Via 3quarksdaily, here is Richard Skinner (“poet, writer, qualified therapist and performer”) elaborating on Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously. I would argue that they should take him seriously because much of what he says is true, but that’s not Skinner’s take.
Skinner suggests that Dawkins is arguing against a straw-man notion of God (stop me if you’ve heard this before). According to the straw man, God is some thing, or some person, or some something, of an essentially supernatural character, with a lot of influence over what happens in the universe, and in particular the ability to sidestep the laws of nature to which the rest of us are beholden. That’s a hopelessly simplistic and unsophisticated notion, apparently; not at all what careful theologians actually have in mind.
Nevertheless, Dawkins and his defenders typically reply, it’s precisely the notion of God that nearly all non-theologians — that is to say, the overwhelming majority of religious believers, at least in the Western world — actually believe in. Not just the most fanatic fundamentalists; that’s the God that the average person is worshipping in Church on Sunday. And, to his credit, Skinner grants this point. That, apparently, is why Christians should take Dawkins seriously — because all too often even thoughtful Christians take the easy way out, and conceptualize God as something much more tangible than He really is.
At this point, an optimist would hope to be informed, in precise language, exactly what “God” really does mean to the sophisticated believer. Something better than Terry Eagleton’s “the condition of possibility.” But no! We more or less get exactly that:
Philosophers and theologians over the centuries, grappling with what is meant by ‘God’, have resorted to a different type of language, making statements such as “God is ultimate reality”; or “God is the ground of our being”, or “God is the precondition that anything at all could exist”, and so forth. In theological discourse, they can be very helpful concepts, but the trouble with them is that if you’re not a philosopher or theologian, you feel your eyes glazing over – God has become a philosophical concept rather than a living presence.
The trouble is not that such sophisticated formulations make our eyes glaze over; the trouble is that they don’t mean anything. And I will tell you precisely what I mean by that. Consider two possible views of reality. One view, “atheism,” is completely materialistic — it describes reality as just a bunch of stuff obeying some equations, for as long as the universe exists, and that’s absolutely all there is. In the other view, God exists. What I would like to know is: what is the difference? What is the meaningful, operational, this-is-why-I-should-care difference between being a sophisticated believer and just being an atheist?
I can imagine two possibilities. One is that you sincerely can’t imagine a universe without the existence of God; that God is a logical necessity. But I have no trouble imagining a universe that exists all by itself, just obeying the laws of nature. So I would have to conclude, in that case, that you were simply attaching the meaningless label “God” to some other aspect of the universe, such as the fact that it exists. The other possibility is that there is actually some difference between the universe-with-God and the materialist universe. So what is it? How could I tell? What is it about the existence of God that has some effect on the universe? I’m not trying to spring some sort of logical trap; I sincerely want to know. Phrases like “God is ultimate reality” are either tautological or meaningless; I would like to have a specific, clear understanding of what it means to believe in God in the sophisticated non-straw-man sense.
Richard Skinner doesn’t give us that. In fact, he takes precisely the opposite lesson from these considerations: the correct tack for believers is to refuse to say what they mean by “God”!
So, if our understanding of God can be encapsulated in a nice, neat definition; a nice, neat God hypothesis; a nice, neat image; a nice, neat set of instructions – if, in other words, our understanding of God does approximate to a Dawkins version, then we are in danger of creating another golden calf. The alternative, the non-golden-calf route, is to sit light to definitions, hypotheses and images, and allow God to be God.
It’s a strategy, I suppose. Not an intellectually honest one, but one that can help you wriggle out of a lot of uncomfortable debates.
I’m a big believer that good-faith disagreements focus on the strong arguments of the opposite side, rather than setting up straw men. So please let me in on the non-straw-man position. If anyone can tell me once and for all what the correct and precise and sophisticated and non-vacuous meaning of “God” is, I promise to stick to disbelieving in that rather than any straw men.
Update: This discussion has done an even better job than I had anticipated in confirming my belief that the “sophisticated” notion of God is simply a category mistake. Some people clearly think of God in a way perfectly consistent with the supposed Dawkinsian straw man, which is fine on its own terms. Others take refuge in the Skinneresque stance that we can’t say what we mean when we talk about God, which I continue to think is simply intellectually dishonest.
The only on-topic replies I can see that don’t fall into either of those camps are ones that point to some feature of the world which would exist just as well in a purely materialistic conception, and say “I call that `God.'” To which I can only reply, you’re welcome to call it whatever you like, but it makes no difference whatsoever. Might as well just admit that you’re an atheist.
