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The era of ‘shoulder shrugging agnostics’ There is an interesting article about the decline of religious belief in Britian that got me thinking. I am also one of those ‘shoulder shrugging agnostics’ yet it is not that I do not have ‘beliefs’, just not religious ones.
I often wonder though if the decline of religious belief across great swathes of western society is a product of the growth of rationalism… or is it a decline in the ability to think about abstractions by millions of folks who think ‘Reality TV’ has something to do with reality?
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You know, I thought similar things myself. I personally am agnostic, and given that the adages for the “god of the gaps” aren’t likely to hold I don’t see any evidence of an all powerful being ruling the universe. The only one that I would see holding is the First Cause idea (IE that we can never know what happened “before” the big bang, thus any explanation fits just about as well as any other). However given this I get the uncomfortable feeling that most people aren’t agnostic or atheist because they feel its both more rational, and that they have greater hopes for the accomplishments of human knowledge and technology, (call it corny but I did get an almost *religious* feeling seeing that first SpaceShipOne launch) but because the postmodernist ethos has corroded everything. The feeling it seems to me is that people have stopped believing in a higher power because they have been taught to reject “metanarratives” and that there is such a thing as absolute good and evil. Given a fellow agnostic influenced by postmodernism, or a starry eyed Southern Baptist, I’m sorry to say I’d chose the latter. Equally contemptible are people who switch to some quasi-Eastern philosophies in some sort of moronic rebellion against the all powerful oppressive hegemony of a guy in a funny hat sitting in Rome. I guess the only mitigating factor is that most people want the Queen to remain defender of the christian faith. I wish I could believe that stems for an honest reverence of their past and its accomplishments and not just because thats the way its always been…
IMO it’s not so much rationalism, as a change of yardstick, an attitude of “not impressive, humans can already do that”. Heal the sick, check. Flatten a city? Check. Water into wine? That’s what vinyards do. Water from a stone? All in a days work for a geologist. Raise the dead? Give us a few years and ask again.
It’s not that people have less spiritual hunger, just that organized religion is less useful feeding it.
BTW, don’t over-estimate postmodernism. Its impact is largely bounded by academia, government, and media. None of which shape ordinary people’s opinions anywhere near as much as they’d like to believe.
It all depends what you mean by God. If you ask somebody if they think God exists, their answer will depend on their conception of God. If you were to ask me I would say of course God exists, indeed I would go so far as to say I have never met anybody who lives as if God does not exist [even if they say they do not believe in God]. But my conception of God is very different from an ancient Greek, a medieval theologian, or a Reformation Protestant. For me God is simply the higher. Insofar as Post-Modernists are passionately opposed the higher, they are supporters of the devil – which is to say they oppose God [which is not the same thing as denying the existence of God] – but I use this term as a metaphor not as a literal description. Getting upset because somebody says they could not care less about the suffering of others in a far away place, about the truth of a claim about some far away time, or because they deny the beauty of an object that cannot possibly have any sexual significance for us, is of course in biological terms very odd; but these passions are very familiar to us. They derives from our awareness of the existence of a higher reality i.e. God. These passions can be inverted but that is another story.
One thought I considered was that the concept of historicism has replaced religion. Not that religion was all that correct, or better, a concept. But that faith in the claimed prediction “science” of socialist historicism (and it is a faith) is now the preferred dogma of Europe.
Regards,
Eric Anondson
I think part of the cause of the decline of religious belief in this country is due to the lack of vitality in our major churches. Most people are fickle when it comes to the philosophy that they will live their life by. Philosophies operate within a marketplace. The churches lost any attraction they once had by quite simply becoming “soft”. Look at the southern Baptist churches in America – they have not suffered the decline into moribundity that our churches have because they preach a message which sells well: they are pro-marriage, anti-abortion, anti-gay. There is none of the softly-softly ducking and weaving executed by the British churches on the big questions. They keep their message simple and POWERFUL. It’s a message some people like to hear. A more appealing message than any put out by the pusillanimous British churches.
The rise of rationalism has of course been a factor, but I’m sure that if the churches didn’t shy from preaching a literal interpretation of the Bible and were unafraid of directing opprobrium at “sinners” and liberal types they would rapidly develop a larger following.
Surely a ‘belief’ is an acceptance of something that can be proven. While ‘faith’ is a trust in something that cannot be proven, by it’s very definition, it has to be ‘blind’.
Therefore you can have belief in a person or a political idea, that has some sort of track record, you ‘believe they can do it’, but you have faith in something more ephemeral, which cannot be proven, or has yet to be proven absolutely, such as a religion, or that Man has a soul, or oneself, or in someone who has yet to be tested.
