The notion that there is no God is somewhat prevolant these days in certain institutions and intellectual circles in America. And the idea that we are nothing more than a self-assembled collection of proteins with no underlying intent or design is taught in most of our schools now as scientific fact. Certainly a large percentage of the smart, hip, young, crowd that comprises the majority of opinion on the blogosphere has been raised to hold nothing but contempt for both God and religion in general. At best, God is written off these days as a fairy tale for children and for those among us who cant deal with life and existence as it really is-a thing without purpose or intent.
And yet isn’t it ironic that these people who hold forth so strongly on the internet about their opinions on everything under the sun- life, politics, culture, war, and peace- these people strangely proceed and behave as though they and their thoughts, opinions, and lives MATTER greatly even when the philosophy and worldview which underlies all their aguments demands that they DON’T matter in a life with no purpose.
In a view of our universe where there is no maker, no design, no purpose, no intent, and nothing sacred or divine, we MUST accept that all morality is but illusion and a pretension. What is the notion of right and wrong- of good and evil anyways, but a statement that THIS is how things are MEANT to be, whereas this other thing is NOT as it was intended to be. Without an appeal to a greater plan or meaning, what value can one act or idea possibly hold over another one? In a life where all conceptions are equally meaningless, how shall we say then that this is right and noble, or that this other thing is wrong or bad? What is the special value of a life anyways if we are just random matter flung about in a cold, empty, dead universe ? A clod of dirt or a man- what’s the difference ? To live or to die, to kill or be killed- it’s just re-arranging a few quantum particles to no particular end isnt it?
If the sole meaning behind our lives is survival of the fittest, then why should we care for the weak, the sick,the old, the disabled, the tired, the poor, and the simple? Why do we labor for and care for and sacrifice for them? Why should we bother? What is their assigned role in secular neo darwinism?
This philosophy of a Godless existence which we have so blithely accepted as a matter of fact in our schools and in our society is not a philosophy without consequences, for if we answer to nobody for our actions and for our life, and if we have no responsibility to each other or to a higher moral code than our own wishes and ambitions, then we quickly see what becomes of a nation that founds itself on such things. We soon find ourselves looking around ourselves at situations, events, and at a way of life that doesnt seem to make sense, or to sit right with us on an intrinsic level- like the proverbial splinter in Neo’s mind. Life becomes unfamiliar, strange, and not quite right somehow when we abandon all metaphysical concepts of morality and spirituality in favor of atheistic naturalism and conduct ourselves according to the tenats of that philosophy. That is because we KNOW deep down that this is not as it was INTENDED to be. We are all born with a conscience and the dictates of that intrinsic knowledge of good and evil do not always run parrellel to the intrests of darwinian self preservation. The firefighters who ran into the twin towers on 911 when everyone else was running OUT were not behaving according to their own survival interests, but rather acted contrary to them as a result a belief in metaphysical principles. They chose self-sacrifice rather than self interest as a result of their belief in a higher moral code.
Deep down, we humans all have an innate frame of reference. We KNOW that there is a meaning and a purpose to our lives, and that there is intrinsic value in the lives of others- although we may find that meaning hard to grasp or understand or articulate sometimes. We also know deep-down what right and wrong are, and we know that the foundation of such concepts is NOT survival of the fittest. Rather we see the best that we can be as people in the polar opposite of darwinistic selection – in heroism- when a man or a woman devotes his or her life to serving others rather than themselves, and in the service and bravery of those who would lay down their lives for another. These are lives of signifigance that we hold up as examples for us to be inspired and guided by.
