On God-Shaped Holes

When I was a Christian, one of the major points my church espoused was that humans are born with eternity in their hearts or, in other terms, a "God-shaped hole" that nothing but God could fill. This was the explanation for why people, despite all their struggles lacked satisfaction. The thinking was that people try to fill the hole with money and pleasure, but the empty feeling returns no matter what. It follows that this rationale was also used to demonstrate that atheists were really nihilists and miserable.

There are problems with this idea, which is clear to me now. Looking back, it seems to be cut from the same cloth as the myths developed by primitive man to understand where lightning came from or why the sun rose. Just like those myths, simple logic can demonstrate the hole in the God-shaped hole idea.

The idea that all it takes is God to fill the void is shattered when you think about all the people who have "found" God, but still feel that emptiness and lack of purpose. No matter how many meetings I went to, how many times I read the Bible, and how many times I prayed and petitioned God to help, the feeling not remained, but got progressively worse. It was if the problem had a more complicated solution than just believing in God and praying.

It wasn't an instant fix and things actually got much worse before they got any better, but realizing that I was the one who was responsible for my own happiness and sense of purpose was the best thing that ever happened to me. The emptiness I felt inside wasn't due to some cosmic manufactured flaw that kept people coming back to God. I just needed to go out and live my own life, not the life that a 2000 year old book wanted me to.

Though there are the usual ups and downs, I can certainly say that a life without God certainly doesn't feel emptier.

The Double Standard of Blind Faith

It's been a little while since I've posted, but this time of year is always sporadic for me. On top of the usual holiday activities, work has really been humming along as I've been taking on extra projects.

At any rate, I was considering a matter that was brought up about faith. I've always been a fan of the argument that blind faith doesn't work out as well for people in practical matters as it is professed to in theological concerns. Obviously, a person who believes without seeing in this age of phishing, spam, and e-mail scams is going to be taken advantage of and left destitute. In matters of earthly concern, skepticism and reasoning are crucial to avoid becoming a victim.

This is all well and good, and if you want to believe that heavenly matters have a different standard, that, too, is fine. However, by doing so, you are inviting a very pertinent question: why? For many of the virtues advocated in the Bible, it can be argued that they have some practical usefulness beyond their spiritual rewards. Humble people are easier to be around than those who are overly boastful. The merciful are viewed as kind, forgiving, and caring and, in kind, people tend to treat such people more favorably and so on and so forth.

However, when it comes to blind faith, the practical utility is nonexistent. There is absolutely no redeeming quality to those who believe whatever they are told unquestioningly. Such people are taken advantage of, ridiculed as rubes, with praise almost only given to them by the people who are either in the process of gaming them or who are currently taking advantage.

If God saw fit to provide some usefulness to virtue as a means to demonstrate its worthiness to mankind, then why not blind faith? Why should unquestioning devotion be the exception? If it's such an important matter, then why make it completely and utterly detrimental for all human purposes?

To me, the answer seems fairly apparent. The virtues listed in the Bible have always been virtues. They're practical because they help society. Ethics and virtues are hardwired into people not because we were made this way, but because they're fundamental to the creation and success of complex societal structures. Anyone who simply didn't feel like being part of the group and wanted more than their fair share of the spoils was ostracized and left to fend for themselves. Survival was easier for those who got along with others. It was easier to have someone watching your back if you were more than willing to watch theirs. Disputes were more easily fixed without destabilizing the group when those involved were more willing to let things slide and to compromise.

Now, thousands of years later, these inherited behaviors have been systematically selected for because of their usefulness in societal living. They seem obvious to us because our brains are simply wired to think that way because our ancestors who didn't see some level of altruism as being obvious died early.

Our skepticism and our rationality are wonderful tools that helped us to be wary of situations that didn't feel right. It helps us to deduce complicated problems by using outside evidence. Today, it helps us to avoid being taken advantage of by people who would prey on those who are inherently trusting and gullible. Anyone who requires you to ignore any evidence that contradicts their claims and stifles that innate desire to investigate their story is doing you a disservice and, in all likelihood is attempting to use you.

If the rest of the virtues that have been lauded by philosophers since society began make practical sense, then we have to ask ourselves why anyone would claim that blind faith should be listed among them. After all, the only enemy the truth has is falsehood.

If You Wouldn't Trust a Faulty Book to Fix Your Roof...

There seems to be a common mindset among the more moderate Christians which comprise the largest Christian bloc in the Unites States. With advances in science and historical findings, the acceptance of the fact that the Bible is errant has become much more widespread.