Europe and large parts of the Christian world seem to have a great many beliefs, but they also seem to have lost their sense of faith, whether in religion or in themselves, or in others. (That others will do the right thing for example).
The Churchs’ no longer preach a faith, they sermonise on beliefs and dogma, consequently, like so many other things in life, faith will disappear from lack of use. To a large extent, people no longer have faith in religion, nor do they have faith in themselves or others. Doubt and suspicion are the normal order of things.
If you have ever watched some of the better American preachers, such as Billy Graham, Joel Osteen, and many others, you cannot help noticing the emphasis they place in having faith in oneself. The popular ‘low esteem’ syndrome, is really only a lack of faith in one’s own abilities, and is often used as an excuse for a miserable life. Likewise, a life lived without some sort of spiritual faith will likely result in life bereft of true happiness and joy.
I do not think that spiritual ‘belief’ has much to do with education, after all the Bible was written largely for the benefit of the ‘heaving masses’, to get them to first ‘believe’ in (a) God, the ‘faith’ bit would come later.
I personally do believe in a Superior Entity, but I do have big problems with the ‘faith’ side of the equation, which is where the Church, in all it’s manifestations, has been a miserable modern failure. It seems that even they, (the Pope, Bishops et al), have as much difficulty contemplating the spiritual side of Man as us ordinary oiks…maybe we should return to the old idea of ‘holy men’ and shamans…rather than the ‘social worker’ style of ministry, with it’s ‘quick fix’ answers that do no more than encourage a continuing dependency, and a feeling of low esteem.
No, that is not a meaningful differentiation between ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ because nothing can be ‘proven’ beyond any possibility of refutation, things can only be falsified. Everything we know is a collection of theories, some of which are extraordinarily good theories which will be very hard to falsify (such as “if I let go of this object, it will fall to the floor”), but it is indeed ‘just’ a theory.
I see you are a believer in the new free thinking education, so popular with the avant garde educators on the West Coast. Where truth is what you believe it to be, and where right and wrong are defined by the latest whim or fancy, where there is no practical reality, just whatever you can dream at the moment. And you criticise the fans of reality tv?….
That’s ok , but I thought the discussion was about the demise of religion in the West, I was obviously mistaken, you seem to just be angling for yet another tirade against anyone who has faith in anything, and religion in particular.
I was trying to put into words a simple explanation of the confusion that many ordinary people feel on the matter of religion. As the article that you quoted mentioned, many have a belief, but lack the guidance or instruction from formal sources to progress and to experience the meaning of the more abstract side of life.
However, I have no wish to get involved in the semnatics of yet another pseudo-intellectual discussion on the theory of the basis of knowledge, and the realities of the same.
Thank you for taking the time to correct my misunderstanding.
“I often wonder though if the decline of religious belief across great swathes of western society is a product of the growth of rationalism”
It is not religious belief that has declined, merely that people have followed other gods. Rationalism and Christianity are not mutually exclusive, and in fact Western rationalism was one of the gifts that Christianity gave to the West.
What has changed in much of the West is that the Christian Faith has been replaced by New Age feel-good-make-it up as you go spirituality, and by left wing postmodernism. Both are religions, the latter being the unofficial state religion of the EU.
A recent Gallup poll indicated that fully one third of Americans belive that the biblical account of the Earths creation is true. Thats a LOT of people believing a very faith-based idea. This certainly indicates that religion is not nearly as downtrodden as one might believe. Furthermore, I would seriously contest the idea that morality and distinctions of right and wrong are bieng forgotten by the masses due to postmodernism. Most people will still recognize it as a load of garbage if you seriously question them. As Julian Morrison said above, dont overestimate the power of postmodernist vomi….er theories
When you make a howler like the first one, you make yourself look a bit daft with the second one, ernest.
The urge to believe in God is inextricably intertwined with the ability to process abstractions and trace patterns of cause and effect. In other words, it’s bound to intelligence as such.
Very few people are able to hold a firm conviction that the universe “just happened.” It’s inherently unsatisfying to the intellect. We seek an Ultima Ratio because our minds work the way they do.
That doesn’t mean there must be a God. But we are predisposed in that direction, as the history of the world indicates rather clearly. And to those who abstract much of their identity onto their deistic convictions, challenges to them are upsetting enough to provoke just about any response of which Man is capable. The history of the world indicates that rather clearly as well. Cf. The Muslim Middle East.
