…the new trend of behind-every-great-man movies; Precious is not a documentary; and more.
Yup, it’s The Week in Women, my regular column over at the Alliance of Women Film Journalists. Enjoy.
the destruction of humanity is not a woman’s fault, dammit…
share and enjoy
Surprised that the USA Today article didn’t mention Bright Star. I missed it at the theatres (and am kicking myself for that – blame the suitably postapocalyptic weather we’ve been having in Britain recently), but your review said it was told clearly from Fanny Brawne’s perspective.
The rape thing… I don’t hold it against The Road. It was such a minor part of that story, which portrayed women and men as both victims and victimisers throughout. I doubt anyone raped the female cannibals, for example.
But in the other movies it is bothersome. I sort of feel a bit of responsibility for this as a European because rape as a hot new cinematic trend is basically our fault – almost all the cultishly adored European filmmakers of this era (Noe, Haneke, von Trier, etc.) seem to view rape scenes as being a test of your manly ability to stare into the heart of darkness. Any rape scene in a movie is a tricky thing to handle, but there’s something extra-distasteful about the idea of directors using rape scenes as a test of their machismo.
@ Der Bruno Stroszek:
It’s not entirely Europe’s fault. Films like Last House on the Left(both the original and remake) have been around for a while in America and are based entirely around this idea of portraying rape as this terrible horrible thing that compels “real men” to action. Nothing indicates evil and cruelty more to an audience than a woman in sexual danger except maybe a child in danger. God help the villain if it’s a female child in sexual danger.
Also, what’s with the habit of the misuse of the Eve/apple metaphor as of late? First Twilight, now Caprica, though at least in Caprica‘s case, the metaphor makes sense if you consider Zoe not to be Eve, but rather an apple herself, a tempting fruit being offered to her father and his choice on whether or not to give into that temptation and take it is what ultimately leads to mankind’s destruction.
Since BSG disappointed me, I was on the fence about Caprica. Then I saw that ad. Awesome, sexxay, barely legal destructor of humanity. Not interesting. Not going to watch it.
I understand that the show’s not like that at all, but I really don’t give a rat’s anymore. There are books and DVDs of other TV shows I can spend my time with, not to mention practicing the cello, running through the Rosetta Stone Polish course or doing laundry. All sound like better alternatives than rewarding sexist marketing.
Unless your TV has a Nielsen box(or you planned on buying the DVDs), the show neither benefits nor loses anything from your viewership or lack thereof.
Buying DVDs of Caprica is something I might have considered, if the show had turned out to be as good as Galactica was, but their sexist marketing pissed me off too.
SQUICK!!!!
OK, back from a shower…
First, I long for the day when the Eve story is universally recognized as the disgusting little weasel work it is: “Your life sucks not because of G_d, or even the serpent, but because of a woman!” I’m honestly surprised a version of Genesis where Adam immediately beats/rapes Eve hasn’t survived. Sadly, I doubt I’ll live to see such a day.
Second, I appreciate that Caprica lacks a Head Six/Tricia Hefler to provide fan service. And certainly Ms. Torresani has an alarmingly cute, round face (and very much reminiscent of a young Mary McDonnell). But honestly, badly ‘shopping said face onto a nekkid body double is just… whaaaaaaaa?
And finally, ENOUGH WITH THE ANTI-TECHNOLOGY PARABLES ALREADY!! For fuck’s sake, Marry Shelley’s been dead 160 years, leave her alone! Can we at least move on to obligatory “dependence on technology leaves us vulnerable”, and let the “technology is inherently evil/inevitably leads to evil” trope die?
Dr. Rocketscience, that trope may be older than you think:
http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/
:-)
But seriously, the anti-science trope seems to be just a more recent variant of a much older idea–hubris–that’s at the heart of stories like the Garden of Eden, the Tower of Babel, and many more. Feeding ourselves a steady diet of “science is evil” stories is probably not good for society in the long run, and I think we’re overdue for some “science is awesome!” tales. Do “medical breakthroughs are awesome!” movies like Extraordinary Measures qualify?
True. Frankenstein is, if memory serves, generally shown to be the watershed moment when the hubris story became about science and technology. At least in modern literature/drama.
Taking the red dot on the sidebar as an indication, the answer would be, “No.” ;-)
No, but this does: https://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/2009/08/081209watch_it_mc_hawking_-_what_we.html
:-D
Outstanding. :-D
Reminds me of the autotune-the-scientist videos that have been going around. Have you seen those? The Carl Sagan “Cosmos” remix (w/ special appearance by Hawking) is the best, IMO.
The rest are here.
I so did not intend it that way.
Am I the only one who doesn’t see the Eve story as condemning women for the fall? I mean, Adam was right there next to her, he knew the fruit was forbidden as well as she did, and he ate anyway. He attempted to pass the buck to Eve, sure, but God bought it as much as he bought Eve’s attempt to blame the serpent.
Of course people have used the story to condemn women for ages, sure, and in that way it’s a strong cultural metaphor for sexism. But it only makes sense to say it was woman’s fault if you first assume a fundamental weakness and inferiority in men.
Since sexism and chauvinism are basically expressions of fear of the opposite sex, though, I guess that works.
On a different note, I’m kinda disappointed that Caprica and the birth of the Cylons begins with the same basic premise as Astroboy. :P
The way I always understood the story was that Adam didn’t know the fruit was from that tree and Eve never told him it was.
Nope, Adam knew.
*EM* isn’t that kind of movie. It’s the kind of movie that mistrusts scientists, because, as everyone knows, scientists are cold and calculating and never think of the children. (I’m writing my review today…)
The miserable seductive bitch, she made it so tempting that he couldn’t refuse. Women are evil that way, you know, always drawing men into things they don’t want to do but are powerless to resist.
But that assumption *is* at work! It’s why women are blamed for rape, why women are forced to wear burqas: because one flash of leg, or boob, or hair sends men into a frenzy that they cannot control. Sexism of the traditional sort (that is, against women) isn’t about men thinking women are inferior but about fearing women’s power: Women shouldn’t vote because they might vote differently from their husbands, and where will that leave us? Women shouldn’t work because they’ll take jobs away from men. And so on. And anyway, women don’t *need* equal rights or equal pay or the vote or whatever because they can just get a man to take care of them, and that’s a piece of cake for women because women naturally know how to control men, and all women *want* to control men.
Those notions are sexist toward men, though not everyone seems to realize that… like those people (men and women alike!) who insist that men really cannot control themselves sexually, that men literally *die* without sex and this justifies them doing whatever they have to to get sex from women (who will “force” men into committments they wouldn’t otherwise engage in, except, you know, they *die* from lack of sex).
