When the topic of religion comes up, most people dance their way out of a potential discussion more deftly than a Republican Senator in the first days of a sex scandal.
“I was taught not to talk about these things,” they say.
This often means they haven’t actually thought out their positions but we, of course, aren’t supposed to say that.
In the rare event that someone will engage in an argument about religion (which, to my mind, is one of about four arguments worth having), there is usually one great roadblock to any satisfying conclusion. That roadblock being logic.
Religious arguments are the only ones in which it is acceptable to suspend logical thinking in order to come to a conclusion. (Religious arguments and any discussion of Ron Artest, I suppose.) The arguer will insist that his or her beliefs are based on “faith,” a catch-all term belonging to the same rhetorical genus as “because I said so.”
When the F-word is dropped, it’s best to push Eject and prepare for the long fall to the ground, because there isn’t much arguing with mystical concepts that have no basis in reality. And anyway, the person with faith in his life is probably happier than you.
However, there are instances (rare ones) when a Believer will relent and engage the argument on Logical grounds. These discussions usually go down one of two paths.
The first concerns proof.
There is no proof of God’s existence – no proof, that is, other than that God’s name appears in several ancient texts. In other words, the same proof that Sherlock Holmes existed.
In most rational arguments, a reminder that there is no proof of the existence of an object, concept, or idea would be the kill shot to that argument. But in a quasi-rational religious argument, the Believer contends that it is just as important for the Doubter to prove that something doesn’t exist as it is for the Believer to prove that it does exist. When applied to a discussion of religion, this takes on the following:
“OK, I can’t prove that God exists. But you – YOU – can’t prove that He DOESN’T!”
After delivering this line, the Believer can often be observed to sit back, cross his arms, and affect the posture of a lawyer who feels that he has just wrapped up the closing argument that will catapult his Grishamesque career to worldwide renown.
The Believer is correct, assuming we allow for extenuating circumstances such as insanity and the existence of alternate dimensions. And because it is true that one cannot completely rule out the possibility that we are all insane or that we are experiencing multiple dimensions at once, he has a point — albeit a very, very small one.
But if we assume that we are sane and that the only dimension applicable to the argument is this dimension, the argument offered above makes no more sense than for me to tell you that, as long as you can’t prove that there’s NOT the ghost of a clipper-ship captain named Leroy in your bedroom, there must be the ghost of a clipper-ship captain named Leroy in your bedroom.
If I told you that there was a clipper-ship captain named Leroy in your bedroom, you would say, “OK, Paul, let’s settle down. Why do you think that?”
I would say, my voice shrill and urgent, “Because I believe it!”
“Well, that’s very nice,” you would say, “but until you give me evidence of a clipper-ship captain named Leroy who lives in my bedroom, I’d have to say that you need a nap or a prescription for Lexapro.”
That is to say that, when trying to prove the existence of an invisible being for which there is no evidence, the onus is on the person who believes in that invisible being to provide that evidence. The onus is not on the person who is using his faculties as they were meant to be used (in a sane way) to disprove the existence of invisible beings. If it were, our entire view of perception would be turned on its head, in that it would mean that we should react not to the things we perceive to exist here in this world, but that we should be prepared to react to things that DON’T exist.
And since neither you nor I understand antimatter – or will anytime soon – it would probably be best to remain in the universe we see, as opposed to the universe we can’t.
A second turn that religious arguments based on “logic” can take is this one: “But what if you’re wrong?”
This argument is the ultimate hedge: it’s best to believe in God, the thinking goes, in case there is, you know, a place in the clouds where one would get to spend eternity, accompanied by one’s family, friends, and, I suppose, pets. (This assumes, of course, that one would want to be around for “eternity.” Have we learned nothing from vampire movies? Even vampires don’t want to live forever, and they’re really, really good-looking.)
One major problem with this argument – aside from the fact that, under no other circumstances would it be considered rational for one to make his case for a line of reasoning based on the effect that line of reasoning might have (imagine how you would laugh if I told you the reason I was going to win the lottery was because I wanted to win the lottery) – is that it ignores the inverse.
Namely, what if you’re wrong, Person Who Believes In Heaven?
