Hitch is dead

Perhaps I am going stir crazy being at home so much. Nevermind that I do enjoy arguing occasionally. I actually have a week off from the grocery store and what better way to alleviate stress than arguing with you about how many angels fit on the head of a pin! First off, you can't speak for atheists any more than I can speak for all believers. Perhaps you all have arrived at a definition of what you are to be defined as...I can always google Matt Dillahunty if I need any further confirmation. One reason I decided to quibble with you again was due to several statements you made earlier: I will agree with you that virtually none of us do as Jesus commanded. Giving up all that you have saved, acquired, and use is quite difficult for the average person to do. I am not about to go off on a homeless jaunt into the mean streets to tell other homeless people about the power, love, and majesty of our Living Jesus Christ. My faith is simply not strong enough. Add the fact that I couldn't handle sleeping under bridges and in shelters especially during COVID-19! As for the church and its hoarded wealth, I am reminded once of something John Lennon said before his untimely death. I am paraphrasing, but I remember someone accusingly asked the wealthy Beatle (estimated fortune at the time: $150 Million) why he didn't simply give to the poor and help feed them. He stated that he very well could do just that but even with his vast fortune, they all would eat for perhaps a week and then be as hungry then as they are now while his fortune would be spent and he would then have no resources whatsoever to help anyone with anything.
It's much the same with churches. They could well sell their buildings and assets to help the less fortunate, but once that was all gone the poor would still be with us and the churches would have no assets to fall back on. One could argue that they would still have the God that they believed in, but if so, that God can use people to help the poor individually rather than in a socialist collective way that you seem to suggest need happen. All that being said, I agree with your basic point that few if any Christians have the guts to listen to Jesus and take His words literally. Guilty as charged.

There you go again, completely uncomprehending. Of course I can speak for all atheists! I can say without any chance of contradiction that we all know that we're going to die. And that it's dead dead. Not dead, try again like a video game, dead.I can also claim that all atheists can lead a perfectly decent life without kowtowing to an invisible superbeing. Was there anything else that I missed? Why is this so hard for you? We all don't believe in god/s. That's it. It's really not at all complicated. It's not just that none of you follow his instructions- you'd be crazy to do it. It's that your institutions actually do exactly the opposite - they behave like rabid capitalists while telling you the opposite. Why doyou fall for it?

I answered that. I don't know what you want me to say. If we are the result of an external intelligence then it does. If nothing but mindless processes then you are right. You have no trouble telling Christians on this forum what it is that believe and you seldom get it right. You seem to claim absolute knowledge that life is transitory. Fine, but that is still your belief whether you like it or not.You like to keep telling me what I believe. I don't need belief in an afterlife to get through this one. Frankly, I don't give it a lot of consideration. Yes, I believe that there is an afterlife but my belief is about how I should lead my life serving a loving creator as embodied by Jesus. And again you are telling me what I believe and getting it all wrong. I haven't created anything, and I certainly haven't built my life around my belief in an afterlife. Once again you keep telling Christians what they believe and getting it wrong.

I'd just like you to recognise that the institutions that have created your belief don't practice it themselves. Just saying that they're human creations and therefor fallible doesn't cut it. You tell us all the time what you believe, it's impossible to stop you! And you forget that I have the advantage of having believed the same stuff as you do and belonged to the same institutions. I'm sure you're not denying your believe in the afterlife and all the paraphernalia that comes with it, but you've told us enough to make it clear that the church and your beliefs are central to your life.