Feminists have been trying to point out forever that feminism is good for men, too.
Nonsense! Bunch of overweight bra-burning misandrist lesbians, the whole lot of them!
^The sad thing is I actually know of people that think like that.
Ah. My mistake. Boo, “scientists suck” movies!
Exactly! We’re in complete agreement. That’s why I said “sexism and chauvinism are basically expressions of fear of the opposite sex.” ;)
Sexism, like racism, is ultimately about fear and insecurity.
So my point is that —
— may be what insecure male chauvinists read into the story of Adam and Eve, but it isn’t in there as written. God didn’t buy Adam’s excuse one bit.
That’s not to ignore the fact that sexist males have been the ones in charge of interpreting these stories, so the “it’s woman’s fault” theory has been the dominant one. And that’s a lot of cultural baggage to separate the story from. I’m just saying that I think that if you read the story from a neutral viewpoint, then the “it’s woman’s fault” idea isn’t there. It’s an invention of insecure men.
Indeed and it’s once I listened to them that I really saw men’s fear and the feeling of inadequacy behind their sexism.
Before the eventual patriarchal skewing of the original version of the Adam and Eve story, the serpent had actually symbolized Wisdom and the apple represented Knowledge of life’s mysteries (as opposed to ignorant innocence, which was Adam and Eve’s initial state). So really the fact that Eve ate the apple is a good thing. Good for her. And the fact that she didn’t selfishly keep this to herself but offered to share this delicious, tarty treat with her mate was really very nice of her. So it’s really because of Eve that we know anything at all. And I’m sure Adam didn’t mind either. Otherwise they’d both still be picking fleas out of each other’s fur.
This is actual how my old church framed the story when I was younger and still in attendance, which confused the hell out of me, because why would remaining ignorant be a good thing?
“which confused the hell out of me, because why would remaining ignorant be a good thing?”
Exactly. =)
Wait, is there an original Adam and Eve story that predates Genesis? Because Genesis itself treats Eve’s disobedience as a bad thing. Are there documents older than Genesis that say otherwise?
I agree with Alma’s take on it. My beef with the Genesis story is that it prizes blind obedience and literally teaches “ignorance is bliss,” and it punishes the couple’s attempt to gain knowledge of good and evil–in other words, to think for themselves. Doesn’t seem right to me.
(Philip Pullman has a problem with this too. His Dark Materials is all about turning the Fall upside down.)
Genesis doesn’t teach that people should be ignorant or gullable (e.g. Jacob’s fooling his brother and father). The correct interpretation of the Adam & Eve story is that God has given man complete dominion over the Earth, save in one area: the right to define what is right and wrong.
As creator, it is hardly unreasonable for God to reserve the right to determine what is good for man and what is not. Genesis portrays God as being consistantly generous and caring towards human beings, yet, amazingly, Adam & Eve both chose to believe the word of the serpent over God’s.
If anything, the story is anti-blind obedience: had Adam & Eve been more conscious of God’s benevolent character and the serpent’s deceitful nature, they might have been less inclined to fall for his lies.
In the end, the essence of their sin was not that they desired knowledge, but that they sought moral independence from God.
Except that trusting that an authority knows best, and carrying out its commands without questioning their rightness or wrongness, is precisely the nature of blind obedience.
God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, and praises Abraham for his unhesitating willingness to do so (Genesis 22:1-12). Of course God pulls him back at the last minute, saying he was only testing him; but what if God hadn’t told him to stop? Do we absolve a father who kills his son because “God made me do it”? How is this different from the 9/11 attackers who believed they were doing Allah’s will, and Allah knows best? Refusing to question authority is an abdication of personal responsibility.
With the exception of fundamentalists, it seems to me that believers (quite reasonably) pick and choose which parts of their religion to follow. “Honor thy mother and father” seems good. So does “Thou shall not kill.” But I don’t think the majority of Christians believe that adulterers and homosexuals should be put to death–as Leviticus 20:10-13 commands–regardless of how they feel about gays and adulterers. (And most of us probably abhor those who do agree with Leviticus.) Nor do I think most Christians would be okay with re-instituting slavery, despite the fact that both the Old and New Testaments sanction slavery and encourage slaves to obey their masters (Leviticus 25:44-46, Ephesians 6:5, 1 Timothy 6:1-4).
Religious texts are full of contradictions. When believers choose which edicts to obey–to justify either good deeds or hateful acts–they are interpreting these passages according to a moral compass of right and wrong that exists outside of the Word of God as laid down in the sacred texts. In other words, they are–in my view–thinking for themselves, whether they admit it or not. And they’re personally responsible for their actions, as we all are.
I’m glad you brought this up, because it’s one of the HUGE issues that Caprica raises in its depiction of Zoe and her monotheistic friends.
That’s true, which is why God, as portrayed in Genesis, did not leave man without good reason to trust that He does, in fact, know best.
In the creation story, God plants a garden containing “every tree that is pleasing to the eye and good for food.” God makes a point of creating the man (Adama in Hebrew) outside the garden so that he appreciates that God created it especially for him. God further demonstrates His benevolence towards man in a number of other ways, culminating in the creation of woman and the first marriage. (Incidentally, Genesis portrays woman as a “helper” for man, using the Hebrew word ‘ezer, meaning “one who supplies strength in the area that is lacking.” So Eve is not stronger or weaker than Adam, but complimentary: strong where he is weak, and vice-versa.) Yet despite God’s clear demonstration of wisdom and goodwill towards man in his ordering of creation and His bountiful provision for Adam & Eve, they still chose to break God’s only rule for them, which they later discover had been given for their own good.
The story of Adam & Eve is the beginning of a theme that runs throughout Genesis and the rest of the Bible of God’s grace and mercy being clearly demonstrated towards man, and man’s continued rebellion and rejection of God in spite of more than adequate proof that He is trustworthy. From Genesis’ point of view, the very fact that we’re all still breathing demonstrates God’s mercy toward us!
I was very disappointed with Sister Clarice Willow’s rationalization for the bombing of the mag-lev train in the Caprica pilot. Unfortunately, it was chillingly typical of the way people have justified all kinds of evil and horrendous acts in God’s name throughout history. This is nothing new: in the original sin, the serpent lied about God’s will to Adam & Eve, insinuating that God was stingily holding back something that was actually good for them. In the New Testament, Jesus predicted that his followers would be murdered by those who think they are offering service to God (John 16:2).