My attitude towards people who have no faith in a life with any meaning higher or more relevant than random particle interactions is this- If you want to write-off life and everything we are as meaningless and random- without design or intent- then by all means please go ahead and do so. But IF you do so, then in the interest of consistency and intellectual honesty, I must also insist that you quit acting and shit-talking to those of us who disagree with you, as though the things you do and say in this life matter- because they clearly DON’T. Without a greater metaphysical meaning to your existence, you need to just accept once-and-for-all that everything you are is nothing but DUST IN THE WIND and therefore nothing you have to say is of any consequence whatsoever to anybody. If that is the path you choose, then please go sit quietly in a corner, in the mud, and sulk- because your life has no point or purpose. Wear sack cloth. Throw ashes on yourself and on your meaningless, pointless life. But why should you bother to trouble those of us who do choose to have faith? If we live our lives as though our short, precious time here actually is special, relevant, and part of a higher plan and meaning designed by a power greater than ourselves, then why should we suffer the insults and scorn of those who claim their lives have no greater purpose? If you have no purpose, then why not go away and be quiet? Why all the sqwawking from these people who claim there is no point or purpose to anything?
Deep down inside us all, sometimes hidden behind the walls of rationalization built in the mind, we know that there is a meaning and a signifigance, and a purpose to this life. We all know it -through our lives, our loves, our aspirations, our tears, our laughter, our joys, our sorrow, our losses, and our triumphs in this life. We see in our desires to act and to prosper and to labor and to create and to bring forth some good thing into this life that there is an intent and a design to this thing- that there is right and wrong- and that we are all part of a plan that is greater than us.
To not acknowledge a maker and a designer is to write off everything we know and love as nothing but quantum dust. That includes every aspect of our lives and thoughts, our families, the birth of our children, the death of a loved-one, home and hapiness, holidays and laughter, jokes and games, neighbors on the porch, education, all our life’s work and aspirations, competition, charity and sympathy, outrage and tragedy, righteousness and a seeking after justice, the notion of freedom and self-determination, sacrifice, labor and harvest, reaping and sowing, freindship, marriage, war and peace. To not acknowledge a greater plan or intent for our lives writes these all off to random particle interactions in the cosmic microwave radiation background.
If you doubt me, then try this experiment sometime- At SOME point in you life, even the most jaded and cynical of souls will be moved to tears by their experience with one of the above-mentioned concepts. On that day, when your moment of clarity comes, and you find tears of sorrow, or of gratitude, or of anger, or of joy streaming down your face-I want you to go on a walk on a crisp fall day when the gold and red leaves are falling around you and the smell of freshly cut grass and the first chill of coming winter is in the air. Listen to the sound of children playing happily in the distance, and smell bread or maybe warm apple pie baking somewhere. Do that and then tell me there is no God, no meaning, no design, no intent and no purpose in this life. I dare you. If, on that day, you can feel and experience all that and you have nothing in your heart that says any of it it matters or has purpose beyond natural selection, then I won’t argue with you anymore because you’ll never get it. I know there are people like that in this life, and I pity them, these walking dead.
But life is not just a solitary experience or a path we walk alone. Men’s greatest hopes, aspirations and acheivements are only possible acting in concert with other men united in a common goal or faith in a way of life with common metaphysical underpinnings. For this reason nations are brought forth among men- groups of people dedicating their lives and labors to a certain way of life, which to them, seems most harmonious with what they perceive to be a greater intent, purpose, or meaning for our time here for a while under the sun and sky. And among these nations is my nation- America, which I love.
To understand why I love America, you have to look at the ideas and charachter of the nation within the context of metaphysical meaning. The interstate highways and the amber waves of grain are NOT what makes America worthy of our love. But rather the ideals, and the principles that govern it, and underlye it, which make lives of signifigance and goodness possible to live.
Freedom and Democracy are not just words or another theoretical model of social governance. They are the ideas of a good, noble, and morally upright way of life that is how Americans believe God INTENDED things to be for men. I can’t put it much simpler than that. The idea that these metaphyical concepts are proper parts of a greater design and plan than our own is WHY patriots hold our nation up as being worthy of sacrifice and being worth fighting for.
The true idea of America is not a mere physical place or a collection of persons individually pursuing wealth- but rather is the living embodiment of great metaphysical ideas. It is the idea of intrinsic human worth, of the divine INTENT for human liberty, and the notion that every human aspiration should be free to figure out what God intended each of us be. It is the idea that each of us is able to see down our own proper path a little further than another can, and the notion that Governments are instituted among men to preserve liberty, not to rule us. If you don’t view America within the context of a greater metaphysical plan, then you simply can’t get the real meaning of it.
