The Blog: Cogito Ergo Blogo
How Can Smart People Still Believe in God?
28 October, 2006, 06:48 pm
As a philosopher, I tend to want my beliefs to be based on either direct experience or reasoned arguments. Even if some belief of mine is not in fact so based, I like to flatter myself that all my current beliefs are capable of being, as it were, ratified by either some reasoned argument or by the testimony of direct experience. And I'd like to think that if it were to be decisively settled that some belief of mine could not be so , I would more or less spontaneously surrender that belief, more or less without regret or remorse or wishful thinking of any kind. It seems to me one could and should have much the same attitude toward religious belief. One should want to believe in the existence of god only if one is confident that such belief is capable of being ratified by either reasoned argument or direct experience.
Now there are lots of what purport to be reasoned arguments for the existence of god. The argument from design, the ontological argument, arguments from fine-tuning, and on and on. But two things about those arguments strike me. I don't think any one of them is at all rationally compelling. At the very least, an atheist can, I think, argue the theist to a stand-still with counterarguments. If you start out neutral with respect to god and try to reason your way to his existence by appeal to any of the traditional philosophical arguments, you just aren't going to get all the way to positive belief, in my humble opinion. And that I think is the very best that can be said for traditional arguments for the existence of god.
The very worst that can be said for them is that they are all demonstrably invalid and incapable of compelling rational belief in the existence of god. And if the worst that can be said is true, then that seems to suggest that belief in god is a form of unreason.
But here's the thing. I don't think the real basis of most believers' belief even purports to be anything like reasoned argument. I mean I don't think I've ever met a single person who's been talked out of belief by the failure of any of the traditional philosophical arguments or who's been talked into belief by the success of those arguments. Does that mean that most believers are unreasoning? Well, some surely are. But I'm not prepared to say that most or all are.
What then is the basis of belief in rational, intelligent, reflective, scientifically literate thinking people in the modern age? Direct experience of god's presence in the world, perhaps?
A good friend of mine sometimes talks that way about god. He -- my friend -- is a very good person. He recently went to Guatamala, I think it was, to help his church build some houses for the desparately poor people who live in a rural village there. I recall hearing him say something to the effect that he had never felt the presence of god so clearly as on that trip. I think many believers have thoughts like this. They think they experience the concrete effects of god's presence in their own lives or operating through others. When I came closest to sincere belief in my own life, it was because my very devout then girlfriend was a luminously good person. Her religious conviction seemed to me to light up her soul. Certainly her belief was partly responsible for leading her to do many, many good and caring things. I had never met a person quite like her and I really wanted and tried to believe as she believed.
In the end, though, I found that although I admired her goodness and wanted to emulate it to the small extent that I could, I could not bring myself to believe as she believed -- no argument and no experience was sufficient to bring me to belief. Though she perhaps felt god's presence in the world and took herself to be responding to it with her goodness and caring, somehow she was unable to bring me to feel god's presence. Perhaps that's just the way it is. Some people feel it and others don't. And there's not much one can do to get another across the divide.
The problem with the direct perception of god's presence is that even those who profess to directly perceive or feel god's presence in the world, have to confess that god makes his presence felt pretty sporadically and selectively. If I had been a jew in Hitler's concentration camp, or an innocent, peaceful and devout Shia Muslim in Saddam's Iraq or any sort of peace loving believer in the current chaotic and deadly Iraq, I would long for greater signs of god's presence and for greater signs of his love and wisdom. I know that some religious traditions condemn such longings as prideful and arrogant. But even believers must admit that so often, in the darkest hour, in the hour of most need, the voice of god goes silent, his hand is stilled and his face disappears as if behind a dark veil.
Now some believers will admit that arguments run out, that experience is insufficient to dispel doubt. And yet, still they believer. But on what basis?
Some turn to pure faith, grounded in neither reason nor direct experience. But making a leap of ungrounded faith seems tantamount to jumping off a cliff, intending to reach a supposed other side that you have no grounds whatsoever for believing even exists. That, I think, is an act of pure desparation. Is religious belief really such?
At this point, some believers might choose to turn quasi-fictionalist. This seemed to be something like what Howie Wettstein in our show about the meaning of life was getting at. Wettstein posits god as a kind of "cosmic partner." He sees positing god as a way of endowing life with meaning. Doing so enables one to see one's own life as part of a great cosmic drama. Wettstein would prefer to live under the guise of living out a cosmic drama than to live under the guise of living an utterly meaningless life in a universe utterly devoid of meaning.
