The Case Against God, Immortalty, and Christian Morality

As well as contributing to the advancement of civilization, ideas can be significant obstacles on the path to positive progress. Certain bodies of belief may have a harmful influence on the quality of our lives and the course of history. Religions can sometimes call for too much faith. They have, in many cases, contributed to the kind of obstinacy and bigotry which obscures a clear view of reality. Innocent victims have been exploited, enslaved, or burned as witches. As Nietzsche once said, “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” Christianity began, as all myths do, as a means to offer explanation, direction, and comfort to curious human beings. It has, however, become a little too successful at this. It has satisfied people to the extent that many have lost productive aspects of their curiosity. People who are unwilling to question their sacred beliefs are not open to objective knowledge which is beyond their own subjective limits. For them, religion has become a crutch, a cop-out. It offers a substitute explanation, excuse, and rationalization for things about which people are uninclined to wonder. In this way, religions have been interfering with development, growth, and progress. Dogmatic faith is the reason for much wasted potential. I think there is ample support for the proposition that many religious doctrines are much more destructive than they are constructive.

There are many different strains of theistic religious thought, but most of them share certain common elements. They have a belief in God, a belief in life after death, and a morality which is tied to these beliefs. I am centering my attention on Christianity because, in its many forms, Christianity seems to have all of these elements and is the dominant religious influence in the western world.

Rather than simply believing things which I want or am told to believe, I am trying to learn what is there to be learned. I question any evidence for the existence of God, any reason for a belief in life after death, and any ethic which is based largely on these beliefs. I contend that each of these elements is not only irrational, unrealistic, and unnecessary; I think each is harmful. I will support each of my contentions beginning in this segment with the existence of God.

On the existence of God:

Does God exist? There have been several attempts to fill in preconceived notions with logic, but there remains no proof for His existence. The four main attempts are Anselm’s ontological argument, the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, and the argument from religious experience. I shall summarize each of these arguments and point out their inadequacies.

  1. Anselm’s ontological argument:

This is an attempt to prove, on an a-priori or strictly logical level, that the greatest conceivable being must exist. It is a deductive argument which draws its conclusion only from observation of its premises and not from any empirical evidence. It states that if the greatest conceivable being can be conceived, which he can by definition, then he must , logically, exist. Existence is part of the greatest being’s greatness. It is like saying that this existing person exists. By definition alone, the greatest conceivable being cannot be conceived not to exist. He must exist.

Problems:

The first problem here is that “greatest conceivable being” is a meaningless phrase. I have seen many beautiful women, but it would not be possible for me to say one of them is the most beautiful of all. Some may be more or less beautiful than others. Some may have certain physical or mental imperfections which contribute to their character or personality, but too many of them share an equal status. I can imagine several perfect women, but I cannot pick one who is most perfect. In the same way, I wouldn’t be able to conceive of the being who is most great.

Another way of looking at the first problem is to think of greatness in quantitative terms. I cannot conceive of the greatest number. Each time I think of a very high number, I need only add one to it and it becomes higher. I could say that this is the same with great beings. Every time I think of a great being, I can always make him greater.

Even if I accept “greatest conceivable being” as a definition for God, I do not have to concede that existence is a property of greatness. Good looks, intelligence, and athletic ability are some of the properties of my great being. His existence does not make him greater than his image. Existence is a special kind of predicate. It is true that a hundred existing dollars are greater than a hundred non-existing dollars, but an existing vile sore is not greater than a non-existing vile sore. I’d rather have the non-existing one. Wouldn’t you?

I could even go so far as to admit that if there is a greatest conceivable being, then he exists-- but this would be a tautology, a statement in the form, “Existing beings exist.”, which still does not prove that there is such a being. God cannot be defined into existence.

2.The Cosmological argument:

This is the argument from cause and effect. Both Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas have put forth versions of this argument.

We notice that all things have causes. God, according to this argument, is the first cause, the prime mover, the one thing which got the ball rolling. Without Him, there would be nothing. He is necessary for any ultimate explanation of how everything, how anything, came to be.