However, all that having been said, let it be noted that atheism — the conviction that there is no God — is just as much a religious faith as any deistic creed, and is just as unfalsifiable. Atheists’ frequent assumption of intellectual or emotional superiority on the grounds of their particular flavor of faith are completely unjustified. The snotty airs many of them are prone to putting on toward believers are more offensive than they know.
Sark,
A howler? How so? I think we probably have different ideas on the use of language, that’s all….
Just trying to put a very complex subject into as few words as possible, is all…
Religion proper may be declining, but superstition as whole certainly is not. To me religion is just one ‘advanced’ system of superstition, but there are many others. At the end of the day none of which would be overly concerning if those who are blinded by their particular variety didn’t seem so inclined to force it on others.
Proselytizing can be just as annoying whether done by atheists, agnostics, or religiious fanatics. Each is trying to force his opinion on others, and often the atheist variety are the worst, and most insistent, in that respect…
As an earlier comment mentioned;
“Atheists’ frequent assumption of intellectual or emotional superiority on the grounds of their particular flavor of faith are completely unjustified”.
– perhaps they protest so loudly, in an effort to, either prove what ‘progressive thinkers’ they are, – or perhaps they are just trying to convince themselves that they are right, – in the way that superstitious people do…. like going into a dark cellar, loudly proclaiming ‘that there is nothing to be afraid of’…
Not believing in god is not a religious position. Religion is an irrelevance, only the problems caused by the nutcases who believe in some god or other require attention.
As for the atheists being most insistant and ‘protesting too much’, I have yet to answer the door to a couple of suited atheists selling blank pamphlets.
You want to believe in a god? Super, get on with believing. Don’t tell me about it as I don’t care.
So why are you bothering to make your point, in such a snippy small minded way…or why bother to reply at all….
you make my point about atheists being the worst proselytizers of all, or should that be ‘the worst bigots of all’?
I have lately wondered at the easy acceptance of the power of love by so-called “rationalists” who would indignantly reject any suggestion that they act on mystical, emotional feelings in any other area of their lives. Why is it a man chooses a wife on the basis of impulses and feelings hardly, if at all, based on practical considerations, when the same man insists on deciding much less important matters, such as the creation of the universe, on the basis of facts and reason?
Britain (and Europe) are not post-religion, they are post-Christianity. The Mosques are doing a brisk trade.
Anyway, I am more interested in the sociology of religions than the theology. I think it is a big mistake to assume that the decline of Christianity in the West is due to the rise and triumph of reason. In my experience, modern secular society is made up of people who have more addled supersticions rattling around in their heads than any medieval peasant.
It may transpire that we are not at the end of an era but merely in the midst of interlude. We may all find in a few years that traditional Christianity has been replaced by something much worse.
Many are too quick to criticize that which they do no understand. Organized religion seems to be one of CHRISTIANITY’S greatest enemies. I am a Christian. I love my relationship with God, the Creator of all things that be, and my relationship with his Son, who was nailed to a cross to pay the price of my wickedness.
I also am shamed to see how badly God and his Son are represented by “Religion.” Confused people look to religion and think they are seeing God. But in the end they are still missing out on Jesus.
Concerning de Haviland’s original comments, the Bible predicted these days. The apostle Paul instructed one of his student’s, Timothy, in a letter,
“I charge you therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But you watch in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of your ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
Please do not look unto Religion when trying to find God, you’ll only be blinded.
I have lately wondered at the easy acceptance of the power of love by so-called “rationalists” who would indignantly reject any suggestion that they act on mystical, emotional feelings in any other area of their lives. Why is it a man chooses a wife on the basis of impulses and feelings hardly, if at all, based on practical considerations, when the same man insists on deciding much less important matters, such as the creation of the universe, on the basis of facts and reason?
Personally I think being rational or irrational is dependent on how immediate the action, and immediate, and likely, a consequence of the action, is. Within a subset of beliefs there are going to be practical considerations and cosmological considerations. The difference lies in the immediacy of the consequences. A person, presuming no organic abnormality, is going to use rationality and reasoning to engage in certain behaviors that benefit them. We all engage in short term behaviors that benefit us in the moment. It’s easy to spot someone acting irrationally as they are likely putting themselves in a dangerous postion and without regard.
Where disagreements arise when the horizon is much further away, and cosmological questions arise. One’s rationality can come into question when they purport one view over another, and because the causes and effects are seemingly rather disconnected, people can fill in the interval with whatever seems sensical to them, and others refuse to agree. This is where most human conflict comes in. And those conflicting hurl accusations of irrationality back and forth to each other.
