� Trying Times | Main | Remembering Red �
April 11, 2003
God Games
I believe that God exists as a social creation of man, and that onmnipotent monotheism is a narrow and incomplete view of the nature of God. It is for that reason that I took a hit in my survey at Battleground God.
You've just taken a direct hit! Earlier you agreed that it is rational to believe that the Loch Ness monster does not exist if there is an absence of strong evidence or argument that it does. No strong evidence or argument was required to show that the monster does not exist - absence of evidence or argument was enough. But now you claim that the atheist needs to be able to provide strong arguments or evidence if their belief in the non-existence of God is to be rational rather than a matter of faith.The contradiction is that on the first ocassion (Loch Ness monster) you agreed that the absence of evidence or argument is enough to rationally justify belief in the non-existence of the Loch Ness monster, but on this occasion (God), you do not.
This presupposes that the Loch Ness monster and God are the same kinds of creatures and that the rules of evidence for their existence are the same. It is acceptable evidence that God exists by observation of the consistent way that millions of people over thousands of years behave with respect to their belief in God and the way that their spirits are changed by that belief. But the evidence of a few dozen researchers in the past 100 years of the existence of the Loch Ness monster is less credible.
Furthermore, what we know about animals is that they eat, and they die and they leave fossils. They are physical creatures. Gods and spirits are not physical creatures. Therefore we would expect someone proving the existence of some animal to present physical evidence of the creatrue itself, whereas proving or disproving the existence of a God is done through rational discourse such as this.
Posted by mbowen at April 11, 2003 08:00 AM
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Comments
Belief may well be a power for good, but belief for it's own sake does not actually prove anything other than the belief itself and the committment to belief. For many hundreds or thousands of years people believed the world was flat, that it was the centre of the universe and that all forms of life were created by God in only six days. We know these things to be wrong. Therefore belief in itself does not prove or disprove the existence of God. I believe that the argument should be to determine the meaning of 'existence' rather than the meaning of 'God.' Whilst I don't believe in God per se, I do believe in something 'other,' but that tends to be a state of being from within. If others wish to call this the existence of God, then I am happy for them to do so, provided they do not give this God a flavour. And if this is truly the meaning of God, then the existence itself is completely intangible, and as it cannot be scientifically measured, will never be scientifically proven.
Posted by: Adam Harris at April 8, 2004 08:08 AM
Yes belief for it's own sake does not prove anything although it can be useful.
If one chooses to believe in physics then that can give one meaning. There is no way you or I are going to be able to prove the existence of neutrinos or leptons or higgs bosons, and these particles justify the theory that 90% of the universe is made up of the heretofore unknown (unknowable?) 'dark matter' then there is some meaning we can take from that.
My point is although scientific proof claims to be universally available, it 'just happens' to be more difficult and expensive than you and I can afford. So we offer our proxy to scientists just as the religious offer theirs to priests. Whether the ultimate thing exists has little consequence upon the behavior of the faithful - we believe it exists and act accordingly.
So I suggest that the idea of the ultimate provability of the existence of God is a fetish of those who would privilege science over religion. Both are ways of coming to know truths, each with strengths and weaknesses.
Posted by: Cobb at April 8, 2004 09:36 AM
What you believe in, has it been proven yet? It's easy to go around and stating your "belief" without standing by it. But then it wouldn't be a belief. A true believer can travel through the universe at the speed of light, lacking illusions and ruse. Spirituality exists withal; and once there is a belief, there is God. Disproving the existence of God can only lead to knowing that He does exist. Why don't you try it? But once you have procured knowledge of God's existence, start believing in Him and winning souls to Him.
Posted by: Lili Chen at January 19, 2005 03:44 PM
Ahh but you make the mistake of assuming that the way you have come to know God is the only way of living in God's grace. That is selfish.
Posted by: Cobb at January 20, 2005 07:57 AM