Problems:

If all things have causes, then it would be inconsistent to say that God is the first cause. Something would also need to have caused God. If God or anything can be said to have always been and to always be, then this could just as easily be said of the universe. There is no need to posit God. We could also say that we do not know how the ball first got rolling. This way we would be closer to finding an objective explanation than if we obstinately claim that we already have all the answers. Also, why do we even need a first cause? We have a number line in which we cannot find the greatest number or the most negative integer. There does not need to be a lowest integer for other integers to exist. In the same way, there does not need to be a prime mover to bring existing things into existence.

3.The Teleological argument:

This is the argument from design. When we see the intricate patterns in our technology; when we see internal combustion engines, electrical circuits in our televisions and radios, and sophisticated construction of impressive buildings and bridges; we can safely assume that there is intelligence behind these things. Advanced technology is a product of the application of intelligence. However, there is also much structure and precision in natural things and in the way the universe appears. These patterns are much more complex and impressive than anything put together by the intelligence of man. There must be a super intelligence which is God.

Problems:

This argument is very much like the argument from cause and effect. It assumes that all things must be caused or put together by something, but it does not account for what caused or put together God. The Teleological argument has all the same problems as does the Cosmological argument.

Also, the Teleological argument runs into a very interesting counter argument. There may be several impressive things in the universe, but terrible things do happen. It wouldn’t be too hard for most of us to imagine a better world. The design could have been one that would eliminate any need for earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, or evil in human beings. God, even if He does exist, is either not intelligent or not benevolent enough to prevent evil. An all good and all powerful God cannot, logically, exist.

4.The argument from religious experience:

In this category, I include several rationales:

A. Some people say that God is purely subjective. If we want Him to exist, then He does exist. We must first, however, believe. By believing, we make it true.

The problem with this is that reality is not simply subjective. I don’t need to want my car to exist. Even if I don’t believe that car exists, it won’t go away. There is an objective reality in which we cannot yet prove that God exists. If God is subjective, it means that we created Him from our own imaginations, and we can just as easily uncreate Him.

B. Many religious people say that we all have an innate knowledge of God or, at least, a need to worship some sacred deity or object. We are fighting the impulse, they say, when we claim to reject a belief in God. We could be in a state of self-deception, transferring our religious faith to something else.

The problem is that I can simply turn all this around and say the opposite. I could say that we all have an innate need to be rational, and we are fighting the impulse when we claim to believe in God. If we believe in God, then we are in a state of self-deception. We are healthy and normal only when we have faith in ourselves.

C. Some people say that they have had, perhaps in a moment of crisis, a special insight or revelation which has proven, to them, that God exists. This is similar to reports of miracles or strange happenings which can only be explained by the existence of God.

The problem with this that it is much more plausible that people experience illusions and hallucinations, or they exaggerate strange happenings. Illusions and hallucinations can sometimes be the mind’s escape from trauma, and exaggerated stories can be a form of entertainment, an escape from a perceived dull reality.

It is also possible that strange things do happen. We may not always have satisfactory answers, but this does not mean that satisfactory answers do not exist. Instead of jumping to the conclusion that God exists, perhaps we should wonder.

D.One last argument for the existence of God is really not an argument at all but an assertion that God exists based on feelings from the heart, not thoughts in the head. Rousseau said, in effect, that he doesn’t care what reason and philosophy tells him about a belief in God. He wants to believe in God privately, and that’s all there is to it.

I agree with Bertrand Russell’s way of answering such sentiment, and no one can express it better than Russell, himself:

For my part, I prefer the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, and the rest of the old stock-in-trade, to the sentimentality illogicality that has sprung from Rousseau. The old arguments at least were honest: if valid, they proved their point; if invalid, it was open to any critic to prove them so. But the new theology of the heart dispenses with argument; it cannot be refuted, because it does not profess to prove its points. At bottom, the only reason offered for its acceptance is that it allows us to indulge in pleasant dreams. This is an unworthy reason, and if I had to choose between Thomas Aquinas and Rousseau, I should unhesitatingly choose the Saint.

(A History of Western Philosophy, page 694.)
Part 2 of 3, On life after death:

Now we can move on to the next question. Is there life after death? Yes, say the mystics. There would be no point to life, they say, if it only ended in death. Plato and several other philosophers have come up with some interesting support, and contemporary researchers are recording much confirming evidence, statements from those who have had near death experiences or have been clinically dead but revived. If there is not life after death, believers say, there is much which needs to be explained.

