It all happened before, it will all happen again
One of the things that really has bugged me for a few years now is that after reading GK Chesterton, all of my internet arguments fill me with the strangest feeling of Deja Vu. What he wrote for newspapers, essays that were eventually collected into collection books, were on exactly the same topics we are *still* arguing 80+ years later.
Consider this chapter, if you will, from All Things Considered. The first part deals with the problem of fiscal libertinism. The only significant thing that has changed in this since Chesterton was writing is that the financial capital of the world has switched from London to New York.
But the second part of the chapter, merely labeled "Science", deals with a pamphlet promoting scientific atheism. I'd love to find the pamphlet that caused him to write it, but based on what he chooses to argue about, _The God Delusion_ from Richard Dawkins appears to be not quite as good as a rewrite.
This does not bode well for either the New Atheists or the Catholics in the debate, if all the arguments we can come up with have already been written!
Consider this chapter, if you will, from All Things Considered. The first part deals with the problem of fiscal libertinism. The only significant thing that has changed in this since Chesterton was writing is that the financial capital of the world has switched from London to New York.
But the second part of the chapter, merely labeled "Science", deals with a pamphlet promoting scientific atheism. I'd love to find the pamphlet that caused him to write it, but based on what he chooses to argue about, _The God Delusion_ from Richard Dawkins appears to be not quite as good as a rewrite.
This does not bode well for either the New Atheists or the Catholics in the debate, if all the arguments we can come up with have already been written!
Comments
I should probably give Chesterton a read.
And this passage from Chesterton indicates that the whole discussion started long before you and I were born, and will not end in our lifetimes.
I can't be an atheist anymore because I believe in intelligent design. What do I call myself? A Diest?
And maybe a perfect God wouldn't need any more than that.
OK. So you would be a Deist if you learned that the life of Jesus Christ was not the result of divine intervention?
This could get interesting. Do you really think it is reasonable to rule out divine inspiration for everything else? I know that is not what you, yourself believe, but you think it is possible?
I long ago realized it didn't matter to me whether the resurrection or the Virgin Birth were true or not; the Way of Life goes much, much, deeper than the silly superficial arguments about events:
Several translations of the Didache. Plus, if I'm wrong and you're right- it matters not at all, for after death we'll know nothing. Actually, even if I'm right, after death we'll know nothing- the only difference is you'll have to deal with being wrong, while I will evolve into an eternal praisebot.
Divine inspiration is a far different subject than divine intervention. A "one time injection of anthropomorphic constants into our bubble universe in the multiverse" is quite sufficient for divine inspiration and through application of the physical laws governed by those constants, the "Darwin's Pool Hall Shark" version of God is completely possible.
This doesn't even rule out an interventionist God living in some higher dimension than the four we move through; for a Catholic Omnipresent God the Big Bang and the Heat Death of the Universe are both occurring right now (along with everything else on the time axis of four dimensional space)- there is nothing whatsoever preventing him from envisioning every bubble universe in the potential multiverse and selecting *exactly* the right physical constants that resulted in your wife being unable to find her box of chocolates temporarily that resulted in her finding your suicide plan.
Free will is just an illusion either way- whether our brains are governed by quantum mechanics or by events placed in our path by an interventionist God who set up the universe *exactly right* for every miracle that has ever occurred and will ever occur to happen entirely within the laws of physics.
So like Blase Pascal, all we've done is add a couple more columns and rows to our Carroll diagram, and it is still more advantageous to believe in such a Deist God, which could possibly get you into purgatory, than no God at all, which will certainly end up with you separated for all eternity from everything you love one way or another.
If I could eliminate one fallacy in the world, it would be that there is some kind of reward for believing and punishment for not believing. That is just a carrot and stick way of enticing or scaring people to make them believe something. I don't understand why that isn't plainly obvious to everyone in this world.
Wow. You really think along those line. That is sad for someone of your intelligence to think that theists go to heaven, desists might get into purgatory and atheists go to hell. Don't you think?
But that doesn't change the reality of the system; atheism has no integrity; neither does deism. They think that by removing God they remove morality; but morality is a part of the physical universe and can no more be removed than the law of gravity can. Morality evolved for a reason, ignoring that reason brings back the natural selection that encouraged the morality to develop in the first place.
It isn't about FEARING God, it's about LOVING God and being grateful for life.
And that, not only makes the world a better place, but is the very definition of what is true- beyond ANYTHING an atheist can accomplish on his own, cut off from history.
It is the definition of what is good. If good is the same thing as true in your world, then ok it is true. Whatever works for you.