My Contradictory Beliefs about God

As I reflect on my beliefs, I notice a curious contradiction.  On one hand I feel that God must be good, loving and caring towards humans, and that he is certainly not cruel and vindictive.  On the other hand, I don't believe that God exists.  How can I have both of these beliefs at the same time?  How can I have any opinion on what God is like if I don't think he exists?   Perhaps examining these beliefs more carefully will reveal why.

My belief in the goodness of God comes from my childhood and youth. Presumably that is when many of my subconscious assumptions about the world formed.  It was a time filled with teaching about a good God that sacrificed his son for us.  I heard numerous stories and commentaries on this at home and at church.  Also I read many Christian novels, such as the Chronicles of Narnia, whose main point was to teach and illustrate the goodness of God and how we must have faith in this.  So I became imbued with this sense of God's goodness.  It is an emotional belief;  I simple feel that God is good.

My disbelief in God's existence came through a long and tortuous route.  This route was primarily intellectual; I sought to examine my beliefs and resolve contradictions and errors.  Some of it is described in my post on Losing my Faith.  Other aspects of this struggle are recorded in various posts of this blog, including the very first post, Is God Good?, in which my underlying belief in God's goodness is contradicted by what I find written in the Bible.  Here my intellect is in combat with my worldview.  In my mind I have decided that I will seek to believe only what is true, and I have discovered that some of my cherished beliefs have grave errors in them.  If I am to be honest with myself I cannot maintain beliefs that I have concluded are false.  And the chief belief that I have concluded is false is in the existence of God.  Hence I cannot believe in God's existence.

Despite my belief that God does not exist, I find him lurking in my subconscious.  Although I know what I ought to believe, like the Apostle Paul, I find my inner self at war with my mind.  My subconscious beliefs rise up and take me captive.  Who will set me free?  Well, not Jesus who set Paul free (Romans 7:21-25), but perhaps this blog?

The Carrot-Stick Hypothesis for Why We Believe

Here is a curious observation: given the same evidence, people generate very different beliefs. This includes different political beliefs, different economic beliefs (like what is wrong with the economy) and different religious beliefs. Even those that share a religion, such as Christianity, diverge into all sorts of denominations with conflicting beliefs. And the divergence of beliefs is not only between people, but in the same person.  Thinking of myself: my beliefs have changed dramatically over the course of my life.  If it is not the evidence that has changed, then what drives this divergence in beliefs?


My hypothesis is that a carrot-stick combination drives our beliefs. On one hand we have a strong tendency to believe that which we find attractive. This includes those things that are familiar or that are respected by our peers or by those we admire.  These ideals are like carrots that attract us until we make them our own. Reality, on the other hand, is a stick that can hit us on the head when our beliefs diverge too much from it. So, while we might find it attractive to believe that we can walk on water, it does not take too long for reality to dissuade us from that belief. Our beliefs are pulled by carrots and hemmed in by sticks.  Ideally carrots would always pull us in directions compatible with reality, but clearly this is not the case as many ideals are opposed to reality. People can progress a long way following carrots that are contrary to reality, but if they are seeking truth they are liable to be corrected by a stick at some point.


Now our world is filled with carrots. Every family, every community, every society, every civilization has its own ideals, all coexisting and to some extent competing with each other. So perhaps it is not surprising that there is such a divergence of beliefs; we humans are capable of finding many different things attractive.  


Beliefs that grow and propagate widely have a number of properties. They are, or can be, attractive to a large number of people. They spread from person to person. The more they grow the more attractive they become. And finally, but quite importantly, they are not easily opposed or smacked down by reality. Belief in God is a prime example. We instinctively crave order and safety in the universe, and what can give greater order and safety than an all-knowing creator? The fact that others believe in God and find fulfillment in their belief is itself attractive, enabling this belief to propagate. Parental belief in God is easily absorbed by children. And since God is postulated to be invisible, he is (mostly) safe from the stick of reality. So we should not be surprised that theism has conquered much of this world. But every community has its own concerns and ideals that it finds attractive, and hence there are likely as many beliefs in what God is like as there are believing communities.


I can understand my own life using this carrot-stick model. Growing up in a Christian family and Christian community I absorbed their ideals and along the way was drawn to the same beliefs. The ideals spurred me on and deepened my involvement with the community and in evangelism which resulted in bigger and better carrots as my faith grew. So what brought it all to an end? You can read about it in this post: Losing My Faith. In effect it was reality smacking me on the head and my decision not to retreat from reality, but rather follow it. It is natural, when reality smacks us, to avoid it by rationalizing it away to enable us to keep our carrots. I certainly did not want to lose all I had acquired (my community and church and hopes) and certainly I had many times kept that stick at bay. But this time, after a long, extended struggle, the stick knocked me off one path onto another. Am I still lead by carrots? Undoubtedly so. But my path is now aligned better with reality.


To conclude, we like to think of ourselves as masters of our beliefs; able to discern truth from falsehood and superstition from science. But I postulate that humans are actually closer cousins to donkeys than rational agents. We herd together and our beliefs are primarily pulled by carrots. Sometimes, though, we hit ourselves against a stick and change course.

Is God's Creation Good?

Christians frequently point to the beauty and elegance of nature as a reflection of the goodness of the creator.  And indeed nature is wondrous in many ways.  But there is a problem: many of the key underlying characteristics that lead to survival and multiplication of posterity are not those that Christians would like to ascribe to God.  These include: deception, predation, sickness, disease, death, fear, pain, poison, starvation, ruthlessness, and so on.  These properties are not simply add-ons to nature, but are deeply embedded in its design and fabric.  Let me illustrate some of these:

Fear and pain.  One of the great evils in this world is to be tormented by fear and pain.  Yet fear and pain play a crucial role in nature, spurring animals to find food and avoid predators.  A gazelle living in fear of mountain lions and wolves will remain alert and has a far better chance of survival than one without this fear.  The fear of the pain of being ripped apart will drive it to flee a pursuer with the last drop of its strength.   Furthermore, when prey are scarce, pangs of hunger will drive a wolf to seek prey with all the strength it can summon.  Fear and pain are like a force of nature, propelling the life cycle onward.

Predation.  Much of the diversity and beauty of nature is a result of each animal being optimized for a niche both in what it eats and in the ways by which it escapes predators.  For instance, panther chameleons are slow-moving tree-climbers that are experts at creeping up on insects and then grabbing them with their tongues that are almost as long as their bodies.  Cheetahs' camouflage and litheness enables them to silently creep up on a herd of impalas and catch one in a high-speed chase.  The impala, on the other hand, with its large eyes seeing in almost all directions and keen ears is highly suited to escaping swift predators.  Without predators, many of the impala's tightly honed features would be superfluous.  If the cheetah ate grass, its features would be superfluous, if not harmful, and it would do much better in a form similar to an impala or a cow.  The key reason for diversity and variety in the animal kingdom is the enormous number of techniques animals have developed both for avoiding being preyed on and for preying on other animals.  The predator-prey relationship is a harsh but necessary component of the beauty of nature.

