So **Revenant Threshold **made a statement about people saying. “God works in mysterious ways.”, and I have heard many complaints about ‘Goddidit’ from atheists on this board. I got to thinking about the process of seeking answers to life’s mysteries, and it brought me to a subject that has interested me, but I have not delved into as deeply as I might like.
That is the relationship to the mystic and heresy. In our modern world, or postmodern world as the case may be, we have come to take paradigmatic shifts due to advancement of knowledge as a given. We have elevated the quest for knowledge to a virtue in and of itself. Much literature of course has been written about the inherent destructive nature of knowledge. The most famous example I think would be the book of Genesis where Adam and Eve are expelled from Paradise for eating the apple from the tree of knowledge.
One of my favorite parables is about a sufi. During prayer he comes to a realization and gets a great big grin on his face. His fellow sitting next to him asks him what he learned. He turns to his fellow and says, “I could tell you, but then you would have to kill me.” For context, Muslims kill Apostates. This parable says that something that this mystic learned set him apart from the body of Islam, expelled him from Dar al Islam through something that he had learned.
In my perusal of literature on various mystic traditions one of the common themes is that there are levels of the initiatic process. That there are layers of knowledge, and that one layer’s knowledge may supersede another’s. In the case of the sufi in my parable, that knowledge seperated him from his fellow, though they were still sitting right next to each other.
In our western tradition, we have elevated knowledge for its own sake as a virtue. A good to be pursued just because knowledge is good. Is it? What if that knowledge is disruptive and can cause anything from a great depression due to existential crisis or expulsion from your community because you shared the information with those not ready to understand? What if you have no way to apply that knowledge in context and it only confuses you, yet you think you know?
Is there perhaps a valid purpose in accepting ignorance by saying, “God works in mysterious ways.”, rather than seeking a deeper understanding of why something has occurred?
This argument could be used for any form of learning, not just about religion. Why bother with science, when it could lead to the atom bomb?
In the end, it’s equally possible that we learn more and suffer because of it, or learn more and prosper from it. I would tend to think that it’ll be a mixture of the two. But either way, I wouldn’t want people to stop trying to learn just because the answers might be bad.
I suppose it’s really up to the individual. If you want to accept ignorance, well, feel free. It’s your choice. I’m willing to risk it, though, and I think history so far backs me up.
Just as another point, I very much doubt that anyone who offered “God works in mysterious ways” as a reason would say that they’re accepting ignorance. For them the motivation is not (always) one of “I’m not going to learn anymore, in case i’m wrong”. I’ve really never seen this opinion expressed before in anything other than theoretical terms.
“God works in mysterious ways” has nothing to do with learning or knowledge in any case. It’s a statement which acknowledges ignorance, not not which neccessarily embraces it. It particularly focuses on the ements and events in life which, though often difficult at the time, may prove to have been better later on.
‘God works in mysterious ways’ is a just another way of shrugging and saying ‘I dont know’. It’s a complete non-answer, worded in a way that makes it sound like an answer to people who don’t know any better.
What if knowledge is disruptive? So what? Change happens. Knowledge isn’t good or evil, the use it’s put to can be. Finding things out gives us a better understand of reality, which can have all kinds of benefits, and in some cases detriments. Are the few problems knowledge creates not worth the huge benefit?
I find the idea that ignorance might be perferable to knowledge stunning stupid. Only in religion could that kind of idea originate.
It depends how it’s used. My point in my PM to mswas after he questioned my statement was that “God works in mysterious ways” can be a perfectly reasonable thing to say. After all, it works pretty well as a summary of God’s behaviour, if he exists (IMHO, of course).
My problem with it is that it’s using ignorance as a reason. For any other question, “I don’t know” would be treated as a simple statement of belief; how does this thing work? I don’t know how it works. It isn’t an answer to the question, it’s an explanation of why you don’t know the answer. People who use the “mysterious ways” idea, OTOH, often seem to use it as though it were an answer itself. The real answer is - why is God working in mysterious ways?
I don’t mind it either when it’s accepted as a halfway point. Everyone’s ignorant to some extent. But if someone accepts ignorance and just remains there instead of trying to learn more and move forwards, it just seems pretty wrong to me. “God works in mysterious ways; I aim to think and find out why” - no problem. “God works in mysterious ways; so there’s no point looking into it any further” - big problem.
