This is actually a post written in 2009 in my friend's blog as a guest writer. It's a response to her argument against religion (in particular Christianity).
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Responding to Belief and Religion
*disclaimer: this is strictly based on my own understanding & opinion of Christianity. I speak nothing of other religions as I do not know enough to comment. So take this entire discussion of religion in the context of Christianity.*
Let me proceed with my arguments systematically according to arguments (and their order) as mentioned by De Maitre.
Being an avid historian, I don’t believe in abstract concepts of divinity or miracles. As I mentioned before, 2000 years ago, a man who claimed to speak with God and spread warnings of doom was a prophet, but today, a man who does the same is said to suffer from schizophrenia or paranoid delusions. And our ancestors have a way of over-glorifying hear-say and great-deeds. For example, the ancient Greeks worshipped dinosaur bones as the bones of long dead heroes like Achilles, Hector and Hercules because they believed that heroes were larger than life.
I do agree, for anyone to claim to be the Son of God now will almost definitely be treated with schizophrenia. Let us go back to the time of Christ. Isn't it the same? Crucifixion is one of the most horrible, degrading, offensive and shameful death penalty of that age. It's to the extent that it's a taboo to even talk about it. Who on earth in that time would have believed that God was killed by men via the most vile method. Not just believing, but also following. Unless there were signs that proved the words true. The resurrection was witnessed by >500 people, which was one of the key factor to the survival of this faith till date. Testimony to the truth of the one crucified.
Religion and the concept of hell were designed to inspire fear in evil-doers and motivate them into doing charitable, gracious and kind deeds in their lifetime. It aims to build a Utopia on Earth; unfortunately, people have a way of manipulating religion to suit themselves. Example would be the blatant use of fictional “divine origins” as a means to a king’s legitimate rule or one’s ability to perform extraordinary feats. E.g. The Holy Roman Emperor of Medieval Europe, The Divine Emperor of China and The demi-God Hercules (son of Zeus). Another example would be the blatant corruption of the Catholic faith by the Catholic Church, the primary example would be the “Sale of Indulgences”, where the church literally created certificates indicating that the holder would be sin-free in the eyes of the Church and therefore God. Somehow, God became secondary in comparison to the Church.
Don't confuse the Church with God. Church is flawed for men is flawed. God is not. Catholic church had indeed swayed severely in the past, which resulted in the rise of Protestant. What the Church thought was not in line with what faith was about. Publicly and in name, they might still have considered themselves believers/saved/whatever-term. But by the standard of faith and God, they are worse than unbelievers (as stated by the Bible).
As you can see, the original tenants of religious belief have been lost over time due to flawed human interpretation. There is nothing wrong with religion it’s just how people interpreted it that becomes an issue! It is the people’s belief that gets corrupted with disillusions that we have created over time to comfort and cheat ourselves that made me write off religion for good. I don’t have a religion, but I think God (if any is around) is a little more discerning and forgiving than that. Let me inject some reason in “If I have done no evil, but just because I’m not a Christian (or Muslim for that matter), why do I deserve to go to hell?”
I question this more avidly in view that a believer is promised a place in heaven just because he kills a non-believer. This is what I define as my issue against the believers rather than the religion. This concept of Crusade/Jihad has been wrongly intepreted by believers. I believe the original intentions were to protect the faith, not to wipe out other faiths in a bloody and forceful manner. I'm sure God (if any) had a better sense of ethics than we do.
Agreed that human interpretation can be problematic and even contrary to what's the actual truth to the interpreted. God is indeed forgiving, and thus He gave a way out through Christ. All you have to do is to believe. How do you receive a gift you do not believe exist? I can try and even beg you to receive this big diamond I have in my hands for pursuit of your dreams, but if you do not believe that I have it despite that I'm holding it, you can't receive it. And so my heart aches for your unbelief which results in the inability to receive. For men is flawed, hence all fall short of the perfect nature of heaven. Defining evil is going to be problematic, because it is a extremely subjective standard. Even on Earth, we attempt to get past this problem by having the juridical system. Now just expand this juridical system on a broader scale, that's faith. (It's not entirely true that believers will not be judged for their actions, or that all believers will not go to hell, but won't go into details here at this time.)
