On Faith - Part I,584something

         As a preparation for my oncoming article "On Faith - Part II", I have decided to post my notes on the chapters concerning religion from an amazing book I just read. For a very good résumé of the panorama of ideas that make up western philosophy, "50 Philosophy Ideas You really Need to Know" is the book to look for. In the chapters concerned, the authors introduce and explain the different philosophical arguments meant to prove God's existence, for then to explain end interpret the responses and counter-arguments of philosophers. To sum up concisely, God's existence can neither be proven nor dis-proven. To sum up not quite as quickly, my notes concerning these chapters, plus some of my own additions, can be found further down:

Religion

38, The Argument from Design (the divine watchmaker) 

- The argument form design, also known as the theological argument, is the belief that we can induce from the complexity of natural mechanisms that there is a creator behind it all. But there are several weak points in this theory, first pointed out by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779):

o   Arguments from analogy works best when the different ‘objects’ are not too different. We can infer from our anatomical resemblance with the chimpanzees that they might feel pain as we do, but to compare an eye with a camera is to go a bit far, as is to compare a watch with the mechanisms of the universe

o   The argument is vulnerable to infinite regress. If our universe needs a designer, than what can we say about the universe and its designer? Do we need and über-designer? And then an über-über-designer, etc.?

o   The arguments biggest appeal is that it explains the complexity and marvel with what things like the human eye works and comes to existence. But the theory of evolution does the same thing, without the need of an omnipotent creator.

o   Even if we recognise in the argument, there are limits to it. Certain aspects of nature might suggest a committee, so a whole team of designers might be necessary. And nothing in this world, however well “created”, is perfect. Everything seems to be flawed in one or another way, and would it not be logical to draw the conclusion that the maker himself is flawed, or non-omnipotent? There is bad in this world, and this too, might give us serious doubts of the morals of the maker.

o   And of course, if we admit that there is a designer behind the watch of the universe, there are no compelling reason what-so-ever to indicate that he is still around / alive.

39, The Cosmological Argument (the first and uncaused cause)

- Basically resumed as thus: - Why is there anything? – God.
- While it is appealingly simple, and easy to just accept, it presents several flaws or weaknesses:

o   The argument is by analogy. Everything we know is a result of causality, cause and effect, so we naturally assume that the universe too must have a cause. But the argument extends the reasoning to something that is by definition outside of our experience, our universe: to whatever created the universe. But our experience of this (world) cannot tell us anything about this, and is thus not even coherent. The universe means everything that exist, and its beginning also marks the beginning of time

o   If the universe itself is caused by something, so does also God. If not, God must be outside of “everything”, he must be supernatural. This might be satisfactory to those who already believe the conclusion that the argument is supposed to lead to. For others, it only fuels the suspicion that the argument is incoherent or unintelligible.

o   The argument resides on the notion that infinite regression is intolerable (if B causes A, than C must have caused B, and D must have caused...): the chain must end somewhere, and that that somewhere is God who is uncaused or self-caused. But is the idea of an infinite chain, implying that the universe had no beginning, really any more incomprehensible than a supernatural something lying outside of it?

o   Even if the chain must end somewhere, why cannot the universe itself be uncaused or self-caused? If self-causation becomes acceptable, God becomes redundant.

o   By accepting the argument, we thus lay some very peculiar characteristics upon God: he must be self-caused or uncaused, necessarily existent, etc.. While this in itself may be hard to interpret, the argument does not prove (if it proves anything at all) that God possesses any magic properties at all, such as omnipotence, omniscience, universal benevolence, etc..

40, The Ontological Argument (the greatest imaginable being)

- Basically the idea that, we being able to imagine a being greater than anything that we can possibly conceive, is a proof itself of the existence of God. Now it is possible to conceive God as such – and an even greater one: one that exists in reality as well as in our minds. So, for this not to be contradictory, God must exist!

- Descartes has had a similar approach: We can imagine someone kind and great. But we can also imagine someone kinder and even greater, and we can go on until imagining the perfect kind- and greatness. According to Descartes, these ideas must come from somewhere, as we cannot imagine something out of our experience. Descartes conclusion is that these principals must come from God, as he is a being of eternal kind- and greatness, thus proving his existence.

- Flaws:

o   The problem is that the same type of argument can be used to “prove” the existence of non-existent things, such as centaurs and griffins. God must thus be in some way a special case. While a juicy apple is great, it is always possible to imagine a juicier one and hence greater one. God must thus be great (/ omnipotent, omniscient ad benevolent) to a degree not possible to surpass. But, unfortunately, being bestowed of such perfect qualities is in itself contradictory:

§  To be omnipotent means, amongst other things, to be able to create beings of free will. But this is contradictory with the idea of:

§  Omniscience, which means to know everything. How can it be possible to beings of free will, thus being able to act on its own, when an omniscient God would know every consequence of his actions?