The errancy of the Bible was one of the major points that led to my deconversion. When I was growing up, there was a sermon about the miraculous prophecy concerning Tyre. The way it was described to me, every minor aspect of the prophecy was fulfilled, down to the fact that the city is now bare rock where fishermen literally dry their nets. All of this I accepted as fact. Why wouldn't I? The person giving the sermon was a respected man who I knew personally.

Of course, when I started questioning my faith, I got around to actually fact-checking the story. The events as described in the Bible are anything but accurate and the retelling of the historical events were out-and-out lies. Despite several apologetics attempting to defend the prophecy by reading the prophecy any way but directly, it is hard to argue with a plain reading of the prophecy compared to a simple account of the history of Tyre. Perhaps the most damning is that Nebuchadnezzar never took Tyre. Without a claim to supernatural prophecy and, further, with a categorically false one, the Bible no longer held any credibility to me.

You see, the errancy of the Bible wasn't something I could pick and choose. There weren't parts of it that I could claim were more true than the others. When the entire credibility of your work is based on an appeal to authority, then the backbone of inerrancy is vital. If it's broken, then the whole dies with it.

Consider the Bible as it is accepted by millions: as a guideline, or how-to, of sorts. Many of these same people who do so would also be quick to agree that there are parts of the Bible that aren't quite true. Others might be reticent until some manner of proof is provided (the prophecy of Tyre, to reuse an example). In either case, it generally doesn't strike them as anything earth shattering.

This view, however, is mind boggling to me. If I had a handyman's how-to manual which proved to be completely wrong about building a shed, then I wouldn't then use that same manual to find out how to fix my roof or rewire my house. It's claim as an authority on how to care for my house would be entirely destroyed. Why should I trust a book with something life-threatening when it couldn't even get something as simple as constructing a shed right?

I don't consider it a leap of faith to suggest that most people would share a similar view. So why, then, does the Bible get a pass? It's entire authority is based on an appeal to a being that can know and do anything. If this trust is broken, then everything in the book becomes suspect, most of all its claim to know that not only does God exist, but that He requires certain things and behaviors of people. Even the life and times of Jesus, the most important figure in Christianity, become unverifiable. Nowhere, except the Bible, is Jesus' life documented. Without any historical documents to prove otherwise, why are people so quick to single out the works of Jesus as true despite a willingness to concede errors in other facets of the Bible?

The approach I took, and take to this day, is simple. Every aspect of the Bible is under equal scrutiny unless corroborated by other sources. Even the questionable nod to Jesus in two passages in the works of Josephus (which are also widely regarded to have been altered and, thus, subject to the same scrutiny) speak nothing of the miraculous works and bold claims the Bible uses as proof of Jesus' divinity.

So, in that regard, I'm certainly open to any new evidence that might arise to prove the worthiness of worshiping the Biblical God and Jesus. I could also be compelled to believe that Zeus throws lightning bolts and Thor makes thunder from mighty Mjolnir if provided sufficient proof. Just like every other religion that has ever existed.

The Fundamental Problem of Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Free Will

There's an excellent point made about omniscience and omnipotence. I wish I could credit the source, but honestly, I forgot. I believe it was a Greek philosopher, but I can't say for certain. If someone knows, I would appreciate knowing who to attribute this to.

At any rate, to be omniscient and omnipotent is to be responsible for every action anyone ever makes. Put it simply, if you can know everything and do anything, then by performing any action at all, you know exactly what the ramifications are from execution until eternity.

Let's put this into context. God not only performed an action, He set up the entire scenario that Adam found himself in. God, being omniscient, would know, then, the result of the actions that He, Himself, took leading up to the fall. Who's to say that the modification, omission, or addition of any slight detail would have resulted in a completely different outcome? In a word: God. God, with His infinite wisdom and knowledge, knew every scenario possible and had the capability of setting any one of them into motion. Therefore, even before Adam fell, He not only knew what would happen to Adam, He also knew that He would be sending the vast majority of humanity to suffer eternally because of it.

If we are to believe that God and His will is perfect and that this will is to save all of humanity, as is evidenced in 2 Timothy, then how could one account for the sheer imperfectness of a plan that involves so much loss? In practical terms, perfection is that which is a 1:0 ratio of gain to loss. What we see with God, at least in His desire to save souls, is a ratio that is heavily weighted towards loss.

Even if you ignore the notion that God is directly responsible for the result of a scenario that He set up, knowing full well what would happen, then how do you explain the sheer imperfection of God's plan? Are you honestly suggesting that it is beyond God's capability and wisdom to implement a plan that flawlessly incorporates salvation and free will?

