Wrestling with Religious Texts

THAT, I’ve done all of my life!

#1 As a young sincerely intense Baptist fundamentalist, ages 8 to about 11ish

#2 As a questioning, doubting ethically focused teen, ages 14-18

#3 As a skeptical, cast-a-about searcher, social peace and rights activist ages 19-27

#4 As a quasi-evangelical liberal Baptist/Quaker/Anabaptist leader, ages 28-37

#5 As a disheartened, confused, questioning, despairing seeker/leader, ages 39-44

#6 As a seeking, despairing, stand-the-faith-ground-against-creedal-C. father full of honest doubt but trying to the heart to raise his kids right, good, and correct, ages 45-47

#7 As a disillusioned, despairing idealist Quaker/Anabaptist/generic who tries to hang on against all the theological, philosophical, ethical defeaters, ages 48—61

#8 As a skeptical, disillusioned, realistic, hope-seeking, orphaned ex-Christian, yet still deep moral realist Process-theist, ages 62-72

In ALL of those phases of my life, I’ve wrestled with the Bible, the Old Testament (Jewish Bible) and the Christian New Testament.

The earliest encounter/doubt-creator/troubling text was when I was 11 and in Sunday School one morning at Adams Baptist Church, and our teacher told us (and read to us) that God had sent bears to maul Elisha for making fun of him.
2nd Kings 2:23-25

Very upset from a moral standpoint, I spouted out that God would NEVER do such an immoral, unjust act!

SO here we go, wrestling with those thousands of texts in the Bible that have been the basis of horrific acts, amazing causes of human flourishing, puzzling confusion, and baffling defenses.

Side Note:
All of this article is true and as accurate and historically factual as I can make it, HOWEVER, one also needs to realize that for most of my life, I’ve always been able to step outside of my limited self and worldview, have been overwhelmed by honest doubt, at least since encountering severe critical doubt at about 16, largely because of the trapdoor-to-abyss of Augustinian-Calvinistic-creedal Christian horror lectured to us dedicated teens by that Christian youth leader to us at a Bible study. And the worst of that, the leader claiming to us that God will sometimes command us to do what is immoral! And he proceeded to prove this with texts from the Old Testament. And then told me directly that I ought to go and kill for God.

And then later the wide-shock of secular university-education including atheism and so many other contrary philosophies, worldviews, especially Existentialism and Absurdism and other life-stances that at 18, I became so aware that I as a rather average intellect, finite human may be wrong.
AND THUS, I have said, repeatedly out loud to others in print or vocally, or silently to myself, that “on Thursday’s I am an existentialist.”;_)

NOW, let us explicate, study, reflect, and chew the cud of the Bible.

To be continued—

In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox

Belief-O-Matic® | With its new survey, I still come out as "Liberal Quaker":-), UU, second.

Belief-O-Matic® | What religion am I? | What is my faith? | Religion Quiz | Faith Quiz - Beliefnet


In the Light of surveys;-)

Daniel Wilcox

The Whole Human Versus the One-Angled Human

#1 Usually orthodox Christians, Muslims, Jews, and other religionists say they live only by faith (usually narrowly defined)-- belief in the divine, eternal truth of only their own ancient literature by which all other human values must be judged, that all other views are "made-up" or "demonic" or based in "human pride" and "selfishness."

According to them, each human has no “inherent” worth, value, and meaning. Every human and everything else is “worthless” except for whom and what God has given value to in his foreordination, sovereignty and hidden will.

All events in existence including natural disasters, disease, war, famine, crime, and evil etc. are the result of the sovereign will of God.

VERSUS

#2 Usually hard Atheists say they live only by science and reason (usually narrowly defined)--that all other human values are subjective, relative, “made-up,” “constructed,” only “ personal opinion” or “cultural preference” that there are no inherent ethics, no human “rights,” no “justice,” no valid aesthetics, no “better” culture or social framework.

According to them, each human has no “inherent” worth, value, and meaning. Every human and everything else is “worthless” because there is no essential or ultimate reality. Nothing but matter and energy moving eternally.

All events in existence including natural disasters, disease, war, famine, crime, and “so-called evil” are the result of a meaningless, purposeless rigid determinism. All humans are "puppets" and have no choice.

Do you see the irony of this double-mirror, each worldview, perspective negating the other yet almost exactly the mirrored reflection of the other in many significant ways?

FURTHERMORE:

Of course, most religionists don’t only live by “faith.”
They regularly live by “science and reason” when it comes to illness, mechanical failure, running their business, etc.

Most of them don’t live “only by faith.” When they are sick, they consult a doctor, go in for an operation, when their vehicle breaks down, they use tools or take it to a mechanic, when they start a business, they employ an accountant, etc.