How can it be a perfectly reasonable thing to say? If god exists, then it can be the answer to any question:
‘Why is that blue?’ ‘God works in mysterious ways.’
‘Why did all those people die in the earthquake?’ ‘God works in mysterious ways’
‘Why did you get a cheeseburger for lunch?’ ‘God works in mysterious ways.’
You haven’t actually given a meaningful answer, you haven’t imparted any knowledge. You can’t do anything with this answer. It’s just a shrug, an ‘I don’t know’. To what question would this be a reasonable and well thought out answer?
Revenant Threshold The issue for me here is not a matter of the advancement of society, but whether there is any real reason why all individuals should be concerned about assuaging their ignorance on that level. First of all it is a physical impossibililty for us to learn the answers to the mysteries underlying every thing that we uncover. I know about far more questions than I know answers.
On the other hand, something you and I and others on this forum have in common is an intellectual curiousity. I have come more and more to believe in a certain bit of a caste system in society. Some people simply are not of an intellectual temperament. It seems to me that it would be a bit of a disservice to expect them to go the next step. Maybe they just are not prepared to. As I said in the PM, perhaps they lack the foundation. To a certain degree having this expectation is a sort of assembly line mentality to human beings, that all human beings are the same and have a responsibility to assuage their ignorance. This is something I disagree with. Not because I think that ignorance is some sort of virtue, but because often it is the salt of the Earth type who is not concerning himself with the big weighty intellectual issues of the day is the social glue that keeps society functioning. One of the things that often gets ignored here, and treated as irrelevant is the social cohesion that church provides for not just the people who attend it but everyone in society. Our Christian citizenry, many of whom are admittedly ignorant hicks, through the missionary work that many of us look down upon provide a lot of the social infrastructure that would not exist otherwise. Think of a world without the Salvation Army, or without soup kitchens in inner city neighborhoods? Is there really a benefit to introducing these people to some bit of knowledge that might have them question their faith? Is their further education on a topic more important than the passionate charity work that they do? When you talk about building a foundation for intellectual curiousity, the thing you are ignoring is that they must amend the foundation that they have. Is this really necessary and worthwhile?
As it is, society has its movements across generations. This is probably a survival mechanism, because a new generation comes along without the same prejudices that their parents had. Society doesn’t progress with unfettered intellectual advancement. To me it shows a certain level of ignorance to think that unfettered intellectual progress is a benefit no matter what. It is easy to blame those who are affected adversely by the change as ignorant heathens, but is this really any different from the missionary impulse?
I’m not saying it’s a reasonable answer. I’m just saying it’s a reasonable thing to say.
Imagine I filled this post with just the word “frog” repeated over and over. It would be reasonable to say “Revenant’s acting oddly” as a summary of my behaviour. But it wouldn’t be reasonable to give that as an answer to “Why is he doing that?”. That’s the difference; as an observation, sure, it works. It’s a reasonable statement to make. But it’s not an underlying reason for why God does what he does. It’s the offering of an observation as an answer that I’m disagreeing with.
**mwas ** - I would say that while I personally am not happy with it, there isn’t anything wrong, necessarily, with not pursuing further knowledge. But I would say that anyone who deliberately decides that should be prepared to admit so to others - “I believe/don’t believe, but I haven’t done much thinking about it”. Otherwise the appearance can be deceptive to those who are trying to learn more.
Plus as I said before, I don’t think if you asked any of the people to whom you refer whether they had accepted ignorance and no longer bothered thinking about it, they would say that’s not so. I don’t think there are any people who believe what they believe because they have made a decision to keep themselves deliberately ignorant.
Oh really? This is a pretty big statement. You want to back it up?
What? It’s perfectly normal for social groups that are not religious to form. If there was no religion they would form without any problem, the same way they do now.
Again, religion is not required for these things to exist. Charity is not the sole domain of religion.
Sure, freeing them from all the unnecessary trappings of religion. I’m all for (some of) the main ideas: love your neighbor, don’t kill, etc. But all the ceremony, and fear, and arbitrary rules, all that is unnecessary, and in some cases harmful. You can be nice to people without religion.
False dilemma. It’s possible to educate them and allow them to keep up the charitable work.
