A spirit sped
Through spaces of night;
And as he sped, he called,
“God! God!”
He went through valleys
Of black death-slime,
Ever calling,
“God! God!”
Their echoes
From crevice and cavern
Mocked him:
“God! God! God!”
Fleetly into the plains of space
He went, ever calling,
“God! God!”
Eventually, then, he screamed,
Mad in denial,
“Ah, there is no God!”
A swift hand,
A sword from the sky,
Smote him,
And he was dead.
- Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines
I’d like you to read the short poem above, written in 1895. What do you think?
Stephen Crane, as is obvious from reading his works, was mostly a cynic, believing in man as a victim of an uncaring, sometimes malevolent universe. The poem above is quite illustrative of that.
But, though it is a parable, we can look at it literally, too. What happens, actually, in that poem?
A man inquires, investigates, uses his senses, his mind, and his reason, and comes to the natural, quite obvious conclusion. He is then punished for it.
According to most theists, he deserved it, too. Because faith — blind faith — is praised as a good thing. Belief without evidence is good. Doubt — even (and sometimes especially) if it comes from using one’s mind — is condemned. God, according to them, doesn’t have any responsibility to show himself, or the slightest trace of his existence. In fact, if you start to learn a little about the world, everything around you will appear completely natural. It’s as if God created a universe whose purpose is to convince people he doesn’t exist, to lead men away from him.
And yet, he supposedly rewards those who don’t think, and punishes - with eternal suffering - those who do.
The God in that poem, if he existed, would be an evil, immoral god. And yet it’s him — exactly like that, instead of one who rewarded intelligence and honest inquiry — that theists believe in, worship, and think of as “all-good, all-loving”.
Why? Well, an Atlas Shrugged quote by Dr. Floyd Ferris, one of the villains, comes to mind:
You see, Dr. Stadler, people don’t want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they’ll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking.
I think that explains it — how people can turn “not thinking” (not questioning, not doubting, not inquiring, not investigating, not asking) into a virtue. Why many preach it, and why even more follow it.
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I always thought that the blind faith thing was more like trust, like in a parental way.
Theist call God the “Father” and treat it as such sometimes.
As a Father, you’d know what was best for your children, even if they can reason that having a wisdom tooth pulled is a bad thing. It’s going to hurt so much, and it’s THIER tooth, and they’ll never have it again.
That’s just how I see faith, other people probably see it as being stupid.
“God works in ways that we cannot understand because he is not of this world.” That was the answer I received when I asked all the why to my devote Christian friend.
I wondered why god didn’t give Men the fruit of life after men took the fruit of knowledge when I read the story about the incident. Men would then become the same as god and god didn’t want that. Sounds pretty selfish to me, but then I tried to put myself in god’s shoes.
As a creator, you’d feel jealous of your creation if it surpasses you. No matter how mature and zen like you are, there’s still that small jealousy. God has created men in its image. Maybe the jealousy part is passed down from him.
Kren: it’s one thing when your father, smiling, tells you: “trust me.”
It’s a completely different thing when he never shows up; in fact, he spent a lot of time subtly making changes to the world, so that he appears not to exist, that you haven’t got a father at all… and yet, other people tell you that you’re expected to believe in him with all your heart, never doubt…
… or you go to hell.
I like Douglas Adams take on it.
Summarized:
A puddle thinks that it won’t dry up, and as it continues to get smaller and smaller it begins to believe more fervently “God Won’t Let Me Dry Up!” Up until that moment where he goes *pop* into the clouds, he believes that God exists, but at that moment, he is very surprised.
Pedro- Good point.
There are Christians who view God the way Stephen Crane’s poem depicts him. I can’t blame anyone for having trouble with this version of God. I would like to say though, that there are those who believe in God without believing in Hell and punishment. Some thinking believers have decided that the idea of a just and loving God excludes external damnation.
[quote post="166"]I would like to say though, that there are those who believe in God without believing in Hell and punishment. Some thinking believers have decided that the idea of a just and loving God excludes external damnation.[/quote]
Though surely more comforting to believers, there’s a problem with that belief: where does it come from? Certainly not from the Bible, which does mention hell and hellfire.
So, my question is: where do those “thinking believers” get their idea of God from? The Bible says something completely different. Don’t they believe it to be the word of God? If so, then where does their knowledge of God come from? How do they know God is all-loving? They simply “feel” it must be true?
Please see Christianity without the Bible, and Christianity without the Bible, part 2 for more about that.
[quote comment="4408"]I always thought that the blind faith thing was more like trust, like in a parental way.
Theist call God the “Father” and treat it as such sometimes.