I’m not sure why you keep harping on about the assets of institutional churches. That is the least of the problems. Institutional churches have supported unsupportable wars, attempted to eliminate local cultures in some cases, covered up sexual abuse etc.The good news is much of that is improving. One example is the Anglican church in Canada is taking responsibility for the churches part in the attempt by government to isolate and eliminate the cultures of our indigenous neighbours. What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to do what you do and claim that I know that God exists and that His nature is perfectly embodied by Jesus?
You said this in an earlier post. I’m honest enough to say that it is belief.I wasn’t always a Christian. I don’t recall ever saying that I was an atheist. I simply didn’t call myself anything. I suppose I was agnostic. Yes, my church and my beliefs are absolutely central to my life. However, my point was that if Christianity didn’t teach belief in that this life is extended beyond death, I would still have the church as central to my life.I spent many years involved as a political volunteer with the hope that the politicians I supported and worked for would make Canada a better country for all. Frankly, it wasn’t going to make much of a difference to my life but it was something that I believed in.I believe that Jesus’ teaching if lived out would make the world a better place for all. That is not to deny that I believe that God resurrected Jesus and that Jesus perfectly embodied God’s nature, but ultimately it goes back to love of neighbour as we see in Jesus’ parables like the good Samaritan, the sheep and the goats etc.God isn’t that hard to find if you know where to look.Finding God

I'm showing you that the source of the Christian belief system is not Christian. And you seem to agree. This should give you pause for thought. You only believe what you believe because of these institutions. They created and maintain the belief systems and they're human, failed organisations.You can add that to the unanswerable problem of suffering and the natural source for morality in our society. You were the purest form of atheist. You didn't believe in god. More importantly, you probably didn't even think about it. That's real atheism. Perhaps you would; people with similar interests form clubs and communities. However, Christianity does teach belief in resurrection and redemption - it's its central message isn't it? You tell us this yourself - often. Without it it would just be another social gathering.

I don’t believe in, or do my best to serve, the institutions. I do believe in,and try to serve a God of love as we see in the person of Jesus, where the Word became flesh.The church is always in need of reformation and in my humble opinion the church has been going through a period of reformation over the last few decades. It is far from perfect when you look at the institutional side of it but when you drill down to the local churches my experience has been that there is a tremendous number of people that are faithfully serving each other, the local community and the world. Not really. I suppose I did think about it occasionally but it wasn’t really having an impact on my life. I didn’t actively believe that there was no god so I think that I would stick with the term agnostic. I accepted basic Christianity in my mid thirties. I agree. Resurrection is fundamental to Christian belief. If I didn’t believe that God resurrected Jesus then I wouldn’t consider myself a Christian. If God didn’t resurrect Jesus then it is all pointless and it would have been pointless to the first followers of Jesus. Jesus would have simply been another failed messiah. In more modern terms it would make more sense to follow Gandhi.My point is that simply being a Christian is a call to vocation. It is a call to be Christ-like and take God’s gift of love to the world. If it is simply about gaining brownie points with God so that we gain access to a better life in a renewed world, then it is simply self serving and not what God calls us to.I do agree that it is difficult to separate resurrection from personal salvation. The Christian message as I believe it is about the resurrection of all things as part of the renewal of all things. My point is that right now all I can do is relate to the world as I currently know it. I’ll worry about the next life in a renewed world when I get there.

But GDR, don't you see? It was the institutions that taught you what to believe. Without the institutions you couldn't possibly know about the Jesus myth. They created it and propagated it. Just like other belief systems do.People become Muslims - of whatever flavour - because they are taught it by muslim institutions that invented it. Even better examples are mormonism and scientology. There are hundreds of other invented religions that people become members of only because their culture teaches it. It's not an accident that you're not a Hindu. To believe in something is a positive action. You know if you believe in god don't you? If you don't even think about it, how can you be a believer? If you're not a believer you are an atheist. There really is no such thing as an agnostic. As Yoda almost said, 'there is no don't know, only is or is not' We all do that - it doesn’t require a god.

