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?
