Existence vs. Nonexistence of God, Reasonable doubt

After considering today's discussion, I feel I must disagree with the claim Matt put forward -- that although there is insufficient evidence that God exists, there is sufficient evidence to assume that s/he/it does not exist.

The conversation reminded me of a debate I had with a former roommate -- he argued that, with the weight of theories such as quantum physics and evolution, we could safely assume that there is no supreme deity; I continue to maintain that, although matter could come from nothing* and complex life can arise from single-celled organisms, some sort of deity could still exist, with quantum physics and evolution being the mechanisms by which they operate. To put it more concisely, while the abundant evidence for the aforementioned theories -- and others in similar veins -- are indeed necessary conditions for proving the nonexistence of God, I do not think they are sufficient conditions.

I've also mentioned in previous posts my views on the metaphysics of any hypothetical Supreme Being: if it exists, it is most likely completely beyond human comprehension, and therefore also beyond any sort of proof. It's easy enough to argue against the literal existence of God as conceived by the Abrahamic religions,** but if one widens the scope a bit, the issue becomes, in my opinion, much murkier.

Having written this, I can see this is probably just a difference of opinion regarding what I and the professor consider to be "reasonable doubt," and possibly also what we consider "God."


*I have almost no knowledge of quantum mechanics, and am simply going off of what I can recall of this conversation.
**Of course, as I write this now, I realize that this is probably what Matt was aiming for.

After we mentioned in class the accusations towards Islam of forced conversions, and the fact that Christianity was in fact more prone to forced conversions, I came across another thought. The allegation that Islam is inherently violent seems a bit absurd when one considers that, according to the Old Testament, the Hebrews in ancient times would routinely sweep into a new region and wipe out entire populations.

Judaism has clearly changed drastically since its early days; even if Islam had been violent in its beginnings, it seems odd that so many people refuse to see that such is not the case today. Perhaps the very fact that Islam was never inherently violent is what drives its detractors to denounce it so staunchly, in order to avoid noticing the truth.

Guilt vs. shame; deterrence vs. retribution

In discussion during both classes this week, we separately considered two differences between our culture and the culture from which Confucius was writing. First, that his was a shame culture and ours is a guilt culture; second, that the idea of retributive punishment was absent from his thoughts, though it seems perfectly normal -- albeit occasionally objectionable -- to us.

This makes me wonder if there is a link between the two. Perhaps our inclination towards retributive punishment has its roots in the desire for criminals to feel guilty/guiltier. Perhaps deterrent punishment works so smoothly in shame cultures because it reminds potential criminals of the shame they will experience if they carry out their intended crime.

What do you think?

Messianic Figures and How They Work

This is a response to Kaz's recent post. He points out the universal quality of the concept of a Messiah, given how many stories in so many cultures include the idea of a single person who will come along and make everything better.

Not only do I agree with this observation -- that we, as human beings, want figures like this to show up and fix the world -- I would also hypothesize that we want messiahs so badly that we might see them where they aren't, and we may even become upset when the person/s onto whom we are projecting our messianic ideals turns out to be just another ordinary human, or otherwise does not fit the mold.

I think this would help explain booth why and how Jesus's followers, after his death through to the present, began not just reinterpreting him as a divine figure, but reinterpreting his message; instead of appearing and fixing the world, he'd shown up and told us that we need to fix the world, and that wasn't sufficiently messianic for us.

Eschatology, cont'd

I had mentioned last week that John's eschatology and Jesus's eschatology were, although radically different in execution, near-identical in end goals. However, a comment Professor Silliman left on that post got me to think a bit further, which led me to the realization that the two movements are also different in terms of how they view those end goals. Apocalyptic eschatology spends all its energy waiting for the overturning of society. Since sapiential eschatology, however, uses its energy trying to bring about those changes, it doesn't matter if the change is never fully realized -- if the arbitrary power structures remain in place -- because the process of working towards those changes is just as, if not more, important than the goal itself.

Eschatology

In contrasting John's brand of world-negation with that of Jesus, I think it's important to avoid thinking of them as total opposites. I doubt those in power would see any significant differences between the ideals of apocalyptic eschatology and sapiential eschatology. In fact, since both philosophies have the same end goal -- completely overturning existing hierarchies for a society in which nobody has power over anyone else -- I would venture to say that, methods aside, the most significant difference is simply that sapiential eschatology is much harder for the powers that be to notice.

Divinity

Many of this week's posts have to do with the question of Jesus's alleged divinity, in connection with the concept of the virgin birth and whether it holds water in light of the historical details Crossan points out. So here is another question in that vein -- though it also runs back to Hinduism a bit: if we assume that God, who/whatever God is, is entirely beyond human comprehension (as any omnipotent eternal being rightly should be), then what does it mean to be divine?