matter well. It mentions the following factors:
1. “the testimony of the Church” – the canon of Scripture was the result of patristic testimony as to the origin and usefulness of the inspired writings.
2. “the heavenliness of the matter” – its exalted concept of the one, true God, and the loftiness of its ethics
3. “the efficacy of the doctrine” – countless Christians down through the centuries can testify to the usefulness of its doctrine for life
4. “the majesty of the style” – it is not crass, crude or vulgar. It does, of course, mention the sordid – it could not be a commentary on human life if it did not, but it does not make an appeal to our prurient interests with vivid descriptions of sex and gore.
5. “the consent of all the parts” – if we accept the New Testament as the fulfillment of the Old (more than just an animal sacrifice is needed to deal with the problem of human sin and guilt) then there is a remarkable unity than runs through the whole, in spite of having been written by multiple authors in three different languages over a span of more than a thousand years.
6. “the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God)” — one of the curious things about the Bible is that all of its leading human characters were moral failures. It does not present a flattering view of human nature at all.
7. “the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation” – Eric wanted to know what religious believers of different traditions can say to each other. Here is what I actually said to a Muslim who was distributing literature outside of a Franklin Graham crusade: the problem with Islam is that it does not have a Savior leaving man in a hopeless situation. This latter point is crucial for the discussion. Only Christianity has its distinctive theology of sin and redemption. Every other religion is based on human merit and effort. If you think you are basically a good person, and you would rather take your chances on your own merit, then quite frankly, Christianity is not for you. But if you can read the Sermon on the Mount, and look honestly at your own heart, and see yourself as God sees you, no other religion can help you.
But then the Confession qualifies all of that somewhat by saying, “”yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.” This is the sort of thing where, if you have never had the experience, you are not likely to think that it is real. But for those who have had it, such as Martin Luther or John Wesley, the impression is undeniable.
Now I realize that some or all of the things mentioned above can be said about other sacred books as well, and in the final analysis it is going to come down to a matter of personal conviction. There are certain issues about life that all of us must face as human beings: does God exist? Is there life after death? Is there a real difference between good and evil? And each individual will have to answer these questions for his or herself. But in my own case, when I compare the Bible with the Koran, the Gnostic Gospels, or the Book of Mormon, I can see a definite difference. (My impression of the Koran is the same as Eric’s — it is “the entirely numbing repetition of the fate that awaits those who will not submit to Mohammed’s god”) There is something different about the Bible, something that lifts it above the ordinary run of human literature. And it has proven it usefulness to me countless times before. Why do I believe it? “Thy word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light on my path” (Psalm 119:105). I believe the Bible for the same reason I wear glasses — it enables me to see.
Orwell wins!
@Bob: “There is a very obvious and simple reason for believing in the existence of God: matter does not create itself.”
And you know this, how? You know, that is, that in the 4.5 billion-year history of the universe, across trillions of cubic light years of space, over trillions, possibly quadrillions, of stars and planets and asteroids and comets and supernovas, and probably dozens of other weird and wonderful kinds of astral bodies that we haven’t encountered yet — that NOT ONCE in that whole enormous playing-field over that whole enormous period of time, on any single occasion, did matter create itself?
And you know this based on your existence of a few decades as a casual observer within a few miles of the surface of a single planet in a remote corner of the cosmos.
That’s quite a stretch — care to tell us how you do it?
Matter is created and destroyed all the time in high energy collisions, or as virtual particles, So Wheeler demonstrates enormous ignorance of modern physics, whether willful or not.
But that doesn’t answer Eric’s original post.
Bob…. Here are your reasons, one after the other, as you give them above (#27):
This is all special pleading, and you should be able to see that.
1. The testimony of the church is not sufficient to justify a claimed revelation. After all, a sufficient reply is: “They would say that, wouldn’t they?”
2. Even if we were to suppose that the biblical conception of god is lofty, how does this prove that the terms in which this is set forth is a revelation of such a god?
3. The usefulness of its doctrine for life — if indeed true, which I doubt — does not show that the doctrine itself emanates from a god.
4. Muslims make a similar claim for the Qu’ran. But how does style prove revelation? And if the Song of Songs does not make an appeal to your prurient interests, perhaps you’ve been reading it through a filter.
5. The consent of the parts. You dare to make this claim despite the manifest errors and inconsistencies in the Bible! The unity you propose is one imposed on the text from outside. It is a unity of interpretation, but of course there are many others.
6. The scope of the whole. Claiming that it presents human beings as fallible does not, in itself, give all glory to a god. Human beings are finite and fallible. So?