And, of course, most atheists don’t live “only by science and reason.”
They regularly support the police and serve on juries which are allegedly based in justice, not subjectivity, that if criminals break into their house or assault their children, it’s not just “subjective,” “relative,” or “made up.”

And they usually send their kids to formal schools be educated in the humanities and aesthetics as well as science.
They don’t assume that the latest scam, National Inquirer news, or scrawl on the side of a building are “equal” to an historical study, meticulously honest fair news or the classics in the library.

Essential or Inherent Humanism seeks to counter both of these ‘one-angled’ extremes which distort reality.




But the explanation of that is for the next post:-)

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Tyranny of Certainty

Certainty—at least the intense feeling, the passion for that state of mind, that mental obsession, that human idol—is a dear longing, seemingly in nearly every human.

Probably, maybe, it was the devil in the bloody details which led at least 3 smart, fairly rich, well-educated young men in Bangladesh to slaughter civilians in a café for Allah.

#1 A handout picture released by the King Faisal Foundation on March 1, 2015 shows Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz left, presenting Zakir Naik, president of the Islamic Research Foundation in India, with the 2015 King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam in Riyadh. (AFP/King Faisal Foundation)

One of the jihadists, Rohan Imtiaz, in the Dhaka restaurant attack last week put up a Facebook message of Zakir Naik's statement about Muslim jihad:

“If he is fighting enemies of Islam, I am for him. I don’t know him personally. If he terrorizing America, is the biggest terrorist, I am with him."

"Every Muslim should be a terrorist. The thing is that if he is terrorizing a terrorist, he is following Islam.”
Zakir Naik
www.Peaceforall.org.uk

#2 Yet the Muslim leader Zakir Naik, like other Muslim leaders, claims to be against killing!

How does that figure?

Because most Muslims believe they have a duty to kill or punish those who have “created corruption in the land,” a vague phrase that can mean a wide variety of actions, as any study of Sharia Law in Muslim countries shows.

Check out the news of the 700 lawyers working for the death penalty for individuals accused of demeaning the name of Muhammad:

"Leader of the Khatm-e-Nubuwwat Lawyers' Forum, a conservative alliance of lawyers offering free legal advice for anyone filing a blasphemy case, Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry poses for a portrait at his office in Lahore, Pakistan February 22, 2016."

"The stated mission of the Khatm-e-Nubuwwat Lawyers' Forum and its leader Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry is uncompromising: to use its expertise and influence to ensure that anyone insulting Islam or the Prophet Mohammad is charged, tried and executed."

"Whoever does this (blasphemy), the punishment is only death. There is no alternative," Chaudhry told supporters crammed into his small office behind the towering red-brick High Court building in the eastern city of Lahore."

http://www.reuters.com/article/pakistan-blasphemy-lawyers-idUSKCN0W905G


#3 Eric Hoffer, author of The True Believer, has answers:

“Absolute faith corrupts absolutely."

"The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen...who is destined to inherit...heaven, too."

#4 Naik is a medical doctor who has become a very popular media speaker for Islam, has more than 100 million viewers,
and has been called the “rock star” of Islam.
However, he has been banned from public speaking in United Kingdom, Canada, and Malaysia.

#5 The list of café killers includes Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasheer, Khairul Islam, and Shafiqul Islam.

Why did they lay aside their college educations,
their relationships, their families,
their social life, their friends,
their fun activities,
their interests, their passions,
their ethical intuitions,
even the usual understanding of religious ethics
that one isn’t to kill women?

After all, Muhammad, when he had at least 500 Jewish men beheaded, didn’t execute the women and children but had them sold into slavery.

Yet so many thousands of Muslim young men, now, many of them from middle or upper-class background, and well-educated, have gone off to jihad and killed hundreds of thousands of other humans!

They abandon what most humans want--
LAY all that down!

And often commit war-suicide, before they have hardly even begun adulthood,
in order to kill for Allah, for the God of 99 names,

to destroy young men and women at malls,
in heretical mosques,
in churches,
anywhere non-orthodox Muslims live.

#6 After shouting “God is Great,”
these 5 ran in and asked individuals

if they were Muslims
and demanded they recite the Quran.

If not, they hacked them down.

#7 The killers seem happy, totally guilt-free,
indeed, proud and dutiful.

They are technologically smart and upload photos during their attacks!

How could this impossible, horrific, tyranny of murder possibly happen?

Do these smart, happy-looking individuals look like the sort who would kill innocent civilians eating at a café?

#8 Eric Hoffer gives answers:

“Absolute faith corrupts absolutely.

To be in possession of an absolute truth is to have a net of familiarity spread over the whole of eternity.

There are no surprises and no unknowns. All questions have already been answered, all decisions made,
all eventualities foreseen. The true believer is without wonder and hesitation.

