Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Empirical Theism:
A Thought Experiment
Shane Hayes

What I propose is not a new theology. It is a sliver of existing theologies that one never sees separated from them and standing alone. Pure Theism is that sliver, in its limpid crystalline essence.

The door from atheism to theism opened for me when I read this stunning affirmation by William James:

“We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to His influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.”

We and God… The plain-stated linkage is intriguing. Have business with each other… The unpiousness, the urbanity, the practicality, the suggestion of profitable commerce, an interchange that does not require me to abase myself before starting. Nothing clerical or preachy in this appeal. In opening ourselves to His influence… How easy to visualize! Just stop shutting him out; open myself. Well, there’s no doubt I’ve been closed to him. Influence has a less intimidating sound than compulsion or command, and is more comprehensible than grace. Our deepest destiny is fulfilled… That is what atheism utterly lacks – a stirring destiny. Our future is so short and opaque. However much speed we gather in life, it ends with a crash into the wall of death. They cart our wreckage away, and it’s over.

Where New Faith Begins

That powerful sentence by William James, not a verse of scripture, was the embryo of my Pure Theism. I read 507 pages into The Varieties of Religious Experience before I came to it. That book, so charged with the vision, insight, and erudition of a great scientific and philosophical mind, convinced me that believing in God is intellectually respectable. The sentence that lodged in my brain like a mustard seed and, after much repetition, finally took root, is worth repeating:

“We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to His influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.”

Call it the James Affirmation. Memorize it. Carry it with you. Gaze at the world for minutes every day through that illuminating lens. Experiment with its insight. Sit still and quiet. Let your breathing become deep and regular. Shut out the myriad distractions and concerns. Suspend your skepticism -- relax your white-knuckled grip on it. Repeat the affirmation silently or aloud. Meditate on each of its four elements, one by one.

We and God. Those three words brim with the essence of theistic faith. Creature and Creator in a state of mutual awareness. Mutual acknowledgement. Ahh, but you say, I acknowledge only a remote possibility. That’s enough, I reply. That’s enough for now.

Have business with each other. Think of it. A transaction between God and man. Between God and you. You can do something for him, and he can do something for you. Not just one transaction, though it begins with that. A working relationship will develop if you let it. A daily interchange. But if there is a God, you ask, what can I do for him? He’s infinite, he needs nothing. You can believe in him, I reply. Does he need that? No. But you need it, so he wants it for you, because you’re incomplete without it. He wants you to be complete. Without him you can’t be. And you can’t have him if you deny he exists.

And in opening ourselves to His influence. How would I open myself, even if I wanted to? you ask. Einstein arrived at his greatest scientific insights not by lab experiments but by what he called “thought experiments.” He would imagine what might happen if a certain set of facts came together in a certain way. Often the facts were quite abstract and impossible to duplicate in the material world; for example, a bucket of water rotating in outer space. How would its contents react, given certain gravitational or non-gravitational hypotheses?

A Thought Experiment

Let’s emulate the great scientist and do a thought experiment. For the sake of it, and for the moment, imagine that a cosmic intelligence exists. Savor the idea that the supreme benevolent reality is conscious of you, has not rejected you (though you’ve rejected him), and is eager to connect. He might be there, and he might care, is your first hypothesis. Wade into the depths of that glistening possibility. Yield yourself to its enveloping warmth. Experience its buoyancy.

He might be there, and he might care… about you, deeply. If that were true, nothing would be the same. Everything would be new. Meditate on the majesty of that thought, and expose your consciousness to its meaning and consequence. Allow yourself to be touched and stirred by the invisible hand that called you out of nothingness -- and wants you never to descend into nothingness again. Be passive, receptive, welcoming. Open.

Our deepest destiny is fulfilled. What do you think of as your destiny? Love. Gratifying friendship. Success in your work, profession, or art. Recognition. Fame. Affluence, even wealth. A splendid place to live. Handsome progeny who achieve distinction. Then a long serene travel-filled and fascinating retirement. Finally a stately well-attended memorial service, with eloquent eulogies by the tearful many who loved you and lament your passing. Then a grave, a vault in a mausoleum… or a scattering of your dust on some picturesque land- or seascape. An honorable destiny, to be sure. It may satisfy your imagination. It does not satisfy God’s.

