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This began with a short message with an obscenely large unrequested e-mail attachment. 320KB! That is an abuse of email. I have reproduced a heavily crunched up version, a much more acceptable 26KB.
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Hey, I've been thinking a lot about what you wrote in the Atheist newsgroup, and then someone sent me this email and it really washed your arguments away.. what do you think..  |
I think that was a rather juvenile waste of my connection time.
For a start 600 million years ago there was nothing remotely like a fish anywhere on the planet, but when have facts ever gotten in the way of faith?
What are the majority of species of animals and plants on Earth for? We only use a miniscule fraction of them. Apparently there are animals who live entirely in and on the tears of hippopotomuses, you seem to be the kind of person who thinks things need a purpose in order to exist, what are such things for? My explanation is straight-forward and simple, explanations in terms of purpose are unnecessary for things not made by intelligent beings. Rocks don't need a justification to exist, neither do mountains, beetles or people. None of them is for anything. Man made things like computers, cars, paintings, poems and gods need explanations. Organisms exist if they have reproduced. Asking why they exist is futile, purpose is not sufficient or necessary for their existence. Just because you can ask a question does not mean there is any good reason to expect an answer that makes you feel contented. You can ask “why is the sky blue?” until you are blue in the face all the explanations you will be given, while perfectly accurate, will never satisfy you unless you allow them to. The human capacity to continually ask annoyingly futile questions is almost infinite, ask any parent of a three year old.
Rocks and planets and galaxies just exist (or don't). No reason or purpose is necessary to explain them. Animals and plants exist because they have successfully reproduced in an unbroken chain of success. Not very likely is it? An unbroken chain of success for more than 3 billion years? That is the understatement of all time. It is so mindnumbingly unlikely and none the less self evidently true that it cancels out any amount of incredulity as to perfection of design that you can throw at it. Life has to be spectacularly well shaped to survive to have beaten such odds, but the beauty of evolution is that it provides the solution as to how this could happen. To characterize it as blind chance is breathtakingly inaccurate. Every protein and cell in your body has been shaped by the filter of the struggle for life. Every single one of your ancestors was a winner, not one died before having at least one offspring, not back to Adam in 4004 BC but back to LUCA, the latest universal common ancestor over 3 billion years ago. That is why you are equipped to succeed. However, the same is true for the inhabitant of every grave, every mousetrap, every fillet-o-fish, every compost heap and every fossil.
Belief in God is not stupid but it does not answer any key questions in life. You are still left with mysteries, and you have further mysteries added on top as you try to reconcile differing accounts of reality. I discovered that belief in God was holding me back from discovering the truth over 25 years ago. Since that time I have discovered more and more things about the world around me, I don't think I have ever let a month go past without some major change in my beliefs. How many religious people can say the same?
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Hey Martin, Your argument makes total sense. However, ther are so many questions that totally dismiss (in my mind) any certainty that there is no "God". I was brought up Roman Catholic and catholic teaching on evolution is actually pretty open minded. It's the fundamentalist protestant groups "Bible thumpers" who take every word in the bible literally, that claim the world is only 5000 years old. Catholicism views the question of evolution as a theory. Is it true? well, it probably is for the most part, but factually, it still remains a theory. Therefore, evolution is viewed and treated as a theory. What the catholic faith DOES teach, is that at some point of development, God "infused an eternal soul" into man. But using biblical scripture alone, namely "Genesis", the question of our origin is handled very simply: God created man from the "slime of the earth" and breathed a soul into him. The whole "7 days of creation" is just a metaphor for the sequence of events that took place, (first the light then the waters etc etc) leading up to the existence of rational mankind. How long did that take? Probably eons. But after a lot of pondering, I have concluded that the bible could essentially be true. However, (especially Genesis) the bible uses alot of SYMBOLISM.. Since primitive people were, well, primitive--and illiterate, the use of images that they (and we) can relate to is used to explain complex concepts. Take for example (in Catholic-Christian theology) in the New testament the concept of the "Trinity" (Father Son and Holy Spirit) These are just words to describe the "Functions" of God. God "the "father" is called "father" because he is the principle of "generation", the "eternal thought" of the universe. Instead of calling God the "eternal thought", he is called "father". Since human generation on the natural order requires a "father" so "God" (who