You see, I am not a big fan of religion, I never really needed one in my life. Somehow, not a religion in the world seems to fit the reality of the natural world. None. And you know what? On the contrary to what the Moral Ed. textbooks in primary and secondary school says, I have been able to live a moral and meaningful life without a religion. Remember the first value in the "hafal nilai" list? That's the only value I never ever observed in my life.
I am a very inquisitive person, I like to question things. When something happens I want to know the why's and the how's. I think it really didn't surprise me when I've decided way back in primary school that I want to be a scientist when I grow up (with a few temporary deviations, but scientist was never off the list).
Science is a way to look at the world. It is a lens through which we seek to know more about this universe. And it is built on observation, evidence, and reason. And as far as I see, science is not compatible with religion.
Because science is evidence-based, most if not all of the things proposed by religion crumbles immediately under scientific scrutiny.There is no conclusive evidence for the existence of god(s), soul, heaven, hell, karma, unicorns, dragons, Zeus, Thor, monkey king, etc., hence the default position in science is to treat them as nonexistent unless proven otherwise.
But I'm a Christian and I believe in Jesus and that God exists!
On what? Faith? You see, the problem with the faith is that... it is simply believing without the need of evidence.
If one day I come to you and say," Hey, an asteroid is going to hit the earth next week."
You would say," What? No that is not true. It wasn't on the news at all"
Me:" Why? Don't you believe me?"
You:" Yeah right. Should me the evidence and I will believe you."
I am pretty sure that is the logical way the conversation will go. But if faith is applied, this might be how the conversation will go:
Me:" Hey, an asteroid is going to hit the earth next week."
You:" Really? Holy shit I better start preparing for apocalypse right now."
Me:" Uh... Really? You are going to believe me, just like that?"
You:" Of course, you are my friend. I have faith in you. And you sounded convincing enough."
Did that conversation make sense to you? It certainly made less sense than the first one. But somehow people think it makes sense when applied to believe a certain deity.
I don't know... I'm pretty sure I can on onto a rant fest in this post if I wanted to. But I will try not to.
So one last thing I have to say today. Every time I see people saying "God is great" or "God is beautiful" and things like that, I feel like grabbing hold of their neck and yell at them. That is just blind ignorance of the reality of the world, and personally I find those sentences offensive and full of self-arrogance.
Millions of people are dying of famine each year. What has god done about that, if he/she/it is as great as the follower claims to be? Are you meaning to say that you deserved God's blessing more than other millions of others in pain?
God acts in mysterious ways. We cannot know what is God's plan.
I say... HYPOCRITE! When good things happen to believers, they say god is blessing them, and they seem to be so sure that god wants goodness for them. And then when bad things happen other people, they say god is giving them a challenge to make them better person. What if a baby dies of hunger the first week he/she was born? Or if something bad happens that they cannot phrase it to make it sound like God is good? Nobody knows God's plan.
So do you or do you not know what is god thinking?! Why are you so sure sometimes but other times you don't want to speculate?
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Personally, the way I see the world, god is no where in the picture. And you know what? All the sudden everything makes sense. And surprisingly, everything is so much more beautiful. Why? I will stop here and pick up from there in my next I'm a Pastafarian post.
I am going to leave you with a quote from Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher. A food for thought.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent (all-powerful).
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent (evil).
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil? (Why is there evil?)
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
Comments? Arguments? Leave them below.
Till next time, cheers~
Hi Chris, I'm coming to your blog from the Facebook link you shared. Thought you raised some interesting points that I'll like take up.
ReplyDeleteLet me come out and say that I am a Christian. I believe that "God is great" and that "God is beautiful" but also think that you won't want to yell at me, after hearing what I have to say. You are right that for many Christians and other religious people, faith is simply holding a belief without the need for evidence. However this is not universally true. Believing without the need for evidence is actually a subset of faith which requires a prefix -- blind faith.
Is faith always blind? I do not think so. For example, part of my faith is based on inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning may not be as strong as deductive reasoning but it is very much a part of the scientific mindset. A classic example is whether the sun will rise tomorrow. Many people believe that the sun will rise based on the premise that the sun has risen every day past. However it is not certain that the sun will definitely rise hence this is inductive rather than deductive reasoning. In this light (bad pun!), other possible prefixes for faith include "reasonable faith" and "rational faith".