Immortal, he designed you to share his immortality. Timeless, he will bring you beyond time and death to a realm where nothing decays, nothing tarnishes, nothing dies. Great hearted, he will expand your heart, and help you love people, his world, yourself, and him in a way that will make you stronger and more joyful than you’ve ever been. He will not deliver you from life’s toils, ills, frustrations, losses, and tragedies. But he will help you bear them, get through them, look past them.

Indestructible

You will see things differently when you feel that he, a Spirit, has made you part spirit, and that the spirit part of you is indestructible. The bond of love that grows between you and him will be indestructible too. Breath will cease, but love will endure. And in the silent promise of that love is hid your deepest destiny. He will start leading you to its fulfillment – a slow illuminating process – as soon as you ask him to, as soon as you let him. Open yourself. At least a little. Now.

27 comments:

  1. "In opening ourselves to His influence… How easy to visualize! Just stop shutting him out; open myself. Well, there’s no doubt I’ve been closed to him. Influence has a less intimidating sound than compulsion or command, and is more comprehensible than grace. Our deepest destiny is fulfilled… That is what atheism utterly lacks – a stirring destiny."

    Shane,
    It sounds so wonderful, doesn't it? The problem with the statement that atheism utterly lacks a stirring destiny is that you cannot lack something that isn't there. True, you can psych yourself into believing it's true which can excite you, but if it is not true, it is simply a waste of time. In that case you can find better things to do on a beautiful Sunday like, in my case, biking and hiking. From all my research, religions appear to be inventions by man. I know when I was younger, I needed it, but now I no longer feel that way. In fact, I feel FREE. That is a wonderful feeling. No worries that I could go to hell, because it doesn't exit. Instead, best to enjoy every moment of life that you can because this may be it. If there is continuation of consciousness, then I will know then and I am willing to bet that to achieve it you didn't have to prepare for it while you are alive because no God has made it clear that we should. Funny, over on the atheist board, some have compared the belief in God as the belief in fairies. Many things have been attributed to gods like the movement of the sun across the sky, but science has since explained this as a natural rather than a supernatural occurrence.

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  2. Shane,
    In Karen Armstrong's book, History of God, she describes how various leaders came up with their religions. They tried going into their bodies, fasted, etc. Did they really communicate with God? I doubt it. There are many different religions which differ from themselves. Either they each have a different God, or they are created by the imaginations of their human creators. I am betting on the latter.

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  3. Shane:

    "Mawkish" and "lame" are the two words that immediately come to my mind in response to this post. If there are still atheists who have managed to stick with you up to this point in your argument, I doubt that there will be any beyond this point. What you have said scarcely merits any atheist counterarguments, but I will present a couple anyway, for you consideration.

    Counterargument 1: In claiming that that God has made me immortal, I can only suppose that you are using the word "immortal" in some kind of peculiar, non-standard sense, and that you are not implying that I could save money by cancelling my life insurance. In my experience, theists seem to kick the bucket with the same frequency as atheists. Perhaps you should find a better word than "immortal."

    Counterargument 2: Given that when you say I am "immortal" you are really trying to say that when I'm dead I won't be dead, thanks to the loving God that you posit, would it not be plausible for me to assume that such a God would not hold it against me in my post-dead undead state that I did not believe that he existed in my pre-dead, alive state? Or are you saying that there's a catch? Do you believe that your loving God will turn viciously against us atheists once we joint the ranks of the post-dead undead, in a way that, say, he would not have turned against someone like Homer, who believed, not in a a single loving God, but in the multiple and not-particularly-loving gods of Mount Olympus?

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  4. P. Coyle,

    My reply to your comment has grown too long and substantial to be a comment. I may make it my next posting.

    Shane

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  5. P. Coyle,

    On second thought I will reply here.

    Your comment was mordant but stimulating. I’ll take the second of your pejorative labels first. You found my posting “lame,” and well you might since you refer to it as my “argument.” All of my prior postings have been arguments, but this was not. This is what all the others led to – not one more round of intellectual fencing but AN INVITATION. To what? A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT, as the title states. An experiment with faith.

    The previous twenty postings were a dialectic that tried to establish several propositions: (1) We can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. (2) There is at least an even chance that God exists. (3) It is both reasonable and intellectually respectable to believe in God. (4) One’s life – not just one’s afterlife -- can be greatly enriched by choosing to believe in God rather than NO GOD. (5) Remaining chronically undecided on the choice between God and No God is in effect to choose the latter. (6) Belief in God can take an extremely simplified form, different from organized religion, which I call Pure Theism.