Death.  Death is an essential part of life for many creatures.  Consider flies.  An apple falls on the ground and a fly lays eggs on it.  The eggs hatch, become maggots and consume the apple.  Once the apple is gone, either the maggots die or they must escape.  Well their plan is to escape by becoming flies which look for more fruit in which to lay eggs.  Imagine flies never died; their numbers would keep increasing with each fruit that fell until the world was 3 feed deep with swarming flies.  But this applies not only to flies, consider caterpillars: they eventually become butterflies whose job is to mate and lay eggs.  Some butterflies have no mouth for eating so living forever is out of the question.  The incredibly elegant and complex reproductive and mating system for animals is based on the inevitability of death.  Without death, any species the reproduced would eventually cover every square inch of the earth's surface.

If nature sings the praises of its Creator, what is it telling us about him?  One must look not only at the love a mother shows her offspring, but also at the cuckoo that kills the other chicks in its nest and the parasitic wasp that lays eggs in a caterpillar that eventually devour the caterpillar alive.  What does it tell us about the Creator that animals (and humans) are designed to suffer fear and pain and to starve and die?  What does it tell us that the winners in the animal kingdom are typically the strongest, fittest, most fertile, most well-camouflaged, most deceitful and most ruthless?  God must value those qualities highly since he made them the criteria for success in his creation.

Now here is the answer that puts all these worries about God to rest.  These bad characteristics are simply a result of The Fall; when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and God cursed the creation.  Since then not only have women suffered pain in childbirth and men had to work by the sweat of their hands, but death and pain and all bad things we see entered creation.  So these bad things we see do not reflect God's plan or his original creation, rather they are just his punishment on earth for man's sin.

As a myth this might be a fine solution for taking God off the hook for designing all the cruel ways in which animals kill and devour each other.  But it fails when it claims to be historical or scientific.  It implies that before the fall that the world was good and these cruelties, including death, were absent.   Cheetahs could chase impalas to stay fit, but they better not sink their teeth into their necks.  For that matter, since impalas don't need to fear cheetahs, they could stop looking around them and grow fat eating grass.  It means that flies and caterpillars better not be multiplying.  Actually no animals should mate unless ways of populating other planets were devised.

There is another problem too: the fossil record clearly records the death of animals for hundreds of millions of years.  That is far longer than anyone would claim humans were around, and far before the fall.  And life and death back then was surely no pain-free picnic.  A fossil (right) that struck me, in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, has been kept in the same pose in which it was excavated showing the dinosaur's neck arched back in its death throes, perhaps as it is buried alive in burning ashes.  And no one can tell me animals didn't suffer pain when chomped in half by the enormous teeth of a TRex or belly slashed open by a deinonychus.    For that matter, what kind of loving, caring creator would bestow an enormous dagger on the foot of a deinonychus?  What was God thinking he would do with it?

It is clear that nature as a whole does not now, nor has in the past, embodied the loving, caring, self-sacrificial  ideals we would like to ascribe to God.  Rather, if it were an intelligent mind that devised the deceitful and brutal ways for animals to catch, kill and eat each other, that mind certainly lacks empathy and care for the downtrodden and weak.  And perhaps taking an intelligent mind out of the creation equation provides hope.  We don't have to accept that humans are doomed to be cruel or evil by nature.  Rather the intelligent minds are now, us!  We have an ability to reason and to empathize with those that suffer.  We do not have to model society after the survival of the fittest model.  Instead, perhaps dignity, freedom and compassion can replace eat-or-be-eaten.

The Problem of Hell and Honesty

The doctrine of hell is certainly a key component of Christianity.  Being "saved" means, in large part, being rescued from eternal damnation.  What motivates many in doing evangelism is saving the "lost" peoples of the world from being being cast into the flames of hell.

But hell creates problems for Christians too.  Are good people who are not Christians going to hell?  What about the millions, if not billions, of people who have not even heard the gospel -- will God torment them for eternity in hell?  Would a good, loving God send someone to hell because he was born in a Muslim community where he never heard the gospel?  What about babies, children, mentally-handicapped that are unable to "accept Jesus into their hearts".  Are they doomed?

There are plenty of Christian answers to questions like these.  One goes like this: God's justice requires that he punish people for their sins, and the punishment for sin is hell.  The problem with this is that surely a just punishment must be in some way commensurate with the crime.  But a punishment lasting eternity, is a punishment far beyond anything we can conceive, and far beyond any sin that a two-year old, or five-year old, or 20-year old or even the worst person you can image, could commit.  Surely it is not justice that forces God to dole out eternal punishment.

Another answer is that Hell is simply the consequence of sin. It is not like justice but more like gravity; we are all pulled down.  Only God can rescue us and he has provided a way for us to escape via belief in and submission to Jesus.  One might then ask, why does God require people be privy to this special knowledge in order to be saved?  What is going to happen to all the people who have never heard or who are mentally unable to understand?  If one is consistent, then one must conclude that they get shipped off to hell when they die.  It also makes one question God's goodness if he is populating this world with millions of people who he knows are never going to hear the Gospel and so are doomed to burn in hell for eternity.

But probably the answer that is most popular among Evangelicals is we get what we choose.  That is the theme of C. S. Lewis's book "The Great Divorce". Those that seek God, what is good and what is true, get to be with him for eternity (including for example the pagan God-fearer).  On the other hand, those that run away from God and seek evil, are banished from his presence for eternity (i.e. hell).  It is a nice resolution in the sense that what can be more fair than getting what you truly want, and it addresses the problem of those who haven't heard the Gospel.  The problem with this argument is that a key assumption is invalid; namely that pursuing God is equivalent to pursuing what is good and true.  Let me make this personal.  I am dedicated to seeking what is true and what is good.  And through my searching, (as reflected by others posts on this blog), I have concluded that the God presented in the Bible and taught by Christians is not good.  Furthermore, weighing the evidence as objectively as I can, I have concluded that this God does not exist.  So, if I am to be honest in pursuing what is good and true, I must reject the God of the gospels.  But according to most Christian doctrines, that would send me to hell.  The only way I can think of getting around this (as Pascal might advise me), would be to believe something I have carefully concluded is not true.   But surely there is something wrong if escaping hell requires me to be dishonest.

Now that I have finished this post, it occurs to me that I have repeated some of the themes of an earlier post.  Perhaps what is bugging me even more than hell, which I no longer believe in due to the reasoning above, is this: Christians are imbued with a feeling (and plenty of teaching) that the true Christian is honest whereas even the thoughtful non-believer is either dishonest or deluded.  However, I believe that careful analysis will show that very often the opposite is true.

Thoughts on Respect for the Bible

I grew up being taught that the way to respect the Bible is to read it, believe it and obey it. That is certainly the dominant view among modern evangelicals. But it is not the only view held by the church. Nor may it actually be the most respectful. In this post I will consider different ways in which the Bible is respected.

How to treat and respect the Bible has historically lead to many disputes. These disputes included which language to use: the originals (including Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek), or translations into Greek, or Latin or old English or modern English or other languages. Also in dispute is which ancient texts to use and which books to include, and who should read it and interpret it. Does respect for the Holy Bible require that the church be the caretaker of it, and explain it to the masses? Some certainly believed so.

Nowadays we look back to the Reformers (including Luther and Zwingli) as those who freed the Bible from the chains of the church and used printing presses to make it available to the anyone who wished to read it and in their own language. We take this for granted now, but this was considered dangerous, if not heretical, by the church. And indeed it did turn out to be dangerous as it surely was a major factor in the splintering of the church first into Catholicism and Protestantism, and then no longer constrained by a single church hierarchy, the protestants fought over interpretations of the Bible and split into numerous sects and denominations.