7. How do you know it is a “full” discovery, or that it is the “only” way of man’s salvation?
Certainly, Bob, you may be convinced of all these things. If you and others weren’t, there would be no Christianity, but it doesn’t serve to show that these things are true, only that you believe them. And suggesting that we can only know this by becoming Christians does not give us a reason to become so. Indeed, it is a reason not to.
In order to show that there is a revelation, you need more than proof that there is a god. You need to show that the words of the Bible, if not dictated, were at least inspired by such a being. But how could you possibly do this, basing yourself entirely on reasons internal to the Bible itself, or to the institution that makes such claims for it? And please do not forget that, while he does not repeat it so numbingly as the Qu’ran, Jesus speaks of the fire that never goes out and the worm that never dies. The Christian doctrine of hell is a horror equal to the hell of Muslims. As Don Cupitt says in his book The Old Creed and the New:
He also points out that:
Sadly, this concern is very evident in your own attempt to support the Christian claim to revealed truth. Not one of your reasons is good enough, and together they only make case for someone who is already convinced, on other grounds. It’s not enough on which to base a lifetime’s commitment.
I think Bob is ringing the same bell that’s been rung for thousands of years without realising there’s no clapper in it.
I have not bothered to wallow in apologetic comment treads for quite a while, but I see I have missed out on very little. Do a search on “arguments from ignorance” before engaging in apologetics here. Good grief. The repetitive use of the same logical fallacy should tell you something.
clod (#32),
I think Bob is ringing the same bell that’s been rung for thousands of years without realizing there’s no clapper in it.
Ah, yes; another clapper caper. Seems to me to be a bunch of spurious claims from the clay brained cloistered kleptomaniacs in the clip joint they call the Vatican …
Bob Wheeler (#27)
… it appears that my reputation has gone before me.
Seems to me to be more like the reputation of your fellow-travelers, mostly creationists and other assorted dogmatic literalists.
No one has observed macroevolution directly; no one has reproduced it in a laboratory …
What a pile of horse feathers. Seems to be all sorts of evidence for it:
Contrary to this belief among the anti-evolution movement proponents, evolution of life forms beyond the species level (“macroevolution”, i.e. speciation in a specific case) has indeed been observed multiple times under both controlled laboratory conditions and in nature.
Your further comment:
This is the sort of thing where, if you have never had the experience, you are not likely to think that it is real. But for those who have had it, such as Martin Luther or John Wesley, the impression is undeniable.
People are prone to all sorts of outright hallucinations whose impressions are, quite likely, equally undeniable, or deniable only with some effort – an interesting case being the Nobel Laureate John Nash who was profiled in the movie A Beautiful Mind. But such “impressions” are no guarantee of any underlying reality – apart from the biochemical processes that drive or manifest thought and various cognitive illusions and delusions.
I believe the Bible for the same reason I wear glasses — it enables me to see.
Believing something to be true hardly means that it is necessarily true, that it follows as a direct consequence of the act of believing – if that were the case then the world would be the center of the universe and flat: if wishes were horses then beggars would ride.
And I fail to see how the glasses analogy holds much water; one might equally equate such beliefs to the blinders on horses: certainly focuses their attention on one way ahead – which is fine if one is prepared to uncritically accept someone else dictating and controlling that direction. And which gives every indication of being over a cliff.
Bob: I’ll keep sentences short for your benefit.
Every other church claims revelation, too. Muslims, Hindi, Jains…all of them. The Catholics claim revelation and dismiss Protestants who claim revelation. And vice versa. Each of them consigns every other religion to hell and reserves heaven for its adherents only.
You can’t possibly know that you’ve chosen the right religion, Bob. Can’t possibly know. And so, according to the laws of statistics, your changes at having chosen the correct one is about 1 in 30,000 or so. Not great odds, Bob.
But at least you can make yourself feel superior.
You do realize that the Muslim claims that a savior is not needed, right? Only submission to Allah is required to get to heaven. So your challenge to the Muslim is less than meaningless nonsense to him.
To me, it’s simpler. You’re using “hope” as a code word. You “hope” there is an after-death experience. You “hope” that your after-death experience will be pleasant. You “hope” that you’ve chosen the correct path to reach a pleasant after-death experience.
Sorry. There is no after-death experience. When you die, you decompose. That’s it. No heaven, no hell, no judgment, no harps, no nothing. No “hope”, Bob. (And I say that in full knowledge that you’ll misunderstand and call me a nihilist. I’m not. I’m referring specifically to your “hope” there is an after-death.)
That’s all fiction. Made up stuff to keep scare the goatherder’s kids into keeping quiet at night.