    MOVING BEYOND THOUGHT

    The whole purpose of the dialectic was not to win an argument but to change a life, as faith changed my life. Very few atheists who read my work will assent to all those propositions. This I well know. But if one does, mere intellectual assent is like walking to the end of a diving board. If you stop there nothing happens. You remain earthbound. You must use the board to take a leap and a plunge into faith – a whole new element for one who had none.

    This essay “Empirical Theism: A Thought Experiment” is designed to help a reader take that plunge, by leading him through a process of thought and volition that can lift him off the ground, as it lifted me decades ago.

    No, I have not soared through life since then. But Pure Theism can work a transformation in one’s consciousness of God, self, human destiny, and personal strength that impels one to use soaring metaphors. The reality is nonverbal – mystical, if you like. Words can only adumbrate. My effort in this essay is to lead someone into the experience. I know that only the few – the very few -- who are ready will follow that lead.

    POOR WORDS, RICH TRUTH

    “Mawkish” was your second pejorative label. I feared that reaction and tried to avoid it, but I can’t write about the God of Pure Theism without talking about love, since that’s what he is -- and what his universe is about. It’s a decidedly TOUGH love – thorny, punishing, sometimes brutal – but ultimately healing, redemptive, beatific.

    We must be open not only to him but to HIS LOVE FLOWING THROUGH US -- to the people in our lives and to others we can only remotely touch. It may sound mawkish when I write about it, but that’s a deficit in my writing skill, which I acknowledge. The reality I point to is robust, powerful, and fresh as sunrise.

    Shane

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  6. P. Coyle,

    Your Counterargument 1 is just pulling my chain. You know perfectly well what I mean by “immortal” in that context.

    Your Counterargument 2, though dripping with acid, raises a serious question and deserves a response. In essence you asked my view on this issue: If there is an afterlife would God reject atheists because they rejected him? I don’t know, of course, but I think he might. Pure Theism is part of a God hypothesis and a world view that I expressed in my essay entitled “How the Improbable God Probably Works,” which I hope you’ll scroll down to and read again (it’s not long).

    If I’m right in thinking that God created a universe that is, as someone said, “moral to its core,” the purpose of human freedom is to MAKE MORAL CHOICES, which God cares about and which may determine our destiny. The basic moral challenge is to love God and love people. Our success or failure in that endeavor may have long-term consequences, if God is as serious about the significance of moral choice as I think he is. He may reward those who do well and not reward those who do poorly.

    I expect those who love will fare better than those who refuse to. Is it enough to love people and not love God if he means us to do both? If believing he exists is a precondition of loving him, and loving him is a precondition of some final beatitude, might it not be lost by those who refuse to believe and love?

    Shane

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  7. Shane you said: "(1) We can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. (2) There is at least an even chance that God exists. (3) It is both reasonable and intellectually respectable to believe in God. (4) One’s life – not just one’s afterlife -- can be greatly enriched by choosing to believe in God rather than NO GOD."

    I have used the first argument on the friendly atheist blog. I have argued that it seemed likely that everything started by a cause,namely a creator. I have received counterarguments that an argument about something when you have no evidence is really no argument at all. It is better to say you don't know. Further, adding a supernatural being just adds more complexity rather than a solution. Falling back on a creator is simply a cop out. In the past, when the Egyptians couldn't explain the sun coming up and moving across the sky, they decided that it was a god pulling a chariot of fire. No one believes that today. The point is that as science becomes more sophisticated, a creator did it has been replaced by a scientific explanation. You talk about our destiny and how God loves us, but you are not basing that on fact. It seems more like wishful thinking. It is hard to except the possibility that this life may be it. If it isn't, we will know after we die. Why worry about something we can't know about. You talk about a loving God,but that means choosing to ignore the fact that whole populations were wiped out by the Bubonic Plague. It wasn't until science came along that these plagues have reduced in number. A loving God didn't do it. Science did. We are fortunate to be born in America. There are many places in the world that are pretty much a "hell on earth".

    "I expect those who love will fare better than those who refuse to. Is it enough to love people and not love God if he means us to do both?"

    I agree that those who love people will fare better, but can you really say the same thing about a god we don't even know exists?

    "If believing he exists is a precondition of loving him, and loving him is a precondition of some final beatitude, might it not be lost by those who refuse to believe and love? "

    Can't you see? This is all speculation.