Even though this freeing of the Bible from its caretaker, the church, and its dissemination to all lead to much conflict and strife, it was surely the appropriate, right and respectful way to treat the Bible. It was a maturation or coming-of-age event. Once it was freed, there is no putting it back in the hands of the church. To do so would be like sending an adult to live as a child again.

Nevertheless, once the Bible was let loose, the reformers and their followers got nervous. It was not long before doctrines were established to contain and protect the Bible. These doctrines included "Biblical authority", "Biblical Inspiration", "Plenary Inspiration", "Biblical Inerrancy", and such like. These doctrines elevate the Bible above other books but at the same time they constrain how one can read the Bible. One must read it literally, or follow the intent of the author. One cannot question the veracity of its claims. So, while the Bible cannot return to being a child in the care of the church, neither could it be treated as an adult. Rather it was to be constrained like a teenager with strict rules governing it and its readers.

But if the Bible is a great book, which surely it is, it deserves to be treated and respected as an adult. How should we do this? Robert Price, in the introduction to his excellent book "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man," argues that the historical-critical study of the Bible is the new reformation. This approach starts with the Bible as an historical book, and seeks to discover how the Bible came to be, what factors influenced it, shaped it, who wrote portions and when, how reliable are the stories, and what can we know or surmise about the events it describes. The Bible is not placed on a pedestal. No questions are off-limits. It is not assumed a priori that the claims of the various authors or editors are true or false. Rather discovering this is one of its goals.

Historical-critical methods respect the Bible by treating it as an historical document and freeing it from dogmas and doctrines. What the text says is not sacrosanct. Rather the text is a window into the ancient world. It contains history and it contains propaganda. It also contains poetry, myths and conflicting stories that have been meshed together by later redactors. Through careful historical analysis, and by not imposing doctrines such as inerrancy, innumerable treasures of can be discovered in the Bible. For example, Richard Friedman's tracing the development and redaction of first five books of the Bible in his book "Who Wrote the Bible" is a fascinating account of religious history. Using critical analysis of the texts, rather than simply citing church tradition or special revelation, he reveals clues in the text that illuminate the authors and redactors of these books and reveals their goals and motivations.

There are various possible objections to this proposal. The first that comes to mind is this: "Doesn't the Bible claim to be inspired by God and so shouldn't one respect that claim?" The problem with this justification for inspiration is that it is circular. Only if one first assumes the Bible is fully true and inspired by God would one accept such a statement at face value. Here is a classic case of dogma driving the reading of the Bible. Another objection might be that the historical-critical method kills faith. I don't know if this is true or not as careful study certainly makes one more careful about what one believes, but this objection is irrelevant. It is not the role of truth to be constrained to fit our faith, but the reverse.

So, to conclude, the Bible is not a child that needs to be kept hidden away from general view. Nor is it an adolescent that must be constrained by religious dogmas. Rather, to respect it we must treat it for what it is: a complex historical document written and edited by many authors over hundreds of years. On a pedestal it becomes a god to obey, but under historical analysis it is a record of religious development and a window into mankind's search for meaning.

Does God Care for You and Me?

Instinctively I have to, or want to, say "Yes, certainly God cares for me and everyone else (at least if he exists)". But why should I be so confident in that? Perhaps is it my background: growing up in a Christian family and inheriting that assumption. Not all religions would teach that about God. If Christian doctrine is a sufficient reason for you believing something, then no need to read further. But if like me you want something more, then join me in asking this question:

Is there any actual evidence that God cares for people in general, or Christians in particular?

I remember from my church-going days a proof given periodically by preachers of this. After preaching on God's care for his followers, the preacher would ask a question like this: "Is there anyone here who God has not provided for when you were in desperate need?" And of course no one raises a hand. Wow -- surely most people have been in some sort of great need during their lives, and if God provided for them then that's a 100% batting average on God's part. What more could you ask for?

There are a number of problems with this demonstration, and here is the big one that made me a bit uncomfortable even in much church-days. Say someone was in desperate need and God didn't provide. Well, he would die. And clearly there have been many Christians in desperate need of healing or something else to keep them alive, but didn't get it and died. By asking this question to the living members of his congregation, the preacher has effectively excluded anyone who could convincingly say "No, God didn't provide for me and I died." So if you exclude the nays, then it is not too surprising you will get 100% yeas.

The classic demonstration from nature that God must care for us is attributed to Jesus. Consider Luke 12:22-24: And [Jesus] said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!" Granted, we are more valuable than ravens. And granted, I have not seen any dead ravens. I am not sure it follows that God feeds them in their need. If so the population of ravens would have exceeded all other birds by now. Rather it seems more likely that ravens die of starvation or thirst when food or water are scarce just like other animals. That puts a pretty big hole in the argument that God cares for us by analogy to ravens.

Instead of discovering evidence that God cares for those in need, the opposite seems to be the case. There is so much needless suffering in this world, and so many untimely deaths. Here I am not addressing the problem of suffering; I just want to find some positive evidence that God cares for those in need. Anecdotes of good coming out of times of desperate need are encouraging, but have to be balanced by the innumerable times desperate need leads to tragic death. So I am at a loss in finding evidence that God cares for you and me.

Two Faces of Christianity

There are two conflicting sides of Christianity that I see in our culture. Let me call these the Utopian side and the Militant side. Both of these are found and justified in many passages of the New Testament. And yet they present divergent, if not diametrically opposite, views of what Christianity means.

The Utopian Christian loves his neighbor (and everyone in the world) as much as himself. He has compassion on the poor and downtrodden and sacrifices his well-being for theirs. He rejoices in affliction and even afflicts himself with fasting and other hardships. He does not judge or condemn others. He gives to whoever asks from him. He is a pacifist who will not strike back or retaliate when slapped on the face. He loves his enemy, will not speak evil of him behind his back, and prays for his well-being.

The Militant Christian, on the other hand, sees this world as a spiritual battle ground. What is important is whether people are going to heaven or hell, not their physical condition or whether they are fed or content. Evil spiritual forces are impinging on good and must be fought. People must be pulled out of the jaws of hell. Whatever means that accomplish this are justified even if they harm people. Evil is defined as what contravenes the revealed will of God (i.e. Bible). Condemnation of immorality is a staple, especially anything to do with sex or sexual orientation that isn't sanctioned in the Bible.

If something saves lives or pulls people out of poverty or helps the downtrodden or leads to greater happiness, the utopian Christian is likely to support it. These factors, however, are not particularly relevant to the militant Christian. Things for him are judged on an absolute moral scale, rather than on a harm/benefit scale. The militant Christian attacks policies that could be seen as condoning immoral behavior, even if they could literally save thousands of lives. This includes attacking sex education and providing condoms to poor nations to protect them from the spread of HIV. A similar reasoning leads to attacking same-sex marriages -- it doesn't matter whether or not it could lead to happier people. All that matters is that it contravenes what they see as God's ideal for the world. Other similar ideals by some Christians include banning contraception use including condoms, (even though contraception undoubtedly protects millions of unwanted children from coming into the world), and banning suicide and euthanasia even for terminally ill people in great pain. The merits of each of these could be debated on a harm/help basis, but this is irrelevant to the militant Christian who sees everything through a black-white, moral-immoral lens.

