Ask Away

[Walter Kovacs]

I do enjoy a good climbing tree.

 

[Tinker Grey]

I do enjoy a good climbing tree.

One of the few things I was ever good at, climbing trees.

 

[William II]

Nice.

Would you ever date a girl who was Christian?

 

[William II]

I'd date an atheist.

 

[Orochi]

I used to think the ontological argument was absurd. But I'm starting to warm to it. What is the basic thing on which the universe was founded? I don't know. Some kind of natural law, God, something has to be at the bottom, unless you think it's turtles all the way down.

So where does the first thing come from? I find the most satisfying concept is that there is something that is so basic that if there is going to be anything existing at all, this has to be there. The core of the ontological argument is that God exists because he has to. That is, he exists necessarily. I can't prove it, but it has a kind of esthetic appeal.

Supposed there's something so basic that it has to exist. What would it be like? It can't be something like the natural law of our universe. There are just too many adjustable parameters. But because of the big bang, we know the current laws can't be basic anyway. There's got to be a bigger system. And it's got to be eternal, because if it isn't, it must have come from another system that is.

I don't see how that system can itself be God. God has to exist in some context, so to me the question is whether the basic system has an intelligence.

I argue as follows. If we've managed to evolve intelligent life in a universe that's a few billion years old, a system complex enough to generate big bangs, of infinite age, surely must have developed intelligence if it wasn't there before. However infinity has strange properties. I'm going to give a proof by contradiction that the basic system must have an eternal intelligence.

Let's assume that there isn't an eternal intelligence in the system. That would mean that the intelligence must have started at some finite time T. But the universe existed at time T - N (where N is how long it would take to evolve intelligence). Hence at time T there must be intelligence. We've just falsified the hypothesis. Hence we know that the basic system has an eternal intelligence.

While I can't prove it, I believe an eternal intelligence in a system from which universes are generated is effectively God.

Does this argument work? I don't know. But this is probably the first time you've seen a proof of God based on evolution.

I should note that I don't actually believe it's possible to prove that God exists.

I've never really given much thought to how the universe came to be. I'm a fan of Big Bang theory but as I understand it BBT explains how the known universe came to exist, not reality itself.

I haven't come across the Ontological argument before but it definitely makes more sense than the Teleological or Cosmological arguments.

 

[Orochi]

I agree. Granted, familial compassion helps the family to survive, with parents caring for children. But I suspect that a wider compassion for others is a relatively late development in our evolution. We feel compassion because, as you have wisely said, we empathize with others, we see them, in some sense, as part of ourselves. And this means we do something to help if we can. Survival is not the goal of compassion, but it is a result. In helping others, we help ourselves also.



Me, too.

I'd like to echo what others here have said and welcome you to this forum and encourage you to participate. As you know, I'm not an atheist, but I do browse some atheist forums from time to time and often feel more at home on those than I do here at CF. Why is that? Because I reject the same kind of "God" that many atheists do. I grew up with an image of God as a Sky-Deity who was watching everything I did in order to determine whether I went to heaven or hell. And despite all the promises that Christians made to me that God intervenes and "answers prayer", I didn't find that to be true. I could have labeled it all as BS and walked away (and for a time I did), but I still felt there is something More.

To me, Orochi, God is a subjective experience, not an objective proposal that can be proven or disproven. I don't deny the ontological arguments for God that seem to offer people evidence. But I doubt that most people are argued into believing in God. They are, imo, loved into it.

Humor me for a moment, please, while I put a new twist on this. The apostle Paul wrote to the Galatian church:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

In describing what we might call "evidence for God" in the life of a person, Paul offers us very subjective experiences: Love. Joy. Peace. Forbearance (patience). Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control.

I believe in these things, Orochi. I have experienced them. And I think you have too. Dare we call these subjective experiences "God"? Some progressive Christians say, yes. God is love. God is Joy. God is Peace. Etc. When we experience these things, as subjective as they are, we experience God.

Well, this is getting long, this thread is meant to be more about asking you questions than preaching at you, which, I hope, you don't take my responses to be. I'm just sharing with you that many people, Christians and non-Christians, look for God through objective means and I think that is like looking for air with a telescope. Mystics, of which Jesus was one, have always said that God is Something or Someone to be experienced, not just believed in. Belief is relatively impotent. There is no passion in belief. But experience is life-changing. You already know that. So follow the best experiences of your heart, my friend. Whether you label that "God" or not is up to you. But, to me, it is like love -- you'll never know that it is true until it happens to you.

No need for you to worry that I think you're preaching. This feels like an exchange of ideas, not a sermon .

 

[Orochi]

To quote the brilliant Kramer:

Do you have any conceivable reason to get up in the morning?

Yes, to enjoy myself and make my way through to world. Hopefully I can also bring some sort of positive experience to other people's lives but I'm not the best judge of whether I achieve it.

 

[Orochi]

Nice.

Would you ever date a girl who was Christian?

In England you hardly meet any girls my age who give religion any thought so I don't know whether you could classify them as anything in that regard.

I'll assume you mean a practising Christian. Yes I would, it might be that irreconcilable differences on the topic cause the relationship to end but that is also true of politics view, in fact, any strong views people hold.

 

[William II]

In England you hardly meet any girls my age who give religion any thought so I don't know whether you could classify them as anything in that regard.

I'll assume you mean a practising Christian. Yes I would, it might be that irreconcilable differences on the topic cause the relationship to end but that is also true of politics view, in fact, any strong views people hold.