I see things differently. I think there would be little point to life if it did not end in death, and there is some refutation for the arguments in support of post-hummus life. I also think that there is much to be explained if there is life after death.

In informal conversations, religious proponents take particular delight in recounting tails about how so-called non-believers suddenly become converted when faced with death. When the conversation becomes somewhat more serious, advocates of immortality assert, with great emotion, that there simply must be something more than this temporary, earthly life. It is too depressing, they say, to think that life ends in death.

I see life as an intrinsic value. It is the only fundamental alternative I know. It is a precious thing which, because of its vulnerability, is subject to that which is good and that which is bad. It is only because of this unique characteristic of life that anything can be for it or against it. If life continues after death, then it can no longer be precious. If life goes on forever, then it can no longer be a standard for morality. If life has no end, then nothing can be worth anything. (Unless, of course, we make up a whole lot of other hypothetical conditions to rescue morality, heaven and hell, something Occam’s razor will not permit.)

I’ll have more to say about this when I discuss morality. My present point is that I do not give up on life simply because it ends in death. Rather, life is much more meaningful and important because of its perishable nature. I only have one life to live, and I want to make the most of it.

Probably the most sophisticated and worthy argument for immortality comes from the writings of Plato. The dialogues from which the argument comes are Meno, Phaedo, and the Republic. (Although Plato used Socrates as the main character in all of these works, the ideas expressed in Meno and Phaedo are generally attributed to Socrates while the Allegory of the cave, in the Republic, is considered to be Plato’s own.)

When Meno asks Socrates about the nature of learning, Socrates demonstrates on a young attendant boy. Socrates asks the boy a series of questions which lead the boy first into certain conviction in the wrong answer, then into confusion and doubt, and finally into certainty about the correct knowledge. Simply by responding to the questions put to him by Socrates, the boy was able to solve a complicated geometrical problem of which he had no previous knowledge. Socrates posited that because he did not actually tell the boy anything, the boy must have had previous knowledge of the correct answer and only remembered when he heard the right questions. Meno testified that no other person had told the boy about this knowledge, so the implication is that the boy possessed this knowledge before his earthly existence. Thus, immortality of the soul is indicated.

Phaedo is the dialogue which tells us how Socrates attempts to console his friends after he has been convicted by the state and sentenced to death. He refers back to his conversation with Meno and reemphasizes that which supports immortality. He points out that any evidence for life prior to earthly existence is also evidence for life after death.

The Allegory of the Cave, in the Republic, seems to enhance and compliment Socrates’ ideas. This is the construction in which Plato theorizes that the light of reason shines on eternal ideas or forms and casts the shadows which are the appearances and approximations of our imperfect, unreal world. Nobody has ever seen, in this life, a perfectly straight line. When magnified enough, every line has some imperfections in it. Yet we would not know that we are seeing imperfections if we did not have the idea of what perfection is. This is true of every table, chair, or form. We have never seen a perfect form, yet we still know what a perfect form is. How did we get this knowledge?

I almost regret saying anything against this line of reasoning. Socrates’ and Plato’s elucidations are poetic and much more respectable than the religious variations which they inspired. Unfortunately, Socrates’ and Plato’s statements are not conclusive. The leading questions which Socrates asked the attendant boy would not be allowed by any judge. At most, Socrates demonstrated that some knowledge can be acquired through inference and then applied to a new situation. Certain kinds of initial observation type knowledge, however, cannot be arrived at through the Socratic method. The discovery of the spread of diseases by bacteria, for example, could not have been elicited from an ignorant person by means of question and answer. Also, Plato’s theory of forms cannot be applied to the ideal woman, the ideal mountain, the ideal tree, or the greatest conceivable being. It is true that we do seem to have some knowledge of lines and mathematical concepts which we could not have experienced, but this could be tied to our unique language or reasoning ability. This does not need to be something from a previous existence. It could be part of our human nature as it is part of the nature of certain birds that they can fly. Finally, even if we conceded that some knowledge comes from a former existence, we would need to tie that knowledge to another former life and so on into infinity. Alas, there are too many problems in the construction of Socrates and Plato. We have to cut it off with Occam’s razor.

