Just a Little Opinion of Mine about Athiesm/Christianity... First Time in GD

Great Debates
61

panache45, though I do agree with you in principle concerning the unwillingness of any church to accept scientific proof as soon as it seems to contradict belief (or the mainstream interpretaton of it), Galilei is not the best example for your point of view. First, it wasn’t “his” assertion but part of the heliocentric theory that was developed by Copernicus (1473-1543) long before Galilei was born.

Some representatives of the catholic church had even shown some interest in the Copernican theory; cardinal Robert Bellarmine - the most important figure at Galilei’s time in dealing with interpretations of the “Holy Scripture” - considered it an interesting mathematical theory to calculate the position of “heavenly bodies” in a much simpler way.

Over years Galilei and others argued in favour of Copernicus. Finally, some of Galilei’s grudging colleagues informed the Inquisition about his heresy but still the church continued to simply watch the dispute.

It needed the Letter to the Grand Duchess in 1616 to change that. There, Galileo stated quite clearly that the Copernican theory is not just a mathematical calculating tool but a physical reality.

And he (at least) also hinted, that every other view of the world was simply wrong.

We do know now that Galilei was correct in many ways - but not in every way. His theory had its flaws and many proofs could still be interpreted rationally in a different way (at least in his time).

Whatever, Pope Paul V ordered cardinal Bellarmine to have the Sacred Congregation of the Index decide on the Copernican theory; they condemned it and Galilei was informed that he was forbidden to teach or write about it.

As far as we know he simply accepted the decision. When Maffeo Barberini, one of Galileos admirers, was elected as Pope Urban VIII, Galilei started to publish books about the heliocentric theory again - but not without asking for permission, as I should add.

When his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican was published in 1632 he had only received permission from Florence, not Rome.

And Rome was not amused; the inquisition banned its sale and ordered Galileo to appear in Rome before them.

An illness made it impossible for Galilei to travel, so the Inquisition waited for him to arrive before them whenever he felt well enough to do so.

He didn’t do that until 1633. Then the inquisition found him guilty of having breached the conditions laid down in 1616. His sentence was lifelong imprisonment. The church was so strict about that sentence that “house arrest” was considered an appropriate punishment - and that involved Galilei travelling through Italy to visit admirers and friends.

Galilei never was a martyr for science - and the church never really persecuted him (as she did with many other less fortunate scientists - to name just one: Giordano Bruno).

And Galilei was not as right as we tend to believe. His theory had many flaws: his main argument for a moving earth in his Dialogue, for example, is based on his theory of tides. Unfortunately, that theory was totally wrong (Kepler had already found the right explanation).

Another problem (from a modern scientific perspective) was Galileis tendency to boldly state that he alone was right and whoever didn’t follow his argument was wrong.

That, of course, is as inquisitionary as one man can be.

62

Well to enlighten the discussion… some of the definitions from Ambrose Pierce’s “The Devil’s Dictionary”:

SCRIPTURES, n.
The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

CHRISTIAN, n.
One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

FAITH, n.
Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

RELIGION, n.
A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

PRAY, v.
To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

To be fair…

REASON, v.i.
To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.

LOGIC, n.
The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion – thus:

Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.

Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore –

Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.

This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

CYNIC, n.
A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic’s eyes to improve his vision.

63

Well, I think that’s the whole nub of the matter right there. What makes you think that the presence and existence of God was a “reasonable inference” from the data at hand? Why is it more reasonable to assume that you had communion with the creator of the universe and not, say, a telepathic alien from the planet Mongo or the aforementioned Magic Pixie in the Sky? For that matter, why is it more reasonable to assume that you had communion with the creator of the universe and not that you were simply deluded, suffering from wishful thinking, or otherwise misinterpreted the events?

I don’t doubt that there are things in this life that may be difficult (perhaps even impossible) to ever fully explain. But it always seems like such a leap to me when people have to ascribe these experiences to a “supreme being.” At the very least, it seems a bit presumptious of people, but it also seems to be assuming the most far-fetched explanation possible.