We have anthropological studies, archaeology and written records deciphered by historians to tell us what the world was like in the past. Yet, I have met many Christians who still have to insist that the Bible is an infallible source of historical information. As a diehard historian, I’m really tempted to take off my slipper and slap them to death for their blind faith in a book that was NOT written by Christ or God himself, but from a cesspit of authors handpicked and compiled by the council of Nicea. I’m using the word cesspit because there are thousands of religious literature out there written by thousands of authors hundreds of years after the death of Christ. The creators of the bible merely picked out what suited their ideals and rejected unacceptable bits. E.g. The Bible mentioned that Adam and Eve had sons and daughters, but no one knows who Cain (their son) married. Ever wondered why? Draw up a family tree and you’ll realize that the only possibility would be that he either married his sister or his niece. That would be incest wouldn’t it? Naturally, the Church wouldn’t have that, so it was conveniently excluded.
Yes there are archaeologists and historians, but even they can't agree among themselves. And Bible has been proven correct by archaeological evidence, not entirely but increasingly more. The fact that the 66 books of the Bible had been written by multiple authors across centuries is not refuted. But yet when compiled, all of them flow into a single coherent story with a single message. The authenticity of the Bible lies not in the books, but the whole of it. Yes the modern Bible has been selected by a council of biblical scholars out of a list of other books. One very important criteria used for the selection is that the events/stuff mentioned in a book has to be witnessed by 2 other apostles or mentioned in other 2 books/letters (since some books are actually letters written by Paul). The Old Testament made predictions that all were fulfilled by Christ centuries later recorded in the New Testament.
When I ask many Christians or Catholics this question, their answer is always this mysterious “only God knows”. To me, God (if there’s one) gave us a brain; I think he meant us to use it with a little more discretion and common sense. Sometimes, people have really weird beliefs that leave me flabbergasted.
I absolutely agree that God gave us a brain. He wants us to be wise and thinking beings, not automatons (that's why we are in so much trouble today). I do agree that I disagree with some Christians/believers who think that questioning is blasphemy. In fact, the Bible encourages us to question. But question with a open mind. No point questioning if you already closed your heart and mind to one side of the equation. That's just proving your point, not questioning.
EXODUS 20:4-6 "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
Tell me then, how do you classify a cross? Some have said that it is not a likeness of God, so the second commandment has not been violated. The original cross was depicted with the body of Christ on it. And since Christ is the son of God, he is an extension of God. So we’re back to square one. Some might argue that it is from the first testament and not very valid, all I’ll say is “it’s the same God we are talking about isn’t it?”
We do not worship the cross. It's a reminder and symbol of what have been done, and what we believe in. Any Christians who start to worship a/the cross will be committing idolatry, for then that thing becomes the center of our worship, not God.
Back to the topic of Christianity, many of the Christians today are too fanatical in my opinion. Thanks to Saint Augustine (may he rot in hell), they have lost their respect for the religion's of other people. They are trying too hard to convert people to their “true” faith. Peer pressure, grand churches and gifted orators as pastors are used to convert lost souls to their faith. They are so successful that many of the Christians that I have spoken to don't seem to know what their religion is about. All they can describe to me is this warm abstract fuzzy feeling of love and forgiveness that they feel in church. To many of the born-again-evangelicals, questioning one’s faith is completely out of the question.
So to me, religion has been reduced to a shadow of its glorious past
and many of its believers are following in the words of their ancestors
rather than the word of God (if any).
Yes many Christians are quite enthusiastic (sometimes too pushy) about the preaching of the gospel. But take a minute to see things from their point of view. If you know a person who habitually steals and robs, and love him/her dearly as a family member/friend/whatever, will you not keep trying to persuade this person to stop and repent for you believe that someday the law will get to him/her? Out of love, Christians preach to save (because of what we believe). That should be the primary motivation. But of course with flawed humans, things do get skewed at times.
And so understand that like students who increase their knowledge with time and education, Christians too increase their understanding and knowledge of the faith with time and education. Inability of young Christians to answer your questions does not make the faith a mockery/fake.
Now on to the next post.
First, science recognises the temporal nature of knowledge, and accepts change. By contrast, religion is bound by doctrine, and assumes knowledge to be absolute and eternal.
Of course, religious doctrines have themselves undergone change and evolution, but in today’s context, they have fossilised into “unquestionable truths” about what theologians think about the world.
In addition, the axiomatic nature of scientific knowledge doesn’t mean it cannot be proven wrong. There are places in the universe where the laws of physics break down (black holes, at the quantum level), and these phenomena are discovered with scientific methods. Theories are constantly subject to change and challenge, but rather than resist change, theories undergo improvement through these processes.
What atheist scientists (like biologist Richard Dawkins) and philosophers are against is when religiosity closes the minds of people. For these people, God is simply another word for “I don’t know.”
When this happens, knowledge will completely lose its meaning.
Does Religion closes our mind, or does Science? Both, I'll say. It depends on the person. Albert Einstein himself said 'Religion without Science is blind. Science without Religion is lame.' But yet now many put Science and Religion on opposite ends of the pole, when they are complements.
