Sunday, July 09, 2006

A Challenge

The whole subject of religion, it appears to me, can be pared down to one important concept: Faith. Either you have it or you don’t.

Now I’m slightly hazy on the subject of faith, but as I understand it, it comes in two basic flavours. Flavour one: The one favoured by my grandparents and their generation, namely that of blind faith. This is where a persons beliefs are instilled in them at an early age, never questioned and accepted as part of their daily life until they go the way of all flesh. Flavour two: born again faith. This is where a person undergoes some kind of life changing experience or epiphany that leads to a belief in a particular religion.

Blind faith believers have no place in this debate since they have never questioned their beliefs, therefore, it is logical for us to focus on the latter flavour. It occurs to me that they too can be separated into two groups. One group would comprise of people who were looking for some kind of help or direction or psychological crutch in the first place. The second (and I suspect much smaller) group would comprise of people for whom religion was the furthest thing from their minds when they had their experience.

IF you accept that this second group of born again believers are scarce enough to be fairly described as an unexplained anomaly, THEN it is only the first group of born again believers that should be of concern.

I believe that these people need to be challenged, and not only for sport but for their own wellbeing.

The challenges are these:

1. Given that you had to undergo a profound religious experience in order for your faith to manifest itself, how can you expect non believers to treat your beliefs with anything other than scepticism, without an experience of their own? Since that experience took place because you went looking for it, is it reasonable to belief that someone who is happy with their life will experience a similar thing? After all, if one has no questions, one does not need to search for answers.

2. Given that you were searching for them in the first place, does it not strike you as an amazing coincidence that you found it so easy to find help and/or answers in an institution that peddles exactly that? Could it be that your circumstances left you wide open to suggestion and exploitation?

3. In your quest for truth or help or awakening, have you spent an equal amount of time studying all the main religions? I suspect that the answer for most of you is a resounding “No”. Well then, how do you know that you are on the right track? I have read a great deal of posts recently, berating a particular sceptic because he appears to be concentrating his fire on Christianity while laying off other beliefs. The reverse is also true. I certainly have met a great deal of Christians who have almost no knowledge of Islam or Hinduism of Buddhism. What if they have interpreted the signs incorrectly and are following the wrong faith? It find it telling that most born again Christians appear to have fallen into that particular faith because it just happens to be the most prevalent in their society.

3 Comments:

Blogger Goatboy said...

Give me a bit of time to read your links and I'll get back to you.

11:01 pm  
Blogger Goatboy said...

I have read both of the articles you quoted and I must say that I found them hard going. I am not sure why, but I suspect that it was because they are (necessarily) centred on your own experiences and so they are quite difficult for me to relate to.

I’ll address each article in turn.

First: “Why I’m not an Atheist”

It would be futile for me to comment on the introduction to this piece because it is a personal account that is particular to you. The only thing I would say is that your understanding of the term agnostic is incorrect. You describe it as “someone who is undecided whether God exists”; when in actual fact the term agnostic should be applied to those who believe that ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable. A small point but worth making.
Regarding the rest of the article, I’ll address it point by point.
1. I expect nothing to exist.
Neither do I. I think where we differ is that I can accept that “stuff exists”.

2. It doesn’t explain why I’m me.
True, but does religion? (That is a genuine question by the way.)

3. The universe is orderly…
Sorry. That just isn’t true. Enough said.

4. It doesn’t explain why the Bible describes reality so well.
I’m not sure that it does. Mind you, I haven’t read the Bible for years. I have tried on numerous occasions but I just can’t stick with it. Perhaps one day I’ll be more successful, but until then I’m not qualified to comment on this point.

5. I’ve seen miracles.
Perhaps you have seen them, perhaps you haven’t. The important thing is that you believe that you have. I simply cannot argue with that and I wouldn’t even try.

6. I may be wrong here, but there isn’t one prophecy that you mention that couldn’t be a case of post facto rationalisation. Sorry, I just don’t buy it.

7. Atheists rarely show they understand me.
That is probably because they don’t. You said previously that atheism is a religion like any other. That simply isn’t true. Theism is belief in a religion; a-theism describes someone without that belief. It is not a religion because the term focuses on what a person is not, rather than what they are.
A belief in evolution requires a certain amount of faith, so I suppose that evolutionism could be described as a kind of religion, but the terms “evolutionist” and “atheist” are not necessarily interchangeable.

As for you other article: “Arguments for the Existence of God”, I’m afraid that I cannot accept that that is what they are.
They appear to be a collection of statements based on your understanding of science, blended with nebulous philosophy (sorry but that is how it looks to me). I’m sure that a lot of what you say has some basis to it but I’m afraid that it just gets lost in the rhetoric. I didn’t see one argument for the existence of God, but what I did see was a lot of arguments for how scientists must be blinkered and/or stupid. That may or may not be true, but it doesn’t really say anything.

All in all your arguments appear to be philosophical ones and to a large extent, so are mine. The problem with those is that they are almost impossible to argue with, at least in this format.
My original premise was that faith is either the product of a religious experience, or else it is blind faith, instilled into a person by their society from an early age.
Your counter claim seems to be that there is another kind of faith (the kind you have) that is the product of reason.
I would argue that if faith is the result of reason, then it isn’t faith. No doubt you would disagree, and I think that here we are doomed to reach an impasse.

However, your beliefs certainly seem to work for you and good luck to you.
Please feel free to comment further. I’ve never been afraid of an impasse.

10:43 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

I don't believe in blind faith for those who have a mind of their own and for those who have a good sense of who they are. Being brought up in a certain way is one thing when you are a child, but what you believe in when you are an adult and have kept your faith because you believe it to be the truth, then thats a concious choice of you own, just the same as if you lose your faith.

12:48 am  

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