A Response to an Atheist

(I thought for quite some time about how to write this blog or even if I should. The long and short of it is that it doesn't make a bit of difference in the long run. We believe what we believe. Eventually God will show me the answer of how to prove my Faith to others. But until then, I can only say that when I think of Atheism, these are the main problems with their arguments.)

It is all about faith; life that is. Reason is a tool of our human faith, whatever that faith may be, our reason is that tool. If I am a Christian, Buddhist, Shintoist, Atheist, Muslim, Jew, Pagan, and so on and so on and so on I have faith above reason. And the cool thing about life is the fact that each and every one of us has faith in something be it science, God, nature, or whatever. And most of us have varying degrees of faith in all sorts of things or more faith in a certain field for something than in others. So, faith and reason are not mutually exclusive propositions. They are different tools of humanity that perform different tasks; and whatever notion of reality you may hold, you can respect that this is most certainly the case.

A good example of how faith works is in the case of medicine. I am a philosopher (and if ever there was something to be proud of...being a philosopher is not it). I know nothing of medicine. However, I have trust and faith that doctors know what is wrong with me when I am sick, and to have faith in their ability is to have faith in something I do not know or see. I am also a Christian. I am sick with problems in my head and soul that I know exist. I trust in experts to see the solution to my problem and give me a remedy for it. If you think you have found the remedy in some other faith (even if that faith is the non-existence of God), that is well and good. However, as of late, many atheists have gone about saying they believe in reason over faith.* Even if this were possible, it would be saying my reasoning or reasons are better than your reasoning or reasons. Yet Christians and Buddhists and what-have-you-ists all have reasons for their beliefs. The atheist has done nothing to discredit the theist, but has forced him or her to become more entrenched in their reasons or, worse for the person making the charge, explore the opposing reasons and discredit it.

So, atheism stands on the same legs of faith that theism does; namely: faith. However, if we are to explore atheism's claims of superior reasons, we are left with another problem. With atheist logic, God gets caught in several catch-22's in the realms of miracles or interference. The Christian** believes in miracles because they make logical sense. If there is a God more powerful than the created world, and Who lives outside it, would He not want the world to function a certain way? Miracles happen when He makes the world sync more in tune with His will than it normally does. The Christian accepts that the world is sin sick and that reality is not operating as it should. (In fact this is the general consensus with ALL belief systems, the question is how to fix it.) A prime example would be with my braces I had put on my teeth when I was younger. I believe that only a lunatic would say that my teeth should be allowed to naturally grow the way they would, so we place things that shouldn't go there on our teeth to straighten them out; namely: braces. Each and every day we manipulate every aspect of the world and ourselves to fix problems. Here begins one of the catch-22s God finds Himself in. If He is always interfering, than He is loathed for not allowing us to freely do anything. When He doesn't interfere, He is judged as cold and heartless. (We usually base this on our own sense of timing, which isn't as reliable as we pretend it is.) God cannot win in this scenario. And, upon further examination we come face to face with a frightening truth. If God did things on our timing (even assuming our timing was correct), we are left with a God who is weaker and more pathetic than us which is totally contrary to what we would expect God to be like. It would be as if aliens came to earth and were incapable of understanding simple machines such as the wheel or screw or inclined plane and couldn't talk and were complete infantile in their reasoning. How could this be? It is completely illogical. If God can create things ex nihilo, he will be smart enough for miracles.

The second catch-22 is that of miracles. I don't know how the world was created. God could've taken seven days or it could be imagery to explain things. (The odd belief among some atheists or Christians or a plethora of adherents to other religions, that we must take everything in these books as literally true is both un-imaginitive and intellectually insulting. If we are capable of such things like imagery, why wouldn't the ancients be? It is an intellectual arrogance nowadays to think ourselves knowing new secrets in the art of writing. The average American high schooler may know a great deal more about electricity and computers than people of the ancient world, but our knowledge in the humanities is always among equals.) However, let us assume that the Bible is in fact literally the case that...say...Moses parted the Red Sea and led the Israelites out of Egypt.