Personally I can somewhat divide my viewpoints into two categories, those that are immediate and (important) upon which I spend a great deal of thought as to how to proceed, and those that are less immediate (and less important) I leave to much less rigorous standards (perhaps a business axiom comes into the play, the 80/20 rule, that a few key elements make up 80% of the ‘decision pool’ while the mass remaining only makes up 20%).
Personally I don’t know anyone who has enough time in the day to apply scientific, or near scientific, processes to every value judgement they make and behavior they engage in. Sometimes we make decisions simply on intuition or faith. Another may view our behavior as irrational if they themselves have engaged in such behavior and experienced a negative consequence, while you have yet to. The rationality within a viewpoint certainly can be contextual.
But, again, however one breaks down what is rational or what is irrational, the problem still remains Force, and those who presume to have the ‘best’ answer to the basic existential questions that beset us all. I have the graciousness to allow people to be as irrational or superstitious as they please. I only ask for a similar treatment that they aren’t going to bean me in the head, or confiscate my property, simply because I don’t happen to buy into their view.
Ernest; by ‘worst proselytizers’ do you mean ‘worst at proselytising’ ?
How are you managing to twist “You want to believe in a god? Super, get on with believing. Don’t tell me about it as I don’t care” into “Stop believing in god. Be like me and the unbelievers”?
And if you want snippy and small minded, give me a minute and I will start bandying the word ‘bigot’ around.
And right there you go off the tracks. Let’s try this again.
Atheism – Lack of God belief – i.e. A-Theism (LACK of belief)
It’s pathetically sad when people desperately cling to attacking a strawman like this. It speaks to the quality of their faith and often the quality of the people themselves.
So the Christian faith is dying/thriving/whatever. It’s not actually the end of the world.
Atheism it seems can be defined as either a belief there is no God or lack of belief in God. I don’t see his strawman.
“…the nutcases who believe in some god …”
Zmollusc, behave with some civility, please. I live surrounded by athiests who know my religious beliefs and we manage to have civil conversations. This quip from you does not advance the conversation where the post is specifically about the basis of religious belief and its waxing and waning in large population over time. Merely saying, “I think such people are stupid” comes off as childish. I’m sure you can do better.
As a lapsed Christian, I take the view of religious belief that it was a product of Man’s early attempts, often quite successful, to make sense of reality. Trouble starts, however, when one encounters such apparently grossly irrational ideas such as Original Sin (in other words, it is possible to be born with it without even having been naughty).
I agree with David Carr, though, that many folk who consider themselves to be non-religious often have more daft ideas running around inside their heads than a stern old Catholic. If you contrast the brilliance of a theologian like St Thomas Acquainas and an outright fraud like Noam Chomsky, there’s no contest.
Happy holidays!
Atheism *is* indeed a faith, because atheists can’t proof their position.
Under my view,
1.- Reality is intelligible, and
2.- the creation (the Big Bang and so on) is not comprehensible without the Creator.
Ultimately, as I read from Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, everyone lives and acts departing from (i) the premise of theism, or (ii) the premise of atheism.
Atheism *is* indeed a faith, because atheists can’t prove their position.
[So sorry for the mishap.]
Joel, small gripe – it seems that theists who attack atheists for their alleged dogmatism are overlooking a rather obvious point. The burden of proof, IMHO, should be on those who claim the existence of some all-embracing, omnipotent Supreme Being, and not the other way around. Atheists, or at least the more intelligent ones, merely ask that religious folk hold themselves to the same standards of proof as is required of regular science, such as through controlled experimentation, ruthless discards of failed theories, and the like.
For obvious reasons, this makes many religious folk rather annoyed.
It is also kind of hard to believe in a benevolent deity after the tsunami of Asia.
“It is also kind of hard to believe in a benevolent deity after the tsunami of Asia. ”
Is it? You mean, the Plagues, the World Wars, the Civil War, the Dark Ages, and so on were compatible with the existence of a benevolent deity, but that one natural disaster isn’t?
And who says the Universe was created by a benevolent deity anyway?
You might conclude from the available forensic evidence that the creation of the universe was not an accident, but rather a deliberate act. Even if you do, that tells us nothing about the deity responsible, other than the simple fact that he did in fact create the Universe. Proving that the Universe was created doesn’t prove that the creator is accurately described by the Christian (or any other) Bible.
Why is religion so all-fired important to human beings? Simple. We know we’re going to die, and we’re casting about for some reassurance that that isn’t the all-embracing doom that it so plainly appears to be. We’re pathetically eager to latch on to anyone who looks confident in his message and tells us “follow these rules, and you won’t be swallowed up by the void; you’ll land in Utopia”.