There is a last category of arguments which is similar to arguments from experience. Strange things do seem to happen. People have reported seeing aberrations of lost friends or relatives. People have reported hearing distinct voices and experiencing other occurrences which seem only to be explained by the actuality of life after death. Authors such as Raymond A. Moody have published reports by people who have experienced close encounters with death. Many of the stories are similar. Some of the common elements are a sensation of moving along a dark passage, the perception of a bright light, and the experience of being outside the body. Does any of this constitute proof for life after death?

In cases of aberrations and strange happenings, it is much easier to believe that people have illusions or hallucinations than it is to believe that they witness supernatural phenomena. Nothing of such a nature has ever been documented in a laboratory.

In reports of near-death experiences, even the authors who publish these statements admit that the evidence is not yet conclusive. Physiological explanations can account for many of the common sensations and perceptions which extreme conditions produce. There may also be psychological reasons. People have been conditioned to associate death with darkness and God with brightness. It is also not difficult to imagine being, as we have seen depicted in movies and stories since childhood, outside the body.

It would be quite something else, however, to imagine being outside any body. We usually think of the body as a frame of reference. Without any body at all, we could not have any bodily sensations. We could not see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. This would eliminate several things about which we think. Would we still be able to contemplate certain abstract mathematical concepts, or are all concepts abstracted from a reality with which we must have empirical contact? Even if we can have a-priori thoughts, the cognitivists say that all thinking is tied to electrical and chemical processes in the brain. Without a body, what would hold the flow of our thoughts on course? If thinking is an ability of the body, this ability must die when the body dies. It is inconceivable that an ability can exist independent of the thing of which it is an ability. If thinking is something else; if it is a thing, then can it be measured? Does it have location? If it has no substance; if it is like a concept, then how can it interact with the body? It would need to defy all known laws of physics. If there is life after death, then these are some of the many questions which must be answered.

I think I have supported the contentions that God and life after life are untenable beliefs. In my final segment, I will show that a morality based on such beliefs is also untenable and a threat to wisdom.

Part 3 of 3, On Christian morality:

If the contentions stand that God and life after life are untenable beliefs, then this is also prima facie support for the instability of a morality which is tied to these beliefs. When foundations crumble, the entire structure is lost. There are, however, other reasons why a mystic morality is unstable and dangerous.

As I stated previously, I see life as an intrinsic value. This makes it a standard for morality. That which promotes and protects life is good, and that which threatens and destroys life is evil. A never-ending life destroys all value and leaves nothing to determine that which is and is not moral. Religionists, however, have an ingenious substitute standard for morality. If we are going to live forever, why do we need to be concerned about what we do in this life? Religious people answer that we must be concerned about our position in the after-life. If we are moral, then we are rewarded in heaven, they say; and if we are immoral, then we are punished in hell.

I see two problems, at least, with this explanation. First, it requires too much faith. Life after death is already a resolution of belief, and heaven and hell is a lot more construction within that proposition. If life after death is uncertain, then the idea of heaven and hell is even less certain. Second, if this construction is offered to us as an ultimatum; if we must be good in order to go to heaven, if hell is our alternative or even a remote threat, then the idea of free-will is somewhat damaged. When someone holds a gun to my head and tells me to give him all my money, I have very little freedom. I may be thankful to have any choice at all, but I would think that the terms of my freedom are cruelly narrow. “Heaven” and “hell” may also be cruel terms.

How do we know what cruel is? If we accept the idea of heaven and hell as a reason why we should be concerned about what we do, the next question has to do with how we can know what we should and should not do. What is the standard for morality? How can we determine good and bad? How can we know what choices will be rewarded in heaven and what will be punished in hell?

The answer, according to the people who believe in all this, is that God tells us. Directly or indirectly, God communicates with us. Our responsibility seems to be to suspend our own selfish judgment and put our faith in God. We must, they say, consider ourselves inadequate and subjugate ourselves to something which is beyond our inferior ability to comprehend. Even in this, we will not be successful. We can only try to be good.

In the Christian tradition, this reasoning is implied within the concept of original sin. Everybody must do penance for either the literal or symbolic sin of Adam. We are evil, they say. It is because of this that Christ died for our sins, and it is because of this that we must subjugate ourselves to God. Without the concept of original sin, there would be no need for this kind of morality. Religions depend on this judgment of the nature of man.