creates) is called a "Father" Then we have "God the Son" "Son" is just a word to describe God "the eternal thought begetting an "Eternal word" Therefore, just as humans have thoughts and then "beget" words, so too does God. (And later on it in the New Testament it is God's word that "becomes flesh" and God manifests himself in the form man..) and there's an algebraic-like explanation behind that too.. But that's another story. It is the "love of the Father for the Son, and the love of the Son for the Father that begets the Holy Spirit".. The human family reflects this concept. These are just words to describe functions. So, when God created "man and woman in HIS image", it only means that we as humans have an intellect and a free will. Therefore, the paradigm was set: God is neither male nor female, yet mankind reflects God. Masculine and feminine, maleness and femaleness... they complement each other and each completes the other. So the love of the husband for the wife, and the wife for the husband, begets a child. This of course is reflected in nature as well, but it is in the human order where we have the power to choose and to love. We humans are above animals in many ways. We creat things, we produce art, we compose songs and write stories. We invent computers and design jumbo jets. We don't develop wings we invent airplanes. So as God the thinker has thoughts and speaks words in his creation, so too, we reflect his image, and also invent things, paint pictures and write books.. The whole concept of theology (the study of god) is a search for truth. Science is right. Scientific research defines the "What". it is Biology that defines the "How", but it is Theology that defines the "Why" And that's where the whole concept of the meaning of life comes into play. "Good and evil" are just words to describe harmony and disharmony... "Sin" is just a word that describes a willful act to choose disharmony.. "Hell" is just a word that describes an existence "without God" Therefore, since God is "All Good" he is the opposite of everything that is not good. Every virtue has it's opposite in vice. Love's opposite is hate, hope has despair, etc etc. To accept evolution alone as the factual end-all explanation requires a complete faith in a meaningless existence. Do I believe in evolution? I believe it is a theory that could possibly explain the sequence of biological development. Sure it's possible. Does it mean God cannot exist if evolution is true? No. to mee it only means that God invented evolution. Man invented the computers we type at. However, these computers have developed from old, primitive and rudimentary generations of computers. And each cycle brought a better computer. But it was not the computer that designed and bettered itself...it was an intelligent designer..a mind that created it and made its components work in harmony. Mankind is to a computer what God is to nature. A man living in Siberia can have sex with a woman from Borneo and beget a perfect child. The blue prints are in place. Fallopian tubes in women have a function in Tahiti just the same as fallopian tubes do in central Africa and Northern Scandinavia. The multi-function of a male reproductive organ completes it's puposefulness within it's female counterpart. To dismiss the obvious design in such human organs and systems requires faith in the concept of "mother nature knows best", and that natural selection takes it's course because it has no other choice than to do so. so it "just does" I can see where you're coming from since I was there. But I have come to realize that there is indeed a "food chain" of intellectual existence. It may begin with the tiny brain of a insect, but continues up a hiearchy that reaches its peak within nature in the mighty upper echelons of the the human mind..but even there, it is only but a speck of intellectual dust as it compares to the eternal mind that some call "God" There is a purpose in life. That purpose is to search for he who created us, to know him and to "love" him. For those who love him will "inherit" his eternal "existence". And that's what the whole New testament is all about. The word "Gospel" means "Good news" And the good news is that the kingdom of God is open for all to "inherit" if they do the "father's will" And the father's will is to love and to serve him in this world so we can live with him in the next. It is here on earth that we are given a certain amount of time to be God's hands and his feet.. therefore we are to clothe the naked and feed the hungry and give drink to those who thist.. So it's the word of God who "became flesh" in the person of "Jesus" that he has set the perfect paradigm for humans to strive for. But the whole reason for his coming is multi-faceted. A story that maybe someday you may discover. But the real question is this: Does God know what it means to suffer? To be abandoned? to be hated? What does God know about pain? Does he wknow what it mean to feel rejected? Does he know what it means to be human? has he ever been mocked, sentenced to a cruel death, executed? The whole life of Christ is part of the plan of "salvation" from the eternal disharmony we call "hell" where there is no eternal joy but eternal saddness, no eternal light but eternal darkness no fulfilled hope but eternal despair and regret, void of all love where only hatred abounds. God himself "is love" and to live an eternal existence without God, is to be damned to "eternal hell". God chose you to exist..don't dismiss your turn to find him while you still can.