The problem with this approach, as I see it, is that if you take yourself to be positing god merely in order to endow one's life with meaning and you do so with no rational basis for really and truly believing that god exists, then you seem to be engaging in a kind of pretense. But I wonder whether mere pretense is really enough to endow our lives with meanings that they don't already have. If mere pretense is enough, why can't we just decide to see our lives as meaningful in the first place, and skip the positing of god in whom we don't really believe.
I don't pretend to have answers to all these questions. Plus it's about 7:30 and I have to be in the studio in an hour and half. So I better stop now. I think we'll have lots to talk about. Phil is a lively and thoughtful guy. So it should be fun.
See you soon.
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Comments
I graduated from Harvard with a 4.2 GPA.
I believe in God.
Are you saying that I'm "not smart"?
>> I graduated from Harvard with a 4.2 GPA.
I believe in God.
Are you saying that I'm "not smart"? >>
sure - why not![?]
not only does no smart person believe in god, nobody else does either. religion is all a goofy social dominance game, as the policies that issue therefrom clearly show.
1) We are animals first, humans with imaginations second. We live in a dangerous world, in an unsure world where death is just around the cornor. Try to remember your own anxiety as an infant or notice the fearful stages of growth in your children, especially when they realize how dependent they are on the adults. Humanity was also in this state of anxiety in our early history. Tigers were big and all we had were spears. Part of us feels this all time. We feel vulnerable in our animal natures and limited. We strive for growth, mastery and propagation just like every living thing that has ever existed. We crave and greed for anything that represents more abundant and secure biological life - even when it is actually taken care of in our advanced civilization. In the following essay remember we are animals. Thinking animals but animals nevertheless.
2) However, we are social animals - like some herd or pack animals but not at all like big cats, sharks, or hawks. We need each other and the group to compete against other animals and nature. But we also compete with our fellow humans for mastery and status. Knowing our place allows us take on specific jobs in the group and to feel purpose and meaning. We test and gauge our status wihin the group. We constantly compare ourselves (and judge others) by cultural standards of mastery. Early in history and our physical skills were the important measure but that soon turned to social skills. The function of out direct perceptual senses is guage our level of security, protection and worth within the group. Getting our fellow humans approval and esteem enhances this protection because somebody is literally watching your back. In a sufficiently advanced civlization, when the food supply, healthcare, shelter and education are taken care of the impulse to grow - to have more abundant life - does not go away. That is because the emotional part of us knows we are still limited and vulnerable without our cultural and group protections. So we unconsciously compare worth, significance and power in our society - to find our place in it and to gather as many protectve affliations around us as possible.
3) As our brains evolved and abstraction and symbolic abilities developed we imagined we could be gods! Our situation was so perilous in the wild we tended to make false correlations in nature, thus creating "magic" to allow us to feel more in control. Eventually, our egos created complex systems of symbols representing physical skills. We created institualized ritual to control the environment and its ceremonies to control each other. Magic turned into religion. Religion turned into divine states. Divine states turned into secular society and political philosophies. Thus, magical ritual, religion and its decendent instutions allowed for defined heirarchy, castes, classes and organizational efficiencies.
4) Our egos do not like to hear we have weaknesses or are simply competing status seeking animals, or we are the cause our own suffering or that we are vulnerable, limited and will one day die. So we seek ways of removing our guilt and feelings of vulnerability by latching on to anything or anybody who can make us feel secure, safe and confident that all will be well, and in their care that we will prosper, grow, be significant and live a much fuller life. This is the "heroic impulse". It is pervasive within all cultures except the most simple and egalitarian. We value and acknowledge those symbols (not reality) that which will make us feel safe or make us feel like winners. Of course, this had loads of survival value in the forest because some did have real heroic skills - as hunter gatherers - but the impulse to affliate with the "heroic" has been distorted to an absurd point. Acquisition of possesions, titles, status, large families, and attachment to symbols far and long divorced from actual survival needs is what drives our culture and politics. The impuluse for more, more, more drives our economic systems. In fact, it is OUR need for MORE SECURE LIFE and our unconsciousness of why we desire MORE SECURE LIFE that creates the economic system - a system that depends on 4% growth per year despite that fact that we live in a finite world with finite resources. Unbridled and un-reflective thinking in service of the fear of death is what makes the human animal insane in comparison to other species. The fundamental confusion is taking mere words or concepts to be reality.