Are really trying to say that wallowing in ignorance and clinging to ancient superstitions is really better than attempting to learn and better yourself?
Um, what? This makes no sense. How would unfettering intellectual development halt societal progress?
No of course it isn’t same. The missionary impulse is just the spreading of superstition to other places. One superstition replaces the other. You can’t compare societal advances to the spreading of superstition. Superstition is one of the things that knowledge can eliminate, and don’t think that current superstitions are any exception. They’re so entrenched in society that they’re much harder to dismiss than other superstitions, but that’s still all they are. Suggesting that superstition is a good enough replacement for knowledge is ludicrous.
I don’t think you and I can honestly debate. I read about subjects and study pretty much constantly, and the questions I know about far outweigh the things I have answers to. So if this is the tactic you are going to take, then there isn’t much point in discussing things further. There are time and energy constraints upon what we can devote ourselves to, and proving something so basic is a big waste of my time.
Revenant Threshold To use a cliche, ‘society needs elevator operators’. Is it really that important that an elevator operator delve into life’s great mysteries? Are they some kind of defective citizen if they do not?
As I see it people specialize, there is a place for intellectuals as a specialization, and intellectuals are free to pursue their intellectual goals because of the society that supports them. Quantum Mechanics may very well be taught widely in grade school one day, but it is not now.
And I think that ‘God moves in mysterious ways.’ is an acknowledgment that the individual does not know and doesn’t feel confident in their ability to find out.
So, you think it’s ok to come into a debate and declare that can’t know everything, and we should all just leave you alone? Got anything else you’d like to declare as true and not have to back up? Just because you don’t know something, doesn’t mean it isn’t known now, or won’t be one found out one day. Just because you don’t think something will be found out doesn’t mean it won’t be discovered eventually. How can you possibly know that we won’t find out everything about this universe? You might believe it, but that doesn’t mean you can declare it as fact.
My tactic is that of challenging outrageous declarations in the hopes that I either hear evidence in support of it, or the person realizes that they have made an outrageous declaration and retracts it. I’m glad you read, but not everyone here reads the same thing, and we can’t read your mind. This is a debate forum. If you’re going to make a statement, be prepared to be called on it. I noticed you ignored all the other points I made.
Why is it that you always conflate a comment to YOU as a comment to some nebulous ‘we’?
I am not interested in proving elementary school concepts to you, I’m sorry.
Given infinite time and infinite energy, yes it might be possible that we can know everything. I am laboring under the assumption that we have neither infinite time nor infinite energy.
This reminds me of a verse 13 from the Gospel of Thomas:
Mystic revelations quite often transcend – or even transgress – fixed doctrinal assumptions.
I think this point – while a truism of sorts – obscures the real problem with the “mysterious ways” defense. “Mysterious ways” is not really intended to make the obvious observation that we don’t (and perhaps can’t ever) know every single thing there is to know about the universe, it’s designed as a defense to questions about observed events or phenomena which are direct prima faciecontradictions to doctrinal assumptions. The question is not really “why do children get leukemia?” but “how can childhood leukemia be reconciled with a belief in an ominibenevolent, omnimax God?” We don’t have to know “why” children get leukemia (or believe there has to be any philosophical “reason” for it all) in order to be able to observe that it seems to directly contradict the assumption (or what many of us see as merely a bare assertion) of a loving, all powerful God. The declaration that God has a secret, mysterious purpose sounds very much like ducking the question and is semiotically equivalent to a shrug. It amounts to taking a pass on an extremely legitimate question and asking the questioner to simply accept on faith that a perceived contradiction betweem doctrine and observed reality does not exist. It’s the failure to address that contradiction – and which asks the questioner to substitute unsupported faith for empirical observation – which makes “mysterious ways” sound so facile and unsatisfying to non-believers.
Diogenes the Cynic My response to that would be that “I don’t know.” is equally disatisfying. The point of this thread is to get down to the area where actually questioning that calls into question one’s faith, and whether or not it is justified. Regardless of whether faith is built upon ignorance, it supplies people with something. In this case I have used social acceptance as my example of what it provides. Is it worth it to die or be exiled from your world to seek those answers? Some would say yes, and others would say no. I don’t necessarily feel like the one who would say no, is somehow defective because they feel that way.