    That said, if it makes you feel better, than believing in a loving God is good for you, but stating that an atheist is any less off is not necessarily so.

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  8. Wayne,

    You ask, "Why worry about something we can't know about?"

    Answer: Because it may profoundly affect us for much more than a lifetime.

    Perhaps God arranged his creation so that we can't KNOW, and he wants FAITH not knowledge to be our final guide. In fact, since we can't have knowledge (certainty about ultimate truth) faith is all that's left. The only question is what kind of faith: faith in God -- or faith in No God.

    Since all the science in the world doesn't resove the issue of God's existence, atheists have simply chosen negative faith. Pure Theism is positive faith. Hanging between them is an illusion. If you don't choose positive faith, you have either no faith or negative faith. They amount to the same thing: You have chosen to have No God in your life.

    I can't stress this too much, Wayne. All those smart atheists on those atheist blogs are kidding you. They don't KNOW either. All their proud show of scientific knowledge doesn't clinch the case. In the end they leap to an unproven conclusion. That's faith -- negative faith. They are no more sure of being right than I am, but they pretend to be.

    You can't be sure. You can't EVER be sure. ATHEISM IS JUST NEGATIVE FAITH. You cannot choose between knowledge and faith, because knowledge is impossible. It's one kind of faith or the other, Wayne. And I contend that positive faith is a healthier happier choice, every bit as likely to be right as negative faith.

    It makes every day of my life immeasurably better. Even if I'm wrong about the afterlife I come out way ahead with positive faith: Pure Theism. Read my last posting again -- and try it. Do that thought experiment.

    Shane

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  9. Shane, Part 1 of 2
    “Answer: Because it may profoundly affect us for much more than a lifetime.”
    But don’t you see that is pure speculation? I is like my former music director waking up one day and deciding that he was going to go to hell if he didn’t start going to church and embracing Christianity. He even went so far to say that if he was wrong, both of us would die and that would be it. If, on the other hand, if he was right, he would go to heaven and I to hell. He didn’t realize the fallicy of his argument that he might be following the wrong religion. Heck, even the early Jews believed everyone went to something called, I think, Shoal. It was a cold dark place. Gradually Hell evolved.
    “Perhaps God arranged his creation so that we can't KNOW, and he wants FAITH not knowledge to be our final guide. In fact, since we can't have knowledge (certainty about ultimate truth) faith is all that's left. The only question is what kind of faith: faith in God -- or faith in No God.”
    Again, pure speculation. Where is your evidence? And don’t say faith because that is certainly no evidence. It is more like wishful thinking or a fantasy.
    “Since all the science in the world doesn't resove the issue of God's existence, atheists have simply chosen negative faith.”
    I once was saying the same thing, but now I’m not so sure. Atheists on the friendly atheist blog feel that when you can’t explain something, saying then it must be a God is equivalent to believing in fairies. Saying a God did is simply a cop-out and just adds more complication. This was thrown at me when I stated that you need a cause to have something come from nothing and expand rapidly in the Big Bang. I said that I believed that would be a creator since you can’t get a cause from nothing. Somebody Quantum mechanics which indicates that nothing can be something. So, there are other hypothesis out there. I tend to think a creator, but I have no evidence. Atheists argue that leaping to the supernatural is simply a big cop-out. I hate to admit it, but they could very well be right. There are many things we didn’t understand in the past which we then attributed to a god only to have science come up with a natural answer.
    “You have chosen to have No God in your life.”
    Strange as it may seem, I still pray to a God, even though I cannot prove that a God exists or even hears me. I have had things happen in my life that seem like someone was controlling, but they could have simply been coincidences. Again, how do you worship a God you know nothing about or even determine if a God exists? There are numerous religions and numerous beliefs within each religion. That presents a dilemma since it tends to show that nobody really knows which is correct or if any of them are actually God inspired. Buddhism believes we keep coming back until we get it right, but it doesn’t seem to believe in a God. I used to believe that those who had after death experiences proved that there was life after death until I heard that astronauts riding the centrifuge machine were having them. Seems it had something to do with lack of oxygen to the brain. And now my son presented me with a book he read, DMT the Spirit Molecule. Seems this psychedelic drug can induce these experiences. So those having these experiences doesn’t really prove there is life after death.

