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Focus on the Family asks its admirers to change god's mind
The ad raised such averse public reaction that they had to <a href="http://www.citizenlink.org/videofeatures/A000007910.cfm">pull it from their website</a>, but Focus on the Family's Stuart Shepard <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/08/focus-on-the-fa.html">asked his viewers</a> to pray to their all-merciful, all-just god for "not just rain -- abundant rain, torrential ran, urban-and-small-stream-advisory rain" to interfer with Sen. Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.
It's tempting to dwell on the meanness and hatefulness of the request that FOF laid before its god. But let's turn our attention away from the suffering and property damage that such a storm would bring down on the people of Denver -- Democrat and Republican, conservative, moderate, and liberal, Christian and Jew and Muslim and atheist alike. Let's turn to a more philosophical implication of this prayer and all prayers. I'm just dying to discuss this question:
Do believers believe that their prayers actually make a difference?
If the answer to my question is "yes," does this mean that their quintessentially perfect god has changed his mind as the result of their imprecations? And if the answer to that question is "yes," then was his original intention imperfect?
Ever since the days when my parents explained to me that no, that guy with all the fancy clothes isn't actually god but he talks to god, I've wondered about prayer. I kind of get the concept that being quiet and letting god talk to you is soothing and perhaps educational (although hearing voices that no one else can hear is not universally accepted as a primary indication of compos mentis in any other context), but asking god to make something happen that he hadn't originally planned is just beyond-the-pale weird to me. Does he need to be asked because the idea hadn't occurred to him? Was his decision about which football team would win still up in the air, and your prayer might be the one that makes the difference? Was he thinking that maybe he'd let all those little Adannas and Jelanis starve to death today, but then you talked him into bringing them enough gruel to make it till a week from Friday? How does this thing of "praying for X" actually help/cause "X" to come about? I'm logically and philosophically baffled.
And here's another question or two -- these specifically for Mr. Shepard, although I would also accept an answer from Dr. Dobson: Should we assume that if there is significant rainfall during Sen. Obama's acceptance speech, it is a sign that your god disapproves of him? Then would it not follow then that if the night of 28-Aug blooms mild and clear in Denver, your god is urging you to vote Democratic this November? Will you obey him or will you continue to practice the hypocritical political game that you call Christianity?
Comments (102)
Nailed again by the TPM editor and my own webbish incompetence. The links that start this article are
pull it from their website
and asked his viewers
August 13, 2008 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rain for Denver? The spaghetti monster could not be bothered. In fact it would render the nation's outdoor life capital visciously anti-God.
Rec'd for the title.
August 13, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I found myself wondering where God's ethics come from. Why is Good good? Is it just personal, i.e. it's Good because it's about Me? Or is Good that way because of mechanical, utilitarian reasons?
If the latter, why do we need God to define Good? Surely we are not expected to follow His examples, such as Lot, or Job, or the innocent of Egypt, or how about those Canaanites, that had to make way for the ultimate in Eminent Domain?
And why are miracles so rare? If they are not usually needed, why have them at all?
The most fun is Free Will. God must be working on an NSF grant, trying out various condition-dependent choice matrices, to see how humans act under this or that temptation. Alternately, He Knows in advance how you will choose, and just likes watching the movie for the effects.
August 13, 2008 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
The most fun is Free Will.
The whole concept of religion falls apart without free will. If we don't have free will, we're nothing but rather sophisticated (?) machines and the words "good" and "evil" lose all relevance and personal responsibility is a joke.
But if we do have free will, then the "all-powerful" attribute of the Invisible Superman comes into question and the idea of omniscience gets really squirrelly -- he knows everything I'm ever going to do before I do it, so my behavior must be pre-determined. If my behavior is already set in stone, how do I have free will?
It would seem that belief in these uber-creatures requires a fair talent for cognitive dissonance.
August 13, 2008 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Daniel Dennett has good answers, in "Freedom Evolves". Essentially, there can be deterministic systems that are not predictable in real time, by non-Godly entities. We are that, and it is also a useful fiction for social structure, even when we do have a reasonable expectation of behavior, such as recidivist criminals, pandering pols, or greedy CEOs.
August 13, 2008 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tankard, aren't our axonal and dendritical firings ultimately only as pre-determined as the death of Schrodinger's cat?
August 13, 2008 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't understand your question. Please re-phrase. It sounds as though this might be an interesting topic for discussion.
August 13, 2008 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess I am injecting twentieth century quantum physics and uncertainty into an argument that is using determinism as a premise.
Disclaimer: I am not at all religious in any Western sense of the word.
August 13, 2008 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I got the references, but I'm still not understanding. Are you suggesting that the chemistry that runs our bodies is ultimately unpredictable, based on utter randomness? If so, so what? I've never heard of anyone building a cathedral dedicated to Uncertainty. Would it be called the Cathedral of Sts. Max and Werner?
August 13, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
No Cathedrals, but Niels Bohr did add that Ying Yang symbol to his old Danish family's shield, I believe.