It’s nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense.
You haven’t proved god exists, Bob. Not even in the slightest. A confession of “faith” cannot do that. By definition, Bob. You do realize the difference between “evidence” and “faith”, right? No, I guess not.
The only reason I’m responding to you is because you’re trolling an atheist’s web site with the most unimaginably dull and vapid arguments, that I would consider it a breech of ethics to let you go unchallenged.
Sorry, smaller sentences. You’re not that important, Bob. You’re just here. And wrong.
Other questions for you, Bob.
1. Who says mankind needs a savior?
2. Savior from what? (Remember, no after-death, no judgment, no heaven, no hell. It’s meaningless twaddle to suggest otherwise.)
3. Why is a “savior” a requirement from an all-powerful god? Think about that one. You’re admitting that your god is not all-powerful. He can’t forgive without a sacrifice. What an incredible limitation to put on god.
4. Why would lack of a “savior” impede god in any way? Why could it possibly matter to god? Again, unless your god has a limitation on its power.
5. And why would an all-loving god consign the vast majority of its special creation to hell in the first place? Doesn’t sound very loving to me. Sounds like a sadistic jerk.
6. How does scapegoating your bad behavior onto an invisible, nonexistent goat (aka, Jesus) absolve you from responsibility for your behavior? Why would god let you skate into heaven like that? Isn’t heaven supposed to be for the good people?
Actually, no. You don’t have to be good to get into heaven. You know who’s supposed to be in heaven, Bob? Jeffrey Dahmer. Who died a Christian. Would a just god allow Dahmer into heaven, Bob? And send his victims to hell?
No, Bob. It’s all codswallop. Ghost stories made up to frighten the primitives into leaving the goats alone at night.
Christianity is an incoherent amoral philosophy at its core. One that has long-since passed its “Use By” date.
Kevin,
The problem with asking the Bobs of the world questions is that they will pretend to answer them while merely regurgitating their dogma.
They will dishonestly continue to use arguments that have been refuted time after time, perhaps taking their lead from Herr “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it” Goebbels.
Quite often they will play the hurt feelings card, conflating criticism of their ideas with a personal attack.
And typically they will sign with a profound sounding but utterly meaningless non sequitur from their favorite book of fairy tales.
It’s all depressingly formulaic and the more I encounter it the more I have come to the realization that organized religion is basically a day care center for adults that refuse to grow up.
Bob:
And yet you find it obvious and simple that your god creates itself?
Eric (#31)
How would you tell if a witness in a court trial is telling the truth, without appealing to reasons internal to the testimony itself or to the testimony of those who know him?
@Eric MacDonald In order to show that there is a revelation, you need more than proof that there is a god.
Eric, is it the case that inconvertible evidence for a god (I say evidence rather than proof as there is nothing believers love to do more than swallow their collective tails trying to “prove” there is a god) is a necessary precondition for any discussion on whether the holy book of choice was written by whatever invisible friends to which the believer happens to grovel ?
Would anybody raised in say a background of xtianity seriously accept the proposition that the Illiad was written by the greek pantheon without first establishing that amoral super-humans with all our virtues and vices (albeit magnified to past the point of caricature) actually resided on Olympus ?
What I wrote to my religious Facebook friends, “One of the best essays on the sad futility and grim poverty of religious ideas I ever read. Dare you to read the whole thing slowly, carefully and educate yourself a bit”. Thanks!
Bob (#40): The simple answer is that you can’t. Look at the multitude of trials in the US recently that have been overturned due to reviewing genetic evidence — even against the prior testimony of witnesses. Dean Buonomano’s book “Brain Bugs” has some excellent examples of this.
I find it interesting that this was the only point of Eric’s (#31) to which you responded. Does that mean that you’re conceding the rest to him?
Bob (40). What CR said. The problem with evidence given in court is that it is very often unreliable, especially if not corroborated by some independent source. We are not good either at observing or remembering, which is why eye-witness testimony is less reliable than is often thought. We cannot simply take someone’s word for it, unless there are independent reasons for believing that the witness was there, could have seen what he claims to have seen, has shown himself to be reliable in other cases, and the testimony is consistent with other independent testimony. And even then the guilty are acquitted and the innocent are punished. But to make claims to revelation of a god, that is, of something which cannot be witnessed, which is inconsistent with so many competing claims, each of which has a special interest in proving the truth of its claims, is prima facie evidence that the witness is not reliable.
Evidence, Bob. Evidence that comports with the statements made by the witness.
That’s what separates gossip from convictions.
Evidence.
You bring none. Just gossip.