Regards,

Barry

64

Hi, Barry.

Would it seem reasonable to suggest you change your nick to MingFromMongoZillaTemple, in that case? :wink:

In all seriousness, my attribution of the identity of the Personage encountered is, of course, up in the air, from any objective view – with the obvious skeptical presumption being that it was indeed my own subconscious playing tricks on me. My strong impression was that it was indeed God, and further, the God of the Gospels, but I concur that that may have a lot to do with a Christian upbringing. I certainly did not have him fill out a profile questionnaire! – “1. Did you at any time create the Universe? 2. What’s the story about this Flood legend? …” :wink:

My purposes in describing the account and its consequences are:

  1. To submit the account to rational scrutiny of a skeptical nature, and
  2. To document why I accept it prima facie and not the work of my subconscious – What happened to me was not something that I wanted, going into it. And while in retrospect I am extraordinarily glad it all happened, to attribute to my subconscious the foreknowledge that I would in future encounter someone who would “unlock” me seems to me significantly less probable than a theophany. There are, after all, non-legendary accounts of people who have claimed to have had the latter, while there is no documented evidence of that kind of detailed foreknowledge.

I’m willing to try to answer questions with regard to the incident, with these caveats:

  1. I personally assume the incident to be an encounter with the Christian God, for reasons I’ll get into. However, for purposes of this discussion, let’s make no presumptions. The entity did not claim creatorship to me; therefore, to identify it as such is inference, not direct evidence.
  2. All metaphysics, including the default zero-base one, are tabled. Whether Joe Christian believes out of fear or Jonah is fable have nothing to do with this – I dislike superstition as much as the next guy. What I want to do here is examine a faith-producing conversion experience as rationally as possible – and your assumption that it must have been my subconscious because God is a myth is as far out of court as the classic “use the Bible to prove the Bible” argument.
  3. I have noted myself doing a touch of confabulation in retelling this. I will attempt to give as accurate and objective answers as possible – but I do note that that problem is present.
65

Polycarp:

*I’m willing to try to answer questions with regard to the incident, with these caveats:

  1. I personally assume the incident to be an encounter with the Christian God, for reasons I’ll get into. However, for purposes of this discussion, let’s make no presumptions. The entity did not claim creatorship to me; therefore, to identify it as such is inference, not direct evidence.
  2. All metaphysics, including the default zero-base one, are tabled. Whether Joe Christian believes out of fear or Jonah is fable have nothing to do with this – I dislike superstition as much as the next guy. What I want to do here is examine a faith-producing conversion experience as rationally as possible – and your assumption that it must have been my subconscious because God is a myth is as far out of court as the classic “use the Bible to prove the Bible” argument.
  3. I have noted myself doing a touch of confabulation in retelling this. I will attempt to give as accurate and objective answers as possible – but I do note that that problem is present.*

All right I’m game, can you start by stating which parts of your story are confabulation?

I was raised to respect the ability of the sciences to describe and interpret natural phenomena and enable us to learn new ways to do things. My parents were firm rationalists. My aunt early encouraged my enjoyment of science fiction and its ability to evoke a sense of wonder while remaining within the realm of possibility under natural law. I was baptized and raised a Methodist with the idea that God works through the world He made and the laws He laid down for its operation.

Sounds as though you were destined to be face internal conflict when science and religion give different answers.

When I was about 15, I began having doubts about the sorts of stuff I was being fed in church. So, alone in the balcony area at church, I prayed what I call the Skeptic’s Prayer, essentially, “O God, if there is a God, give me some sort of sign that you’re real.” And I immediately got a sense of inner assurance , and within a few moments, the congregation began singing “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.”

