What is wrong with
"liberal religion"
Not that I am all that impressed with many forms
of conservative religion, either.
Exactly why should we presume that the ONLY
alternatives to questions about
teleology --purpose in the Universe-- reduce to
Atheism vs Monotheism ?
Given obvious problems with either viewpoint, a
very reasonable case can be
made for Deity consisting of X number of "Gods"
or gods. Or for a God and
Goddess, or for Agnosticism, radical inability
despite best efforts to really know
how to answer basic questions
But leaving all that aside, what seems to be the
main problem on the religious Left
is dismissal of Satan as a Big Problem and as
forever wrecking the Good.
To toss out Satan as a factor in the world is to
give us, IMHO, false choices,
either God did it, or nothing did it except blind
nature. To me this paradigm
is totally absurd. Below is an example of the
best of the spiritual Left
which, you may agree, ultimately misses the most
important
considerations.
I am someone who enjoys debates between Atheists
and Christians
But to only convene debates between
Atheists and Christians is to close off
any number of potentially useful alternatives.
From a Christian perspective to ignore what
--for instance-- Buddhists are saying,
is to close our minds to a really important part
of humanity, exactly the wrong choice
in a world which is existentially pluralistic.
And it closes off the value
which may be gained FOR Christians FROM other
faiths.
Sure, anyone who tries can identify weaknesses in
Buddhism ( or Hinduism, etc ).
As they can --like it or not-- identify Christian
weaknesses. I would
still say that Christians do well in comparisons,
but think of the potential
gains if lessons from an area of strength of
Buddhism, psychology based
on principles for living a fully aware and moral
life, could be internalized.
And this is only one issue.
In all of this there are dangers, obviously. But
isn't globalism , 21st century
awareness that we are interlinked with people of
other faiths, THE BIG CHALLENGE
and, it may be said, the problem which "God" (
your choice of exact terminology )
requires us to solve for ourselves at this time
in history ?
My view of the matter, anyway.
Billy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Huff Po
Posted: December 13,
2010 08:38 PM
Recently I watched a debate on YouTube titled
"Does the Universe have a Purpose?" This debate,
which was held in Puebla Mexico, pitted three
prominent atheists against three prominent
theists, and to accentuate the contentiousness of
the topic each individual was invited in to the
middle of a boxing ring to argue their positions,
where they could land verbal punches against their
opponents.
Over the last several years, in the wake of 9/11,
debates between religion and science -- faith and
reason -- have become very popular and very once
combative. But these kinds of debates are by no
means a new phenomenon. CommonSenseAtheism.com
lists 564 such debates dating back to 1948,
although these debates date from well before then.
2,400 years ago Plato wrote, "Atheism is a disease
of the soul before it becomes an error of
understanding," and 300 years later the Roman
philosopher Seneca the Younger proclaimed,
"Religion is regarded by the common people as
true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as
useful."
And the debate continues unresolved. One need
only look at a series of blogs here on the
Huffington Post, along with the many strongly
worded comments, to see that we are no closer to
coming to a conclusion than were Plato and Seneca.
The two main topics of these debates are the
nature of religion and the existence of God. It is
crucial, though, that these two topics be examined
separately. It is possible to constructively
debate the merits or problems with religion. We
can all concede that people have acted wickedly in
the name of religion, that dogmatic,
fundamentalist religion has caused much suffering,
and that the refusal to accept the findings of
science which are in conflict with one's doctrine
is a foolish and small-minded position. To simply
dismiss all religion, however, is not a rational
or informed position, because we can also concede
that religion has brought much good to the world,
that most believers are not literalists, that
religion itself is a very diverse and complex
institution, and that insecurity, ideology and
greed for power, not religion, have been the
causes of most wars (and that to call Communism,
Fascism, Nationalism and Nazism "religions" is to
so distort the definition as to make it useless
and unintelligible).
When the debate moves on to question of the
existence of God, though, the dialogue hits a
brick wall. The atheist side typically presents
the position that belief in God is an immature
science and that God is a provable or disprovable
hypothesis for why things are the way they are,
which, they argue, can be easily disproved:
Evolution eliminates the need for a creator,
double blind tests prove that prayer doesn't work,
psychology has demonstrated that human beings
often mistake random pattern for meaningful
purpose, observation shows that we are an
insignificant spot in the midst of a vast chaotic
universe, and the death of a single innocent child
makes the belief in a benevolent, omnipotent,
omniscient God absurd, or even offensive.