That lack of context explains to a large extent why so many are willing to let our nation slide into mediocrity and depravity- why so many are willing to let America stand idly by instead of leading in this world. It explains why some don’t see America as a shining city on a hill. Or as a light of hope in the darkness of this world.
Viewed in a godless, purposeless frame of reference, that’s all understandable. But I do see America in a greater metaphysical and spiritual context. And so do others. And that’s why we love her and why we love what she stands for. Not out of war-like boastfulness or competetive pride, but rather out of a love for the good things she has brought forth here on this sad, weary sphere of ours. I see the true spirit of America in every child’s lemonade stand, and in the purple ink that stains the finger of every sad, tired Iraqi citizen who thought that it was worth risking their life to go stand in line to vote. I see the true spirit of America in neighbors helping neighbors and in old men at the barbershop speaking their half-baked opinions on whatever they want without fear of government reprisal. I hear the true spirit of America lifted up in thanks to God for all he has given us, from the pews of ten thousand places of worship, and I see it in the flags that fly over the graves of our veterans who gave the last ounce of devotion and love for a metaphysical idea that is America.
Put simply, America is most properly understood within the context of God and his greater plan and intent for what humans can be if we follow that plan. Indeed, the Declaration of Independance basically is nothing but a defiant proclamation of what the founding fathers believed was God’s INTENT for Man. Read it and you will see that that is actually the case. It EXPLICITELY appeals to a higher justice and to a divine intent that man should be free. The whole nation and everything that it has brought forth since it’s birth therefore HAS to be viewed in that context to be understood. It was ALL built upon faith in a divine intent.Given that , it should come as no surprise that sometimes prayers lifted up to God for our nation capture and articulate the essence of America best.
I want to share two prayers for America with you. They were not written by me- I could never write anything so beautiful, but rather were uttered by two Americans ministers at two memorial services seperated in time by more than a century. Both prayers captured with a few words some of what is best about our country. One prayer was given at a time of great national and personal sorrow, and another at a time of celebration. But both were spoken out of thanks to God for what he has given us. Both ask for his blessing and lay out the reasons why we should expect to hope for that blessing, by expressing succinctly the purpose of America within the context of God’s greater plan. Both prayers also remembered those who made the ultimate sacrifice for a few metaphysical ideas that were deemed greater than the value of their own lives. Across so many years, and through so many trials and tribulations that this nation has been through, it is remarkable to note how much these prayers have in common.
The first prayer I want to share is one that was read by Major General Lorraine Potter, US Air Force Cheif of Chaplains, October 11nth, 2001 at the memorial service that was held to honor those who died in the 911 attack on the Pentagon.
” Let us pray. Almighty God, from the watchfires of a thousand circled camps, to the flames within the Pentagon offices, the World Trade Center, the Pennsylvania landscape… Our great land has known the brutal sounds and sights of war. The truth of Democracy, the truth of goodness found within this nation goes marching on. You destined our great nation to be birthed as a free land from sea to shining sea. We have taken our purple mountain’s majesty and made them a shining beacon of hope to a world in conflict. We have been inspired by your holy grace to use our amber waves of grain to feed the hungry of the world. We do not forsake our destiny now. We remember those who have now made sacred this hallowed ground by the sacrifice of their lives. Bless them and those who celebrate their lives and deeply mourn their loss. May the citizens of our nation be inspired by the devotion and service of our national leaders, and of all soldiers, sailors, and airmen, marines, coast-gaurdsmen and civilians of our military in the removal of terrorism from this world. May this and all nations be assured of our thoughtful seeking after Justice. Creator God we stand in the history of your presence within our land, assured that you do bless America today and into the challenges of the future. May our world see that you oh Mighty God, Jehova, are indeed in this place. God bless all those who serve the cause of freedom, and God bless America. ”
The second prayer I want to share was sung as a hymn at a service held on July 4th, 1847, to dedicate a monument that was erected at the Old North Bridge in Concord Massachussets to the memory of the farmers who died there and fired the first shot of the American Revolutionary War. It was written by my favorite poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“By the rude bridge that arched the raging flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conquerer silent sleeps;
and Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem ,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To Die and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee. “
The hearts that wrote those words and lifted up those sentiments to God on behalf of America spoke for me too, and were inspired by the same love I have in me for this nation, and for human liberty which she rightly stands for. I know I am not alone in that.