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  10. Shane, part 2 of 2
    “I can't stress this too much, Wayne. All those smart atheists on those atheist blogs are kidding you. They don't KNOW either.”
    That’s just it. They aren’t kidding me. They admit that they don’t know, but adding complication with a supernatural being is no answer, since I have no evidence. I’ve been asked why not just admit that I do not know. I counter that, just because I have no evidence, doesn’t mean I can’t speculate. Still, they do have a point.

    “ And I contend that positive faith is a healthier happier choice, every bit as likely to be right as negative faith.”
    Don’t you see what you are saying? You would rather go with wishful thinking than face the truth even if you were to determine that there is no God. You, like the majority are clinging to what gives you the most comfort. I admit that I feel that way at times to. I saw a feature on PBS where the MC went in search of plagues and such for well known past atheists. He found pretty much nothing and it felt empty and made atheism seem like a kill joy. So, yeah, in spite of lack of evidence, it feels best to cling to the existence of a God and the promise of continuance of life after death. Funny, someone stated that it would be nice to extend life for a while but felt that doing it for an eternity would actually be torture.
    “It makes every day of my life immeasurably better.”
    Fine, I don’t really want to convince you otherwise then. However, just because it works for you doesn’t mean that an atheist is any less happy. Also, you have to realize that your feeling better could simply be all in your mind and a God may not even exist.
    “Even if I'm wrong about the afterlife I come out way ahead with positive faith”
    See, I am right that is why you feel better because you, like me are getting closer to the inevitable and, you are clinging to the hope of life after death. And yes, it won’t matter if you are wrong because you will be dead and will never know.

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  11. http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/06/06/what-do-atheists-do-that-frustrates-you/#comment-496676
    Shane, checks this out at the friendly atheist blog near the end. I have been going back and forth insisting that a creator can be a logical explanation in spite of the lack of evidence. There are numerous messages here.

    My last comment was as follows:

    http://www.physorg.com/news126955971.html
    Just another of many hypothesis of how the Universe started. Funny, initially scientists stated that you should look to religion for the answer. Some here have suggested that I should simply say I don’t know how it started rather than speculating that it could be a creator, but it looks like scientists are doing it, and since they can’t all be right, it can’t all be from evidence. They, like me must be speculating as well.

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  12. Part 1 of ... several.

    Shane, you write, "All of my prior postings have been arguments, but this was not. This is what all the others led to – not one more round of intellectual fencing but AN INVITATION. To what? A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT, as the title states."

    Philosophers do not all agree as to whether a Gedankenexperiment is an argument, but I might note that John Norton writes, "Thought experiments are arguments which (i) posit hypothetical or counterfactual states of affairs, and (ii) invoke particulars irrelevant to the generality of the conclusion...." Since your purpose seemed to have been to advance your position, I took it that you had intended to present an argument.

    What is more questionable than whether a thought experiment is an argument is whether what you presented was actually a thought experiment. It seems to me that the only thinking solicited in you experiment was wishful thinking. More on wishful thinking anon.

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  14. Post 2 of ... several (sorry, I had to delete an earlier version of this because I left out a sentence).

    Shane, you wrote, "The previous twenty postings were a dialectic that tried to establish several propositions: (1) We can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. (2) There is at least an even chance that God exists. (3) It is both reasonable and intellectually respectable to believe in God. (4) One’s life – not just one’s afterlife -- can be greatly enriched by choosing to believe in God rather than NO GOD. (5) Remaining chronically undecided on the choice between God and No God is in effect to choose the latter. (6) Belief in God can take an extremely simplified form, different from organized religion, which I call Pure Theism." Let me deal with these one at a time.

    "(1) We can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God." True, but it is notoriously difficult to prove the nonexistence of something. Suppose I put forward the proposition that "Napoleon's mind was controlled by a three-headed monster named 'Oogah' who lives on a planet on the far side of the galaxy." Let me stipulate that I believe that this proposition is pure nonsense and that I made it up on the spot to sound as silly and preposterous as possible. But can I prove that it is false, that Oogah does not exist? No -- despite the fact that I just made it up out of thin air, and that there is no evidence for the existence of Oogah, I can't prove that Oogah does not exist. Nevertheless, I think that I have good and sufficient reason for my belief that Oogah does not exist.

    Dawkins puts it this way: "There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be [believing] agnostic[s] with respect to fairies?"

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  15. Shane's proposition 2: "There is at least an even chance that God exists."

