Arguments for God aren't convincing. So is "I feel Him."

Resurrected! Glory be! 

That's how my churchless self reacted when I opened a drawer full of forgotten books and re-discovered "Irreligion" by John Allen Paulos. I'd read this short book before, as evidenced by my highlighting, but decided to read it again after flipping through a few pages and thinking Oh, my God! So true!

Paulos, a mathematics professor, demolishes the most common arguments for God. His logic is impeccable, so far as I can tell. And his writing is entertaining, often simultaneously amusing and thought-provoking.

For example:

To the question "What will any of my concerns matter in one thousand years" we might, of course, react with stoic resignation. Instead, however, we might turn the situation around. Maybe nothing we do now will matter in a thousand years, but if so, then it also would seem that nothing that will matter in a thousand years makes a difference now, either. In particular, it doesn't make a difference now that in a thousand years, what we do now won't matter.

Some of the classic arguments for the existence of God are so flimsy, it doesn't take much to tear them apart. 

The Argument from First Cause, the first taken up in the book, runs in this fashion according to Paulos.

1. Everything has a cause, or perhaps many causes.
2. Nothing is its own cause.
3. Causal chains can't go on forever.
4. So there has to be a first cause.
5. That first cause is God, who therefore exists. 

But Paulos says that assumption 1 is better put as "Either everything has a cause or there's something that doesn't."

Such as existence. Perhaps physical existence simply is. Always has been, always will be. Just like God supposedly is. So why can't physical existence be the first cause?

A related objection to the argument is that the uncaused first cause needn't have any traditional God-like qualities. It's simply first, and as we know from other realms, being first doesn't mean being best. No one brags about still using the first personal computers to come on the market. Even if the first cause existed, it might simply be a brute fact -- or even worse, an actual brute.

And this is just one of the arguments for God persuasively rendered unpersuasive by Paulos. Just about any argument someone could come up with for why they believe in God is so full of leaky logic, that belief is rendered unbelievable.

Including the "I just know..." or "I just feel..." argument. I get this all the time in blog comments. Brian, spirituality isn't a matter of logic, thinking, analyzing. It's all about direct experience.

OK, so what?

I've got direct experience of my life. You've got direct experience of your life. We each could claim to have known or felt something supernatural as part of our experiencing. Yet why should someone else accept that claim as being anything other than a subjective personal experience? 

Paulos acknowledges the seeming validity of subjectivity arguments.

One response which can't be summarily dismissed is simply the example of their belief and its effect on their lives. This effect can be impressive, but certainly doesn't compel assent. Still, one shouldn't reject the insights and feelings of those with perfect pitch because one is tone-deaf. Or, to vary the analogy, it wouldn't be wise for the blind to reject the counsel of sighted people.

But he then continues to a counter-analogy.

The undermining disanalogy in this response is that a sighted person's observations can be corroborated by the blind. A sighted person's directions, for example, to take eleven steps and then to turn left for eight more steps to reach the door of a building can be checked by a blind person. How can an agnostic or atheist learn anything from someone who simply claims to know there is a God?

Unlike the situation with sighted people, whose visions and directions are more or less the same, the "knowledge" that different religious people and groups claim to possess is quite contradictory. Blind people might wonder about the worth of being sighted were different sighted people to give inconsistent directions to get to the door.

Instead of the directions just mentioned, say a different sighted person directed someone to take four steps, turn left for seventeen more steps and right for six more steps to get to the same door.

This is exactly the case with religions, spiritual systems, mystic practices, and meditation approaches. They're all over the map when it comes to finding God, nirvana, satori, Brahman, Tao, Allah, enlightenment, or whatever other goal is espoused.

(Some even counsel against having any goal, or taking any steps, offering another alternative to the ultimate reality-seeker.)

So feel free to have your feelings about God.

Just don't expect me, or anyone else, to regard those feelings as being anything other than subjectively personal absent demonstrable evidence that you've experienced some sort of objective shared reality.

Comments

[tucson]

"God" says:

I only am as all beings,
I only exist as all appearances.

I am only experienced as all sentience,
I am only cognised as all knowing.

Only visible as all that is seen,
Every concept is a concept of what I am.