The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless towards others.

The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude.

No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented
as the embodiment of the one and only truth.
It must be the one word from which all things are and all things speak.

The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual,
is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering
and humbling of the self
breed pride and arrogance.

The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen...who is destined to inherit...heaven, too.

#9 Three of the innocent slaughtered by the Muslim killers:

He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen shall perish.

There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

…a mass movement, particularly in its active, revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self.

A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.

There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem.

[The true believer’s] innermost craving is for a new life - a rebirth - or, failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by identification with a holy cause.

An active mass-movement offers them opportunities for both. If they join the movement as full converts they are reborn to a new life in its close-knit collective body...

Or if attracted as sympathizers they find elements of pride, confidence, and purpose by identifying with the efforts, achievements, and prospects of the movement.
A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.

It is obvious, therefore, that in order to be effective, a doctrine must not be understood, but has rather to be believed in.
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

Self-surrender...is...the source of a mass-movement’s unity and vigor, is a sacrifice...

To know a person's religion, we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.

The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

Here, as elsewhere, the technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.

An effective mass movement cultivates the idea of sin. It depicts the autonomous self not only as barren and helpless but also as vile.
To confess and repent is to slough off one’s individual distinctness and separateness, and salvation is found by losing oneself in the holy oneness of the congregation.

...whether or not [religions such as Islam] develop into mass movements depends less on the doctrine they preach and the program they project than on the degree of their preoccupation with unity and the readiness for self-sacrifice.

We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility…"to be free from freedom”…Had they not joined…in order to be free from responsibility?
We are ready to sacrifice our true, transitory self for the imaginary eternal self we are building up, by our heroic deeds, in the opinion and imagination of others.

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength.
Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.

The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others.

To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief of the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure.

They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.
Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.

He turns away from an unpromising self and plunges into the pursuit of pride — the explosive substitute for self-esteem.
All social disturbances and upheavals have their roots in crises of individual self-esteem, and the great endeavor in which the masses most readily unite is basically a search for pride.

Pride is a sense of worth derived from something that is not organically part of us, while self-esteem derives from the potentialities and achievements of the self.

We are proud when we identify ourselves with an imaginary self, a leader, a holy cause, a collective body or possessions.
There is fear and intolerance in pride; it is sensitive and uncompromising.

Activists of Pakistani religious group Sunni Tehreek demanding executions of court sentences given under the blasphemy law...

The less promise and potency in the self, the more imperative is the need for pride. The core of pride is self-rejection.

A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves.

The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

It is not love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world.

To find the cause of our ills in something outside ourselves, something specific that can be spotted and eliminated, is a diagnosis that cannot fail to appeal.

To say that the cause of our troubles is not in us but____, and pass immediately to the extermination of the____, is a prescription likely to find a wide acceptance.

To know a person's religion, we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities.”
--Eric Hoffer
-------

Think and reflect on those wise words of Hoffer.

Is it probable that these smart, well-educated, fairly rich young men somehow felt insecure or guilty or uncertain?

And so latched onto Islam as the absolute, which it claims to be, as their one certain salvation?

Did they kill the women Tarishi-Jain and Abinta Kabir because they weren't veiled, or because they couldn't quote the Quran?

I don’t know the answers.

However Hoffer's answers are probable, unless one really thinks that the Quran is true, perfect, and eternal.

But we do know that all absolute religions cause slaughter,
intolerance, injustice, harm, persecution, inequality, and so forth
in the name of certain truth.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Whys of a Theistic Seeker and Humanist

Growing up in a tiny village in Southeast Nebraska, we were taught that God is Love, Infinite Eternal Love, Goodness, Holiness, and Justice without End.

My childhood and youth were so wonderful, even in the midst of the common troubles and trials that every young human faces, no matter how good their family.

At times, we suffered in minor ways, but my sister and I were blessed beyond measure.

And far better and deeper and wider and higher than everything, than the whole limitless universe was the wonder of God, that despite all of the horror and tragedy and suffering facing all of humanity--in many cases situation so much worse than our minor scrapes--
there was the Infinite Care of the Father who loved every single human being forever.:-)

Of course, early on, despite a powerful conversion experience with God, I asked many confusing questions, deeply troubled by contradictions in life, in the Bible, in Christianity that didn't match the view that Life's essential essence was Love.

#1 Why did so many innocent people die of cancer, terrible tornadoes, earthquakes, and famines?
Especially very young ones, infants, children, young people, before they even had a chance to live their lives and do good?

#2 And why were there so many evil texts in the Bible since it was supposed to be inspired by God?

But living in the wonder of the joy of Christian trust and faith, I could transcend
these deeply troubling questions, even if there seemed to be no answers...