    There is no way to estimate an actual mathematical probability that God exists. You want to put the odds at at least 50-50, but this is strictly your own subjective estimate. In a reply to one of your earlier posts, I suggested that the probability that God exists is actually zero by noting that no one has yet been able to demonstrate how God's existence might be possible. Those such as yourself who believe that God exists have merely ASSUMED that his existence must possible. However an assumption which could well be utterly false is no grounds for a probability estimate. How do propose to demonstrate that the probability of God's existence is non-zero?

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  16. Shane's proposition 3: "It is both reasonable and intellectually respectable to believe in God."

    I don't deny that there are people who seem quite reasonable about other things, and who are demonstrably quite intelligent, who believe in God. That is not to say, however, that I consider belief in God to be reasonable and intellectually respectable. When I first became an atheist, at a fairly early age, I though myself quite clever for having figured out that all this "God" stuff was nonsense. Now that I am older and, I like to think, wiser, I am baffled as to how any thoughtful and intelligent person could believe in the existence of God. I know that they do, I simply don't understand why they do.

    Dawkins and I both put "God" into the same category as "Oogah the three-headed monster from another planet" and "fairies at the bottom of the garden" -- things that don't exist and that people should not believe exist if those people are to merit the label "reasonable."

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  17. Shane's proposition 4: "One’s life – not just one’s afterlife -- can be greatly enriched by choosing to believe in God rather than NO GOD."

    Hmmmm. Can one actually "choose" to believe in God? Speaking for myself, I would find it quite difficult to wake up tomorrow, sit up on the bed, and think to myself, "I guess I'll try believing in God today and see how it works out."

    I acknowledge the possibility that what is true of me may not be true of others. In a blog I follow, the author recently posted a comment by Chris Hedges: "Many of the tens of millions within the Christian right live on the edge of poverty. The Bible, interpreted for them by pastors whose connection with God means they cannot be questioned, is their handbook for daily life. The rigidity and simplicity of their belief are potent weapons in the fight against their own demons and the struggle to keep their lives on track. The reality-based world, one where Satan, miracles, destiny, angels and magic did not exist, battered them like driftwood. It took their jobs and destroyed their future. It rotted their communities. It flooded their lives with alcohol, drugs, physical violence, deprivation and despair. And then they discovered that God has a plan for them. God will save them. God intervenes in their lives to promote and protect them. The emotional distance they have traveled from the real world to the world of Christian fantasy is immense. And the rational, secular forces, those that speak in the language of fact and evidence, are hated and ultimately feared, for they seek to pull believers back into 'the culture of death' that nearly destroyed them. There are wild contradictions within this belief system. Personal independence is celebrated alongside an abject subservience to leaders who claim to speak for God. The movement says it defends the sanctity of life and advocates the death penalty, militarism, war and righteous genocide. It speaks of love and promotes fear of damnation and hate. There is a terrifying cognitive dissonance in every word they utter."

    Have these people at some "chosen" to believe in God (and to believe in a particular kind of God in a particular way) because they found "Christian fantasy" to be more palatable than the "real world," as Hedges claims? Maybe. Recently I ran across an article about a woman who had lost her job over a year ago and had not been able to find work since. One result, said the article, was that she had become "very religious." Perhaps that helped her cope with the stress of losing her job (though it did not seem to have helped her find another).

    What do you think, Shane? To what extent can a person "choose" to believe in God?

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  18. Shane's proposition 5: "Remaining chronically undecided on the choice between God and No God is in effect to choose the latter."

    See my response above to proposition 4. Can one actually "choose" to believe in God? I can't. Perhaps others can.

    Shane's proposition 6: "Belief in God can take an extremely simplified form, different from organized religion, which I call Pure Theism."

    I suppose it could take a variety of extremely simplified forms. That variety of deism that asserts that God does not intervene in the world would be one such form.

    What would be the reason, given the lack of evidence for the existence of God, for concluding that one extremely simplified form is better than some other extremely simplified form? Is this, too, simply a matter of "choice"?

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  19. Shane wrote, "Your Counterargument 1 is just pulling my chain. You know perfectly well what I mean by “immortal” in that context."

    No, I wasn't JUST pulling your chain. How is it that, if God wants us to be immortal, we are not immortal? You recall the old syllogism (does it go back to Aristotle?):

    All men are mortal.
    Socrates is a man.
    Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

    You are clearly disputing the major premise here. What major promise would you prefer? Some men are mortal? No men are mortal?