§  And of course, there is the problem of evil, putting complete benevolence up to the question

o   As Kant demonstrates in his Critique of Pure Reason, to say that God exist is not to attribute the property of existence to him, but to say that there is a concept that has those properties, and the truth of something like this cannot be determined without seeing how things are in reality outside of reality. Existence is not a property, but a precondition of having properties. The ontological argument crumbles at once if existence is denied the status of predicate.

41, The Problem of Evil (why does God let bad things happen?) 

- A problem that directly arises from the qualities that are attributed to God within the Judaeo-Christian tradition:

o   God is omniscient: knows everything logically possible to know

o   God is omnipotent: is able to do anything that is logically possible to know

o   God is omnibenevolent: universal goodwill and wishes to do every good thing possible

- But, these characteristics are contradictory to each other:

o   If God is omniscient, It knows about all suffering

o   If God is omnipotent, It is able to prevent it

o   If God is omnibenevolent, It wishes to prevent all pain and suffering

- There is pain and suffering in the world, so logically, God is either ignorant, incapable or unwilling to do anything – not the idea of God most religions like to profess.
-  There are some possible defences against this argument, though denying evil itself, or limiting God's powers does not seem to be acceptable:

o   Most theists would argue that we are ultimately better off with evil in the world, or that it is possible for them to coexist without contradiction:

§  Many would argue that evil is the price we must pay for freewill, for the freedom to make our own choices:

- If there are no moral evil, how can good actions shine forth?

- True character and virtue are forged through overcoming adversity: fighting for the oppressed, opposing the tyrant, etc.

§  Though this argument might be appealing, it struggles to explain the arbitrary distribution of human suffering;

- The blameless is often the one that suffers the most

- The vicious goes unscathed

-  The last line of defence for the faithful is often “God moves in mysterious ways”, though this argument possesses little, if no, weight with the non-believer.

42, The Freewill Defence (Freedom to do wrong)

-  The daily drama and suffering suggest a God, if any, that is removed from the perfect being described in Judaeo-Christian tradition, which is either unable or unwilling to help. In other words: a God scarcely deserving of our respect, let alone our worship.

- The most common counter-argument is that God could not have given us freewill without the risk of evil: he could not have hindered moral baseness without taking away moral goodness (see The Problem of Evil). This argument possesses several weaknesses:

o   The “Freewill Defence” might explain the so-called “moral evil”, evil caused by men alone. But what about natural evil? Man is capable of inflicting enough evil on himself without the addition of natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis), viruses (HIV), haemorrhoids etc..

o   This again might be defended by the insistence on it being the work of the devil or fallen angels, but is not that to jeopardise God's Omnipotence and Omnibenevolence?

o   Otherwise, one puts the blame on the original sin, referencing God’s “just” punishment for Adam and Eve's actions in the Garden of Eden. But is not the idea of punishing us for something our great-great-great... grandfathers did a major injustice, in no way compatible with the idea of moral excellence? “How does it benefit those being judged by the actions of their (distant) forebears to be given freewill in the first place?

- Besides the obvious problem of natural evil, the Freewill Defence runs into a major philosophical difficulty with the problem of freewill itself. The defence assumes our capacity to make free choices in its fullest sense: a decision we make is not determined or caused by any factor external to us. The possibility to do otherwise is really open to us. The problem is to explain how actions can occur indeterminately without being random, and thus in a way depriving us of moral responsibility for our actions. And if the libertarian definition of freewill is unsustainable, the whole argument crumbles with it.

43, Faith and Reason (the leap of faith)

- Roughly summarised, the debate ongoing for centuries between “fideists” and rationalists can never be finished to satisfaction for both sides. The rationalists prove to their satisfaction that faith is indeed irrational, and fideists regard the arguments as irrelevant and beside the point. No common ground seems possible.