Science says this is plausible. You see an island volcano blew up and the shock-waves would've clouded up the sky (plague of darkness), released iron into the water (turning the Nile red as blood and killing sea animals), and eventually drawing a bunch of water back up to it, and then releasing it back in a shallow enough body of water. Well, here is where the theists would be stymied, because the Red Sea isn't shallow enough. But the Sea of Reeds is in fact that shallow, and usually is mistranslated as the Red Sea. So, science proves this event is plausible.

Here an atheist would say that this proves that things can happen naturally without a God. This is the main philosophical problem that the atheist runs into. If a miracle is impossible to prove at the time, he or she says that the writers must have been liars or some such. However, when it becomes verifiable in a natural world, the atheist then says the event must have been true, but the people were mistaken for believing in God. This is extremely problematic for the atheist though, since while the conclusions have stayed the same, the propositions have not. Usually scientific atheists (since atheism has many different denominations) state that deductive reasoning is the only way to go, but here it would appear that the premises and conclusions are irrelevant because of the faith of the atheist.

The point I am making is that the world is filled with beliefs. This is a key component to humanity. It is impossible to empirically prove or disprove the existence of God through this sort of reasoning unless your faith is in this reasoning, if not the point is moot. As one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, Ludwig Wittgenstein put it: That which we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence. Logically we cannot prove or disprove God from this scientific standpoint anymore than I place a picture from a t.v. signal under a microscope in order to see the molecules in the actor's flesh.

Faith is usually seen as something that is always fighting against reason, yet this is complete foolishness since it is faith that propels reason. We believe there is a cure for cancer even though we don't know where it is. We believe we can find some way to better power our vehicles, even though reason is quiet about this as well. To rid ourselves of faith is to rid ourselves of the engine of reason.



*This is hardly possible, because to believe is to have faith and that violates the law of noncontradiction (~p ^ p : Not something and something at the same time).

** I will hereafter use Christian as my example, since I am a Christian and it will be less cumbersome than trying to use counter-examples from other faiths as well.

Read a Freakin' Book People

It was all like hell. Rain, snow, everything but frogs falling from the sky. Needless to say I was depressed. We were in a phase three weather alert at one point and I couldn't go anywhere even if I wanted to go anywhere. What is one to do when no one has nowhere to run? I recommend reading.

Before the move to the Hocking Hills region of Ohio, I was as addicted as anyone to television. Fortunately I now am without two of my favorite channels: Cartoon Network and MSNBC. There are nights when I miss Chris Matthews or some new anime that Japan finished watching about three years ago, and I might even be tempted to watch the flickering goodness of the idiot box if not for another wonderful inconvenience: the writers' strike.

Now, I don't know who started it or who was right; but I am certainly glad it happened. I am an American and as such I have a right to life, liberty, and the attention span of a mayfly. I liked certain shows (Chuck, Monk, and Big Bang Theory), but with no "writers" there were no new shows.*

For awhile I have been beating my head against the wall trying to figure out what to do with my spare time. (I still have some of that.) These passed two weekends really forced me to ask the tough question of what to do with my free-time. Being left alone with my thoughts is not a pleasant experience. Usually either my thoughts or I will invariably tick the other side off and a mental screaming match will ensue.

However, after forcing myself to sit down and read the books that I constantly tell people I am reading. (I have a confession, I am not as big a reader as I pretend to be. It is my one little indulgence in the realm of dishonesty. Well that and I am from a small planet orbiting somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.) However, I do try and read a lot now rather than turning on the tele. I have been retreating to my room for adventures in theology, mystery, and the occasional op-ed.

All-in-all reading is like any worthwhile thing we do, we have to make time for it, even when it would be easier to do something similar but less rewarding with that time.


* I should say that given the calibre of most shows now-a-days, I doubt that a writers' strike should've been too great an impediment to the production of a show...or a movie while we are on the subject.