Because we were enveloped in God's infinite love--

That is until I met face to face....

with the leaders of Augustinian-Reformed Christianity, who claimed that our Baptist religion was an aberration, heretical, and that we had never been saved!

I met the first one of thousands of these nay-sayers when I was 17. This Calvinist youth leader also tried to convince us that God will call us Christians to commit immoral actions for God!!

(Note: Thank God, I've already recounted numerous times on this blog doing battle for over 50 years against that many-headed theological hydra, so I don't have to go down into that detailed abyss again here, nor share of how it murdered our faith, our trust, our hope, destroyed our lives. It has destroyed so many millions of humans' lives.)

Instead, in this article, I wish to deal with a few of the deep, puzzling and difficult-to-answer questions that have gouged my mind and my life over the years and still are there today:

One of my questions beginning when I was about 12 years old:

#3 Why didn't God emphasize to all of God's people down through the ages that slavery is inherently evil?

And related questions:
#4 Why does Exodus 21: 20 say, "When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave...if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money"?

And I Peter 2:18 "Household slaves, submit with all fear to your masters, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel"?

Think of the millions of humans killed or tortured and harmed and abused because of these and other verses!!

It was Christian and Muslim leaders, ship captains, merchants, plantation owners, etc. who carried out these rules and command, sure that God blessed their slave-owning, even when they were harsh and cruel, even when many of the slaves died in transit.

#5 If the Ultimate Reality of Existence (God, the Divine, the Spirit) truly has benevolence for all things, all beings, why didn't God reveal to humans 50,000 or 75,000 years ago the lethal danger of germs and viruses?

#6 Why did the Divine even allow destructive germs and viruses to come into existence and to thrive?

#7 Why didn't this loving God protect billions of humans from the Black Death, small pox, malaria, cancer, birth defects, and so forth?

#8 For that matter, why didn't God ease the suffering, even protect, all sentient animals, billions of them from excruciating harm and tortured deaths over the last billion years?


To be continued--



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

"Yearning and Learning": Science, Religion, and Fish Hooks

The skeptical science writer, Chet Raymo, wrote, “Why do so many of us see...flying saucers in the sky...
the spinning of the Sun at Fatima,
canals on Mars?"

19th century image of canals of Mars versus modern Hubble photo

"We yearn to be part of something greater than ourselves. We learn by hard experience that miracles don't happen."

"Yearning and learning are integral parts of being human. We can't be fully human without both. Finding the proper balance between yearning and learning can keep us occupied for a lifetime."

"Yearning is curiosity. Yearning is the driving force of science, philosophy, and religion."

"Learning is...reading, going to school, traveling, doing experiments, being skeptical. Learning is looking behind the curtain for the Wizard of Oz..."

"In science, learning means trying as hard to prove that something is wrong as to prove it right, even if that something is a cherished belief."

"Yearning without learning is seeing...the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs together in ancient rocks, weeping statues...and the meaning of life in horoscopes."

"Learning without yearning is pedantry...believing that we know it all...that nothing exists except what can be presently weighed and measured. Learning without yearning is rote science without a heart, without a dream, without a hope of beauty.”

--

A true story of a family, yearning and learning--


The Nature of Fishhooks

My youngest daughter, Hope, learned-disabled early,
Struggling with the squiggles and numeric symbols

Of unseen realities, of knowing, that set the stars
In motion and our human minds in transition.

How dangerous those fish-hooked praying supplications

Her childish zest died while, as her father and provider,
I practiced disabling late, raised to belief's unreason

In the rigid way of Huck's Miss Watson, so stubborn
In righteous doctrine, ignoring our doctor's suggestion,
Not giving Hope medication, but certain in literal petition.

How dangerous those fish-hooked praying supplications

So I prayed time-round-the-three for my daughter's minded healing,
But just like gullible Finn and his never-gotten fishhooks,

Hope got none, and I— doubt, ill-gotten mishap, and bilge,
Eventually lessening into cynicism, the wounded death
Of an ash-filled, but empty-petitioning/requesting mouth.

How dangerous those fish-hooked praying supplications

Yet unlike Huck, to this day I keep reeling out petitions,
Focusing like the Widow (Huck's other guardian),

On heartened prayer, the learning of spiritual gifts;
But not even the gentle fish lures of patience

And boundless joy ever ripple my faithless way;
I, too, become the lost orphan in the dying of trust.

How dangerous those fish-hooked praying supplications

No longer a fisher of miracles in the doubtful churning,
Of the endless surging views of oceans seven

The world round, I struggle between trust
And reason, earnest but lost in cruel confusion

Fearing those extremes — nihilistic negation
And fishy delusion — doubting all to a hellish end.

