I appreciate the comments many folks have made the past few days here extolling the virtues of atheism — unfortunately I have neither the time nor the wherewithal to continue in point by point refutation of various truth claims. It’s not that I’m not able to, it’s simply that I don’t see a good reason to. Despite various appeals to authority (i.e., scientists who do indeed have a bias and an agenda to interpret evidence to negate the need for non-materialism and promote an atheistic viewpoint), atheists believe what they believe due to personal experience and faith. Just as I do with my beliefs. As to which are actually true…well, we’re not going to solve that this time around.
I will, however, post a few random thoughts about various related issues here simply because it’s a good exercise for my poor brain and it might give some of you a bit of food for thought. Bear in mind, however, that I will probably refrain from engaging in extended debate on any of these points going forward. I primarily run this blog to communicate with people who are genuinely interested in the spiritual topics I cover, and also just to have fun. If I’m not having fun — well, it’s not exactly motivating.
Anyway, I wanted to mention a comparison of Reason vs. Reasonableness and how it applies to the ongoing tussle between the “reason” people and the “faith” people. The people who believe in Reason think that scientific theories, mathematical modeling, studies, and an underlying framework of materialist philosophy rooted in a concept of blind (i. e., non-directed) evolution, can explain the nature of reality and of life on earth, the question of why we’re here, what is our destiny, and what we should be doing in the meantime. What the Reason proponents fail to realize is that the notion that any of this can indeed perform these weighty tasks is basically a personal expression of faith. That’s why “secular humanism” is often used as a term of religion to describe this type of worldview: that man is, indeed, the measure of all things and must create for himself meaning and morality in a world that is in and of itself devoid of meaning or morality or ultimate mind at all.
Meanwhile, many people are happy to admit that all humans have faith in and believe in something to explain life and see no problem with accepting the concepts of a supernatural realm and an ultimate personality (or personalities) underlying the origin and possibly the continued execution of the physical universe surrounding us. At this point, Reason in the sense of human philosophical constructs and knowledge isn’t seen as the sole arbiter of truth and instead Reasonableness is what is highly valued. Reasonableness states that what lies outside our grasp as humans with a finite, limited, and flawed perception of reality is nevertheless possible to understand in part. In other words, I can’t necessarily understand God through Reason, but my faith in God is Reasonable. My experiences of His love, His word, His actions, His working through the lives of people around me — I can understand those experiences through my intellect and thus they are Reasonable. I can’t necessarily grasp the minute details and underlying meanings and purposes of every single passage in the Bible and construct an air-tight, 100% logical systematic theology that then will make perfect sense to me for the rest of my life. I don’t need to. I understand enough to know my knowledge is Reasonable — i. e., the historical facts contained within the Bible are plausible and supported by various evidences and the spiritual claims contained within have been borne out to be real and practical as I’ve lived my life according to those precepts. For example, if through the Bible I believe that it’s possible for someone to be supernaturally healed by the power of God, and then I see a close friend of mine be supernaturally healed by the power of God when prayed for, I can verify the Reasonableness of believing that it’s possible to be supernaturally healed by the power of God. Does that mean I understand how such healing works, how to be used by God to pray for it, or why such healing is unpredictable and doesn’t operate in the same manner every time? Not necessarily, but to accept that there are many things in the world I will never know or understand is itself a Reasonable conclusion for someone who recognizes his own limitations.
My Reason doesn’t produce my spiritual life or automatically exclude the possibility that I’ve somehow completely fooled myself and imagined that everything happening supernaturally around me could be easily explained within a materialist/atheist worldview. But my sense of Reasonableness shows that to live my life according to the philosophical tenants of atheism would literally give me absolutely no peace or satisfaction that I’ve discovered a way to live that makes sense of my life’s experiences and my own personality. Rather than square with what I see when I examine the physical world, it would actually undermine my observations. To me, it’s far more Reasonable to believe that there is far more to existence than matter and energy; mind and spirit must come first. It’s far less Reasonable to believe that mind/”spirit” is simply an emergent by-product of mechanical processes operating within the realm of biology.
Of course, I’m excluding any mention here of the actual scientific evidence itself supporting intelligent design in nature and the difficulties of geological and cosmological uniformitarianism. As usual, I find it more interesting to discuss the underlying assumptions behind all of our wrestling with truth and who we are rather than just take a hard look at facts. Humans, most of the time, are unable to look at facts without automatically interpreting the conclusions of the data based on their already-constructed worldview. Scientists who automatically exclude any possibility of supernatural/non-materialist origins behind any known phenomena will “see” how physical processes could have generated such phenomena — even if those explanations are unsatisfying, logically faulty, and can’t be squared with the full extent of the data.