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Have you ever stepped back from your beliefs and looked at them from a distance?
You claim that Genesis is broadly true but symbolic. Where does it say that? Does it say that it is symbolic? I am no biblical scholar but I would be very surprised to hear that any part of the Bible describes itself as symbolic, simplistic, metaphorical or liable to be superseded by later ideas. All those layers of interpretation that you are so free with are later additions to a very literal work which described the tribal, jealous and genocidal God and his works in the form of a traditional tribal creation myth. The serpent in the garden was no devil or fallen angel, it was a regular talking serpent of the kind that tribal religions all around the world have. The garden of Eden god was a typical father sky god among other lesser supernatural animistic forces. Later that concept changes to a purer monotheistic (but still tribal) god. The god of Noah and Moses is a tribal god prone to outlandish manipulation, one-true-gods of those days seemed to have lots of surplus energy to burn up. Centuries further on god has changed again and now has an enemy who is an angel rather than a talking serpent. Then we have an empire-building genocidal god.
The nature of your god changes beyond recognition with Jesus.
Jesus was a Jewish leader of a Jewish cult worshipping a Jewish god that he (like Alexander before him) allowed his followers to believe was the son of the one sky god. That transformation was as nothing compared to the theological earthquakes of St. Paul and the early Roman Church.
The doublethink performed by the Catholic Church is of worldclass quality, it makes the work of Lenin and Stalin look amateurish. The Bible you use has been systematically re-evaluated and explained in ways that bear no relation to the concepts originally depicted.
Which of the following is true?
The Bible is the word of God as revealed to man.
The Bible is always right. Even when it contradicts itself.
The Bible is a collectively written anthology edited by self appointed committees of fallible men.
The Bible is the only authoritative account of the mind of God.
All non-Jewish and pre-Christian accounts of gods are malicious works of Satan, including those that pre-date the concept of Satan.
All non-approved prophesies since the back cover was attached to the Bible are delusions of madmen, unless dignified by Papal approval.
The fact that the Bible has been handed down to us by rich and culturally dominant people is entirely coincidental to its monopoly on truth.
The tribal stories passed down by your conquerors are the one true religion in contrast with the misguided but well meaning superstitions of other extant tribes and the downright heretical myths of extinct tribes.
Virtue and vice, love and hate, hope and despair are human inventions not absolute forces of nature. Religious people are very prone to thinking in allegories and word shapes which have no substance whatsoever.
You say that theology defines why. I challenge your basic assumptions. What makes you think most phenomena need a why to explain them? Human inventions and cultural artefacts need explanations. It is legitimate to ask why of a war or a building or a tune. But questions such as "why is the sky blue?", "what is that mountain for?" and "Why are we alive?" are neither legitimate questions deserving of an answer nor capable of yielding an answer that will satisfy us. Our brains are not built to accept simple dull scientific explanations, we want humanly satisfying answers that involve human-like forces. That is why God seems like a good explanation. It feels right. It does not feel right because it is true but because it is the only sort of answer that could feel right. Why questions are only answered to our human satisfaction with who answers.
For you the only satisfying answers that can be given are who answers, and of those only God, man or the devil are sensible who answers that you are satisfied with.
Who How Why?
Your analogy with computers is totally wrong. Evolution needs no designer, blind forces can design anything. Bacteria in hospitals die or grow immune to anti-biotics, mostly they die, but a few survive and cannot fail to pass on immunity. It is pointless to ask who designed anti-biotic resistance in bacteria, it was done by blind forces, not supernatural forces but laws of physics and mathematics, which is just another way of describing the way things tend to happen.
Kill the homunculus. Things happen, they don't always need a person, goblin, sprite, fairy, devil or god to drive them. If you can't understand this then I pity you, but I also implore you not to spread your cynical incredulity and lack of imagination to other people.