True faith is never blind faith, but is based on real historical evidence. You may choose not believe that the Resurrection actually took place, but it is presented in the Gospels as an actual historical event that was verified by a number of contemporary witnesses. Likewise, faith in the Old Testament was based on real verifiable events. Even Abraham was not being asked to blindly sacrifice his son to a God he didn’t know! God had already shown himself trustworthy by promising Abraham a son and then miraculously delivering Isaac to him, in spite of his wife’s advanced age.
Christians and Jews have no scriptural difficulty condemning terrorists who commit murder in God’s name, because such acts are obviously inconsistent with the Biblical revelation of God’s character and intention in both the Old and New Testaments. People who are wrong about God, no matter how sincere they may be in their beliefs, are still wrong.
I was just thinking about this, and still don’t understand how Abraham’s failing to question God–even a trustworthy God–is a good thing. (Not to mention that I think God’s test itself is, if you’ll pardon me, a little sick.)
So I tried this thought-experiment: I am, I like to think, a decent human being. My daughter loves me and trusts me; she believes that I care for her, intend only good things for her, and will do everything in my power to give her a good life–and she’d be right. She has no reason to doubt my love, my intentions, or my “benevolence” toward her. Now, what if I ordered her to drown our two cats, whom she loves dearly, as proof of her love for me? What if she didn’t question my will at all, but moved unhesitatingly to fulfill it? And what if I stopped her just as she was about to plunge them in the bathwater, saying “No, of course I wasn’t serious, it was just a test of your loyalty and love”?
What would you think of my daughter’s unquestioning obedience? And what would you think of me for dreaming up such a test in the first place? Would either of us be considered in a positive light?
Well, they’re inconsistent with the benevolent Biblical messages that moderate Christians and Jews choose to believe. But there are other Biblical passages, such as the ones I mentioned above, that are entirely consistent with the view of those who would subscribe to hateful philosophies or commit hateful acts. Again, I think the nature of God’s character is a matter of interpretation, subject to one’s personal moral code.
As for Biblical events being historically verifiable, outside of the claims of the text itself–well, perhaps that’s a debate for another time. :-)
But thank you, tweeks, for your thoughtful comments. I respect your right to your faith and I intend only discussion, not offense. And thanks for bringing Caprica back into it; I’d forgotten this was a Caprica thread! I need to catch up on my episodes.
I really appreciate your honest thoughtfulness too, Bluejay! At the risk of getting too off-topic, I hope MaryAnn won’t mind if I briefly respond to your very well-articulated post.
I completely agree that the test you proposed is more than a little sick, and if that’s how you view God’s testing of Abraham, it’s no wonder you’re weirded out!
Abraham’s situation was different from your hypothetical test for at least two reasons. First, child-sacrifice seems to have been an accepted religious practice in Canaan at that time (there is extra-Biblical evidence to corroborate that), so it was not as unthinkable as it would be for us today. (Though you’ll note the practice was still detestable to God, which is why Canaan was judged a few hundred years later.)
But cultural differences aside, it’s essential to understand the context at this point in the story: Years before, God had tested Abraham by promising him a son even though his wife was barren. Abraham failed that test by attempting to make the promise come true through his own humanly-achievable means: fathering a son through another woman. Now that Isaac has been miraculously born, and God has just told Abraham in the previous chapter that Isaac will indeed be the father of the promised nation (Genesis 21:12), God now asks Abraham to sacrifice his son.
Since Abraham knows God intends to make a nation from Isaac, he is confronted directly with God’s ability to keep His promise. It’s not stated explicitly what was going through Abraham’s head, but Hebrews 11:19 says that “he considered that God was able even to raise [Isaac] from the dead” in order to keep His promise.
The problem with your analogy is that you never promised your daughter that her beloved pet cats would live, long happy cat lives and someday pass away peacefully of natural causes. In fact, it would be irresponsible for you to even make a promise like that because, despite your best efforts, you do not have full control over your pets’ mortality.
A better analogy for God’s testing of Abraham would be if you asked your daughter to take the college money you’ve been saving up to send her to school and donate it all to charity (perhaps to help earthquake victims in Haiti). If she donates the money, you know that she trusts that you can make good on your promise to pay for her schooling. But even this analogy is not really very good, since there are relatively few promises we human beings have the power to keep, whereas in Genesis, God is perfectly able to keep all His promises.
I wish it was impossible to take the Bible (or the Koran) and mis-interpret them to justify evil acts, but I am forced to agree with you.
In fact, the Bible itself seems to teach that it can only be properly understood by a certain kind of person:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. (Psalm 111:10a)
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7)
[Jesus said,] “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” (John 6:44a)
Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” (John 9:39)
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)
Forgive me for continuing, but this discussion is really interesting! :-)
I see what you’re saying. But that leads me to another question: Isn’t faith in a sure outcome of less value than faith in something uncertain? You seem to be saying that, for a believer, God is worthy of trust because he’s already shown evidence of his power. But that’s like me having faith that my airplane won’t crash because physics and engineering have shown, to my satisfaction, that it won’t. Or, to improve your college fund analogy, it would be like my daughter having faith that I can replenish that money because she knows, deep down, that I actually have unlimited financial reserves (I wish!); her getting her funds back would be a foregone conclusion. But if that were the case, her confidence wouldn’t really mean very much, would it? It’s only what’s to be expected. Woudn’t her donating all her college money be a more powerful act of faith if she wasn’t sure I could replace it?
Which is also why I found your comment about the Resurrection being historically verifiable a bit curious. I don’t want to debate here whether that’s true or not, but I’m just wondering why you mentioned it. If the Resurrection wasn’t historically verifiable, it shouldn’t matter to a believer’s faith, should it? I always thought that, to the faithful, the power of faith was that it didn’t rely on evidence; or as Jesus said to Doubting Thomas, “Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29). Or, perhaps, we mean different things by evidence.
God certainly seems to like tests, doesn’t he? ;-)
But seriously, thanks for all the food for thought. It’s really refreshing for me to have a civil and intelligent conversation about the nuances of scripture with an articulate believer. (And I learned something about Hebrew etymology to boot.) Although I left the faith quite a while ago, I still enjoy discussions like this and appreciate stories, like Caprica, that play with scriptural allusions and religious motifs. Guess all those years in Jesuit school weren’t completely wasted on me!
Hey Bluejay,
Those are two very interesting questions about the nature of faith! I’m no expert on the subject by any means, but I’ll give you my take for whatever it’s worth:
“…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17)
No offense to anyone who believes that faith is somehow an end in itself, but if Christ was not a real person who really lived, died, and rose again 2,000 years ago, then I don’t see how believing in Him as a savior is anything but futile.
