On Faith Panelists Blog: Temporal and Eternal Cures

Rafael:

As far as human nature in college...that is sort of an underlying theme of my Ivy League education. As I said, there remains an obsessions with philosophers of many centuries ago. I have very little patience with Locke's (and others') ideals and really wish that, as you say, college professors did not treat this as essential any "well-rounded" education. I wouldn't call it a systematic goal of my education, but it is certainly ingrained in the college's general education requirements.

Only a college student:

Thanks for your response and the interesting dialogue. I can appreciate the circumstances that drive people to religion just as I can appreciate the circumstances that drive people to crime. I feel that neither is justified by its motivations, because in both cases the intended ends (financial security on the one hand, spiritual security on the other) are illusory. For those reasons I continue to question the basis for their motivations.

What you refer to as the "gray area in between" represents an area where people are willing not to be explicit about their beliefs in order not to face the need to reconcile the real conflicts. For example, what do you mean by "spirituality"? Is it a belief in something distinct but immaterial, or just a vague sense or hope of "something else"? How exactly could people practice science (which assumes that material effects have material causes) and also believe in immaterial causers? When people are forced to examine their beliefs I think they find conflicts or reveal that their definitions are imprecise.

The Catholic church's stance on evolution is a good example. The previous Pope claimed there was no conflict between Catholicism and evolution, but I suspect his view of evolution was inconsistent with how scientists understand and study evolution. I don't see a way to accept both that evolution is an undirected process and that humans were intended to be at the end of that process, god-like in image, ready to receive a soul.

As a college professor, I find it somewhat alarming that a systematic goal of your education was to promote the concept of "human nature." Human behavior is almost infinitely adaptable, flexible, and strongly culturally influenced. Avoidance of stigmatized, state-provided welfare services, for example, is a relatively modern concept, and most human societies (and here I am talking about distinct cultural groups, not the mainly westernized economic cultures you may be refering to) hold no such concepts. ("Avoidance of stigma" is less a hallmark of human nature than a definition--it wouldn't be stigma if people didn't avoid it, no?) I wouldn't say it was a waste of your education to recognize certain patterns in human behavior, but "human nature" is an unnecessary and over-reaching universal.

Finally, as someone who also still yearns for his mother's latkes (I'm the one who makes them now) I can understand what you mean by an ingrained culture. You shouldn't take offense, I most definitely count myself as someone influenced by familial persuasion--the fact that I still identify with being Jewish has everything to do with my experience as a child and nothing to do with religious feelings (or lack thereof) as an adult. On the other hand, I know the pangs of ingrained god-guilt, which I have now all but vanquished, which leads me to guess that your persistent attachment to spirituality also has familial roots. Children do not start believing in a god, they are convinced by the messages they receive at a time when they are extremely impressionable.

Rafael:

I think people have a tendency to close their minds to life circumstances when they think about why people have faith in religion. As I said, I don't know if God exists--but then again, no one does. I don't know if I solidly believe in God. Since everything in my life pretty much works out--from an upper-middle class background to being fortunate in friends, family, and similar comforts--I have the luxury of questioning others' blind faith. However, the reason that, for example, religious faith is much stronger in a number of developing countries is because people with a house when they were house hunting yeneed something to explain what is out of their control. If economic, nutritional, and physical stability is out of one's control, one is inclined to "leave things up to God" and believe that things happen "for a reason." This is an example of what I view to be human nature. Obviously, such poverty makes me think that there cannot be a God if he turns his back on his/her "children." However, development economists consistently have to consider the possible religious and social ramifications of infrastructure improvements, policy implementation, etc. It's not always black and white, with a person being a complete atheist or Canyon. There is gray in between, and for some reason people don't like that middle camp. I also make the distinction between belief in an organized, mindwashing religion and spirituality, but I don't get the feeling you do the same.

A last word on "human nature": If I believed that "human nature" was a term used only to impose beliefs on others, it would be a huge waste of a great deal of my liberal arts education...for some reason, my college has remained obsessed with human nature and philosophy (i.e., their curriculum circa the 18th century that an English king or someone set). Also a great waste of the amount of time I spent studying how it affects economic policy considerations and so forth...such as a huge proportion of impoverished in developing countries do not avail of state-provided welfare services because of the stigma faced. THIS is human nature--it's real.

I admire your belief in rationality--there are not enough people like you out there, or the world would not be such a mess. However, people are not always using God to explain how our solar system formed (which we are not sure about). Obviously, some do...Canyon certainly does. Many use God as explanation of desperate circumstances (see above).

And I wouldn't count me as an example of "familial persuasion," as my family believes in a religion that is so melded with our culture that they cannot be exclusive. I, for one, have met very few (if any) persons who were born Jewish, decided they were atheistic, and, regardless, did not yearn for his mother's latkes on Hannukah or did not enjoy sympathizing with other Jewish friends about the stereotypical "nagging" Jewish mother.