Is there a purpose to life? I can see no reason to expect one. Two and two need no reason to make four. The universe I live in is one in which man is but one species on one planet within a universe so large and complex I can barely begin to comprehend it.
I see human explanations only work in one tiny part of that universe, in the small bit that concerns our human interactions. The rest of the universe is oblivious to purpose. Earthquakes, meteorites, rain, tides and the patterns of stars do not talk of purpose, they are explainable in scientific terms but not in the irrelevant gibberish you call theology.
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Hey Martin Your rapid-fire responses and absolute questioning of any and every biblical claim is rather impressive. However, I get the impression that any biblical or religious-based pro-God argument (in your view) is, always has been, and ever will be nothing more than nonsense. So it probably is a misuse of time to try and change your mind on the subject from that perspective. Even though admittedly, it's the only perspective in my experience which is able to construct a meaningful reason for being. Since we live in a universe where you admitedly would say that we as a human race know little about our very own existential origins and do not even fully understand our own little minds, I find it absolutely puzzling that someone searching for truth would dismiss an argument that for millenia has been explored and pondered. Especially since all civilizations in the history of man have always reasoned that there is a God. Throughout the unfolding story of humankind, just about every culture and tribal society have reasoned the existence of a higher being or diety that whose existence governs the cosmos.. Why is it that past and present peoples have always believed in the existence of God? Is it just a misguided yearning for something more? A blind acceptance of handed down ideas and concepts formulated by ancient storytellers? Are people just plain stupid that they can't realize that, just like santaclaus, God is just a fairy tale? Why is it that a majority of people believe in God? Could it be that the likes of Aristotle, Aquinas, Agustine and moderns such as Eisntein, Sheen and countless other great minds in human history were plain dumb for ever buying into the concept of "God"? Thes are questions I pose not to you but to myself as I ponder reality and remain open to all reasonable claims. Why should I be condemmed to accepting a reality with no meaning, when I see meaning everywhere I look? Mountains have a purpose, the sky is blue for a reason and our very own existence has a goal. You say that my analogy with computers is totally wrong. Why is it wrong? because you say ity is? And who is Martin? You say that evolution needs no designer and that blind forces can "design" anything. My question now is, what's your definition of "design"? Do you not know that there is computer software, that has a learning capability designed to adapt to new circumstances? If this is so, why cannot "natural selection" and antibiotic resistence in bacteria NOT be a design formulated by a designer?? It takes some time....and a conscious courageous willingness...to ponder these things and to allow the possibility of "God"--the eternal and infinite mind-- ..to have played a role. You invite me to step back from my beliefs and look at them from a distance... but do you apply that same standard to Martin Willett....? It would take alot of courage for an avowed atheist to do such an exercise... And I'm not challenging you to do it. But I'm just puzzled as to why the possibility of God is such an automatic impossibility for people that think as you do.. All I can testify to is my own experience, and my most unhappy existence was when I was in denial of right and wrong or about the very existence of God. It was only until I faced my self and opened up my mind and heart that I was able to see through the veil that hides "God" It's hard to describe so I won't try. I wish I could show you God but God can only be seen by a willing mind and heart. It's like.....it's like trees, moving trees.. ..you see them moving and swaying, and it is through the physical properties of those trees, that makes it possible for us to "see " the wind. Yeah. "wishful thinking" you say... But no.. God IS true...he IS real...and it's just as incredible and just as incomprehensible yet just as much true as the fact that we live on a giant globe..which floats in a "nothingness" we call space. Space would be unbelieveable if it weren't for the fact that we know it's true... Putting our existence in the context of incredibly incomprehensible reality...a fantastic reality that really does exists...(!) God is NOT and impossibility.. Why does he not exist? becasue we cannot
explain him? Biology and chemistry only explain biological
and chemical things. Why would I want to dismiss investigating what
theology puts forth? Is it too fantastic an idea? The great Rocky Mountains are instrumental
in wringing out saturated humid air---generously flowing in from
the Pacific Northwest---and turning it into dry warm air (ever hear
of Chinook winds?) responsible for the enormous atmospheric conditions
that help establish the weather patterns that flow over the great
Plains and reach into the Midwest where it interacts with the warm
moist air flowing in from the Gulf of Mexico. My point is this: Martin, I'm not interested in winning a debate.., because you can probably run circles around me with rapid fire profound questions that i am not necessarily adequately suited to answer, but there are people that can... I believe this: God has manifested himself to cultures throughout history.. from the ancient greeks to the native americans, yet God revealed himself in the fullness of time and truth once and for all through Christ..the second person of the Trinity... It is Christianity which is the only religion that has at it's core the most thought-after desire of the human heart: Love |
Tom then sent this material to me, which seems to have been cut and pasted from somewhere without attribution.