    Is Socrates still alive?

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  20. Shane writes: "In essence you asked my view on this issue: If there is an afterlife would God reject atheists because they rejected him? I don’t know, of course, but I think he might."

    Shane, atheists don't reject God. They simply don't believe that he exists. What you are saying is that God might "reject" atheists because of what they think about a factual matter -- the existence or non-existence of God. I submit that a god that did this would be an unjust god.

    Note that I do not mean to imply that this is an argument against the existence of God. I have no reason to believe that God exists, but, if he does, I have no reason to believe that he is just. He could very well be unjust.

    Why, to put the shoe on the other foot for a moment, I can imagine a God who rejects theists for believing that he exists. Would you consider such a God unjust?

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  21. Shane writes: "If I’m right in thinking that God created a universe that is, as someone said, 'moral to its core,' the purpose of human freedom is to MAKE MORAL CHOICES, which God cares about and which may determine our destiny. The basic moral challenge is to love God and love people."

    To love or not to love is not a moral choice. I can choose to treat people fairly and well, or unfairly and badly. THAT is certainly a moral choice. How I may happen to feel about them personally is irrelevant.

    As for loving an entity that I do not believe even exists, that is not a choice that is even on the table. Frankly, your statement makes about as much sense as saying that the purpose of human freedom is about making the "moral choice" to love or not to love the Tooth Fairy.

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  22. P.Coyle,
    >Hmmmm. Can one actually "choose" to believe in God? Speaking for myself, I would find it quite difficult to wake up tomorrow, sit up on the bed, and think to myself, "I guess I'll try believing in God today and see how it works out.">
    Remember my friend? He woke up one day and decided that he was destined to go to Hell if he did not turn to the Christian God and go to church.
    You ask if Socrates is alive. I can go one further and ask is Jesus alive? You seem to be talking about having an immortal body, but, supposedly, once you throw off your body your spirit lives on. Still, the Bible believed that at the end of time, bodies would be raised from the grave and given an immortal body. Still, there are those who claim they have died on the operating table and gone through a tunnel and met people who died before them even ones who they thought were still alive and had just died that day or day before. Also, there are those who have met some sort of being that felt like love which enveloped them. Even atheists have experienced this, so it sounds like they were not rejected. Hallucination? Maybe, but who knows for sure?
    I agree with you that you can’t love an entity you don’t even believe exists. I doubt it would give you a warm fuzzy feeling as Shane thinks it would. Shane, since you admit you cannot prove a God, if one doesn’t exist, then your fulfilled feeling would all be due to imagination. On the other hand, if this fulfilled feeling is due to a God, then P.Coyle doesn’t realize what he is missing.

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  23. Wayne writes: "Remember my friend? He woke up one day and decided that he was destined to go to Hell if he did not turn to the Christian God and go to church."

    What do you mean by "decided" here, Wayne? It seems to me that you mean "came to a conclusion," not "chose" -- where "chose" means "to develop a preference for x over y." Your friend may have had a preference for the Christian God over Hell, but it seems to me that this could only have been the case if he had already come to the conclusion that the Christian God and Hell both existed.

    Wayne continues: "You seem to be talking about having an immortal body, but, supposedly, once you throw off your body your spirit lives on."

    Right, what's a "spirit"? I understand what a physical body is, and I understand (roughly) what a mind is. I presume that a spirit is neither a body nor a mind? If that is correct, can you give me a coherent account of what it is?

    Wayne continues: "Still, there are those who claim they have died on the operating table and gone through a tunnel.... Hallucination? Maybe, but who knows for sure?"

    I go with hallucination. As the brain beguns to shut down, our normal perception of the world can change radically. What you are describing, is a version of the "near death experience." It can also take the form of an "out-of-body experience," in which the person has the sensation of being outside of his or her own body. But virtually identical experiences have been reported by fighter pilots who were not near death, but rather near blackout in high-G turns.

    You might want to look at the video by Jill Taylor Bolte at http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html. Bolte is a neuroscientist who suffered a stroke a number of yearts ago. While she was undergoing her stroke, the left hemisphere of her brain essentially shut down, leaving her to experience the world only through her brain's right hemisphere. Among other things, she says that as she was leaning against the wall, she had difficulty discerning where her arm ended and the wall began. According to one source, "Having lost the categorizing, organizing, describing, judging and critically analyzing skills of her left brain, along with its language centers and thus ego center, Jill’s consciousness shifted away from normal reality. In the absence of her left brain’s neural circuitry, her consciousness shifted into present moment thinking whereby she experienced herself 'at one with the universe.'" In general, similar phenomena have been described as "the mind losing track of the body."