I think the best reply to this is a quote from one of my favorite philosophers through her character, John Galt:

[i]Damnation is the start of your morality. Destruction is its purpose, means, and end. Your code begins by damning man as evil, then demands that he practice a good which it defines as impossible for him to practice. It demands, as his first proof of virtue, that he accept his own depravity without proof. It demands that he start, not with a standard of value, but with a standard of evil, which is himself, by means of which he is then to define the good: the good is that which he is not.

The name of this monstrous absurdity is Original Sin.

A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it, if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man’s sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man’s nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice, and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. Yet that is the root of your code.[/i]

–Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged” 1957

This is my indictment of Christian dogmas. They are anti-human. Within a Christian’s own teachings is the implication that the only good Christian is a dead Christian. It is a sin to think, to feel, to live. Yet this is what is being taught to children under the title of love.

Clarence Darrow said, “The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.” I agree.

bis bald,

Nick

What’s ‘bis bald’ mean?

See you soon.

NickOtani, I confess i haven’t read your whole thread: both because I’ve probably heard it all before, and because critiquing such arguments will not get to the heart of the problem I see in what I’ve read.

The problem is that you don’t understand Christianity. In this religion, saints are quoted as saying: “The glory of God is the human being fully alive”, and (as quoted below) seeking wisdom is the best thing from several standpoints. Somewhere you got the idea that religion was anti-intellectual, and that’s just not true. What is better living than a virtuous life? That is what is demanded by religion.

As for modern skepticism, it started with Decartes, who is interesting but not highly fruitful philosophically, down to Wittgenstein who’s greatest wisdom is that wisdom cannot be thought. That’s what happens when you leave Christain Theism – solipsism and disbelief in knowledge.

By the way, there is a board for Essays and Theses which might have better accomodated the length of this post.

Welcome to the boards,
mrn

Hi Nick

Well at least you’ve got a good name. :slight_smile:

What would it be like trying to explain sexual attraction to a young boy that never had an erection? Certain things must be experienced and are beyond verbal explanation. The call of "meaning is like this. People feel it on different levels and some non at all. That is why for the purpose of this reply I would like to define God as “meaning” and use an excerpt from Dr. Nicoll to explain further:

Suppose it is true that God “IS” and that existence within time and space is within God and manifests as a layered cosmological universe, how could we prove it? We exist out of balance in a three dimensional world yet existence may be a six dimensional phenomenon of worlds within worlds and all within God. How do we prove it? It’s beyond our ability.

Now you can say why believe if it is impossible to prove? Suppose you are hungry and desire to search for food. I look at you in disdain and say why look there? It hasn’t been proven that any food is there. You would reply that you are hungry, can smell it, and would rather look yourself.

Real belief results from a hunger and the intuitive sense that something is there that can satisfy it.

The purpose of Christianity is to provide the means for man through re-birth, to return to its origin from its fallen state. It has then the unenviable task of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Naturally it is difficult. It is through re-birth that the seekers find and experience the meaning and purpose that calls to them. This is personal proof and all that can be expected.

Understanding the nature of the God/Man relationship cannot be done from the chaotic fallen state. We are incapable both scientifically and psychologically. It is through Christian efforts that a gradual change in our psychology can take place that allows us to become open to the help needed to align our psychology to reflect man’s evolved state as a microcosm. This help provides the inner direction or the path that leads to the way and allows us to separate reality from illusion.

Again, it is not something that can be proven at our quality of being. Christianity offers the possibility of acquiring a higher level of being, inner unity, through re-birth at which the God/Man relationship becomes a reality.

Of course we are helpless in front of it and as such become vulnerable to every kind of charlatan and self deception. Yes the religious calling has been abused in Man’s history. It is a natural result of the fallen human condition as a whole. But that doesn’t deny the suggested truths at the core.

This is our dilemma; how to discriminate between the two?

But if you do not feel the calling to search inwardly, why bother with questioning? What can be gained? God or the son cannot be proven by our associative thought that we call intellect. God’s will must be experienced first emotionally and then consciously. But this requires a quality of consciousness that we have only for brief intervals.