Smells like wishful thinking to me. But I guess I’ll find out (or not!) eventually.
Atheism is a lack of belief in a God/Gods. Agnosticism is the questioning if there is a God/Gods. Theists and atheists both can be agnostic if they came at it from the perspective that it is not knowable (yet?). Agnostic theists continue their belief based on faith, agnostic atheists choose not to.
Then there are absolute atheists who won’t even question the existence, and they are the most dogmatic and so therefore come off rabidly anti-religion. This is the type I wager rubs the average theistic person the wrong way, and unfortunately they lump all atheists into this category.
Personally I don’t believe there is a God, and at this point it is unknowable. Perhaps, beyond quantum physcis and superstrings, there is a unity AND a consciousness behind it all – a prime mover of the universe. But it certainly hasn’t been proven.
The most anyone has come up with with out limited understanding of the universe is that it is too complex to just have materialized at random. Of course that leads directly to the argument that that which creates something most be greater than the set they created, and therefore must be more complex and grand than the universe itself, which erodes the argument.
Ken, you misread me. I agree with what you say 100 pct. I cited the tsunami as just one example of a disaster, but I could of course have picked any of the ones you cite, including the man-made disasters like wars and so forth.
rgds
They claim nothing beyond lacking belief, therefore it is those who make the existential claim who are obliged to provide proof. If you claim a god EXISTS, then you assume the burden of proof. It’s silly to ask someone to prove something that may very well not exist, especially when there’s good reason to believe it doesn’t.
If you claim its existence, you prove its existence. The only real way to refute a claim of non-existence is to PROVE EXISTENCE. Either way, the burden is the positive claimants, not the negative claimants.
Your first premise may in fact be wrong, but even if it isn’t, your conclusion simply doesn’t follow from it. You FEEL as though it’s not comprehensible without a god. That does not make you correct. Because something isn’t comprehensible to you doesn’t make a god any more likely. And let’s not forget, if you claim it, you PROVE it. Show me your 1st premise is correct, then your 2nd.
Ultimately, as I read from Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, everyone lives and acts departing from (i) the premise of theism, or (ii) the premise of atheism.
And from a quick reading of his site, his ability to understand logic is as far removed from reality as I’ve seen from any preacher.
Oh, and if you are referring to his “Burden of Proof” ‘essay’, atheism is in fact the Defense, not the Prosecution.
To quote –
“Prosecution vs. Defense – prosecution must prove guilt; defense must show that prosecution has failed to prove guilt – defense does not need to prove innocence.”
His strawman is the assumption that there is only one kind, and that like a “faith” (both forms are a lack of faith), they have a burden of proof. Neither form does.
James, can you sufficiently explain to me how a lack of belief in a God is not the same thing as a belief that there is no God? About the burden of proof issue, there is an account in the Bible where one of Jesus’ disciples refused to believe Jesus was risen from the dead until he saw him, but Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) Christian’s should not demand proof, because demanding proof admits lack of belief. Lack of belief would be a problem for a Christian because they have also been told in the Bible, “That if you will…believe in your heart that God has raised [Jesus] from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
Ken, if there is a part of you that is eternal, are you willing to risk it by refusing to give it at least the smallest amount of attention? Forever is a long time.
In other words, James, Christianity is founded on the premise of the individual believing without needing proof. If someone cannot do that, they cannot be a Christian, which is why I don’t believe it can be forced on anyone.
I think the answer to your own question is obvious from the question itself. As a hint to understanding the difference, note the phrase “lack of” in the sentence. You really don’t need me to work this one out for you, it’s not that difficult. Don’t mean to sound snippy, but if you can use a computer, you can figure that one out.
Awfully convenient way to avoid that sticky “proof” problem, I would say.
On the issue of proof, let me say this; I don’t believe in Bigfoot. Am I therefore the one who is required to prove it does exist? (I certainly can’t be expected to prove “nonexistence” given that it may, in fact, NOT actually exist). Am I required to either way? No, that’s the job of those hardy bunch who claim He DOES exist and who hang used women’s hygiene products in the forest to try catch a glimpse of “Him”. When Bigfoot is snarling out from his cage and I still claim He doesn’t exist is when you can rightfully say I “Deny the existence of” Bigfoot. Not until then, I’m afraid.
Would you claim my non-Bigfoot-believing was a form of “Faith”? I would think not, otherwise the word Faith has no real meaning.
