Tony\'s God (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, November 23, 2011, 14:46 (4750 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY (referring to the slaughter of the innocents): I would like to know what other acts outside of biblical stories you are referring to, out of curiosity.

Every flood, tornado, earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption that has taken human life. But we’ve clashed on this before. If my memory serves me correctly, you blame some on human activity (hardly applicable to earlier times, when humans didn’t have the technology to influence Nature), and for the rest you claim humans were given ample warning and should have run away. Perhaps you would now add that God was merely fast-tracking the victims to a better life, and saving them from the problems of this one.

You say your “belief that he is loving and kind […] is based on my experience, not on my faith.” I find it difficult to draw the borderline between faith and belief, but in a religious context, I’d say faith is stronger and has no rational or evidential basis. I would apply that equally to faith in a loving God and to faith that chance can create the astonishingly complex mechanisms of life and evolution. Experience seems to me as good a basis as any for belief/faith in God’s existence, love and kindness. I’d also say that reason alone is not a basis for religious belief or disbelief, which ties in with your next statement:

TONY: Whether you are a man of science, a man of faith, or somewhere between the two, at some point you have to have faith in something.

Interesting. I don’t see science and faith as being polar alternatives. Science can only deal with the material world as we know it, and is ill equipped to deal with some of the realities that dominate our lives: above all, our emotions and other “spiritual” experiences. Furthermore, science is constantly changing its theories about the nature of physical realities. That’s not a criticism of science, but an indication that even physical reality is too complex for it to cover. In the old days, the great scientists were often men of faith, and they saw no contradiction.

As for having faith in something, you say you don’t place your faith in God as a way of hedging your bets (a justified poke in the eye for Pascal?), but “when compared to the folly of man...” If your faith in God is based on experience, you don’t need any further explanation. However, as someone who is committed to the reality of the here and now (which is why I kick hard against the very idea that present grief is of no consequence beside the promise of a better life to come), I see no need for faith (irrational belief) in anything. I think I’m as aware as you of the folly of man, and I hope you’re as aware as I am of the beauty of man, his scientific and artistic achievements, his altruism, his capacity for love. I have found immense joy and fulfilment through family, friends, former students and colleagues, the creative arts in which I’m still active, my cricket club, the pleasure of corresponding with people like yourself…These are real, and for me they’re enough. Of course it will all come to an end. Death is inevitable, but more than death I fear the prospect that one day I might become a sick and lonely old man. So I hope to be as lucky at the end as I’ve been throughout the run-up. If there’s a loving God and a happy afterlife to come, that would be great – but “you have to have faith in something”...No, just enjoy every moment, as long as your enjoyment is not at someone else’s expense.