Author Archives: Elizaphanian

About Elizaphanian

Rector of West Mersea

Reasonable Atheism (27): An Apt Analogy

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Scott Gray left this comment at James’ blog:

“sam doesn’t want god to be thought of in definable aspects. he wants the nature of god to be kept up in the air by the juggling of several models, or metaphors, at once. while it makes understanding the nature of god interesting, it doesn’t help with a definitive understanding. with the non-stop juggling of metaphors and models, there can be no ‘articulate, categorical thought.’ and sam likes it this way. from a physics perspective, he doesn’t want the ‘god’ wave-function to collapse to anything measurable. he refuses to open shroedinger’s box to see anything definitive about ‘god.’

this is the difference between theology and critical inquiry. in critical inquiry, we want to know the true nature of things. in theology, we are happy to juggle metaphors forever without any articulate, category-oriented thought.”

And I responded

“YES!!!!

That’s exactly right. I’ve been thinking about writing a post on this theme, and this is such a wonderful analogy. I think something is lost when a determinate understanding is sought – that’s what all the language about idolatry is all about, it’s really about cultivating intellectual humility, and radically embracing ‘I could be wrong’.

Thank you. For once I feel really understood :o)”

In due course I will unpack this.

TBTM20080920

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Time for some campaignin’
(H/T Phil’s Treehouse)

I took over 80 photos this morning, some of which I was really pleased with, but I chose this one because, even though it’s not photographically ideal, it gives you a good idea of what I saw on leaving my front gate today! I generally now take more photos than I post on the blog – they get posted on my flickr account (link to the right), normally in a bundle about once a month. But I’ll post some more from this morning now.

Some political confessions

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I thought I’d throw up some bullet points on my political perspectives, because, although I would describe myself as a conservative, there are various ways in which that might be misleading, particularly in the US context.

  • I was (with caveats) in favour of the invasion of Iraq, and on balance I still think it was the right decision
  • I think the Bush administration has been culpably incompetent (and radically anti-conservative) and Bush and Cheney should be impeached
  • I think the Bush administration has been actively evil in its support for torture and that Bush should be excommunicated from the church
  • I firmly believe that the truth about 9/11 has not been told, though I am not persuaded that Bush was personally involved in that (I have only come to negative conclusions about this subject, not positive ones)
  • I do believe that radical Islam poses an existential threat to Western Civilisation. I see the standard left-wing consensus – such as it is – as manifestly inadequate for defending western civilisation, and this is one of my main objections to Obama (for an example, see the treatment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali)
  • By the way, in case it isn’t obvious, I believe very strongly in free speech
  • I believe that the Bush administration, whether by active design or inadvertence, has laid the foundations for a new feudalism in the United States
  • I think there is a non-trivial possibility of a far-right Christian fascist autocracy forming in the United States within the next ten years, and a similarly non-trivial possibility of Civil War. My main reason for thinking that those things won’t happen is that the suffering will hit the cities more than the countryside, but I could easily be wrong
  • I find Obama’s vote on abortion abhorrent, unconscionable and unfathomable
  • I am in favour of stem cell research
  • I find McCain’s position on Georgia (shared by Obama) unrealistic and seriously frightening. I would certainly not invite Georgia to be a member of NATO (an institution that is now past its use-by-date)
  • I think the United Nations is, by and large, a waste of space
  • I am strongly in favour of full secular equality for homosexual couples (and I’m phrasing it that way because ‘marriage’ raises theological questions that are a red herring here)
  • I don’t expect any politicians to be saints; it’s just a question of the degree of corruption. I find it remarkable how little investigation there has been of Obama’s background, competence and voting record which seem to me to be much worse than Palin’s
  • I don’t think either candidate has a clue about the nature of the storm engulfing the US economy, nor do I think there is much that either candidate can do about it. I still think the fourth turning is a very good guide to what we are seeing
  • For all his faults – and his faults aren’t lonely for long – I see McCain as more able to exercise an independent perspective than Obama. I’m not convinced that there is anything there with Obama, that is, anything which marks him out as something other than a product of his context
  • I think that George Romero is a prophet, particularly of the US

Reasonable Atheism (26): Evidence for God’s existence

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One often reads comments like this one: “…there is no convincing evidence that God exists.”

The first problem with this is that it assumes that the existence of God is something that is open to empirical investigation (which is normally the only admissible form of evidence), and that rather begs the question as to the nature of God. It assumes that God is some sort of fact about the world, in the same way that there are other facts about the world, and this is a simple theological error. That is not the correct way to think about God’s existence.

So what is the correct way to think about God’s existence? Well, it’s not about any fact in the world – it’s about how all such facts are understood. Consider the famous duck-rabbit:

Is there a rabbit in this picture? For someone who only sees the duck, no amount of pointing out particular lines or dots in the picture will make the slightest difference. You have to ‘see’ that there is also a rabbit.

Similarly, to try and explain God’s existence in terms of ‘evidence’ is to mistake the nature of what is at stake. Belief in God is about an interpretation of the whole; it is the claim that the whole is meaningful, and purposeful, and that our existence can share in that meaning and purpose. There is no possible empirical evidence to sway the matter.

All we have is the language of saying ‘look at it like this’. Look at it like a rabbit. But if the notion of rabbits is completely alien; if the notion of rabbits is bracketed off with ‘fairies at the bottom of the garden’; then progress is impossible. We just have to wait until something in a person’s life – often the experience of suffering – convinces them that life is meaningful, and they are then compelled to seek a language to explore it with. Then we can discuss religion.

“Life can educate one to a belief in God. And also experiences can do this; but not visions and other forms of sense experience which show us the ‘existence of this being’ – but, e.g. Sufferings of various kinds. These neither show us God in the way a sense impression shows us an object, nor do they give rise to conjectures about him. Experiences, thoughts, – life can force this concept on us.” (that man again)