How dangerous those fish-hooked praying supplications

Still rises the good news of caring medicine:
Briefly free of false hooks, we gave our dear Hope,

So dead to minded school, the late prescription
And she was upward raised, yes, recovering soon
A zest for learning — early for her, way late for me –

How wondrous thoughtful reason-decided invocations

Except to say the real hook of it all is that
True knowing is not gulping barbs of pious deceit,

Nor being gilled or gulled into the dying of truth,
But yearning and learning — like Descartes and Kant

Of old — finding in humble, reasoned trust
The poetry and prose of spiritual growth,
A Godly way of reasoned becoming,

How wondrous thoughtful reason-based deliberations



--Daniel Wilcox

First published in The Centrifugal Eye
then in the collection, Psalms, Yawps, and Howls


Chet Raymo:
Professor Emeritus at Stonehill College in North Easton, Massachusetts...author of Skeptics and True Believers

"...more than a dozen books on science and nature...is a winner of a 1998 Lannan Literary Award for his nonfiction..."

Science Musings appeared in the Boston Globe for twenty years...informed and provocative meditations on science as a creative human activity and celebrated the grandeur and mystery of the natural world."

"Blog.sciencemusings.com...will appeal to visitors who value reliable empirical knowledge of the world, yet retain a sense of reverence and awe for the complexity, beauty, and sometimes terror of nature."

--

From Huck Finn:
“Well I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on account of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but only cleaned off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would behave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it."

"She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without hooks."

"I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out no way."

"I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for...why can't the widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up?"

"No, says I to myself, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it was "spiritual gifts." This was too many for me, but she told me what she meant -- I must help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself."

"This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no advantage about it -- except for the other people; so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go."

"Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again."

"I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for him any more."

"I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery.”
Wise words of yearning and learning from
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Samuel L. Clemens

--

In the Light
of Hope and Reason,

Yearning and Learning,
Trust and Skepticism,

Ideals and Science,
Imagination and Fact...

Daniel Wilcox

Guest Post: Do You Want to Know the Truth?

Here's an intriguing guest post from Professor James F. McGrath:

Do You Want To Know The Truth?

Hemant Mehta shared a really useful thought experiment/discussion starter, which deserves to circulate widely. It is inspired by a newspaper column by Robert Kirby, and takes the form of a simple question:
if there was a button that you could push, which would tell you definitively whether there is a God, and more specifically, whether your thinking about God is correct or not, would you push it?

The question might seem simple to answer, and it might seem that the obvious answer is “yes.” And I don’t disagree. But there are those who would not push the button, claiming that it would eliminate “faith.”

But in my view, that is a terrible way to think about “faith.” Faith should not be believing without evidence, or worse still, refusing evidence because we think there is some merit in refusing to fact check and investigate and just believe what we assume or have been told instead.

But of course, unless one or both of us pushes the button, we won’t know for sure whether or not my thinking about that is misguided.

I think the really interesting part comes when we reflect on what happens after we push the button and get our answer. If you find out your suspicion or strong conviction is right, how would your approach to life and to other people change now that you know for sure?

Would you become even more intolerant with others now that you know for sure that you are right?

If so, then perhaps not knowing for certain was indeed better for you.

And if you found out that you had been wrong, and some other group, whether atheists, Christians, Hindus, or no one on Earth was right, how would that affect you?

Would you embrace the truth with joy or begrudgingly, and why?

Your instinctive reaction will tell you something about where your foremost commitment lies: to the truth, or to your tribe.

I can also imagine that, even if the results of the button-pushing could somehow be guaranteed, there are those who would refuse to accept what was revealed. Would you possibly find yourself among them?

I hope you think about this, and then take the opportunity to discuss it in the comments below!

Dr. James F. McGrath is Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2016/01/do-you-want-to-know-the-truth.html

Hemant Mehta is the editor of Friendly Atheist, appears on the Atheist Voice channel on YouTube, and co-hosts the uniquely-named Friendly Atheist Podcast.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/01/25/when-it-comes-to-religion-do-you-even-want-to-know-the-truth/
--

Neil Carter has also, independently, weighed in on this question of truth/reality on Facebook. He wrote, "I don't think I became an atheist because I'm smarter than other people. I think they just quit asking the harder questions and I couldn't."

I guess that's the gist of human speculative guessing on ultimate questions.


Here's my own response to James McGrath's response to Hemant Mehta's response to Robert Kirby's article along with my own different philosophical climb related to Carter's mountain point:-)

Of course the reality is that seeking truth in all fields is nothing like a magical button push, but more like working one's way through a complicated maze...

...carrying untold weights, dealing with ill health issues,
helping others find their way...

managing to counteract strange people who keep trying to mislead one down wrong paths...

...even attackers trying to stop maze searchers for truth...

...and, despite all that and more difficulties, when going indeed seems impossible, one keeps going!