Talking with Others

This isn't some deep insightful blog post about the secrets of learning. You can close out and try some other page for that. This is just a simple thought I had recently. For the longest time, I was asking questions without listening to the answers. I like what I have to say. I think I am relatively insightful and usually spend a lot of time just analyzing everything. One can take this to the extreme though. A person can disregard all the opinions that another person says because they fall outside of the realm of that person's logic. Or, one can do what I do, read too much into something.

I have never been that great in literature because I honestly don't see what the writer is trying to get across. (For all of my love of Eliot's J. Alfred Profrock, I cannot for the life of me understand it's meaning without a trained English scholar standing over my shoulder. Alfred Molina's character in Spiderman 2 remarks that, "Eliot is more complicated than advanced science.") I have probably been rooting around at the philosophical ramifications of someone's statement or perhaps I have been trying to move it towards areas I find more entertaining. They are just trying to have small talk. How does one perform this..."small talk"? The fact is I probably fail to let my friends be themselves.

I am a bit tired right now, and I hesitate to lump all people in this rather large net, but I think most of us are guilty of this. We wish to paint our friends as we would like to see them. We fail to really listen to them except when they have a problem we can solve and then we can play god.

I probably sound very dark and gloomy about all this, but I am really happy. There are great challenges in talking to friends and that should excite us with all its adventure. But we all have friends too. That is such a great thing, because it shows how we live in a very forgiving world that gives us quirky people who like our own quirkiness. Maybe that is my insight for tonight?

The Exodus of the Values Voter

This year the conservatives blew themselves apart. I will say that as a staunch moderate, this was one of the best things I have seen in awhile. Neo-conservatives and Militarists have lamented the fragmenting of their party, democrats have crowed with glee as if they had actually done anything to punch a hole in the rival party, and news periodicals are running around like so many Chicken Littles declaring the sky is falling in their neo-yellow-journalistic fashion. I admit that part of me misses the old conservative party (they were a fun lot of straw-men), and who knows, perhaps this year is nothing more than a minor hiccup. We may still see the Grand Old Party pull itself together under some new leader flying an old banner. I hope not, but I don't know.

Perhaps the most interesting group that has undermined the Republican Party has been the evangelical Christian vote. Once a sure thing for the Republicans, it is now becoming either an ignored or hard-won vote. So many of my friends who I considered dyed in the wool Christian Republicans are telling me that they voted for Obama in the primaries. Also, during many of the primaries, those who consider themselves value voters and voted Republican evenly split among the leading candidates. The vote is therefore no longer up for grabs so much as the voters. It is not a cohesive voting block like it was even just a few years ago when Bush was running for a second term.

One of the oddest and most frustrating things is the mainstream media's asinine and intractable stance on viewing this group of people as they did only a few years ago despite being faced with facts. One example of this was when those poll numbers showed candidates Romney, Huckabee, and McCain were pretty evenly split in picking up the Conservative Christian vote. The numbers could not have varied more than a point each (and then one has to factor in that there were probably margins of errors at play as well). While this was running, the media talked of the Evangelical voters as if they were all going out in droves to vote for Huckabee (the evangelical vote). Another key thing to look at are the results from New Hampshire, a staunchly un-evangelical state. Huckabee came in third, but with much higher numbers than expected and even eclipsed the numbers of those who consider themselves Conservative Christians. How can a group of people who are supposed to report the facts, have so obviously or intentionally missed these facts?

The answer is that most people do not know how Christians really think. It is true that the evangelical voters have been on cruise control for far, far too long. But now that there is a sea-change, why are we unwilling to adapt our understanding of this group to the change?

Ironically, it was Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama who best tapped into the change that was sweeping across the demographic. Now, I am not saying these two came anywhere near one another where policy was concerned. However, both reached beyond the cliches of their party for the most part.