It seems absurd because it is taken wrongly. I won’t go into this, but man’s fall was a cosmic necessity. We always believe that the universe is here to serve us. It never dawns on us that we are here to serve it. Certain conditions made it necessary that man be on earth and forgetting his nature. Then when the necessity past, certain habits had been acquired to compensate for this unnatural existence that made retaining the necessary quality of consciousness impossible. So we were stuck in this imagination. Being stuck is original sin. The efforts of Christ were dedicated to allowing Man to accept and experience the help necessary to compensate for this lack of consciousness through the Holy Spirit

There is nothing evil about man on earth just as there is nothing evil about a dog which is close to our unconscious nature. Good and evil can only have an objective difference in the presence of consciousness. As we are, good and evil is purely subjective and meaningless for objective reality. We continually change from within the span of extreme to the other. Christianity demands effort but realizes that we are all trapped in the human condition. This is why the essential Christian effort is to admit to our inner turmoil and contradiction while inwardly and genuinely asking for help from above.

If it has no appeal to you, if you don’t feel its calling, why bother with it? It is better to just concern yourself with being a model Secular Humanist and you’ll be better off.

Humans are inherrently evil and I am utterly convinced. Put two babies who’ve never met eachother and have developed their motor skills but can’t talk in a room.

Now put a big, shiny, toy that makes lots of noise in between them. See what happens.

NickOtani:

This is one of the most often expressed, and totally wrong, sentiments I see here. What exactly is the implication? That the world is filled with potential philosophical geniuses that simply abandoned reasoned thought because they decided the Bible was good enough for them?  Or perhaps that if it weren't for Christianity, there would be this sudden upsurge in interest in philosophy or critical thinking, in people where it's wasn't previously apparent?  No matter how I turn this, it seems to imply absurdities. 
 What Christianity is, is [i]accessible.[/i] Because it has been taught so much, and because it's basic concepts relate to aspects of life we know well such as Love, people with no interest or ability in philosophy can take it up. I see great evidence that religion actually is the spark that provokes deep, meaningful thought in people who would otherwise be too busy or too disinclined for it, and no evidence at all that potentially great thinkers [i]decide not to think[/i] because of Christianity- such people either go on to become theologians, religious philosophers, or abandon Christianity for some other outlook. 
  We make the same observation: "Look at all those unphilosophical people who are Christians."  You (and many others)seem to conclude "Christianity must make people unphilosophical".  I conclude Christianity must be accessible to people with no interest in philosophy.

On a societal level, we seem to be progressing nicely. When it comes to objective matters we can all agree on- the advancement of technologies like medicine, housing, transportation and so on- Christian-based cultures have always managed to -ahem- keep up with the competition, let us say. When it comes to social issues like the current state of politics, the advancement of liberal ideals, and so on, let me say first that Christian countries don’t lag behind their neighbors in that respect either, and say secondly that we can condemn anything we want as repressive simply by defining ‘progress’ as “A movement towards whatever political ideals I personally cherish”.

Hi NickOtani,

welcome to our little fray …

Of course I agree wholeheartedly with this, since it applies to all ideas. In fact, the number of ideas to which this applies is probably far to high and represents in my estimation a majority of ideas in the last 2000 years.

Again, I agree with this if you apply it not only to religion. The “witch-hunts” that were politically or ideologically initiated, or the mass murder as a result of racism has been far more devastating, although they were not essentially religious, or were even anti-religious. The number of people who have suffered under the sacrifice that employers have demanded from employees is also considerable, but nobody speaks about it. What I am saying, is that ideas of all kinds have impaired the development of mankind (as against his tools) and people today are feeling the brunt no less.

It is an idea, for example, that the economic system that we have today is in fact bringing benefit to all people of the world by means of the globalisation of industrial development. This idea is fine as long as you only ask the minority which has the advantages and comfort. Ask other people who have no resources with which they could partake in that system, and they are a considerable number, and you may get another attitude.

Another point to be made is that we need to differentiate between religion on the one hand, and religious devotion on the other. It has been proven that the one is not always the originator of the other. Someone who is described as “religious” can be someone who is extremely scrupulous or conscientious towards some personal ideal and not towards an external deity or principle.

