A discussion with a believer (part 3)

This is a continuation of a previous post on a discussion I have been having with a friend about religion, firstly LW’s response to my previous comments:

LW-

Ok…I’m going to have to do this bit by bit…the singularity:

Indeed it is a seemingly simple beginning, & I agree with you about evolution etc, but the point is, where did the singularity come from in the first place? As I said ealrier, nothing existed before the singularity & it can’t therefore just simultaneously burst into being. I concede that the idea of an all-knowing God doesn’t fit with Dawkins’ model, which is why I have the alternative ‘alien’ theory.

I notice that you make a distinction between a ‘God’ & a ‘God’ who impacts on our daily lives…this I find interesting. I was approaching this from the angle of ‘one God fits all’ so to speak.

Certainly, if you look at it from the point of view that there is no one or nothing to impact on our daily lives, then it would be possible to argue for the inexistence of a creating ‘God’ as what would be the point & your stance is entirely justified. (not that it’s not in any case…I’m figuring this out as I type)

But, just to throw this out there, what is so extraordinary about someone who is, at the very least, interested in our daily lives? Humans are social creatures & are interested in what goes on in the world & how other people are getting along, so why sould some form of ‘God’ not do the same? Is ‘God’ the ultimate Anthropologist?

Which brings me nicely onto my next point. I agree, again, that the religion that people are brought up with is usually the 1 they adhere to, but of course this is not always the case. As you say though, this is usually heavily influenced by social/political/economic factors, but then, what isn’t?

I accept that God, at least in a Christian sense, has most likely been created in our own image, but then as the phrase goes “until the lions have their historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter.”

What I mean to say by that is that the Bible was written by people so, perhaps, in order to make the things contained in it seem more accesible/relevant/applicable etc, they may well have taken their visions/the big scary ‘God monster’ and given it a more human-like form. As you rightly point out though, religion is created based on the needs of society so it would seem antural that ‘God’ would be created in our own image as, while religion is created based on the needs of society, it is also created to perpetuate a certain set of values and norms and maintain said society.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s irrelevant/wrong though.

Of course, picking and choosing just the nice bits from the Bible isn’t exactly subscribing to the religion, but then, I think you;d need to look at the time in which the Bible was written, to put the things in it into contextand then of course you need to take into account the fact that the world has changed. Hence, certain aspects of the Bible such as the stoning of non-believers have been dropped becuase they aren’t really applicable anymore. There is some flexibility, although yes, I see that those who have blind faith in their religionwould cling to ancient beliefs no matter what. All things are relative I suppose.

I’m going to leave the science thing alone becuase I can’t explain exactly what I’m trying to get to, and I don;t think we’re ever going to agree on that!

Indeed the endless quest for truth and knowledge is what makes life worth living! My point was, that it is that that gives our lives meaning, whether we find that truth or not!

Of course we can be ethical human beings without faith in ‘God’, I didn’t intend to suggest anything to the contrary.

Perhaps ‘God’ is natural and not supernatural. I just liked the quote as it implies tolerance for all and advocates the idea of finding peace with oneself and our fellow human beings.

So, lastly, why do I think faith is necesary? So many reasons.

To start with, ‘God’ is almost always mentioned in assocaition with death. As humans, we fear death as it is the last great unknown. Subscribing to religion, having faith in ‘God’ helps to ease this fear. We know that our bodies will rot and we will never live again, but our soul, the essence of who we are, the people we have worked so hard to be over the course of our lives, will ‘live’ on. We have not therefore lived for nothing. As an aside, a book you may find interesting is one I read recently called “The Five People you MEet in Heaven” by Mitch Albon. It’s quite a nice little book anyway, but it fits our topic quite nicely.

So, why else?

On an everyday level, personally, I like to feel that I am not entirely alone, even when there is no one with me. I am, to be fair, a somewhat solitary person – perhaps I’ve been a bit to independent in my life – but I rarely feel alone.

This is because I feel that there is always someone or something looking out for me. I realise that perhaps this feeling is simply my inner consciousness & during the more difficult periods of my life the things I have dreamed or reasoned through ‘hearing’ this other ‘being’ have just been me telling myself to pull myself together, but there is something more to it than that, something intangible that I wouldn’t like to try and capture with words.

Alternatively, I also attribute bad luck or annoying things to the doing of a ‘God’ who seems to hate me sometimes. This perhaps is an unwillingness to accept my own faults or that sometimes there are just bad days, but there is another reason for this. By attributing bad luck to something else other than myself, I find that I can put my life into someone else’s hands & I can hope that tomorrow will be a better day. In fact, it is easier to believe that tomorrow will be a better day if I’m not responsbile for it…

I don’t see that having faith necessarily means we are ethical beings & conversely that a lack of faith suggests that we are immoral & incosiderate of our fellow beings.

For me, faith is akin to hope, it is comforting, it absolves me of my responsibilities when I can’t cope with the idea that (sometimes) I’m a rubbish human being, it facilitates self-reflection, it encourages tolerance, it keeps me from becoming too depressed by the world and the terrible things that humans do to each other, it gives me self-belief when all I want to do is give up, it calms me when there is nothing I can do about a situation and all I can say is “I’ll just have to wait & see/hope etc”, it helps me put my life and the things that happen in it into context in terms of ‘the bigger picture’, it allows me to accet that there are some things over which I have no control, it is an explanation for the good and bad things that happen when there’s no other explanation.

All of the above is of course on a personal level, but I’m sure there are things there that other people could relate too.

Anyway.

That is my reply for the moment…It is now 10.10 p.m and I’m finally going to go have dinner.

I look forward to your response.

OB –

Hi Lucy, hows things – its been a while since i commented but here are some more thoughts for you.
You asked

“what is so extraordinairy about a god that shows an interest in our everyday lives.”

Well, if you accept the idea of a god then it makes complete sense, but only within the framework that you have already set up for yourself by believing in that god in the first place.

“it would seem natural that ‘God’ would be created in our own image as, while religion is created based on the needs of society, it is also created to perpetuate a certain set of values and norms and maintain said society.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s irrelevant/wrong though.”

I wouldn’t say that religion is irrelevant, Christianity has been the main basis of Western Culture. Ancient Cultures understood the world through story telling, and, as i think i said previously, christianity was largely a re-telling of earlier myths. Giving your a history / politics / philosophy a narrative context makes it a lot more palatable to the listening masses.
As allegory you could argue that the bible has some merit, but that tells us nothing about the accuracy of its contents.
Yes, the bible is contextual – but it is still meant to be the one true word, and it still doesn’t provide us with a scrap of evidence for the supernatural.

“We know that our bodies will rot and we will never live again, but our soul, the essence of who we are, the people we have worked so hard to be over the course of our lives, will ‘live’ on”

you say that our bodies will rot but our soul will live on – how do you know? Our very “essence” may continue in the memories of people we leave behind, but that is no reason to think we maintain any sort of consciousness when we die.

I think the personal god you describe is basically your conscience. Self reflection / tolerance and all the other things you described are all things that can be achieved without faith.
Mark Twain said faith is believing what you know aint so.
you accept that there are things over which you have no control, so where does faith in a supernatural being fit in to this picture?
How does god help you explain the unexplainable in your life?
Sometimes people and life are unpredictable, and ultimately the only meaning that life has is the one that we give it.
I would describe myself as a humanist and generally most people are living by the same moral standards which have evolved over generations of personal relationships.
Since taking an interest in free thinking and scepticism, I feel more strongly that humanity is worth believing in.