I will leave Mr. Obama alone for the moment, and focus more on Mr. Huckabee. I admit to being an early supporter of Mike Huckabee. As he progressed, I found him a less and less desirable option for president. (I disagreed with certain views about gun control, taxation, military budget, as well as other issues.) However, I agreed with him fully about how one's faith (regardless of what that is) should play an undeniable part of one's leadership. His faith got him into trouble with the more unsavory members of his party. (How dare he raise taxes to help the poor in his state. How dare he offer college tuition for the children of illegal immigrants. How dare he put his faith ahead of his party.) Perhaps Mr. Huckabee is to be more of a prophet than a president. God uses unlikely people to speak messages. Huckabee voiced the growing concern among evangelicals about issues such as the environment and poverty. (The main people within the Republican party who are looking at environmental issues are the evangelicals.)

This year is the Democrats to lose. As Democratic strategist James Carville put it, "The good news for the Democrats is that the only way we can lose this election is if we talk ourselves out of it; and the good news for the Republicans is that we just may be able to do it." The reason for democratic ascendency and evangelical discontent is in large part due to the failure of Mr. Bush.* Neo-cons and Militarists hold tightly to the old regime, while the Conservative Christians strike out on their own. I do not know how history will look back on this election or if it will acknowledge this exodus from a party, but it would be wise for us to rethink our positions just as this group has. They have proven that it is better for there to be thoughtful change rather than foolish uniformity. The Republican party may have split apart at the seems, but it will be interesting to see what comes next.


* It should be noted that Mr. Bush has stated that he is an Evangelical Republican as well, and yet he does not rank too high amongst the Christians with whom I have talked.

Answers to Prayer

I think this is going to be one of my brief posts. If you aren't a big fan of my religious discussions, you could probably skip this one. If you are curious, I hope you enjoy.

Last week, a little girl who was in the hospital was also in a lot of people's prayers. She pulled through and most of us will say it is an answer to prayer. I have been a Christian all my life and I don't know how prayer works. It is a big freakin' mystery.* Life is full of unsolved mysteries and we don't need Robert Stack to point that out to us. There are mathematical equations that we believe, but cannot prove. There are scientific processes that give us the right answers, but we don't know why. I suppose in the long run, the similarities break down after awhile because the natural things will be explained and lead to more mysteries and prayer is just an article of faith.

Prayer doesn't make sense a lot of times. A truly faithful person looks like an absolute lunatic because no matter how the prayer is answered, that person is happy with the outcome and ascribes it to God's will. Numerous scientific tests have shown that when people were asked to pray for someone and not for another, the results were inconclusive at best. It took me awhile to get passed that. I am not sure I fully did, but that is why faith is faith.

I don't believe in prayer's outcome anymore, because it is God who is important in the prayer and not thing for which I am asking. If I pray for something, I don't get angry if I don't get it. At least not anymore. I am not resigned either. I guess I grapple with my prayers. I have prayed for all sorts of things guidance, healing, and so much more. Sometimes, I get a yes, sometimes a no. Usually I get "a wait". Waiting kills me. I want so badly for something to be done my way in my time. Yet, I see the stupidity of this.

In the mean time I am left with the problem. I used to try and fix the situation when I thought God wasn't working on it. It is ironic that when we leave things in God's hands we find ourselves trying to work on it as if He wasn't even there. What was the point of giving it up in the first place, if we take it back and start meddling with it? Can we honestly call this thing faith or that thing prayer? On the other hand do we just sort of give things up to God and expect Him to be a cosmic genie and perform all His magic tricks? Would we want doctors to stop working of figuring out what ails a patient or aid workers to forgo assisting people in need simply because God will take care of things?

What are we to think about prayer? Neither the viewpoint of relying on the prayer or believing it to be dogmatic hoop that accomplishes nothing seems good enough. Prayer requires so much more than those things. It is terribly difficult. It hurts us so much. God seems so silent and the answers don't appear in the cloud of smoke and loud bang that we had secretly anticipated. Though our circumstances do not always change when we pray; what happens is that we change when we pray.

I know this because I have been changed because I pray. I have prayed so long for certain prayers and had them been unanswered the way I wanted them to be answered. I have wanted a better job and been left in jobs I feel do not fit me. I have prayed for love and watched my closest friends get married. I have prayed for college acceptance letters and received the standard form letter: Dear sir, we regret to inform you...