- Pascal's Wager:  If insecure, what shall we do? We have two options

o   We believe in God:

§  We are right: we win eternal bliss

§  We are wrong: we lose nothing

o   We do not believe in God:

§  We are right: We neither win or lose anything

§  We are wrong: we lose eternal bliss at best; gain eternal damnation at worst

- Pascal's wager have been criticised by many, amongst whom Voltaire. Richard Dawkins even suggests God might reward honest attempted reasoning, but punish blind or feigned faith - anything else would just be absurd, and if so, the image of God as omnibenevolent would just be quite plainly misplaced. Richard Carrier takes the argument further

On Faith - Part I: Theism Vs. Deism

                One of the subjects on which I have thought the most lately is faith, or rather it's foundations. I, myself, grew up in a region in Norway that is a part of what we call the Bible belt, which is made up by the most “Christian” regions, stretching from the south and following the coast north-east. I thus grew up in a Christian dominated community, and, naturally, I integrated Christianity into my life's philosophy. I have always had an open mind, always being ready to listen to and even adopt alien philosophies (ways to look at life), but when it came to religion, I was never able to do the same – for lack of trying. Not that I was not curious or interested, but it was unthinkable, by the denotation of the word, to  consider the values of other religions - as is the habit of virtually every religious faith. With hindsight, the only way not to waver in faith is to have a rather condescending approach to other religions, or agnosticism and atheism, for that matter. I was no exception.
                 But as adamant as I was, I now find myself having become an agnostic, by the intermediary of a deist, so something must have changed. In this first part, I will speak of how I went for Lutheranism, which was my former Christian sect, to deism.

 After having finished my primary education, I went to France to pursue the secondary, and it was there, mainly thanks to my literature teacher during the second year, that I made myself familiar with the philosophers of the Enlightenment, and I must say I felt inclined to their way of looking at religion. Rapidly summed up, they adhered to what is called deism, which is the belief in a god, or a divine entity as I prefer, as the creator of the world. A grand architect, as I believe the Freemasons have called it. One might ask where the difference in that with for example Christianity is, but it is fundamentally different by the fact that it doesn't really go any further. Monotheism, as my teacher explained it, is the belief in a (one) God, has declared himself (or itself), and that can be represented. The old man with the long white beard in the roof of the Sistine Chapel is an example of how Catholicism corresponds with the latter. Theism is the belief in a god that has declared himself, but that has its own nature – one that man cannot fathom. Islam is a good example of this, as it is seen as blasphemous even to try to imagine what he might look like (I find it interesting that they still refer to him as him). Deism, on the other hand is the belief in a divine entity as a creator, but that has not, in any way, made himself known. It is no more than a logical assumption, as in the words of Voltaire:

“I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.”

As to the fact that he hasn't bothered to say hi, I will again quote Voltaire, this time in the words of a dervish from “Candide”:

“What does it matter,” said the dervish, “whether there is evil or good? When His Highness sends a ship to Egypt does he trouble himself whether the rats in the vessel are at their ease or not?”

It seems to me that it is a completely pretentious and, not in the least, egocentric thought to believe that God, whether it exists or not, occupies itself with us mere humans when there is a vastness of infinite space, and possibly many other worlds, in the universe.
                The words of Voltaire appealed to me, as, though I had always been a Christian out of obviousness, I have never really identified myself with Christianity's religious philosophy. What finally made me agree and adhere to deism were the words of, yet another time, Voltaire, put in the mouth of the eponymous personage of “L'Ingénu” (this is my own translation, as I could not find one for free: thou be’st warned):

“If there was one mere truth hidden in the heap of arguments that we have dwelled upon for all these centuries, we would have found it without doubt; and the universe would have at least agreed upon that. If this truth was necessary as the Sun is to the Earth, it would have shone as brilliantly as it. It is an absurdity, it is an outrage to the human race; it is an onset upon the Infinite and Supreme Being to say: There is an essential truth to Man, and God has hidden it.”

This in itself was not enough to make me change my religious philosophy, but it had already been weakened by a couple of questions that had arisen to my attention. During the same year, I read “Holy Blood, Holy grail”. One may refute their conclusions, but it is not the hypothesis the authors propose that made me think, but a number of observations they made, particularly about the Bible. 