Not exactly a bolt of lightning is it? I would suggest that church perhaps isn’t the best place for your “skeptics prayer” as the odds of the congregation singing your song or something with words you would have attributed as equally meaningful is probably 1 in perhaps 2? If we allow for the likelihood that you made your prayer more than once, then a meaningful song following shortly after one of them becomes an almost certainty. As for the inner assurance, maybe you felt it, and it is about as meaningful as the inner assurance a compulsive gambler feels after he places a bet on a pony. Maybe you didn’t even feel it but subconsously inserted it into your memory at a later date as you didn’t think the song part was strong enough evidence on it’s own. Would you agree that it is widely known that memories are fuzzy things and often subjective?

That satisfied my intellectual doubts. I believed – accepted – that God existed

That sounds way too easy for me. Don’t you think that the ease of your satisfaction at least suggests a predisposition to wanting to believe in god?

I married and my wife and I, seeking a more liturgical and Eucharistically oriented expression of faith, joined the Episcopal Church. One key element in this decision was that the first time we entered the particular parish church we converted at, she had a classic deja vu experience – the building’s layout and ritual matched a dream she had had.

Again we have the subjective memory which could easily fit the dream to the church combined with the fact that many churches look alike and many services are similar; stand, sit, sing, pray, light candles, listen to sermon, etc. Visit enough churches and you will likely find one resembling the generic one your wife had in a dream.

22 years ago, she and I enrolled in Lay Theological Education by Extension, a program offered by the University of the South where parish clergy are trained as mentors and laymen enrolling receive the quivalent of 1.5 years of seminary training spread over a four year span.

You realize that the theory of cognitive dissonance suggests that the more time and effort one puts into a concept the harder it will be for them to accept that the concept may not be true and as such will reinterpret their objective conflicting experience so as to make it align with their held beliefs. Otherwise they would feel stupid for having put so much time and effort into an erroneous concept. Do you accept this?

In the course of this, in a session dealing with the bizarreries Paul addresses in his letters to the Corinthians, I encountered God in a Person-to-person way, and found my belief changed from intellectual credence that to placing one’s trust in.

Well, I’ll leave alone the fact that you stated you don’t really put your trust what Paul wrote in the bible. However this person-to-person encounter with god; how did he introduce himself, what did he say, what did he look like?

Sheer honesty has caused me to examine that experience skeptically. But it was certainly nothing I had expected, hoped for, or even would have desired.

Are you sure that you wouldn’t have desired the above? Don’t you feel at least a little special knowing that god would take time out of running the universe to have a person-to-person encounter with you? I just can’t imagine that there would be no selfish component to this experience.

And that led to some serious changes in our lives, the seeking out for more vibrant faith experiences, and an awakening to the underlying message of the Bible, to which I had been quite blind.

That message being, praise me or suffer the consequences.

Seven years after that I had a heart attack and cardiac bypass surgery. And the reading that I had been scheduled to do the day I had the surgery, which my wife read aloud in my place, was Ezekiel 36:24-28: “I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will take away your heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you.” I was supposed to read it; instead, I experienced it.

See but this isn’t really that great of a fit either though is it. Prior to the surgery did you really have a heart of stone? After all you had met person to person with god before that and had already been awakened to the underlying message to the bible right? Plus you didn’t get a new heart, (perhaps if it were a transplant it would be a better fit) but rather got some additional plumbing added to it to help the circulation. The myocardial cells killed in the infarction are still dead are they not? Also my concordance of the bible has shows the word “heart” listed over 800 times making the chances of reading a passage containing it less than astronomically against.

And the only accurate description of what happened between the last-named boy, the best friend, and me, is that we fell in love. In a very Platonic, non-sexual way, to be sure, but in every other way the epitome of a one-on-one need-him, movie love affair.

I fail to see how you falling in love with a boy is evidence for the existence of god?

And what we discovered as we explored what this relationship meant was that we each were given the gifts necessary to reach out and heal the hurts in the other. The hurt and anger that his broken and self-centered family had caused him, and the locking away of my emotions, were things each of us had the talent to fix in the other. And, quite literally, we grew to be able to read each other’s thoughts, and I found myself equipped with the right words to say to him, without conscious thought, in a very mystical, Marcan way. And I have seen him and his love as one of God’s great gifts to me.