6) Biologically, abstracting egos arise from the left hemisphere of the brain. The symbolic processors of the left brain take fear arising from the amygdala and rationalizes an insulating symbolic defense - many of which are words or concepts. The left hemisphere also tends to mask perceptual realities of the right hemisphere since this holistic part does not harbor linguistic processors. The right hemisphere cannot argue for itself even though it harbors many intelligences! This effectively removes feelings of vulnerability and fear from our thinking selves but it also veils broader realities and perceptions that could have survival value. This is a necessary condition for mental health and negotiation in a highly symbolic environments which most people live in. Cultures are systems of symbols that reinforce a consensual strategy against this fear of death. Or, at least, a "social symbolic death" with insignificance or loss of approval among our fellows. Cultural values change as the demands of survival from the environment change. We create complex symbolic absolutist views and cultural sanctioned rituals, rules and behaviors that institutionalize the strategy against death because total faith brings the most confidence. That is why suicide bombers say they love death as much as we love life - they are assured at place in paradise. These emotional displacements provide order and sense of meaning to our world and provide confidence. The value of the concept of immortality, gods and single great hero, God, has provided the greatest sense of relief for many cultures.
7) Furthermore, We create conflict and suffering through mutual exclusive competing symbols within and between our arbitrary rule-bound cultures. Thus, individuals will constantly compare who's up and who's down, one street gang will fight another over graffiti, how clothing is worn, territoral encroachment; soceer games will erupt in violence over a game, republicans and democrats will demean and "symbolically" fight each to other's social death (the inability to influence others). Our egos constantly strive to strengthen its stature compared to others. Our egos are willing to defend, belittle or even fight to the death any symbol or person who threatens our unconscious immortality symbols because our ego's imaginary life is at stake. The impulse to prove oneself right and the other wrong is simply the defense of the ego against imaginary death.
8) Whether it be God, Nirvana or our imagined legacies on earth, or our political philsophies our egos find something to latch on to, no matter where we live. Cultures, religions and all absolutist philosophies exist to provide approval-seeking humans ways of organizing, encouraging, coping, prospering, staving off fear of death and moving civilzation forward toward some imagined good life - even at the expense of present happiness. We are social beings that create our own environments whose need for a sense-of-belonging and self esteem is universal so convienently adopt the prevailing notions that imply worth. The need for human-connection and approval is primary and real, cultural values are secondary and imaginery. This is a very important point!
9) Our egos can be exploited, controlled and abused by those who use our needs, hopes and dreams to suit their own agendas or by those that insist to withdraw their respect unless we tow the cultural line. We all, quite naturally, give our loyalty and our lives to those who best can communicate to our emotions the symbols that promise security and strength but most importantly - a sense of belonging. The sucess of leadership is proportional to the level of alignment of culturally adopted values to the real demands of the environment. Blind following often leads to disaster. Following, a worldview, hero or personal expression is only useful to the extent that it actually haromonizes with the reality of others, other cultures and the physical environment.
10) So, we only contribute more suffering in the world when we allow the ego unbridled comparison, identification and power-seeking or when we let our egos get competitive, huffy and violent over whose coping mechanisms, behaviors, opinions are best. Judgment and negativity is the primary diagnostic of absolutism - whether it is ubridled praise or criticism. Acceptance (tolerance), enjoyment and enthusism is the primary diagnostic for awareness of the extreme comparative activity of the ego.
Human beings absolutely need to develop some "healthy" anxiety displacements - at certain developmental stages - to develop self esteem and confidence in growing up. Children need to be assured that a "Guardian Angel is protecting them from the "boogey man" in closet.
Religion and absolutist belief has its place and function. However, when the displacements become rigidly absolute as the world gets more complex and subtle these psychodynamic strategies become mal-adaptive. The fact that people will become very aggressive in defending absolutist belief is - in itself - a major self-inflicted insanity in humans.
There seems to be a healthy arc of development that involves a increasingly generalized worldview.
1) Identification with parental heros and development of self esteem by their early unconditional love and approval from successful negotiation of the social rules they present.
2) Differentiation from the parents by successfully negotiating their familial rules and structures. Then, successful introduction to symbolic social strategie s that provides their own power to influence people and social environment.
3) Getting a sense of approval and belonginess from subcultures that are relatively more aligned to broader accepted cultural values. Choosing heros, beliefs, activities and groups that allow some sense of security, direction, personal expression and sense of worth and significance. That is, following arbitrary cultural rules or societal expectations - or "world of symbols" representing security and approval
4) Final realization that cultural symbols and expectations go beyond survival needs and begin to become vain, wasteful or even maladaptive to the real environment. We begin to search for security, meaning and a sense of approval, belonginess, direction from many alternative strategies. We accept no world view is absolute. Finally separating imaginery status symbols from the actual biological requirements of healthy and happy social life.
We tends to believe GoD as one who is not seen, I can show you God, Please listen with a open Mind.
God is Fire, Water, Air. God is the Life, Existance of Life , and Death. These have immense power which does not have a shape. We can see it, We can fell it but we fail to reliase it, We tend to look for answers womewhere else. When we have it in our backyard we don't respect it. God Helps us every moment. But we don't respect GoD.
