Why do some people find it hard to believe in God? Part 2

[notfluffyatall]

I don't think we've quite finished yet

To be honest, I don?t think even the most ?aggressive? of atheists really cares that other people have faith and the reason that most atheists just keep quiet is because it is easier to just let others do their own thing. The thing that makes me speak out in a way that is seen as being slightly aggressive, is because religion influences society in areas that it is just not appropriate in a modern world. Sadly the answer ?because we are a Christian country? is wearing thin on most atheists (we used to be, but we are growing less so every day)!

For example:

• Why do bishops automatically have the right to sit in the House of Lords. They are not elected and very few people in the country think they are in-touch with the needs of the UK?s population.

• Why are state schools allowed to be faith schools? Why are these schools allowed to teach my kids something that isn?t a provable fact (and no, I don?t have the option to send my child to another school as I live in a rural area and choices are limited).

• Why is a delegation of UK government ministers currently visiting the Vatican to consult on UK national policy ? what possible relevance do the pope?s thoughts have to do with UK national policy? None of us voted for the Pope in our general election (OK ignore the fact that no-one voted for the coalition either?.). How can the cost of this ?jolly? be justified to the UK tax payer!

The list goes on and on. The right for individual to be able to believe any faith they wish must be protected in law. However, this country is not predominantly a Christian country and it is time that our national institutions are modernised to reflect this. If councillors in Bideford what to have a chat with their imaginary friend before council meetings, then do it in a separate room as an unofficial personal activity before the meeting ? don?t try to force everyone else to join in.

I don't know the answer to that, Techno, because I don't agree with any of those things. We haven't got a House of Lords at all, for starters, and if you want your child to go to a faith school you've got to pay through the nose. :)

I actually almost complained because the music teacher at the school I work in was teaching the kids the notes on the scale by saying "G is on top, like God above..."

Now, I believe in God wholeheartedly, but we're a public school. And I also believe strongly in the Constitution and the bit that says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", etc. She started abruptly saying something else, so I wonder if someone got there before me. :)

Hello all!

Techno, bishops don't automatically have seats in the House of Lords (except for 5 of them). There are 21 others who get to sit in the H of L on a rotational basis depending on the number of years they have served as bishops. There are also 93 heriditary peers who get to sit in the H of L by no virtue other than genealogy, so if we are thinking about who gets to shape public life in the UK, we should think about the role of the H of L altogether.

Oddly, I was talking to someone earlier (who knows about these things!) who said that among UK faith communities, C of E bishops are looked to as people who can represent all faith concerns in public life, rather than simply privileging Christianity.

(You do realise how offensive all this 'imaginary friend' stuff is, don't you?)

I only mean it tounge in cheek - sorry for the offence I didn't reasise it would be taken seriously.

One could argue that the majority of the "Lords Temporal" are appointed by the government of the time, so although not directly elected they are put in place by an elected authority. This is not the case for the "Lords spiritual" who (as you correctly state), but I agree totally with your comment on hereditary peers.

That's okay!

I'm not a passionate supporter of the establishment of the C of E, but tbh I can see the benefit of having bishops in the H of L. The bishops I've met are all v. clued up about how political issues affect normal people, and they are v. committed to fairly representing everyone in their diocese (area), regardless of whether or not they go to church. Some of them serve for years and years so they have that sense of long continuity with their people, and they are not tied to the party poltical sysetem, so they are well placed to be impartial. And to speak on behalf of those for whom faith really matters, whether that is Christian faith or another. So...yes, I think I can mount a case in their favour!

Hereditary peers are an anachronism and so is the automatic right for 26 CofE bishops to sit as Lords Spiritual.

I caught the tail end of 'beyond belief' today on R4 - one of the points was that there are one or two other faith leaders there, appointed for their personal 'Great and Goodness' (my phrase ) - also as CofE is the largest religion then the other lords presumably have a fair proportion of adherents.

Oddly, I was talking to someone earlier (who knows about these things!) who said that among UK faith communities, C of E bishops are looked to as people who can represent all faith concerns in public life, rather than simply privileging Christianity.

It is odd on the surface, but not an uncommon phenomenon. Religious sects may differ totally in what they believe but they stick together to defend the generalised right to the priveliging of irrationality. CofE is a nice broad church, and probably a Baptist would sooner be represented by CofE bishop than an RC cardinal, or for that matter a Sunni muslim might find it harder to be supposedly represented by a Shia than a nice purple-frocked buffer.

at the purple frocked buffers.

I am in admiration of many of the HoL Bishops at the moment since they spoke up against some of the stipulations of the welfare reform bill, particularly with regards to disability benefits, and this was in opposition to some other 'high' authorities within the church. Fair play to them, I thought, but wished they had more say in that particular instance!

I'm sorry I abandoned this conversation. It getting all technical and scientific coincided with me having a couple of nightmarish weeks, and so I hid. But now I'm back :)

Grimma, I meant 'oddly not as in 'this is a puzzling thing...' but as in 'co-incidentally, I happened to be talking to someone about this just today...'

