Shanks on a Xian's CredoBack to
archive index Your credo, etc. (Prolix as always) 193.32.22.91 writes: Dear Clinto Thanks for bearing with us sceptics, and with the sometimes (I hope unintentional) aggression that you might face. Here's my 'question' to which your post is a response: How can you be certain you have the right to be certain about this? You began your response by saying: >> Let me begin by telling you that my reasons for belief in God stem from my commitment to Christ. When I became a Christian, I became aware of God's existence in a way I had never been before. I believe that God exists because the Bible says so again and again. In fact, I cannot conceive of the world being as it is apart from God's creative activity. Everywhere I look, I see God's handiwork and His power. Here is where the 'language' problem seems to appear, in my opinion. Let's put it this way: 1. You have faith in 'god' 2. You have faith in the specific god: 'Jesus' 3. You have faith not just in the specific god 'Jesus', but also take as an article of faith a book purportedly full of authentic writing about him. If you do not, as yet, see the problem I am bringing up, let me try to explain. 1. You may well have had a revelation, or epiphany, of some sort, two years ago (or whenever it was). At this point it seemed as if your soul was filled with light, as if your mind managed to reach out, and if not touch, then at least begin to appreciate, the sublime. Eternity was not just within your grasp, but was offered to you. Eternal bliss was yours if only you reached out to it. (I am making this up, but it seems to me that, poetic imagery aside, this is somewhat like the experience of religious or spiritual epiphany that believers have.) 2. In order, however, to justify the specifics of your belief, your revelation, or epiphany, would have to include not just the sublime, but a detailed message, as it were. It might go along the lines of: "This is god. I offer you eternal life. This is available only through faith in my son (who is myself) Jesus. There is no profit in attempting to apply human logic to the apparent contradictions in this statement, or in any others that appear in my book - the Bible. You must treat the Bible as my guide to you through all the days of your life." The minute I state it in this way, you can see the difference between the ordinary faith based epiphany (or ''faith inducing'' epiphany), that I described in para 1, and the kind of specific detail of para 2. If your epiphany was not of the para 2 type, but a generalised para 1 epiphany, then you have no right to claim that Jesus is god, nor that the Bible is true. This is because any claim you make to that effect will actually be based upon your subsequent interpretation of your epiphany. It will not have been the substance of your epiphany. And all human interpretations are subject to question. Epiphanies may be ineffable, but interpretations of them are not. Thus, as far as I can tell, you may not claim to make sense if you confuse the meaning, or import, of the words 'god', and 'Jesus', and 'Christianity'. They are not necessarily the same thing. A useful thought experiment, which I always recommend to believers, is this: If you had an epiphany as a teenager brought up in the Muslim tradition in Iraq, would it have been about Jesus or Allah? If, of course, you had a specific revelation in the form of para 2, then the entire epiphany is, indeed, ineffable - it cannot be questioned or probed by the methods of logic or empiricism. Even so, it would raise ancillary questions: what version of the Bible did god recommend? What possible interpretations did god allow you to make of the Bible? What attitudes did god suggest you take towards the Roman Catholic Church, towards Baptism, towards the Arian creed? And so on. I understand what you are saying, and your statement ask a deeper question as to the absolute truth or existence of God. …[cut] Not necessarily. I think one of the things most sceptics are doing here is inquiring about the nature of faith, and not necessarily about whether or not faith predicates the 'truth or existence of God'. For me, your faith is irrelevant as to whether or not here is such a being as 'god'. What, if anything, I am interested in is this: Why does your faith mean to you that 'god' exists? How do the two ideas connect? But from my point of view, belief in God is very reasonable…. In this regard, you are at one with William James. Still, I am not very surprised that you do not believe; you have committed yourself to thinking independently. I am committed to trusting God's Word… I'm not sure about whether or not I think independently, but let it pass. More interesting, in light of the language problem I outlined above is this: 'trusting God's Word'. As I suggested, your epiphany may or may not have included anything specific about god's word. If it did, it may or may not have provided you with the guidelines as to the interpretation of god's word. Finally, it may or may not have given you any guidelines as to how far to trust 'common sense' or logic, and where the line needs to be drawn (between logic, and the ineffable faith). …and depending upon God for the answers to my questions, but you are committed to examining and looking at things independently of God's Word. Not necessarily. When god says "Tatvam asih, Shvetaketu" ("I am that man, Shvetaketu"), in the Puranas, I find it fascinating. When god unfolds the four noble truths regarding human suffering and the release from suffering (in the Tripitakas) I find a great deal to agree with and take inspiration from. When god speaks of the equality of all people (in Al Q'uran) I take comfort and solace from that. Or else, you need to claim that these are false gods, and show me why. Let me ask you (specifically yourself, no one else) a question: why don't you believe in God? One very good reason, implicit in the paragraph above, is that there is no good definition of 'god'. You claim that you know of god. An Ayatollah claims that he knows of god. My mother, thinking of Lord Krishna, claims that she knows of god. One thing appears clear to me: not all of you can be correct. In fact all but one of you must be wrong. And there is no way to tell which, if any, is correct. In fact, an observer is naturally led down the path of suspecting that, if no more than one can be correct, and there is no way to tell which, if at all there is one, is correct, then it seems possible, nay likely, that they are all being fooled. That they are all thinking in a befuddled way. That there isn't any such thing - since if there were, it seems reasonable that it would at least have some way of expressing itself in more than just one human being. But that's just one of the reasons I do not 'believe in God'. Another is, of course, the moral one. Steven Weinberg, in the essay posted by Robert below, says more about the morality of religion, and says it more clearly, than I ever could. I am quite certain that my initial distaste for religion grew from my feeling that all evil things appeared to be done in religion's name, and I could not think of any good things that religion had done. Today I can think of some wonderful achievements in the name of religion, but conclude on balance that it is still a force for immorality and cruelty. Another reason is, in a sense, my Humanist tendency. If I subscribe to the notion of there being something special, and worthy in itself, about persons, then I cannot allow the notion that there is some 'higher' entity to whom, or compared with whom, humans are irrelevant, and should be treated as such. Notice that I have not even got into the problem of evil, the problem with the ontological argument, or the design argument and so on. You wanted to know 'why' I did not believe in 'god'. Perhaps these personal notes will suffice as a response (though, as Bernie would tell you, the 'why' question is meaningless, and hence cannot have an 'answer', only, at best, a response). Hope to talk again soon. cheer the sunshine warrior Back to
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