Lots of people have friends, even really good friends and I still don’t see this as evidence for the supernatural. Rather that people tend to like those who can help them with their selfish needs and if it is a mutual benefit then all the better. Richard Dawkins could explain this quite well without having to resort to the supernatural.

This in turn led to a healing of my own marriage, an ability to show and be shown love between me and my wife that had not been there before (she’d had much the same hide-your-feelings upbringing). And together we were able to help that boy and his wife through the inevitable rocky road that the first few years of marriage often bring

So then you guys are now living your lives all happily ever after? No more rocks in the road?

  • – in a bit of inevitable irony, he married the sister of the boy whose homelessness had started this whole train of events – who, in turn, first dated the boy who loved me’s sister and then married their cousin.*

You would suggest that a boy marrying a girl with whom he was acquainted is a miracle?

And we all see God’s hand at work in causing this sequence of events, and working through the free will and personalities of the participants to everyone’s greater good.

I would suggest god’s hand here would interfere with free will but that’s another topic.

Now, it is quite possible to see all of the above as a series of chance events, to interpret it phenomenologically without reference to God. But I consider that He has demonstrated His existence and goodwill adequately to me to take my experiences of Him at face value, as really what they purport to be, and not as self-delusional wish-fulfillment – particularly since insofar as I can tell, I had absolutely no desire, either consciously or subconsciously, to be drawn out of the comfortable barriacades where I dealt with the world intellectually and did not have to risk emotional bruising.

How could you know what your subconscious desires are? I don’t know you personally but from what I gather from your postings is that you are on the far side of middle age, of less than ideal health, and reported having financial troubles suggesting a less than ideal retirement. Can you honestly say that accepting the scenario I listed excluding the supernatural would be less comfortable and desirable than believing that you were personally contacted by god to spread his word and that regardless of your past and future earthly troubles, eternal paradise awaits?

Given this, do you consider that I am operating on an irrational basis?

Yes. Rational behavior, IMO, would be spend your time saving a nest egg and exercising to strengthen your cardiovascular system rather than typing on the internet about pixies in the sky.

But I am addressing the world on the basis of Ockhamic methodology – accepting that as accurate description which most simply explains the phenomena under consideration and does not require assumptions beyond those necessary to explain them.

Are you sure about that?

66

Polycarp: I’m not about to dissect your story and attempt to point out the possible “rational” explanations for what you experienced. Not only wasn’t I there (so I can’t verify that what you claimed happened is what actually happened), but we all know how subjective these sorts of experiences are.

Instead, I will once again address your statement that you are “addressing the world on the basis of Ockhamic methodology – accepting that as accurate description which most simply explains the phenomena under consideration and does not require assumptions beyond those necessary to explain them.”

The supernatural is never the “simplest explanation” for anything, since it requires a whole slew of underlying assumptions that contradict known scientific principles. In order to accept that God is the author of your experiences, you need to first accept that the universe was created by an intangible being of infinite power. You need to accept that this being has a special interest in mankind (and not simply an impersonal force who created the universe and then left it alone). You need to accept that he gave conflicting accounts to various people, and did nothing to correct those mistakes. You need to accept that the majority of the world’s population does not agree with your beliefs. You need to accept that God then decided to speak to you personally, while at the same time ignoring many other people’s please to be heard.

Could all that be true? Certainly. Is it the most likely explanation that simply explains the phenomena under consideration without requiring additional assumptions to explain them? In a word, no. Not even remotely. Coincidence, self-delusion and mental illness are all possibilities that do a better job of explaning the phenomena without requiring additional assumptions. Again, this does not prove that you expereinced a series of coincidences, that you are self-deluded, or that you suffer from mental illness. But all those possibilities are far more likely than the assumption that you had a personal visit from God.

What it boils down to, and this is a point I made in another thread recently, is that God’s existence is simply the explanation with which you feel most comfortable.

Regards,

Barry

67

(Kalhoun thinks GodzillaTemple is tops!)