Open-minded atheists

 

[trek4fr]

I'll assume you mean a practising Christian...

And here in the States, Orochi, something like 60 to 76% of people claim to Christians, but with only 9% saying that religion is the most important thing in their life. This leads me to think that "being Christian" just means "being American" (and vice versa).

85% of Americans say that they believe in God, but it does cause one to wonder what kind of God people believe in, especially when Americans general support the war and think that Jesus taught the "American dream."

This is one of the reasons that, in my own life, I had to rethink who/what God is to me. It was hard to go through that process and, for the most part, has put me outside of Christian orthodoxy. But my heart cannot believe in what my mind rejects, so I am not big on blind faith.

Two more questions, if I may:

1. What is the image of God that you either reject or don't think exists?

2. How does being an atheist enrich your life now?

Thanks for your patience. I enjoy sitting down and chatting over a Guinness, but this will have to do for now.

 

[Walter Kovacs]

Uhg, Guiness. That makes baby Jesus cry. Blue Moon, on the other hand, is actually baby-Jesus approved.

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

I'll assume you mean a practising Christian. Yes I would, it might be that irreconcilable differences on the topic cause the relationship to end but that is also true of politics view, in fact, any strong views people hold.

That's my general thinking on it. Any strong views people hold and disagree on may break up a relationship, but it also happens that people who are opposites on some of those things can have good, lasting relationships.

An American political example: Mary Matalin (a conservative Republican consultant) and James Carville (a liberal Democrat consultant) are political opposites, and last I heard their marriage has lasted for years and is still strong.

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

Uhg, Guiness. That makes baby Jesus cry. Blue Moon, on the other hand, is actually baby-Jesus approved.

Last year, for St. Patrick's Day, I managed to score some real Irish Guinness. IMO, it's much better than the Guinness we Americans usually get... which says imported, and technically it is since it's brewed in Canada... but it's weaker and less flavorful than the real Irish version.

Blue Moon is pretty good, but there are many fine American craft-brewed beers that I like even better.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Uhg, Guiness. That makes baby Jesus cry. Blue Moon, on the other hand, is actually baby-Jesus approved.

That's because Blue Moon is suitable only for babies. j/k

 

[Orochi]

And here in the States, Orochi, something like 60 to 76% of people claim to Christians, but with only 9% saying that religion is the most important thing in their life. This leads me to think that "being Christian" just means "being American" (and vice versa).

85% of Americans say that they believe in God, but it does cause one to wonder what kind of God people believe in, especially when Americans general support the war and think that Jesus taught the "American dream."

This is one of the reasons that, in my own life, I had to rethink who/what God is to me. It was hard to go through that process and, for the most part, has put me outside of Christian orthodoxy. But my heart cannot believe in what my mind rejects, so I am not big on blind faith.

Two more questions, if I may:

1. What is the image of God that you either reject or don't think exists?

2. How does being an atheist enrich your life now?

Thanks for your patience. I enjoy sitting down and chatting over a Guinness, but this will have to do for now.

1) Any concept of a being or consciousness that has either created this planet and it's inhabitants or is directly involved with them. Also any being or consciousness that is all-powerful, all-knowing, or exists beyond the universe.

2) I don't know whether Atheism is really about enriching a persons life, it's more about critical thinking. Kinda like in the way me not believing in unicorns doesn't particularly enrich my life in any way. Having said that I think I prefer the idea of living my own life according to my own ideals than having to cow-tow to a diety's standards and then be judged by them. Especially as the Christian God seems to be of questionable morality according to the Bible. I suppose being an atheist makes me feel like my own man more than following a diety would.

Thanks for the questions, you seem to have a knack for asking ones that are very thought provoking when I write my answers .

 

[Walter Kovacs]

Favourite thing to think about?

 

[trek4fr]

1)I don't know whether Atheism is really about enriching a persons life, it's more about critical thinking.

I can sure appreciate that. That's why I am no longer a conservative, fundamentalist Christian. I guess I am more of a Jeffersonian Christian who values rationalism highly, believes that Jesus gave many good, moral teachings, but I have also had a few experiences of something More that, while not going against critical thinking, seem to transcend it. I don't know what that makes me as far as a label goes. But then, I really don't care.

I suppose being an atheist makes me feel like my own man more than following a diety would.

So, and I'm just speaking for myself, I know what atheists are generally against. I've read Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris. I think they are smart people and should be listened to by Christians, but I sometimes find their approach to be caustic, just as I do many "Christian" approaches.

So what are you *for*, Orichi? Being against something will only take a person so far. What are you for? What is the positive side of your approach to life, to critical thinking? What do you believe in or value, perhaps in four or five sentences?

 

[IsmailaGodHasHeard]

Who is Jesus to you?

 

[Diane_Windsor]

Orochi,

You might be interested in this thread. I'll ask you the same question that I asked in that thread:

My question is about morality. Cleopatra murdered members of her own family to become Queen of Egypt, but do her chosen means to consolidate her power "evil"? Was she an "evil" person? The same question applies to Julius Caesar, and numerous other leaders throughout history. A Christian can validly hold the opinion that Cleopatra's means were evil because they can cite the teachings of Jesus who explicitly taught to love thy neighbor as thyself. I guess it boils down to what is "good/right" and what is "evil/wrong" which of course is a question that philosophers have wrestled with since the dawn of time. So what is your view of "good" and "evil"?