2004-06-17 - 11:19 a.m. God 9 Atheism When your heart becomes closed to the idea of God something strange happens. The first thing is the feeling of isolation. The feeling that you are completely alone in the world. Fear. Fear is the sensation that dominates the lives of creatures. The sensation that keeps the lion from eating it�s tamer. The feeling that keeps the squirrel from eating the food you offer -- the sensation that makes a person go mad when they are afraid of looking under their bed. But in conquering the fear in our lives are typically our greatest triumphs: The exploration of the world, the sky, the ocean, or the scientists who infected themselves with AIDS in order to up the ante in their quest for a cure. When we overcome fear, our most base emotion that is truly when humans can be separated from animals. But I am afraid. I asked my friend, who I went to once before about this problem. I had talk to him before, but I suppose now I was ready to examine my suspicion. He grew up with me and believed in some things that I did, for a time. Maybe our stories were the same. �Can you remember when you first learned about God?� �I remember gold colored CCD books, and cups of wine, and bread,� he said. �I remember writing a story when I was 6 called �purple rain�. It went like this: �One day I woke up, and it was raining outside. The rain was purple. I went to my drawer and took out a crystal that Father Tim had given to me. You could talk to god with it. �God,� I asked, �Why is the rain purple today?� Suddenly I heard God�s voice fill my ears. �Because I was bored with normal rain,� God boomed. �Oh,� was all I could say.�� I thought for a moment about looking up at my image of God. That statue of the ballet dancer and felt that sense of wonder again in the pit of my stomach. �Seriously, that�s just about a word for word recapitulation of the story. Probably the first thing and the best thing I ever wrote about god.� I have always wondered about life and how funny it is that we all sink to that feeling. That desire that dream of God, and the wonder that he promises. It hurts so much to leave that place, and I get so afraid when I realize that I should. �Is there a single event --miracle or the like-- that caused you to believe in God?� �My faith used to be supported by the intensely religious feeling I would get when I would pray, go to church, etc.� he paused and I wondered if he felt like I did. �It�s the same feeling I get --roughly- when I watched Gandalf rally the troops in lord of the rings�a sort of patriotic, tribal, awesome feeling.� Was it that feeling. That natural feeling to connect to the humans. That feeling to connect with the mythos and the glory of the fantasy of life that kept God in our lives. Did we want to believe? �I don�t understand how to be thinking about this? I don�t know how I can examine something based on feelings. Sometimes I am scared, but I know I have to push through it. When I can trust my instincts, what can I trust?� �Your reason. It�s always back to reason.� �What do you mean?� �Explore not the emotions behind it, but the reasons behind it.� �Are you talking about when some one says �because God wills it� and how that�s not an explanation, just an excuse?� �If you mean, what do they mean when they offer that as an explanation of some phenomenon or other in the world. Like: �why is homosexuality wrong? Because god wills it�. I imagine they really do believe that God wills it. Literally.� He though for a moment. �But to me that�s completely uninformative; what I want to know are god�s reasons for willing it. Why does god will THAT, and not THIS? But once the religious person articulates god�s reasons for willing X and not Y, we don� t need to appeal to God anymore to explain the phenomenon: we can appeal to his reasons themselves, apart from god altogether. In that example: Homosexuals are bad because god wills it. Why? Because they are unclean and disgusting. Fine; now we can evaluate the claim that homosexuals are bad, not by appealing to �god�s will�, but by appealing to the purported claim that they are unclean and disgusting. Is that true? If it is true, does that make them bad? Etc. etc. When you think like that, it breaks down irrational reasons quickly.� �But can�t people just escape claims by saying �God works in mysterious ways.� �They can, but is that someone you would want to trust and follow? Doesn�t that leave room open for obvious manipulation?� �Yes. But we have choice and that�s something else. Why does Religion always focus on the idea God giving us free will? Do we really have free will if God has unlimited power?� �It�s not so much god�s power that causes a possible conflict, it�s his purported omniscience. If he knows everything, surely he knows what I am going to do; but if it is determined what I am going to do, then how could I do otherwise? If I can�t do otherwise, how can I have free will? I suppose religions insist upon our free will in order to guard against the following attitude: �I can�t change what I do, so I cannot be blamed for what I do. Blame only is justified when someone could have avoided doing the bad action.� Actually, there are some versions of Protestantism, I think, in which we don�t have free will. Calvinism? I think.� �So it�s a blame thing? That makes sense.� �Why did you want to talk to me about this today?� I had to confess. I had been avoiding my question. But I needed to ask it. I wanted it to be answered, and hopefully have someone else shed some light on it. �Did man create God? If we did, why did we? Why did we need God? If we didn�t then who created God? What was there before God?� �Yes I think we did create him. You suspicion is right. My hunch is that having a religious impulse is either a side effect of being tribal creatures, which is itself conducive to reproductive success; or having this impulse is itself directly reproductively advantageous.� He finished with a slightly confused look on my face. �This is probably due to people with religious beliefs usually living longer, or being less afraid of death, etc.; Perhaps they are happier; they live longer and so leave more offspring, etc.�back in the days of natural selection, mind you.� �I think it would make me happier. But now that I have examined this question, why do I feel so empty. So sad?� �I don�t know.� �Why is it just me? Why don?t people ever talk about religion? Most people report when they feel religion is private and they usually don?t wish to discuss it? Often times it is because they feel questioning religion is invasive. But its so important and yet people have a hard time reading about it or asking questions about it. Why would questioning something you believe in be invasive? � �I don�t think that they are invasive�I enjoy them. I think people�s aversion to discussing religion is just another manifestation of the American public�s distaste for intellectual debate and discussion in general. We don�t have the intellectual culture that, say, France does, where philosophers are like rock stars, believe it or not. I think our culture suffers for it. People don�t know how to argue, how to think, what to believe, what counts as good reasons for believing something, etc. My students get very defensive when I attack their religious views. I usually keep the gloves on, though. Only rarely do I unleash the full assault. But when I do, they have no response; they haven�t thought about these things critically; they don�t have good grounds for their beliefs.� �But I don�t understand why they cling to it so much then?� �Now, there are some religious people with wonderful arguments to bolster their beliefs. Many of my fellow grad students are catholic.� He paused and looked away, �Always catholic, never protestant; I wonder why?� Anyway, I respect them, and I would never accuse them of naivet�, or of being stupid, etc. But most people believe the things they do in ALL domains (politics, history, religion, morals, etc) without having proper grounds for those beliefs. I am no different�and no one can think critically about all of their beliefs. You have to start somewhere, after all, and there is no �first philosophy�. But still, you ought to do it when you can, and most people are particularly uncritical when it comes to religion. �Does that leave me not believing in God?� �No, what it means is that you have to make sure you understand what you believe in and that you have a reason for it. I myself am not an Atheist. I have heard to many arguments to be that definitive.� | |||||||||||