A more apt image for seeking truth would be--if truth is at the top of Mt. Everest
or some other peak of incredible height,
would you make the arduous climb, no matter what, and accept what is true?

Yes.

However, my main question isn't whether God exists or not. I worked through that at university to a very deep level and came out a committed theist (though on Thursday, I am still an existentialist;-).

What concerns me much more is the second part of Metha and McGrath's question:

What is God/Truth/Ultimate Reality like?

Can we finite reasoning primates even have any accurate idea?


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #2: Toward a Skeptical Worldview of Hope—God as Becoming

Being and/or Becoming, that is the question…
(to misquote the Bard).

What is the term “God” at a basic level but the Good with an additional exclaimed, “OH!”

Who is/was/will-be/does/becomes?

Before launching into the second part of this series on God, which will deal with philosophers’ reasoning about God such as that of Professor Charles Hartshorne’s analytical speculation on the nature of Ultimate Reality, here's a few introductory notes.
(IF you don’t want to be bored with the important introduction, skip DOWN to SECTION #2: CHARLES HARTSHORNE.)

INTRODUCTION

I suppose it goes without saying (but I will type it;-) that we finite educated primates have taken on a seemingly impossible task, sort of like one human swallowing the wide ocean whole--hook, line, and sinker;-)

We who only have a lifespan of about 70-80 years in developed countries show observation, ingenuity, creativity, and complicated thinking. But usually it also includes much hubris.

Think of various religious spokespersons now who claim the founders of their religion knew in detail what God was doing before the Big Bang, yet they excuse their founding leaders for horrific ethics-- burning people at the stake, enslaving millions, and so forth--claiming that the thinkers were only believing, behaving and doing like most other humans in their time period! The prime example, of course, is the intellectual Reformed religion and its founders John Calvin, John Knox, Martin Luther, and Hudrych Zwingli.

Who are we to think that we can understand and explain Reality, let alone Ultimate Reality? Heck, the existence of Homo sapiens has only occurred in the last second of the finite existence of one minuscule planet in a very small solar system on the edge of one of billions of galaxies. Let’s not even speculate on the multi-verse.

“Humans are good at a lot of things, but putting time in perspective is not one of them. It’s not our fault—the spans of time in human history, and even more so in natural history, are so vast compared to the span of our life and recent history that it’s almost impossible to get a handle on it. If the Earth formed at midnight and the present moment is the next midnight, 24 hours later, modern humans have been around since 11:59:59pm—1 second. And if human history itself spans 24 hours from one midnight to the next, 14 minutes represents the time since Christ.”
Tim Urban
TIME By Wait But Why
http://28oa9i1t08037ue3m1l0i861.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Time-G-e1419172691756.png

Human insight and understanding are on a long trajectory from basic self and natural awareness of early humans to the present when scientists understand enough of astronomy, complex math, an innovative technology to send a probe all the way to the dwarf planet Pluto, a journey which took almost 10 years.

“The New Horizons mission has taken what we thought we knew about Pluto and turned it upside down,” said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “It's why we explore -- to satisfy our innate curiosity and answer deeper questions about how we got here and what lies beyond the next horizon."
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/four-months-after-pluto-flyby-nasa-s-new-horizons-yields-wealth-of-discovery

FAR BEYOND THAT—is the comprehending and understanding of the ultimate nature of existence.
What happens in the essence of reality?
What took place before the Big Bang of the universe?
What will happen after humans become extinct?
After our cosmos ceases to exist?

Or for that matter who can explain exhaustively the nature of the Cosmos right now? Cosmologists are working on the seemingly infinite task. We don’t yet understand dark matter or dark energy and so much else.

But humans are in a process of becoming. As mentioned before, think how far Homo sapiens have come since they first discovered fire, math, abstract thought, and reasoned speculation.

Since we humans are a self-aware, conscious, rational, ethical species, even though we understand so little, we need to think about meaning and purpose in order not to lapse back into only instinctive responses in our brief journey of living. Every day, every moment we make choices--

Let us THINK!

A skeptic...is a person who questions everything, including her own conclusions, all the time. She craves knowledge and understanding, so she loves bumping into people and ideas that challenge her assumptions. A skeptic views disagreements as opportunities to refine her knowledge and understand more today than she did last night.
Paul Mahan
https://medium.com/@ungewissen/religious-people-are-wrong-about-skeptics-1f502ebffe83

--
“speculation (n.)
late 14c., "intelligent contemplation, consideration; act of looking," from Old French speculacion "close observation, rapt attention," and directly from Late Latin speculationem (nominative speculatio) "contemplation, observation," noun of action from Latin speculatus, past participle of speculari "observe," from specere "to look at, view" (see scope (n.1)).
Online Etymology Dictionary

skeptic: related to skeptesthai "to reflect, look, view"
Skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found. [Miguel de Unamuno, "Essays and Soliloquies," 1924]
“The extended sense of "one with a doubting attitude" first recorded 1610s.”