My point was to contribute to the discussion on free will the fact that due to the uncertainty principle and to the increasing evidence of a quantum mechanical substratum to life and intelligence, behavior may not be as deterministic as we believe. I do not know if this contributes to the argument in favor or against Super-beings, but I strongly believe that the discussion should not hold determinism, which I find too much of an eighteenth century notion, as a premise.
I will add that at the subatomic level, we do not have things or events as we know them, but rather that which at best we can describe as the possibility of these things when we use our common non-mathematical language. Our deterministic world of things does have as a substratum one resembling thoughts of things which nobody has the temerity to claim to understand in the traditional way we understand things.
In defense of prayer, only as a devil's advocate (forgive the pun), the notion of willful thoughts having a synchronistic relationship with events resulting from our thought-like based universe is, in my view, a provocative idea.
August 13, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not really so much trying to get at the existence or lack thereof of Ghost(s) in the Machine as much as I am seeking knowledge about the thought processes of those who believe in it/them.
But to follow up on your delightful diversion, I concede that uncertainty impinges on us at the macro level through such phenomena as the Butterfly Effect. I also agree that much in our naked-eye world is unpredictable, not only because it is too complex and there are too many variables in the equation, but also because chaos is chaotic in the randomest sense of the word.
August 13, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please see this comment for my distinction between unknowability due to complexity and chaos and that due to uncertainty.
I don't think we are having an argument here as much as a very stimulating discussion on a subject I would normally avoid.
August 13, 2008 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mathematician Roger Penrose sought salvation for consciousness in quantum weirdness, placing indeterminacy in celllular microtubules, which are small enough to force some quantum effects (perhaps).
It is simply the complexity of forces affecting decisions, that makes behavior unpredictable in detail, thus we call it free will. This kind of unpredictablity is not exclusive to rationalizing animals, it exists in simple mathematical systems, and dripping faucets.
August 13, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
My understanding of Penrose is that there is a distinct difference between the undeterminability of events resulting from complexity and chaos and that due to the intractable unknowability of the actual outcome a quantum event will have in the classical world.
In that sense, the quantum world is also deterministic but must be described on a complex number plane using imaginary (what a coincidence) numbers. The unknowability occurs when we attempt to change the complex (imaginary) number to a real outcome in the classical world. The best information that we will ever get will always be probabilitic.
Therefore although both the quantum and the classical worlds are deterministic, each with their own complexity and chaos, there is an unknowability, a built in indeterminism, as to how a quantum event will manifest itself in the classical world. We will never know which slit the photon will chose, never.
August 13, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
probabilistic
August 13, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
The quantum world is full of phenomena such as collapsing probability waves, instantaneous communication, and cause-and-effect paradoxes. To incorporate these into a "deterministic" paradigm requires a great deal of linguistic flexibility, wouldn't you agree?
August 13, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Instantaneous communication or entanglement and the myriad of other unfathomable quantum mysteries, as counter-intuitive as they are to our classical minds, are mathematically predictable and explained according to the laws of quantum mechanics and in their own world are therefore deterministic.
Collapsing probability waves, on the other hand, are exactly where we find the non-determinism because they are the result of measurement, that interaction between the classical and the quantum. Penrose posits that this happens in our microtubules in our neurons. I would go further, it happens to all of our cells during chemotaxis, allowing for phenomena such has intelligent-seeming behavior and movement by protozoa or lymphocytes even though they lack any neurons or muscles, but that is just my humble viewpoint.
August 13, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your biology discussion has moved over my head, but I think we're on the same page physics-wise.
August 13, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
In simple terms, neural networks, such as the one we believe our brain to be, do not explain the apparent learning and complex behavior of single-cell organisms. Penrose and others point to subcellular computing with cellular microtubules being the units. At this scale, however, it involves quantum computation, which implies that consciousness may be a bit of a mysterious phenomenon. It also points to the indeterminism in behavior which started this atypical exchange on free will.
Thanks for bearing with me.
August 13, 2008 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
August 14, 2008 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well thank god someone has finally gone negative. I was afraid this dicussion was going to remain civil indefinitely.
Just because someone else knows what I will decide does not mean that I did not decide freely.
It appears to YOU that you have made your decision freely, but this does not necessarily imply that YOUR argument is not assinine and illogical.
If someone (god) knows with a 100% certainty what you will do and is not capabable of an incorrect prediction, how are you free to choose to do otherwise? Obviously, either god does NOT know what you will do -- that is, there is the possibility of his being wrong -- or you are somehow locked in to doing what he knows you will do. If you are locked into every behavior, how do you have "free will?"
August 14, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I concede your lakck of free will is a posible explination for "God's" foreknolege. If "God" knows what you are going to do it does not necessarily indicate that you have no free will. It could indicates that "God" actualy is all powerfull and therefore is not bound by time.
Historians read history books about the decisions made in the past. They know what those decisions were. The position of god knowing what you are going to do before you do it could have as little to do with wether you have free will as wether a histoians knowlege of the battle of hastings has with the free will of William the Bastard (later the Concorer). His knowlege of your decision does not effect your decision either way. You are still free and he is still omnicient.