Can’t speak for Ken, but if you’re claiming this so-important thing exists, then prove it. If you can’t provide any such reasonable evidence, then why should I believe your claim that it’s so crucial? We can prove the existence of blood/brain/heart etc..; their presence is vital for the sustaining of life, after all. If this eternal soul is so important for each and every individual, then where is the evidence it even exists? 6.3 billion humans walking, rolling and crawling across our Earth, and no proof of it?
Agreed, although that hasn’t stopped people trying 🙂
And one more final point. Does it change the burden of proof on to me whether I “Lack belief in Bigfoot”, or “Believe Bigfoot doesn’t exist?”
I would say not.
“Ken, if there is a part of you that is eternal, are you willing to risk it by refusing to give it at least the smallest amount of attention? Forever is a long time.”
I’m not refusing to give it attention. I wish I could be convinced that this mother-of-all-deus ex machinas was actually the way the Universe worked – I’d rather go to Hell than oblivion, when you get right down to it – but I can’t, at least so far.
And if God says that I must believe something without evidence or else, I don’t see any way I can avoid getting the “or else” every single time, especially when He can read my mind. At least an Earthly tyrant is satisfied when you pretend to believe.
All I can do is behave as a civilized person ought to and hope for the best…
“All I can do is behave as a civilised person ought to do and hope for the best.”
Well said Ken. You sum up my own approach to life nicely.
This “burden of proof” issue seems to be crucial. A Christian has the “burden of proof” if (AND ONLY IF) he wishes to convince a “nonbeliever” the Christian way through reason. However, Christ has said that those who would be “saved” will not be saved through reason. They will be saved through faith.
Ken, the issue regarding “behaving” and “hoping for the best,” I would like to share what I believe and let you do what you want with it. Would not a Supreme Being always know the truth and act out of it? A Supreme Being would know it was a Supreme Being and would therefore make sure it was esteemed as such by its creation (mankind). If I was able to behave well enough (Biblically this term is righteousness) to earn eternal salvation, then I would get the glory. However, if the Supreme Being was to bestow upon me his righteousness, by which I would be able to recieve eternal salvation, then he retains his glory and the esteem he deserves from his creation. I happen to believe he did this by transferring my unrighteousness to Christ by the crucifixion, and transferring his righteousness to me by faith. This is the foundation to Christianity.
Do what you want with this.
Such a lot of discussion, – and we have yet to mention that ‘new’ idea of Deism. The form of theological rationalism that believes in God on the basis of reason without reference to revelation. (dic.)
It would seem to have an answer for most sides, portraying on the one hand a superior entity, purported to be the architect of all things, as we know them, and yet so disappointed with his work, that he has abandoned us to our devices and destruction, hence all the evil and disasters that befall mankind. No sign of a benevolent Deity here…
The major point that it does not address, is that of the existence, or lack of, of the ‘life hereafter’. And that, I would contend, is at the root of most religions. From Hindus, coming back in different forms, Muslims enjoying all those virgins, and Christians, enjoying a life of ease and plenty for evermore, etc etc. All a case of ‘jam tomorrow, but none today’. Rather like politicians, – maybe that is why they thnk they are God?..
That people are quite prepared to believe in haunted houses, polergeists, ghosts and the living dead, and yet still have a problem, and get quite excercised, over the life hereafter, is really quite amusing.
I am sure that there are very few of us who have not woken in the middle of the night, in a cold funk at the thought of dying, and being gone for ever more. – “Who me?, no I am far too precious for that to be my fate….or whatever..”
In truth we have great difficulty in facing our own mortality. Some deny it, some refuse to acknowledge it, and some actually embrace it…and strange as it may seem, they are the ones who generally seem to have come to terms with it, and seem to have an overall contentment with life.
Maybe the idea of a ‘life hereafter’ is not quite so ‘off the wall’, as the pragmatists would have us believe….and if the idea helps people enjoy their span in the ‘here and now’, why knock it? – it’s a lot cheaper than the latest pharmaceutical offerings.
I think most people understand the terms pretty much as below:
theism – belief that a god or gods exist;
atheism – belief that no god or gods exist;
agnosticism – acceptance that the matter cannot be proven or known one way or the other, and that belief without possibility of proof is unjustified.
Agnosticism is the only intellectually honest position. Anything else is faith, either in gods or in no gods. Faith is belief, but it is belief in the knowledge that there can be no proof. Those who pretend atheism is really agnosticism annoy me, and I think this is largely because outright atheism has always been an unfashionable minority sport & may perhaps be a less than desirable social characteristic amongst their set – it’s intellectual cowardice, if nothing else.