Freedom of belief and religion are certainly not ideals of the militant Christian. If a belief system (or religion) is going to lead people astray and into eternal torture in hell, why should that be legal or tolerated? The militant Christian has few qualms in leveraging the state's powers to further the spread of the gospel and halt the spread of other "nefarious" beliefs.

I have just described the extremes of these views. Both can surely find plenty of support in the Bible. And Christians hold a whole spectrum of beliefs spanning these two extremes. But what I find sad is that the second of these faces seems to be winning. While modern Christians still pay lip service to the utopian ideals espoused by Jesus, in practice they have ditched them as ineffective. I presume they judge it less effective to live a selfless life, than to rail judgments against all the evils they see and lobby politicians to fight their cause. Turning on the radio or scanning the blogsphere or listening to sermons, it is the shouts of Christian soldiers that are drowning out the quiet voices of their utopian brethren.

Guilt: a reason to believe?

Why should one believe in Christianity? What evidence can one present to the skeptic or doubter or even the believer? Miracles are a popular one, but most have never seen one. Thinking back over the evangelism I have done and observed, the guilt argument is one of the most effective at making converts. Here is how it goes:

We are all sinners and guilty of breaking God's universal moral law. The evidence for this is the guilt we feel -- surely no one will deny that we each suffer from feelings of guilt at times in our lives. Hence we are each aware of being transgressors of God's law. Now the wages of sin are death, but the free gift of God is eternal life. One simply believes and repents and one will be forgiven one's sins. Moreover, this is right way to overcome our guilt.

I certainly believed this line of reasoning for many years. A favorite anecdote in sermons is that of a non-believer being driven by his or her overwhelming feeling of guilt to the forgiveness of Christ. What makes this powerful is that guilt is real, undeniable, and impacts everyone. If it is evidence for Christianity, then indeed one should pay attention.

But is it really evidence for Christianity? Is the argument sound? As I Christian I did not really think to question it; I knew what I wanted to believe and since it supported my beliefs I was happy to include it in my reasons for belief. Now, however, I only want reasons that hold water, and I fear this one does not. Here are the problems I see with it.

First, is it really evidence of a God-instilled moral code? As described in the Wikipedia article, "Guilt is an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something that one believes one should not have done." So guilt is evidence of internal conflict, of failing to meet one's own expectations. This conflict need not be between one's actions and God's laws. Rather, our moral expectations of ourselves can easily have purely natural sources. That is, guilt and feelings of right and wrong need not originate in God but are simply a component of our evolution as social beings. (I won't argue that here, but here is a post makes that case: http://www.steelcityskeptics.net/2008/09/08/secular-morality/.)

So guilt need not require the existence of a God-given universal moral code. But is it nevertheless a side-affect of this moral code, and so still useful evidence? The problem with this is the huge variability in guilty feelings, both between different people and in response to similar actions by the same person. Some people are highly sensitive to feelings of guilt; a minor infraction will send them into the depths of guilt. Others are impervious to guilt. While others may commit great crimes without guilt and then have great guilt for a small action. A measure with such variability is a poor indicator of a universal constant or a universal moral code.

A reponse to this is that those who willfully sin sear their consciences and lose their feelings of guillt. But is that really a satisfactory explanation for the variability of guilt? It does not explain why some feel guilt for certain small infractions but not other major ones. Nor does it explain why some are hypersensitive to guilt. It may be that some people can reduce their feelings of guilt through repeated efforts, but a better explanation for its variability among people is that just as physical and emotional attributes vary between people due to genetic and nurturing differences, in the same way sensitivity to guilt will vary.

As a final note, I wonder if it is true that Christianity offers an "answer" to guilt. Rather, from my observations of others and myself, it tends to enhance guilt, particularly in the case of small, inconsequential harms. I can say that from personal experience: as a child of about 5 I once stole a key from my grandfather's desk and then denied it to him when directly asked. I lost the key and so never returned it, but guilt from this sin stayed with me for many years and reoccurred most strongly during revival sermons. I wondered if that sin was the reason God didn't give me the gift of tongues, and other such blessings. Even though I many times asked Jesus to forgive that sin, the guilt from it did not go away. I never told anyone about it but finally, desperate to overcome the guilt, at the age of 15 or so I wrote a letter to my grandparents admitting and apologizing for my grievous sin against them. Then, in a letter to my whole family(!), they added a couple lines addressed to me thanking me for my admission. I think it was the annoyance that they would do that to me that finally overcame my guilt. But now that I look back at the experience, I think it was Christianity that harmed me by nurturing and feeding my guilt and keeping it in my mind as a possible reason that God may be witholding blessings from me when the guilt should have dissipated long before.

So to conclude, I do not believe that our feelings of guilt imply the existence of a God-given law. Rather guilt an important component in the interactions between social beings enabling others to forgive and so overcome wrongs. But guilt is also a useful tool for religions, both for making converts by offering people a way to overcome it, and then in keeping followers in repentance and submission by actually nurturing and spreading guilt.

Apologetics, Anecdotes and Aspersions

I agreed to read Ravi Zacharias's book "Can Man Live Without God" because of a deal with my Mom. She would read Dan Barker's book "godless" (see my review) if I would read this book. Another motivation of mine was that I remember listening to a talk by Zacharias when in college and being impressed. But back then I was a Christian. So I wanted to see what I still thought of him. Also, it has been a while since I have read an apologetics book, and this would be a good chance to reassess the Christian apologetics literature.


While Zacharias is certainly eloquent and makes moving speeches and tells powerful anecdotes, he makes almost no arguments. He just states his positions and relies on the implications of his anecdotes to support them. Perhaps this is effective at convincing most people who rely on emotional appeal rather than reasons for belief. I can see why his books are popular among Christians; those who share his beliefs don't need or want arguments, and they would rather have emotional anecdotes. Compare that to Dan Barker's book "godless" which is full of arguments -- one may disagree with inferences or assumptions in them, but at least Barker provides a reasoned basis for his positions.

I was a bit preturbed to find Zacharias using the term: "antitheist" for atheist. I suppose this is because the term atheist has lost most of its perjorative sense. Right from the beginning this illustrates how he intends to convince his reader of his points: use rhetoric, imagery and other tricks to make his opponents look bad. But in reply to his use of the term "antitheist", consider this distinction: There are hundreds or thousands of gods that people past and present believe in. A monotheist rejects belief in all but one of them. An atheist rejects belief in one additional god. So far so good. Hence it is strange that rejecting 100% versus 99% of gods should make one an "anti" something. Rather Zacharias is simply using it as part of his arsensal of attacks on atheists.



Zacharias loves to find examples of well-known atheists who make outrageous claims or do something outrageous, and then lump all the other atheists in the same box as them. The problem is that atheists are as varied as theists. There are probably as many different ethical systems among atheists are there are among theists. His strategy of telling with relish an anecdote of Stalin pulling feathers out of a live chicken implying that atheists have no basis for morality is like me finding something nasty or brutish taught by some religion (say burning slaves to the sun-god) and implying that all theists (Christians included) are heartless slaves of their gods. Zacharias loves to use Nietzsche as a kicking bag for all of atheism. The problem is two-fold. First he takes Nietzsche's aphorisms far too literally. Second, Nietzsche is not a general representative of atheism; I'm sure far many atheists disagree with much of what Nietzsche proposes.



