This is the final part of an on-going series about my conversion to atheism. To start at the beginning, follow this link.
On Agnosticism
Jeez, well... I suppose I'm not completely certain--I'm only as certain that there is no god as I'm certain that there are no purple tigers sitting over my shoulder. Which is pretty damned certain, come to think of it. Yes, I suppose it's not impossible that your (or his, or her, or anyone else's) god exists, but I would say that it's extremely improbable. But I don't feel compelled to acknowledge that possibility with actions. Just because something might exist doesn't mean I have to pretend that it does. Even if it's not impossible that there are no purple tigers lurking over my shoulder, I can't live my life effectively if I have to constantly look over my shoulder for purple tigers.
As for documented evidence of supernatural phenomena... the burden of proof is on it. As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In fact, the word "supernatural" literally means "outside the scientifically visible world". So something that is supernatural implies that it is either impossible by definition or that it invokes some scientific principle that we don't understand yet. That and eye-witnesses are not always reliable. So I think I can be forgiven for a measure a skepticism.
And then there's the George Tiller thing.
And then there's the George Tiller thing.
Here's a man who did something routinely that was ethically hazy, maybe even morally reprehensible, but perfectly legal. He was shot and killed, in a church no less, by someone who claimed to be doing something in the service of God. He'd been shot before, in 1993 by someone who made the same argument. His alleged murderer, Scott Roeder, is being hailed by some as an American hero. If I have to open myself to the possibility that you're right about your god, because "anything is possible", then I have to open myself to the possibility that Scott Roeder and his supporters are right. And so do you. Well, I find that morally reprehensible. I can't say for certain that abortion is wrong, but I know for a fact that murder is. And I'm embarrassed to think that as few as ten years ago, I might very well have been one of those sad, stupid people cheering him on.
No. Not embarrassed. When I look back at those chapters of my life and my upbringing, I don't get embarrassed. I get resentful. And I don't resent my parents for raising me as a Christian, and I don't resent the church. I resent God. And I don't mean God, the supernatural being; I mean God, the Institution. God-the-Institution allows people to do horrible things--nay, encourages them. God-the-Institution shelters the violent and ignorant while it condemns people--people that I love--for the heinous crimes of doubt and disbelief, for daring to reason rather than accept. And when I reached out to God-the-Institution for answers, for strength, for love, for guidance, I found nothing.
But suppose this Institution turned out to be an actual being, a causal consciousness behind all this suffering and despair and nonsense. If I met Him, what would I do? Well, I wouldn't forgive Him. I don't have to, and I don't care to. If I met Him, what would I say?
I think I'd tell Him to fuck off and die.
No. Not embarrassed. When I look back at those chapters of my life and my upbringing, I don't get embarrassed. I get resentful. And I don't resent my parents for raising me as a Christian, and I don't resent the church. I resent God. And I don't mean God, the supernatural being; I mean God, the Institution. God-the-Institution allows people to do horrible things--nay, encourages them. God-the-Institution shelters the violent and ignorant while it condemns people--people that I love--for the heinous crimes of doubt and disbelief, for daring to reason rather than accept. And when I reached out to God-the-Institution for answers, for strength, for love, for guidance, I found nothing.
But suppose this Institution turned out to be an actual being, a causal consciousness behind all this suffering and despair and nonsense. If I met Him, what would I do? Well, I wouldn't forgive Him. I don't have to, and I don't care to. If I met Him, what would I say?
I think I'd tell Him to fuck off and die.
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6 comments:
Wow. Strong finish.
I think you might have hurt God's feelings.
This is why we should all just be Jedi...
@Ben
He's a big boy, I think he can take it.
When you say, "the burden of proof is on them," what kind of proof are you looking for?
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I think you have a lot of faith in science and reason. Moreso than I can devote to something so ever-changing and fickle.
Unfortunately, science suffers from the same fatal flaw that religion, politics, and any other ideological institution does: it is conducted and interpreted by people. And nothing can screw something up faster than adding people into the mix.
People have personal (often financial) motivations, emotions, expectations, etc. that can render the ideal of "science" utterly ineffective if your aim is finding the truth. So who do you believe when those who are supposedly "impartial" contradict each other so fervently?
I think there's good science and there's bad science, just like there's good religion and bad religion. Bad science abounds, and sometimes good science comes up with bad answers because it's interpreted wrong. Also, I think the scientific community tends toward a certain arrogance about it's conclusions that is somewhat undeserved.
And reason? Reason is entirely held hostage by emotion.
What kind of proof? I like this maxim: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If a stranger told me that they have a chair in your house and I'll believe you because that's pretty normal for people with houses. Tell me that you've bred a blue rose, and I would want to see it, or at least a picture of it, and I'd probably believe you if the picture looked real because I trust you to be honest. Tell me that your friend has bred one, that you've only ever seen a picture, then my belief in it would hinge on seeing that picture and my own judgments about how gullible you are, but I'd most likely want to see it with my own eyes. Tell me that something supernatural--not just god, anything supernatural--exists, keeping in mind that "supernatural" means "not happening in the world as we understand it", then I'm going to want to see it with my own eyes, I'm going to want to exhaust the search for non-supernatural answers, and even then I'm going to be skeptical.
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There's bad science, but I don't think it's nearly as prevalent as you think it is. Most "bad" science is dismissed by the peer-review process because scientists are accountable to the scientific community, but "bad" religion exists in a bubble and goes largely unchallenged, because a preacher is only accountable to his congregation.
Also, the stakes are totally different.
Let's look at a major scientific fraud: Piltdown Man. It was the opus magnum of a lifelong fossil forger who was an attention hound and money-grubber. It destroyed careers and set the field of evolution back by decades.
Compare it to a major religious fraud--David Koresh. Maybe that's an unfair example, that sort of (Heaven's Gate) thing hardly ever happens (Jonestown).
And I think that difference is because scientific fraud is largely motivated by pride, money, or the urge to further some moralistic ideology, etc. Religious frauds have a nasty trend of being charismatic psychopaths who claim to be "Jesus" because it's a way to be taken seriously.
Consider Scientology. Dianetics was published in 1950 with the subtitle "The Modern Science of Mental Health". The scientific community rebuked Hubbard, so he re-branded it in 1952 as a religion and declared war on psychology. He failed as a scientific fraud, so he started what is now considered to be a legitimate religion.
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"Reason is entirely held hostage by emotion". Really? It's funny you should say that, because when I look up the word "Reason" in, oh, say, Wikipedia, I'm told that it is "often contrasted to authority, intuition, emotion, mysticism, superstition, and faith". Now, I may be a bit hazy on what the word "contrast" means...
Sometime after you left Houston, I found myself at a divergent path, religiously speaking. Like you, I asked God to show me the truth (sans the deck of cards).
To my surprise, what I got was very clear "supernatural experience" that I could not talk about for years without breaking out into tremors.
So. That said. My question about proof - it basically comes down to how far removed you are to a "supernatural" event?
My point about reason/emotion (and perhaps I should have included personal experience in there too): and excuse me if I go all Plato on you now... but the definition in Wikipedia refers to the "ideal" of reason, how it should be, not how it plays out in the real world.
I have a lot of emotions stemming from that experience (and others). You have a lot of emotion stemming from your past feelings of being abandoned, let down, ignored by God, made a fool, etc. When we both apply our "reason" to what we see and hear and read, we come up with two conflicting conclusions. My "reason" tells me that the spiritual world exists beyond denial. Yours doesn't.
Conclusion: Reason is subjective.
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