            There seems to be a certain partiality to the Romans, which is far from justified. One of the first clues to this is the case of Pontius Pilate. He is portrayed as a rather kind leader, with whom one could sympathise. He did after all give the people of Jerusalem a chance to save Jesus, which they chose to ignore, by appealing to an Easter tradition of liberating a prisoner. First of all, historians have never found any evidence of such a tradition – the Bible is the only source, and historically, Pilate has never been known for being anything else than a tyrant; a corrupt politician taking bribes and misusing his power, even worsening the tyrannical pressure from Rome. It thus seems logical to assume that his portrayal in the Bible is unrealistic; even false. I would also like to add that the political situation in Judea, the lower administrative part of Palestine in the time of Christ, was an incredible tense and unstable one. The Roman government was a brutal and absolute one. When the Romans occupied Judea to take direct control, they executed 3'000 rebels without any form of judgement. A period of revolt and extreme political tension marked the coming of Christ, and it continued for another hundred years afterwards, culminating in the expulsion of all Jews in Judea by decree of Emperor Hadrian in 135 A.D.. The strange thing is that none of the Gospels give any impression or hint of this – it is even suggested that it was a time of peace, and that most citizens were content with the situation. The interpretation of the authors, which I support, is that all this has been done, wittingly or not, to shift the blame for the death of Christ away from the Romans – the Gospels were mostly written by Romans and for Romans after all (with the possible exception of the Gospels According to Matthew). I also wish to add that all “the other” early Christian texts, for Christianity had already divided itself into different “branches”, some believing Christ to be the son of God, others just a prophet, others again a mixture of both, have been severely repressed, so that there are no (present) rival interpretation of the religion. Christianity, which was to be the national religion of Rome by the decree of Emperor Constantine, would have seemed slightly less appealing to its people if they were blamed for the death of their saviour. It was thus much more ... strategic... to blame the Jews, who have been persecuted as “murderers of Christ” even in our time. Now, all this might seem a bit far-fetched, but there are other indications (I do not dare, nor think it is completely justified, to speak of proof, but then again, can one consider the Gospels, at all, to be accurate?). I already mentioned that the Bible has a rather kind portrayal of Pontius Pilate, who only reluctantly adheres to the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus was, according to the Gospels preliminarily judged by the ‘Sanhedrin’, a council of 71 priests and scholars that functioned as the highest institution of Jewish law. In the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), Jesus was arrested the night before Good Friday. But this makes little sense, because the laws of the Jewish council forbade them to gather during Passover, even during the night. Also, if he had been judged by the Jews for blasphemy, why would they not have chosen stoning as the execution method? Apparently, they had the legal authority to give a death sentence, by stoning, so why they needed to bother Pilate at all seems strange. Crucifixion was besides a roman method of execution, reserved mainly (though not exclusively) for political prisoners – enemies of Rome. To sum up in the words of the authors of “Holy Blood, holy Grail”: “(...) Jesus was a victim of a Roman administration, Roman law, Roman judgement, Roman military power and a Roman Execution. Jesus was not crucified for crimes against Judaism, but for crimes against the Empire”. 
                There is other evidence that supports the idea of a more political figure than religious. At the time, there was a Jewish political, and, I am tempted to say, terrorist movement, the Zealots, that held significant support amongst the Jewish people, as they were bent on throwing the Romans out of Judea. At least one of his twelve disciples, Simon, was a Zealot, and several others; such as James, John, and Judas; at least sympathised with Zealot agenda, if they were not directly involved. Also, the term ‘Messiah’, of which ‘Christos’ is the Greek translation, simply means “the anointed one” and usually pertains a King. At the time of Jesus, the Messiah was meant to be a legitimate king, an unknown descendant from the kin of David, who was supposed to free his people from Roman oppression. The expectation of such a (war)leader attained around this time a proportion of unrest that developed into hysteria, and this continued even after the Death of Jesus. The rebellion in 66 A.D. that ended with the Romans sacking Jerusalem was caused by the Zealots stirring up the unrest with the pretext of the coming of the Messiah. Today, the expression signifies a divine saviour, but at the time, the addition of divine would have been seen upon as preposterous, even ridiculous. It was a politically charged title that was given to Jesus, and he became known as ‘Jesus Messiah” or ‘Jesus Christos’ in Greek, a, again, title that later was corrupted into a proper name, ‘Jesus Christ’. Historians are fairly certain that Jesus has existed, but the historical Jesus might not live completely up to the divine image he has been given posthumously.

               The problem with the Bible is that it is not accurate enough, nor impartial. It even contradicts itself recurrently. It is said that whatever point of view that one might be defending, you will be able to find something in the Bible that supports your theory. The Bible is used to defend women's rights in the Church - the right to take part of its higher hierarchy, and it is used to subjugate them (“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church”. I Corinthians 14:34-35, the New Testament). My favourite example is from Leviticus 24: 19-21, in the Old Testament: “¹⁹Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: ²⁰fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered. ²¹One who kills an animal shall make restitution for it; but one who kills a human being shall be put to death”. But my focus is on the New Testament, and its partiality towards Romans and possible inaccuracy, even falsification. The Bible might be said not to be written by God, but inspired, though one would think that divine inspiration might not make such manipulative texts, and so many different versions of them (again, the Gospels we know were chosen between many others). But even by ignoring all that, in the end, I just do not feel that I can trust a document that has been handed down from generation to generation for 2’000 years. When we can't seem to find out who or what really killed John F. Kennedy, a mere fifty years ago, how the heck can we ever be sure of what really happened or did not happen over two millennia back in time? I just do not trust humanity enough to take our forefathers' (apparent) word for God's existence and interest. And when I cannot trust the Bible, the very founding stone of Christianity, how can I trust Christianity itself? I did believe that there is a god, or a divine entity - I could not see any other logical solution to the cosmological problem (the universe's very existence), but it did not have to be the Christian god. Deism was just more appealing.


