Thomas and John :: Atheism verses Theism
Several weeks back my brother Thomas and I had a discussion on Christianity / belief in God vs. Atheism. As a result of that discussion I sent him these two sermons which I felt touched on the subject.
Be the News https://subspla.sh/z858wp6
Winning https://subspla.sh/h9f3dr5
This spawned a phone text discussion between us that began to get rather involved. So, we agreed to take the discussion to this blog. So, below is our first several discussion points. We’ll see where we take it from here.
Thomas’ response to the above sermons was as follows…
My question from an early age, as a teenager, was more about did it make sense. Did it make intellectual, empirical, natural sense? It never made sense to me and I wrestled with it until I was about 21 when I realized that there was no such thing as god or the supernatural. However I kept that secret for many years because I knew it would be hurtful to family members, especially mom and dad. I would say from the earliest point that I had the capacity to think critically, I had my doubts. So to answer your question, it has more to do with is it true, although I'm not sure I ever fully thought it was true in the first place.
John responded…
Okay Thomas about your text. Here are some thoughts.
Item number 1. I sort of swing back and forth on this but basically I think that the arguments for and against God and or the supernatural are ALMOST equally credible or incredible. That is, on any give day I could be open to / convinced of either position. For many years I was a non-believer. I now am firmly in the believer camp and expect to stay there for the rest of my life. However, because a strong case can be made either way, discussion on these topics should come from a perspective of significant humility. I confess that I have not always been humble on these subjects but hopefully that is a thing of the past. Frankly, I feel all who take on these topics should present them with humility and in my mind, a person becomes less credible when they come across in an arrogant manner. My perspective is that if you are arrogant or rude in your presentation of your belief in these subjects it probably means you really don't know what you are talking about regardless of the view. As a side note, this is why I don't have much time for Richard Dawkins and folks of his ilk. Folks like John Grey exhibit a lot more of what I feel is the appropriate humility on these subjects and much more worth reading.
Item number 2. I would like to bring you back into the fold of the believers. Although, since you have been rambling along for so long outside of the fold, I'm thinking that is unlikely. That being said, if you don't mind, I would like to engage you on these subjects as 1) I find the subjects interesting 2) I might learn some things and 3) I might sharpen my own thinking. And who knows you might change your mind and discover and enjoy the benefits of becoming a Theist.
Item number 3. "Did it make intellectual, empirical, natural sense." By this I take it that you have drawn the conclusion that the Christian narrative, the life and events of Christ's life and the meaning ascribed to that life and those events do not make sense. Assuming that I have that correct, would you mind just a little expanding on that. Maybe one or two things on the intellectual aspect, the empirical aspect and the natural aspect?
Item number 4. What do you think are your top two reasons for feeling there is not such a thing as god or the supernatural? I am particularly interested in your thought on the supernatural. I have been reading a very little bit on Indian thinking and they have a concept of Atman which is kind of an idea of the soul or the self. This seems to be sniffing around in the neighborhood of the supernatural but maybe not as overt as Christianity. Are you open to things like this?
Thomas responded…
Item 1 response. At this stage in my life, there is really no vacillation. If anything, time and reading and thinking have solidified my position. And I take great comfort and peace in that after my life, there is nothing, and that I'm an infinitesimal speck in a vast and expanding universe. Not so long ago in the earth's history, humans did not even exist, and more than likely we will cease to exist again in the far future. Strangely, I find that meaningful. I also find what science continues to discover much more fascinating and satisfying to questions of meaning and purpose than religion.
Having said that, I agree with your take on being humble about these things. I still think the moral and communal elements of religion and Christianity are worthwhile and good. I would say I follow Jesus moral teaching of love and the Golden rule. (Aside, I saw a documentary on Nietzsche recently who believed Christ’s teaching thwarted individual human potential because of emphasis on meekness and humility. I don't think so, I think Jesus’ message is about connecting and more specifically about connecting with those who are different or deemed lesser. I ascribe to what Emerson said "only connect". Evolution has made humans into connection junkies. We crave and need and require constant connections, whether to god or Jesus or family or work or Hawkeye football.)
Anyway, back to following Jesus’ teaching. It's difficult to simply abandon what you grew up with. I still listen to the old hymns and like to hear sermons and get a lot out of it. I find a lot of meaning in the symbol of Christ's sacrifice. An atonement for all the horrible things we humans do to each other. And that no one is beyond redemption, as in they are worthwhile in being rescued. This is all on a secular plane for me. I have no problem with people believing in god and such. It provides connection and meaning which we all need. And that is nothing to sneeze at. The only issue I have is when it spills into hatred and violence against those who don't believe the same thing. That goes for all religions. But I don't know that that's unavoidable. We are hardwired to group identity and to threats to that identity, i.e. the rise of nationalism and populism.
Ok, I'll conclude for now, even though I haven't addressed some of your other questions. But I will!
John responded…
Noting the reference you made to hymns. Verna and I found this and enjoy listening to it. Thought you might also.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCJeI78J1ho&t=101s
Thomas said… “I take great comfort and peace in that after my life, there is nothing, and that I'm an infinitesimal speck in a vast and expanding universe.” Can you expand on why this gives you comfort?
Thomas said…“I also find what science continues to discover much more fascinating and satisfying to questions of meaning and purpose than religion.”
Can you give a few examples / specifics of meaning and purpose that you draw from science and scientific discovery?
Thomas said… “I think Jesus’ message is about connecting and more specifically about connecting with those who are different or deemed lesser.” I totally agree that this is a huge part of Jesus’ teaching and ministry. One could argue that the history the church has been forgetting this core teaching and then a sub group realizing this error and attempting to reform the church back to this core.
Great job of working the Hawkeyes in the discussion. It makes your perspective more compelling.
Thomas said… “I find a lot of meaning in the symbol of Christ's sacrifice. An atonement for all the horrible things we humans do to each other. And that no one is beyond redemption, as in they are worthwhile in being rescued.” True that. Well said.
Thomas said… “The only issue I have is when it spills into hatred and violence against those who don't believe the same thing.” Agreed. This is a huge problem.
Thomas said… “We are hardwired to group identity and to threats to that identity, i.e. the rise of nationalism and populism.”
A few thoughts on this. WARNING: This involves some rather meandering digressions but I will eventually get back to the question at hand.
Everyone seems to think that populism is a bad thing. Almost no one defines the term. So, I think it is usually used to mean; “Beliefs that I (the person using it) think are dumb and bad though many others seem to like them.” I did recently heard someone (Demetri Kofinas) define it as (and I hope I am capturing the spirit of what he said) when leaders appeal directly to the populace when setting policy or something along those lines. I assume that this is not far from the intent of the term and I have a couple thoughts on that.
1-This seems to be a good thing for a society that is supposed to be based on democracy.
2-The founding fathers and many thinkers have been concerned that a weakness of democracy is the risk of turning it into tyranny of the majority. This is a fair point and probably at the core of why people don’t like populism.
3-That being said, part to the genius of our system of government is that at some point the leaders have to answer to the people in mass. This is also in place to avoid the risk of the emergence of a tyrant.
4-So, it’s bad for the polity if leaders appeal too much to the people and it is bad for the polity if they don’t answer enough to the people.
5-So, to me it seems that people use the term populism when they think leaders have swung too far towards the error of over appealing to the people. This can only be a reflection of that individual’s personal perspective on how much leadership should be guided by themselves and their “inner circle” (aka “the elite”) and how much they should be guided by the population at large.
6-Your thoughts on the term populism are welcome.
7-This is very much a side bar from the main subject but question that has puzzled me for some time.
Identity:
The fact that humans tend to connect with / identify with various groups helps and has helped them survive and thrive. When collaboration is required among large numbers, identity/connection serves to simplify the process for we humans and helps us overcome the limits on our cognitive processing ability.
The down side, as you note, is when I begin to feel it is acceptable or correct to work from one set of values when interacting with individuals that I perceive to be in my identity group and I work from different, lower, set of values when I interact with an individual I perceive to be from a different identify group.
In the pre-modern / pre-historical past this might have been a necessary evil for survival.
For example. If a tribe (Tribe A) has limited technology to extract value from the immediate environment (things like food, the development of tools, materials for shelter, etc.), another tribe (tribe B) in the area could threaten the very existence of the individuals in tribe A. Therefore it would be very easy, even sensible and pragmatic, to develop a rationale of hate and work toward total destruction of the “other” tribe. That might ensure the survival of tribe A. That propensity, in that case, would be a necessary built in survival tool.
However, I’m not completely certain that it is true that fight and destroy first was the best survival tactic. It could be that always collaborating on problem solving, innovation, and technology (as opposed to fighting others for limited resources) in order that that all humans in an area are likely to thrive could generally be the best strategy for survival in most if not all cases. And if most / all humans from the beginning had started exercising that strategy rather than taking antagonistic positions with other groups who knows, maybe we would have our flying cars and would have already solved global warming. It is almost impossible to know that. And for those of us who have survived and exist now it is almost certain that at some point in our ancestral past our ancestors used hate as a very successful survival strategy.
I think the story line of Jesus / Christianity would ALWAYS be collaborate. You might end up getting killed by the other group if they took the position of defend and attack rather than collaborate but it would be a sacrifice blessed by God in eternity and perhaps move the human condition forward in the here and now by setting an example of collaboration for others to adopt and implement. Unfortunately, this would happen in your absence. In almost all cases the God of the New Testament seems to guide to collaboration and away from hate.
Now to get more back to the point. Why should one believe or not believe in God? Or what are the reasons to believe there is a God verses not a God?
1-Do you believe that believing in God has a tendency to lead more quickly / directly to destructive group identity issues and hatred of others or do you feel it is just part of the human condition regardless of ones belief in God or not?
2-If you believe that God believers are more likely to be haters, do you feel that this is an actually argument against the likely existence of God?
How does all this fit into whether we should or should not believe in God?
61 comments:
I will address the last issues you stated about god and hatred first and then circle back to other things you mentioned. I don’t think believing in god or religion leads more quickly or directly to hatred or destructive group identity. Group identity and fear of the Other is hardwired into our biology from millions of years of evolution. A human being alone is a rather feeble creature, but working together within a group becomes arguably the most dominate creature. A single human‘s survival is dependent and contingent on being in a group. One could argue that humans only exist as a group. They only exist in a social context comprised of their kin, group, tribe, nation, which is further comprised of traditions, rituals, mythologies, culture and religion. Any threat to that could be perceived as a threat to one’s very existence. That threat becomes a source of hatred, and that hatred is used to dehumanized the threat to make it easier and more rational to eliminate. I would argue that religion is only a vehicle in which humans express this basic impulse and religion itself does not foment hatred any more than anything else. Why has there been so much hatred and violence against blacks in American history? Most blacks are Christian the same as most whites. So it’s not religion. It’s group identity and the perceived threat from the other group. The same could be said of Hitler and the Nazis who wanted to create a pure superior white race and exterminate lesser/inferior races. Another example is the genocide in Rawanda, where one group tried to exterminate the other group. So to get back to your question, hatred is a part of the human condition regardless of religion, and furthermore, hatred expressed through religions does not prove or disprove the existence of god. Instead, one could argue that god and religion are meaningful products of human cognitive evolution to create greater and stronger social cohesion and hence greater and stronger collective groups that accomplish bigger and better things because of the common beliefs and values that bind the group together by their religion.
IN response to your thoughts on collaboration being more dominate: I think many scientists would agree that collaboration and the unique and sophisticated collaboration of humans is one one of our defining adaptations and is central to our success and survival more than fight and destroy. Collaboration I believe is why we have such large brains, in order to process and retain vast amounts of information for the sole purpose of collaborating on personal, group, and world levels.
Take the moon landing, for example. It’s a great American achievement. But if you think deeper, the achievement is actually a colossal act of collaboration going back centuries and involving many cultures and countries. The moon landing is possible through the shared knowledge of mathematics from the Arabs, writing from the Sumerians, the birth of science in Greece, all the way up to modern scientific discoveries in many places. Even the competition with Russia to be the first. I think maybe competition is in fact a form of collaboration, so far as it drives people to excel and innovate, which often benefits the group, country, world as a whole.
I currently have a basketball game on without the sound as I’m writing this. I like basketball. It might be my favorite team sport. Any way, even though sports is a competition, it’s really an illustration of what makes humans so unique and why we have such big brains. Besides the teamwork of each squad, who practiced countless hours so they may act as a cohesive group, a single organism, (The greatest manifestation of this would be the 2004 Detroit Pistons who won the championship that year without a single superstar player because their level of teamwork was far superior to the superstars of Shaq and Kobe.) there are the rules of the game which everyone has agreed to follow as well as the final word on the rules held by the officials. All of this information and collaboration must be fully understood in each individual brain which is working in concert with the other brains in the games. Not to mention the collaborative influence of the crowd of spectators. It’s truly remarkable. Many other animals work together, but nothing even close to the level of human beings.
Even something like consciousness, the awareness of one’s self, is a tool for collaboration because without It you would not be able to be aware that other people have thoughts and feelings and intentions. You would not be able to play basketball without consciousness. Experiments with babies have shown that they are eager to share and understand intentions. All of this is to say that humans are primarily collaboration and cooperation machines.
Hmmmm, why does no afterlife and being a speck give me comfort? I have never actually articulated this. It’s been a general sense, and may be a quirk of my personality. But bear with me as I try to get my thoughts out and firm up my abstractions with a little concrete.