Whereas I agree that there are many religious movements which would fit your description, I would like to point out that Christianity, regardless of what you think of it, is very real and not a myth. The cosmic figure of Christ may be a myth, but the movement is not. I agree on the other hand that Christianity is not too successful as a means to offer explanation, direction, and comfort. Although you will agree, that you and I are not really able to prove this and that there are probably millions of people who find Christianity to be a central part of their lives.

My agreement is based on a different perspective, since I believe that Christianity has far more to offer than people generally understand, and that the loss is in the externalisation of basic ideas and principles of biblical teaching. We are also suffering, there you are right, under the preservation of beliefs rather than experience, and under the speculation on semantics instead of identifying a “Way” described in scripture. However, Christianity is a “crutch” if you want to describe it that way. Christianity is helping to balance the unbalanced and heal the sick. It can’t be anything but a “crutch”.

You might have done better by centring your attention on fundamentalism, since I believe that this is the real problem and is shared by all mainstream religions. Another reason would be to focus on the majority of people and not on a (admittedly very large) minority. But I think your attention is centred on Christianity for a different reason. You probably don’t know other religions that well. Your next statement seems to confirm that:

This sounds very much like someone breaking free – which I am the last to criticise. I find it important to ask myself why I am doing something and have that clear before I start. Sometimes it saves me a lot of effort. On the other hand, sometimes “the way is the goal” and the experience of failure or turning back is important to help us in the future.

Why don’t you first of clear up what you mean by “existence” or “to exist”? The word comes from the Latin “existere, exsistere”, to come forth, be manifest (ex-, ex- + sistere, to stand). This would suggest that God, to exist, must be manifest in some way. This means to be clearly apparent to the sight or understanding, and the old meaning suggests that God should be able to be “caught in the act”.

Interestingly, God’s manifestation is therefore not necessarily to be regarded as something we can see or grasp with our senses, but could also be apparent to our mind or understanding. We cannot see God with our eyes, whether it is our inability to see or an attribute of God to be invisible we can’t distinguish. We can, according to scripture, receive his “spirit” or breath. In fact his breath is described in the OT as that which made man “a living soul”:

Gen 2:7 “Then Jhvh Elohim formed adam of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

I would appreciate it if we could agree that this description is the basis of the description of the relationship of Mankind with God. In the Bible it starts here and develops. It isn’t a resuscitation that is described here, but is a mystical description of the relationship between “Jhvh Elohim” and Adam. It should guide us on our journey.

I agree that there is a lot of problems here. The first begins with the concept of God being “a Being” - like you and I? If I cannot “grasp” God, how do I know what I am talking about? The figurative description of God doing something doesn’t help, of course, just as any reference to his eye, his nose or whatever other part of an anatomy that may be given is of no help. Returning to Genesis, there is the aspect of adam receiving the breath of God, we could say that it is the gift, not only of life, but awareness. Perhaps we should look away from some idea of “a Being” and consider God as “Being” itself?

Only if the universe has purpose, which I believe is what was at the back of the minds of those learned gentlemen. The idea that something starts is of course deeply rooted within our own experience and leads us to believe that everything starts or has a first cause. However, the concept of eternity foregoes the idea of eternal life (as against prolonged life), which would also take in the idea that something always “is” to which the believer could be taken up into. This could even, with a stretch of the imagination, lead us to a “theory of relativity” in the idea that time is a part of corporeal existence but not necessarily a “heavenly” (shâmayim) experience. “Heaven” in Hebrew and Aramaic transports the vision of light and vibration (sham, shem) spreading through the cosmos (-ayim, -aya).

You have actually named the problem, being that “evil” has set a firm idea within our minds. The fact that the Hebrew suggests a “spoiling” or “breaking” would also mean that what was good (design) has become bad for whatever reason. However, when we read the Bible, we find that God is always educating mankind, showing them why things have to be spoilt and why that should not cast him into consternation. Job is addressed from out of a cyclone and he backs down. Similarly, the person who seeks to change tao has little or no chance and is wasting his energy. In both there is the understanding that our experiences have a polar character, which we have to accept:

Ecc 3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

This must mean that God will not, whether out of benevolence, intelligence or whatever reason, change the flow of events. Rather, it is the believer that has to adapt and step down from his one-sided view, and allow himself to be shown the whole story. Whether we can fit this in with our view, I don’t know, I just know that whether a “miracle” happens or not is not the proof of God.

Shalom