18.6.03
I was the designated dorito-tipper at a local Christian event a few days ago. I suppose I was literally there for the food. At a stretch, I was there to help out a friend in a jam. But considering how many of the little tunafish sandwiches I downed, I was probably there for the food. Whatever got me there, it certainly wasn't a deep underlying desire to convert to Christianity.
Still, when a passionate and rotund young man took to the stage in an attempt to explain to us just why he thought this whole God thing was so damn wonderful, I stopped my dorito-tipping antics and settled down to listen.
Because, the secret is this:
I want to know why. Faith is such a force it needs to be respected, it needs to be given space, when it turns sour, its power needs to be considered. And I want to know why.
I have my own set of paradoxes that prevent me from wholeheartedly jumping into Christianity, or Islaam, or Buddhism - but hopefully - hopefully - I'm not so blind as to dismiss the possibility of their solution.
So, when people try to tell me this stuff, if I have the patience and the attention, I try to listen.
Maybe it was the way the guy on the stage seemed so confident that he was about to give us the no-frills lowdown, and that the no-frills lowdown was what I thought I was looking for, that made his utter failure to provide any kind of coherent argument so disappointing.
Interspersed with his own personal feelings about how empty his life had been before he was saved, and a comedy routine, were three questions designed to provoke thought in us.
1. Considering how little we, as individuals, know, as compared to how much there is to be known, is it possible that God exists outside our knowledge? That he exists but we have not yet come to realise that?
2. Considering most historians will acknowledge his historical existence, is it possible that Jesus did in fact exist?
3. If both Jesus and God exist, is it possible that Jesus is the son of God who died for our sins and that, basically, it's all true?
So, I can put aside the fact that 'Nyah, nyah, you can't prove it doesn't exist!' is a fundamentally flawed argument because if that were the case, I would also believe in Santa Claus, Invisible Flying Karate Frogs, and every other deity ever invented, because the questions were meant to be thought provoking and not definitive. They were designed to allow a suspension of disbelief while we heard the rest of rhetoric.
The problem is, a guy named Bertrand Russell once said, "An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God."
And, he's right.
The man I listened too was quick to point out the failings of atheism, and how it is irrational to dismiss something of which you are ignorant. But he failed to address the fact that theism, by nature, is as irrational as atheism.
Given that there is no conclusive proof that a supreme being exists, or does not exist, any distinct choice you make (belief, or disbelief) must be based on faith.
So maybe it was the 'you can't prove it's wrong,' argument that pissed me off.
The nonbelievers say, 'prove it,' and the believers turn around and say, 'prove it's not.' And whether God exists or not, the proof certainly doesn't. Yet the demand for proof seems to stay at the core of both arguments. (Again, the atheists are screaming that there's no proof God does exist, while the Christians keep screaming there's no proof he doesn't.)
We need a new way to try and convert people. We need new ways of convincing them. This proof lark just isn't going anywhere.
And we're back to the Invisible Frog theory. I'm wondering why I should believe in God instead of in Invisible Frogs, and how this God is better than any other God, and why I should take this leap of faith in the first place?
The desperately sad thing is, there are plenty of convincing arguments for both sides.
After this happened, I spoke to another friend, an ex-Christian, and told him how disappointed I'd been that the sum total of my conversion experience had been, 'Well, it might be true,' when I already knew it might be true, but chose not to worry about it.
And he told me about the slowly decaying Victorian scientific theories that held our world to be ultimately knowable, and how quantum theory was destroying the way scientists viewed reality. He told me about the problems separating thought and mind from matter. He flipped it around for me, and spoke about Stephen Weinberg's work pointing out that we are likely a part of an eternal network of big bangs, and that it isn't any wonder that one universe in an infinite number would yield intelligent life without the need for any divine agent. He flipped it around again, and asked, what was responsible for the big bang in the first place? If our universe had a beginning in time when everything was created instantaneously, what caused that to happen? Something had to be the first cause of nature, and doesn't that fit the description of God?
I thought it was ironic that the ex-Christian made a better stab at converting me than any Christian ever had. I was relieved that there were coherent arguments out there. Then I thought about the man on the stage, and realised that as pathetic as I thought his argument was, it had still, in a round about way, led to me learning more about the current pro/anti-God evidence than I ever knew before. And that idea irritated me in a way I cannot possibly convey.
