Thanks. I continually return here to post because the readership of this Blog exhibits manners, dignity, and respect for others that far overshadows what I have experienced elsewhere both on the theist and atheist side of the house.

Simpler in what way?

Simpler because I have reason to think that I have interacted with God and no reason to think that I have interacted with other universes. I do not try to say that it is more likely that God exists than infinite universes because there is only one God. That just does not make sense. If we are talking about the absolute first thing, the thing from which all other things stem, I do not think that probability enters in to it. Probability is a contrivance of the human mind to describe complex systems for which all of the variables cannot be considered. In all actuality, probability probably does not even exist! :)

So basically I leave it at "it just makes sense to me". Clearly that is influenced by who I am and what I have experienced. I do not expect that everyone will view it as I have, and that is okay.

Actually the examples you give are good and I don't think there's as much difference as many people would like to think. We're certainly more mentally complex than other creatures, but we have much in common. I don't think we're fundamentally different from animals. Watching nature documentaries recently has revealed to me societies, clandestine affairs and complex relationships. In my experience whenever someone has said, "well, animals don't do this…" you soon hear of an example of species which does and has done so for ages without us knowing.

As somewhat of a nature buff, I was very careful in my examples because I am aware of the many similarities. I am not sure if it is possible to determine to everyone's satisfaction if the difference between man and beast is qualitative or quantitative. To me, the difference seems qualitative because I do not like to lick my own butt or lick the butts of others in greeting, but I could be wrong. :)

Just a little joke there. I think that it is a qualitative difference simply because of the vast gap we see between animal and human behavior. Certainly there are analogous behaviors, but humans (theists especially) are noted for seeing what they want to see. It is just a really hard question because we have to infer what is happening inside the animal's head based on their behavior. Really tricky.

No doubt there are good arguments on either side of the issue. I liked the Douglas Adams quote alot.

Cheers,

Matt

But, I have never been one to promote a "God of the gaps" so I do not expect you to change your mind because no one can explain how life got started in the first place. Furthermore, I think that declaring something impossible is the best way to never figure things out.

Glad to hear it. Taken to its logical conclusion this line of thinking would have researchers abandoning their quest for knowledge and ascribing anything unknown to God or gods.

To me it seems simpler to postulate a single Creator whom I have evidence for in my life, than to postulate an infinite number of unknowable, unobservable other universes.

Simpler in what way?

Granted, the idea of multiple universes is as unfalsifiable as any God, but logically it's a pretty simple concept and we already have the example of our own universe which we can resonably assume to exist. Any creator or designer has to be quite complex in itself, which in turn raises more questions - so where did She come from? Pretty improbable, isn't it that She could exist just by chance?

Doubtless we all find it "simpler" to believe things which already fit in with our view of how the world works. I've lately been making an effort to see the way other people's views fit together.

I mean personality in the sense that humans have a quality that utterly separates them from all other organisms on the planet. No other species is anywhere close to us.

Actually the examples you give are good and I don't think there's as much difference as many people would like to think. We're certainly more mentally complex than other creatures, but we have much in common. I don't think we're fundamentally different from animals. Watching nature documentaries recently has revealed to me societies, clandestine affairs and complex relationships. In my experience whenever someone has said, "well, animals don't do this..." you soon hear of an example of species which does and has done so for ages without us knowing.

Secondly, I am wary of this argument (can I dub it "The argument from human superiority" or has it already been claimed?) because it seems similar to thinking that we're so important that God would put Earth at the centre of the universe.

Just for fun I'd like to finish with this Douglas Adams quote:
"...on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons."

Thank you for your kind words and thoughtful remarks. Just to clarify, I do recognize that it takes effort to do the morally right thing and I do strive for it. I just think I get help. :)

I too have heard of the "religious experience" center of the brain. I am not terribly surprised by the fact. Neurologists can stimulate other parts of the brain and the patient will feel sensations in various parts of his body. This does not mean that all the sensations he feels are simply in his head, it simply means that there is a part of the brain to process those sorts of experiences.

I will address more of your post, James.

1) Design in the fundamental workings of our universe (evolution)

Strange, I think many people think evolution suggests the lack of a god, perhaps partly because this was seen as God's arena previously. Certainly evolution is an exceptionally neat and elegant theory, but it in no way requires the involvement of a god.

No, it does not require the involvement of God. It does, however, suggest the involvement of a cognitive being to me. To think that our universe happens to have seen set up in such a way that immensely complex things like humans have developed, it suggests planning to me.

