Does God Exist? Why Or Why Not?

Jason Boyett over at Beliefnet is asking that age-old question and soliciting responses. He frames the issue by giving a rundown of some of the best-known arguments for God: The Ontological, the Transcendental, the Teleological, and the Anthropic arguments. The board wasn't crowded with responses, so I thought I'd weigh in with my own opinion:

The mere fact that we have to continually ask this question is a good indication that there is no God. If there is one, then he/she/it has decided to exist at such a remove from our affairs as to be undetectable and inferred only by stretched arguments as detailed in your introduction. Many people have personal experiences and strong convictions that convince them there is a God (I once shared such beliefs - I'm judging none of my brothers or sisters here), but understandings and definitions of God are countless and often mutually exclusive. It makes more sense to think of God as a place holder word for the things we do not understand or the things we wish to be true.

I feel no need to substitute the genuine mystery of how our universe came to be with anyone's ancient myths. There's no reason to think that our fore-bearers had any greater purchase on truth than we do now; in fact, we should reasonably expect that they had understanding limited in comparison with our own. With science, our knowledge is improving at an admirable pace, and it's the best we can do to objectively learn about the universe. One by one our poor ancient guesses are being replaced with evidence-based explanations; often counter-intuitive to the intuitions we evolved for survival. Our religions come from charismatic individuals who have told us with straight face their teachings come from the almighty. We have seen it in modern times with the likes of L Ron Hubbard, David Koresh and Joseph Smith, and we can extrapolate backward that similar individuals convinced their contemporaries with claims of special knowledge. I demand better.

We would live forever if we could, and we would like there to be a supreme law-giver who rewards good, punishes evil, and defines both. I say "we" because those options sound good to me as well. And yet I am content to live in the real world where I only get to live once. I am thankful that I have won the genetic lottery to accomplish even that. There is ample opportunity to live, love, do, and share. I am also content to admit the truth - morality is tough, rarely straight-forward, and is something we need to struggle to agree upon and improve upon. The march of history, while filled with setbacks, is encouragingly advancing on the trajectory of civil rights and a widening circle of regard for our fellow humans, our animal cousins, and our planet.

I wish you all the best as we ponder these wonderful questions together.

Weigh in yourself, here or at the original site.

Zeus Gives Jesus What For

On May 20, 2007, a 22-foot statue of Jesus at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, Colorado, was struck by lightning, blowing off one hand and the other elbow, damaging the feet and pedestal in the process. The statue, which draws thousands of visitors yearly, is perched at the top of a 373-step path, near "a cool spring of miraculous water [that] still flows today after Mother Cabrini found it on the barren hilltop." Of course, lightning is formed by ionization of molecules and the resulting static electricity, but that's not good enough for theologians - they need an explanation to reflect God's intentions. Why would he do such a thing to a prominent religious monument glorifying his son?

There's no clear positive interpretation, so Sister Casciano states that, "I'm not about ready to second-guess God" on Denver's ABC affiliate news. Of course, she is ready to second-guess God, because she wants to raise funds to reconstruct what God clearly wanted blown off. She pointed out that, miraculously, no one was hurt, and the quartz heart created by Mother Cabrini remained intact. Yeah.

The helpful skeptics at the JREF forums (where I found this story), offered some profound theological explanations. Here are some great excerpts:

"I suppose [God's] decided to start enforcing that 'No Graven Images' commandment."
"They'll claim that it's a miracle that the entire statue wasn't destroyed by the lightning."
"The fragments could form the face of Mary. Man, that could get really confusing."
"I think Zeus is angry about losing so many followers and has decided to drop some not-so-friendly reminders of his powers."
"It's clear that Yaweh hates hands and feet. Why else would he have put nails through Jesus'?"

I find this story particularly interesting, because I went to Woodbury University, where we had a hall named after Mother Cabrini with a fairly creepy relief sculpture of her over the doorway. The campus used to be owned by a Convent and was purchased by the school circa 1984.

To see more pictures of the damaged statue, and see lightning misspelled as "lightening" (why do so many people do that?), visit the official Mother Cabrini Shrine site.

God Is No Good

Christopher Hitchens has been working hard of late to take on the mantle religion and faith's most vitriolic opponent. This should hopefully give believers a reprieve from bagging on the more mild-mannered and easy-going Richard Dawkins, and even Sam Harris, since I'd say Hitchens is more along the disagreeable lines of a Madalyn Murray O'Hair. He's a well regarded writer/journalist/commentator, and his previous works include The Missionary Position, an exposé on Mother Teresa and why she gets too much credit. His recent book, God is Not Great, takes on the big, imaginary man himself, and blasts the role of religion in... well, everything.