    Wayne concludes, " On the other hand, if this fulfilled feeling is due to a God, then P.Coyle doesn’t realize what he is missing."

    Even if the fulfilled feeling is NOT due to a God, I might not realize what I am missing -- as Jill Taylor Bolte did not realize what she was missing until a stroke temporarily shut down the left hemisiphere of her brain. To put it more clearly, I might realize intellectually that I could be "missing" something, but that simply means that I am aware that there is something that I have not experienced. Similarly, I am aware that I might be "missing something" because I have never taken LSD.

    I remain your most humble servant,the determinedly left-brained P. Coyle

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  24. P.Coyle writes: “What do you mean by "decided" here, Wayne? It seems to me that you mean "came to a conclusion," not "chose" -- where "chose" means "to develop a preference for x over y." Your friend may have had a preference for the Christian God over Hell, but it seems to me that this could only have been the case if he had already come to the conclusion that the Christian God and Hell both existed.”
    You make a good point. My friend probably believed in God due to how he was raised, but chose not to follow the commandments in the Bible. One morning he woke up and concluded that he was going to Hell if he didn’t follow those commandments in the Bible.

    “Right, what's a "spirit"? I understand what a physical body is, and I understand (roughly) what a mind is. I presume that a spirit is neither a body nor a mind? If that is correct, can you give me a coherent account of what it is?”
    Our bodies are essentially a way of giving our soul the ability to function in this physical world. There are those who have had out of body experiences, but as long as the silver cord is not detached they can return to their bodies. Once the silver chord is detached you cannot return. From what I understand so far, the pineal gland, as I understand it, under certain extraordinary circumstances produces a large amount of DMT which causes the out of body and spiritual experiences. My son just gave me this book titled The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman, M.D. I have read around 70 pages, but I did skip to 310 where the author states “If DMT is indeed released at particular stressful times in our lives, is that a coincidence, or is it intended? If intended, for what purpose?” I don’t know if he gives any answers, but I will let you know. BTW, yes I am familiar with astronauts going through G machine training who have had out of body experiences where they have met up with a being that exudes warmth and immense love and even have seen love ones who have died. You state that you go with hallucination, but you cannot be certain if it is so. I have thought as you, but I’m not so certain. I have heard of people having a death experiences and meeting someone they thought was alive only to later find out they had just died. BTW, those given DMT in research projects have experienced out of body experiences.
    “I remain your most humble servant,the determinedly left-brained P. Coyle”
    Ah ha! That’s your problem. Only the left side of your brain is functioning. That explains your lack of spirituality. :-)

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  25. P.Coyle,
    Yes, the soul contains our personality and our consciousness which includes all our knowledge.

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  26. Shane, you posted the following:
    "The door from atheism to theism opened for me when I read this stunning affirmation by William James:

    “We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to His influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.”"

    What I cannot understand is how you can be converted from atheism to theism based on these words. James could have easily said we and fairies have business with each other. Can't you see, it is meaningless. It is a statement with no facts backing it. We have no evidence that a god exists yet somebody makes a statement that we have business with this god we don't even no exists. First of all, we don't even know if a god exists, so how can we then know we have business with this god? We are dealing with grasping for straws in an attempt to find something more meaningful in our lives when this could be it, and if it is it, then we should be doing everything we can to make the journey as enjoyable as we can.

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  27. Shane said,
    "Think of it. A transaction between God and man. Between God and you. You can do something for him, and he can do something for you."

    The Israelites made a pact with God. They would worship him as there only God - There were others - and He would protect them. However, when their enemy defeated them, religious leaders would right away state that the people had sinned. Think about it. Can we really blame everyone if not everyone sinned? But let's look a little further. God made a pact with David that his line would rule forever. It didn't happen. Why not? How can an all knowing God make such a promise and then it didn't happen. The enemy removed the Davidian leader and replaced him with an nonDavidian leader. No matter how you look at it, the line ended there. Some try to say that Jesus was from the line of David, but he never became the leader since Israel was under the rule of Rome. Jesus ended up being crucified as a rebel against Rome.

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