There is always the matter of abiogenesis, too. I have seen convincing evidence for evolution, and I accept it as a probable account of what happened. I have yet to see any convincing propositions for abiogenesis. But, I have never been one to promote a "God of the gaps" so I do not expect you to change your mind because no one can explain how life got started in the first place. Furthermore, I think that declaring something impossible is the best way to never figure things out. So I think that study of Abiogenesis is helpful as it could lead to many practical innovations in the medical field and other fields as well.

3) The anthropic principle

It seems even stranger that you suggest this! The anthropic principle is what explains the above! If the constants weren't set just right, we obviously wouldn't be asking the question. For all we know there may be a large, perhaps infinite number of universes in which the constants vary. The one in which we find ourselves is always going to be one hospitable to our kind of life. We can speculate about how life might be possible in very different ways if the constants were in some other configuration.

To me it seems simpler to postulate a single Creator whom I have evidence for in my life, than to postulate an infinite number of unknowable, unobservable other universes.

2) The "personality" of people

What in particular? The fact that people have personalities at all? I find that quite to my expectations, given the genetic variety between us. Plenty of animals have been observed as having personalities. While our personalities and psychology is complex, I don't think it is inexplicable without resorting to God.

When I say the personality of people, I do not mean personality in the sense of "he is a happy person" or "she is a thoughtful person". I mean personality in the sense that humans have a quality that utterly separates them from all other organisms on the planet. No other species is anywhere close to us. I think chimpanzees are a distant second because they use twigs to fish termites out of the ground. Sure, apes can learn sign language, but we have to teach them. There is something about humans. Something special. It is not just expressed in the area of technology, but in other areas of abstract thought. For some reason we like to sit around and just talk about stuff. We like to be entertained. We like to create things which have no purpose other than to be there, or possibly to express our idea.

Of course all of these things could be the product of mutations caused by careless cosmic rays playing billiards with our nucleic acids, but the "personhood" or "manishness" of humans suggests to me that there is something behind the impersonal universe which gave rise to us (if indeed abiogenesis is possible sans God).

Have a nice day,

Matt

Thanks for your explanation. Just to reassure you, I don't consider you arrogant nor a "nut job". You seem a very reasonable and intelligent person from what I can gather. If I thought that losing belief in God would put you back to where you were without self-respect and of less moral character, then of course I'd prefer you kept your beliefs and better moral values!

However, as an atheist your story does not make me impressed by God, but by you. As I see it, you singlehandedly turned your life around and for that you should be commended. Please note this is not intended to encourage you to be conceited or proud, it's just the way I see it. As far as I am concerned, while you may need God in a psychological sense you clearly don't need him in a genuine physical sense because as I see it he doesn't exist. Not only are we solely responsible for the things we do wrong, but also those we do right.

In my opinion, goodness is its own reward and due to the very social nature of humans it's natural for us to feel good about helping others. Perhaps the church/religious friends encouraged you to do charitable things for people and this no doubt helped you to feel worthwhile, respected and moral - which are very important to anyone's mental health. Some psychologists now recommend people to get a pet or do charity work as it helps them to feel good about themselves. I have seen this work and think it's a fantastic idea - everyone is a winner!

Individual experiences are subjective and if you say you've got a headache how can I know otherwise? However, they might be explained by a part of the brain I've heard about which appears to be responsible for religious experiences. I don't know much about it but I've heard that when artificially stimulated, the subject is likely to see visions of whichever deity/spirit with which they are most familiar. I heard of a guy who had some kind of overactivity in this area and who saw cosmic significance in everything he witnessed. Not only did he believe in God, but he came to the conclusion that he was God.

I don't consider you a "nut job", I reserve that particular term for the fundamentalists that shoot abortion doctors and such.

Religion does sometimes help people escape from a truly destructive habit like drug abuse by giving them comfort and making them feel supported, in those cases it is beneficial as drug abuse is far far more inherently damanging then religion to the person.

I would personally give the credit to your own willpower for getting you out of your addiction, and I believe this is far more respectful of human dignity then assuming you cannot do anything goood without help. I'd also credit your good life to your own efforts and those around you! I believe that we make our own life through our choices and that it's healthy to take credit for our accomplishments when credit is due!

I appreciate the respectful way you word your comments. It does you much credit and reflects good character. There is much to be said in response to your comment and I will address the most important part first, my experience. If I had not had the experience that I have had, I think that I should be very much less likely to continue seeking and following God. I should probably even doubt his existence.