"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that Man has never worshipped anything but himself", Richard Burton

American History X - An Analyse of Blame and Social Decline

                I just saw American History X again - I can hear the end-music in the background as I write this, and I realised that this might actually be one of my favourite films. It might be that I am touched by the cinematography I just witnessed, as it is very well made, but for me, at least in this case, it gives me all the more reason to embrace that feeling. As I said, it is very well made. It is a non-linear film; there is a main dynamic to the film, of course, but it uses retrospectives frequently and varies much in what past it shows. Other than what the film tells, it also varies in the way it tells it. There is a narrator, but he is non-dominant and is only used at certain, as I see it, strategic points, where it gives necessary distance and perspective to what is happening. I find this to be important, as an overuse of a narrator can quickly cause irritation to the viewer. I will use Titanic as an example of this, for the record not one of my favourite films, where I find its use of the story-teller to ruin the dynamic of the story, pulling the public violently away from the scenes they immerse themselves into, as the film is quite adept at invoking emotional attention (as are all Hollywood blockbusters). Other than that, the film fulfils the one criterion I have to recognise a film as important: it takes up (social) issues, in this case, racial hatred, anti-Semitism and social inequality. And I have only one word to describe the way it tells its story and brings forth its message: Powerful. The film is extremely powerful.

                I have two scenes in the film that I like particularly well, and that I believe are very well written. I will not explain the context of the scenes, nor introduce the characters, as I am writing this for people who have already seen the film. The first one is about one and a half hour into it, towards the end of a half-hour long retrospective, telling the story of Derrick’s time in prison. It is where he talks to Sweeney, the principal of Daniel’s school, and where he realises the reality of what his life’s work has been. Now, one would expect a Hollywood film to have the principal give Derrick some sort of speech - preaching the wrongness of what he has been doing, making him see and acknowledge the facts through a faultless argumentation; inspiring him and the audience with him. But it was that sort of thing that got him to where he was in the first place. Inspiring, convincing and persuasive speeches manipulated him to embrace the hatred he was originally happily oblivious to. What reaches Derrick in the end is but a simple question. And by reflecting over it, it forces him to see, and for the first time, regret what he has been doing: “Has anything you’ve done made your life better?” The anger had been consuming him, making him blame everyone and everything for what had happened to him and his family, and forcing him to take his anger out on African Americans and Jews, as were those he was holding his personal vendetta against. In the words of Sweeney, describing himself having gone through a similar situation: “There was a moment when I used to blame everything and everyone for all the pain and suffering and vile things that happened to me; that I saw happen to my people. I used to blame everybody, blame white people, blame society, blame God! I didn’t get no answers because I was asking the wrong questions. You have to ask the right question”.
                The tirade of Sweeney goes well with the main theme of the film, at least with how I see it. It seems to be about who is to be blame for what, following the protagonists through their war against whom and what they choose to blame for their problems. When society is in decline, it is much easier to single out ethnic groups and minorities and blame them, thus having a focus point for all the anger and frustration one might feel. A scapegoat can be useful, but in the end, it helps only  in making us ignore and forget the complexity by which a society really works, making everyone except those in power mere  pawns in the great game of society (though in the end, they too are only products of the same world). The trick is, as I believe it, to break free from the determinism of the game by gaining social and personal conscience, as Derrick does in the scene described in the preceding paragraph. But in the end, can we ever truly be the masters of our own fates? This leads us to my other favourite scene: the last one. In this scene, Daniel is killed by the very same type of blind hatred and violence that he has just gained conscience of and broken free from, but not by the hands of anyone of his former peers. His killer is a black gang-member he stood up to in the beginning of the film by, literally, standing up to him without swaying, without saying anything. All he did was to stare at him until he went away. In a way, he is killed by himself, or by the incarnation of his former self. The black kid is subjugated to the same hate and frustration the Daniel himself used to cultivate, though in his case culminating in him killing another human being for not having showed him the respect and fear he felt he was entitled to, and that he needed to gain the respect of his peers. The killing thus acquires two symbolic meanings: The first one being the “autocide” of Derrick - his symbolic former self having become his bane; the second one being that whatever we do, our fates will always be subjected to the randomness of society.

“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.” Henry David Thoreau (my italics)