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Broken by the light Daniel Rosenblit's near-death experience In 1978 after weeks of failing health, Daniel Rosenblit had a near-death experience. As an atheist, he made fun of those who believed in the afterlife. After his near-death experience, his life changed. A recipient of great mercy from God, Daniel is a Natural Health Therapist and a street preacher. He has been carrying on his ministry work for the last ten years. God has led him to write a booklet about his experience. What follows are excerpts from this booklet entitled Broken by the Light in which he details his near-death experience. Just recently, his complete near-death experience was published in a book called Transformed By The Light which is authored by Daniel Rosenblit. It is an excellent book which I highly recommend - especially for fundamentalists who have a problem with the near-death experience.
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Death is the irreversible ending of brain functions. Until that point you are alive and capable of dreaming. It would be rather surprising not to expect people who have almost died to have some rather peculiar and intense visionary experience. The brain is a complicated organ and it should be expected to break in a predictable manner. Near death experiences are the result of the brain going into terminal decline, and then being snatched back to ordinary full function later.
I would no more trust the experience of an almost dead brain than I would trust the experience of one under the influence of LSD or any other drug. As an aside I would expect that the most profound experiences to be achieved by anaesthetic hallucinogens, I would put money on ketamine, special K, as being the best way to simulate such an experience. Ketamine is routinely used to kill small animals. I expect they would experience a tunnel of light as well. But they have less chance to make a lucrative book deal.
The concept of the near death revelation should be offensive to the religious believer as much as the atheist. How could a supreme God cock up and show his hand before the last act? Would not proof of God deny the power of faith?
I always find it suspicious that people write books about their faith (in god or aliens or whatever) and tell you that they were sceptics beforehand. Well we have to believe them don't we, we can't suspect them of lying can we?
Virtually every Hollywood science fiction and horror film shows the process. Sceptical person shown briefly for a few minutes being normal and rational, then something impossible happens to them and nobody else believes them. It makes you think doesn't it? Only if you have a brain like a cabbage. In films the impossible always is true, and there are writers and special effects men working on making sure that you believe it.
If you wanted to write a book to sell a lot of copies what is the best way to do it?
1] Tell your story of how you almost died and you dreamed about the Simpson's episode you saw the night before.
2] Tell a wonderfully uplifting spiritual story that coincidentally chimes perfectly with the beliefs of the majority of the book buying public. Promoting your book by speeches, websites, personal appearances and Church meetings. Adding extra weight to it by contrasting your old and new opinions. (Which also fills out the book to a more sensible number of pages, making it a more attractive purchase.)
3] Tell the story of seeing a light, feeling a presence and being a little bit bewildered by the whole thing, awaking to find yourself very glad to be alive, like most people who have minor heart attacks or strokes.
Of the three number 3 is the most believable story, but 2 is by far the best career move. Near death experiences are fascinating insights into psychology and the working of the brain. They can tell us nothing about the world beyond our skulls.
You won't get wise with the sleep still in your eyes no matter what your dream might be. (Where did that lyric pop up from?)
Man has not always thought that there is a god. That is a lie. There have been superstitions in all human cultures, but not all cultures have postulated a god, and throughout recorded history there have been dissenters who have different beliefs and people who believe none of the superstitions.
Even if such a belief were universal, which I deny, what would that mean? Are you saying that all men in all ages know a bit about the truth of your God, but only you know the whole story (or the most complete version currently possible on earth)? That doesn't seem to fit with any theology I know about. Jesus said no one comes to the father except through him. There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. No room for piecemeal revelation there.