First of all, growing up, the notions of the judgement days and end times and rapture were all terrifying to me. I remember movies they showed us at church which were like post-apocalyptic Horror movies. They were frightening. I could not imagine any sane person believing or wanting to believe that. The judgement day where god evaluates all your thoughts and deeds sounded awful. And then a heaven with Jesus where you are your best pure self which means not yourself at all; or your soul, which is still not you, unless it has all the bad things that happened to you in life, which it doesn’t. So whoever you are in heaven is not a recognizable version of you on earth, and hence not you at all, but some kind of pure essence that comes from god, so really your pure soul or essence is reabsorbed in to god, and whoever you were in life is lost in the heavenly afterlife. (Forgive me if I’m inaccurate in the portrayal of heaven. It’s simply how I perceived it and how my thoughts worked) Or maybe you do stay yourself throughout eternity which doesn't sound very appealing either. The alternative to a frightening judgement day and a heaven where you are nothing or yourself (yikes!) for eternity is burning in Hell forever. It just made no sense to me. And it was not something I wanted to be a part of.
Fast forward to now and the idea of nothingness is still appealing but in a different way. I like that there is finiteness to life. That when it’s over, my memories, myself, who I was is gone. There is something beautiful and tragic about that. It makes what happens right now all the more important and urgent and focuses your attention on what is most meaningful to me, how can I accentuate that as best I can. How can I fight off my demons, or maybe my demons are who I am, and keeping them at bay is all I can ask, and that is my life, nothing more, nothing less.
I may have some of an afterlife in the memories of Holton and Vance. There will be some writing that they can remember me by. But there is a part of me that would like those things to disappear as well, leaving no trace, as if I never existed.
Am I so special that anything of me should continue? Am I anymore special than a Homo sapien in Africa 100,000 years ago standing outside his encampment and staring at the stars? Am I anymore special than homo erectus cooking some meat in a fire 300,000 years ago, or more special than a Neanderthal who painted his hand print on a cave wall 35,000 years ago. I think not. I’m sure they all thought they were special too.
I’m simply part of something, at least here on earth, that has been going on for billions of years. It’s very profound and humbling that you are playing a very tiny part in that. It’s profound and humbling to think that Homo sapiens as we know them did not exist as distinct species 300,000 years ago. It’s profound and humbling that homo eretus existed for 2 million years before we arrived. That 5 million years ago, no discernible human type creature existed, that 200 million years ago dinosaurs dominated the earth; that the same molecular structures of life that made dinosaurs made humans too; that hydrogen is in the sun, throughout the known universe, creating new stars in space, in the water we drink, and in our very bodies. This is all very profound and humbling. The human body is made up of six elements and when my body decomposes, the elements will be released to do something else. I’m just borrowing them for about 80 years before returning them. Continued....
The compression of life, the finiteness, that fact that it’s very short is what gives life meaning and consequence. It has an end. Without an end, there would be no consequence. Imagine a game that doesn’t end and keeps going on and on. What is the point? The point to a game is that it ends at some juncture and that gives what happens during the game consequence. It has an end. Even the idea of an afterlife has an end to this life. this life is portrayed as a distinct and separate entity to be judged before a new life begins in the after life.
My point is that we know instinctively, we know in our bones, that things must end. We know things of value have a beginning and a middle and an end, like a good story. Think of the arc of the Christian story. Jesus is born, he gives his message, he dies and rises again to go to heaven and he will some day return to take his followers to heaven with him, the end. Stories and music and lives have a beginning, middle and end. Without those three elements, they lose significance and meaning and any relevance to us. Imagine a story that kept going, music that kept going without stopping. It would be maddening. We would want it to stop so that we could make sense of it because it makes no sense if it never ends.
So in knowing that I become nothing in death gives resonance to my life. It is a gift, for better or worse. I can go peacefully into nothingness knowing that I have lived. And that is enough. The only thing that gives me pause is not seeing what happens to Holton and Vance. Ultimately, I played a tiny role, I was an infinitesimal speck in the unfolding story of the universe from the Big Bang until probably the universe explodes. In the meantime, I am stardust, as Joni Mitchell sang.
Regarding Thomas' first of 4 posts above. The one on religion as a fomenter of hatred and the evolutionary benefits of belief in God...
To summarize your thoughts here: Religion and/or the belief in God does not cause humans to be more evil / meaner to others. However, religion / belief in God can be a vehicle where this is expressed. To quote, “religion itself does not foment hatred any more than anything else.” This is good. I agree.
I think the other big point in this section is that Religion / belief in God is an emergent phenomena that has helped man increase cooperation and collaboration and therefore increased survivability of the species (or of species that antedated the current human species).
I think the reason to bring this above point up when discussing or advocating for Atheism is to address an elephant in the room. If God does not exist, why do so many people believe in God? Perhaps they are on to something. One could argue if there is no God there would be no reason for people to start believing in God. The fact that humans can conceive of the existence of a God might be considered a partial argument that such a being exists. For the atheist, having an alternative reason for the emergence of this idea is at least a partial argument against it or at least could be conceived as such.
Is this why you point out your theory of the existence of religion / Theism in the human experience? As a partial claim that the fact that humans have conceived of God is not necessarily an argument for the existence of God?
I would argue that even if it is true that belief in God / Religion assists in collaboration and increases survivability of the species and therefore explains why humans evolved to believe in God, it doesn’t mean the God doesn’t actually exist. It seems to me that God could both exist and humans could have evolved to discover God exists. And the “fact” of the evolution of the idea of the existence of God says nothing about the fact or non-fact of the existence of God.
Do you agree with this point? That even if our capacity to conceive of God and practice religion is a result of evolution, it doesn’t really say anything about whether God actually exists or not? Or is there something I am missing?
More on Thomas' first of 4 posts above. The one on religion as a fomenter of hatred and the evolutionary benefits of belief in God...
Regarding the theory that the idea of God is evolutionally emergent: What are the mechanics of this? Is there a gene or set of genes that mutated into existence that gives us a propensity to conceive of God? If there is a gene or set of genes, it doesn’t seem like it would be immediately beneficial to survival. The first manifestations of most people’s thoughts on God are not, “hey I can use this to figure out which people are like me and which people are not.” The first thought that comes to the individuals mind in their conception of God seems to be to spend time thinking about God, trying to get to know God, to write or talk about God, invent words (or metaphors) about God, and perhaps sacrifice resources to God. Most of the things people immediately do with regard to belief in God would seem to have a negative impact on survivability. Instead of finding better ways to gather food or build shelter, they are praying to a god that presumably does not exist. Instead of storing food and materials that can be used for clothing or building for the benefit of tribe or family, they are sacrificing these scarce resources and essentially wasting them on a God that does not exist. If there is a belief in God gene, it doesn’t seem like it would be immediately conducive to survival. If the concept is simply that belief in God came out of just an extra-large capacity for all kinds of ideas or ways of collaborating it doesn’t seem clear that belief in God would be an idea that would necessarily follow from that or be immediately conducive to survival. It seems like belief in God if He / She / It does not exist has as many (if not more) down sides to survival than it does up sides.
It seems like there are manifold ways that people can draw connection and collaboration other than religion or the belief in God. Why did that particular path need to evolve, especially considering all the survival negatives that seem to come with it? I guess this is a bit of a rhetorical question. I guess I’m arguing that the evolution of the idea of God as a tool for survival is unlikely to be true give the down sides to such a belief. I would be interested to hear if you have thoughts on that.
Regarding Thomas' 2nd of 4 posts above. The one on collaboration...
I generally agree and really like your thoughts in this post. Good stuff.
The following several posts are in response to Thomas’ 3rd post above on finitude and horror movies…
I agree Thomas. I was not a huge fan of the end-times movies. I think I watched like one of them. And lol, they weren’t “like” post-apocalyptic horror movies, they were post-apocalyptic horror movies.
“I could not imagine any sane person believing or wanting to believe that.” Not wanting be believe a prediction is not really the point of a prediction. The question is, is the prediction true. Of course it is difficult to know. Certainly horrible things have happened in the past to humans and often by humans to humans. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Soviet Union, Maoist China, Rwanda, the Killing Fields, US slavery, the Dresden bombings, the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings, North Korea today. Not to mention the Covid-19 virus we are dealing with now. The fact that so many horrible things have happened in the past seems to make future predictions of horror quite reasonable.
Your recoiling at eternal punishment is understandable. I struggle with these items as well.
My thoughts on eternal punishment. I may have actually posted some thoughts on some of this already somewhere in this blog but for many years I rejected the notion of eternal punishment. I felt like it did not align with other things I believe are true about God’s character. In particular that He/She/It is Love. Of late I have been challenged with the notion of justice. Cosmic justice. We humans have this sense of a need for justice and I believe / contend that this desire for justice is a reflection of the fact that we are made in God’s image. He made us to desire justice because he desires justice.
When I was recently challenged by this notion of a cosmic need for justice my initial thought was that I don’t feel like anyone needs to be punished. I would just like everyone to start being nice to each other.
Then I did a little thought experiment. I don’t know where I came up with this but I thought, “what about Hitler?” Is it cosmically just that Hitler just died at some point and ceased to exist and that’s it? Does that feel or seem just? No consequences for Hitler other than, presumably, a premature and perhaps violent even self-inflicted death? No additional consequences? That did not seem just to me. It seems to me that if there is a God and that God is just there would be some post life consequences for at least some people and perhaps to some degree all of us.
I will say this, I feel that historically Christians have been over zealous in emphasizing the eternal consequences and judgement for man, but if there is going to be a just God there does seem to need to be some consequences at least for some people.
Both my thoughts and your thoughts on this matter are based on what “feels” correct to us. Of course, what we feel about something may not have any bearing on if it is true and whether certain predictions about judgment, punishment, and redemption will come true. But in the end, until such predictions do or do not come true all we have is our opinions and beliefs. One thing that is interesting is that the Christian narrative that predicts these things also contends that what you believe about God may / will impact your experience in the event that these predictions come to fruition.
Anyway, I would be interested to hear what you think about that perspective of justice. Even if you don’t feel like there will be post life cosmic justice meted out, I’m curious, do you think/feel that the cosmos would be a better / more just place if there was at least some justice for evil actors? Perhaps for Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and perhaps child rapists?
Regarding your concerns about the afterlife for the redeemed, that is, those of us who believe God will spare us from eternal justice. So, we can live in paradise. I would agree with you that your conception of this does not seem very appealing and perhaps not viable.
I will say this. I think that you have built a bit of a straw man here.
As I think on the hope for the believer it is summarized simply as this: It will be better, we will not experience pain as we understand it today, and it will last forever. I personally hope and believe I will see and enjoy folks I have loved here “below.” In particular Mom. I try not to think about it a lot but I miss her and look forward to talking with her again and making jokes and looking at and appreciating her art with her (https://www.facebook.com/verna.christopher/posts/10222583556605496) and enjoying her company. This type of thing does make sense to me and sounds wonderfully appealing. To me this simple type of thinking about the afterlife is all that it is reasonable to speculate on.
I know some books of the Bible discuss some visions that include things like streets of gold and such. To these types of things I would say, that if one does get a glimpse or vision of the afterlife / post resurrection life and it is as great as is promised, conventional language and experience would likely not adequately convey the experience. The best one could do would be very weak approximations using the words and images that are limited by our mutual current experience. At best we can view these descriptions of visions of the afterlife as very very poor metaphors. We shouldn’t read too much into it other than it will be better.
As far as the desirability of living forever, even if it is hard to conceive. Generally, in this life, I don’t expect to ever say, “you know, I think I’ve seen and done and experienced enough. I don’t need tomorrow. I’m fine with not waking up after tonight. I don’t need anymore days.” I don’t think that day will ever come that I ever say something like that. I think I would always be willing to take another day. A day to chat with Verna, a day to see my kids and grandkids, a day to go for a walk, a day to eat a bratwurst off the grill, a day to see the Iowa Hawkeyes hang another 50 points on the Ohio State Buckeyes, a day to discuss theism and atheism with you, a day to learn something new about the world, a day to hear a new song I’ve never heard or perhaps one I knew once but have forgotten (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CcwQk6Xc9Y). I could go on but I won’t. Eternity is hard / impossible to get my head around but one more day is not and I think at some level that is all eternity is. Knowing you have one more day to enjoy. One more day to bless others and be blessed.
The exception to this of course is if you are enduring severe physical or mental suffering. You may not want another day in that case. But part of the hope is that in eternity these things will be removed. That’s the promise from Christian theology.
Would conceiving of eternity in this way change your perspective on eternal paradise?
Of course to conceive of an eternal paradise that you feel you would enjoy does not make it real. But I think you are arguing that these concepts are neither sensible nor desirable and so it is appropriate that one does not believe them and it gives you comfort in not believing them.
But, would you be comfortable conceiving of them as described? Would that give you some peace? I’m curious.
Warning: Side Rant coming. I come in a little hot here and even though these statements will seem harsh I do have some sympathy for your thoughts on finitude. That being said, this side subject awakened a little passion in me and rather than try to soften my thoughts I’m just going to let her rip. Please to don’t take offense.
Tragedy is only beautiful in art. In actual life it is horrible and it sucks. A child dying is tragic and not beautiful. A father and husband being trapped in addiction and failing to love and connect with his family and dying estranged from them and leaving his children and wife to wrestle with why they were not valuable enough for their dad/husband to love them is tragic and not beautiful. People despising those who are not like them is tragic and not beautiful. The drunk I saw in Minneapolis falling in the slush in the middle of winter is tragic and not beautiful. A young person struggling with schizophrenia or eating disorders, or depression because of abuse or even just a bad gene is tragic and not beautiful. A young couple having a baby with a bone disease and that little baby breaking bones a dozen times before the age of 1 and the parents being afraid to give him a hug for fear of hurting him and breaking another bone. Tragic not beautiful. Mom dying on that day that I bought her flowers for her to enjoy, only to find out she died about an hour before I go there. Tragic, not beautiful. But as a believer in eternity and “absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Now that is beautiful. Knowing that mom is able to see my gesture from the other side without the burden of lung disease. And see and perceive flowers in a new and less bounded way and to appreciate the gesture in a richer and more understanding way. That is just joy and beauty.