Zacharias summarizes one of his main claims (pg 32): "Antitheism provides every reason to be immoral and is bereft of any objective point of reference with which to condemn any choice". Contrary to this, and plenty of similar claims (and aspersions), it *is* possible to have an ethical system without need to rely on a deity's wrath or reward. Perhaps Zacharias does not read ethics? For example, Peter Singer provides an ethical framework in his book "Practical Ethics". Also Barker, in his book "godless", describes how he went from assumptions similar to Zacharias's to realizing that an ethical system that truly values humans is one that is based on human needs and characteristics, rather than those of a deity.



My biggest disappointment with the book was Chapter 12 "Getting to the Truth". Here is Zacharias's opportunity to argue constructively for how we can find the truth and distinguish truth from falsehood. There are a lot of falsehoods out there, and people could surely use some good instruction on how to discriminate between what is true and false. Here are Zacharias's 3 tests: (1) logical consistency, (2) empirical adequacy, and (3) experimental relevance. After stating these, Zacharias then goes on to ignore (2) and (3) and relies only on (1). Granted, logical consistency is an important identifier of falsehood. But most real-life falsehoods we encounter are logically consistent (or vague enough to it is hard to show them inconsistent). So how is someone to determine from the myriad claims out there (that aren't clearly logically inconsistent) which ones to trust and which ones to reject? Zacharias gives us no help. The answer lies in a field that Zacharias almost completely ignores (except for a few derogatory comments he makes about evolution). It is found in science. The scientific method is our best tool for acquiring knowledge about the world. It consists of three components that work together: (1) observation, (2) hypothesis creation and (3) hypotheses testing. And there are three main tests for hypotheses, these are: (i) logical consistency, (ii) accuracy (how well the hypotheses describe the observations), and (iii) parsimony (how succinct the hypotheses are). Together these methods and tests are extremely powerful tools for discovering truth about the world. One could wish that Zacharias had applied them to the problem at hand.


There are plenty of other points in his book that I would dispute. The main issues, though, are how one can find the truth, and how one seeks to illuminate the truth to others. Apart from insisting on logical consistency, Zacharias seems quite confused on how to find the truth. He certainly does not make a reasoned case that Christianity is true. There are many strong counter-arguments to his case for Christianity that he ignores (such as those found in Barker's book). Furthermore his method for illuminating truth to others is quite deceptive: he discredits viewpoints by recounting examples of extreme followers, by making broad, unsupported attacks on atheism with the aim of nurturing fear amongst Christians of the rise of amoral atheists, and by using anecdotes as justifications or proofs.


On the other hand, perhaps the problem is that I am not his target audience. These are the very tactics used every Sunday by pastors in countless churches to sustain the faith of their congregations and keep followers from venturing beyond the safe havens of the Christian religion. Certainly these tactics have power to retain followers in the faith. Ravi Zacharias is simply one of those pastors who has put his preaching into print. Considering that the prime use of a book like this is to provide arsenal to pastors for apologetic sermons, I think a more appropriate title for his book is: "Anecdotes of foolish, deluded and nasty atheists."

godless

I just finished reading the book "godless" by Dan Barker, and was extremely impressed. Here is my review of his book.

Barker grew up smack in the middle of the evangelical movement. From a young age he was an enthusiastic follower of Christ and leader in evangelism to the unsaved. He lead missionary trips to Mexico, he wrote songs and plays that were published and widely distributed by Manna Music, he was ordained as a minister, he spoke in tongues, and so on. But after 19 years in the ministry he started to reevaluate his beliefs. And he came to the conclusion that what he believed in, had faith in, simply was not true. That lead to his rejecting his belief in God and a major realignment of his life. But it did not change the central core which was seeking to know the truth and tell others about it. Rather, one could say this change was simply a large step forward in this goal: he determined that his beliefs were in error and he corrected them and continued on. Of course this did not happen overnight, and in the first part of this book is an engaging account of his life as a Christian and his change in direction.

A consequence of his deep involvement in Christian ministry is a deep understanding and respect for Christians. This is in contrast to some of the other recent books on atheism by Dawkins and others that are dismissive of Christian beliefs. Here is someone who understands and experienced Christianity from the inside and the knows the reasons why Christians believe and nevertheless has rejected those beliefs. In this book he provides a clear and compelling account for why he does not believe the Christian message.

In the second portion of the book he challenges some frequent assumptions of the Bible and Christianity. In the chapter is titled "The Bible and Morality," he argues that the Bible is not a good moral guide. In the Bible things aren't inherrently right or wrong; rather it is whatever the strongest person around says is right must be right. The strongest person happens to be God, so what ever he is feeling like at the moment is right, even if that includes killing or raping prisoners, sacrificing your son or daughter, or plenty of other horrific things he did or told his followers to do. In the Bible morality relies on authority, namely: might makes right. Humans have no right to be treated fairly or with respect; whatever God decrees goes. One can start to understand with this basis for morality all kinds of horrific acts could be done with the belief that they are God-decreed. And God's moral decrees in the Bible are no better than moral precepts found in other societies. The 10 commandments do not give much useful guidance. Two examples: "Do not make a graven image" does not give moral guidanace. "Do not kill" as an unqualified commandment is not very helpful: are there no exceptions like in self defense? And Barker argues that "kill" is the better translation than "murder". But even if we take it as a prohibition on murder, it is not an improvement on laws that plenty of pagan societies developed on their own. Moreover, it is undercut by the actions of God himself who frequently and somewhat arbitrarily killed people for minor offenses or ordered his followers to kill them.

Jesus himself had many moral failings. One significant example is that he never spoke out against slavery. Rather, from the use of it in his parables and teaching, it seems that he approved of it. Imagine how much untold misery over 2000 years perpetrated through human bondage could have been eliminated if Jesus, or Paul for that matter, had condemned slavery. His moral exhortations contain plenty of things that aren't wise or moral (and are not followed by most Christians today) such as: Don't make any plans for the future (Matthew 6:34), Don't save any money (Matthew 6:19-20), Marrying a divorced woman is committing adultery (Matthew 5:32), Hate your family (Luke 14:26), and so on.

Rather than requiring an external source to direct us in morality and provide punishment, Barker claims that Atheists have a better source for morality, namely nature itself. "Morality implies avoiding or minimizing harm." The morality of actions is determined based on their effect on humans. Actions are evil because of the harm they cause, rather than because they break a command in a book or because the offend a diety. True morality does not consist in obedience or subservience to an authority, but in rationally choosing actions that benefit rather than harm humans. God is not needed or even helpful in this endeavor.

He addresses a common Christian argument from C.S. Lewis who said of Jesus: either he is "Lunatic, Liar or Lord." I have always been unhappy with this simplistic trichotomy, and Barker adds on a much more likely fourth alternative: "Legend". That is, much of what we have in the Bible regarding Jesus is really legend. He illustrates this with the ressurection stories of which there are 5 accounts in the New Testament. The earliest account written during the lifetime of Jesus followers is by Paul (I Corinthians 15) in 55 AD. This account is understandable as a purely spiritual resurrection. The next account is by Mark, 70 AD, 40 years after Jesus' death and after almost all adults alive in 30 AD would be dead. Accepting that the last 12 verses are a later addition, Mark has no resurrection appearances at all, only a young man saying "he is risen" with perhaps a spiritual interpretation possible. The later accounts written 50 or more years after the event start including physical body appearances of Jesus and other fantastic happenings. The interesting thing is that the earliest accounts have the fewest fantastic or miraculous elements and the later the account the more miraculous elements are included in the stories; a good sign of a developing legend. Additional evidence that it is a developing legend is that the accounts contain many irreconcilable events; it is not possible to create a single account of what happened after Jesus died that includes all the details of all the accounts as they contradict each other. The problem is that Christians today refuse to consider it a legend. Rather they take the oldest accounts, written well into the second or third generation after Jesus, and claim those are the very things that his followers believed right after his death.