The theist side then responds with arguments to
rebut these points: The universe is too fine-tuned
to be an accident, without a loving God there are
no objective standards or source of values, and
the very fact that we can comprehend the workings
of physicality with our minds demonstrates the
existence of a purposeful creator. Atheists then
counter that there is absolutely no objective,
quantifiable proof that God exists, that religion
is ignorant of, uninterested in or dismissive of
modern science, and that to believe in something
without proof is inherently dangerous, especially
when one thinks that he is acting on divine
authority. The theist responds, and so on.
The debate about the existence of God hits a
brick wall because there is an essential
misunderstanding about the nature of God: None of
the proofs that atheists are looking for, or any
counter argument from the theists, would be
adequate proof. In the Peubla debate, Michael
Shermer said that he'd find convincing proof, "if
you could have God grow new limbs on amputees from
the Iraq war, Christian soldiers, praying for them
to be healed. This has not happened even
Apparently God can not do even what amphibians
can do." But even if this did happen, it would not
prove the existence of God but would instead prove
that there is some kind of regenerative force or
energy that responds to the right kind of conscious
thought. Likewise, a glowing presence and booming
voice appearing on the White House lawn proclaiming
"I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the
land of Egypt, the house of bondage" as the waters
of the Potomac part, would prove that there is an
entity with powerful technology, and would be no
more a proof of God than an airplane to a cave man.
And irrefutable proof that Moses really did write
the first five books of the Bible, that Jesus died
and was resurrected, or that an unearthly being
appeared to Muhammad and Joseph Smith to dictate new
texts, would support some of the claims of religions
but does not prove that there is a purposeful,
loving Creator and Sustainer.
The truth is that nothing -- no thing -- can
prove the existence of God.
The attempt to prove the existence of God through
the scientific method of hypothesis, controlled
experimentation, observation and documentable
repeatable results is somewhat akin to trying to
discover the cause of a person's response to a
deeply moving work of art. We can examine the
painting, analyze the composition of the canvas
and pigment, study the arrangement of shapes and
colors, discover the historical context of the
work and the biography of the artists, or even
conduct psychological experiments and CT scans,
but none of this will do anything to explain,
understand and share in the person's aesthetic
experience. This person may try to explain her
experience, but she will ultimately fail to
convince someone who only sees pigment on canvas,
and who may conclude that her experience is
delusional, and that the study of aesthetics is a
waste of time. To the person who was so deeply
impacted by the painting, though, such an
assertion completely misses the point, and does
nothing to convince her that her experience is not
real, and that she was not touched and expanded by
her encounter.
In this way, arguments and experiments can not
prove the existence of God because God is not an
hypothesis. For human beings, God is the
experience of a transformative relationship with
creation itself, in which we know that the
Universe is inherently meaningful, that we were
created for a staggering purpose that will unfold
over eons, that love and gratitude are the
essential actual materials of our lives and that
we are holy beings.
The experience of a relationship with God is not
one of religious doctrine, does not come from
statistics, experiments or argument, and is
certainly not in conflict with science and reason
in any way. It is also not about righteous
certainty or judgment. The experience of God
expands the possibilities for our lives and
increases the feeling of mystery and intellectual
curiosity about the world. Reason and observation
are crucial elements in faith. Faith and reason
are not mutually exclusive and are no more in
conflict than civil engineering and poetry.
As a rabbi and person of faith, I have no
interest in proving the existence of God and
certainly do not want to convert anyone to my
religion or way of thinking. What I am passionate
about, though, is helping bring others to an
experience and relationship with God because I
know that such a relationship can create powerful
positive personal and communal transformation. One
brings another to the experience of God not
through philosophical or material proof, but
through living the example of gratitude, purpose,
compassion and love.
No doubt the debates about the existence of God
will continue, and we can enjoy the spectacle, but
I suspect that no amount of clever verbal exchange
will do anything to convince anyone either way.