To conclude, my Reason doesn’t lead me to accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, but being a disciple of Jesus is more Reasonable to me than to live as a disciple of Secular Humanism. In other words, despite my snarky post recently about choosing “superstition” over “reason”, what I’m really trying to say is that my belief in God and the supernatural is supported by a position of reasonable knowledge rather than willful ignorance. Just as Intelligent Design scientists expound on the concepts of design in nature not from a position of intellectual poverty (“we don’t know how Darwinian evolution did it, so God did it”), but from a position of intellectual strength (“we do know that Darwinian evolution is incapable of producing such structures and the appearance of design based on what we know of how such processes work”).
Recognizing the limits of concepts is a fundamental aspect of understanding truth. But sometimes it requires courage to face the logical consequences of such truth.
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22 Comments
[Comment deleted due to character assassination. Such negative rhetoric has no place on this blog or in civil discourse. --Jared]
“For example, if through the Bible I believe that it’s possible for someone to be supernaturally healed by the power of God, and then I see a close friend of mine be supernaturally healed by the power of God when prayed for, I can verify the Reasonableness of believing that it’s possible to be supernaturally healed by the power of God.”
I think we are programmed to jump to conclusions about what causes what, and then to try and CONFIRM that idea (this is pretty much the process you describe here). To a point this has worked very well in our past, and as such can be considered reasonable as you say. Science is about logic and reason (not reasonablesss) and the results often run against what seems reasonable to us.
You have an idea (miracles happen), then see something and say “this is a miracle” But unlike a scientist you do not ask the hard questions like:
“why does god never heal amputees?” Because these challenge rather than confirm your belief. This is why reasonableness alone will never increase our knowledge of truth, though it does on many occasions work.
I do agree that we tend to jump to conclusions about things and then try to cherry-pick subsequent observations to fit our preconceived notions. But to the extent that I do this more than is acceptable in the case of miraculous healing, you can’t be certain. How do you know that I haven’t asked plenty of hard questions? It’s obvious to anyone that, statistically speaking, if healings occur, they are rare — at least in the West. But on the other hand, how do you know that no amputee has ever been healed supernaturally? Just because you personally have not heard of such evidence does not mean it has never happened.
“…then I see a close friend of mine be supernaturally healed by the power of God”
Let’s cut to the chase Jared. You’ve never seen such a thing, nor do you have any accounts of amputees growing back lost limbs. For you to say “You can’t prove it HASN’T happened” while pretending to seek philosophically meaningful discussion is absurd.
I suppose on one hand it’s noble of you to try to engage reasonable people in conversation, but if your goal in life is to further the goofy beliefs you already have and that’s it, then you’d probably be better off requiring registration and filtering out reality like a lot of other godzo blogs do – otherwise you’re going to be constantly frustrated if you insist on displaying ignorance for all to see and dissect.
kemibe, if you want to say that I’m lying about what I’ve seen and that I’m trying to pull a fast one on you, that’s your prerogative. But please find another forum in which to do so. Your continued mockery and “real world vs. fantasy land” rhetoric serves no useful function other than to boot your own ego.
It may be hard for you to believe, but not everyone who accepts the existence of miracles is some gold-studded con artist on a bad TV program or some backwoods hick who just fell off a turnip truck.
Take care and I wish you all the best.
I’m asking you flat out, Jared — what is it that you’ve seen that convinces you that someone you know has been “supernaturally healed”? It’s a very simple request, and if you refuse to fulfill it, why shouldn’t you be mocked?
Jared,
There are hundreds of cases of apparent miracle healings I have heard and read about. Never once have I ever heard of a limb being regrown in a human. I have never even heard of any such a claim at least in the west. If you can give me reference to one I would be interested to read it. But this absence of such claims is so apparent people even have up web sites about “why does god hate amputees” and the like.
Now you may have asked yourself hard questions, but the when it comes to deciding the truth, it takes prediction and testing, which is science, reasonableness can never give a reliable testable answer.
Jared,
Here’s a testimony (Diane’s comment) that relates an appendage regrowing.
http://ceruleansanctum.com/2007/07/wave-lookers.html#comments
“Two decades ago in my PCUSA church, a good friend of mine who is a Christian but skeptical and a questioner, told me how a little girl in the church lost half a finger in an accident. The little girl had no problem believing God to grow back another one….and He did.”
Interestingly, this miracle seems to have not made it into the medical literature. Was this girl perhaps a salamander in disguise?
Needless to say, a post on a Christian blog referencing some unnamed girl attending an unnamed church who supposedly grew back a severed digit 20 years ago doesn’t constitute evidence that such things can happen. Regardless, I don’t doubt that Jared will accept this apocryphal tale at face value, because it would appear to mesh nicely with his concept of what God can do — even if God has never actually done such a thing.
