The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

I blogged about this back in December 2005:

This I believe: Everything is a manifestation of God

Penn's a really bright guy and his essay is very deep. He writes in a very comical and lighthearted way, but he covers topics that most people refuse to deal with -- instead, they hide behind the petticoat of religious faith.

Even the Dalai Lama, a celebrity figure who is deeply spiritual, reminds us to keep an open mind:

"If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false," he says, "then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims."

Keeping an open mind, science must study not just physical brain phenomena, but also meditation and other spiritual practices.

In the end, it's all about the net effect: a better world, better people and more love and less hate. If you find that place by being an atheist, great. If you find it by following religion, great. Lets just get there, please?

Interesting article. Unfortunately, immature Christians and that fact that we are all still human and fail, give him some ammunition to work with. Too bad he focuses on the faulty messenger rather than on who we imperfectly try to point to. He also finishes with an appeal to the problem of evil as if Christendom hasnt dealt with that in 2000 years.

In the end, it's all about the net effect: a better world, better people and more love and less hate.

This always ends the same way, but what's the point in that if there is no God?

What's the point if there's no God? God wants us to be happy, to love one another, and to seek him. I have yet to hear anyone say "God expects you to find him." Just seek. It's the lives you touch along the way that matter.

The point isn't about finding God.

If there is a God, the point IS about finding God, right? Sam's hypothetical statement:

It could be argued that by the time he goes to "learn something", it will be too late.

says it best I think. You spend your life wondering if God is real, or seeking to find an answer, and when you die your f*cked, if indeed there is a God, and Hell exists. After all, if there is a God, then all of this believe in me and you shall be saved stuff must be true.

If there is no God, there is no right and wrong. Without God, all sense of morality is a false construct. There is no rational athiest.

"If there is no God, there is no right and wrong."

That's ridiculous. You can't just make things up and declare them true. Otherwise, I could just say:

"If there is a God, there is only right, no wrong, since God is perfect and we are all created by God."

Then what?

If there is no God, there is no right and wrong. Without God, all sense of morality is a false construct. There is no rational athiest.

I think that is what I was trying to say. That's not really just making something up. Is it not logical to think that if there is no God, then there is no afterlife, and all of this (our life, love, emotions, etc) mean nothing? There is no point in doing good then is there? What does one stand to gain from it?

Why must there be a God in order for there to be an afterlife? Suppose there's an afterlife that we go to, and there's still no God there, either. Nor, does it require a God to transport our souls from one life to the next. Is that really so hard to believe?

Why do you need an afterlife in order to want to do good? The point in doing good is to make this life as good as it can be, since you're spending some time here before you get to the afterlife, right? That's what is to gain.

Errr... perhaps things should be cleared up here.

Von (and Sam too), the first time, you were putting forth a version of Pascal's Wager, nicely summarized (where else?) at Wikipedia. Its general idea is that it is rational to believe in God because the reward if God does exist and you believe is infinite, while the loss if God doesn't exist and you believe is minimal (maybe some lost time at church or the like... since the upside is infinite, even great losses, e.g. your life, are minimal). Conversely, if God does exist and you don't believe, the loss is infinite (hell) and if God doesn't exist and you don't believe, the reward is minimal. So it's rational to belive God exists because that's the dominant strategy for the greatest reward and minimal loss. Note that this isn't an argument for God's existence, just that you should believe that God exists, just in case he does. You also cannot opt out of the wager - everybody makes their bet. Pascal himself admits that the wager will not make anyway form true belief, but he thinks that will come if people rationally accept God's existence, go to church and such.

There are multiple criticisms of this (all of which Wikipedia mentions), such as mulitple gods (why restrict our belief to the Christian God?), etc.

Difster's argument is differenct. He's making a case for Natural Law or perhaps more appropriately divine command theory. This says (roughly) that God decrees what is moral. This, of course, raises Socrates's question in Euthyprho, does God love the good because it is good or is it good because God loves it? That is, is morality a preexisting thing and that's why God decrees certain things moral? I tend to think so and believe that morality is obtainable through reason. Morality, then, consists of laws of reason and logic and God is bound by them just as He is bound by other laws of logic, i.e. God cannot make a four-sided triangle, make 2+3=4, or make Himself cease to exist. They're all logical impossibilities. These are not limits on God's power, they're absurdities.

The second time around, Von was worried that life would be meaningless without God's existence. Perhaps in some deeper existential sense, yes, but I don't think that entails that life must be generally meaningless. Meaning can be easily found in causes, family, etc. God or no, your temporal existence is fairly meaningless, so you might as well make of it what you can. This would be the position of secular humanists and they say that popular morality is possible without God just by relying on each other and realizing the importance of humanity. This is nice, but I don't think such societies are ultimately sustainable since people are naturally bastard covered bastards with bastard filling (I take a Hobbesian view of humanity). Also, religious conviction is ingrained in the human psyche. If God is not the God-figure, then personages or even the state will occupy the role, e.g. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, or even whole governments. While some or many individuals can function quite happily with no belief in higher powers, I don't think the masses can.

And this is long enough.

There's a few good discussions on this site here about atheism. It's a relgion site that has about a 50/50 ratio of believers to non-believers.