We can appreciate tragedy in art because it helps us see our connection to the rest of society because we all share these frailties. It is our recognition of our shared vulnerabilities that is beautiful. But the vulnerabilities themselves are just sad and horrible.
End of rant.
Even a life that is eternal is still finite. A) At least for Christian theology (or at least my version of it) people don’t argue the human life is eternal going backwards just forward. B) Going forward it is eternal but the contention is not that our experience is infinite. Being non-finite (infinite) would imply that in eternity I as an individual experience everything all the time. Rather, as noted, I would contend that I just continue to get the next day to experience with the limits of my finite capacity. I suspect that someone like Nietzsche (and yes, I’m trying to act like a big shot but referencing Nietzsche) would say that if you live forever that eventually you really become infinite and experience all reality. I think this kind of thinking is the repeated sin of philosophers / deep thinkers / theologians everywhere. They take axioms that convey some meaningful truth for we limited finite beings and then these “thinkers” pursue thinking about the implications of this axiom and take that thinking to its determinate logical conclusion and decide that this must be truth. I have come to reject this approach. Our capacity to understand is bounded. We are limited to not know what we don’t know. We cannot know everything. This will continue to be bounded in the afterlife / post resurrection. The contention of Christianity is that our life will continue, it will be better / less painful / and bounded in a different way than it is now.
Regarding Homo erectus, Neanderthal, etc: I expect that these folks were just as special as us, were created in the image of God, and many are enjoying the pleasant afterlife now. Perhaps mom is talking to one of them right now and comparing paintings. Looking forward to finding out.
I really liked this statement you made and 100% agree with this sentiment: “The human body is made up of six elements and when my body decomposes, the elements will be released to do something else. I’m just borrowing them for about 80 years before returning them.” Well said. Thanks for sharing it. I wish I would have thought to say it.
There are a few other thoughts that come to mind. I like your idea of finitude driving accountability and urgency. One could argue accountability to God makes all our actions urgent as opposed to urgency being driven by finitude. But I’ll have to save these thoughts for some other time. Or not, after all, I only have a finite amount of time / capacity. :-)
Before I get into your last comments above, I recently learned about this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW1DDSQnEYo&feature=youtu.be
I think it’s a great song and covers a lot of ground but at the end it conveys the thought that we would always want just one more hour or our life if we could get it. So, I offer it here even though it would make more sense with my earlier post.
Okay, on to thoughts of your last post above.
I really like your thoughts on how believing in our finitude creates a sense of urgency for us. I think there is some truth to that. I allude to this, kind of, in an earlier post on this blog. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8497976668779098685&postID=2237254389103476591 I also can see how it helps you derive meaning. I have spent a little time thinking about what gives life meaning. I find that when I sort of sit back and reflect on what gives life meaning I end up talking myself out of almost all options. Almost anything I think of that I might feel gives my life meaning, as I dwell and think about it, starts to seem absurd. Life forever can seem absurd and existing temporarily can seem absurd. Honestly, I try to avoid dwelling on the meaning of life much because it makes me depressed. Okay, I’m just kind of meandering now.
I do like your idea of a short life creating a sense of urgency. However, I guess I will add this: While the idea that everything has to end to make sense is intuitive to you it does not resonate with me. I would tend to say that we have a sense of knowing that everything has an end because everything we experience has an end. This does not mean that everything has to or always will. And certainly many people have gained peace from dreaming of a time when life will not end.
All this thought I think (haha) leads me / us here. My sense is that your position as an atheist is not built primarily a logical or empirical argument. It sounds like you have kind of fallen into a world view that feels right and gives you comfort and it doesn’t really need or have God in it and you are good with that. You don’t need to have proof to have it work for you.
I have a thought on this but before I delve into that below. Does that sound about right or are there some reasons for why you don’t believe in God that you have not yet shared and would like to? I would like to hear more if there are.
Regarding the thought that for people Theism or Atheism is not based on logical or empirical arguments: I actually believe that most people don’t hold their belief in God or their belief in no God because of truly rational thoughtful reasons. Frankly, in my own mind, I can talk myself out of almost every argument for God and every argument against God. From a logic perspective atheism does have one slight disadvantage. Atheism is a belief that something doesn’t exist and at one level it is almost impossible to prove that something doesn’t exist. You never know when it just might turn up in a place you hadn’t thought to look. But that isn’t the reason I believe in God.
I believe that most of us believe what we do about God and the supernatural because people we love and or respect told us what they thought and we agreed with them until someone else we love and respect challenges us to think differently. I do think personal reflection plays a role but not so much to prove or disprove something as to just get personally comfortable with something. Something that feels right to us and keeps cognitive dissonance at a relatively low level.
With that in mind, I thought I would share what I have come to feel comfortable with.
I would like to start with doing a thought experiment. Ask yourself the question, “Is there something within you that is broken? What is it?” Ask yourself that question. Now, does something specific come to your mind? Do you initially think no but then some little notion starts to flicker and doesn’t let you dismiss it so easily? For me something does come to mind. Something very clear. I believe that everyone, if they are honest, has something about them that is broken. I might be wrong about that. There is really no way for me to know. What I do know is that something is broken in me.
I can do a few things with this. I can ignore it, suppress, and hide it or I can embrace it. In embracing it, I can claim that is not a bug but a feature. It is something bad in me but I can claim that it is something good. The first option, suppression, is ultimately bad for me and probably damages me worse, not to mention the negative impacts it might have on others. The second, in all likelihood, will damage all or many of the people close to me and many that are not. A third option is to seek healing, seek salvation from what is broken.
Caveat: Some of my thoughts below (hyper-metaphor in particular) are very underdeveloped and might be completely wrong headed. But they reflect some exploration I have been doing. I might find some day I have to scrap some of it.
The basic proposition of Christianity is that there is something broken in each of us. We are accountable in some way for our brokenness. Our failure and inability to address the brokenness estranges us from God. God wants to fix that brokenness and the estrangement and negativity that goes with it. He has demonstrated His love and His desire and ability to address the brokenness and estrangement with Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. I would like to call this a hyper-metaphor. As humans, with a metaphor we use words to draw parallels between two physical or experienced things. Through the expression of the metaphor we learn something about the subject of the metaphor. When Sia sings in the words of David Guetta that she is Titanium ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRfuAukYTKg I really dig this version) We are learning something about the character and nature of the protagonist in the song that cannot be fully conveyed without the use of that metaphor of “titanium.” Guetta could have tried the lyrics “I am strong and resilient and you cannot overcome my resilience.” This of course would have ruined the melody but aside from that the use of the metaphor says something more profound, more meaningful than what mere prose can convey. It communicates at a more fundamental level.
I am proposing that in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God is communicating to mankind something about Himself and something about each of us that goes beyond what can be conveyed in a propositional set of statements like the ones with which I started the previous paragraph. Jesus’ life, death, burial, and resurrection show us something about God and His love for us that can’t be communicated by just saying God loves us. It communicates more fully, richly and accurately God’s relationship to us and visa-versa. He/She/It has expectations for us that we can describe as justice. We are broken and unjust, He loves us and wants to fix us anyway. Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection expresses that in a similar way that a metaphor enriches the expression of some truth but it is way more profound than a simple metaphor that is just words. Jesus Christ underhandedly defines God’s relation to us and ours to God. He translates the metaphysical to the physical. There is a directness that transitions theoretical propositions about God to something tangible and relatable to the individual human.
This is what I have become comfortable with. This is a third path for addressing and making sense of my own innate brokenness and the nagging awareness that all that we experience could not just be the result of random chance.
I will take this tangibility it a step further. My experience is this. I was raised to be a Christian Theist. This is a little bit of an oversimplification to save space but I began to drift away from that. I some point I made a conscious decision to accept / even choose my brokenness over God. This went as far as me living several years as an agnostic (or as I liked to call it, an apathiest). While I could have given you sound cogent reasons for being agnostic and would have believed those claims, as I reflect and have reflected and examined things it became and has become clear that I was making a choice between embracing brokenness or embracing God. Eventually I changed my mind and now I am attempting to choose God over my brokenness.
My point and my challenge is this: When you ask yourself the question, “Is there something broken in me? What is it?” And in the privacy of your own mind and thoughts you know the answer. Is it really acceptable to accept option 1 to suppress and ignore or option 2 to embrace or should you think about option 3. There is a great force at work that loves you and wants to free you from that brokenness now and in the future.
This doesn’t make this God true but does it provide a reason to explore God. It provides a different option for addressing brokenness.
If you are an atheist and you agree with the idea that we have something fundamentally broke, your only options for the brokenness is to either suppress or embrace. There is no hope for being freed from the brokenness. Perhaps managing it but not really overcoming it.
Now because something gives hope doesn’t make it real but the good news (pun intended) is that God (The Ultimate Metaphysical) has made a demonstrable act to say “hey, I’m real, I’m here, I love you, I want to save you from your brokenness.” It is the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the ancient documents that discuss Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, it is not presented as a fantastic event that occurred in the mystical long time ago (for example, not like Roman and Greek myth, the early chapters of Genesis, or the Epic of Gilgamesh). Instead it is presented as a set of historical events among people who are named and referenced in many cases in multiple contemporary documents. In these documents, resurrection contemporaries are invited to fact check by checking with witnesses of the events. God knows we humans will want and need evidence and God provides this via this hyper-metaphor of Jesus life, death, and resurrection. The facts of the Metaphysical are presented in the physical.
Please ponder. As usual. Feedback and thoughts welcome.
Final note for now.
Much of your conception as you indicate in your reflections is based on adolescent and preadolescent conceptions in many cases taught by well-meaning laymen who spent most of their time trying to eke out a living and therefore had little time to thoroughly think these things through themselves. I know you may have spent a semester at the Grand Rapids Bible School where you presumably may have gotten the view point of “professional” Theists for a brief period but I would contend that most of what you conceive of Theism was received through average folks doing their best with the little time they had. The other input to your conception described above is the popularized movie versions of one of many many interpretations of biblical predictions of the future. It is of note that the particular view portrayed was not held by any Christian for the first 1,800 years since Jesus died and rose again and even now it is estimated that well less than half of Christians hold to the views portrayed to you in the movies you saw as a teenager. Let alone all the Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. Theists who also likely disagree with that portrayal in the end time movies.
I would suggest that it is more than reasonable to take a step back given this and take another look at Theism and Christianity. Perhaps you have walked away from a bastardized version of it or a version of it that was dumbed down to accommodate the preteen mind right at the time that your mind was shooting through and past adolescence. You became uncomfortable with the simple version of Christianity. So, you switched to a secular word view that made you feel more comfortable. Maybe you switched too soon. Maybe a deeper dive in to Christianity would make you more comfortable. Or maybe you should take a second look because Christianity DOES make you feel uncomfortable. It pushes you to make you think more deeply about your brokenness which is uncomfortable. But is should be because it will lead to growth.
Enough for now.
I may have sent you some of these but here is a whole series you might find interesting: https://whoneedsgod.com/
My apologies if this is a repeat. Also, there is a bit there and I am kind of saying some of the things covered in this link. This could be a digging deeper step.
Looking forward to you thoughts and continued discussion.
In regard to your first post on April 12. Why does dwelling on the meaning of life make you depressed? You don’t have to answer that. It just caught my attention. I would say you are right that my disbelief is not entirely evidence based. It definitely feels right, but I hope to put some evidence behind it because it’s not purely a hunch. I will talk more of this later.
I like these lyrics from the song:
“To see how very short the endless days will run
And when they’re gone
And when the dark descends
We’d give anything for one more hour of life
May i suggest
This is best part of your life”
To be honest, I wish my time with the boys would never end. I have to make this time I do have the best part.
This song from Jason Isbell speaks to the finiteness of time. It’s kind of melancholy, but I like melancholy. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JV7c8V5XLk8
Here are the lyrics if interested.
Jason Isbell - If We Were Vampires
It's not the long flowing dress that you're in
Or the light coming off of your skin
The fragile heart you protected for so long
Or the mercy in your sense of right and wrong
It's not your hands, searching slow in the dark
Or your nails leaving love's watermark
It's not the way you talk me off the roof
Your questions like directions to the truth
It's knowing that this can't go on forever
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
Maybe we'll get forty years together
But one day I'll be gone or one day you'll be gone
If we were vampires and death was a joke
We'd go out on the sidewalk and smoke
And laugh at all the lovers and their plans
I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand
Maybe time running out is a gift
I'll work hard 'til the end of my shift
And give you every second I can find
And hope it isn't me who's left behind
It's knowing that this can't go on forever
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
Maybe we'll get forty years together
But one day I'll be gone or one day you'll be gone
A few disclaimers and a personal note before I engage on John’s last two batches of posts. I wish I was more expert in scientific subjects, especially evolution. I’ve read several popular science book on evolution and I still don’t understand it, especially since the theory itself keeps evolving. Not the general principle that natural selection happens through gene mutation over time, but the mechanisms into how that works, such as kin selection and group selection, which I will bring up later. Unfortunately, I’ve read enough to be dangerous, as in dangerously wrong. That being said, I will still proceed as if I know something. Haha.
The other disclaimer is that I have not read a single book about atheism. To be frank, I’m not particularly interested in atheism as a concept. As you have said, my thoughts so far are not necessarily logical or empirical explanations, but more intuitive. I haven’t spent any time coming up with concrete arguments for or against God. All the books and articles I read are popular science books and articles, which spur and ignite my thinking infinitely more. Perhaps I’m better described as an evolutionist or a sciencist, although that label implies science is a belief system that you can either accept or reject. You can’t accept or reject that genes exist and that we share a plethora of common genes with other animals and even plants. You can say that you don’t believe in gravity, but gravity will still holds you to the earth nonetheless.