68

:cool:

69

godzilla temple, I think I think as clearly as you…I just have trouble matching your clarity of expression.

I enjoy reading your posts!

70

Same here. It sounds so much BETTER when YOU think it! :slight_smile:

71

Aw shucks, guys! I’d post the little “embarrassed” emoticon, except that it looks too much like a yawning orange…

72

I recommend the ‘cool’ emoticon. It fits your style perfectly. :cool:

Now, before this becomes a godzillatemple-lovefest, can we return to a discussion of Polycarp’s brief chats with the Divine?

73

Well, if nothing else, you guys have given me some quotes to stick in my sig line… :wink:

Barry

74

All I can say is that I agree with Godzillatemple. The easiest explanation is anything BUT divine intervention. It always baffles me when people attribute the good things in their life to the supernatural, but never the bad stuff. And why wouldn’t someone want to take credit for their own good fortune? You work hard, you treat people well, generally your life gets better. Sometimes not, but I don’t go blaming my bad fortune on god.

Personal growth happens to everyone. There was a time when sitting around with a bunch of losers getting high was appealing. Not so anymore. It’s called “growing up”. Falling in love (and growing within that relationship) happens all the time. That’s just part of life.

75

No. I’ll try to isolate them out, and of course not report them. But that was a honest warning that I recognize that confab. happens, and saw elements of it occurring – particularly in the memories of the theophany at the LTEE class. I intend to be as ruthlessly honest with myself as possible – but it’s in the nature of confab. that memories are not always totally reliable. That’s all I was saying.

Honestly, I don’t see it that way. Because IMHO they’re addressing quite separate aspects of the human experience. Stephen Jay Gould’s essay on “non-overlapping magisteria” might help explain that a bit more clearly than I can.

It was the inner assurance, not the song, which validated the experience to me – the song was just "reinforcement. While I agree with your final question (see first response above), and with your point that the inner assurance was hardly objective evidence – I am, after all, reporting my own experience, not a carefully crafted objective proof of God’s existence – I do disagre with your next to last sentence, on the basis of (a) the clarity of my recollection of the event and (b) its rather subjective mundanity. It’s not as though I prayed and an angel appeared bearing golden dinnerware (:wink: – kid prays, gets inner sense of assurance. Kind of bland as miracles go, right?

Yep. No argument at all – I fully admit to a Jamesian “will to believe.” Rod Stewart’s song strikes a chord in me.

Again no argument. I find deja vu experiences intriguing but would hesitate to hang a theory on them – there have been threads discussing the psychology behind them, if you care to search them out. Again, I’m reporting an incident. Do Barb and I think that was a sign that God led us there? Yes. Do I expect anybody else to buy that? Not in the slightest.

Yes. Interestingly, while I had no problem with the Biblical criticism and schools of theology covered, it was unnerving to Barb’s at-that-time-naive faith. (FWIW, LTEE covers modern “higher criticism” and a wide variety of theological thought, not merely orthodoxy.)

It was a sense of a Presence, one of immense power and a feeling of unquestioning, unconditional love. I got the distinct sense that this was the God of Christianity, but how much of that was from Him and how much of it was me interpreting it is highly debatable (even adopting the presumption that this was “real” as opposed to merely my own delusional imaginings). There was no visual, Apparition sort of event, nor did I “hear” anything – but I came away from it convinced that He wanted a personal relationship with me and that I was supposed to be following His will. That seemed to be impressed on me, but may well be my impressions of “what you’re supposed to have happen in a conversion experience.” That, in other words, may well be confabulated – but it was a relatively immediate result.

Traditional theology suggests that omniscience has time to notice everything – even what’s going through the minds of the folks reading this little exchange between you and me. And yeah, my ego was boosted by having a one-on-one with Him, no doubt. What I meant by that last italicized sentence, though, was that I was quite content with an intellectual, “head knowledge” belief, and to a certain extent looked down on conversion experiences as emotional, subjective stuff that was just plain not my cup of tea. Revivals and emotional “Oh, praise Jesus” stuff were distasteful to me.