August 14, 2008 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was not arguing that god's will trumped yours, I made that point that you were "somehow" locked into your behavior. Your reply was nothing but a reiteration of your original unsupported claim.
I'll do the same. If god can "see the future," that implies a fixed set of behaviors for you, whether god fixes them, or whether the fixing is done by something called destiny, fate, kismet, or anchovy paste with klamata olives.
It's simple: If god can see the future, then the future cannot change. If the future is fixed, your behavior in the future is fixed. If your future behavior is already set, your free-will is illusory.
August 14, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
August 14, 2008 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
BTW I am not trying to go negative. Any attack I make on your argument is not an attack on you. I will not take any attack you make on mine personaly.
August 14, 2008 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think most people would feel offended by having their arguments labelled "superficial" and "assinine." If you don't care to be thought of as engaging in personal attack, you might want to consider some milder phrasing. That said, it was no big deal in any case and I accept your explanation. I know you goddamned atheists are congenitally unable to express yourselves in a civil manner.
August 14, 2008 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was trying to describe my initial reaction to the claim but did so inartfully. When I heard it I thought yes that could follow but you(the you whos arguement was being described to me in Jr High) are arguing that it must follow. This has always struck me as obvious. Because I have discussed this with many people I understand that it is not obvious to most people but it continues to be obvious to me. It is so obvious to me that I cannot frame a good argument for my position because I cannot see the question from a point of view where it is not.
August 14, 2008 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is so obvious to me that I cannot frame a good argument for my position because I cannot see the question from a point of view where it is not.
Whoa. That's called religion. No offense.
August 14, 2008 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not saying that there is no argument. I am saying that I lack the skill to present it. But each time I try I improve my chances of doing so. That is why I continue to try.
August 14, 2008 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have to go with the guidance I received years ago from my primary advisor on philosophical and religious matters -- Stevie Wonder -- who instructed me that "When you believe in things that you don't understand, that's superstition."
August 14, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
We are not talking about a belief. We are talking about a metaphysical argumetn about a caracter that we both believe to be fictional.
August 14, 2008 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not necessarily, if that "other" is also presumed to have "created" you, your environment, and all the fields of possibility that surround your "free choice" as well.
At that point, you're more like a moving part in a Rube Goldberg contraption.
August 14, 2008 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you trying to say that an all powerfull god could not make a random number generator? I say if he could not create it then he is not all powerfull. Furthermore if he could not move into the future and see its outcome and report the result before it happened then he is likewise not all powerfull. But his perception not being bounded by time does not make the event less random.
August 14, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you trying to say that an all powerfull god could not make a random number generator?
This is an almost direct analogue of the old saw, "Can god create a rock so heavy that he can't lift it?" It's a completely rhetorical paradox and depends on the limitations of language -- for example, the use of the words "can" and "can't." This question and yours actually boil down to "Can god break his own rules?" which in turn brings the definition of the word "rules" into question.
August 14, 2008 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
August 14, 2008 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your argument does indeed depend on mutually-exclusive concepts.
A series of random numbers is necessarily unpredictable -- or we're just playing with the definition of "random." So if god can predict the output of the generator, it's not random. If the generator produces numbers god can't predict, he's not omnipotent.
August 14, 2008 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not arguing that god can predict the outcome. A being that exists outside of time and the universe would have no need to predict the result. He would see it. Just as I can see it by waiting until event happens but without the wait. The event was random even thought from the POV those for whom it is in the past or who are outside the time stream the result is known.
August 14, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is an argument to be made that there is no way an intellectual could be a Christian because there are too many unanswered questions that get swept under the rug of "Faith."
Not a problem for me, as I certainly don't fall into the category of "intellectual." I'm just a regular person of "reasonable" intelligence slogging through this world as best I can. I've tried it w/ God and I've tried it w/o, and my world works better with Him.
Prayer is a hard subject for me, for just the reasons you mention...Why pray, when what He wants to happen is going to happen regardless of what I ask for, and if I do get my way does that mean He changed His mind, or was that what was going to happen anyway, I just happened to ask for the same thing He was going to do...very complicated stuff. I pray because He says I should, and that's good enough for me. It humbles me by making think about the fact that he is my Master, and I am nothing w/o Him. It gives me peace when I take the time to remember that He is in charge and I can stop worrying (I'm not very good at that sometimes!) I DO believe that prayer can change things, but I can't defend why I believe that, or how it fits into the questions I have about it...I'm just sweepin' it under that Faith rug I mentioned.
Christians, at times, can be the worst ambassadors for Christ possible. When people like Dr. Dobson ask for bad things to happen to people it makes me ashamed. That's not what we are supposed to be about. If he is against Obama I would prefer that he prays that Obama would have a change of heart and embrace (fill in the blank), or that people would see the light and not vote for him...