Supposing that free will is fundamentally important to this plan, why not make the choice more abundantly clear? A person makes obvious choices in life all the time; choosing to use bleach to clean a bathtub instead of drinking it, for example. While the example is not perfect, it is scalable. Seemingly "no-brainer" decisions are still a matter of free-choice. An option that is infinitely more beneficial and attractive than any alternative doesn't eliminate free will.

In this vein, we're to believe that God is not sufficiently capable of rationalizing a situation by which every human being who has ever existed is given a clear and reasonable choice in the matter of salvation. Even many Christians, in their evangelizing, try to boil the situation down to going to hell or living for eternity in bliss. If such is the case, why can't this be made more obvious to everyone?

Instead, we have a plan by which people suffer and die, only to go to hell because they were not provided sufficient evidence, or any at all, to save them from their fate. You can blame them for their decisions, or you can blame the being that put them into that situation to begin with, knowing full well how the scenario would play out. Or, even still, you can live life simply appreciating everything for what it is and knowing that, at the end of your time here on earth, that it was good enough.

After evaluating this scenario several years ago and struggling with the idea that God was either evil, incompetent, or some combination of the two, I finally came to the latter conclusion. It has been the healthiest and most liberating decision of my life.

The Rain Comes on its Own

Where I live, we have experienced record droughts. They're saying that it has been the driest year on record. While making small talk with a man I met in line, he told me that he was going to have to make a decision to send most of his herd to slaughter incredibly early or take a bath in feed costs that won't pan out. Even though I have no knowledge of ranching, I understood well enough, even if the look on his face didn't say it all.

As of today, it has been raining for almost a week solid. Torrential rains, tempered by drizzling, followed by thunderclaps and more downpours. I looked at the weather channel and it seems that the entire state is engulfed in rain. There are flash floods and road closures. I'm told that we can expect this much rain or more for the next few days, at least.

And what part did I play in this? Absolutely nothing. The rain comes on its own, just as the droughts do. When it comes to the outside world, I have as much influence on the cloudy days as I do on the dry ones. There's a sense of serenity that comes with the feeling of complete and utter helplessness. It's hardly a feeling of powerlessness at all.

There are things in my life that happen. Without rhyme, reason, explanation, or justification, they happen. I can take credit for them as much as I can take credit for the rain, but all the same, they come and go. I'm responsible for what I do, as always, but I don't have to feel like I'm not trying hard enough when the rain doesn't fall.

Succinct Sentiment

Something has recently pierced me pretty deeply on a fundamental level.

If you believe that a perfect, loving being can dole out eternal torture on a level that humanity is unable to fathom, then what else are you willing to accept? In civilized society, we have deemed it inexcusable to torture for any reason, decidedly less so as a punishment. Yet, God gets a free pass on torture in the minds of millions of believers, if not more than a billion. If you believe in a hell, then you believe that the being you worship is intimately responsible of the most egregious breach of civil human conduct in the history of mankind.

If endless torture isn't too horrible for me, or especially my loved ones, then what is? If that's passes for acceptable behavior for a perfect being, what would you excuse in fallen humanity? What other horrifying acts would you accept in the name of some greater good?

How Much Faith is Too Much?

Or How Much Faith is Right for You?

Today, I'm taking my sandals off. Faith is perhaps the holiest ground that the modern believer has, so I will attempt to address this issue with as much tact and the lightest touch I can bring to bear. When talking about faith with a believer, it becomes clear that it is the central core on which their belief is affixed. If I'm to hold myself to my own standards of non-combativeness and respect, then this matter of faith is inherently even more sensitive.

In that light, it's surprising to me that this would even be an issue. From my own experience and personal interactions with Christians, it's certainly not an issue within their own minds. However, it is precisely that reason why it is important to bring to light. According to the mindset of Christians today, you can have too much faith.

Perhaps the most poignant examples are parents who opt to pray for the healing of their children, rather than trusting in medicine. There certainly is Biblical backing for their claim. If we are to take Jesus at his word, he should answer these kinds of prayers. In John 14:13-14, Jesus states, "And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." Taking this verse literally, someone would have every right to pray for their child to get better. An omnipotent, omniscient being should have much more success with illness than any doctor.

This is especially true in light of 1 John 5:14-15: "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us. And if we know that He hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of Him." What this verse is indicating is that receipt of prayer is dependant on faith. Therefore, this act of reliance on God, and God alone, should be the most effective method in dealing with illness.

It's clear, then, that these parents have the purest motives, the utmost love for their children, and absolute faith in God. I won't call them monsters because they honestly believe that what they are doing is the best thing that they could possibly do for their children. The Bible says that it is. But, if the disease is fatal if left untreated, their child will die. We know this. Most Christians know this. How, then, is this discrepancy accounted for?