In my opinion this is an ideal book for a Christian wishing to critically examine his or her beliefs. I know from personal experience that this type of critique is very difficult to do from inside the faith. But for those Christians who value knowing truth over any particular set of beliefs, here is a book that will challenge them in assessing their own beliefs and reasons for belief.

My Great Ponzi Scheme

I just had a great idea for an unbeatable Ponzi scheme. Offer a reward of infinite riches, everlasting life and an enduring relationship. Tell people that it is a free gift; all they have to do is accept it. Once they join, get people actively involved and emotionally attached. Encourage them to build relationships with other members, and to volunteer their time. Encourage them to give a portion of their income. Use their money and their efforts to grow the scheme. As necessary make use of additional tools like guilt to ensure people are participating. If people lose their sense of urgency or feel too burdened by their participation or are drifting away, give them some perspective: a little temporary pain now is nothing compared to the everlasting torment that is in store for all those who are not in the scheme.

Most Ponzi schemes have fatal flaws that eventually cause them to fail. Either they are exposed as frauds or at some point their growth tapers off and outlays exceed their income and they collapse. This scheme avoids both of these failure modes: it is impossible to disprove its key claim of reward after death, and so it cannot be shown to be a fraud. In addition, this major outlay never actually has to be made to participants (until they are dead), and so it will never run out of resources. At the same time as avoiding typical failure modes, this scheme can do what Ponzi schemes do best: leverage the income and effort of current participants to bring in new participants. I imagine this scheme could last thousands of years.

Freedom and Gay Marriage

Most people love to advertise their support for freedom. But what galls me is when people support freedom in their words but deny it in their actions and in their voting. It is easy for us to see this hypocrisy in totalitarian regimes, but it occurs frequently in our own society. The following is a contemporary example that has been bothering me for a few years.

We hear our politicians talk about spreading freedom to other countries in one breathe, and then in the next breath we hear them advocate that we deny freedom for gays to marry. "Denying gay marriage" is an abstract term to most people, so it helps to think more specifically. What would you say if the government did not permit you to marry the person you chose? Surely that would be severe curtailment of your freedom. In the same way denying gays the right to marry is a severe restriction on their freedom.

We outlaw certain actions that cause harm to others, such as stealing. But the harm has to be real. For example, a general discomfort with interracial marriage is not a sufficient harm to justify denying people the right to marry outside their race. So what specific and real harm does gay marriage cause that would be enough to deny them the right to marry? If a gay couple living next door to you got married, how would that harm you specifically? Would that harm your marriage? If not, then what business do we have telling gays they are not permitted to marry?

Some Thoughts and Sites

I haven't posted in a long time. Guess it is because I haven't had any burning thoughts on God and truth. But I have found some cool web sites, so here are a couple:

Yesterday Randy Pausch, Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, died of Pancreatic Cancer (see here). It is a tragic loss: he has a family with three young children, and is in the midst of making great contributions academically. He gave his "Last Lecture" last year. There is a quote I especially like from it: “I have experienced a deathbed conversion. I just bought a Macintosh.” Having heard numerous stories of death-bed conversions to faith during my growing up in a Christian environment, it is such a relief to see someone not clinging to religion and empty promises of salvation, even when he is confronting the end of his life.

The Japanese Zen monks have a long history of death-bed statements in the form of Haiku poems, which fairly often include self-deprecating humor. Hoffmann's book on Japanese Death Poems is a classic that I enjoy reading. Here's a one by Gaki (1927):

One spot, alone,
left glowing in the dark:
my snotty nose.


I went to an event called "Drinking Skeptically" the other evening -- and enjoyed meeting various similar minded people. There is a site with a calendar of local events (in Pittsburgh) called Steelcityskeptics.net

A site I wandered onto and enjoyed a lot is Atheist Girls. They have some good tales to tell on their experiences with and without religion.

Another site I enjoy perusing is: Atheist Ethicist when I feel like commentary on recent political or ethical debates.

Does the Atonement Make Sense?

Atonement is an explanation for how God can forgive sins. It is often presented as penal substitution: Christ took the punishment that we deserve as sinners when he died on the cross. He payed the debt we owe to God for our sins. Thus God is free to forgive our sins and still satisfy the blood requirements of justice.

Here is the problem: say person B commits a horrible crime against person A (for example, say he kills all of person's A's family). Naturally when B is caught, A wants him punished for his crime. Then person C says: I'll take the punishment instead of person B, so you can let B go free. So person C is executed instead of person B and justice is statisfied, is it? Is justice really blind to who it punishes? Even if person A decides to forgive person B and gives up his demand for punishment of B, what is accomplished by person C being executed in B's place? Or consider this, person A says: you can let B go and execute me instead of him.

What a strange idea of justice: a crime is committed and someone has to die for it. But it does not matter who dies: either the ciminal or an innocent, willing substitute, even the victim or the judge. Atonement lies at the heart of Christianity, and yet when examined closely one must ask: What is moral, good or just about this teaching? Why can't God, like us, simply unconditionally forgive?

I wonder what I would have thought about Julia Sweeney?

I recently listened to Julia Sweeney's monologue: Letting Go of God, and I loved it. She eloquently describes many of the same struggles that I have had and how she resolved them. She is both genuine and entertaining and at the same. She describes growing up in a Christian household and earnestly seeking God but in the end finding that the God of Christianity is not there. That summarizes my experience, and perhaps that is why I liked her monologue so much.

But I wonder, if I could go back 14 years and listen to that CD then, what would I have thought? At that time I was a strong evangelical believer. Would I have been critical or dismissive of her story? From my current vantage point I can't determine what my reaction would have been. So much has changed in my life.

Perhaps one way I could get insight into this question is to see the reaction of others who are evangelical believers. Anyone who has listened to her monologue, please feel free to tell me your reactions on the comments to this post.

Are Honesty and Faith at Odds?

Honesty can describe one's interactions with others, but at an even more basic level, honesty is a description of how one informs oneself. Many people deceive others, but I suspect more people deceive themselves. Willing self-deception is what I am here referring to as dishonesty. The opposite of this, honesty, is playing straight with one's self. That is, seeking to be informed by truth and not comforting lies.

Now some things are certainly true, while others certainly false, but many have various levels of likelihood of being true. A form of self deception is to convince oneself that something is certainly true or certainly false when the evidence for either is far from conclusive. A helpful way to think of it is in probabilities: we ought to assess the probability that a claim is true conditioned on the evidence available to us. Unfortunately humans are poor probabilistic or Bayesian reasoners. Nevertheless we can at least make qualitative estimates such as: given the evidence, certain claims are much more likely to be true than others, and so on. Honesty then requires a careful assessment, including gathering and analysis of evidence, for all the claims one wants to make or to believe. Honesty requires discounting irrelevant factors and prejudices one has grown up. Honesty does not allow one to believe something simply because one wants to or it makes one feel better. Honesty can be a painful process.