I’m sorry, I had to stop here, but tell me if you revoked this in a later part of the post:
“And the idea that we are nothing more than a self-assembled collection of proteins with no underlying intent or design is taught in most of our schools now as scientific fact”
That’s funny, I’m studying biology in college and no one’s ever taught me this. Could you be, perhaps, talking about a different kind of evolutionary theory? Why would people not created by some magic-man not have a purpose? I have a firm idea of getting a good dinner tonight (It’s Rosh-Hashana back here in Israel) – I’m practically SWIMMING in purpose.
I’m also an evolved ape.
Are you saying then, that intelligent design is being taught as a legitimate possibility for the explanation of life’s origins right along side darwinism in your class? If so, then that’s fantastic that the intellectual gestapo hasnt gotten to your corner of academia yet. If not- like it is in most universities- then my statement is correct. The curent dogma largely being shoved down everybody’s throats by the intellectual elites in academia is that life came about as a natural, physical process unguided by a designer. That is to say that the constituent particles of the universe left over after the big bang SOMEHOW managed to congeal and arrange themselves together over the millinea with no intent or design from any outside intelligence to form self-replicating DNA, the millions of lines of coded programming it contains, and all of the specific complex information that translates itself into physical structures like the human brain. That IS the current dogma.
To specifically answer your question, about why something that was not created would not have a purpose, I would refer you to Webster’s dictionary, which defines purpose as “something set up as an object or end to be attained.” It lists as it’s synonym “intention”, and the origins of the word are the anglo-french term for “to intend or propose”. Literally, by definition then, “purpose” means intent and design. If there is no intelligence that INTENDED or DESIGNED who and what we are, then there is literally NO PURPOSE possible for us. The metaphysical consequences of that scenario would be that right and wrong, good and evil, morality and conscience are without meaning, because there would be no intent, design, plan, or PURPOSE to act as a frame of reference FOR these things.
I hope you have a great dinner and enjoy the holidays, the love,the laughter, your freinds, and your family. But just consider the implications of your worldview as pertains to these things. If we really are just a collection of random particles with no purpose, then none of those things has any meaning. A pile of rocks or a human life- in a designless universe, there is no particular difference, and as I said later on in the essay you couldn’t be troubled to read, we must accept that all morality is but an illusion and a pretension. That is the philisophical bed you have made- are you prepared to lay in it? Godless worldviews have serious consequences and implications when you extrapolate those theories out to their logical ends. I hope you’ve thought this through, my freind. Best wishes. – Ty
I see your reasoning as solid. Your writing shows a lot of reading you’ve done. I especially like what you posted in the “How to Stump Anti-Abortionists” recently.
Ty, I just found your blog after I read your thoughts on the thread of “how to stump an anti-abortionist with one question.” Love your reasoning. I haven’t had time to look into any other of your posts, but I wanted to ask if you do this as a side hobby, or if you have a career in the sciences? Sorry this comment doesn’t have anything to do with this post. Thanks a lot. Keep up your work.
-Elrond
Master Elrond- Thanks for the kind comment. I do not have a career in the sciences, as my life took some interesting twists and turns in my early twenties that took me down a different path. I may be looking to change that soon though. That path really does call to me. Maybe it’s not too late.- Ty
PS. Give Lady Arwen my regards. I hear the mallorn trees are lovely in Rivendell this time of year. Now that I think about it, Tolkien had a line that I think applies to America’s current situation as well as it did to that of Minas Tirith’s…
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
I am not pleased with what we are handing down to the next generation. It’s certainly not what we were given.