All that seems to be is my being,
For what I am is not any thing.

Being whatever is phenomenal,
Whatever can be conceived as appearing,
I who am conceiving cannot be conceived.

Since only I conceive,
How could I conceive what is conceiving?

What I am is what I conceive;
Is that not enough for me to be?

When could I have been born,
I who am the conceiver of time itself?

Where could I live,
I who conceive the space wherein all things extend?

How could I die,
I who conceive the birth, life, and death of all things,
I who, conceiving, cannot be conceived?

I am being, unaware of being,
But my being is all being.

I neither think nor feel nor do,
But your thinking, feeling, doing, is mine only.

I am life, but it is my objects that live,
For your living is my living.

Transcending all appearance,
I am immanent therein,
For all that is - I am,
And I am no thing.

--Unknown (of course)

[cc]

"Instead of the directions just mentioned, say a different sighted person directed someone to take four steps, turn left for seventeen more steps and right for six more steps to get to the same door."

I don't know if this was the best way for him to make his point because different configurations of steps could lead to the same place.

If sighted people can't always be trusted to give good directions to the blind, the blind are better off feeling their way around.

[cc]

"So feel free to have your feelings about God"

But you don't really mean that because it's those feelings that drive and direct so much irrational and destructive behavior. Better to live in a society that treats religion as a disease to be treated and recovered from.

[Adrian Mendoza]

Some days ago I asked a guy that comes from a very poor family and he himself lacks of what we commonly agree is mainstream knowledge about what is his position about the matter, if he is a believer or not, he answered pointing to the steak he was eating and saying: "I believe in this", meaning he believes in having something to eat, nothing else, because what keeps him añive is eating, he therefore believes in what is real and what he can eat or can provode him with something to eat. I think that was a great answer and the conversation about beliefs was finished in that very moment, it was like having a zen moment in which you realize that you need to see the real things, not the fairytales out there.

[Mike Williams]

"I just know..." or "I just feel..." argument...

I have never been able to feel, or know
God. In fact I am an atheist.

But, there is another possibility.

Something Else that trumps all logic.
Something Else that is only here and now.
Something Else, that meerly by touching
answers the great riddle of the universe.

At which point, there is nothing else left to do.

[Mike Williams]

"So is I feel Him (not relevant)"

Really ? Why not ?
I am about to teach you something. I am
about to give you an analogy why deduction
can be wrong, even when scientifically
based on fact.

I am going to tell you that you can start
a fire with water and a piece of paper any day you may wish to try in only 3 seconds.

Again, on any day you may wish to try, you
can start a fire on a piece of paper in
less then 3 seconds (instantly) with nothing else then regular tap water.

You will say that's absolutely impossible
scientifically. You say that's impossible
using your keen deduction.

Now watch this 3 minute video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_354572&feature=iv&src_vid=zMOyydXUrYc&v=lQU1q74HBEU

Now I am going to tell you that you can
contact the Ultimate Something Else in
the universe instantly, right here and
right now.

A state even the highest Godman has not achieved.

[Mike Williams]

Now I am going to tell you I am stuck on a huge
grassy field, like a golf course, in
the middle of a 120 degree day and every day
is 120 degrees. I cannot move to stand up.

All I have is a platic bowl and it never rains.

Now I am going to tell you that for the rest
of my life I never need to stand up, or
move around to drink all the fresh crystal
clear water I will ever need in my life.

You say this is scientifically impossible.

Really ? Watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghkW597wjrM

Now I am going to tell you that you can
contact the Ultimate Something Else in
the universe instantly, right here and
right now.

A state even the highest Godman has not achieved.

[cc]

"Mike, good to see you back!"

Yeah, when did they let him out?

[Mike Williams]

"Yeah, when did they let (Mike Williams) out"
quote cc

The truth is cc, they did not let me out.
I melted the padlock on my door with a mirror and escaped.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoMjBkKOkPc&feature=related

[Willie R]

God is going to punish the lot of you for your insolence. Just wait and see.

[cc]

"God is going to punish the lot of you for your insolence. Just wait and see"

Don't get your hopes up. I have it on good authority that God approves of Mike's Macgyver character.