What do you think of the monarchy, Grimma, just out of interest? Surely that must be the most powerful heriditary peerage possible! I'm pro-monarchist myself - I think it's a v. good thing to have a head of state who is not tied to the party political system.

'Privileging of irrationality......!!!!!!!!!' I'm not going to bite, I'm not I'm not I'm not [sits on hands very hard]

Yes, I know that's what you meant. Words can resonate in ways not intended by the writer though.

The monarchy is a strange anachronism. It works with the present incumbent, gawd bless 'er, and there is an additional benefit as a cohesive factor with some of the Commonwealth countries. The main argument against a presidency is the character of certain Presidents - but that's usually where there is an executive and political president. I'd probably be in favour of an elected non-political head of state on the whole.

I had to duck out because of RL busy-ness, but am back too.

We have faith schools because of the history of education in this country. Before 1870 education was neither compulsory nor free. There were schools for those who could pay (some of which have survived as 'public', ie private schools). Nearly all of the schools set up for the children of the working class were set up by churches or Christian reformers. The Forster Education Act of 1870 maintained the existing provision and set up local school boards. So when education became universal there was already a patchwork of different types of school.

None of the subsequent reforms of the school system in this country has reformed the system wholesale -- not the reforms of 1944 which put in place the tertiary system of secondary modern/technical/grammar, nor comprehensivisation in the 60s, nor any since.

The result is that there is still a mix of publicly and privately funded provision; there are still schools set up and overseen by Christian denominations and other religions (Jewish schools for eg), there are still foundation/direct grant/academy schools, and there are still board/local authority schools.

No government has abolished faith schools for the same reasons that they have never reformed the system wholesale. Personally I think that all schools should be of one type -- that is run by the local authority and comprehensive. But how you unpick the faith schools part of the patchwork and leave the rest intact is a bit of a conundrum.

Should CofE schools all become academies (which can, under current legislation, be run by anybody, including a Church) or should they become old-fashioned 'community' (LA) schools? The only problem with the latter is that this govt won't let any schools 'convert' to being LA schools.

The problem is far more complex than simple rhetoric about 'faith schools should be abolished' can allow.

(You do realise how offensive all this 'imaginary friend' stuff is, don't you?)

So you log on to forum debating belief in god and then want to decide
what is offensive or not, oh the arrogance !!

The imaginary teapot and flying spaghetti monster arguments are effective because believers have no coherent rebuttal.

The only two arguments I have seen against it(and I stand to be corrected) are
that
1)God is unique,a special case if you will.

2. Large numbers of people both now and through the ages have believed in one or more.

God is only unique to you because you have given him those qualities yourself.
Your conception of god may or may not share special features with other
peoples perception of their god, it may on the other hand be radically different.
Whatever the outcome,it is no different from whatever powers I might decide
to give my imaginary friend of the day.

Secondly a belief in god has determined in a large part the history of the world, shaped and continues to shape society today, that is undoubtedly true, but it does not mean it corresponds to a suitable definition of reality.
It is a powerful and long lasting psychosis, but a psychosis non the less.

Of course a lot of believers have the commonsense to laugh about this as it has no effect on their faith, but some cannot and have either to take
faux offence, or simply refuse to address the argument.

At the end of the day there is little difference in my saying "Talking to your imaginary friend" than a religious person saying that "atheism is a belief system".

Both statements are an over simplification and an erroneous appreciation of the other sides argument.

The only different being that the atheist's view point is supported by evidence and the theist's view point is only supported by tripe (and that tripe is looking a little bit soggy and starting to smell a bit).

Interregnum, I don't think it's wrong to point out that people's words can be offensive .

(Btw - your point (1) is the right one!)

I don't think that Interregnum was suggesting that point (1) was a valid argument Holo! But I know how you like to read between the lines and make up facts as you go....

D'ya reckon, Techno? Silly me.

All the evidence suggests it!

I think it's arrogant when non-believers want to determine the terms in which believers can talk about God. When you use the term 'imaginary friend' there is an intention to be offensive. It's aggressive, yah boo sucks kind of talk.

The fact that millions of people have believed in God is good evidence that He exists. Because when you look at it, there's no evidence, apart from testimony, that many historical events happened. Socrates never wrote anything himself we only know of his existence because of things people wrote about him, some of which were written after his death. We cannot definitively prove his existence using the methods of empirical science. Does that mean that Socrates is a psychosis?

Scientific method is not adequate to determining whether things in the past happened, because historical evidence is essentially testimony.

Indeed, to call the testimony of believers a psychosis assumes that you know better than they what their experience has been, which is arrogance on a grand scale. How can you know, say, what the experience of Augustine of Hippo was? What basis do you have for discounting the testimony of his writings and replacing it with a diagnosis about his mental health?

Finally, a psychosis cannot be shared. One of the awful things about psychotic illness is that the individual suffering from it is isolated in his own head; not part of a community and not able to make love for others central to his life.

The fact that millions of people have believed in a Christian God is good evidence for nothing other than it being an attractive story. Millions of people believe in Vishnu. Millions of people believed in Zeus. Unless you're willing to accept that those gods are just as likely to be real as your god, making an argument based on the number of believers will leave you on fairly shaky ground.

Socrates probably did exist but you're right - there's no direct evidence that he did. He might have been a philosophical fiction to illustrate certain points, the centre of a collection of stories but with no actual person there. It doesn't actually matter that much because, and this is the key part, no-one has constructed a faith that is dependent on Socrates really existing. And no-one has claimed that Socrates was any more remarkable than being a fairly smart guy with an interesting way of looking at the world; there are no super-natural claims for him.

But you're wrong in suggesting that the scientific method is entirely inadequate to determining past events though. Physical evidence counts for a lot - ever heard of Pompeii?

Hi there! I'm just off out, but was thinking earlier....

I'm (obviously) not a scientist, but have quite a few friends who are, who all work in really interesting areas such as geophysics, plant science, marine biology, materials science, and medicine....and the thing is, that having listened to what they do, marvelled at the usefulness of their work and their skill, having done all that, I haven't head anything that sounds like a convincing knock-down argument / piece of evidence against the existence of God (to be fair, I haven't heard a convincing knock-down argument for God's existence either.)

So it is genuinely a bit odd for me to come on MN and hear 'Science' held up as Exhibit A as to 'why there is probably no God.' I can see that biblical literalism is threatened by evolution, but that's not my issue, so the ony other way round this is to say that science mediates all knowledge, therefore God can't exist...but that POV doesn't come from science itself, it's a philosophy that privileges one particular form of knnowledge. Which seems, tbh, a bit irrational to me. I wonder what you think about this?

Snorbs - wrt other beliefs in God, I'd say that they all point to religion as a basic response to being human in the world, and that all religions point to a greater truth.

HH, What comes over in your posts, is as I mentioned before, that you take a relativist view to different belief systems and include science as a belief system that is comparible with a religious belief system. This is at the root of a lot of the disagreements that appear on here. IMO this is an incorrect comparison to make, as science is not at all like a religious belief system.
To me, science is about understanding what we can know about the world. Good science is repeatable by others and therefore shows objective truths. A basic tenet of the scientific method is that you do not believe things that there is no evidence for. In comparison, religions often require you to believe things that there is no evidence for, its called faith. This is at odds with the scientific view of the world and is often the root of many of these sort of debates on here.

I didn't say that scientific method was entirely adequate to giving us information about past events. Physical evidence does count for something, but it does need careful interpretation. Where there is only physical evidence (for example in pre-historic archaeology) there are often a mass of competing theories and interpretations.

But my point, really, was this: that there are lots of things that have existed, do exist today, have happened in the past, are happening today, for which there is no positive proof. Indeed, science - no more than any other way of investigating the world - cannot positively prove the existence of anything. It cannot positively disprove the existence of anything, either.

For the purposes of carrying on our lives, we normally accept that the balance of probability is good enough. But it isn't proof. Now that only matters if you think that positive proof is essential for you to believe in the existence of anything. It seems to me that if you are saying that you are going to treat God as an entity within the cosmos whose existence or non-existence can be determined by the methods of empirical science, then you have to accept that the same methods which seem to rule out the existence of God will also rule out the existence of anything else.

And I think it is very likely that all those people who believe in Vishnu and Zeus did have genuine experiences of the divine. It's my view that all gods are part of the one God, and that all religions lead to God. I agree with HH that all religions point to a greater truth.

"A basic tenet of the scientific method is that you do not believe things that there is no evidence for. In comparison, religions often require you to believe things that there is no evidence for, its called faith."

As I've said before science can ask us to believe all sorts of things that there is no evidence for. Multiple space-times, for example. There are no repeatable experiments in theoretical physics.

And there is evidence for God: experience of Him.

I'm sure the Romans would've been rather insulted by your description of their pantheon of gods as merely a misunderstanding of the real nature of the one true god. I'm not sure how many Hindus would take that revelation either.

"There are no repeatable experiments in theoretical physics. "

But theoretical physics can, and very often does, lead to ideas for experiments to see if those theories are born out by evidence. There are all manner of sub-atomic particles that have been predicted to exist and that subsequently have been found to actually exist. Or, as in the case of the Higgs Boson, there is still not enough firm evidence to say it exists so they built the Large Hadron Collider to get that evidence. Maybe it does, in which case it will confirm some theories and disprove others. Maybe it doesn't, in which case large amounts of the Standard Model for particle physics will be torn up and be rewritten to take account of this new evidence. That's how science works.

By contrast, "personal experience of god" however merely counts as anecdote.

Nimimy

Science theorises and then tests to prove the theories. No one is asking you to "believe" in a multidimensional universe it is just proposed as a theory until proven (and this theory is populated with some evidence and the quantity of evidence grows with further testing).

Science doesn't say "the universe is multidimensional and if you don't believe me the great godly goat monster will send you to a burning pit for eternity".

I don't need to personally understand all of science (it is impossible), I just need to understand the process of science and make sure I am happy that the scientific community are following this process - which the vast vast majority do.

Lets not just make stuff up to fill the gaps

Indeed. Theoretical physics for which there are repeatable experiments stops being theoretical physics and becomes, um, physics.