I don’t mean to be wishy-washy and obtuse and try to evade your central question as to God’s existence and the framing of the discussion as theism vs atheism, but I have difficulty pinning myself to a certain label. I’m also very comfortable with ambiguities, as you can tell from what I have just said. haha. That might just be a function of my personality. Ultimately, I like science because it searches for natural causes for things. And that goes back to when I first questioned God and religion when I was younger and I thought all these religious beliefs and explanations didn’t seem natural. I like answers that can be proved somehow.
Okay, now a personal note. My flight from God and religion was a struggle. You mentioned that my conception of god may be half-baked because I haven’t reflected on god beyond the conception of it at Calvary Baptist church. The fact is I once did reflect on it greatly, but I haven’t really had a chance to put it into our discussion yet. So I will attempt to do that now. I tried to believe it. I went to a Christian high school for a year, thinking that might help, but it only helped in alienating me more. I remember when I was 19 and sitting on the top of a sunny mountain peak in the Adirondacks overlooking a valley of lush forest with the new testament in my hands and feeling God in my presence, but having it vanish once I came down from the mountain. It was more of feeling then a reality. A feeling of oneness, perhaps, but not an actual god. As you said, I went to Grand Rapids Baptist bible college, in another attempt to make religion stick, and that didn’t work either. At UNI, I took class on the early Christian writings, including the Gnostic gospels, and classes in philosophy and poetry and religion when I should have been taking classes to get me a job. I debated such thing with my friends Pint and Eeyore at Poor Richard’s Pub. All looking for answers to my questions. I read the sufi mystic Rumi and other sufi writing. I read the Christian mystic John of the Cross, and I read bits and pieces of other things in the religious realm. None of it proved satisfying in the end. The spiritual simply did not resonate. What did resonate were the things I read about in science.
However, the decision to abandon religion and the supernatural of any kind, which I feel was less of a decision and more of simply who I am, had consequences. It certainly affected my relationship with others in my family. I felt disconnected because it was a lost commonality, something I did not have the courage to discuss with anyone but you. Especially not mom and dad. I have to admit I felt estranged from them for a long time, not only because of religion but over other things as well. I tried discussing my lack of faith with mom once when I was young, and she was clearly hurt and dismayed, so I never talked to her about it again. If I was not saved, that meant I would not go to heaven, which also meant we would never see each other again. How devastating. Out of cowardice, I guess, I let her believe what she wanted about my faith and I did not dissuade her. But it definitely put up a barrier that I did not have the courage to breach because I was afraid of damaging our relationship. Maybe I didn’t give her enough credit. She knew I was attending a Unitarian universalist church and I tried explain it to her, so I guess she was not completely unaware, but she did not know I was a full-on unbeliever.
Anyway, I say all that to underscore that taking the path I did was not easy, but it felt right for me, it felt true to me, despite the consequences. More intuitive, as you say. (Hopefully I can put more empirical evidence out there.) I could not pretend, at least to myself, that I was not what I was. A person who has no interest whatsoever in the supernatural, and a keen interest in the natural. Things and explanations that I could wrap my senses around, both literally and figuratively.
I know my personal feelings are not directly germane to the discussion, but they do inform how I’ve come to my positions. Plus, the emotional side of something is just as important as the intellectual side in my opinion. The objective and the subjective are not separate in the human heart.
This is some writing I did in my notebook after your previous posts that I did not put out there, but since it is still relevant I will go forward and elaborate on it. I have been reading a book off and one entitled “Evolution for everyone: how Darwin’s theory can change the way we think about our lives,” by David Sloan Wilson, a preeminent biologist. I just read a chapter about god and religion that’s pertinent to our utterances. He also wrote a well known book called “Darwin’s Cathedral” in which he tries to explain religion through scientific and evolutionary terms, as in what does it do to benefit our survival. I have not read that book, but gleaned a little bit from the book I am reading. This is probably a gross oversimplification of his case, but I think his conclusion is it creates strong connections and communities. More on this later, by the way. Also worth noting that this guy is not against religion or god. He is actually quite sympathetic.
Anyway, there was a quote in there I liked from the Jewish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer: “But at least now he understood his religion: its essence was the relation between man and his fellows.” I like that quote because it sums up for me the benefits of religion in both secular terms and evolutionary terms. Okay, now more on that since you had questions and arguments on that very thing in your March 28 posts. And once again, I remind you that I am a layperson trying to explain these things that I do not fully comprehend. Continued...
John said: “Regarding the theory that the idea of God is evolutionary emergent: What are the mechanics of this? Is there a gene or set of genes that mutated into existence that gives us a propensity to conceive of God? If there is a gene or set of genes, it doesn’t seem like it would be immediately beneficial to survival…. If the concept is simply that belief in God came out of just an extra-large capacity for all kinds of ideas or ways of collaborating it doesn’t seem clear that belief in God would be an idea that would necessarily follow from that or be immediately conducive to survival…..”
There was a lot to think about in this post from John. I believe the central argument here is this. Since belief in God is not a benefit to survival, there must be another reason why the idea of God came into human consciousness.
Let me back up a minute before getting to the question. I don’t think that a singular God, monotheism, is a universal trait of human societies. I will concede that virtually every human society has deities of sorts, but I don’t think belief in a singular god is a constant, although it seems pretty uniform at present times, Judaism, Christianity, Islam. However, one the world’s major religions, Buddhism, does not adhere to an all-powerful good, although I think there are some lesser gods, but they do not intervene in human lives. Buddha himself was not a god. It’s a inward-facing religion rather than an outward-facing religion. If you include Confucianism, that would be another one that is not focused on a singular personal god. Taoism is a force or spirit the permeates the universe but its not a distinct God. Most eastern religions are devoid of a Western-type, all-powerful god, although gods of a lesser degree are present in those cultures.
Having said that, I would also contend that a singular personal god is not a common feature of human societies in an evolutionary sense until recently. Secondly, I would contend that gods and spirits were directly related to survival, and that gods and spirits themselves came out of the very elements and means of survival, such as food, shelter, fertility, and war. In other words, they were practical in nature. Our prehistoric hunter-gatherer ancestors were animists who believed all living things had a spirit that can influence human lives. (Here is the hyper-social, hyper-collaborative nature of our brains at work again with things that are not even human.) The communication between the spirits that imbued the natural world and human beings was “about urgent practicalities: securing food, curing illness, and averting danger” (Encyclopedia Britannica). Plains Indians, who were animists, held huge spiritual ceremonies in the spring to ensure healthy and plentiful buffalo, on which their lives depended.
Furthermore, the boys and I have been learning about ancient cultures, which were all polytheistic with harvest gods, rain gods, animal gods, war gods, fertility gods, etc,. which all pertained to practical things to help those people survive. These gods often had to be appeased with offering and sacrifices so as not anger them and ruin the harvest or withhold rain for crops. After that, came the monotheist religions, and later still, the personal God and the contemplation of his essence, but that only came after societies became much larger and complex. This is all incredibly simplified, but my point is that a personal God is not a universal concept, and that spirits and gods were intrinsically linked with daily survival. The way I see it, spirits and gods grew out of basic survival needs along with our brains growing capacity to cooperate and imagine. They worked with the forest spirits and the animal spirits in a cooperative and practical effort to help them survive.
More to come on this subject...
Here, I would like to expand on what I’ve said about the origin of gods and also religion. I will be relying heavily on a book I read several years ago entitled, “Sapiens: A brief history of humankind,” by Yuval Noah Harari, https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens/. He says that religion and belief in gods was one of the must critical steps in human history because it combined the two most important characteristics that allowed humans to dominate the earth so successfully: fiction and cooperation. The ability of humans to think of imagined things, fictions, allowed for a greater capacity to cooperate and also to cooperate on a larger scale. He says this ability started 70,000 years ago. This “cognitive leap” to imagine things that did not exist in nature set the framework for massive cooperation and social order, which religion provided.
These first fictions started to appear on cave walls and in prehistoric carvings such as the lion man of Stadel Cave in Germany 32,000 years ago. It combines the head of a lion and the body of a man and probably bore religious significance. There is recent evidence of human-animal hybrids painted on cave walls as far back as 44,000 years. The Egyptians did the same thing 5,000 years ago with the heads of animals on human forms that represented the gods. They had over 2,000 deities associated with almost every possible aspect of life. The point is this, that humans began to create fictions in the form of spirits and gods that were tied to their daily survival needs. These fictions became religions with elaborate ceremonies and rules that further advanced the cooperative efforts of the people and therefore their survival. That’s my take on it.
As far as the justice for evil-doers, absent cosmic justice, I don’t have a good answer. There is a certain justice meted out by history in the fact that Hitler’s name is synonymous with pure evil. But maybe he doesn’t care, so maybe it’s not a punishment. Most people do not want to be remembered as evil, heinous people after their death. Most countries have a justice system that tries to punish in earthly life. But that is not often the case.
In the Rwandan genocide, people ran around hacking each other to death, and most of the high ranking perpetrators were brought to justice but not the millions of individuals out doing the killing. The same goes for the holocaust. The commanders may have been brought to justice, but the countless men and women who did the individual killing, not to mention the people who outed Jews and condoned the massacres, were not punished and lived with the secrets. The same thing could be said of American slavery. Most slave owners were never punished for a reprehensible and unjust system then and now. It was basically legal until the 13th amendment in 1865. Granted, there was a war, and they were punished that way, but not in a “justice” sense. No one went to jail for owning slaves. Slave owners were able to keep the wealth they created on the backs of slaves. Let’s be clear, slavery has been widespread throughout human history until recently. No one during that time was brought before a court for that injustice.
Here is my take: I have to accept that there are injustices that will not be punished. On the other hand, rampant evil and malevolence is not a hallmark of the human species or we would cease to exist. We evolved with a capacity to do very cruel things to each other. We know that bad behavior can be detrimental to the health and survival of little groups of hunter-gathers and giant nations. So rules and justice system were devised to minimize that threat. Usually through religion. But for the most part people want to do what is good and helpful for their society. The current situation with the coronavirus might be a good example. Countless doctors and public officials and volunteers are working tirelessly to help sick people and prevent the spread. For the most part, citizens are heeding the call to social distance in a collective effort not to make the pandemic worse. People generally want to be helpful. It's in our DNA. That is how we have survived. If that were not the case, as I said before, then we would not be here as a species anymore.
Your vision of the afterlife is very appealing, offering one more day to enjoy all the things we love about life. It’s difficult to argue with that and with the list of things you mentioned in your March 28 post. I would say that is something very desirable. I would love that. But I have no proof of that. Maybe I’m in a cycle of reincarnation where I keep being sent back to earth to try again until I reach a perfect state of peace and happiness. Maybe, as the Aztecs believed, the nature of my death will determine which place I go in the afterlife. Epicureanism and the Blackfeet Indians believe when you are dead, you are dead. Gilgamesh, who was distraught over the death of his friend, Enkidu, sets out to find immortality, only to fail the tests and confront his eventual mortality. That’s what I tend to think. We are mortal. To my knowledge, there is no proof of reincarnation, heaven, hell, portals, eternal life. All I know is what is right in from me. I don’t know anything else. I know what happens to us biologically as we decay and decompose and the elements of our body are feasted on by microbes and worms and we leech back into the earth and air to be recycled. It’s kind of a different reincarnation.
A macabre novel entitled “Being Dead” made a big impression on me many years ago. It’s the story of a murdered couple whose bodies are left on some remote dunes. The story cycles back and forth between the vivid biological particulars of their decaying bodies and the story of their lives and love up until their death. It was a haunting juxtaposition that emphasized the joys and sadness of life, and the finality of our deaths. Life is flowing and fleeting and then lost.
As you mentioned before, some lives are simply tragic and wasted and sad, and there is nothing poetic about it. You eloquently stated many. A starving, emaciated child with flies buzzing around the faint breath from his mouth is not poetic, “it’s horrible and it sucks.” Why shouldn’t that child have an afterlife that is better, or be reincarnated for another chance, or go to the peaceful sanctuary where children who die go? It’s easy for me to proclaim from the comfort of my relatively easy life that when you are dead, you are dead; and there is no afterlife where things might be better, and where you might see your dead child again in heaven. What the hell do I know? In different and more dire circumstances, I might believe something completely different, that without god and an afterlife I would be lost. I’m not going to take away the comfort of god or the afterlife from anyone. I don’t want to. That belief is important and has value and power. The heart finds what the heart needs.
John said, “We can appreciate tragedy in art because it helps us see our connection to the rest of society because we all share these frailties. It is our recognition of our shared vulnerabilities that is beautiful. But the vulnerabilities themselves are just sad and horrible.”
Yes, that’s true.
Jason Isbell sings many songs about broken people and his broken self and trying to put the pieces back together if possible.
This is a good segue into the theme of broken-ness in your April 12 posts.
Disclaimer: I kind of get deep into the weeds with this, and since as you said your thoughts are still evolving, you can take what I have to say and chuck it out the window if it is not useful. In other words, take it with a grain of salt.
First of all, I want to make sure I understand you. You present a thought experiment. Is there something inside you that is broken? What is it? You present three options: suppression, embrace, healing or salvation. The third option seems the best to you, and this healing from brokenness comes from God’s love through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. “We are broken and unjust. He loves us and wants to fix us.”
Later you express it in a different form: “There is a great force at work that loves you and wants to free you from that brokenness now and in the future.”