“Meaning "pursuit of the truth by means of thinking" is from mid-15c. Disparaging sense of "mere conjecture" is recorded from 1570s.”
OED
--

SECTION 2: CHARLES HARTSHORNE

First, the essential nut of God without even the shell:

Second, Charles Hartshorne answers Epicurus' striking questions with his own complex philosophy of God reduced to a poster:

And that's only the beginning:-)

TO BE CONTINUED--




In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

True Confessions

Sometimes the negative genie just won't stay in one's psyche, but finally explodes out in fury.

That happened to me today--for many different reasons--while I was trying to finish up a good article on science versus religion. (That post will go partially incomplete for a while.)

This afternoon, I read another excellent and honest article on life and loss of faith.

Here's what I posted to Neil Carter's website in answer to his questions on loss of faith:

Neil Carter: "What did you once have that you lost upon leaving your faith?"

Daniel: All of the items you pointed out except not "belief that everything happens for a reason." I was strongly opposed to that idea.
When a young child dies of leukemia like happened here recently or the tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia several years back, I never thought that such tragedies were part of a divine plan, never thought they were somehow necessary.

The main quality I lost 3 years ago when I came to the conclusion that Christianity can't be true, is the loss of hope. True, I had been losing hope as I gradually lost faith in religion over a period of years, but 3 years ago, it was like the nail in the coffin, right into the bleeding heart liberal...

Now, I continue to work for human rights, for justice and equality, and won't quit, but I really wonder if humans will ever overcome war, inequality, hate, prejudice, dishonesty, religious delusion, horrific beliefs, etc. One of my favorite aphorisms was from Martin Luther King Jr.:

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

Now, at present, I wonder if that is really true. I don't have as much hope in such thoughts as I once did.
--


Neil Carter: "And more importantly for moving forward, how have you learned to cope with the loss of it?"

Daniel: I don't think I have learned to cope. Some days are better than others. Some much worse.

Talking about such issues online has helped. And continuing to work for groups I am a member of such as Amnesty International also helps encourage me.

So far I've been unable to find a group in my city on the central coast of California that has a passion for human rights and justice, but I am still looking. Our city tends to be very fundamentalistic in religion and politics.

And I belong to a book club where another individual, like me once was involved with SDS in the late 60's and still is concerned with justice and equality for all. That's important.

--

For those who would like to think further on this issue, consider reading Neil Carter’s vivid article at
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2015/08/19/things-you-dont-get-back-after-you-leave-your-faith/

I disagree with some points that Neil espouses—such as his view of “Godless,”—but he is a real humanist, compassionate, reasonable, and is an excellent essayist, lucid and well-organized in his prose.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Prayer Doesn't Change Things...

When I was growing up years ago, we constantly heard and trusted in the slogan, motto, faith statement, “Prayer Changes Things.” It was one of the central mantras of Christianity, repeatedly emphasized and practiced. Even when things didn't change, everyone was sermonized to pray harder, to wait patiently longer, and repeatedly promised that change would come eventually and dramatically.

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.

“And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.” James 5:13-18 ESV

But 60 years later, and nothing has changed. No answers have come. No miracles. Not once in 60 years of my limited life—and not once for many other Christians, (or Jews, Muslims, Baha'i, etc. for that matter). Disappointed, even devastated, Christians earnestly believing—yet never once did prayer ever change anything.

No miracles, no dramatic solutions, no answers to sincerely sought needs, desperate hurts, with death hungry at the door. Of course, there are plenty of Christian leaders who claim differently--they tout millions of miracles, healings, and supernatural answers--but when these assertions are researched and studied by Christian scholars these “claims” turn out to be placebos, false diagnoses,'urban legends,' lots of hearsay, and even fraud and deception.

But Christianity's answer to this is always, pray more. If your prayers weren't answered, it wasn't God’s timing or you prayed wrongly, or there was something else wrong with your prayers or with you. Yes, probably you...

Even though your central prayers were for others, often for people you hardly knew, so many in need, often at death's door.

It wasn't like you were praying to be rich or even for your own health.

But now fairly decisive scientific studies have been completed and the answer comes out the same—prayers didn't change anything. Prayer doesn't change things.

In fact, in one study (organized by a respectable Christian organization), those prayed for fared worse than those not prayed for at all.

How could this be?!

So where’s the beef (belief)?

