In my previous note, I responded to Chris' comments about why I should go to church unless I am absolutely certain that there is a God (in other words, unless I can show tangible evidence for the existence of God). My response amounted, more or less, to "Why not?"

As I've continued to think about that, I've decided I'm not satisfied with that answer. I think there is a certain amount of validity to the assertion that I've got to be doing something with my life and I am finding satisfaction in going to church, but I realize that that is not the whole answer.

A reason for going to church is to learn about God and to give myself an opportunity to experience God. I don't cotton to the notion that someone who knows nothing about God or the church can have a "born-again experience" and be completely transformed into a new being who is able to lead a completely Christian life (whatever that would be). At best, such a conversion experience would produce a new-born Christian who has a lot to learn about God and what God wants for people, just as any new-born baby has a lot to learn about all aspects of life.

Learning about God is a life-long activity, not an instantaneous event. As such, the only way to learn more about God is to try to learn. I think that I am better able to learn about God in a community of believers than I would be able to by myself. I'm still questioning some of the things that are being taught in church, but at least it gives me something to talk about and people to discuss ideas with.

I guess I would turn Chris' question on its head. Why shouldn't I go to church unless I am convinced (in the same other words, unless I have tangible evidence) that there is no God. As I said in my earlier post, I don't think we have seen that evidence. We have seen evidence that there are churches and Christians who are wrong about God, but I have not seen any evidence that convinces me that there is no God.

Chris has been honoring me with some comments on my last posting here. I wrote up a somewhat lengthy response and decided that I'd like to give Chris' questions and my response some greater visibility (not to mention giving me a new posting in this neglected part of my blog).

First, Chris' questions:

1. Some Biblical stories may have value, but some do not. And what's the point of that? Anyone can write a book with some truth in it. I'm sure "Mein Kampf" has some truth in it. What is remarkable is when someone writes a book that is good from start to finish. Considering that the Bible is supposed to be the word of God, or inspired by the Holy Spirit or what have you, why didn't God do a better job at it? Was he lazy? Malicious? Incompetent? He clearly could have done a better job if he is omnipotent.

2. If a story has value, that doesn't prove that the characters in the story exist. Oliver Twist has a lot of value but Oliver, the Artful Dodger and the rest of the cast, never actually existed. When you're reading the Bible, it's important to figure out if God actually exists in a non-fictional sense.

3. Dement sounds cute but what sort of hand is she talking about? She seems to be rehashing the ontological argument for the existence of God. Where is the tangible evidence?

4. One's experiences may lead one to intuit that God exists, but one can't just discount the evidence that God doesn't exist. If God is going to be a big part of your life then don't you think it's absolutely critical to find out if he exists for sure? You wouldn't put your life's savings in a fraudulent bank. So why invest in a God who might be fraudulent unless you don't care that much about your life?

5. Your paragraph about scientists actually proves my point. It was science (not religion or God) that revealed these truths about the natural world. And it took so long to discover them because religion has always been at odds with science. You can't reconcile science and religion despite apologeticists's attempts. See this:

http://www.polarbearandco.com/blackburn.html

OR if that doesn't load use this

http://makeashorterlink.com/?C19221454

(please review the full comments to see the context of his questions if you would like a better understanding of what he has written)

To which I responded as follows:

Thanks for your continued reading of my writings and for your comments on them. Given your clear leanings towards an athiestic view, I'm not sure why you would care about anything I say about Faith and Religion. Even more, I'm not sure that you're arguing with me as much as you are arguing with some other Christians who I might argue with as much as you (though, I suspect I would be arguing different points).

In your first point you question the bible's worth based on why it isn't better than it is. You question the basis of its origin as it is supposed to be the "word of God, or inspired by the Holy Spirit or what have you." This is exactly the point that Borg is questioning as well. He and I are coming at it from a different point of view than you seem to be taking, but we agree that it was not dictated by God or directly inspired by God which is why we are arguing with the fundamentalists who are making those claims.

What I, and I think Borg as well, am trying to say is that the writers of the bible did, in fact, have an experience of God and wrote about it as well as they could. But language is by definition fallible, transient, ambiguous, and at best can only reflect our understanding of what we experience. The fact that many religious leaders have tried to bolster their temporal power by claiming additional authority based on their understanding of God and the bible merely shows the well-known human weakness for ambition. I don't have to refuse to believe in God because I can see the failings of others who claim to believe in and understand God.