As a Father, you’d know what was best for your children, even if they can reason that having a wisdom tooth pulled is a bad thing. It’s going to hurt so much, and it’s THIER tooth, and they’ll never have it again.
That’s just how I see faith, other people probably see it as being stupid.[/quote]
Thats right, pull the “wisdom” tooth. It causes pain.
God doesn’t reward us merely for being “good”. Many so-called Christians fool themselves into believing they can be “good” enough to get into Heaven. The key to salvation is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Faith is believing in what we cannot see; faith is a gift and some are given more than others.
[quote post="166"]faith is a gift and some are given more than others.[/quote]
Wow. I guess this all-loving god apparently doesn’t love everyone the same after all. I wonder what you need to do to get on the “good list” and get more than faith than the guy next door.
By the way, I can’t see the Flying Spaghetti Monster, why can’t I have faith in him instead?
You ask how people can get their beliefs if not word for word from the bible. A couple of points:
1) I think it’s possible to have direct experience of god through such practices as meditation. My own belief is based on such experiences, though it would be entirely possible to have such experiences and interpret them instead in terms of some natural force such as electricity. God may indeed *be* such a natural force. I certainly don’t think he’s an old man with a long white beard. For what it’s worth - and very briefly - my own experience is that of a vibrant field of energy.
2) I don’t think it’s so ridiculous to pick and choose what we believe in the bible. It has been passed down by word of mouth and then undergone a great many translations. To insist that it’s true word for word is ridiculous. So what do we do about this? Well, we can ignore it as you suggest or we can measure its words against what we believe in our hearts and minds. This was always Christ’s intention anyway. He spoke in cryptic parables. The idea was for us to discover the truth for ourselves. Though in view of some of the interpretations which have been placed on his words, you do have to wonder if this was a good idea…
I’ve been talking about some of this stuff on my own blog. I’ll put in a link to yours. Please take a look and see if you’d like to swap. Thanks for a thought-provoking post and discussion.
Simon-
It seems to me you are implying that your experience is proof of a Christian god. Why couldn’t your meditations bring you closer to Buddah, or Krishna, or Zeus? Explaining “god” experiences as feeling a connection to a universal force is a trait of pantheism, or even weak atheism, not something particular to any one religion like Christianity. It’s just that people tend to frame their experiences in terms of things they know. You even speak of truth in the Bible as consisting only of those parts which agree with your own personal beliefs. If you select only those parts of the Bible which conform to your preconceived morality, why do you need the Bible? A common argument against this sort of position is that one of three things must be true about the Bible:
(1) All of it is true
(2) None of it is true
(3) Some of it is true
I think both of us reject (1), and probably you disagree with (2). So, then, you might think (3) some of it is true. But what part? You argue the parts that you know are right in your heart and mind. But what makes your heart and mind right? Much of the Koran, for example, is composed of exactly the same scripture in the Bible, yet many Muslims have a very different perspective on right and wrong from Christians. Even different sects of Christianity have very different ideas from each other. If the only way to determine who is right is the content of an individual’s heart and mind, then the parts of the Bible which are true will be different for different people. So how is any of it true, if only some of it is true, and the content of that some is different for everyone?
I hope this post didn’t come off as attacking… it is not meant to be so. I was raised Catholic, and went through a similar situation where I was trying to reconcile my thinking with my upbringing. I just wanted to point out a few questions your post made me have, and try to explain some of my own thoughts.
Hi Shawn - No, I welcome your response to my comment. I agree that my experience of meditation wasn’t “proof” of a Christian god. I wasn’t meaning to imply that it was - the second part of my post was intended to be a separate point, referring back to earlier comments from others about the bible.
I don’t believe that my experience was proof of any specific theologically approved good, nor of any god at all for that matter - except to me. All I was trying to say is that there is something which may be experienced through meditation and similar practices. This is something which may be described as god or not, depending on your prefence, but it is available to everyone, regardless of faith.
As to what parts of scripture are true, I accept that we’re never going to get universal agreement on that, but I do think that if more people were willing to search honestly in their own hearts and minds for the answer rather than blindly following whatever their own local self-styled authority may be telling them, then we’d all be a lot closer together than we are at the moment. But in the end, as I say, it doesn’t matter. The truth is out there and waiting to be discovered - whatever we believe.
[quote post="166"]I don’t believe that my experience was proof of any specific theologically approved good, nor of any god at all for that matter - except to me. All I was trying to say is that there is something which may be experienced through meditation and similar practices. This is something which may be described as god or not, depending on your prefence, but it is available to everyone, regardless of faith.[/quote]
This necessitates that the term “god” has no meaning at all… Isn’t that a problem for theists?