First of all, I disagree. In fact, I boldly say you are WRONG. Jesus not only existed but currently exists. Jesus was before the book was even written, except as the Rhema of the Holy Spirit. You don't seem to get this about believers. At best, you denigrate this belief as secondary to your "facts". The real fact is that you do not know 100% whether God exists, whether Jesus Christ exists, and/or whether He is capable of communion with humans. Don't tell me about evidence. Naysayers have done cartwheels for years attempting to disprove his existence. The very fact that many detractors are so passionate and dogged in their attempts to discredit this story which you call a myth serves as evidence to me that there is something different about Jesus Christ in that there are many many other myths that never elicit such passion (pro and con) from humanity.I know that you are an oddball who dwells on these things. You will lecture me that my chosen "God" is nothing beyond a character in a book written by humans. This is, however, your opinion. You have no way of knowing that this is true.Prove me wrong.I will share with you some scrip (which I know you find unimpressive and unconvincing). You will simply say that the book cannot prove the reality of the story in the book. But let me quote it. I basically believe the same as Paul said. God does not need a book any more than He needs a Temple. Perhaps you would rather believe the story that everything simply expanded from a singularity and that everything that ever existed must be matter, energy or the thoughts of living creatures (which thus) originated from such a source. And what makes that story any more credible than the Book of Acts? Only that you claim that it can be explained and traced through observable evidence. The fact is, we have not observed every step of the evidence towards that conclusion any more than we can verify the authors of the "Book" or the intentions thereof.My point is that your argument is not anymore valid than mine.

Firstly the problems that we can see in the institutions frankly seem far removed to me. The different pastors/rectors I have had have all been really good people. The churches I have attended have all been congregations of people all struggling at following Christian principles to the best of their ability.Also, I have actually learned more about my faith through reading a wide variety of authors including atheists with many points of view, and frankly I have learned to a degree from personal experience. Christianity makes sense of my life and the world I live in, in ways that nothing else does. It doesn’t require belief in a god.

We have gone around on this a number of times before so I left it alone. However, I remembered reading an interview of John Polkinghorne a while back and the question was addressed to him. I thought that it would be worthwhile just to give another point of view.For anybody else, here is the wiki page on Polkinghorne, who was one of the world’s leading physicists who then went into Anglican ministry in his late 40’s.
John Polkinghorne
Here is the link to the whole interview.
John Polkinghorne InterviewHere is the part of the interview that is pertinent to Tangle’s comment.

quote:

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MS. TIPPETT:Yes. Right. That’s what I wanted to ask you, the question, if all these terrible things happen, what does that say about the nature of God?

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:Absolutely. I mean, the greatest difficulty of religious belief, obviously, is the way the world is. It is beautiful and it’s fruitful, but it’s also ugly and terrifying, and dreadful things happen in the world. And the problem of evil and suffering is a very great problem. Now, this scientific insight helps us a little bit with that. If creatures are going to make themselves, to explore this potentiality, there will be blind alleys and ragged edges in that exploration. That’s bound to happen. And, I mean, a very simple example is this: What the engine that has driven the three-and-a-half-billion-year history of life on Earth has, of course, been genetic mutation. I mean, for two billion years or so there were only bacteria. Then things complexified, because genes mutated and new possibilities came along. So that’s been a tremendous fruitfulness. But, if that’s going to happen, it’s inevitable that other cells will mutate and will become malignant. You can’t have one without the other. So, though the fact there is cancer in the world is obviously an anguishing fact about the world, it’s not, so to speak, gratuitous. It’s not something that a God who is a bit more competent or a bit more compassionate could easily have eliminated. It’s the shadow side of a world allowed to make itself.

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MS. TIPPETT:What does that way of looking at the world say about something like a tsunami?

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:Well, if God allows creatures to be, God will allow tectonic plates to be.

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MS. TIPPETT:So creatures, not just human beings, but every aspect of nature?

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:When I say creatures, I’m thinking of the whole created order, different parts of it. For example, we believe that having tectonic plates is an important necessity for a planet that’s going to have life because, between the plates, new material wells up from inside and replenishes, so to speak, the surface of the earth. But, of course, if there are going to be tectonic plates, not only will that happen, but sometimes they will slip. And when they slip, that will create an earthquake or, if it’s under the sea, will create a tsunami. I mean, again, it’s a hard answer. I mean, it’s not a

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MS. TIPPETT:It’s not a compassionate answer.

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:Well, it’s not a I think it has an element of compassion in it, but it’s not a sentimental answer.

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MS. TIPPETT:Right.