There is some truth to that, but I think it’s vastly more important to recognize that faith has value because it glorifies God; i.e., it makes God look trustworthy. Since God, as revealed in the Bible, actually is trustworthy, when God makes you a promise, faith is the proper response. If God were not trustworthy, if He was known to be unreliable, or was apparently manipulating you to achieve some selfish end at your expense, then clearly it would be foolish to trust Him.
To make another Caprica connection, Zoe and Zoe’s avatar are both Zoe, yet they are also distinct, just as Jesus is God, yet also distinct. Furthermore, Zoe’s avatar told Daniel that flesh-and-blood Zoe was like her twin-sister, not because they had the same mother, but because they were basically identical and had that sort of relationship. In the same way, Jesus is called the “Son”, and God is called the “Father,” not because there was some kind of spiritual sex involved, but because they resemble each other and have that kind of relationship.
What I’m getting at is, if you look at the way Jesus is portrayed in the Gospels, you see someone going out of their way to show themselves trustworthy. When Thomas was doubting, Jesus didn’t say, “shame on you Thomas for not blindly believing that I rose from the dead!” He said, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:27). In this context, the point of what Jesus said two verses later (“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”) was not that you ought to believe without sufficient evidence, but that you ought to believe without having to see Jesus in the flesh as Thomas did, not because God wants people to make leaps in the dark, but because you have credible testimonies from reliable eyewitnesses to this singular, historically-unprecedented event that God had already been promising for thousands of years through the Old Testament prophets.
Everyone must judge for themselves whether or not the Gospels seem to be a reliable account, but whatever you do, please don’t believe in Jesus just for the sake of believing. Jesus knows our hearts, and He’s not interested in people following Him who don’t even know who He is:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven… On [the last] day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me…” (Matthew 7:21-23)
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. (John 2:23-25)
Hey Bluejay,
I had to dash before I had a chance to make sure my long rambling post actually answered your question, so just to make sure I didn’t miss it….
I don’t think so. Why should faith in Jesus be different from faith in anyone else? You don’t trust strangers without good reason, do you? So why should Jesus get a pass? Because he claimed to be God? All the more reason to be very, very skeptical! After all, people who claim to be God are not generally trustworthy–or sane.
I’m an empiricist: I don’t believe anything until I can see it for myself. That’s why the New Testament’s concept of the invisible, transcendent God entering our world in a seeable, touchable, measureable way, at a specific time and in a specific place, is very appealing to me. If the Gospel account doesn’t jive with history, archaeology, and what I know to be true about human nature and my own soul, then it is, in my opinion, absolutely worthless.
You seem to have this idea that faith without evidence is a noble thing, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I find that notion ridiculous. To my way of thinking, people who believe anything without sufficient evidence are, to put it kindly, superstitious.
Of course, it all hangs on what constitutes “sufficient evidence.” Like you, I too was raised a Christian, and as I got older, I too questioned whether or not any of it was real. So, being an empiricist, I devised a test: I asked God for proof.
The basis for my test was texts like this:
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:7-11)
[A father who’s son was ill said to Jesus,] “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:22-24)
Of course, for me to ask God to provide proof required at least enough faith to entertain the notion that God might actually exist, and that He might be willing to answer my sincere prayer. You might call that a leap in the dark. I would say it was a hypothesis to be tested. ;-) Perhaps it was irreverent of me to test God that way, but I figured if God really wanted me to believe in Him, He would be willing to overcome my sincere doubts. I was already willing to believe, I just needed to be sure.
As you probably guessed, God did indeed answer my prayer, but He did so in a deeply personal way that would probably not be very convincing to any atheists reading this. It was rather like when Jesus revealed his Messianic identity to Nathaniel by saying, “I saw you under the fig tree” (John 1:43-51). Nathaniel knew only God could know about that incident under the fig tree (whatever it was), so that, combined with Jesus’ divine knowledge of his character and the testimony of his friends, was sufficient evidence for Nathaniel to believe (though Jesus did say he would see even greater things than that!).
Anyway, I have no reason to think God would be unwilling to do the same for any other sincere people who want to believe but honestly don’t see enough evidence. I can tell you from personal experience that God is able and willing to provide all the evidence you’ll ever need. However, I’ve come to realize that the real obstacles to faith in God are not intellectual, but moral: it’s not that there isn’t enough evidence to believe in God (there is), it’s that we don’t want to believe. And no amount of evidence can convince someone who doesn’t want to be convinced.
No, I don’t think that, actually. I was just trying to understand how the faithful themselves view faith. Thank you for clarifying your views on the matter.
My pleasure–sorry for typing your eyes off!
Probably no one will ever read this, but I’ve still been thinking about your question, Bluejay, and as much as I went on and on in those last two posts, I still think I’ve been missing the mark on what you really were asking.
By definition, the level of faith required is proportional to the level of uncertainty; however, as I’ve thought about this, I’ve come to see that there’s a whole world of difference between faith in a living person vs. faith in something else.
The college money example is underspecified, because it’s not clear why your daughter would doubt: is she not sure about the economy? Maybe your job is likely to go away soon? Or maybe you are at risk for a life-threatening medical condition that requires expensive treatment? These are impersonal doubts: they are founded on her understanding of the principles of economics, biology, etc.
But what if your daughter’s uncertainty about the college money were not based on economics or biology, but based on you? Maybe your daughter suspects that you have a gambling problem, or that you have no self-control when it comes to nifty gadgetry, and so you’re more likely to blow the college money on expensive Apple products than save it? These are personal doubts: they are related to her estimation of your character.
Doubts about some impersonal system are one thing. But how would you feel about your daughter doubting your character? I’m guessing you’d feel insulted, even hurt that she sees you that way (unless you happen to agree with her that you are a gambling addict with no self-control).
So to get back to your question:
Yes, but I think her faith is even more meaningful if it’s based on a positive assessment of your character. If she donates the money out of faith in her own entrepreneurial skills, then her faith is not faith in a Biblical sense–it’s just self-confidence. But if it’s your personal trustworthiness that she’s banking on, that’s very similar to the kind of faith God desires.
Very interesting, tweeks. I admit I hadn’t thought of the angles that you just brought up. I was thinking more along the lines of pure financial capability: if I were the earthly financial equivalent of God–in other words someone with very deep pockets, who has no reason to worry about being able to afford anything, like, say, Bill Gates–my daughter fulfilling my command to donate all her college money to Haiti would not, to me, be a show of profound faith in my ability to pay her way through college. It would simply be the normal confidence that children of very rich people exhibit because they know that the funding for their endeavors is never in question. They simply know, based on the size of their parents’ bank accounts, that they will be provided for. (In this case, I’m assuming the parents’ generosity as a given.)
