Hitch is dead

I guess that I am more concerned with how churches use their resources more than with how much they have.Also on a more philosophical note, and I know how much you love philosophy, the church is a result of human formed institutions built around a set of beliefs.The church has been a mess and sometimes more so than others. We have had leaders support despots when it suited them. It has been supportive and occasionally even been part of instigating occupational wars. It has been involved with subjugating indigenous cultures in occupied countries. Some of the leaders of been involved in all sorts of scandals including sexual abuse etc. The church has warts and lots of themFortunately, partly because they have no choice, things are getting better. In Canada it is the church that has been more involved than any other group in supporting our indigenous people and supporting their culture and openly admitting to and apologising fro the church from past generations.I am primarily concerned with what I can control or at least influence. I can control what I do and I can influence my local church.This though is the result of human weakness and subsequent failings. It is something that is totally distinct from the veracity of the Gospel message. It may often be a bad witness to the belief in a loving God as perfectly modelled by Jesus but it says nothing about the veracity of that belief. It does nothing to dispel or confirm whether or not Jesus being resurrected is a historical fact.

I build my house on the firm belief that Jesus embodied perfectly the nature and desires of God for humanity and our world. I build my house on the belief that God resurrected Jesus and that somehow in the end it is the precursor of what God will do for all of creation. That gives me purpose in the belief that ultimately life has meaning. My house is built on the belief that my signature is a template of how life is supposed to be lived as part of that ultimate purpose.The atheistic belief is that all life is transitory, that how our lives should be lived is arbitrary and culturally driven, and that ultimately there is nothing but oblivion.Neither of us know whether our understanding of our world and why we are here is true, but I would ask just whose house it is that is built on sand.Edited by GDR, : typo

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’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 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.

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.

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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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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.

Belief in what though. I contend that there is no rational argument to support the belief that we exist only as a result in mindless processes evolving form an endless stream of mindless processes all resulting in life as we know it.IMHO it is more rational to believe that there is an intelligent agency responsible for our existence. To get from deism to theism is another discussion.

The obvious inadequacy is that the evolutionary process requires a process to get it started, which required a process etc, all by mindless chance. The most parsimonious answer is that an intelligent agency is behind it all regardless of how it was accomplished.

And that is how you rationalize your way around an endless non-evidenced stream of processes to arrive at our present world.We have no way of knowing whether there is a need for an intelligent agent or not. Tangle claims that the process is the agency. That is a belief. WE can study the evolutionary process all we want but all that is going to give us is the latest process that got us to where we are. We don't know whether an intelligent agent was required or not. Sure it's a problem. Of course the theistic view is that God is not restricted to our one dimension of time and is eternal.Of course I don't know that nut IMHO it makes a great deal more sense to believe that than it does to believe that sentient life could have arisen from mindless chemicals without even asking where those chemicals came from. OK, but then that is the case for both of us. You are simply assuming that we are the result of mindlessness and claiming that no intelligent agency is necessary.

Yes, there is suffering and lots of it. I have acknowledged that suffering is the biggest problem that Christians have to face. We can reject God on that grounds and easily justify it. However, I chosen to accept that suffering is a part of this world and that God suffers along with us. Jesus suffered on the cross. God gets it.On that basis I simply assume on faith that this is how it has to be and do my best to respond to the call to live out the life as seen in my signature. As you have said before, except I don't know what it has to do with monotheism. Yes, it is all belief. It isn't something we can examine in a test tube or with a telescope,Edited by GDR, : typo

OK. Let's make it easy. Just outline the process that was responsible for the process of evolution. Maybe when you've done that start thinking about the process that started that process. ...then assuming that there is no intelligent agency involved isn't a rational position either. In either case we look at what we know and come to a subjective conclusion. I have subjectively concluded that sentient life evolving through a series of mindless chemical processes is far less likely than there being an intelligent agency responsible for all of the processes. I know that Tangle would say that only gets us to deism. It is a different discussion to get to theism from deism. But the issue is how do we get sentient life from the mindless fundamental particles from the big bang. That is without even asking where those particles were before the BB. Did that all happen with or without intelligent agency? That just isn't correct. Your position requires a series of processes each requiring a cause. I take the parsimonious position that there is only one cause which is that there is an intelligent agency responsible for the whole shebang.

As I have provided you with reasons that your belief is in error. And, if you want to say that you have no belief then how about settling on your belief that I am wrong. Well I do believe that in the next life our world won't be subject to time in one direction as we know it, and as a result death and decay aren't a factor. I don't believe that there will be suffering as we know it, but I do believe that the lives that we are living now will have an impact on how we live in the next life. I tend to think of it in the ways that your favourite philosopher C S Lewis wrote about it in The Great Divorce and in some ways even more so in The Last Battle. I do believe that we won't be subjected to a theological quiz to make sure we got our theology right.

It’s not. How am I limiting the possibilities for youi. I am simply asking the question of what is the process that kicked the evolutionary process off. You simply evade the question. Just why is it disgusting. It seems that pretty much everyone here is allowed to make ad hominem against theists but heaven forbid the holy grail of atheism be questioned. In other words you can’t answer the question .
Here is a quote from the 2nd edition of Darwin’s Origin of the Species.
From Darwin Online

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Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

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Darwin’s answer to the question was the parsimonious answer. There was a creator. You however deny that there is even a question. We exist which is what we firmly know. Why is that? You seem to believe that the mindless particles that existed after the BB have just somehow come together and formed chemicals that combined into incredibly complex basic cellular life and then into sentient beings all by good fortune, and then call that rational. Just read my last sentence. We have mindless particles ending up in sentient life. What clearer sign do you need? As I’ve said before, it is like looking at a car and then finding out that it was built on an assembly line and then declaring that the assembly line just assembled itself. The evidence is that there has been an evolutionary process. What process is responsible for it? As you don’t know, you simply evade the question. No. You seem to make the assumptions that evolution on its own got us from what existed after the time of the BB to sentient life without requiring additional processes in between. That just isn’t rational nor evidenced. It requires agency. Mindless agency requires a separate agency every step of the way meaning multiple agencies. Intelligent agency parsimoniously requires only one agency.