People still strongly believe in evolution despite the increasingly evidence interpreted against it. Is that science, or is that faith? Many scientists themselves have converted from atheists to theists at least because of what Science has showed them, that it's impossible for God not to exist based on the observations of creations around us.
Just as religious people claim science is anti-god based on what little they know, do amateurs of science (like us non Ph.D specialists) have the right to criticize faith based on what little they/we know? It's like seeing an ant hole and claiming it's a well.
Science recognises the complexity of the universe, because it can comprehend the universe in scales beyond the human imagination.
Look at the values. What is a light-year? The distance travelled by light in a year: 9,460,730,472,580.8 km. And the distances between stellar objects are measured in the millions of light years.
What about time? There’s the cosmological decade, which is logarithmic in nature, which means a cosmological decade is ten times its preceding decade. So by the time you reach the estimated end of the universe you’ll need several pieces of paper just to draw zeros.
On the other extreme, there’s the Planck time: 1 attosecond, one billion billionths of a second. Can you imagine what can be done in that time?
Religion, on the other hand, is handicapped by the weaknesses of human language.
Let’s take for example Genesis. If God created the universe in six days, what is a day? Earth was created in Day 2, so it might be fair to assume Days 3, 4, 5, and 6 is one Earth day (not specifying the number of hours, because there is no consensus across civilisations), but what about Day 1? Still one Earth day?
Not to mention the idea that God's concept of time is different from ours in other parts of scripture.
Ok even among different schools, different biblical scholars have different stand on the Genesis. I'll just go with the one I feel most strongly for. If you say that God's concept of time is different across scriptures, you gotta support with verses. According to Hebrew's actual text, it IS our day-and-night day So God created the world and the universe in 6 actual human days. If you think about it, He doesn't even have to do it. Just a snap of the fingers and everything can be completed in an instant. Why 6 days? God does not ask us to do what He himself does not first do. It's an example & model to the commandment of working for 6 days, and rest 1 day (the Sabbath).
Science does recognize the complexity of nature. Many scientists believe in existence of God because of 1 scientific principle: "irreducible complexity". It's so complex but yet cannot be reduced into simpler bits because all depends on each to work. That's one of the many arguments against evolution, by the way.
Now then, is Science or Religion reducing the maginificence of the universe, or is amateurs and smart alecks reducing it?
According to the Thomas Theorem, from a sociologist of that name, situations that are defined as real are real in their consequences. So putting aside the question whether God does exist or not, the fact that people believe in God creates social structures and behaviour that are very real in their consequences.
Like for example the Crusades, and international terrorism today.
And since religion is a social institution, power relations apply in any social institution.
The institutionalisation of Christianity in post-Roman times generated wealth and influence, which in turn created interests and power structures that remain in place today. And it is these that had been the cause of human suffering throughout our history, because churchmen gave up the spiritual for the mundane.
As the saying goes: “Power corrupts.”
When clergymen launch wars in the name of God, they are in actuality fighting for worldly interests. When theologians launch inquisitions, they are trying to maintain their monopoly of knowledge and control of thought.
So when ministers preach the love of God yet at the same time warn of eternal damnation in hell, it makes you wonder whether that love is truly unconditional.
I too am against Crusades. That's just an example when the Church becomes tainted by the fall of this world. Thus the fall of prominence of the Catholic Church and the rise of Protestanism, for they have skewed the Word of God and only served themselves. It's such situations that remind me why it is so so so important for people of faith to behave in accordance to the One they believe in, for they are living testimonies and witnesses as stated in the Bible.
God is loving, but He too is just. A judge of the high court can't just acquit a person who broke the law just because of love. But out of love, the judge after annoucing the sentence, come down from the stand, and bears the guilt and punishment of the loved but fallen one.
Some extra note:
Many claim that it is unfair for us to take the blame of Adam's mistake. I say it's not. Out of free will, our ancestors chose a world without God. This IS the world without God. One of sins, disasters, crimes, wars, and other ridiculous problems. One whereby it's impossible to achieve perfection because of the world we live in. Take a more worldly example. You are born into Singapore and have to live in this society with its rules (and problems) because of choices made by the forefathers. Yet nobody complains it's not fair. Irony isn't it? Way out? Migrate (if you can). So too with this ungodly world. Way out? Believe in the existence of the ticket out, and receive it.
Take this not as a sermon, for I am unqualified. But simply my disagreements with the arguments earlier, for I too have questioned plenty and the above are answers that satisfied my questions & doubts. Too many people judge based on lack of knowledge & understanding (both religious and scientific people alike).