I think the universal incidence of irrational and superstitious beliefs is a strong case against God, not for him. Christianity is very easy to explain and understand as a tale that spreads because it is a good tale. That is the essence of the science of memetics. Ideas are spread because they benefit the people who spread them. Missionary zeal is all around us, not just among the religious. People who have powerful ideas to promote use every tactic that they can to promote them. Belief in your product is one of the best tools any salesman can have, a reasonable facsimile of belief works well but real go-to-the-stake faith is even better. Religions are systematic constructs that promote faith and eliminate doubt. If you take fifty people with an average faith level of 60% each and put them together for an hour when they leave they will have each infected each other to over 95%. Ask any Amway dealer how inspirational a mass revival meeting is.
Why have all cultures had religions? Because no culture can be perfectly happy. Even without hunger, grinding poverty and massive mortality rates people are unhappy. Life is a fatal hereditary disease. All people have a capacity to suffer and all people have a capacity to see a better world. Without the constant yearning inside that so many people wrongly categorize as "the God shaped hole" man would never bother getting out of bed and achieving anything. No matter how rich, famous or popular you are you will have a feeling that things could be better. If however, you take up religion you have to pretend that your yearning is over, true believers are happy. You are a true believer, aren't you? I can't hear you, sing louder! Smile Jesus loves you!
To be a believer and unhappy is now a sin and a lack of true faith. Your unhappiness has stopped being a problem that the rest of the world has to watch out for, it has become your innermost secret shame.
Design, evolution. I am tired of this. Read a decent book on the subject, a would recommend River out of Eden or The Blind Watchmaker, by Richard Dawkins.
The concept is very simple if you allow yourself to think it through. Just think about elephants. In the nineteenth century virtually all bull elephants had impressive tusks. Now with AK47s freely available throughout Africa having big tusks is a severe liability. Fully a third of African bull elephants today are tuskless. We have, blindly, designed them that way. Simply by killing tusked animals and allowing tuskless ones to survive to breed.
Previously the tastes of females for the winners of fights had designed elephants with big tusks. Now there is another kind of pressure there is an alternative design winning through. Evolution cannot fail to happen, it does not need permission from any god to occur, it is as inevitable as arithmetic. Saying that evolution happens through the Grace of God is as meaningless as saying that two plus two is four through the Grace of God. Wise up to the fact that it cannot possibly be any other way.
Right and Wrong
I have never been in denial that there such a thing as right and wrong. I bitterly resent anybody who tells me that as an atheist I have no morals or reason to live. Please don't tar all atheists with the same brush. I have as little in common with some universal relativist or Satanist or fatalist atheists as you have with the furthest extremities of the monotheist spectrum. I am a rationalist, too misanthropic to be a humanist but definitely atheist and definitely moral.
God is not too fantastic to be true. I do not deny the possibility that there might be some form of creator responsible for the universe. It is a possibility that I cannot rule out.
I rank it as more likely than the existence of a global cover-up over alien visitors or the faking of the moon landings but less likely than a cover up of a conspiracy in relation to the assassination of JFK. Yes, that is flippant but it puts it into context, none of these issues is something we can be very clear about, we all have to make up our own minds, and deciding not to decide is also a valid option.
Theology must be a respectable academic subject because there have been professors of it for centuries. A rather weak argument. There have also been psychotherapists practising for decades but they have little to show for their expertise, doctorates and professorships. The subject does not, when it comes down to it, kick arse. Neither does phrenology, astrology or women's studies. I am very interested in the whole topic of lame subjects and how they manage to perpetuate themselves or not. I give psychoanalysis no more than one generation before it dissolves in disarray but I fear theology will always be seen as a legitimate cause for continued funding. At least the courses are cheap, they don't even require a lot of textbooks, at a pinch you can manage with one...
Billions of people must be wrong about their religion. Quite likely everybody is wrong. There are so many mutually contradictory stories out there that it is a certainty that at the very least the vast majority of people are wrong in most details. That is not something that I say with any pride, it is simply an observation about a logical certainty. But that is not simply confined to the pseudo-science of theology, most people are wrong about most things.
Unfortunately most people don't believe it about themselves.
Martin
By the way, if you think hearts have desires I am glad you are not a cardiologist.