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:That’s for sure. I mean, a great Oxford theologian said there was this tremendous earthquake in Lisbon in 17 whatever it is 55, and it killed 50,000 people in one day. And he said, Well, it was God’s will. I think the hard answer was that the elements of the earth clashed and behaved in accordance of their nature. They are allowed to be just as you and I are allowed to be. It’s not an easy answer, but I think, actually, it is the true answer.

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MS. TIPPETT:Well that that I mean, this is something I’ve come to understand through your work, this idea that free will is built in and that it’s a gift, essentially, that human beings experience it as a gift. We’re not robots. But earthquakes will be earthquakes, or tectonic plates also have their essence of being. Right? That’s what you’re saying.

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:That’s right. They have their essence of being. And that is respected.

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MS. TIPPETT:And that these freedoms and this is the essential nature that’s given to every aspect of creation can collide and cause effects which will be devastating for one side or the other.

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:Yes, I think that’s right. I think that God does respect the integrity of creation. God is not a sort of magician or an interferer. I’m sure God interacts with the history of the world, but not in a way that overrules it. I believe that God wills neither the act of a murderer nor the incidence of an earthquake, but allows both to happen in a world which is a creation given a degree of independence by its Creator.

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MS. TIPPETT:I’m Krista Tippett, on Being conversation about meaning, religion, ethics, and ideas. Today, Quarks and Creation. My guest is physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne.

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I asked him: If the possibility of suffering is built into the creation as he understands it, what does that say about the nature of God? Doesn’t it take us right back to the age-old question of theodicy? That is the question: How could a good God have made a world in which there is so much innocent suffering?

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:I think I’d want to say three things. First of all, I mean, the sort of argument we’ve been having at the moment is an intellectual argument. And I think it’s mildly helpful, but it doesn’t, of course, answer all the problems. I mean, the problems with evil and suffering are deep existential problems. Why is this happening to me? or Why is this happening to somebody I love? And those are entirely legitimate questions to ask.

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There’s a particular Christian insight that seems very, very important to me, indeed, in some sense, enables the possibility of Christian belief, and that is that the Christian God is not simply a compassionate spectator, invulnerable up in heaven, looking down on this strange and suffering world, but has also been a fellow sufferer, a fellow participant in the agony of creation. The cross of Christ, understood from the point of view of Christian theology, is God living a human life and nailed to the cross in the darkness and in the paradox of the dereliction My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? of Calvary.

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So God knows human suffering and the suffering of creation from the inside and not simply from the outside. And also, I don’t want to play a sort of pie-in-the-sky type of answer to things, but I do believe that this life is not the only life we live. I do believe we have a destiny beyond death. And though that doesn’t explain away the suffering of this world, I think they would be even more bitter, really, if there were no such destiny to look forward to.

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MS. TIPPETT:And that’s an article of faith, really.

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:Well, it’s an article. Of course, as a Christian, I believe that it’s an article of faith that has been exemplified and guaranteed within history by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but it’s not something with which we have direct experience.

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You know, there’s a very deep human intuition of hope. Peter Berger makes this very beautifully in a little book of his called A Rumor of Angels. He takes everyday things and says, Think about them for a minute. Where are they pointing you? They’re deeper than you think. And one of the things he says is a child wakes up in the middle of the night, scared by a dream or something like that, a parent goes to the child and says, It’s all right. And Berger says, Now, what’s going on there? Is that a loving lie? Because, obviously, cancer, concentration camps, the world is not exactly just all right.

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MS. TIPPETT:Yeah, lots of perils. Yeah.

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:But nevertheless, he says that is a deep human intuition, and the assurance that that’s so is an important part of enabling that child to grow up into full humanity. So there is a deep-seated human intuition of hope, the strangeness and bitterness of the world notwithstanding. And I do take that very seriously.

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MS. TIPPETT:You take that seriously?

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:Yes, I do.

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MS. TIPPETT:As part of the evidence we have of the truth we’re trying to get at?

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DR. POLKINGHORNE:Well, I think Berger calls these things signals of transcendence, hints that take us beyond the everyday level of things. And I take it seriously at that level, yes.