As it stands I have a huge difference of opinion w/ the "general Christian population" if there is such a thing. I happen to believe that the behavior of the Republican Party has been as shameful and "un-Christian" as anything the Democratic Party could up w/ up to and including abortion and all other potentially controversial isues in the platform. I believe that Obama's behavior and desire for inclusiveness comes much closer to what God expects from us than anything I see coming from John McCain, who in my opinion should be ashamed of himself for wallowing in the gutter.
So, I won't change anybody's mind, but I wanted to weigh in...Thanks for the always thoughtful posts. I like how you cause me to stop and think, even when I disagree w/ what you think. You elevate the discourse around here. I appreciate it.
August 13, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are too kind. I only do it for the attention.
Thank you for being the first person to respond to the questions I asked. If I say anything in this comment that seems insulting, I apologize in advance and I promise you that I have no intention to demean or disrespect you. I'm just trying to understand how believers come to their conclusions.
I will be boring folks around here by repeating this redundantly, superfluouly and again, but you're fairly new, so I have to do my rant. I use the word "belief" to indicate the practice of holding any opinion for which there is insufficient supporting evidence. To my way of thinking, to believe in this sense is silly but normally tolerable. So when you say, "I DO believe that prayer can change things, but I can't defend why I believe that," I have no problem with that per se. At worst it's harmless, and I chalk it up to your expression of an attitude which your brain has created without your conscious knowledge based on real-world experiences. I don't seem to be able to say that very well, but I hope you understand me.
OTOH, to insist upon maintaining a belief in the face of evidence or logic to the contrary is to surrender the very capability to understand that makes us human, so this kind of believing is a priori either irrational or downright evil (which one might maintain are very closely related anyway).
So my question for you, should you decide to accept it is this: Is it not impossible for any creature to be, say, all-merciful who creates beings that rape and brutally murder children? Who invents diseases that bring slow and agonizing deaths to people and animals? Doesn't that belief defy the evidence of your eyes? And if you agree that it does, how do you cope with that kind of contradiction between what you "know" and what you know?
August 13, 2008 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
You didn't insult or demean me in any way...one of the many things I like about you is your ability to keep your focus on the issue and not let you rhetoric go into attacks that feel personal...
So, your question...oh, I feel so woefully inadequate to answer, so hold me personally responsible, not the religion as a whole...
The whole idea of Faith is that you have to believe something that seems to your eyes to be untrue...That leap of faith is only possible if you listen to your heart, not your eyes and brain, close your eyes and JUMP!
God certainly created beings that are capable of the things you mentioned (and more) but the way I understand it, that's all part of the Adam and Eve thing (in the interest of brevity I won't go into the whole concept...I know you know it already!) and now God allows evil in the world.
But He sent his Son and now we have the ability to be redeemed. I believe He weeps as He watches the terrible things we do to each other. He never told us He would keep bad things from happening, just that He would be with us as we experience them. Believe me when I say, I'm going to have a lot of questions when I finally get to meet him (on the top of the list "What is up w/ testosterone? Wasn't there a less toxic way of making sure the planet gets populated?") From my extremely limited vision of the big picture, there are things I would do differently, but I'm not God, so I don't get to make the rules.
So, I guess, in a nutshell, it's Faith, pure and simple...Not an intellectual argument, I agree, but it's the only one I've got.
I believe that all Christians, whether they admit it or not, have the occasional crisis of faith when faced with the inexplicable occurrences of life. And in those moments I admit that if this Christianity thing is a scam it's a brilliant one. If any part of it lacks credibility you throw out the "Faith" card...But, I can't conceive of this world having gotten here on its own, and Christianity offers a scenario that works for me most of the time...
So, there you have it. One simple person's explanation...Thanks for listening.
August 13, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. Faith is also what allows me to believe that Obama should be President in spite of my brain sending out little warnings from time to time!
And I don't say that because I think he is a better choice than McCain (the lesser of 2 evils theory) but because I believe he is the right man at this time in our country's history.
August 13, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's stupid.
Just kidding.
I don't think that's the same thing as religious faith. I think you make your judgement about Obama based on logical and experiential factors. You can probably recognize and describe some of these factors, and there are likely many that are acting on your judgement from below the surface of your consciousness. I think that most decisions are made by every human this way. We call it intuition, right?
But that's not the same thing as faith. Faith, to me, is perceiving oneself to know the unknowable or even more weirdly (from an atheist perspective), to "know" that what one sees or deduces is untrue.
August 13, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL!
You're right, different kinds of faith! Anyway, have enjoyed the discussion! Thanks again for being you...
August 13, 2008 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry...just a little addition...I'm a she!
August 13, 2008 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I enjoyed it as well. Sorry for the gender confusion. You know what Dogbert says.
August 13, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's interesting to me that people can't conceive of our universe as existing without divine intervention. I've never understood why it can't.
August 13, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here I agree with you. If the universe couldn't exist without a creator, how can the creator -- necessarily a far more complex entity -- exist without a creator? We would seem to be lost in a recursion here.
August 13, 2008 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think people want to believe in a god because they believe that life has to have meaning. I don't believe that life has to have meaning - that isn't to say that I think it is purposeless, just that it doesn't have to have meaning. We're here because we're here and I don't think any other reason is needed.