As to your second point, I'm not arguing that the characters existed for every story in the bible. I think that there are enough historical referents to Pilot, Herod, and others in the stories about Jesus to make it credible that there was a man named Jesus living about 2000 years ago. I think that Paul and some other characters can be trusted to have been real people. I would certainly not claim that there existed specific people named Adam, Eve, Noah, Jonah, or any number of other biblical characters. There are many characters in the bible stories who I am not at all sure about. I've read arguments that there has been no archaelogical verification that there was a King David. I'm not sure what to think about that, but even if a greater percentage of the bible is more mythic story than historical fact, I don't see that this forces me to totally reject the bible as having any value.

I can't explain what kind of hand, other than a metaphorical hand, that Dement is talking about. Not being able to explain it doesn't mean that I can't keep trying to learn about what God means to her, to me, or to others.

As for proof of God's existence, that's the great unanswerable question, isn't it? Many people claim that the testimony of Jesus' followers about his resurrection constitutes proof of a power beyond our understanding of life and death. But that begs the question of what actually happened after Jesus was crucified. We have multiple conflicting stories, as you have mentioned. But are the conflicts because people were deliberately lying? Were the stories distorted by years of playing gossip before they were written down? Were the gospel stories retold in different ways in order to reach different audiences? I have had things happen in my life that are hard to explain. People that I know and trust as intelligent, reliable people have had experiences which have almost no explanation if you disallow any possibility of some sort of divine intervention. I am willing to allow that there might be more to life than just working, procreating, and dying. If I am wrong and there is nothing more, then I don't see that I have hurt anything by thinking that there was more.

As for the evidence that God doesn't exist, I would argue that most of what is presented as evidence in this way is proof that the biblical writers had a view of the world which doesn't match up very well with our modern, scientific understanding of the world in which we live. Can you point to proof that there is nothing which could be called God? Can you point to proof that there is nothing that can travel faster than the speed of light? Certainly, we have not been able to observe or document any such phenomenon, and faster-than-light capability would fundamentally shift our understanding of the way the universe works, but can you prove it cannot be done? I will accept that you could prove that there is no way we know of to travel faster than the speed of light. But I don't think you're keeping an open mind if you refuse to acknowledge that there might be something that we don't understand which could allow it to happen. Here's a thought off the top of my head: suppose all of the unobservable dark matter which scientists have been trying to find has been all around us all the time but is traveling around faster than the speed of light. As such we cannot see it and we have no way of measuring it. I have no proof that this is the case, but if you say my lack of positive proof is proof that I'm wrong, then I don't think you're arguing logically. I'm willing to acknowledge that we cannot know whether I'm right about faster-than-light dark matter and even that I'm probably wrong. But I haven't seen anything that proves that there is no God. I agree that there has been proof that there are many ideas about God that have been proven wrong, but I don't agree that there is proof that there is no God.

As for whether I should spend my life investing my time and resources based on a belief in God, I've got to spend it somehow. I've tried living for my own pleasure, doing drugs, drinking, collecting material things, etc. and I found it very unsatisfying. I find satisfaction in some aspects of my involvement in church: the people I am associating with, the music, the time together, the people that we are able to help through our collective mission work, etc. There are also frustrations associated in belonging to a church: disagreements about what we should be doing as a church, pettiness over trivial matters, all of the things which go along with being a bunch of people trying to associate with each other and work together. Is there an afterlife? What would such an afterlife be like? I'm not sure on either point. But whether there is or not, I think I am happier and more content as a participant in church than I was when I was not in church. If that is not reason enough for you to want to follow a similar path, then you are welcome to follow a path that you find more satisfying. What I don't understand is why you feel compelled to try to persuade me that I should not be doing the things I am doing.

As to your last point, I conceed that the church has often worked to supress scientific knowledge because their limited understanding of God was such that they felt that the new scientific knowledge undermined their authority. Actually, it probably did undermine their authority, since they were basing it on misunderstandings of God which the scientific discoveries were revealing. But the church is a human institution. I see the church as an organization of people who are trying to find God. The fact that they do a bad job of it is more a reflection on the shortcomings of the people involved and the inscrutable nature of God than anything else. It might be that the nature of God is inscrutable because there is no God to scrutanize. However, if we refuse to look for God, then it is a near certainty that we will not find God, but if we do look for God then we might find God if God exists. That discovery may not happen as we would like it to ("Look, Ma! I found God hiding under this rock! Can I take him home?"), but I'm not sure that it cannot happen.

Thanks again for reading and commenting.