In my last post, discussion turned to the question of whether or not we need God. One of my regular contributors, William, posted the following comment, and I felt it deserved its own post:
I am just having problems understanding whether humans “need” a god.
Do humans “need” a father? it may be beneficial if it’s a good father, but we can see many who get along fine who have not had a father, so “need” is the wrong term.
And what if that father is never around, left before you were born, and only left a letter to you explaining (not always in the easiest or most direct of terms) how he expects you to behave and promises that he’ll take care of you and promises to severely punish you for disobedience or for leaving him?
is that a good father? is that a father we need? isn’t it laughable that such a father could even begin to threaten the child for “leaving him” (since the father clearly left the child) not to mention how absurd it is to think that such a father actually does anything to really take care of the child?
I’m having a hard time understanding how we’re ingrained to “need” such a father, or why we’d even call such a father good?
Finding Truth 
Throughout this entire discussion, one fact stands out that I don’t think any of us can deny: Believers cannot understand how non-believers are unable to see the “truth,” just as non-believers are astounded that believers are taken in by the words of a book that simply does not stand up under the scrutiny of logic and reason.
LikeLike
Nan, I categorically deny your statement.
LikeLike
At the risk of starting yet another discussion on Nate’s blog, I have to ask why? I was not “naming names.” It was just a general statement that seems to be the way it is whenever a discussion takes place between believers and non-believers.
LikeLike
Nan, maybe Judahfirst could better accept your statement if you placed a few more quotation marks, like:
“Throughout this entire discussion, one fact stands out that I don’t think any of us can deny: Believers cannot understand how non-believers are unable to see the “truth,” just as non-believers are astounded that “believers are taken in by the words of a book that simply does not stand up under the scrutiny of logic and reason.””
Judahfirst, does that make it better? Where now the believer’s and non-believer’s point of view are placed within quotes?
LikeLike
LOL, no quotations did not help. I am not a believer who “cannot understand how non-believers are unable to see the “truth”. Nor do I really think you non-believers are “astounded” at the rest of us being “taken in”. I don’t know, I felt that statement was unnecessary and a little presumptuous. 🙂
LikeLike
Oops, missed the outside quotation after “truth”. Sorry.
LikeLike
LOL, good catch. And I see what you mean.
LikeLike
I understand why people believe in a God. KC, for instance has called himself a deist, and that’s a position I strongly identify with, even though I don’t consider myself one. I also understand why some people believe Christianity, if they’re the sort of person that’s never really closely examined their own beliefs before. But to be honest, I do have some trouble understanding how people that have studied it deeply continue to believe Christianity. Deism, I could get. Maybe even theism with an “unknown” God. But belief in Christianity (or any other revealed religion) is hard for me to understand.
LikeLike
I guess I viewed Nan’s comment as generic, almost like a heading of sorts. sure there will be some exceptions. I can see how believers see it my way, and like you (nate) said, i can get Christians if they haven’t seen the problems yet, or deists, etc.
LikeLike
Believers cannot understand how non-believers are unable to see the “truth”
– I guess I wouldn’t say this at all. Most of the non-believers I’ve had exchanges with, including on this site, come from a position dominated by logic and reason. I think logic and reason can build a foundation, but I do not think they get you to the “truth”. Whatever the “truth” is, it is bigger than us, bigger than this galaxy, bigger than the universe. The universe is not eternal, and my perspective is that it’s nonsense to think that the universe exploded out of absolutely nothing. The ability to reason how the universe got here stops at that, as far as I’m aware. So, whatever it is that is out there defies our ability to reason to it. Anyway, the point being I don’t share the premise that logic and reason can take us all the way “home” to the “truth”. Non-believers bank on something that is inexplicable as well as believers do, as far as I can tell. They might be able to tell me why their version of god doesn’t make sense, but they usually can’t see my perspective that a universe full of all this “logic and reason and lawful operation” coming out of complete nothingness by some huge accident also doesn’t make sense. At some point we must trust in whatever conclusion we’ve decided on, and take that to the bank. Some will get cash back. Some will have their money bag blow up in their face.
LikeLike
“I do have some trouble understanding how people that have studied it deeply continue to believe Christianity.”
I’ve met atheists who’ve converted to Christianity through studying the evidence who would take offense to this. I’m just not convinced that the “studying deeply” is the key ingredient. Based on what I know from people I’ve talked with it isn’t the deciding factor.
LikeLike
Josh – “They might be able to tell me why their version of god doesn’t make sense, but they usually can’t see my perspective that a universe full of all this “logic and reason and lawful operation” coming out of complete nothingness by some huge accident also doesn’t make sense.”
But a universe full of all this “logic and reason and lawful operation” coming out of complete nothingness by some huge all knowing all perfect god that we cant see or hear does “make sense” because an old collection of letters and books (which are quite flawed) claims it to be so?
And i’ve heard people ask before, “if, by the shear complexity of the universe, a god or creator is needed, then wouldnt it stand to reason that the creator would need a creator since the creator would have to be more complex than its own creation?”
LikeLike
I guess I’d like to see the last points by Howie, nate and myself (from earlier this morning directly following UnklE’s) addressed before we get off on another tangent though….
however, this isn’t my blog, so I’m not setting any rules – just giving my opinion.
LikeLike
“But a universe full of all this “logic and reason and lawful operation” coming out of complete nothingness by some huge all knowing all perfect god that we cant see or hear does “make sense” because an old collection of letters and books (which are quite flawed) claims it to be so?”
No. It makes more sense because everything coming out of nothing doesn’t make sense to me.
LikeLike
“I’d like to see the last points by Howie, nate and myself (from earlier this morning directly following UnklE’s) addressed before we get off on another tangent though”
Ok.