On the other hand, if my daughter in real life (in which my wife and I are extremely far from being rich) donated her college fund to Haiti while fully trusting that we’d have her college covered, I’d consider that a much more powerful and meaningful show of faith in our financial abilities. (I’d also think she’d be very foolish to think so!)
I realize that such analogies are imperfect because, as you say, there are many things beyond our control that can affect our ability to fulfill our promises. Whereas, to a believer, nothing is beyond God’s power. It’s just interesting for me to try to think about the value of faith if one accepts the premise of an omnipotent, benevolent God. If such is the case, it seems to me that a believer would find it easy to have faith. To me, an easy faith would also be less meaningful; but I think I see what you are saying (and correct me if I misread you): that, for you, faith is based on evidence that you find satisfactory, but is no less important for being so; God appreciates his children’s confidence in his character just as I appreciate my daughter’s confidence in mine. That’s a fair point.
Another way I’ve been thinking of the nature of faith is in the context of politics. I have faith in President Obama–based on what his words, acts, and personal history tell me about his character and abilities, and based on policies of his that I agree with. (And I know that, in this, I’m different from some other folks on this site, including MaryAnn.) So my faith isn’t unfounded, but based on (what I consider) evidence of some kind. But I also know that it’s no guarantee that any of Obama’s plans will succeed. To me, this kind of faith is more intense precisely because the outcome is uncertain; it gets me fired up to write letters, sign petitions, and go to the polls. (After all, when the outcome of an election is perceived as certain, even people who have faith in the projected winner are unmotivated and turnout is low!) But, again, I understand that this is an imperfect analogy; Obama is human and fallible, and as you say, faith in people is different than faith in God.
I think this difference is itself fascinating. For instance, if Obama ultimately fails to carry out his agenda, my faith in his effectiveness as a leader will be shaken, and I will have good reason to distrust him in the future. In other words, my faith is not unconditional. This never seems to be the case with God, for a believer. Faith, it seems, can be affirmed by both wonderful and terrible things.
Haiti has been peripheral to this discussion, but I think it’s actually a good example of this. This news article does a good job of covering Haitians’ reactions to the quake. Hundreds of thousands of people have perished; but the Rev. Eric Toussaint tells a small crowd of survivors, “Why give thanks to God? Because we are here […] We say ‘Thank you God.’ What happened is the will of God. We are in the hands of God now.” A woman was pulled alive out of the rubble after many hours, and her husband says “It’s a little miracle.” Yet rescuers have to abandon a search for a seven-year-old boy who has probably been killed during an aftershock; no little miracle there. Rev. Toussaint explains his survival by saying, “”I am not dead because God has a plan for me”; God had different plans, apparently, for this little girl. What I’m saying is that God can apparently do anything, great or terrible, and be worthy of praise; everything that happens is according to his will, and thus justifies faith. God just can’t lose. I suspect that I feel differently about that than you do.
Reflecting on your previous posts:
I absolutely agree with this. How each person decides to answer the question “What do I consider sufficient evidence?” is, I think, a significant factor in determining whether that person believes in God. And, because their answers to that question are not all the same, it’s possible for both believers and nonbelievers to apply this sentence–
–to the other side.
Whew! I’m looking forward to your response (if you’d care to give one), but after this I might have to plead exhaustion. :-)
Bluejay, my father has always felt the same way about people who survived a disaster and praised God. He wondered why not save those who died?
I, too, have faith in Obama as a person but worry about how he can get things done. It’s as if he became captian of the Titantic (sp?) after the old one already hit the iceberg.
I recently read a book on Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” The book is already back at the library, so I will have to be vague, but the author believes Milton did his best to make every character a real character with believable motives. Even when Adam and Eve bicker, they sound like a married couple. And Eve is described as such a paragon that Satan entertains second thoughts about his plan. I have to admit, when I read PL, I was struggling too much with the prose at times to get a sense of the over all picture.
Tweeks, you remind me a lot of CS Lewis’ nonfiction, such as “Mere Christianity.” If you haven’t read it, you should. His ideas about the implications of the nature of good and evil are interesting as proofs of God. An example would be that if people didn’t have an innate sense of good and evil, then evil wouldn’t have to go around pretending to be good all the time. And that evil is only as effective as it is good. Evil has to have the courage of its convictions, or it would stay home and kick the dog. That’s just a summation of a book I read years ago, so no one here should take it as full explanation of his ideas.
tweeks, have you read Carl Sagan’s The Varieties of Scientific Experience? It collects the transcripts of his famous Gifford Lectures in Scotland in 1985, as well as selections from the Q&A sessions that followed (with some smart questioners posing some very interesting challenges). I’m actually starting to reread it now as a result of our conversation; it explores many aspects of the relationship between religion and science, and addresses some of the topics we’ve talked about here, including the question of “sufficient evidence” for God–Chapter Six (and its corresponding Q&A), which I particularly recommend. Actually, I highly recommend the whole thing; I find it very thoughtful, and I think Sagan gives religion and faith a very fair hearing.
If you’ve read it, or if at some point you do, I’d be interested to hear what you think of it. Although how we can talk about it without extending this already-long thread, and making it even more alarmingly off-topic, I’m not sure…
:-)
Although I’ve not actually joined in this conversation, I want to let you know I’ve been following it with great interest and appreciation. I’m close to entering my third decade of seeking out, participating in, or simply observing online debates between devout believers in various faiths, staunch non-believers, and everyone in between. It’s rare to see this level of mutual respect between people with significantly different beliefs, and I have very much enjoyed listening in on your conversation.
Thank you.
Since we live in a humanistic culture, when we see bad things happen to good people, we naturally conclude that God is unjust. In ancient times, however, the cultural bias was exactly the opposite: when something bad happened, it was assumed that God was justly punishing sin:
Jesus, however, rejected both of these cultural biases:
Jesus proceeded to cure the man of his blindness.
But it’s relatively easy to be philosophical about a stranger’s afflictions; how did Jesus react when the person suffering was someone close to him?
Did you catch that? Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, SO he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. That’s not a misprint: the author of this Gospel is claiming that Jesus was acting out of love when he allowed Lazarus to die. But what kind of “love” could possibly justify Jesus’ fatal inaction? Read on…
(Note: God is not oblivious to our pain, even when he’s causing it.)