No, that’s the Svt4Him take on it, and misreprsented at that. You’re talking pre-nuptial agreements, and I’m talking falling in love. (This would be a good place to apologize for not yet having fulfilled my end of the bargain – I fully intend to, but have not figured out how to address the disjunct between your conceptions of my apparent (to you) inconsistencies, and my clear grasp of what it is God expects of me as regards the issues you’ve challenged.)

Quite true. But “one time is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.” The 95% plaque buildup will do for “heart of stone,” IMHO. And the sense that it was a clear message to me was there. This one is, quite frankly, me reading into the coincidental events a sense of God’s hand at work – without the other events working out a pattern, it’s one of those “you can make it read whatever you want it to read” events. The “new spirit” part gets worked out in the ensuing unlocking of my emotions.

That’s Richard Dawkins’ problem. I see it as God having put me and the kid in each others’ paths, having run us each through a bunch of changes, life experiences, that equipped us to minister to the other for the healing of our spirits. You’re more than welcome not to.

No, everybody has issues to work through, and we’re no excptions. But for both couples there’s an emotional bond there that’s solid. Draw the difference between progress towards a goal and finally reaching it, if you will, that something may not quite achieve the latter doesn’t mean it’s not the former.

Hell no – it’s an amusing set of details connected with the story.

  1. Self-examination. 2. I’m doing what all Christians are called to do. 3. Eternal paradize is not somthing I’m concerned about – I’m doing what I believe I’m supposed to, here and now. 4. “'Twas grace hath kept us safe thus far…”

If anything deserved a tu quoque…! :slight_smile:

Yes.

76

Polycarp, anyone who knows people with different believes will hear a story like yours from time to time - especially if they do know you don’t share their view.

I know a moslem who survived a severe accident in the Alps despite having all the odds very much against him: bad weather, stuck in a crevice (so no-one could have normally seen him), some fractures including the jaw (so he was unable to shout for help) and so on - well, it won’t surprise you that he is absolutely sure, it was his faith in Allah (and his prayers) that saved him (and he will never cease to tell others about it).

A Hindu business partner made a fortune despite being born as the tenth child of poor “slum dwellers” (as he calls them) - guess who made him rich? Right, not the christian god.

Other people will tell you that they actually have met their deity (and that’s invariably the reason why they are now what they are: better humans, husbands, fathers, friends etc.), yet… - that deity is only identified as the christian god if you talk to someone who knows and cares about him; if not, it might be Allah or Shiva or whatever the deity is called.

If I assume that no-one is deliberately lying to me (and I’m willing to do so, as long as I don’t have evidence against that thesis), I have to conclude that not all of them can be right in their explanation for their experience.

I doubt I could ever know enough of the circumstances to be sure what the reason is behind every single experience - but that people who believe in some religion always tend to explain it in favour of their particular believe is an argument against the validity of subjective experience as a proof or even as an argument for that specific deity.

The multitude of religions and the devotion of their followers makes every single religion less believable.

And the reality of the improbable makes any experience of a weird nature insignificant as proof for anything else but the old truth that such things happen - not all the time, or it wouldn’t be improbable, but sometimes.

The larger the quantity and the more time you have to observe their behaviour, the more probable the improbable gets.

77

Sorry, I should check my spelling.

78

Remember, folks: the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’.

The plural of ‘experience’ is not ‘reasoned argument’.

79

You’re right; not all of their – our – explanations can be right. But I think C.S. Lewis and J.B. Phillips had the answer to this – any God worth the name is not limited to what our comprehensions of Him describe Him as. Presuming there is a God, He is greater than all definitions of Him could ever be.

80

In fairness to polycarp, I don’t think he was trying to prove anything to anybody. He was simply attempting to show why his decision to believe in God was a rational one. His attempt failed, IMO, but he wasn’t trying to use his anecdotal experience as any sort of “data.”

Hmmmm… I just noticed that changes to one’s sig line are retroactively effective. Go figure!

Barry