All I am saying is you don't have to believe in EITHER religion OR science. Obviously, this isn't rational. But many things aren't, such as systematically rejecting gray area.

Canyon,

I'm happy to make you laugh. You probably need all the laughter you can get in your state of self-loathing and delusion.

Because I use a word you had to look up you think it's BS. Senescence actually has meaning to it beyond getting old. It is the breakdown of specific physical and physiological processes inherent in all living things. You seem to think that Christianity explains death, but I haven't heard an explanation beyond humans--are all living things sinful? Did bacteria fall from grace because they decomposed the forbidden apple, is that why they die too?

On the other hand, there is robust biological theory that explains why all living things die, called senescence theory. I suggest you learn about it, because it is beautiful in its simplicity and its reliance on the same first principles that drive all biological thought. And, its assumptions have been tested, something you just cannot do with religion.

I think we all agree that observing something and knowing why it happens are two very different things. That gap between observing pattern and understanding it must be bridged by some method. I'll go with the method that gives a way to test alternative ideas, not the one that tells me the answer is written in a 2000 year old book. You make the same choice I do every day in your reliance on modern transportation, food, communication, construction, and medicine.

Let me know when you've worked out an answer about the bacteria.

Paganplace,

Your incredibly complex and unfounded view of Christianity and reality is so odd I have no idea where to begin to address it. Nothing you have said remotely details my beliefs, nor any Christians I know of.

I've asked you this before, and you never answered, I'll reword it. In as few words as possible; if Christianity is true, why do Christians go to Heaven and pagans go to Hell?

All,

In an unrelated note, Rafael always makes me laugh, most atheists are rich in faith, Rafael is an exception, he has filled what he cannot know in with lies which he has no interest to back up with fact. His faith in these facts is incredible, but he cannot be accused of blind-faith, only deceived faith. See his post on getting old (notice the big word he used, which in science is known as "Baffle Them With Bull-Excrement"). Observing something and knowing why it happens are two very different things.

You will fall to senesence, the reason being because you are born of a sinful race and have sinned. Repent of your sins and trust in the only sinless Man ever to live, and inheret eternal life.

As for what people can do for the poor and the sick, Canyon, ...Rev. Thomas, and as JJ would say, et al...

I see a whole lot more effort expended this holiday season, *especially* in this holiday season... being expended by the likes of you to try and hurt and blame lil' ol' me for your consumerism...

Using the very scene of the birth of your Jesus to *claim political power over minorities,* and act like *you're* the ones oppressed when other religions are brave enough to put our own religious symbols up in the name of multicultural displays... *for you to back over and claim someone's oppressing you for existing...*

You talk a lot about your Jesus, Canyon. But it seems it's people like *me* trying to stop him from turning into a partisan political *idol.*

*By* existing.

I know Canyon would probably get off on it, but recently, this 'Advent' season has turned into a season of fear for people of other religions, while Christian conservatives look for someone to blame for their own consumerism, and failures thereof.

You like to say we're spiritually-scared of your presumptive spiritual 'might,' Canyon, Cal...

No, it's simpler than that. People like the both of you are telling the usually-armed and sexually-displaced element of society that Pagans are to blame for the woes of your own 'sins.'

You are turning even your own Nativity scenes into political pawns, and then calling it a defacing of your idols when someone else participates.

All in the name of your 'Peace.'

I see no peace in these displays.

Maybe you ought to look for some.

You scare us. And not in a spiritual way.

Again, I ask in a Cal Thomas column:

Can we not do this this year?

Canyon:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say."

Actually, Canyon, to refer back to that. Pagans really don't walk around thinking it's a big deal whether or not Jesus was divine... The problem comes when you insist *nothing else* is.

You said it well yourself when you said you are glad your God is not fair... Cause that gives you the power and none of the accountability.. in your own mind.

Guess what doesn't wash in the world outside your head and your group.

But your guy there said you would be known by your fruits.

Best start looking to the crops of 'what you sow' instead of looking for devils to sacrifice to save yourself from the wrath of your *own* devil.

You speak of trying to *appease* your own terrifying God and Devil.

This is not for you to hurt others about.

I think it's about something you missed in your screaming fundamentalism.

Something quieter.

And I think what *really* scares you is that Christianity *don't* own that.

That there's no one you could hurt or control to give you what you seek to gain by behaving as you do, ...making your God out to be a real tyrant in order to justify trying to hurt people.

You've exposed the attitude here countless times.

I only question why you aren't rebuked more in reality.

Or are you?

Only a College Student:

"Human nature" is a term invoked by people to promote their own world view as natural and universal. By the same argument, are you suggesting that not clinging to antiquated views of gods pulling strings is somehow contrary to "human nature"? The only thing I can imagine to be universal is a desire to understand how the world works, and fortunately our understanding has improved dramatically over the last few thousand years.