The most common response that I have encountered is that God simply does not work that way. We have doctors and medicine which God provides to heal their children. However, this isn't what the Bible says. Further, these parents are taking the Bible at its word. This is the literal interpretation. You may say that these verses aren't meant to be taken literally, or they're meant to be interpreted a certain way, or that they aren't meant for this time. But how are those parents supposed to know that if the Bible doesn't clarify? Is God punishing these children and their parents because they simply don't know they're not supposed to take the Bible literally? The Bible doesn't say those passages are metaphorical. So, what is happening here?

These parents have so much faith that they are placing the lives of their children in God's hands. They are so trusting in God's power that they simply feel that faith and faith alone will heal their children. Their faith is so strong that, beyond everything their minds and hearts tell them, they are putting the very well-being of their children, who they must love very dearly, at God's mercy. Given this, how can God let these children die? Modern medicine can tell us with a certainty that some diseases are absolutely fatal if untreated. Nearly every Christian understands this and gets their children the proper medical care when necessary. They know that their faith alone won't cure their children.

So is God punishing these other parents for having too much faith in Him? How can that make any sense at all?

Humanity Thrives On Obscurity

This will be the second time that the musings of Sabio Lantz over at Triangulations has been a wonderful jumping off point for a blog post. His post, The Glory of Insignificance is centered on a theme that I feel like I've only tangentially touched upon. You really should click on the handy link, give it a read and explore some of the other highly ponderous stuff that Sabio doles out.

For the sake of context, he really hits the point that our individual inconsequence is a wonderful thing. His opinion, one that is mirrored by myself, is that this doesn't even feel bittersweet. While there is a twinge of depression about the thought of insignificance, it is utterly lost among the forest of positive emotions that emenate from it.

I love the fact that I'm not at the top. If there's nowhere to go, then there's no drive to succeed. This is a point I referenced in a comment on the topic and, really, if this sort of thing interests you, go over there and leave a comment yourself, as well. At any rate, I was mulling this over and thought about how this applies to humanity. Immediately, I thought of a hero of mine, Carl Sagan, who had expressed similar sentiments.

I can't express it better than Carl Sagan, though. His book "Pale Blue Dot" really is a must read. The title of the book comes from the furthest known picture of our galaxy from one of the old Voyager probes. In it, the earth only appears as an infinitessimal pale blue dot. On this dot, Sagan says, are all of our cares, worries, troubles, achievements, truly, almost the entirety of human progress is limited to this mote of dust hurtling through an uncaring void. And you know what? That is what drives us and always has. Humanity demands to be recognized. Each one of us has a voice that wants to be remembered and appreciated. It is this drive to carve our initials on this terrestrial tree.

As I wrote on Sabio's topic, I for one welcome the meaningless of our species and our planet, because that is what is going to drive us to the very brink of the universe. Once there, you can bet humanity is going to set up a bungee cord just because it hasn’t been done before. We push the envelope of what previous generations thought impossible. Then we take that even further and push for what was never thought of at all.

The story of human existence can certainly be told about how we challenge our concept of impossibility, but that would only be half right. Humanity has accomplished feats that never even crossed the minds of the world's most brilliant thinkers half a century ago, sometimes even more recently. Staring down the nigh impossible task of finding the Higgs Boson was never a fleeting concept, even for a mind as innovative as Einstein's. It was beyond impossible at the time, the idea was literally unthinkable.

And do you know why we have pushed that envelope? Because we have abolished the notion that we already know the answer. What was before the realm of God, and God alone, has know been hypothesized and theorized to be within the grasp of human understanding. We push our limits, physically and intellectually, because we know that we are alone in this universe. And, if nothing else, we're going to leave as big a mark as we can before we burn ourselves out.

That's what humanity does.

Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs

Coming from a strong religious background, I am well familiar with the notion that God sends difficult situations to believers to test their faith or to cause them to get closer to God.

While I have had my share of low points since I renounced my faith, there hasn't been anything that I would necessarily call a tribulation. I never really thought about it, but it really is true that the way a person handles difficult times is a true test of their mettle. The same is true of their resolve in matters of faith.

Lately, things have begun to fall apart. Work has been monstrous thanks to a boss who is apparently experiencing a great deal of personal strife, as well. In a company of 7 people, this does not translate well to morale. The effect compounds upon itself since I happen to work with my girlfriend who, as Vice President of the company, is catching the brunt of our boss's frustrations.