So who are the devils and Rishis, Devils are Human who abuse the Devas (The Gods Listed as per Hinduism), Gods do get angry and respond, (Earthquack, Tornodo, Fury),
None in the world can stop it ...
There are rishis who worship it ( Customs), They have created rules, which we call customs or Traditions to preserve or Please GOd , That is why We are sustaining.
I am a tortured agnostic erring on the side of atheism. I want to believe but I can't. I got here by googling 'how can people believe in God' and found this. The article helped, but the comments didn't. Too many of the comments hold the existence of God to be self-evident without managing to provide any substantial reason why. They believe it, and therefore it is true. This scares me because it makes me realise why religions have always historically fought each other - they are unable to give substantial reasons why the other is wrong.
The universe seems meaningless. There is no Great Protector. There is only us, and our meaningless existences, and there is faith, and belief, which people die defending. There is war, and horror, and uncertainty. It is the uncertain man who is intelligent and the certain man who is stupid. The difference is that the certain man has no fear. Irrationality is required for civilization to progress. But irrationality is what makes humanity blow itself to pieces.
I want to believe, but if God created the universe and has the power to stop evil but chooses not to, surely he is evil? What sort of God would sit back and watch something like the Holocaust? What sort of God would create harlequin babies? What sort of God would create a Hell to punish the sinners for ever and ever? An insane one, that's what.
The Insanity of Unbelief
by Dan Delzell
Who could ever create a story as wild as the one in the Bible? What mastermind could put together 66 books by more than 40 authors and have it written over a period of 1500 years? Incredibly, all of these authors point to the same two ultimate destinations: first, an everlasting paradise offered as a free gift to those who believe; and second, a place of eternal torment for those who reject the gift.
What could this many authors possibly gain by coming up with such an extraordinary story on their own and then presenting it as truth? It certainly didn't make their lives any easier. Why would some of these same authors allow themselves to be tortured to death rather than recant their message? These clues provide healing from spiritual insanity for anyone who is open-minded. Are you open-minded or close-minded about Christ?
Who would ever make up a story that a God of love sent His only Son to suffer torture at the hands of men? How loving is that unless God really did love the world so much that He sent His Son to die for our sins just as the Bible states? Why out of thousands of religions in the world does only one religion offer forgiveness of sins as a free gift? Why does this one religion just so happen to be the only religion that has each of these 40 authors over 1500 years describing the same reality? How did they all get their writings to fit together so well and with so much consistency?
Were each one of these authors insane, except for their remarkable ability to agree with one another about heaven and hell and the Messiah? If they were not insane, then why would all the authors over many centuries contribute to such a conspiracy of deceit about a mythical God and a far-fetched narrative of redemption? Do you have enough faith and enough evidence to truly believe that it has all just been a worldwide hoax? Are you sane enough to see how it takes more faith based on less evidence to reject Christ than it takes to accept Him as your Lord and Savior?
How insane is it for you to live 80 years upon this earth for yourself just hoping that the Bible is wrong about Jesus and about heaven and hell? How crazy is it for you to risk spending one year in agony, yet alone forever and ever in unimaginable torment? Who would ever lie and make up such a place? In a postmodern age where people are brainwashed to believe that nothing is absolute, are you absolutely, 100% sure that Christianity is a lie and that Jesus was a fraud?
If you don't believe in absolutes, then you are not really positive that Christianity is wrong, are you? Please read this next sentence slowly and carefully: Are you really willing to risk spending billions upon billions of years in hell rather than repent of your sin and accept a free gift from a loving God who has given us a written revelation of eternity? What if you really were insane on this issue? You wouldn't know that you were insane, would you? Are you willing to admit that it is possible that you are insane about Christianity and about your need for salvation?
How can you be absolutely sure that Christianity is wrong and that you are right? You! Not the 40 authors over 1500 years, but you! What makes you the right one? “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)
To quote a well-known motivational speaker from the 1990’s, I plead with you to “Stop the Insanity” before it is too late. Do you realize why God has allowed you to read this article right now at this very moment in your life? If you are unwilling to be healed of your spiritual insanity, then you won’t have a clue about what you have just read. That rejection of God's good news for you would provide you with proof of the insanity of unbelief. Are you too insane to recognize your own insanity, or is there a glimmer of spiritual sanity in your soul today?
Being smart doesn't mean you're honest. It might even mean you're a clever and intelligent liar. While it's possible for smart people who have integrity problems to pretend a belief in god, even smartly--any modern educated human being who truthfully and without evasion asks probing questions about the existence of god will come up with a negative.
But that's been the case for near a 1000 years now.
God is nothing but a fragment created by the human mind so that they can live their lives believing they are safe.
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