Jesus loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, so he let Lazarus die… in order to powerfully demonstrate his God-given authority over death.
But why is it loving for Jesus to show us that he can raise the dead? Because Jesus is our only hope for eternal life: “whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:12). In other words, if Jesus would love us, then he must give us himself. If Jesus does not make himself known in such a way that we can see and believe in him, we are all lost–forever. Jesus was convinced that eternal life for many is worth the momentary death of one man, even a man he loved dearly.
This is a pervasive theme in the Bible: God permits localized evil for the sake of universal good. The quintessential example of this was the Crucifixion, where man’s greatest act of evil became the means of God’s greatest blessing.
Just because we finite human beings cannot see much good coming out of the Haiti quake doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any, and to assert otherwise would be extremely presumptuous, since no man can see all ends.
Make no mistake, Jesus loves the world–that’s why he gave his life to save it! But we don’t realise the grave danger we are in, which is why Jesus’ main message was to “repent”–to “turn” from our sinfully self-destructive ways and trust in Jesus for salvation.
The Haitians were no more deserving of the earthquake than we decadent Americans–and no less. In God’s eyes, we are ALL sinners, all deserving of a horrible death like Jesus’, which is why Jesus died the death that we deserved so that we can live the life that he deserved. This is God’s amazing grace, and I would be happy to explain how it works to anyone who is interested. :-)
@Paul: Mere Christianity is a wonderful book! Lewis’ argument for the existence of a Universal Moral Law that all human beings are aware of yet frequently disobey is absolutely fascinating, and I would highly recommend that text to anyone who seeks a firm grounding for their system of ethics–not to mention anyone who is curious about how an extremely intelligent man like Lewis could become a Christian!
BTW, if you liked Mere Christianity, you should check out Keller’s excellent The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.
@Bluejay: I enjoyed Cosmos and Contact, so I’d always considered myself something of a Carl Sagan fan, yet I’d never heard of The Varieties of Scientific Experience! I’ll definitely have to check that out. My favorite thing about Sagan was his obvious delight in the universe; I think he had a gift for waking people up to the wonder and beauty all around them. (That’s one thing he had in common with C.S. Lewis!)
There is one Carl Sagan quote from The Varieties of Scientific Experience I found online that I just can’t resist replying to:
Because the universe isn’t about us! It’s about God. And since God is really, really, really big, so is His creation.
Because that would spoil all the fun of discovering them! God is infinite, we are finite: we can never exhaust the wonder and beauty of God–each new day in eternity will bring fresh new joys to discover.
If he’s talking about extraterrestrials here, hey, nothing in the Bible precludes the existence of ETs! But nothing requires it either, so whether we are “alone” or not, Biblical doctrine is unaffected. (Actually I almost want to go tell those UFO believers that we have been visited by life from beyond this planet: his name was Jesus. ;-)
But if Sagan’s quote above is referring to the idea that the Big Bang, stellar and planetary accretion, and biological evolution are way cooler than “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” well, who’s to say God didn’t create that way?
Some Christians get really bothered by evolution, but I am not one of them. I love science, and I think it’s cool that really smart people are cooking up a purely naturalistic explanation for how everything got to be the way it was. Yeah they have to bend a few rules sometimes to do it (like the First Axiom of Biology: life does not come from non-life), but I enjoy reading about what they come up with.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no conflict between theism and science (in fact, it has been observed that a theistic universe is probably the only one that makes science possible: a universe with rational laws created by a rational God, laws designed to be comprehensible to human beings.)
According to John Piper, you can summarize the essence of the atheistic and theistic accounts of the universe thusly:
Atheist view: In the beginning was matter and energy. Through a long, completely undirected process with no purpose or plan, impersonal matter and energy miraculously organized itself into personal life: you and me.
Theist view: In the beginning was personal life, and no matter. Then personal life created physical matter, and there was both life and matter.
Both of these accounts require faith, since there is zero evidence for either. How does Carl Sagan know that “the cosmos”–matter and energy–existed from all time? Well, he doesn’t: he’s guessing, just like I’m guessing that it’s WAY more likely that personal life (human beings) came from similarly-personal life (God) than for it to have somehow emerged from interactions between eternally-existent matter and energy alone. This assumes personal life is “more than the sum of its parts,” which I also cannot prove, but seems consistent with human experience.
@Victor: Hey, thanks for reading!
I’m with Victor on this thread. I am impressed at the civility. It has been an interesting read. I have nowhere near the patience of a Bluejay, and am generally seen as militant in my dealings with the religious. Thus, I will refrain from commenting further. I’ll still be reading, though. Good job, guys.
No, not exactly. There is evidence for Carl Sagan’s views, and he certainly wasn’t “guessing.” With science we can trace both the history of life and the history of the universe as a whole to within a hair’s breadth of their respective beginnings.
For life the only question left is the chemical question of how inanimate matter cohered into an indefinitely self sustaining reaction. From that point onwards we have a wealth of evidence of what happened.
For the universe we know that in the beginning all matter and energy that now exists was compressed into an infinitely dense point called a singularity, which then exploded. We can trace what happened back to within a fraction of a second of this explosion, once again supported by evidence.
When you say there’s no evidence for the atheist point of view, what you’re saying is that the question mark at the very beginning of these events leaves room for God. And yes, that’s technically true, but it rests on a misunderstanding: we can’t explain what happened yet. We’re working on it.
From my perspective that is the difference between the atheist, (or rather scientific) view, and the theist one.
Science assumes that the universe is knowable, that we can figure out why things are the way they are if we put our minds to it.
The theist view is that we don’t have to because: God.
For the record, I’m agnostic, not atheist. I also retain enough of my Catholic upbringing that I hope there’s a God and a heaven and that I get to go there.
Hey tweeks, thanks for replying! You’ve given me a lot to digest and respond to; let me take a shot. I have a feeling this is gonna be a long one. *deep breath*
I wonder what you make of Carl Sagan’s objection: “This is clearly hoping that the disquieting facts go away if you merely call them something else. It is argued that some pain is necessary for a greater good. But why, exactly? If God is omnipotent, why can’t He arrange it so there is no pain? It seems to me a very telling point.”
I strongly suspect that Sagan would have enthusiastically agreed with you! But in this case, he would point out (as he did in his lectures and the Q&A’s) that the question becomes what we mean by “God.” If we define God (as Sagan says Spinoza and Einstein did) as the sum total of the physical laws of the universe, then your statements above–I particularly like your wonderful comment about the universe being an inexhaustible source of fascination and discovery–would equally apply. I think he was taking issue with certain theologians’ (and many people’s) narrow conception of God.
