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LOL! Sorry, didn't take time to check my typing. Had to rush outside to the sandbox and assist with a 'lake'. That would be class. And no, my faith has "all" the guilt!
LOL! Sorry, didn't take time to check my typing. Had to rush outside to the sandbox and assist with a 'lake'. That would be class. And no, my faith has "all" the guilt!
This is today's main post at Episcopal Cafe. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was addressing the current mini-wave of anti-religiousity riding along with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. I was struck with how well it fit with this conversation.
He mentions Prince Mishkin's statement in Dostoyeksky's "The Idiot" that atheists always seem to be talking about something else. Williams said,
Quote:
that Prince Mishkin’s response is one that a great many of religious believers are likely to feel when they pick up the works of Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens or any of those prominent critics of religious faith in our own day. We may feel as we turn the pages that ‘this is not it’ whatever the religion is being attacked here it’s not actually what I believe in. And along with that instinctive response of not recognizing, there may also be a touch of, let’s say, resentment at somebody trying to tell us what we really mean. (Because as we all know there are few things more annoying than somebody else saying ‘I know what you mean’!) More seriously, that is one of those features of a certain kind of exercise of power which is itself open to moral challenge.
We have no obvious knock-down arguments. But we say to the critic ‘look at how the focal practices of religion – not seen as survival strategy or explanation - as they actually exist. Look at how they work to create self-questioning and trust. That self-questioning and trust may be going forward on a truthful basis or not. No external force is going to settle that for us. But before writing off the religious enterprise watch, watch what happens as persons of faith grow in these habits of self-questioning and trust; in the understanding of what the Christian would undoubtedly call justification by faith.
Self-questioning and trust are not peculiar to religious people. Just as impressive moral integrity is not – God knows – the preserve of religious people. But for the secularist, for the systematic critic of religion, moral integrity, self-inspection, fundamental trust must either be reduced to a personal option (I do this because I choose to do this) or it must be reduced to another form of survival strategy. And some of the problems with that, I’ve already touched upon. The religious believer says in contrast, that moral integrity, self-inspection, honesty, openness and trust are styles of living which communicate the character of an eternal and free agency, the agency that most religions call God. Agree or disagree, is what I would want to say to our contemporary critics, but at least grasp that that is what is being claimed and talked about. Don’t distract us from the real arguments by assuming that religion is an eccentric survival strategy or an irrational form of explanation.
This is today's main post at Episcopal Cafe. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was addressing the current mini-wave of anti-religiousity riding along with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. I was struck with how well it fit with this conversation.
He mentions Prince Mishkin's statement in Dostoyeksky's "The Idiot" that atheists always seem to be talking about something else. Williams said,
(emphasis mine)
BINGO!
If I wasn't loosing thousands of brain cells a day I'd try to memorize this.
Why do you presume that an all powerful and universal being is incapable of suffering? If a being that made all the rules, chose to suffer, why couldnt it suffer?
If God chose to sin, could he sin?
Is God perfect? If so, could he choose to be imperfect?
I've already explained suffering. It's not as clear-cut as you're trying to make it. Part of the problem lies in defining omnipotence in the first place. It's a bit like infinity...mathematically useful, understandable on its face, but when you really think about what infinity entails, it defies comprehension.
If you were to say that God is incomprehensible, I could and would accept that. It's when you attempt to describe the incomprehensible that I cannot accept. It's not that human qualities cannot be reliably assigned to an incomprehensible being; it's that no qualities can be assigned. We cannot describe that which we are incapable of understanding. If you define a being as being omnimax, you place such a being beyond our comprehension.
I am a mother. I have 5 children. When my child suffers, I suffer. This does not require me to lose my life or a limb. My pain/suffering is greater than any pain you can imagine or I can put into words.
<bait snipped>
Maternal instinct is strong. It is a survival instinct as well. Here, it is the species, not the individual, that this instinct serves to protect.
Surely you don't claim that God suffers out of a need for survival?
I believe that Jesus sacrificed himself to show us the difference between a personal accomplishment (action) and prayer (inaction). And that faith should not be blind, you should have faith (or hope or trust) in love.
Is God perfect? If so, could he choose to be imperfect?
I've already explained suffering. It's not as clear-cut as you're trying to make it. Part of the problem lies in defining omnipotence in the first place. It's a bit like infinity...mathematically useful, understandable on its face, but when you really think about what infinity entails, it defies comprehension.
If you were to say that God is incomprehensible, I could and would accept that. It's when you attempt to describe the incomprehensible that I cannot accept. It's not that human qualities cannot be reliably assigned to an incomprehensible being; it's that no qualities can be assigned. We cannot describe that which we are incapable of understanding. If you define a being as being omnimax, you place such a being beyond our comprehension.
Well said.
If I were not a Christian I would agree with you.
It's my belief in a incarnate God that defies explanation and comprehention( to me it's comprehensible, and logical )
Frankly, I can't think of a time that a non-Christian agreed with a Christians explanation of belief and faith. I suppose if that did happen, then that person would be a Christian too.
You know, this is the religion and philosophy section, not the Christianity section, and I can understand many non-Christians resentment, in what appears to be by some, an effort by Christians to convert everyone.
I can honestly say that I'm a Christian ( still a sinner, in need of forgiveness ),
and my faith is something I enjoy talking about with other intelligent folks.
I would hope that I don't need to exclude non-Christians in the discussion. They offer many good perspectives.
Well said.
If I were not a Christian I would agree with you.
It's my belief in a incarnate God that defies explanation and comprehention( to me it's comprehensible, and logical )
Frankly, I can't think of a time that a non-Christian agreed with a Christians explanation of belief and faith. I suppose if that did happen, then that person would be a Christian too.
You know, this is the religion and philosophy section, not the Christianity section, and I can understand many non-Christians resentment, in what appears to be by some, an effort by Christians to convert everyone.
I can honestly say that I'm a Christian ( still a sinner, in need of forgiveness ),
and my faith is something I enjoy talking about with other intelligent folks.
I would hope that I don't need to exclude non-Christians in the discussion. They offer many good perspectives.
I thank you for a very reasonable response. Atheists don't "hate" God, nor see ourselves as gods, nor do we deny authority (or any of the other things we're accused of). We don't believe because of one simple reason: It doesn't make any sense.
It is my experiense that life in general does not make sense, unless you give it sense.
I mean love makes no sense unless you believe in it. If you choose not to believe in love, love will indeed make no sense.
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If you choose not to believe in love, love will indeed make no sense.