Matt, thanks for the attaboy. It’s a rough ol’ blogosphere sometimes, and I’ll take any encouragement I can get!- Ty
Ty,
Thanks for your response on the “How to Stump…” post. Sorry for posting here but I can’t deal with the # of posts there. I appreciate that you seem to defend your position with reason rather than emotion. If you’re interested in continuing the argument, please drop a line to dave at hellsquid dot com. I’m trying to catch up on all your posts right now…
Davux- Hi. I try to be reasonable, but do get as emotional as the next guy sometimes. Especially when I hear people debating so cavalierly about whether or not a human life should have any value or rights. I do have a hard time keeping my cool as I listen to people yammer on about trimesters and fetuses and a woman’s “choice”. Spreading your legs is a choice too, I think. Some things really arent up for debate, and whether an unborn child has a right to his or her own life is one of them as far as I am conscerned.
Obviously, the fact that I was given up for adoption as a baby by a biological mother that I have never met makes me just a LITTLE BIT sensitive to the idea that some people would have terminated me instead if they had their way, ( and HAVE sucessfully terminated millions of people just like me before they had a chance to live the life I was blessed to have.)
Nancy Pelosi was just telling George Stephanopolus yesterday that the hundreds of millions of dollars she put into the 850 billion dollar “stimulus bill” for “family planning” is justified because not having those unwanted children constitutes a budgetary savings. What a statement!!! The whole thing is just an unmitigated outrage and an affront to all that is good and decent.
I don’t really want to get into semantics and arguments that most people use to frame the debate as to when a fetus becomes a baby, because it doesnt MATTER to me. Whatever it is, it will become a human life if you will just leave it alone. My life wasn’t “planned”, and I could have had my brains sucked out and had my body thrown in the trash for the sake of convenience or budgetary savings ( !!!), but somebody decided that my life has value . And they were right. I do have value, and so do the unborn for whom I speak now. And I don’t care who agrees with me or not. I’m right.
The whole abortion argument all comes down to what value you place on a human life- nothing more, nothing less. And without a common frame of reference based on a morality and a metaphysical PURPOSE for humanity beyond mere survival of the fittest darwinism, there seems to be no context or common point of reference for any relevant discussion on this matter. -Ty
I’ve a dozen thoughts at the moment, but I’ll choose this one: So, you were fortunate enough to have found adoptive parents after your birth mother, for whatever reason, gave you up for adoption … and that justifies the millions of babies born into the world with no hope whatsoever of having anything approaching a life worth living. I don’t get it.
I see…
And just who exactly are YOU to decide if a person’s life is worth living or not?
Hypothetical question…If all the tens ( hundreds? ) of millions of babies who were never given a chance to live because of legalized abortion could somehow be brought to life today and given the opportunity to say what they think of their fate and to say whether they would have liked to have had the chance to live or not, of these, how many of them do you think would thank their mothers for having spared them a life “not worth living”?
It’s pretty easy for you to throw away somebody ELSE’S life with a blithe “oh, you wouldnt have wanted that life anyways…”, but that’s because we arent talking about YOUR life right? YOUR life has value, but all of these aborted babies lives would not have been worth the bother I suppose?
Of all of the millions of unborn babies that have been terminated here in America- the wealthiest country ever to exist with the greatest opportunities of any society since the dawn of human civilization- what percent of those canceled lives would you say had no chance of anything approaching “a life worth living” if they HAD been allowed to live?-even if they had been put up for adoption as a baby as I was? How many of those lives would have been worth living Mary? Was MY life worth living in your eyes? Would it have been better if I had been terminated? Why is my life any more or less valuable than all the lives you ARE willing to cast away as “not worth living”?
When you speak of these children’s lives that might wind up being “not worth living”, you are talking about ME. What gaurantees did I have of how it would all turn out when I was abandoned out into the world? There ARE no gaurantees as to how a person is going to turn out or what value they might wind up having, or what they might do with their life. You have no idea how it may work out. Who are you to decide for them whether to live or die?
Somebody chose to give me a chance to live – a chance to roll the dice and see what comes of it. Life may not have always turned out to be a bed of roses, but I appreciate very much the chance to have been here anyways.
Who are you to take that chance from somebody else?
Lets be honest shall we? Most babies that are terminated in this country are done so for the convenience of the mother- not to mercifully spare these children the hardship of living a life “not worth living” here in America the prosperous. Let’s call a spade a spade and judge it for what it is, not what the American left chooses to couch this genocide as to assauge their guilty consciences.