This sounds vey much in a mystic tradition, like John of the Cross and the Sufi mystic, Rumi, both of whom I still like today because of their focus on love and healing. And they both wrote in the form of poetry.
“In the inner stillness where meditation leads, the Spirit secretly anoints the soul and heals our deepest wounds.” John of the Cross (sort of sounds like Buddhism)
“Through Love all that is bitter will be sweet, Through Love all that is copper will be gold, Through Love all dregs will become wine, through Love all pain will turn to medicine.” Rumi
From what you have written, I take it that you see God as a healer, and the ointment to the broken is love, and Jesus is the way to that healing salve.
Questions: Is your conception of God as a healer? Is “brokenness” a replacement for “sin” or “fallen from God”. How does the healing manifest itself? How is one exactly healed? Is it permanent or a continuous thing? If something is healed, say an infection for example, the infection is gone. It no longer afflicts them. Does the healing eradicate the brokenness?
I’m also curious to know what you mean by brokenness. From my limited understanding of Buddhism, the concept of suffering is a central issue to be solved through the many principles and ways of the teaching of the Buddha and others. Developing love (metta) is essential to doing away with suffering (dukkha). Of course, there is more to it than that oversimplification. Is brokenness suffering? Jesus healed the physically, economically, and psychologically broken. I think you mean psychologically broken. Does brokenness include addiction, compulsions, resentments, traumas, anger, anxiety, pain, etc? What about clinical things like depression and bi-polar and eating disorders? Or maybe you mean some kind of existential brokenness. I don’t know.
As far as myself, I suffer from some mental issues, fear and anxiety, that don’t help me. But I would say what impacts me more is my physical brokenness or suffering, most notably, diabetes and a rare autoimmune disease that if not for insulin and rituximab, I would be dead. There is no cure for type 1 diabetes or IGG4 disease. They can only be managed and controlled. These physical ailments are with me constantly and constantly on my mind. I must monitor my diabetes multiple times a day with injections and a sugar monitor. The constant presence of it is tiring. I wish I didn’t have to do it. I berate myself for eating chips because I am weak, and now my blood sugar goes up, so now I must give myself a shot. If I ate better and exercised more I would do better, but I am weak, and I don’t do a god job. Chips taste great and will give me temporary pleasure, or a short reprieve from stress and anxiety, but high blood sugar kills my veins and that’s forever.
What are the long term affects of diabetes? Multi-organ damage and a shortened life and unpleasant death. People with diabetes live 10 years less than the national average of 77 years for males. That puts my lifespan at 67 or 68. I’m currently 52, so that gives me 15 or 16 more years. How many of those years will be healthy ones, though. Of course, those are averages, and I can influence those with my behavior, and I am trying to do that.
On top of that, I must go to the hospital every 3 months and have 2, 5 hour intravenous doses of rituximab for my IGG4 disease which destroyed my pancreas and caused the diabetes in the first place. This disease is a systemic multi-organ inflammatory disease that causes damaging fibrosis to bodily tissue. In essence, my immune system attacks my healthy tissue with a vengeance because my immune system is malfunctioning. What is the long term prognosis? What is the continued efficacy for rituximab? Nobody know because it is a fairly new disease to science. Sorry to get so far into that. But my physical brokenness create the most fear and worry on my mental state. Anyway, moving on!
John says: “If you are an atheist and you agree with the idea that we have something fundamentally broke, your only options for the brokenness is to either suppress or embrace. There is no hope for being freed from the brokenness. Perhaps managing it but not really overcoming it.”
I’m not sure I agree with the premise that we are “fundamentally broken.” Elsewhere you use the term “broken” but here you add the qualifier “fundamental.” Meaning we are inherently broken, born broken. What do you mean by this? I am physically broken at a fundamental level because of faulty genes that told my IGG4 immunoglobbins to attack my healthy tissue. I have broken parts in my life and mind that need work. Stop eating a whole bag of chips! But I would not say that I am psychology broken in a fundamental way. Others are fundamentally broken with trauma and addictions.
On the other hand, if by simply broken you mean there are aspects to myself I don’t like and that don’t help me, then yes, I have plenty of those.
The other thing you said is atheists have “no hope for being freed from the brokenness” and here I understand brokenness as a fundamental thing, inherent in us, like the concept of sin. You also use the word “freed” as in to liberate, to release from bondage or imprisonment. Freed is similar to an earlier term “healed,” to cure, to save, meaning the brokenness no longer has a control or grip on someone. It is no longer a nemesis or an affliction that can harm them. They have been cleansed. I’m not sure I understand this angle, or I am misinterpreting what you mean. I’m also not a psychologist, so I’m kind of guessing. I’m not sure people can be completely freed or cleansed or overcome an affliction in the sense that it is eradicated. A bipolar person can overcome their illness by the use of medicine, but only if they are on the medicine. If they stop the medicine, the illness returns. PTSD is also treated with medication and psychotherapy to minimize or eliminate the symptoms, but the core trauma remains and can return if not treated. There are many ways to deal with issues in your life. An entire industry, self-help, is dedicated to this. There is also psychotherapy, group therapy, medication, meditation to help us so we don’t resort to destructive things like alcohol, drugs, violence, resentment, etc. I would add religion too. If belief in God helps those people manage their afflictions, then I think that is great.
Finally, on the subject of existential brokenness. Is there something about my fundamental existence that is broken, some kind of anxiety or disconnect for my time and being? I would say that I don’t feel broken in that way in the least. I feel shortness of time pressing down and dealing with a disease that compromises my health. But nothing existential. So to answer your question: No, I do not personally feel fundamentally broken in a psychologically, emotionally, existential way, but I am physically broken in a fundamental way.
Regarding Thomas' first 2 posts on 4/18/2020
Since you ask I will try to talk a little more about my response to thinking about the meaning of life and why I feel like dwelling on it is depressing…
Several posts ago I said “I find that when I sort of sit back and reflect on what gives life meaning I end up talking myself out of almost all options. Almost anything I think of that I might feel gives my life meaning, as I dwell and think about it, starts to seem absurd. Life forever can seem absurd and existing temporarily can seem absurd. Honestly, I try to avoid dwelling on the meaning of life much because it makes me depressed.”
I think it is the conclusion, no matter what I might think gives life meaning, that in the end “logically” it doesn’t completely make sense and it just starts to look absurd. That is depressing. The absurdness of things is what makes me depressed when I think about it.
Another example. Part of the structure that gives my life meaning is the Jesus’ command for me to love my neighbor as myself. I was listening to an interview of Roy Baumeister who I guess is a pretty renowned social psychologist. He gave the example of the absurdity of this approach. If my main purpose in life is to help others and then their main purpose is to also help others then you end up with a situation where person A is out to help person B but then person B is like “no wait my purpose is to help you, person A. If you, person A help me and then I can’t help you.” Person A’s help of person B prevents person B from fulfilling his/her purpose which is helping person A. At some point every approach to life breaks down logically in this way.
That being said, I don’t spend a lot of time on it. At least personally, I feel I have come to terms with this problem and am not depressed by it. I do think it is wrong to think that as a human I can reason it out and think it out and discover the meaning of life on my own and become at peace as a result. I think that at some point everyone has to make a leap of faith and say “I can’t completely prove it or understand it but I’m going to go with x as the meaning of life. I will live with the set of incongruities that go with x for now.” Or of course they can just ignore the question all together and go about life as it comes. This is not a bad choice. But if you dwell on it and try to sort it out you end up in nihilism. Which is depressing.
The Jason Isbell song is beautiful.
Wonderful sentiment. Regardless of your view of eternity our days are numbered in the here and now and that does / should give us a sense of urgency to make the most of these days whatever may come next. We need to make the most of our shift, no matter what the next shift might hold. Love that. There is some beauty and honesty in that song. At least honesty about what we want true love to be.
Regarding Thomas’s 3rd Post on 4/18/2020 at 8:18 pm.
I very much am empathetic with a sense of ambiguity. As I think I have intimated earlier, my perspective is that if you have become overwhelmingly confident you have figured everything out you are probably just arrogant and completely miss guided.
Now as to the comment “I like science because it searches for natural causes for things.” I feel the question is not if there are natural laws but where did the laws come from. Did they just emerge or is there a greater cause that cannot be measured and cannot be explained by the laws themselves because that something created those laws.
I think the story of Jesus is, yes, there is a natural world, I (Jesus) created a marvelous thing and you (humans) can discover, understand, manipulate, survive, be punished by and enjoy it. But the Jesus story says there is more than that. It says I, God, have a purpose for you that includes what you interact with in nature but goes beyond that. There is more to it than just nature.
My fear for you Thomas is that by only accepting the natural and not recognizing the supernatural behind it, you risk missing out on the best of what you specifically are here for. You miss better understanding a specific (and in some cases not so specific) set of accountabilities and opportunities that you are here to fulfill and to flourish in. There may be a category of flourishing that you are missing out on because you are not recognizing that Purpose Giving Something that is behind nature. The Jesus story is That Something saying to us and you specifically, “I have something more for you.”
SIDE NOTE: You can believe in God without believing in Jesus but Jesus drives the point home.
The following several comments are thoughts on Thomas’s 4th post on 8/18/2020 at 8:19 pm cst.
Thomas says, “I remember when I was 19 and sitting on the top of a sunny mountain peak in the Adirondacks overlooking a valley of lush forest with the New Testament in my hands and feeling God in my presence, but having it vanish once I came down from the mountain. It was more of feeling then a reality. A feeling of oneness, perhaps, but not an actual god.”
John’s response …
1) I have had a very similar experience up north in Michigan where I was out in the woods and attempting meditate on God but felt nothing. This was one of the many steps I took on the way to becoming an agnostic/apatheist. I had a distinct feeling of “there is nothing really there” when it comes to God.
2) Question: How much does God have to make us feel his presence for us to believe He is real? At a basic generic level. There are a billion people in China. I don’t feel their presence, but I don’t question they are real. But let’s take this a step further. Jesus and the New Testament story line goes something like this: Jesus did a bunch of miracles and his followers are like “Wow, this is crazy it feels like this Guy must be God.” “God feels real.” Then he gets arrested, beat up, mocked and killed and they split and they are like, “Holy crap. Jesus doesn’t feel like God at all, He can’t be God, perhaps there is no God at all.” Then he raises from the dead and then they are like, “Holy crap again. He does feel like God. God is legit.” And then Jesus gives them some instructions and he goes away. Now, the New Testament doesn’t tell us how they felt about that. But it does say that Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit and a few weeks later they are speaking in tongues, seeing flames and healing people and there like, “Holy crap again. Jesus left but man I feel some real crazy stuff going on. Yeah, God is real. I feel His Spirit in me.” I think you would agree that if you personally had the experiences described in the New Testament you would definitely “feel” God’s presence. Here is how I feel (ha) this ties to your / our experience. How many times does God need to make humans feel His presence before we should believe that He exists and is real? Should God make sure that every human has experiences of feeling God’s presence similar to the very tactile experiences of the early apostles otherwise, people really shouldn’t believe in God? Would it be enough if God made sure at least one person in each generation of humans in each region and culture had that kind of up close and personal experience with God and then they could tell the rest of the folks in there generation about it and that would be enough to justify believing in God? Or one person in the world each generation? Or perhaps once in a given epoch? How much feeling of God’s presence is needed to warrant the belief that God exists. From the view point of a Christian this question is somewhat rhetorical. The answer is once in human history is enough. There could be some nuances to the answer to this question but we don’t need to go into that here. What is relevant for this discussion is, Thomas, what is your bar for feeling God’s presence that would make you change your mind and believe? Or perhaps stated differently, what would God need to do to make you feel his presence enough to say “yep, by golly (ha) God does exist?” I would like to see your answer to this question. Once you set this criteria you can then evaluate whether that is a truly reasonable expectation OR you can wait until it happens.
This quote kind of gets to the heart of the matter in some respects. “The spiritual simply did not resonate.” It is hard to argue with that on an individual level. If something doesn’t resonate it just doesn’t resonate. This is part of why I am in this discussion. I am hoping that my marvelous resonating words will help to create that resonation sensation. (Wow, that’s lame.)
Anyway, let’s move on to your follow up statement, “[w]hat did resonate were the things I read about in science.”
As noted, everything distills down to a visceral level. What feels right is what you have to go with as an individual. I believe at your core, right now, a naturalistic view is what you truly believe. Of course, for me, the purpose of this exercise is to challenge that. I would you like you to rethink that key tenant that all that exists is what can be measured through the scientific method. All there is, is matter and energy and rules that we are still trying to fully discover and understand; a sort of closed “box” of nature and there is nothing out there outside of the energy, matter, and laws that might have actually created these things and occasionally act on and or disrupt them. When you say that “…the things you read about in science…” I believe you are saying that this naturalistic view point is what resonates with you. Correct me if I got that wrong but for now I am going to proceed with the assumption that I have it correct and I want to respond with three points on this. 1) I fear that you are missing an important part of life by limiting your view point to a naturalistic one, 2) I think I can illustrate what I think is a consistent blind spot for those who take this position, 3) This position does not line up and mesh with the general vibe of your life an personality. Your personal zeitgeist.
1) I fear you are missing something if you reduce things down to just the scientifically measurable world. That is, a purely naturalistic view point. To talk to or illustrate the point let’s talk ethics or how do we decide how we should behave. I’m sure there might be other perspectives but it appears to me that naturalist perspective gets more or less stuck with a utilitarian approach to ethics and how we should conduct ourselves. The rationale goes something like this. The best we can learn from science is that suffering is bad and happiness / non-suffering is good. That can be taken as a given. Everyone seems to agree that suffering is bad. From there, we can use what we know of science / nature to figure out how to minimize suffering and maximize not-suffering and whatever does this, this is what we should do. At some level ethics is driven by a calculation that tells us how to act in such a way to minimize suffering and maximize happiness in the world. Peter Singer and Sam Harris seem to hold this view and seem to be fairly representative of the “science can tell us all we need to know” position.