This leads into an interesting issue that Sagan tackled at some length: if we are to argue about God, what kind of God are we talking about? The definition we automatically assume in the West is that God is a singular being “who is omnipotent, omniscient, compassionate, who created the universe, is responsive to prayer, intervenes in human affairs, and so on.” Yet there are many other possibilities, as well as other combinations of the qualities listed–perhaps God is omnipotent, but not omniscient; perhaps he’s indifferent to human existence, as Aristotle believed; perhaps he doesn’t intervene in the universe; etc. (And why not the gods from the Greek or Norse or Hindu pantheons?) I do understand that, here, you are advocating for the Biblical God; Sagan was attempting to broaden the discussion a bit. It’s quite an involved argument, and it’s an interesting read.
This seems to be an argument from the anthropic principle, which Sagan also discussed at length. This gets us into the fascinating question of whether the universe really is fine-tuned for our existence and comprehension. There is work currently being done to explore the idea of multiple universes, many of which may not function according to the same laws as this one; if that turns out to be the case, the fact that our universe has turned out the way it has could arguably be the result of a cosmic coin toss. (I suppose you could argue “Who is the coin tosser,” of course.) There is also work being done to demonstrate that altering the parameters of the universe’s physical laws does not automatically preclude the possibility of life existing under very different conditions.
To address your comment more directly: Why must it follow that the laws of our universe must have been caused by intentional design? “A universe with rational laws”: this indeed seems to be the case. (Though I should point out that these “laws” are not equivalent to human-made laws that dictate behavior; they are instead human descriptions of how the universe behaves. The universe will behave as it does regardless of whether we comprehend it, or describe its actions accurately.) “Created by a rational God”: this is yet to be scientifically proven. “Designed to be comprehensible to human beings”: This is precisely what the Intelligent Design people argue when they contest evolution; as you are not bothered by evolution (I’m glad!), I assume you are familiar with the arguments and counter-arguments (have you followed the Dover case?) and I need not rehash them here.
I think I see your larger point: that science can explain how the universe works, and still not absolutely preclude the possibility that a divine creator wished it to be so. I agree; it’s not impossible. I just think it’s not provable or observable by scientific means, and is therefore not a scientific concern.
Well, I have to object a bit to your characterization of the atheist view. (May I call it non-theist, to accommodate agnostics, materialists, scientists who go to church, etc?) Non-theists don’t claim that anything “miraculously” happened at the origin of the universe; that’s your word. ;-) The explanation for the processes that formed the universe is well within the scope of our understanding of how matter behaves. Processes that are not yet fully understood are not automatically assumed to be supernatural, but are studied until natural explanations are found.
As far as the non-theist–heck, I’ll call it scientific–view is concerned, I disagree. There is plenty of empirical evidence–the redshifts of galaxies, the cosmic microwave background radiation, etc.–to support the Big Bang theory. What the theory doesn’t do–because as a scientific idea it’s concerned only with the actions of the observable universe–is speculate on whether God’s will is part of the equation.
But I find it interesting that you acknowledge a lack of hard evidence for the theist position, as it ties into something I wanted to ask about an earlier comment of yours:
I’ve been wondering about whether or not we can clear up whether in fact we do mean different things by evidence. In particular, I’m thinking of the notion of falsifiability. By this, I mean (and I apologize if I’m overexplaining what may be obvious to you) that in science, a good theory is not only one that is supported by the evidence, but one that can conceivably be proven wrong by other evidence. The fact that an idea is testable and could possibly fail, but ultimately holds up well, makes a good case for the idea’s validity.
For instance, we may say that scientists have “faith” (or at least enormous confidence) in the theory of evolution by natural selection. But this is not because they want to believe in it or want to disbelieve in creationism; they believe in it because it is, so far, the best naturalistic explanation for an overwhelming amount of observed data from different scientific fields. If you apply the theory to the facts, the theory checks out. But that didn’t have to be the case–it’s conceivable that evolution could have been proven wrong. And scientists aren’t shy about admitting that hypothetical evidence could contradict it: J.B.S. Haldane famously said that evolution could be disproved by the discovery of “fossil rabbits in the Precambrian era.” Such evidence hasn’t turned up, and so the theory remains sound. But it is falsifiable. And if at some point natural selection (or any other theory) is proven false, good scientists would absolutely admit error and change their minds.
Where am I going with this? Well, I like to think that my opinions about God are also falsifiable, and that I may be persuaded to recant my atheism if shown convincing evidence. Carl Sagan asked, “Why should God be so clear in the Bible and so obscure in the world?” and proposed some scenarios that he might consider incontrovertible proof of a divine creator: for instance, a set of holy books in all cultures, containing clear statements about the universe that could only be proven right in later times (e.g. the fact that the sun is a star, the light-speed limit, the nature of DNA, etc); or the Ten Commandments engraved on the surface of the Moon, ten kilometers across per commandment, awaiting our discovery; or a hundred-kilometer crucifix in Earth orbit; etc. Such examples would not only be rare or currently unexplainable events, but miraculous (i.e. impossible according to the normal behavior of the universe), and therefore strong evidence for God. If such evidence turns up, then my theory of “God doesn’t exist” would be significantly shaken, and I’d need to do some serious rethinking. I don’t think it’s a case of my wanting or not wanting his existence to be true.
So what I’m curious about is: Does the same hold true for you? You’ve said you’re an empiricist, have devised a test for God, and have been satisfied with the evidence; but is there any way that, for you, God’s existence is falsifiable? If God did not answer your prayer in the way that he did, would you have taken that as proof of his nonexistence? Or would you have thought, perhaps, that God’s answer was simply different from the one you wanted? If, for you, there isn’t anything that could conceivably disprove God’s existence–if, in other words, he can be justified in your mind by anything that happens–and if, as you say, a willingness to believe is necessary to have knowledge of God, then perhaps we do mean different things by “evidence” or “proof.” (As you yourself have said, the way God proved himself to you would probably not be convincing to an atheist.)
Please understand that I’m NOT knocking your reasons for your faith; I’m merely saying that I don’t think those reasons can be adequately tested and discussed in a scientific context. Faith, for the faithful, can be an amazing thing: a source of morals, strength, and courage. If faith is what allowed Gandhi and Martin Luther King to do everything they did, then I’m very grateful that they were believers. (Although they probably didn’t believe in quite the same things.)
