Does it even matter if we believe in God at all?
If you're starting the discussion here the original post might be helpful to give you some background. You can find the original post, and the comments I am responding to now by clicking here.
Ok, I was going to try to respond to a few of the comments with a comment of my own, but I want people to keep engaged in the conversation and I know that some people don't go back to read comments on a blog after a day or two. So for clarity's sake and to see if I can get more people's input I've decided to post my reply to JV, Nate, Ariah, and Dave as a new post.
JV's comment is up first, and I wanted to wait and watch the Hitchens/Wilson debate before I responded. Hitchens' (the atheist in the debate, in case you aren't familiar with his name) comment about Reason and not thinking the same as Wilson comes in part 9 near the end (each part is about 8 minutes long). The debate is good, and I'd suggest watching it though I don't feel that Hitchens was in full form during this particular debate. He seems to be doing a lot of commenting on how ridiculous religion and belief in God is without backing it up with logic. That's not to say that he doesn't make some good points (so does Wilson I might add). But I feel that in his answer about Reason, and actually in many of his answers, he was so busy saying what was Not True that he never told us anything that he believed to be true. And obviously he thinks some things are true. He has trust and confidence in some things -- in logic (as Wilson pointed out), in physics, in scientific measurements of the solar system. But all he did was use those things to tell the audience what was not true. At one point during the questioning a student asks Hitchens if there was a God, and He/She/It was a loving God, what would that look like? And what would that God have to be like in order for Hitchens to believe in God? And all Hitchens did was tell the student that how God would obviously NOT be like the God of Christianity.
JV also rephrased the original question, "does it even matter if we believe in God?" in an interesting way. He said, "The question is whether or not belief is appropriate. Does what we believe have an effect on reality?"
Ariah then posted a reply to the question with a link to a clip from Regligulous that reflects how most atheists would answer my question:
The sum of the clip and of Hitchens position is that yes, it really really really does matter if we believe in God because so many awful things have been done from religious conviction, i.e. in the name of the God in which these people believe.
Nate and Dave made two separate but related points. I'll give you Dave's first because Nate's point follows on the logic of what Dave said:
Dave said, "I think it's worth noting that there are also those who have come to their belief in religion or belief in science through reflection and thought..."
Nate said, "I am (of course) especially interested in where dialogue starts when two people can identify the assumptions, experiences, and thought processes that leads them to two different gods."
And I would say thanks to Dave for pointing that out and that I agree with Nate completely. And I think that is the background reason that I wanted to start this conversation. I did completely leave out a group of people who have, as Dave notes, come to their belief through reflection and thought. This wasn't on purpose -- I think that by trying to concisely state my position I oversimplified. I'd like to incorporate the ideas presented by Dave and Nate into reply below:
My position would be that everybody has some assumptions on which they base their life. Some have examined those assumptions, many have not. Do you know what your assumptions are? Have you examined your assumptions? I would say that in the cases of violence and evil in the world perpetrated by Christians the perpetrators knowingly or unknowingly based their lives on assumptions about God and the world that were false. Some Muslims have said the same thing about others of their faith that cause death and destruction. But precisely because of that, because of how drastically they can change how we live in this world our beliefs absolutely DO MATTER. Christopher Hitchens' life would be drastically different if he believed in God. If he assumed that logic and reason could lead to God, his life would be drastically different. If Billy Graham or Osama bin Laden or the Dali Lama had different assumptions about the world and therefore had different beliefs, this world would be a completely different place. So to agree with Ariah once again:
I believe that belief, and knowing what/why you believe (meaning the assumptions behind your belief) are very very important things.
- Do you think that it's fair of me to say that we all have and live off of at least some assumptions?
- Do you agree with my assessment that we should know and be able to articulate what our assumptions are?
- What do you think about the fact that a rational extension of what I am saying is that we all have a "god" of some kind, whether it is the God of the Bible, the "god" of Science/Nature, or some other type of "god" that we assume?
I like where this is going.
ReplyDeleteSince human resource managers and psychologists both value behavioral consistency as qualities of reliability and mental health, it would seem safe to assume that the choices people make tend toward an overarching goal or goals.
We can categorize based on these goals and the behavioral tendencies that betray them. For example, scholars' actions betray a wish to improve themselves intellectually or contribute to a body of knowledge. Consumers' actions betray a want to possess and devour. There are also examples of categories bestowed upon people that are inaccurate because of the assumed behavioral tendencies placed on them. The positive stereotype that all Asians are good at math is one such inaccuracy.
The categories that exist within our use of language are evidence of our desire to define each other and ourselves. We define ourselves through our actions. We act based on what we value. Our values betray our beliefs.
So, what I'm saying is that I agree that we all have beliefs, because if we are mentally healthy we have consistent behavior which tends toward certain goals/beliefs.
I agree that we should at least consider what our own goals/beliefs are so that we can maintain behavioral consistency.
Evaluating the "rightness" or "wrongness" of goals/beliefs is another discussion altogether.
I don't think that your third assertion is the logical conclusion. I wouldn't call physics or science "the god of atheists." It creates a confusing dialog. Besides, one of the big reasons to have a religion (read: God) is to have the value set of the religion, and the comfort of the belief that someone or something is out there guiding us, whether that's an old guy with a white beard, a young woman with lots of arms, a dozen people with different skill sets on top of a mountain, or a non-anthropomorphic haze of care and love that's guiding us towards peace. Atheists eschew the definition of purpose that religion affords.
ReplyDeleteWorking backwards through your list, I do think that we should be able to articulate our positions. I think we should also be able to articulate the positions of our counterparts. Otherwise, we're working in a vacuum. Understanding one's own belief is nice, but it doesn't mean much if you can't compare it to another belief in an honest fashion and, through comparison, establish that you do genuinely find your original belief to be more true. Or perhaps to find that the one you've just examined suits you more. So yes, examination and understanding is very important, but it shouldn't be limited to one's own beliefs.
So yes, we all have, and live off of, some assumptions. And you're also right that many of those assumptions are unexamined. So atheists think that Christians are ignorant, and Muslims think that Buddhists are totally out of line, and everyone thinks that atheists are immoral (even though we have the lowest prison rates per capita, fyi).
Also, I'd like to clarify the atheist position a little more, if I may. It's true that the public atheist argument has become "you're wrong," whether it's because of offense at the ideas of a religion (Christianity's frequent hypocrisy, for instance) or because the literalism in religion often disagrees with science. But the better, older, more honest atheist argument is "we're right because..." Unfortunately, the public argument has moved in another direction, and atheists, rather than seizing the argument, have let the other side define the terms. And so in public, they look like whiney children. Unfortunate. Oh, and the position isn't so much that "so many awful things have been done from religious conviction," it's more that religion encourages bad behavior today.