Hitchens is excellent at producing sound bites, and some of them are quite apt. For example, I love his distillation of why personal experience and anecdote are not evidence for truth claims: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." However, Hitchens can also get caught up in ad hominem attacks, hyperbole, misrepresentations, rude interruptions, and other unhelpful debating tactics. The first time I saw him was in an episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, and I must admit that on first site of the surly, smoking man, I thought, "ugh, what an unsavory character."

To see what I'm talking about, watch Christopher Hitchens on the Daily Show.

And, speaking of Jerry Falwell (see previous post), here's Hitchens's not-so-subtle expression of disdain for the departed reverend: Hitchens in conversation with Anderson Cooper.

It's tough when you agree with someone on many points, but dislike their presentation. Must be how most Christians felt about Jerry Falwell. (Thanks to Brandon for the links!)

Author to Prove God's Existence

Ray Comfort, the best-selling author of "God Doesn't Believe in Atheists", and Kirk Cameron of Growing Pains fame, have challenged the makers of The Blasphemy Challenge to a debate on ABC
in which they plan to prove, scientifically and without the use of faith, the existence of God. Kirk Cameron puts evolution in his cross hairs, "Evolution is unscientific. In reality, it is a blind faith that's preached with religious zeal as the gospel truth. I'm embarrassed to admit that I was once a naïve believer in the theory. The issue of intelligent design is extremely relevant at the moment. Atheism has become very popular in universities--where it's taught that we evolved from animals and that there are no moral absolutes. So we shouldn't be surprised when there are school shootings." This should be fun. The debate airs on Saturday, May 5th.

Read the original article on ChristianNewsWire. (Thanks, Wendy!)

Update: The debate went ahead as scheduled, and you can see it on the ABC website. If you've followed these sorts of things in the past, you will have heard all the arguments before. Needless to say, God was not proven 100% and irrefutably, and it's a pity that such a high-profile forum featured the arguments of Christians who don't even accept evolution.

Why Do Atheists Let Bad Things Happen?

If you have grown weary of rational thinking, the antidote can be found in a blog entry by Dinesh D'Souza titled, "Where Is Atheism When Bad Things Happen?" In it, D'Souza points to the recent and horrific shooting at Virginia Tech (in which 32 individuals died), and wonders why atheists have been so poorly represented in public ceremonies commemorating the tragedy. Because Richard Dawkins hasn't been flown in to give a talk to the grieving families (in typical form for believers lacking arguments, D'Souza attacks the eminent British zoologist, in this particular case with a straw man representation of Dawkins' moral foundations), society needs something more than what science has to offer. Of course, this is in no way an argument for the truth claims of religion (though I wonder if D'Souza even realizes this), let alone a specific religion. But it is interesting that D'Souza attempts to foist religion's problem of theodicy (why does a good God allow evil things to happen, especially to innocent people?) upon atheists.

A proper and qualified response has already been written by a professor at the school, "An Atheist at Virginia Tech", and I recommend that you read it. I'd like to add a few thoughts of my own:

The reason believers flood into churches after disasters like school shootings, September 11th, or the 2004 tsunami, is that they want to be reminded why God is good. The reason they need to be reminded is that God does not seem particularly real or good at such times. God is a lot easier to believe in when everything is going well (or when we are able to ignore misery elsewhere in the world), but when grief comes rushing into our lives, believers fight to hold onto their notion of God all the more. The ministers tell them that we live in a world of physical laws, and that these laws cannot be abrogated all the time (God is only credited for intervening when particularly good things happen or when disaster is avoided). But surely an omnipotent God could have foiled the killer's plan in the first place, or turned Cho Seung-Hui's life around before he became homicidal, or enabled someone on campus to stop the act, or even cause the bullets to miss or the guns to jam. If any of these things had happened to prevent the violence (sometimes murder plots are foiled), God would have been given ample praise. There are even some ministers who, in the aftermath of tragic events, play the blame game and try to figure out who sinned, as the terrible event must be punishment from that same loving God. That is another way to reconcile a "good" God with reality, but a particularly unsavory one in my estimation.

Atheists do not waste time with these imaginary problems. Nor do we answer senseless brutality like that committed by Cho Seung-Hui with senseless explanations and speculation. Instead, we focus on real ways to comfort and explain. We comfort the grieving in whatever way we can, with long hugs, letters of consolation, and expressions of sympathy. We try to explain by looking for clues in the psychology and environment of the killer, and construct ways to prevent such horrible loss in the future. We remember how fragile life is, and we are reminded to cherish the ones we love who are still living. We commemorate the dead, share stories about why we loved them, and do what we can to carry on their legacies. We don't try to make sense of their loss, because it was a senseless act that caused it.

At the same time, we realize that the other 90% of the population does believe in a God, and we do not interrupt their prayers or sermons. There is a time for discussion and debate, and another person's period of intense personal grief is not that time. (Thanks to Wendy for the links.)