Conversation - part 6

How can we build understanding with those who profoundly disagree with us?

Be sure to read the previous posts on this topic from January 2022 to get the full story...

Commentary:

This post shows a real shift in Derek's attitude and willingness to open up. I was very grateful for that. He even tells some of his story about growing up in a Christian home, although there is no information on how his parents lived out their faith or helped him to grow spiritually or intellectually. My impression is that there were strong secular forces at work in his life, either through friendships, teachers or other adults which influenced his ideas about God and faith. 

Derek's post:

I could be convinced that science/logical reasoning had an inherent limitation in its ability to explain phenomena if you could provide me a logically sound argument along with acceptable premises in support of this. It's that simple, and it is 100% objective. That's the beauty of logic.

You act like it is completely subjective what I consider to be evidence, but it is simply what I have stated above - a logically sound argument with acceptable premises. This is also the type of evidence that I would require in order to believe a god exists (or physical evidence of some sort, of course).

The 'logically sound' aspect means that the argument doesn't violate itself or contain a logical contradiction, and the 'acceptable premises' part means that the argument begins with axioms which anybody would consider to be obviously true.

To recap, the two claims:
"science hasn't yet explained A"
"science is not able to explain A"
are completely different, and you need a logically sound argument supporting whichever one you are claiming to be true. The first claim is trivial to support, but the second one requires, as I keep repeating, a logically sound argument with acceptable premises.

I will repeat this again: if you can actually logically prove the second claim, you will indeed be awarded the nobel prize since it would be a major finding relating to science and mathematics, and our ability to understand the universe.

There isn't really much of a story as to why I am an atheist, other than the fact that I have taken a very close look at all religious arguments I have been able to find, from as many different religions as I could manage. In this seven or so year examination, I have found that the arguments are all very well dressed, and that they appear to be reasonable until you break the intuition-logic barrier and realize that they don't actually make sense.

I mean, I used to be a christian until I was a teenager, and then I slowly realized that I hadn't ever seen god, or spoken to god. This bothered me greatly, and it kept me awake for some nights, and I would get to sleep by reading some argument online that would affirm me god existed. However, I would wake up and go through one, two, maybe a few days before I had time to think again, and I would realize that there was some sort of hole in the argument that didn't quite add up. This kept happening, and I started to think Jesus and the Christian God might not actually be real. I really was unsettled by my inability to confirm my beliefs. I looked at arguments in support of other gods from other religions, and realized they were all the same in their flaws. Every argument was either "the universe is too complex, ..." or "god's existence is so obvious that it is undeniable" or "atheists aren't real", or it was a well dressed pseudo-logical argument that would quench my thirst for a while, but then I would realize it was flawed too.

Fast forward, and I have come to the conclusion that the average person's inability to distinguish logical reasoning from flawed argumentation is hurting society greatly, and that it is one of the biggest threats to humanity for a number of reasons. This extends beyond religions too, and goes into many aspects of society.

Commentary:

I was still wondering what type of evidence Derek needed. It is as if I had not provided any arguments yet at all! His comments about not seeing or hearing God are not based on logical or rational evidences, but rather experiential evidence, which is tied to how most of us interpret evidence anyway. I probably had already answered his questions clearly and concisely with references to history, philosophy and the Bible. If we demand that others present the same kind of ‘evidence’ that they demand of us, we usually don't end up any closer to agreeing than when we started. I'll include a modified infographic to demonstrate the types of evidences that are commonly accepted in most fields outside of direct scientific experimentation. 

He spent quite a bit of time explaining logic to me, but I'm not convinced that he knew how to recognize it or use it. So my response had to go in a different direction. I also needed to validate his desire to understand the world and to communicate with me about these topics.

My response:

Yes, logical reasoning is really important and I am also interested in this. So, thanks for your extended explanation and a bit of your story. It does make me very sad to hear that having not seen or spoken to God, you must conclude that He doesn't exist. You are not alone in this, as I have not seen or heard an audible voice. But, logically speaking, that doesn't mean that he is not speaking to us, only that we don't hear him or are expecting something different.

I have also heard arguments like "the universe is too complex", etc. but those certainly are not the ones that convince me either. My faith in Jesus is not from having seen him or heard him speak to me, but because I can't live without Him. I know that I have no good in myself, no value, no purpose unless it is given to me by the one who gives me life. Even logic can't give me life or purpose because logic does not explain why we have "something" instead of "nothing", or "life" instead of "non-life", or "consciousness" instead of just a brain, or beauty or love or even logic itself. Don't get me wrong, I love logic as well. But I must conclude logically that logic and order in the universe are not natural and are certainly not a result of a random sequence of events. Logic is completely dependent on the existence of order and design, not to mention the very strange idea that words actually have meaning - a correlation to the real world - and that we can "know" the real meaning of words.

Here are 2 interesting quotes for you (from people much smarter than me). Friedrich Nietzsche said, "Two things will happen: the 20th Century will become the bloodiest century in history because the 19th Century killed God and universal madness will break out." Isaac Newton said, "He who is presumptuous enough to think that he can find the true principles of physics and the laws of natural things by the force alone of his own mind, and the internal light of his reason, must either suppose the world exists by necessity, and by the same necessity follows the law proposed; or if the order of Nature was established by the will of God, the [man] himself, a miserable reptile, can tell what was fittest to be done." They lived very different lives and had very different beliefs but they both realized the logical result of a world without God, a world that we are living in now.

My dear friend, please keep searching and I pray that God will show himself to you in a new and very real way - not for any religious reason, but so that you will know Jesus who offers us real life.

Questions for you:

What evidence would you demand to know for sure that God exists and that He loves you? Would it be reasonable and fair to demand that same quality of evidence to prove that God does not exist and/or does not love you? Why or why not? Why are we always asking for evidence anyway? Do we really change our minds because of evidence, or is it something else that changes our hearts before our minds are able to change?