It’s pretty arrogant to say you are doing somebody a favor by killing them to keep them from having a life not worth living wouldnt you say? If that is truly your conscern, then why not let the child make that decision about their own life? If they are allowed to live and they later find their life is NOT worth living, then I suppose they still have the choice of suicide right? If life really does turn out to be so terrible, nobody can force them to stick around if they dont want to.
Of all those millions of children who were denied their right to life because they were too inconvenient, I was one of the ones who escaped their fate. I slipped through the cracks somehow. I speak for those others now because they have no voice. On behalf of the silent leigons of the murdered unborn I say to you that life IS worth living. Life DOES have value.
Don’t do us any more favors please by sparing us a life not worth living…
Mary- Sorry if I sounded snippy in the previous comment, but this isn’t the usual abstract, subjective argument about politics or the semantics of philosophy. We are talking about the brutal and involuntarily termination of hundreds of millions of human lives here- ie. mass-murder and genocide. This is about the value of a human life- nothing more and nothing less. It just insn’t one of those situations where I am willing to agree to disagree, nor am I going to mince any words, pull any punches, or countenance any liberal rationalizations about how we are doing the unborn a favor by sparing them “a life not worth living.” I’m calling you and everybody who agrees with you out on this one.
It’s not your place to make that choice about somebody else’s life.
Sincerely, Ty
In a view of our universe where there is no maker, no design, no purpose, no intent, … we MUST accept that all morality is but illusion and a pretension.
Your essay appears to imply that a valid morality can only exist by reference to a superior entity. It therefore follows that, unless you postulate an infinite series of entities, each greater than the previous, you must eventually come to an ultimate entity whose morality is illusory.
The standard theistic argument, I believe, is that this entity is inately good, but I have not seen a convincing argument for this and common sense suggests that the opposite is more likely to be the case.
It seems to me that morality can be very plausibly explained in terms of the evolution of a social animal. Many animals demonstrate behaviour – bravery, self-sacrifice, loyalty – which we consider moral virtues, but it can usually be shown that by doing so they are increasing the probability that near relatives which also carry the genes responsible for that behaviour will survive.
As I understand theistic morality, it asserts that certain injunctions have been placed in our minds by God, that we are able to recognise these injunctions, and that we should obey them even when we do not understand their purpose, as a child should obey the instructions of his parents, even though he has not the knowledge or experience to understand that they are for his own good. The trouble is that people are subject to all kinds of unreasoned compulsions and it is not always easy to tell morality from psychosis. I suspect that may of the people to tortured and killed witches and heretics believed that they were doing God’s work, yet many other theists would disagree with them.
Finally, I find it odd that so many people consider a naturalistic interpretation of the universe and our place in it to be bleak and unsatisfying. Even Bertrand Russel wrote of building on a foundation of despair. To me it seems entirely the opposite. We have come from nothing to the point where the universe is our oyster (what /is/ the origin of that expression?) and even the smallest and weakest can do something to push us onward and outward. Under the theistic view we can never be more than dogs. Created by a master we cannot understand for a purpose which is never explained we must just hope that if we fetch and sit and lie down promptly when ordered we will be given a pat on the head and a biscuit.
I know which view I prefer, I am surprised that you and so many others seem to favour the other.