August 13, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that and the "promise" of eternal life. And of course, religion is an excellent way to keep the proles in line.
August 13, 2008 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm only here for the beer.
August 13, 2008 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed, if Mr Dobson sees himself as a Christian, his plea certainly goes against the golden rule in the sense that ill-wishing is certainly not something he would want from others.
August 13, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amen to that! Hence my comment that a lot of Christians are woefully inadequate ambassadors for Christ!
August 13, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Prayer?
"To ask the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy."
-- Ambrose Bierce
August 14, 2008 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
The guy had a way with irreverence, didn't he? A master of the sardonic. A hero to me.
August 14, 2008 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jon Winokur's The Portable Curmudgeon is your friend...
August 14, 2008 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
The whole idea of Faith is that you have to believe something that seems to your eyes to be untrue...That leap of faith is only possible if you listen to your heart, not your eyes and brain, close your eyes and JUMP!
I guess this is just a mindset that lies beyond my ken.
Could you believe that the sun is dark? What's the difference between that leap and the leap you seem to have taken?
August 13, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't believe in my heart that the sun is dark...it's that heart element that makes faith possible...
August 13, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I guess this is just a mindset that lies beyond my ken."
This is an example of why discussing things with you is so enjoyable...you easily could have called me stupid or ignorant or berated me in any number of ways. Yet you chose to be gentle...Thank you. Wish everyone on this site would follow your example!
August 13, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
The difference is between the knowable and the unknowable. It is known that the sun is not dark, it isn't known whether a conscienceness outside of ourselves exists.
August 13, 2008 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't agree. The principles of logic are quite well-known, let alone knowable. SI tells us (and feel free to correct any misunderstanding, SI) that his faith allows him to ignore the input of his own senses and intellect when his heart instructs him to do so.
He knows that his faith forces him into logical contradictions -- just as knowable as the fact that the sun in bright -- yet accepts those contradictions just as a physicist might accept the fact that sometimes effect comes before cause at the quantum level.
August 13, 2008 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it might depend on the definition of God. (I'm not a believer in the supernatural.) If, like Pierre Teilhard you believe in the law of complexity, the argument can be made that at some point there is a consciousness so complex that it defies our current understanding of consciousness and that evolution is pushing us in the direction of convergence where we will not only understand it but be part of it - "everything that rises must converge".
If we do as a universe arrange ourselves in increasingly more complex organizations, it may be possible that there is such a complex consciousness. Teilhard thought that there was something outside of our universe which he called the "omega point" pulling us towards this complexity, but I would imagine that there are many universes which exist which could exercise some kind of cause and effect on our universe and urge some sort of "push/pull" force upon us.
I'm fairly sure there are more forces than we are aware of which I suppose is a matter of faith on my part. We still have no idea what or how dimensions work or what effect they may have on our particular universe.
August 13, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
SI tells us (and feel free to correct any misunderstanding, SI) that his faith allows him to ignore the input of his own senses and intellect when his heart instructs him to do so.
It seems equally important to note that SI's faith allows her to not ignore the input of her own senses and intellect when her heart says to do so. Faith can explain phenomena that reason can not verify, when reality has imposed something logic can't explain.
August 13, 2008 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe catholic theologians would say that there is a difference between prayer as worship and prayer as petition. Prayer as petition must be a humble act asking God to intercede on behalf of the petitioner and that petition must be nothing outside of the realm of goodness of God and that which God would want himself for mankind. Prayer must be pleasing to God and a reflection of God's being, not man's. It is also a tenent that in petitioning God you are asking God to enact his will and that the petitioner accept that will.
I would imagine that evangelicals and fundamentalists see God as a reflection of mankind instead of mankind as a reflection of God. To ask God to interfere in a manner cruel and excessive is only something they would do if they had the power.
August 13, 2008 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
As someone who pretends to be a parody of Catholic clergy on these here blessed sites, I find Dobson and Robertson and their ilk sadly lacking in all the Christian virtues. When I hear of an evangelical praying for God to do bad things to people, I think of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOrgLj9lOwk
In real life I am fondly but agnostically amused of the logical principles of Universalism, which say basically, that:
If there is a creator God, he/she/it is much too full of love to let us be eternally damned so everybody is already saved.
'cuz otherwise, the alternative is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpA47o8E46U
August 13, 2008 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Poor old god. Just when HE was gearing up to help out in Georgia, Iraq, and Darfur, and all the other places that truly need HIS devine intervention, these pesky prayers divert him into changing the weather!
What a sap! Think of all the good HE could do if he didn't have to answer all the prayers from selfish, self-absorbed, arrogant idiots who think they are the chosen ones!
And then there's Israel..............
August 13, 2008 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
C'mon. I don't bother him THAT much.
August 14, 2008 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
What an absolutely gorgeous discussion!
Long ago, in a world, many removes from this one, I earned a degree in Philosophy. Philosophy of Religion to be precise. The classic Problem of Evil as it was understood circa 1978 was my thesis topic! That issue vexed me then cause it seemed a coercive argument against the standard definition:
Omnipotence
Omniscience
Wholly Good.