--
Scientific Studies:
“Are there demonstrable effects of distant intercessory prayer? A meta-analytic review.
Masters KS1, Spielmans GI, Goodson JT.
Author information
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
The use of alternative treatments for illness is common in the United States. Practitioners of these interventions find them compatible with personal philosophies. Consequently, distant intercessory prayer (IP) for healing is one of the most commonly practiced alternative interventions and has recently become the topic of scientific scrutiny.
PURPOSE:
This study was designed to provide a current meta-analytic review of the effects of IP and to assess the impact of potential moderator variables.
METHODS:
A random effects model was adopted. Outcomes across dependent measures within each study were pooled to arrive at one omnibus effect size. These were combined to generate the overall effect size. A test of homogeneity and examination of several potential moderator variables was conducted.
RESULTS:
Fourteen studies were included in the meta-analysis yielding an overall effect size of g = .100 that did not differ from zero. When one controversial study was removed, the effect size reduced to g = .012. No moderator variables significantly influenced results.
CONCLUSIONS:
There is no scientifically discernible effect for IP as assessed in controlled studies. Given that the IP literature lacks a theoretical or theological base and has failed to produce significant findings in controlled trials, we recommend that further resources not be allocated to this line of research.”
Annals of Behavioral Medicine August 2006
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16827626
--
Largest Study of Third-Party Prayer Suggests Such Prayer
Not Effective In Reducing Complications Following Heart Surgery

“STEP investigators enrolled 1,802 bypass surgery patients from six hospitals and
randomly assigned each to one of three groups: 604 patients received intercessory prayer after being informed they may or may not receive prayers (Group 1); 597 patients did not receive prayer after being informed they may or may not receive prayer (Group 2); and 601 patients received intercessory prayer after being informed they would receive it
(Group 3).
Caregivers and independent auditors comparing case reports to medical records were unaware of the patients’ assignments throughout the study. The study enlisted members of three Christian groups, two Catholic and one Protestant, to provide prayer throughout the multi-year study. The researchers approached other denominations, but none were able to make the time commitments that the study required.

Some patients were told they may or may not receive intercessory prayer:
complications occurred in 52 percent of those who received prayer (Group 1) versus
51 percent of those who did not receive prayer (Group 2). Complications occurred in
59 percent of patients who were told they would receive prayer (Group 3) versus
52 percent, who also received prayer, but were uncertain of receiving it (Group 1).
Major complications and thirty-day mortality were similar across the three groups.”
http://www.templeton.org/pdfs/press_releases/060407STEP.pdf
--

What can we conclude from this shocker, from all the heart-ached traumas over a life time of devout prayers for others not answered?

After the disillusionment settles, one thought does come to mind:

Maybe prayer doesn't change things, but prayer does change people who can change things ( a new motto I heard some time back but haven’t been able to locate its source or authorship).

I can vouch for such a different angle on prayer. And there are verified cases taking place in current events and in history. But that is for next post…

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Beginning of Wisdom

Remember we spoke last time of how Scripture is paradoxical, of how the Bible is mainly pictorial, symbolical, and mythical and less often or seldom logical, philosophical, and scientific. Poetic utterances come forward more often than journalistic prose.

So how does this help us to understand biblical contradictions? Consider Psalms 110:10-112:1 saying "The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom..How blessed the man who fears Yahweh..." versus I John 4:7-21 saying "Beloved let us love one another, for love is from God..God is love..There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love."

First, notice that humans are "blessed" who fear God. In Scripture, to be blessed is a wondrous happiness. Obviously, the writer isn't dealing with the kind of fear that we often think of when we use the word today. When a person says he has a fear of terrorism, he is not "blessed."

Second consider a rather simplistic analogy: I both fear and love the Grand Canyon. I've never cringed toward the Canyon; that is not what I mean by fearing the Canyon. Rather, when I was on one of my many trips into the Grand Canyon backpacking, I had to crawl across several rocks slides and move along a trail only as wide as a large book and slanted toward a cliff which plummeted straight down over 1,000 feet!

The wind was blowing, yanking on my 60-pound backpack. Let me tell you, I was aware of the awesome danger--that this was real not some virtual game or safe tourist area. I feared the Canyon!

Yet contradictorily, I loved the Canyon. Few times in my life have I ever felt so in love with any place, any scene. To descend down dangerous trails, being able to look back geologically millions of years and outward visually for miles and miles, the vista so vast that I almost ended in ecstatic awe!

Extrapolate this basic example to fearing and loving Absolute Goodness, Total Truth, Ultimate Reality. Fearing and loving God are complimentary responses/actions. Ecstatic awe and deep intimate relationship with the Eternal are together as one. At least that is Jesus' view.

When I John writes that there is no "fear in love" he isn't speaking of absolute awe. Rather the writer is saying that an individual who responds to God's love will no longer have a cringing kind of fear of God. He or she will live in the Beloved.

Consider this modern version of these scriptural passages: "The Love of God is the beginning of wisdom."

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox