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

[notfluffyatall]

I don't think we've quite finished yet

Longway - snap! I'm not sorry I was raised as a Nonconformist Christian.

I suppose if I had to choose a philosophical box it might be Freethinker: 'Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas.'

I too was raised in a non conformist Christian household - spooky!
One of the good things that my parent's gave me was the ability to think for myself - that is a great gift.
I do find the non-conformist way of worshipping so dreary and boring - I am surprised that anyone bothers with it these days - if you are to be religious you must have faith - instead the NCs want to rationalise everything. At least catholicism has some magic in it!

Hello!

Grimma, your Freethinker definition there - that says that opinions ought to be formed rationally, scienfically - which is exactly the same as 'We can only know that which we can test scientifically.' So it leads inevitably to the conclusion that God doesn't exist! Not all that free, really...

Holo -

All kinds on unknowable things may exist.

But if they are unknowable...then we can't know anything about them.

The other thing is that it doesn't acknowledge that scientific rationalism, or whatever you want to call it, is in itself a philosophical tradition, an 'authority'. By dichotomising dodma, relision, and authority on the one hand and rationalism, logic and science on the other it makes it sound that 'Freethinking' is, well, free from philosophical constructs, which it's not.

I think, and have thought, a lot about faith and God. As to why is the Bible so hard to read - well, partly I think it depends what questions you ask of it. If you ask, for example, what is Paul's gospel message?, the non-conformists in all of you will know the answer - you are saved by God's grace through faith, not of your own righteousness but simply by the mercy of God. That's not hard to understand in and of itself. If you ask why the book of Joshua (which lots of Christians find really distatesful) is all about conquering Canaan and murdering whole tribes, that takes a bit more thought as to why this book is even in the Bible in the first place - and also, another v. non-conformist thing - it raises questions about how the stories of the Bible interpret and even correct each other, how some of the stories represent points of turning away from previous ideas about God (e.g. the near-scarfice of Isaac can be understood as Abraham turning away from child sacrifice, which was common across the ancient near east at the time). So none of this is particularly hard - if you can understand evolution you can understand the evolution of the Judeo-Christian tradition. But to ask the questions and seek out the answers is more demanding than simply saying 'That's a load of rubbish, it can't be true.' I also think (as an Anglican particularly) that the words we use in church really help us to articulate what faith is, and what are our guiding lights in terms of trying to understand it. (That's probably not something a non-conformist would say!)

Free-thinking does happen within Christian communities too, you know!

Holo I admire your tenacity, but I am baffled by your reasoning. "Opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason" is NOT "exactly the same as 'We can only know that which we can test scientifically.' " Where science is not appropriate, we can still use logic and reason. Some things cannot be tested using science at a particular time because the tools have not been developed; that does not stop using our reason to form opinions. It may be that at a later date, tools are developed which will enable us to test the validity of our opinions. In that case, we can review/refine our opinions in the light of new evidence. The important thing is to keep an open mind and realise that our opinions, however they were formed initially, are subject to change as we learn more.
In religion, as far as I can see, the opposite mindset holds true: believers start out "knowing" what is "true", and then have to adapt the evidence so that it proves what they want to show. When the effort of bending the evidence becomes too much, they stop believing.

'that says that opinions ought to be formed rationally, scientifically - which is exactly the same as 'We can only know that which we can test scientifically.'

No it is not. You missed out the word 'logically' - which is not the same as 'that which we can test scientifically, is it?

it makes it sound that 'Freethinking' is, well, free from philosophical constructs, which it's not.

I said its a philosophical box - of course its a philosophical formulation. Not sure what your driving at...

Here's another set of concepts I'd agree with :

'Do not accept anything by mere tradition... Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures... Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions... But when you know for yourselves?these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness?then do you live acting accordingly.'

what do people reckon to that?

Sounds almost scriptural to me!

Sounds like a cross between the type of thing that Jesus says to the Pharisees, and Philippians 4:8; 'whatever is honourable, just, pleasing, pure etc - think about these things.' Maybe the non-conformist in you lives on!

Also, I'm just watching this:

I've not had the chance to watch all of it yet (it's about an hour and a half), but was interested to hear Sir Anthony Kenny's definition of logic, that two contradictory statements cannot be held simultaneously.

Grimma, however I look at this, I can't get away from the idea that the type of answer you are open to hearing depens on the question you ask, and the data / methodology you use. So for me, the question now becomes: can science, logic (as defined above) and rationality (defined how...?) possibly ever answer the question of whether God exists? I'm honestly not sure of the answer to that myself, so will ponder it...

Not seen it but read about it on bbc yesterday. I was glad that Dawkins got to touch on the micro-managing god of the NT and the lack of any evidence for that. That's probably my número uno problem with Christian faith now. See, I know very little of ethics, philosophy and so on let alone what some of the words on this thread even mean, but I know that there are dreadful things happening to people all the time while there are people praying about minor stuff. God doesn't stop babies starving, but he cares about Bert's lumbago. Until I can get a valid explanation for that I have to conclude it's nonsense.

Holo - I think the answer is that science and logic cannot be used to determine whether a deist, noninterventionist god exists (the kind of thing that e.g. Karen Armstrong rights about) .... And when religious folks get into debate with scientists they tend to define god in this unknowable, untestable way (and I guess have the same internal conversation between their inner believer and inner scientist).

But then most religious people seem to believe in something which is quite different from this minimally designed, unknowable god. And religions derive their authority from claiming to know about the unknowable.

If you define god in any kind of interventionist way - he communicates with people, he had a son, he responds to prayer etc... then that is subject to logic and fallibility.

I'd say that's much more to do with the self-indulgent, uttterly globally unaware small-mindedness of people than God, tbh. I think (s)he must get sick of all these selfish prayers.

Although, having said that, I do believe that God loves all people, even Bert with his lumbago.

Him, lots of sense in your post. For me your post raises the question of God as God is, and God is God is known by people (iyswim). So I'd say that God is transcendent, but that God has chosen to be made known in Jesus - so for me the primary data wrt to God is Jesus' life, death, resurrection and ascention.

This leads to the question of whether God suspending / breaking the laws of physics invalidates them altogether, as someone said on here a while ago (was it you? Sorry not to remember...), or whether God has the freedom to do whatever (s)he likes. I'd say the latter (that God is not bound by any laws, not even the ones God made), so for me it's not illogical to say that Jesus, as God incarnate, was not subject to the same physical laws that define the rest of life on earth. So the resurrection, ascention etc are not illogical within a Christian view of God.

As for miracles, well I haven't had much experience of them tbh but I have had many experiences of 'answered prayer' when I have been powerfully helped in many ways when praying. Yes I accept that there might well be psychological explanations for this, but to me those aren't enough in themselves to invalidate the possibility that God is real. I know I keep banging on about this, but if you have a certain framework of thought, it's inevitable that you'll interpret things in a certain way, without definitively proving that your frame of reference is the best, right, or only one.

Aaagh, just realised what a pig's ear I made of that! I meant to say:

the difference between...

God as God is

and

God, as God is known by people.

This is an important distinction to make, if we are to say that God is, by definition, greater than humanity. (I.e. there must be more to God than we know of God, otherwise God would be not God but an idol).

You say that god must get sick of selfish prayers. He's not answering any of them, selfish or otherwise, from what I can fathom. For example the girl with diabetes who died after her parents chose to pray instead of seeking medical care. And if you're going to categorise prayers into selfish/unselfish where would you draw the line? I doubt if anyone is actually praying for a Ferrari. And couldn't every prayer have a selfish component for example the salvation of your non believing friends/family and even eradicating suffering globally would make me 'feel' a lot better which would be the driving force behind the prayer. So it would be about how I felt which could be seen as less altruistic as it first appears. It's pointless anyway because no supernatural power is stopping war, famine, disease and so on.

Argh. Sorry about lack of paragraphs.

Yes, that's the thing tbh HiH - it'd be much easier if you could sort people into good or bad, selfish or unselfish, like the egg -sorter in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Holo -

The question of whether god answers prayers is one that could be answered logically and by reference to evidence. As you say apparent "results" could be psychological, or could be a result of 'return to the mean' effects (I.e. Many illnesses and bad situations do resolve themselves eventually).

This has been subject to some limited testing - I.e. Experimentally comparing how patients do if they are randomly allocated to pray, to meditate, to be prayed for anonymously, or to be prayed for and told about, to be told they are being prayed for or to have no intervention,
etc... The results seem to show no difference between apparent 'results of prayer' (even on the level of 'god grant me the strength to cope') and non spiritual effects of just getting better anyway, or benefiting from mediation.

Of course these are only limited results, but you could imagine large enough data sets which show that

A) prayer is beneficial for people in the same way as meditation or mumsnet.

And

B) prayer has no mystical impact (god bending the rules of physics to intervene in the world).

This result wouldn't prove whether god exists or not, but the definition of a logically defensible god would retreat a bit further as "answers prayers" is crossed of the list of things attributed to god along with causing thunder, disease, mental illness/hearing voices etc...

The dilemma comes if it turns out that the real, but psychological brnefits of prayer depend on belief...but logic and evidence say that belief in god that answers prayers is not justified.

Tbh, I've pondered this quite a lot; I've had illness all my adult life, have been prayed for for curing countless times, and have experienced other awful things.

The answer I've come to is that if you accept that God has made the world as it is, then it makes sense to accept that God has made the world fragile, vulnerable and eventually dying. God could have made the world other than it is, could have made it (and us) invincible, but (again if you accept a creator God, without denying the process of evolution) God didn't, God made us a funny mixture of strong and weak.

So for me, Christian faith is a way of entering into the meaning of life and, tbh, embracing that weakness as well as that strength and fnding God in the midst of weakness. It's not very sexy, and it wouldn't make any news headlines to say that I was feeling overwhelmed by exhaustion and being a crap mum on Wednesday (which was Ash Wednesday), then I went to church and heard that reading, 'dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return', I had an ash cross placed on my forehead as a symbol of my weak humanity, and I went home knowing that God holds me in my weakness, my exhaustion and my crapness. We also had an Ash Wednesday vigil for victims of famine, war and poverty, which touched me deeply and made me much more powerfully determined to give to charities this Lent rather than just giving up coffee or somhting banal (it would be banal for me anyway, it can be v. meaningful for others). Then I gave my dd a huge hug and had a good chat with her about her problems at school, and peace came.

Now that's not 'miraculous', is it? But it's my life, and I'm so grateful to have those moments of peace and wholeness in a broken world. One of my favourite bible verses is St Paul's thorn in his side where he says that he praye and prayed for it (whatever it was) to be removed, the he had a moment of knowing that God's strength is made perfect in our weakness. I'm also a huge fan of St Thesesa of Avila, who says that 'Christ has no body now but yours' - in other words, be the miracle for someone else rather than asking for a miracle for yourself. In the feeding of the 5000, Jesus says to his disciples, 'You give them something to eat.' So I see the ongiong poverty on the world as the failure of God's people to do just that, rather than God's failure. It's not sexy, it probably wouldn't win any arguments, but I find that a much more exciting, and profound way of being Christian than asking for miracles all the time.

Cor, that was long - but v. much from the heart!

Him, that's interesting. I'd be v. tentative about experiments involving getting hospital patients to pray...I've had experiences of this sort myself, as a patient and then later as a hospital chaplain volunteer. When I did my training, it was drummed into us to be extremely gentle with patients and to have the highest ethical respect for the patients' spirituality, whatever that may be. Many patients aren't strong enough to pray, even if they want to. Thinking back to my hospital chaplaincy visiting with patients, I'd say that the 'miraculous' moments are almost impossible to categorise. It could be a moment of peace, of coming to terms with the past, of knowing love and acceptance. If I were a full-time, paid hospital chaplain I'd refuse to have any of my patients' experience used in experiments - not because I'd be scared that my beliefs wuld be disproved, but because I think it's unethical and almost certainly too experiential and provisional to be of any use.

One of the least convincing arguments against God's existence I ever heard was from a heavy smoker and ashthma sufferer (otherwie young, healthy mum of two) who was on the lung ward after an asthma attack who said 'If God were real, I wouldn't be here fighting for my life.'

I had a brief look at the papers, whilst in a debate on here, and from what I remember the evidence showed that prayer had no effect on medical outcomes (when the patients did not know that they were being prayed for). I would not be surprised if there is an effect when the patients know that they are being prayed for - but as in the other condition there is no effect, it would be safe to assume that this effect is psychological rather than the intervention of a deity.

There have been studies into the efficacy of prayer. I think one was getting relatives of the patient to pray on their behalf. In that one what they did find was a counter productive effect in that patients who knew they were being prayed for in that they had more complications which some of the researchers felt could be explained by way of a performance anxiety that the patient had, such as 'so and so are praying for me so I should be getting better' kind of thing.

While spinning the issue of starving children around into a 'what have YOU done?' angle may make the impotence of god easier to justify for a while, further thinking begs the question that if god thinks we are capable of sorting out all the troubles on earth then why urge us to pray all the time? And making blatant promises about such?Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24, John 14:12-14, Matthew 18:19 and James 5:15-16.

Holo - I agree it's more of a thought-experiment than a proposal to do loads of experiments to test the power of prayer.

The point is, you can do experiments, or just think logically about miraculous claims and come to the conclusion that they are most likely to be psychological self-help impacts rather than real examples of divine intervention.

It doesn't tell you anything about whether god exists, just tends to argue against the interventionist model.

I'm not sure what authority a hospital chaplain has over 'his patients' and whether they should be allowed to take part in an RCT, though. Certainly there should be ethical considerations and informed consent ( I think the prayer experiments that have been done are with people with chronic pain conditions not acute or terminal conditions)

Maybe the non-conformist in you lives on!
Once a non-conformist, always a non-conformist! Just I don't conform to even more than I used to.

'Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions' - that's a concept applicable to pondering religion and to practicing science.