There is nothing wrong with faith, whether theistic or atheistic. Being religious does not in itself confer any specially good or bad quality, and nor does being non-religious. Some of the worst tyrants in history have been non-religious, others have been religious. Some of the most enlightened social reformers and perceptive scientists have been religious, others atheist or agnostic. It is not the belief, it is what one does with it that is important.
I would also agree that the proselytes of atheism are most annoying. The answer to the religious proselyte is simple – “prove it.” To the atheist, one can only say “you are trying to prove a negative, which is impossible, so button it.”
To get back to the original point of the post, I don’t think anyone seems to have considered the rise of welfare and/or increased prosperity as a factor in the decline of organised religion in the UK. People tend not to be terribly religious when life is easy, after all.
EG
Hardly new. Many of the Founding Fathers of the US were deists, notably Washington himself. Other notables include Florence Nightingale, David Hume and Thomas Edison.
EG
Euan,
New as far as being the ‘latest’ rediscovery, after all, there are no new ideas, you can rest assured that most things have been thought of before, we would be arrogant to think otherwise…
People tend not to be terribly religious when life is easy, after all.
But are they any more content? – I doubt it, wherever you go in Europe the ‘meaness of spirit’, is almost tangible, . Sure there are many individual acts of kindness, but overall, the cynicism and the lack of regard for others is very striking… all a sign of the times we live in….
EG, why do you think faith cannot be intellectually honest?
I doubt it too.
The morality of religion (good or bad as it may be) has been replaced by the secular morality of do as you will – hence, perhaps, the increasing popularity of wicca (a new “ancient religion” if there ever was one, having been formulated only in 1947). Coupled with an over-emphasis on material possessions, this inevitably produces a selfish and uncaring society, as we see all around us.
Statements such as “there is no such thing as society” don’t help. Given that man is a social animal, they are also plain wrong. Still, this is what a secular libertarianism will produce, a selfish, thoughtless, uncaring and materialistic society. America is by any measure a more libertarian society than Britain, but it is worth noting that it is also a vastly more religious one. In Britain, and indeed in all western Europe, the state has supplanted God, but this has not (yet) happened in the US. I wonder how long it will last.
The religious imperative to charity has been replaced by redistributive taxation – “Sell all that thou hast and give it to the poor” has become “verily, thou shalt pay at the 40% rate.” Not an improvement, to my mind.
I could not sit down now and prove on paper that if I fired a shotgun at a window of ordinary glass the window would shatter. However, I know that it can be proven with sufficient knowledge of the materials involved and some elementary physics. Therefore, my belief that the window would shatter is justified.
It is not possible, even in principle*, to prove that God exists because it is not possible to conceive of a testable non-superantural attribute of God that could not have another explanation. Equally, it is not possible to prove that God does not exist. He may or may not really exist, but we cannot prove it one way or the other, and furthermore we KNOW we cannot prove it. We can, though, state with some degree of satisfaction that certain attributes given to God and certain logical ‘proofs’ are invalid – for example, the necessary first cause (not necessary at all in a quantum universe).
Since the matter cannot be decided one way or another, the only intellectually honest position is to accept that this is the case, that it cannot be known. To do otherwise is to assert that it can be known, which is incorrect.
However, none of that means it is wrong to believe in God, or to believe there is no God. Either way, it is a matter of faith. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it is folly to pretend it is a logically defensible position.
I personally believe that Christ existed, but I cannot prove it. On the other hand, I can’t prove Julius Caesar existed either. For a variety of reasons I’m not going to rehearse here, I strongly suspect that God exists but again I cannot prove it. In the end, we believe what we feel to be right. If we can prove it, so much the better, but if we cannot then there is not necessarily anything wrong with that.
* Note that the Catholic Church maintains that it is possible in theory to prove the existence of God using only logic.
EG
EG, I think it is extremely dangerous to liken what the Catholic Church says to what God has said of himself in the Bible. They are quite often different.
That said, I personally believe faith is intellectually honest because I think God has revealed enough of himself to mankind through his creation (the complexity and splendor of the world) and through their consciences to justify the reasonability of faith.
BTW, thanks for discussing it without being hostile.
If you assert categorically that there is no God, you presume ourself to be omniscient and omnipresent. Only thus can you be sure that God is nowhere to be found.
If you are omnipresent and omniscient, you are God. Therefore the assertion that there is no God is an internal contradiction.
Next!
No, it’s not. It is in fact claiming a whole lot more than atheism and only slightly less than theism. Think about it; “acceptance that the matter cannot be proven” Really? And they know this how? Where did they get the proof to make such a statement? They can speak for now and forever? No acknowledgment that there statement may be overreaching? We simply don’t know if it may be proven in the future. Agnosticism is a claim too far as far as I can understand it, which makes atheism’s simple lack of belief (the default definiton of it, regardless of what your dictionary might say) more “intellectually honest”.