Now let me contrast this with faith. Unfortunately there are many competing definitions for faith, but here I will focus on the following aspect. Faith involves the choice to believe something firmly and without wavering irrespective of potential new evidences or analyses. Faith demands a binary answer: yes I believe with all my heart and I will never swerve, or not I don't. Not all religions are like this, but many are including evangelical Christianity. While these religions may provide some "evidences" in favor of themselves, these evidences are in no way conclusive; at most they show plausibility. But nevertheless the religions encourage and even demand certainty in their veracity. For example, certain religions or "faiths" demand that one accept that "the Bible is the inspired Word of God." Now the evidence for this is very patchy, if it exists at all. With careful consideration of internal and external evidences one might conclude that certain parts are likely to be from God and other parts are very unlikely to be. But religious faith will have no patience with a conclusion like this: it demands all or nothing, faith or disbelief, no conditional beliefs. But this is contrary to an honest assessment which cannot declare certainty when evidence is weak and cannot discount potential new evidences changing one's belief. Thus to accept the demands of certain faith one must eschew uncertainties, discount contrary evidences and discard honesty.

A person of faith might reply: faith claims demand action based on either an acceptance of or rejection of the claim, and so one is forced to make a binary choice of belief or unbelief. Here's the confusion: it is between belief and action. One may well have to make a binary choice of action, but it can be in the face of acknowledged uncertainty in belief. For example: suppose your friend said he would meet you at 5pm at the coffee shop. Your action is binary: you either go there to meet him at 5 or you don't. But your belief need not be binary. You might think there is a good chance he will be delayed due to traffic and so won't be there at 5, but nevertheless you may still go there at 5 just in case he makes it. Honesty in belief takes uncertainties into account rather than deny them.

So why do so many people choose faith over honesty? While faith sometimes results in physical hardships, it more than compensates by giving one a certainty and an inner confidence. It does not need careful analysis and is easily avilable to all. It builds bonds between individuals and fosters a community of likeminded. But what is the cost of all these gains? By closing the door to tentative beliefs conditioned on available evidence, faith devalues truth. What is important is no longer the truth, but rather that one believes unconditionally.

Is the Incarnation a RPG?

Lots of people claim to believe in the idea of divine incarnation. But few, I believe, have much idea of what that really means. Here's my proposal: The incarnation is God's version of a Role Playing Game (RPG). He creates or selects a character which he inhabits just like you would in a virtual-reality RPG. Then he uses his selected human body to play with the other characters. He feels bad for the other characters when they are hungry and gives them food, helps them move up to higher levels and even sacrifices his character for them. But unlike everyone else who is stuck in his or her human body, God has just temporarily chosen his body, and he can dispose of it whenever he likes or bring it back to life if it dies.

It makes one wonder: is it really a big deal if someone operating at a higher level has more powers, can do miracles or even chooses to sacrifice his character others? I could do miracles and sacrifice my character for lesser beings in World of Warcraft. I may even be able to raise characters back to life. But please don't worship me.

Three Sources of Darkness

Light and darkness are themes used throughout the Bible. Light refers to truth, instruction, good, etc., whereas darkness refers to blindness, ignorance, deception, death, evil, etc. Such broad meanings are confusing, so in this article I will restrict the meaning of darkness to blindness to truth including deception and ignorance. Now Christians preach against the darkness of the world and offer a light to eliminate darkness. This is the central message of the gospels. But is it true? Is the world really dark in the sense of blindness to truth, and is the light they offer really a way to remove darkness? Here I will examine the relationship of the three central pillars of Christianity (and other religions) to truth. These pillars are: revelation, authority and faith.

Revelation: This is the claimed foundation for Christianity, and yet it suffers from three fatal flaws:

1. We can never show that any revelation is actually from God as opposed to some other non-physical entity, see: Can we know if a message is from God?


2. We cannot distinguish between voices and visions generated by the receiver's mind and those generated by some external entity (be it God or other). Even the hearer or seer can never be sure a claimed revelation is actually a revelation and not his imagination.


3. Finally, there is no truth test for revelation that deals with spiritual or non-physical beings, see: What do miracles prove? This is precisely the area where revelation should be useful, and yet there is no way to distinguish its claims from empty claims. The evidences people use to demonstrate revelation are no better than those used by fortune tellers and psychics; if one statement that he/she makes turns out to be true, that validates the rest of what he/she says, and of course dubious, ambiguous and false statements are ignored.

Hence, claiming with certainty that a revelation is from God and preaching it to others as true is then either an act of self deception, or a decision to deceive others or both. The reliance on revelation is like consulting an astrologer. What could be a greater source of darkness than that?

Authority: Christians must rely on mediated revelation, that is, revelation that came through someone else usually long ago. How is one to know which of the millions of claimed revelations to trust? That is where authority comes in. Authority is ascribed to certain books and these are regarded as "true revelations". Authority allows all kinds of bold claims to be made about the revelation and how to interpret it. Authority cannot be questioned but must be obeyed. It provides a skeleton to religion on which all its practices and rituals and teachings hang. Preachers speak with authority, especially when quoting passages of the Bible. Followers seek refuge in authority as it gives them something certain to hold on to. But what is the relationship between authority and truth? None. Actually quite the opposite. Authority acts to keep truth hidden. By denying questioning, doubting and testing of alternate ways it is denying people the means for finding truth. Basing a statement of fact on authority is an empty sham; it means there is no basis for the statement. (It is very different from quoting an "authority" whereby one is really citing the evidence gathered by that person and not saying something is true simply because that person says it is true.) Where does authority come from? Its advocates claim it comes from God. But there is no evidence for this, only authoritative claims that this is so. Thus divine authority is circular. It is a means to make bold claims with no basis for them. Is it possible to find a greater source of darkness than this?

Faith: The final ingredient needed on top of revelation and authority is faith. Faith enables people to accept revelation and authority with certainty and without question. It gives people confidence and comfort in their beliefs. It works by sidestepping critical analysis of the evidence and instead directly accepts revelation and authority. But it is more than just believing something more strongly than warranted by the evidence; it is a state of mind in which one chooses to not to question or doubt the particular revelation or authority. It is the glue that holds religion together. And it is also the glue that shuts people’s eyes. It keeps people from inquiry and honestly testing the truth claims of revelation and authority. It is hard enough to critically analyze the revelation and authority one has grown up with or lived with, and it is near to impossible when one has faith in them. Faith surely equals if not surpasses revelation and authority as a source of darkness.

So Christianity is right that much of the world lies in darkness. However the sources are not what Christians claim they are. The darkness is not that people believe the wrong doctrines or worship false gods; these are outcomes of darkness. The darkness is the reliance on false means for obtaining truth, namely: Revelation, Authority and Faith. These hide rather than reveal truth. When Christianity converts followers from other religions it is replacing one form of darkness with another one.

I claim that there is much more light in the world than Christianity admits. The scientific method of inquiry is capable of lifting us out of darkness. It does this by building explanatory hypotheses, evaluating them based on the evidence, and obtaining various levels of certainty according to the available evidence. In addition philosophy can shine light onto the realm of morality, see: Is morality subjective or objective? Ethical questions can be addressed based on our knowledge of humankind, rather than on commandments given in God’s name. The tragedy is that when Christianity seeks to relegate the scientific method to the sidelines and claims that revelation, authority and faith ought to be the central focus of one’s life, it is replacing light with darkness.