LikeLike
thanks and out of my own compulsive, I’m not sure that the singularity is categorized as nothing. And I get that because everything we see around us has a cause and effect, was produced by something, etc. Just as everything we see has a beginning and an end and doesn’t last forever or before forever…
if complex needs a creator, then complex needs a creator… but even if not, one can believe in a god and creator without the bible – which is, at least to me, the main point of discussion. It’s not “either bible is from god, or atheist.” there are far more than those two simplified choices.
LikeLike
Josh says, “At some point we must trust in whatever conclusion we’ve decided on, and take that to the bank. Some will get cash back. Some will have their money bag blow up in their face.”
I have to disagree with this statement. The beauty of Science is that as we gain new knowledge that disproves something else we previously thought to be true, we replace it with the new knowledge. Religion frowns on this in general. If it was true 2000 years ago it still has to be true today.
LikeLike
bah, proofreading! “Compulsiveness” and I neglected to add, “people think that there must have been a creation event,” to my second sentence.
forgive the error, please.
LikeLike
William and Howie-
I guess I wouldn’t try to argue something like “it doesn’t make sense because you’re using human reasoning and we can’t reason to a being we can’t understand”. Before you jump on me, yes, I know I’ve said something similar that. And, I don’t find it at all problematic that we can’t understand completely a being who is beyond us. But, I digress.
To the points about the Bible’s problems, though. I think a lot of this has been said, so I’ll try to be quick. unkleE and I seem to come from the same perspective: it is not at all problematic for us that the Bible, though inspired by God, can be subject to the same mistakes that would accumulate over time in any text. I’ve looked at a lot of the problems people raise – not all, I’m sure – and there are ways of resolving the issues raised against the text to my satisfaction (you can accuse me of being biased, but there are plenty of people who have been convinced to convert by looking at these answers). Regardless, they do not change the message. I think the message does make sense.
The other question is, why would a god who wants us to believe in him communicate in an imperfect way that is misunderstood. This is a presumption disguised as a question. What you’re saying is “God should have communicated in a way that would be understandable to all without room for mistake”. This is a positive claim that must be established before it can be addressed. Because I do not believe we have exhaustive knowledge that would include how God “should” behave, I don’t see that this claim can be established at all. By the way, if you do claim we have exhaustive knowledge I would think you’d need to establish this as well. No?
And, this last point, about how God “should” behave, I believe is the foundation of any discussion about sin. There’ve been points made about how there are “good” people and “bad” people in the world, and we all can’t be lumped into certain kinds of people. But, “sin” is not just talking about the behaviors we engage in. Sin, at its root, is the belief that we can be equal to, or better than God if given the opportunity, or make our lives complete without God or his instructions. That’s the point of the Fall narrative in Genesis. If you look at sin as humans having their own ideas about how God “should” have done things, and believing they know better, and that they can be complete without him, then you may begin to see that this condition is in us all.
LikeLike
William-
“one can believe in a god and creator without the bible – which is, at least to me, the main point of discussion. It’s not “either bible is from god, or atheist.”
True. But, you’d have even less reason to believe in God if there’s no reliable text addressing him. So, if you’re gonna hang on to logic and reason you really can’t go that route.
LikeLike
kcchief1-
Your understanding of scientific knowledge, and everyone else’s, is limited to what is known at the time you are incapable of processing more knowledge (death, or sooner). At the end of your life you will have banked on something that science itself tells you will likely be retested and disproven or modified in the future.
LikeLike
“True. But, you’d have even less reason to believe in God if there’s no reliable text addressing him. So, if you’re gonna hang on to logic and reason you really can’t go that route.”
Not so fast , Josh ! As a Deist, the Universe and all of Creation are proof to me there is a Cause / Creator / God. If there is no reliable text, which there isn’t, you should be the one less likely to believe in God than me. 🙂
LikeLike
“As a Deist, the Universe and all of Creation are proof to me there is a Cause / Creator / God.”
I was mainly addressing points about logic and reason. So, you would say a god who created all this and left no communication or redemption plan is more reasonably believed in than one who did communicate a redemption plan?
LikeLike
what reliable text is there?
and I think I’ll wait for UnkleE’s response to the other. I’m not sure that you’re aware of the problems I’m speaking about. I’m referring to explicit contradictions. I’m not talking “what does heaven look like?” or “do angels really have wings?” I’m asking why is this book, which has actual and literal contradictions within it, which has scientific, historical and archaeological inaccuracies inside of it considered “reliable” at all?
and again, you may have missed this point, “To me, it is an assumption to say that all those problems really arent problems, and since we’d be incapable of understanding everything about a god anyways, all of these problems are just some of those things we cant understand. You may as well be saying that the bible and the koran are both right at the same time, that they only appear to be in contention to those who want to see them in contention, but to those who recognize as them both as the inspired writings of god, then they are. It doesnt have to make sense, because I have faith in god and because we cant understand all of his ways. Anyone who disagrees is making assumptions about what books god would inspire and what they’d look like. anyone who disagrees is putting conditions on god.”
I feel like some of my earlier responses that weren’t directly addressed by you just now, may answer some of your points.
you may have missed others as well. there is a lot to cover in all this, but the above is the best i can do at pointing what i see as an inconsistency with many believers. the way many things are argued for the bible can be used to “excuse” any contradiction, and error or problem. It’s an attempt to make the bible fit and workout despite obvious issues. Anyone can say, about anything, that “it’s not really a contradiction because there may be a good reason it gave two opposing accounts of the same thing.” If we used that for everything, then there wouldnt ever be any contradictions.
LikeLike
Josh – “I was mainly addressing points about logic and reason. So, you would say a god who created all this and left no communication or redemption plan is more reasonably believed in than one who did communicate a redemption plan?”
when the plan is both unreliable and unreasonable, then yes.
LikeLike