Imagine spending your entire life waiting for something – behaving in a certain way, going to a particular building on Sunday, not eating meat on Friday, not having sex with Ashley, the nineteen-year old with the tattoo of a star behind her ear whom you met at QuikTrip – and then, when you get to the point at which that something is supposed to happen, learning that you’ve based your entire life on a lie. (This analogy could also be extended to people in my generation who think that Social Security will exist when they retire.)
That, it seems to me, is a far scarier proposition. When it comes to hedging our bets, it makes more sense to err on the side of what we know.
Even if we were to allow that there is a 1 percent chance that heaven does exist (and, again, I’m not sure anyone wants it to – forever would mean a lot of Spot’s shit for you to pick up), there’s a 100 percent chance that we’re alive now. (Okay, maybe 99 percent, in case The Matrix.)
Isn’t it more logical to live in all the ways that annoying people talk about? As if there’s no tomorrow. Like you only get one shot at it. As if the only eternity you’ll ever get is the eternity that is your perception of life from birth to death.
There are those who would say that life without the prospect of an afterlife is a hopeless life indeed.
I contend the opposite. There is no need for an afterlife if you take advantage of the life you have.
And you are hardly taking advantage of the life you have if you spend that life living under the spell of stories built to make you feel safe.
It’s true – life is short, hard, and pointless.
But just because it’s short, hard, and pointless doesn’t mean there’s a clipper ship captain named Leroy living in your bedroom.
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Good article but in my opinion you kind of missed part of the argument that I think a lot of people believe: that there is a creator or higher power and he doesn’t care if you eat meat on Friday or if you have sex with absolutely everyone you meet at qwik trip. The thought that there was “nothing” and now there is “everything” or even “anything” is too much for a lot of people to lay at the feet of random chance or the laws of physics (who wrote those laws? Certain atoms bond together to form molecules… why? It just “is” is a big leap of faith in it’s own right) I heard it said one time that when you see a cardboard box blow across the street you can be reasonably sure somebody made it so how can you look at the entire universe and think it just somehow came into existence?
Something I’ve always wondered – what if there was no creation AND no big bang? What if there was no beginning, and no end? Both creation and the big bang are based on the theory that, as b7 put it, there was “nothing” and now there is “everything.” Except, the laws of physics are pretty clear in that matter can neither be created nor destroyed – it can only transform. I look at the cardboard box and assume somebody made it, using materials that have always been found in the universe and always will be found in the universe. That’s one flaw that the atheist in me has always found in science (with regards to this particular subject): many scientists believe the universe is infinite, yet they also believe it had a beginning. What if it didn’t have a beginning, and it just is?
Paul,
I enjoyed your thoughts, thank you for sharing. As a piece of constructive criticism: I think you are using parenthesis far too often. In my opinion, they are distracting from your ideas. You are also punctuating them incorrectly – and if you are doing that intentionally, that’s even more distracting. I think you should write cleanly, and let your ideas shine on their own merits.
I’ve heard both those arguments before in discussions with people, and the second one I have always found more amusing. Let’s assume there is a God and it is all-knowing and all-powerful. If your belief is that you should have faith “just in case,” wouldn’t the all-knowing being know this and disregard you since you are not a true believer? Also, if you’re a decent person just because you want to be, wouldn’t that make you better in the eyes of God than someone who is decent in fear of punishment?
My question would be this: if we leave separate the spheres of religion and science, for example, is it possible to have these beliefs peacefully coexist? I realize that this becomes difficult when you consider that religion, and its associated moral/ethical concerns, frequently interferes in science (where science, for the most part, does not) – but I think it is possible to acknowledge or disavow some kind of spiritual faith on a personal basis without it necessarily informing the way you approach things in the sciences.
I guess the way I’d frame it is that it is not the job of science to determine anything in the spiritual realm, nor is it the place of religion to supersede the accuracy and knowledge-seeking process of science. The trouble results from people assuming that the two are necessarily in opposition or can only coexist in interference with each other.
…maybe?
How dare you trivialize my lord and savior Leroy!!
To Bowski: Yes, logically speaking. But there is no room for Logic in Faith.
Paul, you make me laugh and I enjoy your writing… but crisis man, that is depressing. “It’s true – life is short, hard, and pointless”? I’m certainly not going to try change any of your views here, as my efforts would be futile, however a much wiser man than I has written about exactly this in a way which I think you would both appreciate and enjoy. GK Chesterton – Orthodoxy.
A quote that comes to mind regarding some of the comments above… “It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.” ― G.K. Chesterton