Introduction expanded (Introduction)

by Cary Cook , Sunday, May 25, 2008, 23:11 (6024 days ago) @ Cary Cook

First let's get the evolution thing out of the way. It's obvious that evolution happens. It's also obvious that dirt has no reason to get organized into self-sustaining and replicating units that become more irritable and frustrated than their component parts, unless some conscious mind screws with either the rules or the molecules. Theistic evolution would account for it. And that's where I'll leave it until I see something that makes better sense - which I admit I'm not looking for, because I'm not a scientist, and even the available data is too much and too complex for me to deal with. - I am, however, a truth-seeker in the sense that I experiment in areas I care about and apply critical thinking to my findings. - Concerning a "God" (definition omitted for brevity), I'm an epistemological agnostic, but not an operational agnostic. i.e. I don't know, but see sufficient reason to place a bet. Not ala Pascal. Pascal was on the right track, but didn't take it far enough. He stopped at the God of the New Testament, and figured that the benefit of betting on this deity and being right would far outweigh the benefit of betting against him and being right. Conversely the punishment for betting against this deity and being wrong ... yada yada. - But the God of Pascal's wager was arbitrary. It could have just (or almost) as rationally been Allah. And Pascal's deity administers rewards or punishments based not on people's ethics but on their believing the right spiritual sales-pitch. Furthermore, those rewards or punishments are both exorbitant and eternal. Those two factors make him not only arbitrary, but unjust and evil. A supposed Creator, who designed our sense of justice, would not likely reward us for worshipping an apparently unjust God. - Take Pascal a step further. What is the most sensible bet a human can make, given the uncertainty of an afterlife? If we need justice, an unjust God can't possibly get us to worthwhile life, so that option is out. - 1. We can bet on no afterlife and grab for the greatest pleasures available with no reason to care for ethics.
2. We can bet on an afterlife with just rewards & punishments, and behave so as to deserve what we want.
But what are the odds that a just God is out there, given what we've seen of this planet? Close to zero ... unless there is an afterlife in which everyone gets exactly what he deserves. Only in that case is sufficient justice possible. Since there is no demonstrably reliable evidence for or against an afterlife, there is absolutely no way to judge those odds. - Therefore, I assert that an afterlife with just rewards & punishments is a reasonable bet ... not because of any compendium of allegedly "holy" scriptures, but largely in spite of them all. However, a necessary prerequisite of a just afterlife is to have a just Being in charge of it. Therefore, I bet my money, my ass, and my assumed soul on a just God. - In this position, I have no rational need for Jesus, but experientially I haven't been able to get around him. Therefore, I claim to be Christian in the sense of maintaining a personal relationship with either Jesus, or an imaginary Jesus - no way to know which. But I acknowledge no obligation to believe one damn thing the Bible says. Where I agree with the Bible, it's coincidence.