It seemed that the problem of evil required one to knock one or more of those descriptors out. My argument circa 1978 was that we had to dump Omnipotence to salvage God as worship-worthy. If you dumped Wholly Good, then you lost the worship-worthiness. If you deleted Omniscience, then you were left with a finite mind that could and would make mistakes and again not worship-worthy. Only by having a wholly good, omniscient, bystander deity could we salvage the raison d'etre for manifestations as diverse as the Cathedral of Chartres to Focus on the Family.
And that ties in with freedom of the will.
And I have Dennett and Penrose, et al. so could follow the microtubule part also!
Why don't we look at determinacy v. free will in the sense of P NP problems in computation?
Lets suppose that free will exists if we can't factor the variables that constrain it in polynomial time?
In other words dump the issue of absolute free will and look at at a "for all that we can compute" type issue.
Therefore since free will is a NP issue we might just as well relax and enjoy it!
We need to start looking at Oracle complexity classes when discussing Free Will!
August 13, 2008 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or perhaps just the traditional Oracles such as the I Ching, which Jung uses to define the same synchronicity I cited above to classify prayer as a provocative subject.
Although I myself am agnostic, my point in this thread is that ever since Bohr and the meeting between Western science and Eastern mysticism, dissing faith using eighteenth century concepts is rather outdated. Modern physics is much too mysterious to allow it. Philosophers beware.
Ok, I will really try to shut up now.
One last word though. Shaman!
August 13, 2008 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wonderful what a new perspective can bring to a very old problem!
Next problem: Akrasia and the Republican Base!
August 13, 2008 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is a fascinating subject. I've enjoyed reading all the comments. Concerning the original posting, it seems clear that Dobson et al see prayer as somehow imposing their own will: that praying for god to provide an outcome of their own will is really a backhanded form of magic, which is essentially the ability to alter "natural" laws by the imposition of Will. A shaman might attempt to influence natural events by the imposition of his will; a christian zealot like Dobson "knows" that is of the Devil, so he asks his followers to "pray" to god to influence those same natural events, probably in the same attitude of positive/negative energy.
Sorry that sounds so messedup.
August 13, 2008 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. I've been glued to my screen for the past 20 minutes. This has been a stellar discussion. It almost moved me to tears for some strange reason at one point. Thanks for the topic Tankard!
I have some very devout relatives, particularly my aunt. She lives with constant fear and anxiety. I'm way out of your league with respect to physics and biochemistry, but my simplistic view is these people are deeply insecure.
I've practiced a hodgepodge of Buddhism the past 15 years or so, and being in the present is pretty much it for me. It's the only rational place to be. For whatever reason, many people aren't satisfied with "right now." If they were, there would be no need to worry about what happens when they've passed on or whether it will rain on the democratic convention.
I do like to ponder evolutionary processes. BevD reminded me of Bradbury's "The Fire Balloons" in which Martians evolved out of their physical bodies. Perhaps evidence of evolving consciousness is manifested by empathy and compassion.
Thanks so much for the discussion.
CindyMax
August 13, 2008 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't it a wonderful thing when people can bring different levels of intelligence, different beliefs, and different backgrounds to the table and have a fun, lively discussion w/o anyone needing to feel offended or talked down to?
I've enjoyed it very much.
August 13, 2008 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
It has been fun!
August 13, 2008 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, just like the old cafe days, a topic that is not (at least, not really) the election!
August 13, 2008 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are all assinine, depraved, comatose, and ludicrous right-wing liberal centrist swine.
There. I had to do that or by the new TPM rules it would not be an official discussion.
August 13, 2008 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
humor is the truest form of religion, Tankard.
Most of the old masters after kensho either laughed or cried or both.
Just the way I feel when I read some of your comments!
You are a deeply spiritual soul!!
August 13, 2008 11:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are a deeply spiritual soul!!
I get enough grief on this blog, Lux. I don't need gratuitous insults from you.
August 14, 2008 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do what little I can...
August 14, 2008 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Younze guys was scintillating. Thank yunz.
August 13, 2008 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Think you nailed it right there, Tankard. Many children are raised going to church or Sunday school. They say their prayers at night. Belief and the reinforcement of those beliefs are ingrained from very early on.
On the other hand, my parents are agnostic. They made sure my sister and I could go to Sunday school or church if we wanted to. For a couple of years I rode with my great-aunt and uncle to Sunday school.
One Sunday when I was in 6th grade, the teacher stated "god is love." The immediate thing that came to my mind was "oh, so god is an idea! That was the end of Sunday school and any fledgling belief system I had going.
I talked it over with my great-aunt whose father was an atheist in Tennessee of all places. She said she disagreed with the Sunday school teacher, but if I now perceived god as an idea, so be it.
There were a couple of times in the past when I wished I had the capacity to believe in something. It simply wasn't there. Apparently a mental construct or foundation must exist on which faith can be built and reinforced.
