Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
darth_ender said:
The primary difference is where I ultimately come to my conclusions. Obviously, if I believe in God, I believe him to be several rungs above us. I do believe we are incapable of understanding him or his reasoning. However, if I believe him to be such a superior being and I trust that his reasoning to be far above my own, I can still trust that he is capable of teaching me on my level. Going back to the primate analogy, though a chimp cannot comprehend our motives, our reasoning, our "ultimate questions," we may teach the chimp something. We can teach a chimp some art, some more advanced communication (primitive levels of sign language), and can give very limited insight into our way of thinking. God, though far above us, is infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely capable. Sure he would know the exact ways to teach his children how to understand on some basic level what his motives are, what our greatest questions can and should be. Chimps can be taught, and we are far more capable than chimps. I believe God has a lot to teach us.
Very good - Yes, this is one possible scenario and a logical follow-up to my post, from the point of view of someone with a religious foundation.
Indeed, from a scientific viewpoint, I would list your description as one hypothesis among many, and to some degree in place of the one I offered. At that point, in the absence of any sort of "test" that could potentially advance one of them (or another) to the level of "theory" (to which I think any scientist would agree none exists), I find myself considering which is the more likely scenario amongst possibilities. To wit, here are two such possibilities, the two brought up so far (later I will bring up others):
- [mine] We are one of many species in the universe, trapped by our limitations just as other species on earth are (even) further trapped by theirs, and we, like them, are unlikely to ever know very much about what it all "really means", or
- [yours] The highest form in the universe is communicating with us and telling us to do some seemingly illogical things, for our own good.
I'm with you so far.
While I would agree that #2 is certainly possible, if I am even going to consider it, then I need to explore it. When I do, I find that there are other equally compelling interpretations not on the above list. My reasoning therein goes back again to the chimp:From the chimp's perspective, if a human teaches it how to paint, or do sign language, that person might as well be God. The chimp, if it is capable of such thoughts (and it might be) considers the possibility that indeed we are Gods, it has no way of knowing there is anything higher, and so concludes it to be true. And lo and behold, YES, we DO tell it to do things that don't make any sense to it - like staying out of the cupboard, or not running out the door into traffic - things that it can't understand why it isn't allowed to do, but are definitely important that it do (or not do)... just like our God is supposedly doing for us.
Still with you.
Thus, if some seemingly omnipotent being really came down from the sky and performed miracles and told us to do certain things, wouldn't it be much more likely that it was simply a slightly higher species, such as we were doing with the chimp? We spend a LOT more time communicating with dogs, cats, rats, chimps, etc., than we do trying to communicate with earthworms. I would think that the entity most likely to try and communicate with us (or help us, or experiment on us, or heaven forbid tease us) would be one not so much higher than us. To us it would seem infinitely above us, because it can do things we cannot even fathom.
I think you raise interesting questions here, though I would disagree on a particular point. There is a large gap between the chimp and the human, much like the large gap between the human and God. But the chimp is incapable of reason. The chimp is not fully self-aware. The chimp is not technically sentient, as intelligent as it may be. It's behaviors are motivated entirely by what it instinctively aims for in self preservation. No matter how much more effort we put into teaching chimps, their brains have pretty much hit a ceiling as far as they are able to mentally grow, and without some substantial evolutionary leap, they will never learn true language (in the sense that they can form an infinite number of combinations to express ideas). They will never learn to write their names. They will never learn to even construct anything like a model airplane. The gap between human and God is far larger, but at the same time we were created in his image, capable of knowing right from wrong. As our creator, he obviously has some vested interest in us and our wellbeing. And having given us some capacity to understand, as well as the capacity to act in faith, he grants us the opportunity to exercise both virtues.
Further, opening that possibility contradicts the supposition that what we think is "God" must be good and must be followed. It could just as well be some race that is breeding us. Maybe that's why we're not supposed to be homosexuals. Or it could be a little kid toying with us. Or it could indeed be good, and we should follow its rules even though it isn't a God. There are many possibilities.
Some possibilities are scary, especially since most interactions between humans and lower animals are decidedly to the animal's detriment, and in many of those cases the animals are made completely unaware of their impending doom.
As I said, God clearly seems vested in our best interest. Your other possibilities are interesting. Discussing it as a matter of faith, faith-based experiments seem to show that God has led most individuals who continually exercise that faith in him to find greater happiness. From a more scientific standpoint, if this superior being who exercises authority over us were merely toying, it seems he'd have destroyed us long ago, rather than continue to allow us to better ourselves, extend our longevity, and grow to doubt his existence more and more.
One of the biggest differences between science and religion, is the notion of "sacred". Science holds nothing sacred. So the biblical interpretation of things is certainly possible, to a scientist even. But when I think about what is the most likely interpretation - even supposing the observations described in the Bible really happened - in the absence of a supportable theory I think that there are more likely interpretations than what religions conclude.
Occam's razor. About 2 1/2 years ago, the great scientist Stephen Hawking came out of the closet, so to speak, as an atheist. For years he had advanced our understanding of physics while still giving God the credit. What was his amazing reasoning? Was it that evidence pointed against the existence of God? Was it that there simply was not enough evidence to substantiate him? No. It was because God is redundant, because these laws just exist, and because of these laws, the universe will form itself. Nevermind the confusion of existence, where do matter, energy, and pre-existing laws come from. I'm not saying that my pill is easier to swallow for everyone, but to simply cast God aside because "the natural laws did everything" is no simpler an answer. I feel Occam's razor applies equally well to both scenarios, as both require some leaps.
And I haven't even yet discussed what I consider to be far more likely still - that the observations in the Bible didn't really happen at all. How many people saw Luke miss with the grappling hook? How many alien abductions have been reported? What about all the wacky stuff on late night radio? Why is it that only those wild stories in the Bible (Koran, etc.) are the "miracles", and the others aren't? From a scientific viewpoint, indeed, the Bible stories really could have beeen miracles, just like indeed maybe there really were prints out there where Luke missed with the grappling hook. But I think it is far more likely that those "miracles" simply didn't happen, for the same reason that it is far more likely - and there is more evidence supporting - that Luke didn't ever miss with the grappling hook, and that we really DID land on the moon. (note that I say this despite the fact that my mind tells me I saw Luke miss the grappling hook!)
Which therefore brings me back full circle, to hypothesis #1, above, and why I remain an atheist.
This is fine with me. I started a new paragraph on faith, but I don't have time to go deeper with it right now. Simply put, a lack of evidence is not evidence. I have a different type of evidence than you.