Still, while I was there, trying to listen to him, I accidentally misread 'Lamb of God,' as 'Lama of God,' and that made me laugh. So the evening wasn't a total bust.
Still, when a passionate and rotund young man took to the stage in an attempt to explain to us just why he thought this whole God thing was so damn wonderful, I stopped my dorito-tipping antics and settled down to listen.
Because, the secret is this:
I want to know why. Faith is such a force it needs to be respected, it needs to be given space, when it turns sour, its power needs to be considered. And I want to know why.
I have my own set of paradoxes that prevent me from wholeheartedly jumping into Christianity, or Islaam, or Buddhism - but hopefully - hopefully - I'm not so blind as to dismiss the possibility of their solution.
So, when people try to tell me this stuff, if I have the patience and the attention, I try to listen.
Maybe it was the way the guy on the stage seemed so confident that he was about to give us the no-frills lowdown, and that the no-frills lowdown was what I thought I was looking for, that made his utter failure to provide any kind of coherent argument so disappointing.
Interspersed with his own personal feelings about how empty his life had been before he was saved, and a comedy routine, were three questions designed to provoke thought in us.
1. Considering how little we, as individuals, know, as compared to how much there is to be known, is it possible that God exists outside our knowledge? That he exists but we have not yet come to realise that?
2. Considering most historians will acknowledge his historical existence, is it possible that Jesus did in fact exist?
3. If both Jesus and God exist, is it possible that Jesus is the son of God who died for our sins and that, basically, it's all true?
So, I can put aside the fact that 'Nyah, nyah, you can't prove it doesn't exist!' is a fundamentally flawed argument because if that were the case, I would also believe in Santa Claus, Invisible Flying Karate Frogs, and every other deity ever invented, because the questions were meant to be thought provoking and not definitive. They were designed to allow a suspension of disbelief while we heard the rest of rhetoric.
The problem is, a guy named Bertrand Russell once said, "An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God."
And, he's right.
The man I listened too was quick to point out the failings of atheism, and how it is irrational to dismiss something of which you are ignorant. But he failed to address the fact that theism, by nature, is as irrational as atheism.
Given that there is no conclusive proof that a supreme being exists, or does not exist, any distinct choice you make (belief, or disbelief) must be based on faith.
So maybe it was the 'you can't prove it's wrong,' argument that pissed me off.
The nonbelievers say, 'prove it,' and the believers turn around and say, 'prove it's not.' And whether God exists or not, the proof certainly doesn't. Yet the demand for proof seems to stay at the core of both arguments. (Again, the atheists are screaming that there's no proof God does exist, while the Christians keep screaming there's no proof he doesn't.)
We need a new way to try and convert people. We need new ways of convincing them. This proof lark just isn't going anywhere.
And we're back to the Invisible Frog theory. I'm wondering why I should believe in God instead of in Invisible Frogs, and how this God is better than any other God, and why I should take this leap of faith in the first place?
The desperately sad thing is, there are plenty of convincing arguments for both sides.
After this happened, I spoke to another friend, an ex-Christian, and told him how disappointed I'd been that the sum total of my conversion experience had been, 'Well, it might be true,' when I already knew it might be true, but chose not to worry about it.
And he told me about the slowly decaying Victorian scientific theories that held our world to be ultimately knowable, and how quantum theory was destroying the way scientists viewed reality. He told me about the problems separating thought and mind from matter. He flipped it around for me, and spoke about Stephen Weinberg's work pointing out that we are likely a part of an eternal network of big bangs, and that it isn't any wonder that one universe in an infinite number would yield intelligent life without the need for any divine agent. He flipped it around again, and asked, what was responsible for the big bang in the first place? If our universe had a beginning in time when everything was created instantaneously, what caused that to happen? Something had to be the first cause of nature, and doesn't that fit the description of God?
I thought it was ironic that the ex-Christian made a better stab at converting me than any Christian ever had. I was relieved that there were coherent arguments out there. Then I thought about the man on the stage, and realised that as pathetic as I thought his argument was, it had still, in a round about way, led to me learning more about the current pro/anti-God evidence than I ever knew before. And that idea irritated me in a way I cannot possibly convey.
Still, while I was there, trying to listen to him, I accidentally misread 'Lamb of God,' as 'Lama of God,' and that made me laugh. So the evening wasn't a total bust.