Consistent childhood exposure to religious rites or the lack thereof leave lasting impressions. Those constructs undoubtedly afford at least some FoF members a springboard from which to rationalize, distort, and project their yearnings -- and leave others to ponder their rationale.
August 13, 2008 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
So I failed to spark much interest in my project of reducing theology questions to problems in computational science.. Ah well.
Ok, I will say what I REALLY think!
Implicit in the Problem of Evil is that God has a Mind.
Hence is capable of being called a moral agent. Hence is worship-worthy. Hence can act purposefully.
What if God has no mind...frames no thoughts, uses no language, does not receive intercessionary/petitionary prayer--having no mind in which to process such petitions.
Has no goals, has no plans for mankind, has no condemnation or praise for that matter for our acts?
Is mindless. No-Mind. "I am that I am". Not I am that I have a Mind.
That takes care of the problem. Free will gets divorced from teleology and redemptive purpose, and stands as a separate problem.
Just the way it is....sorry.
August 13, 2008 11:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
If god has no mind, does that not imply that it is not a person? Can an entity be a person that has no mind? If a god is not a person, doesn't that pretty much reduce any religion based on that god to paganism or naturalism?
You raise some interesting questions, Lux.
August 14, 2008 7:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. This at one time, after all, was my field of expertise.
Now I have no expertise in anything whatsoever. It takes three of me just to change a lightbulb.
August 14, 2008 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
It takes three of me just to change a lightbulb.
Into what?
August 14, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I never thought of it that way.
A marmoset.....?
but that would only take one of me.
August 14, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
==If the universe couldn't exist without a creator, how can the creator -- necessarily a far more complex entity -- exist without a creator? We would seem to be lost in a recursion here.==
I don't see why "creator" must necessarily be a far more complex entity, and complexity is a very vague term, anyway. "Creator" may simply be a "trigger" or a "catalyst", or a logical construct for a very different phenomenon.
Recursion can also be a normal thing - we see it in fractals and even in the new thinking on quantum mechanics of time-space (I confess I read an article on the subject in Scientific American recently).
Religion, prayer, etc. seem to exist on a plane that is not well described by current scientific disciplines. The parallel is trying to understand quantum mechanics using classical physics - the equations do not yield correct answers. The philosophical/logical concepts of omnipresence, omnipotency, etc., are essentially akin to classical physics, while religion exists in the highly non-linear, "quantum" state that is separated from it. The chasm or dichotomy is well described in Daoism, perhaps the best evolved and rigorous system for the "cosmology of the mind". The concepts are really not complicated, in the classical sense ("The Dao and the Way" is much easier reading than Sartre or Aquinas, for example), but describe a dual system of knowledge/existence/reality (like a state spaces in mathematics). It is accepted that the Dao and the De are different to most observations, yet they are the same at the core. Daoism describes but doesn't attempt to resolve the duality of existence, without the emotional trappings of the Abrahamic religions.
I kind of like it because it is not man-centric and doesn't dwell on good/evil. However, for a really good, modern treatment of the latter, Martin Buber's "On Good and Evil" is an excellent book, also easy to read and understand.
The bottom line on prayer to "wash out" Obama's speech is that even generally worthwhile human endeavors draw all kinds of idiots to it. One shouldn't draw any conclusions based on their actions.
August 13, 2008 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see why "creator" must necessarily be a far more complex entity
Well, the original issue was the old saw that if I come upon a rock and know nothing about it, I can deduce that the rock -- being a relatively simple item -- was formed by unintelligent forces. But if I encounter a wristwatch under similar circumstances, I must conclude that its complexity had to emerge from an intelligent creator. The universe being the most complex entity, goes the argument, it must have been created by an intelligent being. My reply is a reductio ad absurdum. If complexity implies an intelligent creator, then the intelligent creator must have been created by a even-more-intelligent creator, who must have been created by a still-more-intelligent creator, and so on to infinity.
Recursion can also be a normal thing
As a computer programmer, I am very familiar with both the usefulness and the problems associated with recursion. It seems to me that positing an infinitely recursive system as an explanation of cosmogony yeilds a very dreary and frankly ridiculous result. There are greater and greater gods extending beyond the end of the hyper-cosmos and the best they could come up (at least in this little corner or the multiverse) with all that magnificence was us? Way too damn depressing.
even generally worthwhile human endeavors draw all kinds of idiots to it. One shouldn't draw any conclusions based on their actions.
I get your point, but doesn't it seem that what you call idiots are over-represented among religious leaders? Doesn't it also seem that political activists are over-represented among the most prominent religious leaders?
August 14, 2008 8:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can you people bend spoons with your thoughts?
August 14, 2008 12:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just the other way around.
August 14, 2008 1:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Love it...goin' to M's tonight?
August 14, 2008 2:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
missed it last night, but there in spirit.
August 14, 2008 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Congrats! I've been fairly stalwart in my turtling, but, Tankard, you've just pulled me from lurking around these posts into actually commenting. I have to say that I don't know how many people see things my way, but I can only tell you what my thoughts on the matter are.
