Could God have Evolved?
Seanna Watson 1333884
>In article <1991Oct18.1...@bnr.ca> sea...@ncrka16.bnr.ca (Seanna Watson >1333884) writes:
>> You
>>appear to have a misuderstanding of the concept of faith, perhaps described
>>by the pejorative: "Faith is believing what you know to be untrue". I do not
>>subscribe to that kind of faith.
>I've never seen faith described the way you mention. "believing what
>you know to be untrue" sounds like a logical contradiction to me. Could
>you describe what faith means to you? I'm not trying to set you up,
>I'm genuinely curious.
You're right, it is a logical contradiction. You have suggested that my
Christian beliefs contradict what I know to be rational thought. The
implication is that I hold onto my faith, despite obvious evidence to the
contrary.
Since you ask, here is what and how I believe:
I find that there is sufficient evidence for me to justify belief in God.
I do not wish to argue this point; I get to choose my own assumptions, and
build upon them rationally until they fall apart, at which point I can
backtrack and rebuild.
>I could postulate
>the existence of a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent God, but I have
>no idea how to apply logic to these concepts in order to deduce anything
>useful.
I am not sure how much further I can explain this,
as it is difficult for a person to appreciate or even understand another's
system of belief when they disagree on assumptions as basic as the existence
of God. (I have had discussions with atheists and/or agnostics in which
we have come to a mutual understanding on what points we can agree on, and
where we will agree to disagree, but this is time-consuming, and extremely
sensitive to (mis-)understanding of terminology, therefore probably not
well-suited to the net.)
>>If you do not know that there is no God, then you are an agnostic (not an
>>atheist). If you teach this to your children, you are teaching them agnost-
>>icism.
>Sorry, but this is a misconception on your part. The endless discussions
>in alt.atheism about what an atheist actually believes attest to the fact
>that you are not alone.
I apologize for my ignorance about this distinction. I understand that
atheists believe (or disbelieve) in a variety of different things, with
varying levels of certainty.
>You should ask yourself why you ever thought that atheists were somehow
>less moral than Christians. Could it be that it was an irrational belief
>conditioned into you during your Christian upbringing. Even though
>I was raised without religion, I too had this same belief. I thought that
>Christians were somehow more upright than myself. Such is the power of the
>Christian propaganda machine.
1) I did *not* have a Christian upbringing.
2) I would like to make clear that I was talking about holding a moral code,
not about moral behaviour, and I was contrasting atheists and theists, not
atheists and Christians. Here is why: Most theists believe in a god who
has things that s/he wants people to do, therefore a moral code is inherent in
theism. As far as I can tell, there is no reason why a moral code should
be inherent in atheism. Of course, atheists can and do develop moral codes,
consistent with their beliefs. However, my former belief that atheists did not
hold moral codes was supported by my frequent personal contact with atheists
who explicitly stated that morality was irrelevant to them because they
were atheists.
(Note that I am in no way suggesting that Christians or other theists are
better at adhering to their moral codes than atheists are.)
>Did you bring up your conversion as an example of your use of critical
>thought? I agree that it was (nobody ever said that theists *never*
>use reason) but I don't understand how the "spiritual things" aided
>this reasoning.
No, this was not an example of how well I can use critical thought, it
was an example of how people make false assumptions about the beliefs
of others.
>Does anybody knowingly commit intellectual suicide?
Yes, there are theists (Christian and otherwise) who believe that what
their objective knowledge and logic tells them cannot be trusted, esp-
ecially if it conflicts with religious teaching. The statement "The ways
of the Lord are not for us to know" is frequently used in this context.
>How do you explain evil to your kids?
I do not claim to have all the answers. One explanation of evil is that
it is a necessary consequence of free will. Does atheism explain the
problem of evil better than Christianity?
>I haven't been able to discern what Christians think the answer to the Why?
>question is though.
>Is this answer something that can be expressed in words that an atheist
>could understand? I've read large chunks of the Bible, but I don't get
>any clear meaning from it.
The Christian answer to the Why? question is predicated on the existence of
God, as is nearly all of the meaning in the Bible.
>The young earth creationists should accept that Genesis is a myth, because
>science is telling us quite different things.
Agreed.
>As it is now, we can't really trust science at all, because
>God could pop in at any time and perform a miracle.
All the molecules in your chair could suddenly move to one side, and
dump you on the floor, but presumably you continue to behave as if it
is a solid surface.
> Perhaps you do understand
>God, and he is not a fuzzy concept to you?
I do not claim to understand God, but I do understand a sufficient number
of things *about* God to allow me to use logic.
--
Seanna Watson Bell-Northern Research,
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Opinions, what opinions? Oh *these* opinions.
No, they're not BNR's, they're mine.
I knew I'd left them somewhere.