I have been disappointed with my answers to prayer. I have thought God a cruel joker. I have thought my prayers to have fallen on the deafest of ears. I have been sickened by the people who seem to have all their prayers answered or worse still, those who do not pray receive the gifts of heaven.

But what are we to do when things don't go our way? We have two choices, we can abandon the whole thing or we can ask "why"? I implore you to try the latter. I ask you to search, question, and fight with yourself so as to determine what you asked of God. I not only have prayed better because of this. And I have learned so much about myself, the asker of prayers, as well as God, the One who answers the prayers. Wrestling with God is going to be a messy affair and you will get bruises and probably walk funny afterwards; but who wants to die without any scars? I am a deeply flawed individual and I want to know where those flaws are.

When we pray we are asking God to give us not only our desires, but something worth desiring. Prayer requires us to take stock of our lives and ask seriously hard questions about what we believe. Many of us (myself included) have the devil of the time doing this and we thus relegate prayer to the realm of the "magical hold over" part of our faith. It is not because we think prayers are too hard, but we believe it should be an easy affair that costs us nothing. It is like going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and saying, "Yeah, I'd like to not be a drunkard, but I still want to drink. Got that?" Maybe we should go to debt counselors and say, "Yeah, can you wave your magic debt wand and make all this go away? What you can't? Why the hell am I here then?" Or better yet, it would be like me going to a psychiatrist and saying, "I want to be a normal functioning member of society, but I like being an orange still."

Seriously, prayer requires a great deal more of us than a simple hope that things will turn out just like we want them to turn out or that it is nothing more than some simple legal mumbo jumbo that we pay to a God who isn't really there. Prayer asks us to question our motives, our actions, and our souls. We don't even receive these answers right off the bat. They take time and in the meantime we pray.

I can't explain prayer to you. I can't tell you how God works, only that He does. Just as I cannot explain how this girl pulled through, only that she did. The answer to prayer is powerful enough.


* I think "freakin'" is today's Pee Wee's playhouse mystery word. I have been using it all freakin' day.

Humble Pie

I'll try and make this quick, but knowing me, I don't know if that is possible. I recently picked up another job working at Radio Shack. I will say it is very very difficult for me to learn new practical things. I feel as if I should know everything right off the bat, especially since I went to college and most of my co-workers have not. It is truly humbling. I feel almost glad when I go to my other job in the evenings over at Starbucks. I feel glad when I can sit down at my computer and type up blog posts. I do not feel glad in the morning when I have to face approximately four hours of telling people, "I just started here, let me go get the manager."

We have just hired two new people at my Starbucks as well. I recognize the same deer-in-the-headlights-look I had when I started there. I try and tell them not to worry (or as the cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has written in big friendly letters: Don't Panic), but there is bound to be some small degree of anxiety. It is odd to feel both sides of the problem of the anxiety and fear of newness. I try always to be understanding of new people when they start a job, but I am merciless on myself and it has only been recently that I have ditched my self-deprecating humor and constant apologizing.

We human beings don't like to make mistakes. We like to think of ourselves as terribly self-sufficient even if we know that this notion is a lie. I really learned a lot the other day when I was talking to a man who came in to buy something at Radio Shack. (I forget what he bought, so don't ask.) I asked him what he did for a living, and he told me that he did odd jobs. I told him that I could imagine that would be really difficult learning new jobs all the time. Then I smiled because he helped me realize something, none of us can ever learn anything without humility. It cannot ever happen. We have to come to the conclusion that our knowledge is insufficient or our skills are insufficient for tackling whatever it is we wish to face.

I have been thinking about that a lot lately. Humility is something that I have always sort of taken for granted. I hear about humility in my faith and I ask for it because I am supposed to ask for it, but who really wants to be humbled? Apparently the Devil in Milton's Paradise Lost utters that it would be better to "reign in hell than serve in heaven." That is our feeling too. We'd rather live lives of mediocrity than take the chance of feeling inadequate. It is humbling to admit to ourselves and others that we aren't the best. But if we are honest, there are worse things than being humbled. In fact, humility is not such a bad thing after all.