I’m sure there are lots of different angles with which folks could come at this proposition, but for this discussion I would like call out oneish concern and challenge you with that and get your take on it.
Using science (utilitarianism as perhaps a stand in) to drive proper human behavior leaves out huge parts of valuable human experience.
I would like to use an example to illustrate. Verna and I recently watched the movie “Ford v. Ferrari” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_v_Ferrari). It was very fun and enjoyable. The facial expressions during the driving scenes got a little goofy at times but other than that it was a great movie.
One of the things that struck me about this movie is that there is something intuitively marvelous about pursing something that is great. In this case striving to build the fastest car. I’m not a huge car guy but I feel the world is a better place where we have every higher performing cars. Every once in a while it is thrilling to witness the power of a vehicle in a race or just to see a performance car driving down the road. It is a beautiful thing. The same could be said for trying to brew a better cup of coffee, to make a more elegant looking tea pot ((https://www.pinterest.com/marlenedupleich/beautiful-teapots/)
mom would like that), to write more “elegant” computer code, to carve a more beautiful marble statue of the human form (Michelangelo’s “David” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_(Michelangelo) ) or the “Venus De Milo” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo)), to press the boundaries of story telling (Joyce’s “Ulysses” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel)) or Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace), to create the most beautiful jazz music https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7gp579CMkT9CyyW3VwbKx05jmDPEWfYl. Obviously the list could go on and on.
1) continued from above...
My point is this, these things seem intuitively good to us. We know that something about these achievements are fulfilling some deeper purpose for our existence as humans. But these things don’t seem to fit into a purely scientific / naturalistic / utilitarian world view. Utilitarianism would seem to say, “Mr. Ford, don’t waste time making a faster car, take that money and use it to give poor people cars who can’t afford them but need them. Michelangelo, “why are you wasting that marble on a statue? You could carve it up as building materials and give poor single mothers a better home in which to raise their children.” Miles Davis, why are you wasting your life making fancy music? Don’t we have enough tunes that people can use to pass the time? You should quit that and get a job working at a factory that helps create inexpensive products that can help poor people or get a job at a soup kitchen.”
If you take a science / nature only perspective, how do you justify these types of human behaviors that seem intuitively good? My point is there has to be something more than just cause and effect nature to make these things (human flourishing) appropriate and meaningful. How does you “science only” view account for these things? What is your take on this?
2) I think people who adhere to a science based ethic (everything must be natural and I can derive all that is needed regarding what is right / best for humans for nature) tend to have a blind spot and deal with the holes in their view point by just ignoring them. They have a tendency to lack epistemic humility. A sense that, hey, I believe this but I might be wrong. Another view might be just a legitimate. I think this is illustrated in this interview with Peter Singer a big proponent of the science only perspective.
https://www.econtalk.org/peter-singer-on-the-life-you-can-save/
For the purpose of this discussion a lot of this interview is not relevant as it is more far reaching in its discussion. But there is an interesting interchange starting around minute 39 to minute 43 where the interviewer questions the notion of whether all of human experience can be quantified using scientific models / method. Singer is somewhat nonplused by the notion and sort of scoffs at it and dismisses it but does not really give a reason why it is wrong He just says he disagrees. This strikes me as odd that someone who is considered to be one of the premier experts on ethics sounds surprised that someone might have a fundamentally different approach and rather than having a thoughtful answer or response just dismisses it as not really needing to be taken seriously. To me this illustrates a blind spot in this way of thinking and you can’t really hold to it without just ignoring some substantive challenges. I have seen Singer do something similar with what I would consider similar questions on creation v. evolution but alas I have lost that reference. (I’m not a very good scholar I guess.)
2) continued from above
The next week the interviewer interviewed L. A. Paul on how do we make decisions about doing something when, after we do it we will be a different person with different values. We will be fundamentally different in ways we cannot understand pre-decision. A good example of this is becoming a parent. It is impossible to understand what being a parent is until you are one. You change. Your values change. How do you decide if it is a good decision for you when the you you will be is different in ways you cannot understand after the decision? Very intriguing discussion I think.
https://www.econtalk.org/l-a-paul-on-vampires-life-choices-and-transformation/
I believe she calls what you learn after the decision epistemic revelation and the process of becoming different at least in your thinking after the decision as epistemic transformation.
I believe that part of her conclusion is that there are things we can’t know without transformation / experience. We can’t know them just through analysis. Perhaps in the end there are things we just can’t know at all. There is a limit to what we can know from science and analysis which requires us to have what she calls epistemic humility. An acknowledgement that there are and may always be a gap in what I can know via science and analysis.
The “science can tell me everything I need to know about the life and ethics” view (e. g. Peter Singer, Same Harris, Utilitarians) seems to lack epistemic humility. They seem to feel we can know all we need to know now or with just a little more science we’ll get there. Singer exemplifies this in his dismissive attitude when someone disagrees.
I would like to say pick up the L. A. Paul interview at about minute X where she clearly makes the point I’m referencing but I don’t have an aha moment in hers like I feel there is in the Singer interview.
It might be worth listening to the whole thing but the further in you get on that one the more down to brass tax she gets.
Both of these interviews kind of beat around the bush that we are examining but I felt they are close enough in the garden (to sustain the metaphor) to bring them up.
The crux of our discussion is. The science position says I don’t need anything but what I can see, touch etc. to deduce proper behavior and meaning in life. I think this is a blind spot for the science only position. The Theist position addresses that blind spot by saying, “I need more than that.” There is a bigger purpose a deeper understanding that can’t be known and experienced without Something (God) revealing it to me. There is something beyond science that is needed to truly understand how to flourish as a human being.
3 – Thomas’ own personal inclination. What I find interesting Thomas is you seem like a person who is very aware of the non-calculable in life. You seem very in touch and reflective on things that might be difficult to cram into the science box. You seem like a person with epistemic humility. So, I feel like you would be very open to the “other” / the metaphysical. I can see why you might reject the religion we were brought up with or the generally accepted view of Christianity or even that Jesus is divine / the manifestation of the metaphysical but to deny the metaphysical and any possibility of God seems not fully to align with what I have experienced of you as a person. I could be totally wrong on that but something to think about.
QUESTION: Do you have any concerns that by rejecting the non-natural you are missing out on something?
Regarding your statement “[t]he fact is I once did reflect on [God] greatly.” I do believe on a personal level you have thought long, hard, and seriously about these things. I was perhaps over stating my case by saying you were rejecting a “simple version of Christianity.”
That being said, I would like to take another run at this perspective.
It sounds like a lot of your understanding Christianity came from two sources.
Christian higher educational institutions and early Christian writings that you learned about at the public University.
I think there are potential problems with both of these which I will expand on here.
My experience with Christian higher educational institutions is that their goals are not aligned with helping a seeker or a somewhat curious person coming to know or understand God. They are mostly focused on teaching and training the already converted. They, kind of from the get go assume you already believe. So they are not trying to address that. As a result they end up spending a lot of time on training people to have a career in ministry, or on esoteric nuances of theology, or on insular theological debates. These things don’t really help lay out a case for a seeker and may actually be a little dismaying and distracting.
In the case of reading things like the writings of the Gnostics, or John of the Cross, or Sufi writings: I have not read any of these writings but I assume they are all theists and certainly from that perspective might be helpful for gaining a theism perspective. However, from a Christian view of God they are unlikely to be helpful. For the Gnostics, the early church fathers I understand rejected their theology and didn’t include these writings in the canon. John of the Cross was more than a millennium separated from the events of Jesus’ life and Rami was not a Christian at all. So, I would argue that these are not strong documents to read to get a good perspective on Christian theism.
I would like give you a challenge to really dig into Christian theism. Take the gospel challenge. :-) Just read the 4 gospels end to end. Just sit down over a period of time and read through them. There is a lot of cultural noise to sort through in the gospels but they are best sources for understanding what the eye witnesses say actually happened when Jesus was here. And just for good measure it is probably worth reading Acts as well and get a feel for what happened immediately following Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.
When you do read the gospels there may be some weird cultural idiosyncrasies you might need to unwind (I’m happy to help with that), but if you read all that and still reject Jesus / God at least you are rejecting the most legit presentation of Jesus / God from a Christian perspective.
I really appreciate your struggle with being honest about who you are and what you believe and your feeling of estrangement. I feel badly about that experience and respect your desire for honesty. It was hard and a bit of a no win. Either be false about who you are or put a point of contention in your relationship(s). I think mom was very aware of where you stood. I know she did not think badly at all towards you. She was/is strong and she could take the differences in stride. I’m sure the biggest anxiety for her was where you would be in the afterlife. She was concerned and prayed about that. But she harbored no ill will just concern. But as you know that does tend to hang a little bit of a cloud over the relationship. No getting around it. But she loved you and nothing can change that! I know the pain of the partial disunion was palpable and sorrowful.
“I know my personal feelings are not directly germane to the discussion, but they do inform how I’ve come to my positions. Plus, the emotional side of something is just as important as the intellectual side in my opinion. The objective and the subjective are not separate in the human heart”
100 % agree that the emotional side of things is just as important as the intellectual side. God made us to be this way! Ha ha!
There is a lot to think about in your latest dispatch. But I want to get something out before I address your comments. Some of what follows touches indirectly on what you have recently said.
Side note: Kind of Blue might be my favorite piece of music ever. I have been listening to it since high school and I never get tired of it. I play it for the boys every once in awhile. I think Vance really enjoys it.
Your earlier comments got me thinking about the meaning of human life from a scientific perspective. I’ve had some vague thoughts of what science can tells us as to what gives homo sapiens meaning. But my thoughts started to coalesce after reading a recently published book by a Dutch thinker named Rutger Bregman. He also wrote a book about universal income among other things.
The book I'm referring to is called “Humankind”. A very entertaining read. The central thesis is that in the West we have a rather pessimistic view of human nature. We are essentially selfish brutes at our core, and if left to our own devices would descend into hellish chaos. This the premise of Hobbes and of Christianity, the greatest influencer of Western culture. This also the precept for the veneer theory. Which states that without the pacifying strictures of civilization, or god and the Church, we would turn into a pack of wild dogs. Rutger Bergman sets out to dismantle this in a very convincing way, by showing humans are far more pro-social and kind at heart. Along the way he discredits many famous experiments and theories that promote the pessimistic view and rather proves the opposite, that humans are innately good and cooperative. One interesting anecdotal story is about how he found a real life “Lord of the Flies” scenario where schoolboys were shipwrecked on a island for over a year. What happened was the very opposite of “Lord of the Flies.”
So, without further ado, here is Thomas’s working theory on what gives homo sapiens meaning: Social cohesion, fairness, and making stuff. Ta-da!
• We are much more social-interested than self-interested. Homo sapiens evolved in groups and bands, and never individually. They can only be understood as a group and not individuals. Group selection (EO Wilson) as well as cultural evolution appear to be significant drivers as we bred and self-domesticated for more pro-social attributes. Paleoanthropology and neuroscience are coming to a similar consensus, identify genes and massive regions of the brain that are only there for social purposes.
• Babies and children are hardwired to be super social. All of a babies senses are heightened at birth, not to connect to their environment, but to connect with their caregivers. Human brains are so large and take so long to develop (perhaps up to 25 years) for one purpose: to be highly social and absorb the societies’ culture.
• Homo sapiens are hardwired to connect to something bigger. This is social cohesion. That connection is a function of group identity, teamwork and cooperation. This might be the most important thing. The connections are myriad. Family, religion, football, your state, your country, your school, deadheads; the list is endless. But they all have one thing in common which is fundamental to being human and that is a connection to something bigger by way of social cohesion. This of course goes back to how we evolved primarily as social creatures. Being intensely socially cohered to a group makes you literally feel connected to something beyond yourself. It’s a chemical reaction. Certain drugs can do the very same thing by manipulating those chemicals. Also, many studies and examples of how people feel more happiness and community and meaning and connection in disasters that put everyone in the same boat. (I will speak of music and art in the social cohesion context in a later post in answer to your question.)
• Fairness. I need to do more research. It’s a little messier. But preliminary study indicates this is hardwired thing and necessary for social cohesion. Tribes of hunter-gathers are principally egalitarian, like our distant ancestors. People who were greedy, or cowards, or selfish, or not group-minded were punished. This was often seen in native American tribes and !Kung tribes of Africa. A rudimentary sense of fairness is detectable even in babies, along with empathy and compassion. In experiments, people will often reject unfair deals and walk away with nothing instead of something.
• Creating or making stuff. Contributed to larger brain and bipedalism and unique to homo sapiens. The stuff provides status and social benefit as others adopt the innovation. Need more study on this. And when I say create, I mean that in the broadest sense. Being useful, adding something of value, not just artistic pursuits.
So my working theory is that social connections is the primary thing that gives humans meaning, along with being fair, and making stuff.
If my boys were to ask me what is the meaning of life, what is the purpose of life, what should I do with my life, I would say these 3 things.
1. Make meaningful social connections with individuals and groups
2. Treat people fairly and kindly
3. Make things, whether a blog post, a meal for your family, whatever, doesn’t have to be big. Be useful.
This and the following posts are a response to Thomas’ posts on:
April 18, 2020 @8:27 CT
April 18, 2020 @ 8:52 PM CT
April 19, 2020 @ 1:38 PM CT
Note: I have not really read Thomas’ subsequent posts. So, I might have to tweak some things once I do read those.