Hi Chris- Thanks for the comment and sorry for the delayed response. I don’t check my blog very much. I seem to get many visits but comments are few and far between. I appreciate your reasoned approach although I disagree with your conclusions. I guess if the primary factor in choosing between a theistic worldview and an atheistic one, was mere pride and indignance at the notion of theism relegating me to servitude status or being a “dog” as you put it, created by a “master” who orders us around and gives us biscuits, then I would certainly choose your worldview. Atheism is certainly easier on the ego. But I think that the beginning of wisdom is the willingness to see what one sees whether or not it is what one wants to see. Either there is a greater power and plan behind what we are, or there isnt. Objective reality is what it is, and my like or dislike of that reality doesnt change it a bit. I guess then, I would just rather attempt to see, discern, and understand as best I can, based on what I can learn, know, and feel around me and let the chips fall where they may irrespective of my pride. An ant cannot understand me. That lack of understanding does not make me any less real. So if we have a hard time understanding a creator does that make him any less real? Not really. When you consider the vast spectrum of life that exists- from bacteria to plants to frogs, horses and homosapiens- is it really such a hard thing to acknowledge that we are perhaps as far below a creator as an ant is below us? Why assume that we are the pinnacle of understanding and power when we are such a small, small, small part of such a large universe. And the universe and everything we know may just be a particle in an atom that combines with a trillion other atom/universes to make up of a grain of sand on a beach somewhere where people are sitting around drinking Pan-galactic gargle-blasters ( Douglas Adams reference ). Who is to say what God can do or not do? There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Chris ( to paraphrase the bard ). No, I think I will leave pride in self and pride in my species out of my choosing when it comes to worldviews. As for why theists would prefer such a worldview- well, if you are able to take every single thing that is good in your life- every single thing you know in your heart of hearts to be good and decent and true and right- everything of signifigance- all your love and everything that ever meant anything to you or moved you to tears and say that it truly means nothing… to say that it’s all just dust in the wind with no purpose other than survival of the fittest in a cold, empty, purposeless universe- then I wish you lots of luck with that. Because I don’t know how to help somebody that closed off and cold. But it makes me sad for you and for people like you, and I can’t help but think that “despair” is just the right word to sum up such an existence.
As for myself, both faith and reason seem, at least to me, to point to ample evidence of both design and intent in our being here, so I will hold out hope for God still and for there to be some higher calling for us beyond survival and random particle interactions in the cosmic void. As for your willingness to reduce morality to natural selection, I can think of plenty of potential actions in a lifetime of choices that are definitly wrong that would increase survival probabilities. And I can think of plenty of potential choices that would decrease those probabilities of survival which are nevertheless the right thing to do. It doesnt seem right to me to say that morality and selection are the same thing. I think we can objectively observe that sometimes those two imperatives collide, and sometimes they run parallel.
As for your assesments of religion and psychosis, I agree that they are oftentimes indistinguishable. I carry no water for any organized religion persay. There is some wisdom and some stupidity in all of them I guess ( I agree with Churchill for instance that Islam is far and away the most retrograde force on the planet ), and while I see the hand of design in this life and in our being here, that is a different thing than to go around very much imputing religiously inspired charachteristics and intentions upon said creator. Religions are all pretty bold about doing that with sometimes ridiculous results. I WILL venture so far as to say here that I do believe our creator- whatever name you wish to call him by- did intend that men should be free and that that freedom is how we were MEANT to live, for by it, we can acheive all that we can be as humans, not just in terms of material prosperity, but in terms of metaphysical happiness. We are the first nation in the long, sad saga of human history to be founded on the “pursuit of happiness” and I am truly moved by what blessings have been bestowed upon us as a result of guiding ourselves on what our founders believed to be God’s intent for Man. The appeal to a divine intent that men be free is one of the basic “self-evident” truths that our founding fathers explicitly called upon in our Declaration of Independance to justify the creation of our country. It’s all stated right there in the founding documents for anybody to read. To understand then, what this country is all about at it’s core, you really do have to understand that appeal to divine intent, which was the point of my essay. Whether you personally agree with divine intent is a seperate thing entirely , but the concept is woven into the fabric and being of my country from birth. Sadly, that is not something that most young people graduate from high-school understanding anymore ( we are lucky now if they can speak english badly, can read at a 4th grade level, and can add two plus two together sucessfully ). It occurs to me quite often when I read the news that America seems to have lost it’s way. We seem to have lost our path and purpose. Fundamental things that used to used to be understood aren’t anymore, and I think that a basic lack of understanding of what our country is all about is something we need to get back to help us get back on track. So I thought I would say something about it here on my blog for what it’s worth. Anyways, thanks again for the comment. Hopefully we have each been enriched somewhat by this interaction an made a little wiser…
“Despair is only for those who know the end beyond all hope.”- Gandalf the Grey