On top of this, we are also getting a place together and something had come up in my rental history that was being questioned to the point where I was originally not going to be a signer on the lease. Of course, the issue wasn't even just beyond my control, I had actually done the morally correct thing and it had counted against me. Apparently, the police showing up at your place is no good. No distinction seems to be made, even if you had called an ambulance because you tripped and fell through a window or because you had called paramedics due to an friend experiencing an extreme fit of depression causing them to attempt suicide in your apartment and the police simply respond both times because they always respond to emergency calls. Honestly, why they specifically mentioned the police coming out when I had, in fact, called for EMS both times is beyond me. It's as if they tried to make things sound as bad as they could in as few impersonal words as possible.

With all of this going on, she and I were looking forward to our Fourth of July weekend plans, in which we would go out to a beautiful lake cottage that we had been invited to by a good friend of ours. This, too, resulted in disaster, with both of us ending up more stressed than we were at the beginning of the trip.

In times like this, I normally would have turned to prayer as a means to allow God to work out the situation. However, this has failed spectacularly for me and people I know in the past, as I had mentioned previously. I wasn't about to mess things up with such a great girl and a wonderful job. So, instead of bringing a completely separate third party into it, I talked with my girlfriend. We not only hashed out what had been going on, but we realized that all of the things that had us so contentious were entirely comprised of recent events. There were no longstanding feuds between us and not even so much as a fight in the past nine months that we had been dating. There was a sudden epiphany in both of us that we had just reached our limit with so many things, that anything on the top simply spilled over the sides. As a great deal of what has been stressing us out is being resolved, we are coming to realize more and more how true this is.

Instead of a divinely-ordained test, it was simply a normal human experience that required normal human measures: talking things out, looking at the big picture, and being objective. In just an afternoon, we got to the bottom of everything that had been going on and handled the issue with the lease (which we both signed a few days ago). As for the job situation, our boss knows that he would be sunk without us and so it's just a matter of letting things blow over.

But, hey, sometimes things just need time to pass. In the meanwhile, I'm much happier having handled the situation instead of hoping that talking to myself would fix things.

Title Bout: Us v Them

I've come to a conclusion of late. Sometimes I'll ask a particularly tough question about God or the Bible, something that really got me thinking when I was a Christian that led me down the path of doubt and, eventually, renouncing my faith entirely. By all accounts, these are questions that I sincerely do want answered. After all, who wants to believe in something that they haven't fully thought about?

Yet, it seems that whenever I do, I'm confronted with a brick wall of vitriol and argument. Certainly, there are times when I mention certain parts of the Bible that I have a rabid disgust of. However, this isn't maligned. These are points in the Bible that I had desperately wanted to fit any sort of justification. Truly and sincerely, I would like answers to any of the questions I have. I'm not baiting anyone into any traps and, if I have to lure someone towards a very damning question I have, it's because I can't get any straight answers to begin with.

This is why I'm not a Christian. I have heard it when I was a Christian, too, so I do understand the notion. How difficult is it to believe, though, that I simply didn't feel like any of it added up? Why can't my questions be taken as just that: sincere and truly inquisitive?

Why am I put in a ring and fitted for boxing gloves any time I want to discuss why I'm not a Christian anymore?

It's not me that does it. I really don't care what someone believes. Belief is the one thing that I feel anyone has complete and utter freedom over. Expression, action, practice, or what have you, all of those things actually affect other people. Your beliefs, though, those are entirely in your head and have no bearing on me, my loved ones, people I know, or even people I don't know. Depending on what those beliefs are, actually acting on them is where I draw the line, but just having them? Whatever you want.

I don't gain anything from converting people. There's no atheist heaven where an atheist judge declares you fit for an atheist heaven depending on how many people you get to lose their faith. I don't go to atheist clubs and, thus, I don't need to make sure that membership is high so we can make that club trip to Cancun. I don't even care if you agree with me. If I don't need people to like the music I do, then I certainly don't need people to have my religious views, as well.

But I do know the other way of thinking. There's always the contention brewing in the back of the mind. How couldn't there be? The way I was taught, there was no middle ground, it was Us versus Them. No matter who They were, as long as They weren't Christian, even if they were good people who I liked to be around, They needed to be saved because, otherwise, They were in service to Satan, whether They knew it or not.

So it's no wonder I feel like I'm going nine rounds with Ali anytime I have a tough question about particularly distasteful Bible passages or theistic paradoxes. I can't be sincerely asking these questions. There's no way I left Christianity based on its merits alone. There had to be something. It had to have been the wrong sect, the wrong church, the wrong Christians, the wrong translation, the wrong interpretation. There had to have been tragedy, abuse, wrongdoing. It's gotten to the point where it's expected.

I know it's not every Christian, but the ones who are like that certainly do make their prescence more known. Personally, I don't care either way, I'd just like to be taken at my word. Just because I'm not with you doesn't mean I'm against you.