Thomas said, “There was a lot to think about in this post from John (that’s me). I believe the central argument here is this. Since belief in God is not a benefit to survival, there must be another reason why the idea of God came into human consciousness.” John’s response: I wish I could have summarized it so simply.
Thomas said, “Plains Indians, who were animists, held huge spiritual ceremonies in the spring to ensure healthy and plentiful buffalo, on which their lives depended.” My response is - Yes but did it actually help make the buffalo healthy and plentiful? As an atheist the answer has to be no. The ceremony was a waste of time. They would have been better off scouting the buffalo to see if they actually were healthy or practicing their buffalo hunting skills or actually hunting the buffalo. If another tribe across the way had eschewed the ceremony and just hunted the buffalo presumably they would have caught more buffalo and therefore out-competed the other tribe that wasted the time on the ceremony and the spirits.
Thomas said: “[T]he personal God and the contemplation of his essence … only came after societies became much larger and complex.”
John responds: Yes, it is nice to live in a large complex society with lots of leisure time to spend reflecting on God who cares for me personally. We should both take more time to do it. Lol.
Thomas said: “[A]ncient cultures … were all polytheistic … [a]fter that, came the monotheist religions, and later still, the personal God and the contemplation of his essence … my point is that a personal God is not a universal concept”
Agreed – For the purposes of this discussion I think I am satisfied with just the acknowledgement that there is something else out there. Something that goes beyond our materialistic experience and that at some level we can engage with that something else. It is in some way bigger than us. Even though I often am referencing that “Other” Thing in the context of the teachings of Christianity because I believe that is the best we have for describing that Other Thing, for this discussion we don’t have to accept or reject the Christian conception of God or even the modern conception of God. Rather the question is simply, “is something out there that we can call God even if we would describe it differently than the current or Christian conception?” That this Essence is out there, defined in some way, perhaps as expressed in various ways, I think is enough for now to draw the conclusion that Theism is correct. There is a God.
I think someone could argue at least in part that the story of the Hebrews and Christians as captured in the Bible is a documentation of at least one tradition of peoples grappling with that discovery process with God kicking in every once and while to help them along a little. I think I agree that humans have had a long and circuitous process to understand what God is and perhaps to some degree that learning process is still happening.
I think this part of the discussion on “does the fact that people have conceived of a God lend support that there must be a God” has drawn out long enough. Let me make one more observation then perhaps kind of summarize things.
The one more observation: I think Thomas somewhat intimated that Taoism and Confucianism don’t have enough of a concept of a God to be considered theistic. I would like to make a couple of observations about this. I don’t know a ton about these but I would put them both in the Theist camp. The spiritual aspects of Taoism (even though it does not mesh with western ideas of God) still seems to comprise a belief in the metaphysical. It does not reject the Other / the metaphysical. It’s just different. While Confucianism is very pragmatic about life and comments very little about the metaphysical my point isn’t that every society has believed in a certain understanding of the metaphysical / God but that the fact that anyone has thought of these things at all tends to indicate that we should take that intuition seriously. To pull that thread a little further, in some sense, from my arguments perspective, examples of “no God” societies or people doesn’t really matter or affect my perspective. Regarding Confucianism, my understanding is that when Confucianism arrived on the scene there were all kinds of beliefs in all kinds of Gods and to some degree Confucianism may have been responding to that. Also, I think they believed in some kind of ancestor after life and that is enough metaphysics for me to put them in the Theism camp. That is, Thomas, if you told me that you had become a hard core Confucian I would want to research it more but I think I would say you had left the “dark side” (haha) and become a Theist.
One more note on this and this is kind of a weird point. If we were to draw the conclusion that Confucianism was totally atheistic and a large part of China held to that view point it might actually weaken your argument on the survival benefits of theism because it supports large scale cooperation. It would be an example of large scale cooperation that did not involve theism. This would kind of prove that theism is not a needed component for large scale survival and thus does not really help to explain why it came to exist and yet not be true. Alas, I don’t feel I can make that argument because I don’t actually think there are any large scale societies without a history of some type of large scale theism. Oh well. Perhaps the Buddhists are the example that disproves the evolutionary perspective.
Okay. I lied. Not a very good practice for a God fearing Theist. Oops. I want to comment on this quote of Thomas’ from April 18, 2020 @ 8:52 PM CT.
Thomas says: “The way I see it, spirits and gods grew out of basic survival needs along with our brains growing capacity to cooperate and imagine. They worked with the forest spirits and the animal spirits in a cooperative and practical effort to help them survive.”
I feel like you may be indicating a slight Theism bent here without being aware of it. Or at least a theism bent. If you don’t believe in the metaphysical, you can’t really say “[t]hey worked with forest spirits and animal spirits.” There are no spirits of any kind. People can’t cooperate with what doesn’t exist and if something doesn’t exist it can’t help you survive. Do you really kind of believe in spirits a little bit? When I read statements like this it makes me think maybe you do.
Okay. Still kind of lying. I’ll make one more assertion before summarizing: I would suggest that religion is not the only way to gain mass cooperation and that there are probably more efficient ways to do this. I would also suggest that if you draw the conclusion that religion is primarily solving a cooperation problem that this view point is likely driven by a priori assumptions that there is no God and therefore we have to find an alternative rationale the emergence of belief in God. Given that perspective, at best a secularist might find comfort that this narrative might be true but is seems to be insufficient as a basis for a belief in no God. The belief in no God would seem to have to come first and that this explanation is comes after as an explanation for a weakness in the atheistic belief system. At best one can hope that religion is evolutionarily emergent / conducive to survival in the ways described but it does not seem like it could be known.
I think we are at a dead lock on the subject of the emergence of the idea of God / the metaphysical / religion. I (John) argue that the fact that people have conceived of God / the metaphysical does not prove but lends credibility to the position that God exists. That is, there is not really a reason for man to come up with the idea of God. So, perhaps that is an indication that there really is a God. Thomas counters that as man’s capacity evolved the concept of the existence of the metaphysical was used to drive greater collaboration between humans thus helping them to flourish more so than they otherwise would and therefore that belief was conducive to survivability and not an indication there might actually be a God out there. Conclusion, neither of us find the other’s argument compelling in this space (unless my last few comments have caused you to repent. :-)) Time to move on. Thomas, feel free to make a parting comment.
Regarding Thomas’ post from 4/19 @ 1:48 pm.
Don’t have much to disagree with in that Post.
Other than this, which is a bit of a rabbit trail, but I understand that many of the individual actors in the Rwanda genocide have been held to some level of accountability (I think I heard in the range of 100,000 to 120,000). It is part a country wide reconciliation program (much of it apparently Christian based). What is happening seems truly amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G422U9faPSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdm7lNTvK20
Thomas said on 4/19 2:11 pm CT: “Life is flowing and fleeting and then lost.” Well stated. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…”
Thomas said on 4/19 2:11 pm CT: “To my knowledge, there is no proof of reincarnation, heaven, hell, portals, eternal life.”
The only evidence or proof I offer is that many people 2,000 years ago said somebody died and then that person came back to life and then they went away and said they were coming back and would make things better.
I think the question remains how much evidence is enough evidence? As noted before (7/26 post at 2:44 pm), how many times does that have to happen to be acceptable evidence? I have drawn the conclusion that once is enough. That evidence is reliable. I will add that while I require that testimony of those events to believe, the testimony of the events is not enough by itself to persuade me. At times in my life I had rejected that evidence. One might consider that the testimony of a couple hundred people a couple thousand years ago is not enough to call in to question the expanse of years where such events have not occurred. Perhaps those folks were wrong, mistaken or liars. I had drawn that conclusion in the past but I do not do so now.
The reason I don’t draw that conclusion now is my own experience. My personal journey of recognizing my own brokenness and based on that, rethinking the testimony on Jesus’ death and resurrection and coming to terms with the fact that I personally had not rejected that testimony because I felt the evidence was lacking but because it was inconvenient to accept that testimony of Christ’s death and resurrection. It was comfortable at some level to wallow in my brokenness and not take accountability for my failings. The Jesus story is painful because it calls us to take ownership in our personal culpability and calls us to believe and live for something more grand and beautiful than our brokenness permits us, and perhaps more importantly me, to do. Rethinking the reality of wallowing and wasting in a suboptimal personal life allowed me / made me reconsider the Jesus story. To reconsider that there is truly more to life than what I can work out on my own.
Another song comes to mind. Switchfoot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vPw9U9YohI
Of course, as you note, wanting there to be more does make it so. But we have testimony of a couple hundred people 2,000 years ago. We have a group of people who said someone died and came back to life and testified that there is more.
In some ways your note, “[i]n different and more dire circumstances, I might believe something completely different, that without god and an afterlife I would be lost…” gets at the crux of the issue. I feel that after more intensely looking at my own status, my own self, I have drawn the conclusion that my circumstances are more dire than I had thought and this caused me to rethink the Jesus story.
Peer deeply. But peering deeply can be painful.
Life is a gift. I did nothing to deserve to be here. I’m just here. Have I used my gift wisely? Have I used my gift honorably? Have I used my gift in alignment with the best possible values? Have I loved fully and deeply or have I been lazy? Have I been willing to let others carry a heavier load than me? Have I let hours sift through my fingers doing things I know damage me and others emotional, physically, or spiritually? Have I chosen to do the second or third best things for minutes, days, weeks, months, years of my life? Have I taken from other’s life, from their gift of life, by directly taking from them or lying to them or withholding affection or support they deserve from me? Have I led people on and let them think I will deliver more only to not come through and blame them? Have I held back and not engaged to collaboratively solve hard things and watched my loved one thrash? Did I say the thing that protected me or moved my agenda forward but left my loved one wondering or feeling alone or inadequate just so I could feel comfortable and unchallenged? Have I had the opportunity to say something supportive and true to my loved one but chose to say something expedient for me instead?
If I answer yes to too much of this I am broken, I am culpable, I am accountable for wasting my gift.
I might say, “Well, I haven’t been perfect. I’ve missed on a lot of things but I’ve done okay. I’ve done an adequate job.” Settling for adequate in light of the brilliant sparkling gift of life seems to fall way short.
For me, I drew the conclusion that I had not abandoned God because of a lack of proof but because I did not want to face my culpability, my accountability for wasting my gift of life. I was doing the wrong thing and I vacillated between blaming God and feeling there was no God. I settled on “there is no God (or in my case that God was irrelevant to my life) and I could just coast and I do not have to take full ownership of wasting big chunks of my life.” I told myself that I had drawn this conclusion (of being agnostic) because of thoughtful reflection on the various proofs or lack thereof for God in my life. But upon further reflection I concluded that it was really just a lack of willingness and perhaps even a lack of ability to take accountability for my failings at life. It was too painful to accept that accountability and easier to just say I’m not accountable.
So, while I think there is reasonable proof of God via the testimony of and about Jesus Christ, what I think will ultimately push someone (at least me) into the arms of God is looking deeply inside and being honest about what I see and then after thinking about some of the “proof” and my reaction to it coming terms with the fact that God granted me life and He cares deeply about me and what I do with it and He is not cool with me flouting His gift and wants to hold me accountable for it. That is what makes me a Theist.
Okay, I know that after your last post on 4/19/2020 you start to talk more about brokenness and while I have touched on it here that is enough for now and will pick up on that theme a little more in a bit.
This has been a little heavy and I am a bit of a wimp about stuff like this.
So, a little comedy relief. This song is about wasting life by settling for the merely adequate. But I really get a kick out it.
Think I’m an alright guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGL-2Zg2bqw
Kind of an example of how not to look at life. An example of not holding yourself accountable for God’s gift of life.
I have a couple thoughts on your last 4/19/2020 post…
To some degree I feel like you I could summarize your perspective as…
Live, die, decay, repeat…Live, die, decay, repeat.
“Life” proceeds in an endless never changing natural progression /cycle. (Check me if you feel I am over simplifying.)
Maybe Jesus died and rose again proving there is a God I can trust and belief but gosh dang it, that was a long time ago. We have had a lot of live, die, decay, repeat since then and it makes it pretty easy to disregard that event and just say all we got is... live, die, decay, repeat.
The Apostle Peter’s 2nd epistle seems to anticipate the concern that we currently in our world don’t see much “proof” of God. It seems like Peter knew this would be a problem and references the Creators perspective on time as much different than our own. From God’s perspective the evidence of the metaphysical / God was just provided 2 days ago.
II Peter chapter 3 verse 1: “This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles. 3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” 5 For [a]when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, 6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. 7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (NASB)
The Apostle Peter covered pretty well. I’ll just say, don’t let the long expanse of time and your limited human perspective trip you up.
The book “Being Dead” sounds interesting.
Thomas said, “I’m not going to take away the comfort of god or the afterlife from anyone. I don’t want to.” I really appreciate this sentiment about you Thomas. It is gracious and kind. Those characteristics are part of what makes me like you so much.
You have a lot more out there for me to respond to. I will get on it in a bit.
God Bless.
On 4/18 at 8:52 pm CST Thomas said: “[A]ncient cultures … were all polytheistic … [a]fter that, came the monotheist religions, and later still, the personal God and the contemplation of his essence … my point is that a personal God is not a universal concept”
The implication is if God is real and he has in some way revealed himself to us at points in time in history and life, why is it that it that human conception of God appears to have changed over time? If we see that what has been revealed about a presumably unchanging God has changed over time maybe that is indication that it wasn’t really God revealing Himself but just people guessing and speculating about God which has changed over time. And if all this “information” about God is just material from guess work and speculation perhaps there is nothing at all behind it.
To be honest this line of thinking has challenged my belief in God some. I at some personal level find this a potentially compelling argument against the existence of God and I have been wrestling with it.