I suppose I’m trying to open people up to the idea that “god” is something which can be experienced rather than something which is rigidly defined in holy scripture. What I have experienced through meditation and other moments of spontaneous insight is something which might be described as a field of energy and which seems to a) radiate love and b) respond to human consciousness. This feels enough like god to me that I’m happy to use the term. A scientist who experiences the same thing might, however, prefer to see it in terms of a field of energy much like electricity: a field of energy which our science has yet to understand. The only difference between us would lie in the way we look at things. What we have experienced - what is really out there - would be the same in both cases.
Of course many theists will continue to cling to their rigid ideas about god but it seems to me that these are based on partial understandings of the truth which have then been distorted by time, translation, and the vested interests of many of those who have taught them. I don’t think that most of these people should abandon their ideas altogether but I would love to see them pay more attention to their own hearts and minds than to those who tell them what they should think - and be flexible enough to open up to the truth as it really is. And by that I don’t mean the truth as *I* say it is, but the truth that they can experience for themselves.
Simon,
You do realize that you are putting the cart before the horse right? You begin with the assumption that a god or gods exist, and then assert that some feeling proves it. At best you might be able to claim that the expereince exists, but that is evidence of nothing more than the experience. This is not a matter of being open to the truth, but rather understanding what it means for something to be true.
Consider an analogous situation where Bob is out hiking, sees a nice view and decides to meditate. After a few moments he starts hearing a low pitched humming and starts feeling some “force”
Now from your argument we must conclude that this is a god acting through him. (Where “god is undefined and undefinable, separate fatal problems).
Now add in one otherwise trivial fact: Bob happens to be sitting under high voltage lines…
Now we all would hopefully be rightfully skeptical (if not outright dismissive) of the claims that a “god” is the only explanation or that Bob’s experiences are necessarily proof of some higher order being…
So returning to your scientist, assuming he is a decent scientist aware of sound reasoning and the need for evidence, the difference would not be a difference in merely the description of a god that must exist, rather it would a difference in foundation, as well as conclusion. The scientist would be applying sound reasoning to the available evidence to reach a true conclusion. The theist would be leaping to the predecided conclusion regardless or in spite of the evidence, using emotion in place of reason, therefore asserting a false conclusion.
[quote comment="4592"]
I don’t believe that my experience was proof of any specific theologically approved god, nor of any god at all for that matter - except to me.[/quote]
That was what I said in my Nov 13th post and I’m sticking with it. I never claimed I’d proved the existence of god to anyone else. I’ve experienced something which *I* describe as god but that’s as far as I go. Even then, I’m happy to accept that some factor might come along - previously undetected power lines for instance - which cause me to revise my impression. As for the hypothetical scientist I mentioned, I’d been assuming that he would have checked for high voltage lines and other such factors before reaching his conclusion that what he was experiencing lay outisde the realms of current scientific knowledge.
So, just to make clear, I’m not trying to prove to anyone else that god exists. I don’t believe that such a proof is possible. All I’m trying to say, really, is that if you try meditation and similar techniques you might be surprised what you find - assuming you approach them with an open innocent mind. Strong beliefs of any kind, either for or against the existence of god, can get in the way. This isn’t about belief - it’s about being open to experience.
But do you see that your argument is in principle unfalsifiable? If someone else does not experience this same feeling and come to the same conclusion, you can merely assert that they did not approach it with an innocent mind, or they did not try hard enough or whatnot.
As for being open to experiences and meditation, I have walked the path you speak of, and no did not “find god” or any such thing. While I had experiences, none of these would I label “god” or “god-like” by any stretch.
The point of which is that the notions of proof and knowledge, even when limted to one’s self, prevent this sort of argument from working. Other infinitely more reasoble and accurate explanations exist without introducing new entities. We need not abandon reason because we want for a particular conclusion to be true…
I wasn’t exactly sure where to put this. I saw a time magazine on the shelf the other day with this article… Pedro feel free to rip this post out if it’s considered spam (Not sure WHAT really defines spam) but here’s the addy.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132,00.html
I figured it would be an interesting read, I’m about half done now.
OH, and
TX-
By all ways angles that I’ve looked at your responce, I find it true.
The only way to come to a conclusion that what Simon experienced was God, is to asume that God exists.
I wonder if a person who’se never even heard of the idea of God, could come to the conclusion that God does exist.
I gues that would depend on ones definition of God.
The problem I have with that sort of conclusion Kren, is that we are asserting that from ignorance we have not merely certainty but knowledge, which of course is doubly contradictory..
Which overlooks that we could assume anything at all from a giant talking celery stalk to zebra dung to anything we could possibly imagine. This of course means that we have no evidence, no basis at all for our assumption, which for some of us at least is an unacceptable foundation upon which to base our beliefs and claims about reality. And for all it is impossible to demonstrate as true..