Truth and Faith

At the bottom of Christianity there are some subtleties that belong to the Orient. Above all, it knows that it is a matter of complete indifference whether something is true, while it is of the utmost importance whether it is believed to be true. Truth and the faith that something is true: two completely separate realms of interest--almost diametrically opposite realms--they are reached by utterly different paths. Having knowledge of this--that is almost the definition of the wise man in the Orient: the Brahmins understand this; Plato understands this; and so does every student of esoteric wisdom. If, for example, it makes men happy to believe that they have been redeemed from sin, it is not necessary, as a condition for this, that man is, in fact, sinful, but merely that he feels sinful. And if faith is quite needed above all, then reason, knowledge, and inquiry must be discredited: the way to truth becomes the forbidden way. -- Nietzsche "The Antichrist"

From my observation, in so far as faith is strong, it obstructs inquiry into truth. It speaks with certainty on matters about which reason and evidence have little to say. And when opposed by reason and evidence it rejects these. It permits no serious doubting or questioning. It gives people what they want: confidence that they know the truth, all the while hiding from them the errors of their beliefs. Faith is a spider that catches even the strongest and most intelligent in its web. And what is most subtle is that they are not even aware that they are caught.

Can we know if a message is from God?

Many people have claimed and continue to claim to have all sorts messages from God, but are they justified in making these claims? Let's say one takes the existence of spiritual or non-physical beings seriously and avoids making simplistic assumptions about them. Given this starting point, what can we say about messages that purport to be from a particular non-physical being such as God?

I will start by considering how we know the sources of messages in the physical world. If you claim you have a message from your friend, then you are claiming that the message is not from anyone else. But how can you be sure someone else didn't send it to you? Here are four general methods:

1. You have observational evidence. For example, your friend gave it to you in person or confirmed it by talking on the phone. You know it is him since you can discriminate his appearance or voice characteristics from those of other people.
   
2. The letter has his signature on it. This can confirm that he wrote it if you can discriminate his signature from other people's signatures and also from attempts at forging it.
   
3. The letter is written in his style that no one else has and that cannot easily be imitated.
   
4. The content of the letter contains knowledge that only he (and possibly you) has. You need to know that only he has this knowledge.

So, do these methods apply to knowing if a message is from God? Let's assume that non-physical beings exist (somehow) and can communicate (somehow) with the physical world. Indeed, Christianity has a plethora of these non-physical beings, sometimes called spirits, including all sorts of angels, demons, and gods (if one takes the Old Testament literally). But a priori we can't restrict ourselves to only the non-physical beings in the Christian Bible, perhaps there are innumerable others of all kinds and abilities. To avoid having the name of the being distract our analysis let us denote the set of non-physical beings as G = {G_0, G_1, G_2, ..., G_n}, where G_0 denotes the Christian God, and G_i(i>0) denotes the other non-physical beings, and n is large and could be infinite. Now say you get a message that purports to be from God, that is G_0. How can you tell it is from G_0 and not G_i(i>0)? Can the methods listed above enable you to tell if it is?

1. The problem with the first method is that non-physical beings don't have any particular appearance or voice characteristics. At most one sees or hears a vision. But what is to distinguish a vision provided by G_0 from a vision from some other non-physical being, G_i(i>0)? Presumably there are other non-physical beings that could create just as good visions that also claim to be from God even though they are from some other G_i. It seems that appearance is not going to work to tell if it is from God.
2. What about some sort of God-signature in the message? This is probably the most common means of justifying a message from God, and the signature most Christians accept is a "work of power", or more simply a miracle. But is a miracle sufficient as a God-signature? First there is the problem of showing that it actually is a miracle in some way caused by a non-physical being, but let's assume this can be done. But is it only God that does miracles, of the potentially innumerable other non-physical entities? Surely there could be many G_i(i>0) beings that can do powerful miracles. Ah, the trick that is used here is to assume that everything has one of two sources: either God or the devil. So then once one has a miracle one has only a two-class problem: either it is a God-signature or a devil-signature, and this is potentially feasible to determine if the devil is not very intelligent. But why only two sources and why dismiss all the other sources, G_i(i>0)? This dichotomization is a masterful sleight-of-hand. It is saying that none of the other spiritual beings are intelligent or independent enought to operate on their own or to fool humans. That is definitely not taking the non-physical realm seriously, and can be thrown out as an unjustified assumption. Another objection (from the Calvinists) is to claim that every being acts at the direction of God, and God would not want us to be deceived and so he wouldn't let us be confused by messages from many other G_i's. But even if one accepts the premise that all beings act at God's direction, the conclusion is surely false as it would imply that no human is going to deceive you either. So we are stuck with not having any signature to determine if the message is from God.
3. What about style as a way to identify the sender? It can work to some extent for distinguishing human messages, as we know the range of styles people have and can sometimes identify unusual aspects of a particular person's style. But that's the rub; what styles do other non-physical beings have in their communications? How can we say a particular style is God's style and not the style of some other G_i? Christian teaching in this focuses on the dichotomized problem: distinguishing God's message from Satan's, but as I argued above this is a false dichotomy as it excludes most of the problem. Alternatively, one claims that it is from God if it is compatible with previous revelation (namely the Bible). But this fails for two reasons: we need to know that the previous revelation was from God which assumes we have solved the problem, and also it assumes the non-physical beings aren't intelligent enough to fool us with messages in the style of previous revelations. Thus style is not going to be a useful discriminant for knowing if the message is from God.
4. What about the fourth method: the message contains some knowledge that only God has? The classic example of this is future predictions or prophecies. There are a host of problems with prophecies including: showing that they occurred before the event (as much prophetic literature was actually written after the event but slyly claimed to be written before), and showing that the prediction isn't simply a good-guess or lucky fluke, and showing that the prophecy isn't so vague or general so as to have many fulfillments. And indeed all the prophecies I have seen in the Bible suffer from one or more of these problems. But let's assume we can get a genuine future prediction that comes true and wasn't a fluke. Is that a sufficient way to know that whatever message came with it is from God? Well, if non-physical beings are not constrained by space they won't be constrained by time either. Space and time are part of the same physical reality "space-time" that governs physical things, but not non-physical things. So presumably there are other non-physical beings, G_i(i>0), that have access to events anywhere and at any time and so could also be the source of future predictions or prophecies.

My conclusion is that the only way we can be confident in the source of messages from non-physical beings is to assume that they are all, apart from God, less intelligent than humans and so unable to fool us. However, if one really believes in non-physical beings, then one should surely take them seriously and acknowledge that there may be many of them, that they may be far more intelligent than humans, and that they may intentionally deceive us. As I have argued here, none of our usual method for identifying sources of messages works with intelligent non-physical beings. Thus since our knowledge of them is limited to what they choose to tell us, and who they say they are may not be true, we have no way of identifying the actual source (God or some other G_i) of any particular message.

Life is Beautiful and Short

When I step back from the hustle of urgent deadlines, I see the sun gliding through the sky. Plants are growing. Creatures are swarming. Waves are breaking, and foam is tossed onto the rocks. I know it won't last forever. The sun will set on all I see and know. But I am satisfied to be here and now for this thin slice of space-time.