Which some people do, of course. I once invited as a guest speaker Father William Buckley, a Jesuit priest who is one of the world’s experts in the history of atheism. After giving an interesting talk on the spirituality of contemplation, he said to me “You don’t think I believe in G-O-D `God,’ do you?” I confessed that I had, but now I know better.
For people in this camp, I think their real mistake is to take a stance or feeling they have toward the world and interpret in conventionally religious language. Letting all that go is both more philosophically precise and ultimately more liberating.
Garth, I know my English language is not always clear. Sometimes my thoughts are not so clear also. 🙂
When something starts to exist (without anything causing it), it is caused by nothing
(that exists).
Can we say it is caused by nothing? The multiple meanings of “nothing” is confusing. We should not think of this as “nothing” doing an act of causation. Nothing can’t “do” anything.
Nothing only affords a logical explanation for existence. Saying that nothing is a “sufficient reason” is misleading. Well, it depends on how the word “reason” is understood. Sorry! 🙂
Eternal “stuff”: As you know there are also other “reasons” for rejecting the eternal.
GOD means “Great Ordinary Delusion” (contradictio in adjecto intended).
Leo: you are perfectly entitled to your opinion.
And I am entitled to hold my opinion: “I define God as the author and guarantor of the laws of science – the agent that (constantly) “breathes fire into the equations, making a universe for them to describe.”
In light of the recent discussion above such a God could be eternal, atemporal or temporal and “if the universe ’started to exist “from” nothing’, then a self-consistent God too could have started to exist from nothing, with the universe; for ‘nothing’ would have prevented it happening.”
Regards,
Garth
God is not one but a series of memes that are tied together by the word “God.” They have evolved in a way in western society that allows for these multiple understandings to coexist and reinforce each other but have no logical coherence. It makes it impossible to argue against “God” because if you argue against one conception, then people with another conception can say “no, no, no, you are misunderstanding it.”
These memes are very resilient because they have had a lot of time for evolution. For a very long time, theology was the most discussed and debated topic there was. It made up the vast majority of printed work before the enlightenment. With that much focus, they became very refined in the intellectual circles. I would venture to say that the tenuous nature of most “intellectual” God memes is that part of intellectual discourse requires a measured nuanced approach. You can still see this in arguments made by people like Skinner.
At the same time, God memes had a lot of time to develop among the “common” people. These memes were not as likely to be developed amongst equals but rather handed down from religious leaders. Although they were not as subject to debate, they still had to evolve in order to compete with other theologies and the current economic and political landscape. For example, the “holy father” meme works very well in an environment that is trying to promote the “divine right of kings” meme. The “hell” meme also makes a lot more sense if it was developed as something that was not necessarily subjected series intellectual debate, but rather as a meme that could be understood on a visceral level by the uneducated. You still see these memes in the evangelical fundamentalist community. They make zero rational sense but they were never meant to. Also, since they explicitly reject rationalism, they have a habit of spinning off even crazier memes like pushed by this guy.
God is the highest ideal that a person should strive to be. How that ideal is defined is something that will be influenced by the experiences of one’s life. We are not born wise, but by living in a thoughtful mind we become so. This ideal is ‘not’ something that should be accepted on blind-faith from the recorded ancients, but something that evolves in a philosophically reflective process of trial and error from living a life of good intentions. The closest theological term that I will twist into this definition is that of the ‘Holy Spirit’. A better word is ‘Love’ (God is Love. Or rather, Love is God). This ideal is just that, the ideal that even a conscious God has to consider. A conscious God must be judged against this ideal.
Now, I do believe there is a conscious God as well. But this God is not omnipotent. I believe that He thinks He is God, but can’t prove it. If people on earth can be deluded into thinking their God, then God can be so deluded as well … by a higher power that has not yet revealed Herself to Him, possibly. In the end, God must fear His own jugement if He does not do a good job of raising our family of humanity (and I’m sure you feel it looks like it’s been a disaster).
As far a proving the existence of a conscious God. Well, only He can do that. No army of Christians professing their faith is reason enough to believe. God must account for Himself in a personal way to each person. To expect someone to base their believe on the written word of some ancient men is not reasonable or fair. Those words only amount to a statement of their faith. To believe them is only a faith in just them. It does not amount to having faith in God, just a hope. Besides, what does it mean to believe in something anyway? Is believing in God a question of thinking His existence is a fact of truth? Or does it mean that you ‘trust’ that He will be a good friend (i.e. I believe in you.)?
What is my personal experience with this conscious God? I’m sure you can guess. Mental illness. But I hope you don’t think I am as crazy as that sounds. I do not believe I am God, but I do think He wants me to become as close to his equal as he can get me. No supernatural powers or nothing, but a right to demand some respect from him.
Finally, I do not believe in hell. Everyone makes it. We are all pre-destined to get to heaven. Keep the faith. Keep doing your best. Regards.
The question is there “hell” piques me more than is there “God”. I am comfortable with there is God and there is no God, and either way, my view of life is same. But is there hell, begs the question is there suffering – whether human earthly suffering of famines, wars, diseases, emtional pain, metaphysical suffering of fear of not going to heaven (? not quite sure how to put it). Yes there IS suffering but if anyone looks too much at it, perspective can be lost. If we can but know it, take small bite sizes, keep perspective and loosen attachment, to be detached in thought, word and deed, as far as humanly possible, then maybe we can lessen suffering for self and thus for others. Amen. Love.
Please Tell Me What “Santa Claus” Means
Sweet holy mother of Jesus! Could there be a better case of complete mumbo-jumbo-confusion. Next step would be treatment at the Argument Clinic …
This is what you get when mixing objective/logical/scientific approach with religion/mysticism/feelings.
What went wrong?
1) Atheists cannot prove scientifically that God does not exist.
2) Religious people cannot prove scientifically that God does exist.
3) There is more than one official God/religion on this planet (historically; plenty).
4) On top of that: Many religious people have their most personal interpretation of God.
Well, Sean didn’t ask for scientific proof, did he? No, not explicitly. But if you ask; “how would things be different if God didn’t exist?”, and don’t accept woolly answers, you’re in fact asking for proof.
You might as well ask; Please Tell Me What “Santa Claus” Means and get loads of inconsistent and meaningless answers.
People are free to believe in Santa Claus or God, or anything else they prefer. The messy part starts when you mix non-logical things with the logical world of science, politics, economics, legislation, etc.
(Many may disagree that politician like George W. Bush meet the criteria for the logical world, but that’s another topic. 😉 )
I think that God, or really gods, spirits, totems etc, emerged with our capacity for language. Language gave us the ability to personify the natural world, rain gods, river spirits, the buffalo spirit etc, which had the ability to communicate information about the environment from generation to generation. We project our consciousness onto the world. God emerged from story telling, and ontologically has the same status as any character in a work of literature. The Bible is literature with lots of stories — some of them strange and violent.
In our more recent history with civilizations the early spirits and gods of the forest became larger gods, often agricultural in nature, and the in the late bronze age the monotheistic idea emerged. In East Asia the whole idea of gods was largely abandoned. Yet Buddhism is filled with parochial “kitchen gods.” Monotheism has largely come to dominate the world, particularly through Christianity and Islam. This tendency to believe in gods or God has little to do with any philosophical reasoning, but that our brains may be wired in such as way that we easily slip into believing such things. We even do it in a temporary sense when we read or watch a horror story — and the movie “The Sixth Sense” was very good. I don’t believe in ghosts (a sort of god-like entity) in any way.
In the ancient world there were the few who rejected the idea of gods, but largely people stuck to their gods. Lucretius argued forcefully against the god-idea, but Romans were very superstitious people. In today’s world there are far greater reasons, in particular the scientific world view, to at least question the existence of the supernatural. Religion has a terrible time with science. However, while science can win on the reasoning front, religion still has that emotional or psychological appeal. Religion seems to easily excite certain neural circuits in our brains.
Lawrence B. Crowell
In the virtual universe created by your brain, you are a God 🙂
Lawrence,
There is a spectrum from http://www.dhamma.org/ to http://www.what-buddha-taught.net/Books2/Dhammananda_What_Buddhists_Believe.htm to the one you mentioned.
Likewise from this
http://www.catholic.org/printer_friendly.php?id=18504§ion=Cathcom to young earth.
OK, here it is, actual evidence of My existence. Note my subtlety, in that I comment only long after anyone has any interest in discerning My presence through a comment issued well more than a Terran year from the original post, and months after the previous most recent comment. As usual, I’m having it both ways!
Proofreading was never one of My attributes.