The world acts autonomously from God. Assuming God created the universe and all the natural laws governing it, I think it is safe to say that far more often than not he allows the universe to run on auto-pilot. I mean seriously, how much easier is it on Him to not have to constantly monitor every single thing in the universe to make sure it's all going according to His will? This does mean that, yes, I hold to the truth that the world was created billions of years ago and life did evolve from single-celled organisms and we are related to monkeys. It would be folly to deny any and all natural evidence of such matters, just like it was a mistake for the Catholic church to prohibit heliocentrism from being advocated because it believed it merely to be an unproven theory (which would potentially lead, as they saw it, to a revision of thought on some scripture. I've noticed that all religions have an exceptionally hard time saying "My bad").
That being said, if God let's the world run on auto-pilot where does he fit in and what's his purpose? That is still something far beyond me to even comprehend, although I will still wonder about it, but I can say with some surety that it has something to do with interfering in the lives of us simple mortals and making sure "His will" is done. To what end is one I can only imagine being the realization of a peaceful and content life of harmony for all beings, but that's really just conjecture.
Ok, so God plays with people's lives, but how? Well as my theory goes, if God created universal laws governing nature, did he also create over arching laws governing social interactions and maybe even how these came into existence?
I've come to believe that assuming we have the option of choice, Free Will, that God must allow for that. My theory is that what happens in the world and where God acts is based on something like an infinite number of conditional "if-then-else" functions. If we choose to do this X sort of action it will have Y and Z consequences and will allow us to make new choices A,B, and C. When things start going off track or enough people petition Him in a way favorable or maybe when He just gets bored and wants to stir things up, He might tweak the system by giving someone a compelling urge to do "His will", seemingly bend the laws of probability, or even work some supernatural action, like, you know, raising His son from the dead or something similar.
This also has the extra effect of hiding His presence within laws of nature and probability. Because, lets face it, if there was overwhelming physical evidence of the world being created a few thousand years ago or some other bit of extraordinary evidence of the Bible, wouldn't that come pretty close to saying that Christianity and/or God was absolutely real? People would feel compelled to believe it because there would undoubtedly by a Heaven and Hell. As much as you would know that staying in the sun too long would cause you to get a sunburn, you would know that disobeying God's Word well cause you to burn for all eternity. Therefore such evidence of God's existence would effectively ruin all matter of Free Will, and, faith being a matter of believing in that which you have no evidence in which to believe, would be destroyed as well.
And that, in a nutshell, is my admittedly limited theory on how God allows human beings to have choice.
August 14, 2008 3:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for "coming out" on this thread.
if there was overwhelming physical evidence of the world being created a few thousand years ago or some other bit of extraordinary evidence of the Bible, wouldn't that come pretty close to saying that Christianity and/or God was absolutely real?
Not particularly close, IMNSHO. Maybe it would mean that the Native American creation myth, or the Egyptian one, or any creation myth that could fit into the time frame is "absolutely real." But "none of the above" would still be feasible.
August 14, 2008 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
What a wonderful, thought-provoking discussion! To the seemingly paradoxical concepts of God, free will, and determinism, I always have found this short story from Raymond Smullyan to be unusually satisfying:
Is God a Taoist? (the whole thing can be read online!)
August 14, 2008 5:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
August 14, 2008 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
==But if I encounter a wristwatch under similar circumstances, I must conclude that its complexity had to emerge from an intelligent creator. The universe being the most complex entity, goes the argument, it must have been created by an intelligent being.==
Universe is not organized like a wristwatch - I think a scientist can explain this better - has to do with thermodynamics and probabilities. The wristwatch can't self-organize - it would be a highly unlikely thermodynamic event of increasing entropy. Universe, on the other hand is exactly the way it is BECAUSE of its natural following of the laws of physics.
=-=It seems to me that positing an infinitely recursive system as an explanation of cosmogony yeilds a very dreary and frankly ridiculous result. There are greater and greater gods extending beyond the end of the hyper-cosmos and the best they could come up (at least in this little corner or the multiverse) with all that magnificence was us? Way too damn depressing.==
Why insist on being so Western and so literal and get depressed in the bargain?
August 14, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why insist on being so Western and so literal and get depressed in the bargain?
No, I'm NOT depressed about that because I know that the "recursive gods" explanation is bogus. What I AM depressed about is that in heaven there is no beer.
As for being Western, I tried being Southeast by Southern for a few years, but I couldn't wrap my head around the dogma and the food wasn't spicy enough.
August 14, 2008 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
If spiciness of cuisine is your bottom line, may I suggest you move to Ethiopia?
They will still try to lay a Coptic trip on you however.
August 14, 2008 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
No problem. I already Copt out.
August 14, 2008 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
And when they eventually get around to charging you for sedition, you can Copt a plea.
August 14, 2008 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
They will no doubt send both of us to the punitentiary.
If I were a little punish'ed
For every little pun I shed
I'd hide my little punnish head
Inside my little puny shed.
-- The Good Doctor Johnson (quoted various ways)
August 14, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tanks a lot - you've made this thread worth revisiting.
August 16, 2008 1:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
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