Interesting! But is the “mere” sum of our parts so very dreary? :-) I can’t help but recall Sagan’s take on it:
@Paul, Victor, markyd: Yeah, thanks for reading. I’m finding out some pretty interesting things about myself, and what pushes my buttons. Apparently I can engage in a civil conversation about faith or abortion; but if you make an erroneous claim about the etymology of “entertainment,” watch out!
:-D
I don’t believe in a hard and fast line between life and non-life. You have chemical reactions, and chemical reactions that are more likely to repeat themselves expand and push aside those that don’t. Another chemical reaction that more easily and proflicly repeats and sustains itself pushes aside those old models, too. Chemical reactions bump into each other, and after billions of bumps, some start sticking together. And some of those combinations bump into each other and combine, etc, etc, until you get a big series of chemical reactions that sustains and repeats itself, big enough that we look back and say, “Hey that was life.” But we are drawing that line, not nature, which is why scientists get into unnecessary arguments about if viruses are alive or not.
Maybe hundreds of years in the future, artificial intelligences will look back and try to figure out where to draw the line between intelligent and non-intelligent? “Okay, did these humans create fire, or just find it?” And it would be an important question for them, because without controlling fire, no computers.
First let me say that I truly appreciate your time and effort, Bluejay. Your questions have been so thoughtful and deeply penetrating that I feel I’ve grown significantly the past few days in my understanding of my own world view simply by virtue of your patiently challenging me to expend the (not insignificant) effort required to formulate a fittingly thoughtful response! :-D
If this thread continues on at this level of depth, though, I’m afraid I won’t be able to maintain these quick 24-hour turnaround times: my relatively less-enjoyable college coursework is starting to pile up. :-)
So although I really enjoyed reading JoshB‘s helpful summary of Carl Sagan’s view of origins, and heartily agree with Paul‘s excellent point that “there is no hard and fast line between life and non-life,” time constraints compel me to be selective in my responses.
It’s only fitting to respond by quoting Sagan’s Christian counterpart, C. S. Lewis, who wrote in Mere Christianity of why he rejected atheism:
Keller continues Lewis’ point in his Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism:
And now to your question for me:
Yes: if Jesus’ body is found.
Christ is the linchpin of my entire faith. If the resurrection did not happen, or if anything in the Gospels can be shown to have not really happened, then I have believed a lie.
Well, why should God’s activities as recorded in the Bible be so easily dismissed? :-) I might as well ask, “Why should evolution be so clear in the fossil record and so obscure in the world?” The fossil record is our most specific source for the process of evolution, just as the Bible is our most specific source for God’s prior miraculous activities–especially the Incarnation, where God Himself lived among us for 33 years to be observed and questioned by skeptical human beings like Carl Sagan (pity he didn’t live 2,000 years ago!).
Did Sagan give any reasons for concluding that the Bible is an unreliable witness for the activity of God?
Ok, do you have any reasons for concluding that the Bible is an unreliable witness for the activity of God? :-)
I don’t want to give the impression that the Bible is our only source of evidence for God. Keller lists a number of extra-Biblical “clues” that, while not irrefutably proving God’s existence, certainly provide significant evidence, including:
– The extra-natural cause of the Big Bang
– The Anthropic Principle (which you discussed already)
– The “regularity of nature” assumed by science: that water will boil tomorrow under the identical conditions of today
But these are just the “clues.” There is an evidence for God that every single person believes in, including everyone who has been posting here, yet that cannot be proven intellectually. Can you guess what it is? :-)
It is something that I have known intuitively all my life, and it’s why I’ve never been able to seriously entertain the notion that there is no God. Keller summarizes it wonderfully in Reason for God:
Here I go into the breach.
Okay, nature is filled with the violence of the strong over the weak, and we feel it is wrong to do that amongst ourselves.
Or do we? Yes, many people feel it is wrong to use violence against those who are weaker than we are, but almost everyone draws a circle around their life and says, “Those who stand inside this circle are accorded civil rights and deserve my moral behavior and those who stand out, watch out!”
Almost everyone draws that line around their own family and friends, which is the easy bit. We probably evolved to naturally draw that circle around a group about the size of a tribe or village. However, the more moral a person is, the wider that circle becomes, with the most moral of people (Jesus, Buddha, etc) expanding the circle to encompass all of humanity, even, in the case of Jesus, to include those that nailed him up. A true psychopath has the circle drawn around himself, period. Perhaps the most shocking thing about the Joker in that last movie is that I’m not sure he even had a circle that wide.
I have a second issue, that of having read a lot of Buddhist scripture. In fact, there are 20,000 volumes of Buddhist “scripture” because they define the term to include theology (so CS Lewis would be scripture) and hagiography (stories of holy people such as “The Little Flowers of Saint Francis”). So if scripture is a witness of God, why isn’t Buddhism as provable as Christianity?
Those are excellent points, Paul! Let me address them quickly (then I really have to do my homework!)
Regarding Buddhism, there are extremely compelling reasons to accept Jesus as more authoritative than the Buddah, Prince Siddhārtha Gautama (one of them being that the Prince never claimed to be God!), but I would like to wait on discussing them until I’ve heard from Bluejay.
Regarding people with very small moral circles, it’s interesting that you chose to call them “psychopaths.” Isn’t that rather closed-minded and judgmental on your part? ;-) I agree with you, of course! I’m just trying to get you to examine your reasons for condemning people who behave that way, since it is in no way inconsistent with nature and “survival of the fittest.”
For example, on what grounds would you condemn a rapist? If you are a healthy, intelligent, attractive man, then taking any woman you choose in order to spread your genes as widely as possible is good for the human race, isn’t it? This is “only natural.” Who has any right to tell this man that what he’s doing is wrong?
Well, I have to admit I don’t know which away my morality argument ultimately swings. And while I do think of myself as liberal, I don’t think of myself as a hardcore multiculturalist, so I don’t mind being judgemental.
Hardcore multiculturalism only makes sense for academia, where it is your job to understand another culture on its terms without judgement. I’m more of a softcore multiculturalist, and I would argue that Lewis is, too. His argument was that there are differences between morals and customs, and his example was dress code. In cold countries it is normal to wear lots of clothes and in warm countries it is normal to wear very little, so he argued you can’t call a topless woman on a South Sea island “wanton” or “lurid” because that is the normal custom. But murder and rape are still wrong wherever you go.
As for Jesus’ claim to be God, I’ve read, and wish I remembered where, that in his dialect of Hebrew, a claim to be a Son of God was simply a claim to being a holy person, and that the divine associations we think of came only with the translation into the Greek, which has a different association with being the son of a god.