Opening a God question up to the audience
Is there an audience here?
Okay, here we go...
I was talking to a friend who is an atheist and we were talking about how annoyed we were by people "proving god." He was annoyed because often the proof was flimsy at best. I was annoyed because I believe wanting proof or wanting to prove is pure ego and not at all connected to spirituality. It's the age old "do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?"
If someone "proved" God, how would you react? If someone "proved" God didn't exist, how would you react?
posted by overflow at
4:43 PM
4 Comments:
Maybe I'm the audience. So here's my answer:
If there was no God, I'd still pray and meditate and follow the golden rule. If there was a God, I admit I might be a little more consistent (but hey, proving cigarettes cause cancer didn't really make me stop smoking, so who am I fooling?). Overall, neither would change my goals and present spiritual path.
4:45 PM
O! I have a good one for you from the mind of Jack.
First of all I am going to dismiss the scientific arguments. For example, all of science is the study of cause and effect. The effect is the universe, therefore science has to find a cause. Has it done it yet? Will it ever? (I guess that was your question, huh)
There always has to be a cause.
Another example, any books I have read about God indicate he is extra-dimensional in nature. For instance, Genesis 1:1 in the Bible indicates: "In the beginning, God..." If one looks at this as a simple logic statement, one can see rationally that God existed before our dimension of time (one of the four dimensions we truly understand and perceive as human beings). Now, here's the kicker--Humans cannot conceive or understand a dimension where there is no time, because we are products of our perception. Ok, lets look at the other dimensions, length, width and depth/height. It is said in the book of I Kings that "the Heavens, and the highest heavens cannot contain thee". This is easy to see if one considers that if God really created the known universe, he wouldn't be from here would he? So he would have come from outside the positional dimensions that we understand as humans. Like time, our understanding of a dimension outside of the three others is hard to grasp--because often our perceptions are tied to those dimensions. Following this thought to its conclusion, it could easily be understood how God could react within our environment, and we could see small pieces of him here and there, but because of our limitations we could never conceive or even understand him in his completeness because of our own dimensional limitations. The sad thing is, that it has been the vogue of scientists (keep in mind that this is only a recent phenomena) to adopt "atheism" as their religion, because it limits the scientific mind to the world of possibilities out there. Mathematical science for example indicates that there may be as many as 17 dimensions, and yet "scientists" are saying that they don't believe they exist or that anything beyond their comprehension could exist within them. This is gross ignorance and fundamentalism to the core! Yes, many of today's scientist are fundamentalists who have a faith-based belief that there is no God. Its funny, this is something that they have neither the expertise or instrumentation to measure or verify, and yet they already have established the fact. Very unscientific of them I might say. My first degree was in science, but I pursued another career, but I study it almost daily. I have a friend, atheist scientist, who I asked the question one day. "Hey, Larry, do you believe in neutrinos?" "Of course," he replied. I asked him how could he believe in a particle that wasn't a particle that had no mass that could not be detected and has never been proven to exist. His reply was, "Well, the surrounding body of evidence suggests that there is such, that there has to be, otherwise what would cause, blah, blah, blah." I dismissed the rest, and followed up with "Larry, how can you deny the existence of God then if you or science has never been able to develop a first cause?" His cop out was that this wasn't his field of science and he was definitely no expert, etc., etc. Things just don't happen, O, and you have to be firing in the 70 IQ range to believe that after giving it careful thought OR, just don't want to believe it for other reasons. I can see why the Bible says "The FOOL has said in his heart there is no God." I'm not sure who said it, but there is a saying "Religion is the study of things science is too young to understand".
But...
I said I wasn't going to deal with scientific stuff...I am just going to deal with it the way the Bible does. Ok, its a very scientific statement actually if one thinks about it, but the sad thing is that we don't often use the abilities we have to their fullest:
The book of Romans says in the first chapter:
"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."
Pretty amazing statement. Its scientific in that it says "Here's the world--it came from somewhere!". Everything in science points to a cause. If you look at a person, its pretty good evidence that how ever many years that person has walked the earth plus nine months, their parents fucked. This is science and scientific method.
The other road to take is the tripped out one that indicates that we are not really here, none of this really exists, and we are but a ball of ether floating in nothingness. In which case, there's really no hope for those people as they have smoked way too much weed and are in significant need of long-term care.
Sorry! I came in not wanting to talk about science, and ended up talking about it anyway.
Next time you see your atheist friend, ask him if he was virgin born--its likely he believes he is...
Good to chat with you, O!
-Jack
11:35 AM
Ol' Jack! It's been a while. I gott go visit your blog and see how that's holding up. Still causing a stir, I'm sure.
My friend is actually going the agnostic route these days and I have the good fortune to know and read many theistic scientists. And I'm a fan of the "Have no clue, but isn't THIS religion based thought interesting in its scientific truth?" Not in the "Wow. I think I just found the color of love" psychedelic way, but in a neurons travelling differently during prayer kinda way.
The science of God is fascinating. I think the science of proving God is not as fascinating as the only people who are interested are atheists, agnostics, and falling religious. If you believe in God, who needs to see a formula proving it? And even the atheists and agnostics aren't as fascinated by that as they are fascinated by how humans can screw it all up so well.
But here's a question. What would you say to your friend, if one day we got to understand more dimensions and in that evolution of mind, the neutrinos were proven to exist and God was proven to no exist. Would you act different? Would you stop praying? And what if the opposite were proven. God was right there like the couch in your living room. Would you change at all?
7:38 PM
O, that would be a life changing event for me. Would I change anything about myself? Probably not. I'm just 'ol Jack-take 'em or leave 'em. Faith is very hard to explain to others. Actually loving someone who you've never seen--how could anyone relate to that unless they've experienced it. How can I explain that I actually jump at the opportunity to serve someone I've never met, someone who I've never seen, someone who has never personally spoken to, and yet someone I believe in faith is there? I'm not crackpot, graduated 2nd in my class at University--even taught in Penn State. But trying to explain to someone my faith, my relationship with God is the most difficult thing I've ever had to do. The only time I came close was when I asked the question in my class at church (I teach the young adults) if any of them knew what it was like to love their own child. Those couples and singles in the group raised their hands, and I asked them to explain that love to the people without children. None of them did very well. Anyhow, I'm rambling, but I'll be back for more comment.
Regards,
-Jack
5:14 PM
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