For now let me just say I think I challenge the premise that the existence of a personal God is a relatively new idea. Presenting the idea of a personal God in terms that a modern is comfortable with might be new (that is, articulated first in the New Testament) but right now I am leaning toward the concept that a personal God is actually fairly ancient. It is just that before Hellenistic times it was communicated in ways that are less familiar to modern ears.
Stated positively: When God started revealing himself in ways that have been documented He presented himself as a personal God right away.
Let me step through 3 examples…
I don’t believe you gave examples of when the idea of the personal God emerged. So, I will say this, It goes back at least to the New Testament. My guess is that one could cite 100s of passages illustrating the existence of a personal God from the New Testament. I will present one here. In Matthew 10:29 – 31 Jesus is getting ready to send his disciples (most of whom would become founding apostles) on a little evangelism mission and he was giving them instructions and a bit of a pep talk. He anticipated that at times things might get a little rough for them (Jesus’ teachings were already being disruptive and challenging the status quo and so there was a little risk in proclaiming the message). So, in his instructions / pep talk he was telling them to not be afraid. He has their back. In that context he says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of you head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.” (NASB) Here we have Jesus telling His disciples that God knows them so well He knows how many hairs are on their head. Doesn’t get much more personal than that I presume. So, we have the understanding of a personal God 2,000 years ago.
... continued from previous post...
Next example. Proverbs 20:27. Proverbs is a compilation of wisdom materials. After a cursory review it looks like folks believe various parts of it were compiled potentially over centuries during the first millennium BC. As I surveyed briefly the thoughts on the origin of material in Proverbs, it appeared that Proverbs 20:27 is in one of the earliest if not the earliest section dating back to the earliest part of the first millennium BC. So, roughly 3,000 years ago. It is mixed in with hodge-podge of different proverbs. Tidbits of wisdom for practical living. As I understand things, it was a pretty typical genre / approach that dates back more than 3,000 years. Sandwiched in with advice on how kings should behave, the proper use of weights and measures, and the danger of making rash promises we find “The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah, searching the inmost parts of his being.” (NASB) So, here we have a statement that indicates that God gave each of us a special tool (our “spirit”) especially connected to Him that allows us to deeply reflect on our in-most motives and drives. That also seems very personal. It is not presented in a way that fits neatly into our contemporary conception of the soul/spirit but it seems pretty personal. So, personal God goes back 3,000 years.
... continued from previous post...
My last example comes from the story of Cain and Able which at least in the time line of the Bible is obviously very early – Genesis 4. I am particularly concerned with verses 6 and 7. One generation after creation. Now it looks like there is a lot of debate about when this story would have been initially written down. Tradition ascribes it to Moses which would be about 1,500 BC. Some folks think it might have borrowed from Sumerian myth which to me seems reasonable given that Abraham (about 2,000 BC) was the first of the Jewish patriarch and would have originally come from that neck of the woods and if you accept Moses as the person who either wrote it down first or commissioned scribes to write it down it would make sense that the story would have been handed down from generation to generation until Moses made sure if finally got documented. Others have theories that it might have been written down later /after Moses perhaps in the first millennium BC. I personally lean to the earlier time frame of 1,500 BC. Regardless of when it was actually documented the scribe was clearly talking about a time way before his/her own. So, in the scribes mind these ideas are very ancient indeed potentially dating back earlier than 2,000 BC. So, I am going to take this material as very ancient. At least 3,500 years old.
A couple of other notes before I get to the text. Many folks interpret the general story of Cain and Abel very, I guess I’ll say, metaphorically and that it is not really about specific people but rather types of people and ways of organizing society (herding v. agriculture/crop raising). This interpretation, actually kind of leans toward your perspective that religion is just a way to coordinate society at larger and larger scales. However, I think that the verses I will call out can only be interpreted at a personal level. Before I hit those, the background, as you know, is that Cain was a farmer and Abel was a rancher and they went to make sacrifices to God and they each used sacrifices from their line of work. Abel provided an animal sacrifice and Cain a sacrifice from the “fruit of the ground.” As it turns out God liked Abel’s sacrifice and not Cain’s sacrifice and that pissed Cain off. This is where I’ll pick things up. Genesis 4:6,7: “Then Jehovah said to Cain, ‘Why are you so angry? And why has you countenance fallen? If you do well, will not you be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.’” Of course, as you know, Cain does not master sin and kills his brother Abel. Ug.
My point in bringing up this passage is that no matter how you interpret the rest of story, it seems impossible to view this as anything other than a personal admonition to watch your own self and protect yourself from letting anger / jealousy / cynicism / sin drive you to doing horrible and destructive things. God is giving Cain a very personal warning here and by implication He is warning each of us to be personally wary of the destructive nature sin can have. So, we have a personal God giving personal warnings 3,500 years ago. Maybe even further back than that.
Here is my question for you. If I see evidence of a personal God going back that far why would I not believe that the idea was always out there, it just may not have gotten written down exactly right away? That is, it may not have been the first idea someone wrote down but it seems to be floating around in very ancient times and it seems to be there from the get go in the Judaeo/Christian tradition.
Stated another way. Based on this it would seem that the idea of a personal God is not a progressively invented thing that happens “late” in human history but rather an anciently discovered thing. That is, when God started talking to folks He was getting personal from the get go.
Thoughts and perspectives welcome.
From John, “Thomas said, “I’m not going to take away the comfort of god or the afterlife from anyone. I don’t want to.” I really appreciate this sentiment about you Thomas. It is gracious and kind. Those characteristics are part of what makes me like you so much.
Thank you for that, John. That makes me feel very awesome. I often beat myself up. And I don’t think very highly of myself. So words of affirmation are meaningful. It’s one of my love languages along with spending quality time together.
John said, “To some degree I feel like you I could summarize your perspective as…
Live, die, decay, repeat…Live, die, decay, repeat.”
I guess you could say that. I don’t really look at it that way. Like you, I see life as a gift. Of all the possible combination of genes possible between our parents, I came to life. Kind of mind-boggling to think about. And no two combinations that same. Even twins have some differences. Mom had to two miscarriages after Amy. She told me she sometimes wondered about them. It’s possible we could have two more siblings. We are lucky to be alive. We should not waste it as you said.
These are great questions from John. Worth repeating. “Life is a gift. I did nothing to deserve to be here. I’m just here. Have I used my gift wisely? Have I used my gift honorably? Have I used my gift in alignment with the best possible values? Have I loved fully and deeply or have I been lazy? Have I been willing to let others carry a heavier load than me? Have I let hours sift through my fingers doing things I know damage me and others emotional, physically, or spiritually? Have I chosen to do the second or third best things for minutes, days, weeks, months, years of my life? Have I taken from other’s life, from their gift of life, by directly taking from them or lying to them or withholding affection or support they deserve from me? Have I led people on and let them think I will deliver more only to not come through and blame them? Have I held back and not engaged to collaboratively solve hard things and watched my loved one thrash? Did I say the thing that protected me or moved my agenda forward but left my loved one wondering or feeling alone or inadequate just so I could feel comfortable and unchallenged? Have I had the opportunity to say something supportive and true to my loved one but chose to say something expedient for me instead?”
I think we are all guilty of all of these things at some point. I am divorced because of my answer to those questions. I feel I have frittered away a lot my time. I’m trying to correct that. I spent a lot of time writing stories that added up to nothing. I probably should have been doing something else. I wasted a lot of time. Wasted a lot of time being afraid. But I still feel like I something to say. Something to contribute. Maybe it will only be the lives of Holton and Vance. That’s more than enough. I love being a dad. I love being with them. It’s the most meaningful thing that has happened to me. But I still would like to write a book published by a real publisher. It just might take a long time. Holton asked me the other day what I wanted be when I grew up. I didn’t really give an answer because I feel like a failure in that regard. Then Holton said, “Did you want to be a book writer?” “I guess so,” I said.
John said, “Based on this it would seem that the idea of a personal God is not a progressively invented thing that happens “late” in human history but rather an anciently discovered thing. That is, when God started talking to folks He was getting personal from the get go.”
I would argue that that is not ancient times. 3,500 years ago is relatively recent times. Scientist estimate that homo Sapiens emerged perhaps 500,000 years ago. Not to mention other hominid species before that going back millions of years, like Homo Erectus, the most successful hominid to date that may have been around for 2 million years.
Here are my final thoughts on religion and its emergence. I think it is for cooperative and social purposes. Almost everything we do is. And I do think humans believing in the supernatural was early, but not necessarily personal gods until later.
The catchphrase for evolution is “survival of the fittest” but that is misleading. It makes people think of fit as in strong, and more specifically in strong over the weak, or it makes people think of what is the most expedient or practical. But that’s the wrong way to look at it. The appropriate definition here, per Merriam Webster, is “fit” meaning adaptive to the environment so as to be capable of survival. It’s all about advantageous adaptations that build on another through genetic inheritance until something new and different appears. This does not mean that whoever can bonk someone on the head the hardest is the most fit for survival. In fact in homo sapiens, it’s just the opposite.
Some 7 million years ago, the genus homo broke off from other primates and had flourishing branch of hominids. One branch of hominids, Sapiens, emerged maybe 500,000 years ago. The primate critter had some unique adaptations. They were more juvenile in appearance with flatter faces and softer features and far less hairy. They were more friendly, extremely pro-social and cooperative. They had enormous prefrontal cortex to handle all this socializing, much larger than any primate or mammal ever. In fact, the prefrontal cortex does not fully mature until 25 years! Despite the long maturation process, the longest of any mammal by far, it proved to be a successful strategy. We evolved to be less aggressive and more friendly and social. Survival for us was survival of the most social. We are social maniacs. Whatever creates stronger social cohesion and connection creates greater group survival. This adaptation proved to be the tipping point. Viewed from this lens, a lot of what we humans do falls into place under the umbrella of pro-social. That’s the key adaptations the everything else hinges on.
Case study. Neanderthal had larger brains than us. As far as raw brain power they might have had more. But a lot of that was used to run their very big and hearty bodies that were well adapted to cold climates. They were not dumb either. They created stone tools and cave art. We mated with them. People from European descent have 1 to 3% Neanderthal DNA. Sapiens on the other hand, were from a warmer climate, much smaller, thinner boned, and finer featured. They had smaller brains but a larger portion was taken up by the expanded size of the prefrontal cortex. That highly social brain actually made us much smarter. We could absorb and share and coordinate a vast amount of information and tasks within a large network of other people. Not only in hunter gathers in a Paraguay tribe but in the freezing arctic and or current globalization. So much so that we could live in any environment.
Until very recently, Sapiens lived exclusively in hunter-gatherer tribes. It’s impossible to know exactly what our hunter-gatherer ancestors thought and believed. But some information can be gleaned from present HGs and archeology. What we do know is that HGs didn’t practice what we would call religion but animism. The forest and animals and natural world were imbued with spirits that connected to everything. Among the different San groups of south Africa, who share DNA with oldest humans and culture dates back to possibly 150,000 years, were animists. They have been studied since the 1960s, but even then they had contact with missionaries and other agricultural groups who putting pressure on them. They do have a creator god. In the beginning all living things where wrapped up into one ball. And the creator god pulled them apart. This creator is more of a trickster causing mischief and problems more than anything. Not what we would think of as moralizing or personal god. The Greek gods were also mischief makers. Tricksters gods are very common among tribal people all over the world. However, among the San, behavioral issues are settled by tribe members, not gods or religious teachings.
Anyway, my point is that this hyper-social adaptation in humans is so powerful and pervasive that we literally give human attributes to just about anything to bring it into our social circle. Social cohesion is the key to our success. Its does not have to be a formal religion. You just need a shared belief system and a culture. Shared cultural beliefs is one of the biggest key connectors.
To John’s question, do Plains Indians need a buffalo dance to ensure a good hunt and plenty of buffalo. On a purely practical level. No. Plains Indians were the most adept horse riders and arrow flingers around. A result of social learning and accumulative knowledge. But do they need a buffalo dance to ensure social cohesion, a common goal, a group collective effort? Yes. Everybody needs to be on the same page. Everybody needs to know their role. Everybody participates in some way. Man, woman, and child. And the Buffalo dance celebration does that. Or else they would never be able to muster the learning and teamwork to rid horses, fashion accurate arrows, and coordinate a buffalo attack. The buffalo dance is social cohesion and that’s critical to human success. We would be nothing without it. Another group would not have out-competed them by not having a ceremony or spirits. If they didn’t have elaborate ceremonies and spirits, that would mean they lacked social cohesion, and therefore cooperation and coordination, and probably wouldn’t catch any buffalo at all. Witness the demise of the Neanderthals. It’s not survival of the strongest, but survival of most social, who can best get along and work together.
My point is that you cannot separate these elements out. They are intertwined, circular. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t have high level teamwork without social cohesion through rituals and shared beliefs. Neanderthals were far greater hunters in terms of size and strength than puny sapiens, but sapiens were a hundred times more social, and that was a huge advantage that allowed them to share and spread knowledge and adapt to nearly any environment. Dancing, laughing, sharing, ancestors and spirits, cave drawings, trading, Stonehenge, exploring, singing, telling stories. These are not trivial things. These are things that increase socialness and bind us closer together. These are the very things that make us human.
Why do we love Christmas so much? Why do we look forward to it each year? Why do we waste all that time to put up the lights, and trees, and gifts and singing songs about Jesus and peace and love and good will? And watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” again, and “Christmas Vacation.” Because it’s the best part of being human. It’s the essential part of being human. It’s what we evolved to be. To share, to commune, to come together as one. We dance and sing and pray to become one. And that One has made all the difference. Perhaps that is the Essence you speak of.
Post a Comment