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If I am, you have to show how. Well, you got that right. First blood to you. Huh? Why do you think you are able to remove all rational argument? Have you heard of blasphemy? I live in an advanced, Western liberal democracy but the blasphemy law was only repealed in 2008. A few generations ago people that believed the things that you believe would demand my death by nasty means for saying the things I say.And in many countries theocratic states still murder blasphemers. So guess what, not many people are brave enough to speak ill of Mohammed. Check my signature is GDR is fond of saying. Why do you think that it's worth quoting me something that you know I won't think is worth quoting? Are you trying to convince me or yourself? Why should I or anyone else care what you believe? Unless you can provide a good reason why I should too, it's just a shrug. Only?Would you rather rely on prayer or have a CV19 vaccine? Pick one.

Which is all the usual rationalisations that don't in anyway answer the problem. What he's saying is that the universe is the way it is because that's the way it needs to be to for it to create us - and everything else. A circular argument.It's an error ridden argument on many levels.First it's an argument for a deistic, non-interventionist, fire-and-forget god which is not what you or he believes.Second, despite his protestations it shows a limited god, a lessor god that is unable to create the end product that he desires without making and remaking imperfect versions of it for billions of years.Third, it creates an hugely immoral god that builds an enormous experiment which tortures and kills every living thing for billions of years before this perfection can arrive - and knows the suffering that it creates but does it anyway.Fourth, he's really dumb. I mean seriously stupid. Depending on which version of Christianity you have chosen to believe, none of this vile experimentation is necessary. God is capable of creating places where none of this suffering happens or is necessary - the Garden of Eden and Heaven. And the GoE is redundant; heaven is seemingly fine and his end goal - none of this experimentation is actually necessary is it?

I don't see why that's circular. It involves creating a world that involved bringing about creatures that were able to be involved in the creation of more life. It evolved the way it is. Not at all. It's an argument for a god that created beings, that would being given the ability to sub-consciously connect to His loving concern for the creation, and choose to care for that creation. You could do better I suppose. Yes there is suffering and a lot of people and other creatures endure it. But, there is also joy and hope for most of us, likely including yourself.So maybe God does have limitations. It appears to me that life at all, let alone sentient life able to make moral decisions is a pretty mean accomplishment. It is enough for me. And, although you clearly disagree, we can wait and see what comes next. Every living thing eh. Personally I'm not feeling the torture. And you know that how? The Garden of Eden is a metaphorical location and heaven is simply God's dimension. Also the goal of ultimately getting to heaven is the Platonic beliefs that crept into Christianity early on. The Biblical view is that this world will be renewed and that somehow God's heavenly, and our earthly dimension in some manner. In the meantime I'll let go deal with that stuff and get on as best I can with my life now in this universe/dimension.

I agree. You likely would state that IF God exists and is all-powerful He not only has the ability but the responsibility to shield us and protect us from every harmful event that comes our way. But we cannot dictate what God *should* do if God in fact exists and is omnipotent. Of course, we can claim to define His responsibility, but we are not the final arbiter of His duties and responsibilities. It's like having a kid grow up and leave home. Parents are no longer responsible for the child when they reach a certain age of accountability. It's likely the same with God and humanity. There are certain conditions on this planet which are a part of the natural order and which...even if God had the power to change...are meant to be part of our character development.And of course, you have already concluded that God is a myth...despite having no conclusive proof that this is so. So on and on we go. Because there is no rational argument apart from belief. You have simply decided to label belief as fantasy-driven wish fulfillment, never understanding that at least some believers have had an actual mind-altering event that solidified and defined their faith. People have always behaved badly, especially in mob settings. Speaking for myself, I would hardly demand your death but would fight back if you and the liberal elitists tried to censor preaching as hate speech or limit the speech of believers. We certainly won't limit your speech. I'm not an idiot. Of course, I would pick the vaccine, even though it likely will be around 60% effective. And my prayers are best served directed on behalf of others rather than as a means to protect only myself.