Perhaps what I am about to write will sound arrogant. I assure you, I do not write these things to boast, for there are many who have accomplished far more than I. I write these things to give you a small look into my life, so that you can have some context for my life experience.

Just to give you some context on my life experiences which produce emotion, I have stood on top of mountains and watched the sky fly overhead in the jet stream from west to east for miles and miles. I have lain on the bottom of the ocean and observed the myriad abundance of life from tiny to large. I have connected with children in other countries who neither speak my language nor understand my culture. I have witnessed war torn nations and seen the toll on humanity. I have carried dead men who gave their lives for their country and stood in formation as their bodies are loaded onto C-130’s to return to a home they will never see again. I have succeeded greatly in some endeavors and failed miserably in others. My life is not one of sheltered existence. When I speak of experience, I speak with a frame of reference.

When I use the word experience, I use it in a similar manner as when one says “childhood experience” or “life experience” and not in the sense of a single experience. I have experienced God not in a few isolated moments of epiphany, but as a progressive growth and in every aspect of human experience. I have experienced God on the intellectual level, emotional level, spiritual level, social level, and the practical level.

I experience God on the intellectual level when I observe those objective realities which I have already alluded to. My experience is not limited to an emotional high or sentimental sensation, but is in agreement with observable fact.

My emotional experiences with God are very different in content and inducement than the more commonly held view of “spiritual experiences”. From the brief summary of my life experiences, you can see that I have done many things which correspond with having a spiritual experience. Although each of these events produced strong emotional reactions, they were different than the emotional experiences associated with God. The experience was similar but clearly different. From what I understand through conversation, reading, and observation, the peace I have in life is something special and rare.

The spiritual experience differs from the emotional in that it is transcendental in nature. On two separate occasions during private worship I have had transcendental experiences in which the room spun much as it does when one is drunk. This happened concurrently with a feeling of absolute euphoria and a fullness within my chest which felt as though every good thing in the world had been packed inside of me and threatened to burst out. Although this may seem like a violent, frightening idea, it was quite wonderful. I have experienced similar feelings, to lesser degrees and without the spinning, on many occasions during prayer, worship, or reflection.

On a social level, I find that I identify with other people more readily and more fully. I find myself able to love them and care about them in ways which I had never thought possible or even really wanted to. I now realize what a selfish and uncaring person I have been in the past, as I find myself more and more interested in the welfare of my fellow man. It is not as though I did not know that I was supposed to be kind to people, everyone knows that. It is as though I was unable to love people in the way that I do now. Discovering this kind of love for people can best be described as discovering a new primary color. I could not have realized that I did not have it before because I could not imagine such a thing. It was quite beyond my capabilities. It is the same way with morality. It is not as though I did not know what was right or wrong before, but now I have the ability to do right consistently. I desire to be good and I revel in it. Being good is almost an end in itself now. This is certainly a change in me.

On the practical level, I find that God answers prayer. When I am in a bind, and ask for help, it comes. I find that God has made my marriage very wonderful through changes in my wife and I. I was subject to an addiction for a large part of my life. It threatened my marriage and it terrified me because I could not control it and I did not know where it would lead me. When I asked God to take it away, it left. The addiction was broken and I was able to say no. I liken it to trying to do a bench press. Before the addiction was broken, trying to resist was like trying to bench press 500 pounds. I just could not succeed. Afterwards, it was like trying to bench 100 pounds. It still required effort to resist, but it was far less and I was able to do it consistently. I will add that I have never fallen back into the addiction and the longer I go without the addictions, the less the bench press gets. It’s around 20 pounds right now.

My life experience is such that if it were somehow proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was no heaven in store for me on the other side of the grave, I would still follow God. I do not follow because I fear death or because I hope for a reward someday. I follow because I love the life I have found in God. It is a reward unto itself.

Based on my life experience, I think that I am either quite delusional or that God exists. That is how dramatic the effect has been on my life. I am sure that some readers will just write me off as a “nut job”. To them I say that I have served as an officer in the Army, I am currently enrolled in a graduate level program for the health sciences, I have a wonderful marriage, am financially stable, own a house, have two vehicles which are both paid off, am in above average physical condition, participate in community activities, have a large circle of friends, have an excellent friendship with my parents, and I even get along with my mother-in-law! I do not say this to brag, but to show that by any measure of mental health, I am mentally healthy and normal. If the sole reason that one classifies me as mentally unhealthy or abnormal in some way is because I disagree with them on the matter of God’s existence, then I think that it is an inconsistent and unfair assumption, especially considering that normal is a relative term and I am by no means in the minority regarding this belief.