No, faith requires belief in the *existence* of the item in question. Non-belief in unicorns is NOT FAITH. Christians seem to conveniently forget that important distinction, and try to use it to define atheism as a “faith”, which makes the case for their god no stronger. Faith is meaningless unless it is belief IN something. Atheism, at its core, is a simple lack of belief. It can’t be defined as a faith, even aside from strong atheisms claim to godly nonexistence.
It’s very simple people; You claim it exists, you prove it exists. Don’t tell me I’m wrong til you’ve got the monkey man in the cage, pace my previous example.
One definition of faith;
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
See that? “firm belief *IN* something”. I couldn’t find a single definition of it that said “firm disbelief in something”. And before anyone starts throwing around the “typical” definition of atheism used in dictionaries, remember it was in all probability written by a believer. Many dictionaries also refer to atheism as “wicked”, which speaks to how “accurate” that definition really is. There is no such controversy over the definitions of “Faith”.
Agreed. I find many of those who claim agnosticism to in fact be atheist, but sometimes are too cowardly to call themselves as such.
So therefore, if you assert categorically that there IS a God, you are also presuming to be “omniscient and omnipresent”, and are therefore you are the god you claim exists.
Therefore the assertion that there is a God (outside of onself) is an internal contradiction.
But claiming you ARE god is, therefore, completely consistent.
Next indeed.
Previous post was in fact, by me. Or maybe my god., Or maybe the god side of me…
Er….never can tell.
It is perhaps, a bit trite, but Christians arguing with Atheists need to keep in mind that we, the atheists, lack belief in not only your God, but in all the rest of them, too. This is frequently forgotten, as you see faith as a binary decision. (Christian, or Not.)
James and j, in the account of the “original sin” (Adam and Eve stuff) after it was committed, God declared that man had become as gods, knowing good and evil. The entire Christian (after “conversion”) walk is centered around yielding this lordship back to its rightful owner.
While many of my Christian brethren are often duped into arguing with atheists, I will not be. I am merely exposing self-proclaimed atheists to ideas alternative to their own. They are free to do what they want with them. I feel no obligation to “defend the faith,” just to give it a voice.
Euan: “Agnosticism is the only intellectually honest position.”
Euan, alleged ‘intellectual positions’ are usually far from practicality –and I won’t argue about their typical degree of honesty here. “Agnosticism” or whatever intellectual position does not exempt you from making decisions always based on theistic or atheistic premises. (That’s one of Rabbi Gottlieb points, in which I agree.)
In everydaylife, we decide far before having absolute certainty of the correctness of every step we make.
To put it bluntly: practical life –making decisions– requires from us to be dogmatic, the issue is the degree of rationality of the dogmae we embrace.
My position is: I trust* in G-d, Creator of the universe that provided us humans with rationality and free will, and the capability to understand the laws of nature and His moral laws.
*: “Trust” is not identical to faith (mainly in the sense of “blind faith”, –believing without proof.) Actually, I see reality as supporting the existence of a supernatural Creator.
“It is also kind of hard to believe in a benevolent deity after the tsunami of Asia.”
According to the majority of religions (including environmentalism), this world will be always disgraceful, mainly due to mankind.
I don’t buy that last, and prefer the Jewish idea of tikkun olam: trying to make the world a better place.
Additionally, acording to Judaism, this work of perfection will be close to its end at the arrival of the Messiah –another Jewish complex and rich idea.
A happy new 2005 to all good fellows.
That would be agnosticism.
Rubbish. “Strong atheism” is atheism, a belief there is no god – it is a belief, or a faith if you prefer, just as is theism. “Weak atheism” is agnosticism, a lack of belief one way or another. To pretend atheism is not a belief is daft, done perhaps because the atheist knows he is on intellectual ground just as shaky as the theist but wants to think he is somehow superior to the ignorant and superstitious religious people.
If an atheist doesn’t believe there is no god, then what word is used to describe someone who holds such a belief?
If you believe there is no god, have the courage of your convictions and call yourself an atheist, for that is what you are. If you don’t believe one way or another, you are an agnostic. To mix the two and pretend atheism isn’t a belief is sophistry, no more and no less.
EG
Euan, agnosticism strictly means “lack of knowledge”.
Agnosticism should be recognized as a baseless, impractical position; a shoulder shrugging expression of impotence.
At the end of the road –and we can recognize it or not–, the only two real assumptions are theism and (or) atheism.