People who proclaim God's goodness are not necessarily ignorant. They simply have different inductive biases, different perceptions from you. Hence there is no need to be overly bothered by their statements. Likewise, they and I shouldn't be offended by your perspective of our world. Hopefully this will encourage less people to insist that their view is the right view. It might be cool to get together and trade stories about overly religious people. Let me know if that's something you'll like to do. Differences in inductive biases also explains why Christians can appear fruity about knowing what God is thinking. E.g. say a Christian believes that God is a person. Hence he relates to God in like fashion as he would relate to you or me. Could you on occasion know what your good friend is thinking? Would it be unreasonable to think that you do, find out that you are wrong, and revise your thinking? I think it is reasonable... but that's just my inductive bias. Haha...
The second point I'll like to take up is the question of God's sovereignty. It's true that millions die and it is not apparent what God is doing about that. Let's assume that God is able and willing to do something about it. How many and who should he save? (This is not a rhetorical question, I'll actually like to know what you think.) ... Now here's a rhetorical one. Would you have made the decision to invade Iraq? To drop the bomb on Hiroshima? If you say yes, some will accuse you of killing innocent civilians. If you say no, others will accuse you of permitting the deaths of soldiers on the war-front and poverty back home.
The point is that there is no easy answers to these sort of questions. It is unlikely that you can please everyone. There will always be individuals or groups of people with opposing opinions. Hence as a decision-maker (in this case God), you take a lot of flake. Nonetheless leaders have to make decisions in ethical dilemmas since doing nothing is often the worst possible solution.
Personally I have found it very uncomfortable to discover that people close to me would make decisions that are misaligned with my morality and I'm still learning to respect their moral choices. In my view, it is decisions that are made without moral basis or for selfish gain that society needs to be calling to task. Is that the case in our situation? Can we deductively prove or inductively suggest that God is necessarily unmoral, selfish, or evil? ;)
Cheers,
Yipeng
Aha. Nice one Yipeng. I always have immense respect for Christians who take on these issues instead of retreating into their own bubbles.
ReplyDeleteLet me start by saying that my arguments are by no means rigorous and well constructed.
About faith, I think the points you raise were more about semantics of the word. Maybe we have a different understanding of the word. By your definition, the "faith" I meant was blind faith. What you said about reasonable faith or rational faith, is strictly speaking (I think), not really faith, because inductive reasoning is evidence-based.
I have read quite some arguments for the existence of god. I've never seen a convincing case proposed through inductive reasoning.
Anyway, it is reasonable to attempt to guess what a friend might be thinking, based on past experience. But I don't see how is that applicable to god, I mean, where do you draw past experience from? Imagine the difficulty of sports commentator trying to talk about athletes of which they have never knew before.
If god is willing and able to do something about human suffering, wouldn't it make sense to have not allowed it in the first place? I don't see how it would have been a dilemma like you placed it.
Oh yes, decisions made without moral basis is definitely a concern. But moral basis does not necessarily has to have a divine origin. "Can we deductively prove or inductively suggest that God is necessarily unmoral, selfish, or evil?" For that question to even be valid, we have to first establish the existence of god. But let's for the moment ignore that and go back to your question: no, we can't; but can we, through the same reasoning, conclude that god is moral, selfless, and benevolent too?
hey chris, stumble here via your blog link on Twitter.
ReplyDeleteinteresting post. Just one question on human suffering. Your question assumes that if God has the ability to stop human suffering, God should. And if God is able yet unwilling, God is evil.
The flaw in this assumption is that God has the "obligation" to stop human suffering. Why should God? Borrowing the concept of Karma from Hinduism and Buddhism, if humanity has brought suffering upon itself (so often), then it should bear its consequences so that they may learn, if they are wise, not to repeat the follies in future.
Except for natural disasters, famine, wars, climate change are not caused by God, so why should God interferes? If God always interferes, when will humanity learn to tackles and resolves these issues on their own?
Humans are weak. We make mistakes. But if we're conscientious and do strive to be moral, we bear the consequences and try to rectify the wrongs, big or small, and not blame God or some supernatural force for not doing anything to rectify what is ours to make right.
Ah. I think these issues would be too much to discuss on a blog post. However I have to point out that my criticisms were mostly directed at the Abrahamic religions -- Judeochistian and Islam.
ReplyDeleteOf course god does not have the obligation to stop human suffering, but that would leave many more philosophical questions unanswered -- Is god kind? Why is god inconsistent? How do you explain suffering what cannot be avoided?
Points to ponder.