Furthermore, based on my life experience, I think it would be folly to abandon the belief system which has led me into such a state of fulfillment and prosperity, especially when I can find no rational or evidence-based reason whatsoever to do so.

Have a nice day,

Matt

Thanks for being specific on the points here, it's an interesting thing to see. Predictably I am unconvinced, sorry! I'll address your points below, but first I'd like to ask about your personal experience. Of course really, you should be asking yourself about it.

I'm sure you are sincerely convinced that the effect was genuine and supernatural, whatever it was, but you're not the only one to claim to have experienced this sort of thing. Many people, I'm sure sincerely in many cases, believe that they are having a supernatural experience. So what if that experience is unlike yours? What if it involves a completely different religion? Are you both right? What if Jesus tells them to kill people? Who's experience is genuine?

You might say that such people are mad or just wrong, but I expect they may think the same of you. Sanity is a difficult thing to measure objectively.

If you were mistaken, how would you know or how could you work out that you were?

1) Design in the fundamental workings of our universe (evolution)

Strange, I think many people think evolution suggests the lack of a god, perhaps partly because this was seen as God's arena previously. Certainly evolution is an exceptionally neat and elegant theory, but it in no way requires the involvement of a god.

Perhaps you were thinking of the cosmological constants which are all set "just right" so that interesting things can happen in the universe and life can exists.

3) The anthropic principle

It seems even stranger that you suggest this! The anthropic principle is what explains the above! If the constants weren't set just right, we obviously wouldn't be asking the question. For all we know there may be a large, perhaps infinite number of universes in which the constants vary. The one in which we find ourselves is always going to be one hospitable to our kind of life. We can speculate about how life might be possible in very different ways if the constants were in some other configuration.

The same applies to the hospitality of the Earth. What would be surprising is if we found ourselves on a planet or in a universe which wasn't just right for us! Dawkins explains all this and more rather well in The God Delusion, which I can recommend.

2) The "personality" of people

What in particular? The fact that people have personalities at all? I find that quite to my expectations, given the genetic variety between us. Plenty of animals have been observed as having personalities. While our personalities and psychology is complex, I don't think it is inexplicable without resorting to God.

4) The Bible

I'm sure you're aware that the bible has a lot wrong with it, inconsistencies, atrocities, immoral teachings (if not look at Ebon Musings' Bible Atrocities).

You're obviously a bright and decent guy, so I doubt you think slavery is ok, or that women are inherently inferior to men, etc. In which case what use is the bible? If you're smart enough to tell for yourself which bits of it are wrong, then you're smart enough to know wrong from right and live your life by your own moral standards.

Secondly, is this the only holy book you've studied? How do you know it's the right one?

The first four are objective. They are observable by everyone, for the most part. How you choose to interpret the objective data is your choice and prerogative as a choosing being.

1) Design in the fundamental workings of our universe (evolution)
2) The "personality" of people
3) The anthropic principle
4) The Bible

My personal "clincher" is by far the personal experiences I have had. I find that following Jesus does not produce nice emotions in me, it produces goodness in me. As Ayn Rand defines happiness, so Jesus has produced happiness in me by helping me accomplish that which is valuable.

Clearly my personal subjective experience will mean little to you, so I naturally do not expect it to affect you much. To be completely honest I am quite expecting you to remark that these pieces of evidence are not proofs or that they are insufficient for a "rational person" to believe, or that you do not find them convincing. That is fine. I know there are many people who disagree with me. As with many other things, I base my life off of what makes sense to me. I expect that you will do the same.

I hope this helps you understand the perspective of the theist.

Have a wonderful day,

Matt

The evidence is objective, the interpretations is subjective. The same world is around the two of us, yet we come to different conclusions about it. This is a great mystery.

You have defined one form of faith, but there are other meanings of the word. The "mountain climber" is a perfect example because my faith is based on past experience. At dictionary.com, the first two definitions of faith are the two I have described above. Observe:

1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

The first likens faith to trust, like the mountain climber. The second is closer to the "blind faith" connotation of the word.

I do not mean to be quarrelsome or offensive but the fact of the matter is that there is evidence for God's existence. There is enough for a reasonable person to believe that God is there. To be fair I will say that I understand why many people do not believe that God is there. There are things that suggest that God is not there. As with anything, each one must make up his own mind and find his own path.

Have a nice day,

Matt