” The little girl had no problem believing God to grow back another one….and He did. My friend told me how the doctors in the church watched each week to see if the fingernail would be formed little by little or after the entire finger grew back.”
Obviously when I talk about amputees regrowing limbs, I am talking about legs and arms. We do not generally refer to someone missing a finger as an amputee.
I am not talking about the natural phenomenon that young children can sometimes regrow finger tips, which is what I suspect happened here, and has been experimentally studies in mice and monkeys see:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/q31240131218v004/
I have worked in a neonatal intensive care nursery for the past 25 years. In that period of time I have seen literally thousands of babies come and go. They come to the NICU for various reasons, from being just a couple of weeks premature to extremely life-threatening malformations, genetic defects, etc. Aside from the few who were abandoned, each and every infant had parent(s), extended families, and sometimes whole congregations and communities praying for them. First, of course, they all prayed for healty babies; none of them got that. Then they prayed for their child to get well, go home, live a happy life. Some of them got that. Some of them died. And in between were the ones left with any of a whole spectrum of various difficulties that these people had to live with.
The number of “supernatural healings” observed in these thousands of extremely well-monitored cases amounts to a grand total of zero.
I’m sorry, Jared, but the evidence does not support your hypothesis.
I’m sorry to hear you say that Leslie. I don’t wish to argue with you, but the testimonies I know about personally and have read about are conclusive for me. And I know people in the medical profession who believe in the power of prayer.
Blessings, Jared
P. S. By power of prayer, I don’t mean the actual act of praying. Anyone can pray. I mean focused prayer by people who believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to work miracles of healing and who have a right relationship with God.
“I don’t wish to argue with you, but the testimonies I know about personally and have read about are conclusive for me.”
You’ve already said that, Jared. Why not share these stories with the rest of us? At worst we can not believe them and continue maintaining what we already maintain — that divine miracles no more factor into healing from illnesses and injuries than they do into anything else in the human experience.
“And I know people in the medical profession who believe in the power of prayer.”
I know religious people who believe in all manner of outlandish things. Leslie has worked in a sensitive and heart-wrenching medical environment for a quarter of a century and you choose to dismiss her experience because it doesn’t suit what you wish to believe. That sort of cavalier dismissal is far more rude, by any standard, than what people have told you in the comments on this blog.
Do you really not see that all you are doing here is saying, “I don’t care about your facts — they’re trumped by my opinions”?
Speaking of the NICU, I ran a marathon for this charity my friend started about five years ago:
http://www.brendansbuddies.com
Great stuff. God hasn’t yet stopped forcing babies to not be born at 24 weeks’ gestation, but at least human beings are intervening on His sloppy work.
“…the testimonies I know about personally and have read about are conclusive for me.â€
“P. S. By power of prayer, I don’t mean the actual act of praying. Anyone can pray. I mean focused prayer by people who believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to work miracles of healing and who have a right relationship with God.”
Jared, I see a way for you to do a great service to your fellow human beings. Research these instances you know and have read about. Find out what they have in common, who these people are and what they are doing right, and publish it.
I am completely serious. If anyone could do that, he could change the world. Why don’t you try?
Thank you Leslie, I would like to do some official research at some point and write down my finding in a more concrete fashion. At the present time, I am simply a “layman” who works full-time in the computer/Web development field. Hopefully, I will be able to find enough time down the road to devote more effort to research and not just go on personal or anecdotal evidence.
What if you’re wrong. What if Buddha was the Savior?
Well, in the absence of concrete evidence that prayer is efficacious, why not share the compelling anecdotes you keep mentioning? Any hesitancy to do this can only be construed as your having made these anecdotes up.
On the matter of doctors, morals and faith, is anyone surprised by this?
I wonder what it is that compels god-free physicians to help the underserved at a greater rate than religious docs, since it can’t possibly be an innate sense or conpassion or anything.
As most certainly must have been posted, evolution actually does explain how things came to be quite well. The intellectual design (ID) “scientists” simply aggrandize ID by pointing to a few things that were not well accounted for by evolutionary theory and then, by a leap of logic, declare that ID must be right. Evolutionary theory is a theory, and if you and many in the public understand what a scientific theory is, then seeing that a theory cannot account for a few things that the theory otherwise explains well, does not make it wrong and a competing idea right. A good theory accounts for most things, and is only a matter of time and effort before the theory is refined to account for the unaccountable, or a new theory replaces the old when the new does better. ID is not a theory, nor a hypothesis, but mere dogma marketed successfully.
By the way, however you feel from spiritual experiences with regard to Jesus or this God, humanity throughout the world experience similar spiritual feelings, regardless of their faith in fantastical things.
I would like to see the inscription “to be continied”:-D