Even when something "unexplained" happens, the rational mind can still draw on deduction and first principles--that is, we know that the body has an immune system, that there are genes that produce proteins that act to maintain health, and that susceptibility and resistance depend on the particular genetic makeup of the pathogen and the host. With mechanisms at hand for understanding response to disease generally, even if we don't understand the specifics of a given case, why on earth would we suddenly leap to some otherworldly explanatory mechanism for which we have no evidence or first principles?

The worst example of this impulse comes when people believe they or someone they know got better or survived a plane crash "for a reason," implying that the schmoe in the next hospital bed or the next plane seat who didn't survive also perished "for a reason." It is the height of stupidity and arrogance to believe that the unfortunate die or suffer because they are less deserving. You cannot hold one belief without the other.

I did not mean to say that religion is not explainable, but rather that it has no explanatory power. I'm not sure what you mean by belief in the unproven. Rational minds accept that many things are unproven and may even be unprovable with our current technology, but they do not leap to the conclusion that because the answer is presently unknown it must have an otherworldly solution. As an example, the consequences of selective breeding--artificial selection for favorable traits--were known for centuries before we had the technology and the theory to understand its genetic basis. At one time some might have thought that immaterial spirits were transmitted between parent and offspring. But of course we now know, only through advances in technology and theory, that genes are the heritable units. We have absolutely no basis for thinking that other material effects that currently seem a mystery will have anything other than material causes.

Finally, you say "rather a lot of scientists believe in some religion. Go figure. All it means is that the two are compatible, even if the combination makes little sense." Actually this observation says nothing about whether the two are compatible. People are contradictory and irrational in many aspects of life. Perfectly reasonable people will refuse to walk under a ladder and tremble at the thought of breaking a mirror. Many ideas that conflict with our actual experience of the world become ingrained in us at an early age, and are hard to shake. The power of familial religious persuasion is one of them--and I have to say that you sound like a prime example, as this is the best explanation we have for why most people on the planet believe more or less in what their parents believed.

In any case, I admire your willingness to continue questioning.

There must be two columnists named Cal Thomas. The columnist just quoted talks about “the temporal benefit of doing good to a fellow human being.” The other Cal Thomas has been a dogged supporter of a war of choice in Iraq and of the practice of torturing those who may be captured in some vague “war on terrorism.” The latter Cal Thomas does not quibble about the definition of torture; he, instead, says the U.S. government should engage in torture, just as the actors in the television show "24" are famous for doing. He has actually advocated using that show as a template for our foreign policy.

The first Mr. Thomas must be a strong supporter of Christian teachings – not least because he says he is. The latter Thomas advocates the war and torture against which Jesus spoke. This is far too confusing for a secular person to understand.

Georgiason: "Touche"

Ah - dueling partner I can respect!

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Rafael:

Religion is certainly not explainable or justifiable, as you say. Having faith in something completely supernatural is not necessarily rationale, but it is a component of human nature to believe/hope that there s something out there with more control over outcomes than we have. Sometimes the unexplained happens (someone very ill suddenly getting better, etc.) and we like to think there is a reason for all this. I believe in it for some reason, but I also question my belief a lot.

However...my parents are religious people and also in the life sciences. They believe in the unproven and also believe that when someone gets sick, it's because they have a virus, not because God decided to smite them. They believe in evolution and that the solar system was created over billions of years, not that God created the world in 6 days. The incompatibility between ration and religion is clear. What the Canyons of the world do is they make excuses FOR religion AGAINST science. Others, who know that religion is rather irrational but believe in it anyway (and I do believe that it is human nature, and we should accept human nature for all its craziness), make arguments FOR science DESPITE their belief in religion.

That probably made very little sense, but it is what I meant by being horrified that people feel a need to choose only religion over science (I can, obviously, understand why some choose only science over religion). Incidentally, I have done a bit of work in great labs with prestigious scientists (including a Nobel Prize winner), and rather a lot of scientists believe in some religion. Go figure. All it means is that the two are compatible, even if the combination makes little sense. No one's beliefs need to directly mirror a pastor's--I think people forget that everyone should have their own set of beliefs that probably match up with no one else's.

REPLY TO: E favorite

I wrote in my original post that "If the discussion had degenerated into how many angels dance on the head of a pin, I would not have been surprised."

You replied: "I would - that would be a high-level, esoteric, intellectual argument compared to what's here."

Touche!

REPLY TO: E favorite

I wrote in my original post that "If the discussion had degenerated into how many angels dance on the head of a pin, I would not have been surprised."

You replied: "I would - that would be a high-level, esoteric, intellectual argument compared to what's here."

Touche!

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