I posted this as a reply over at Liberty’s Torch, but it bears reposting here as well.
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
-Voltaire
Human beings cannot detach themselves from the universe and know it objectively. They view from within, attempting to extrapolate what it looks like from without.
We once believed all things to be due to the agency of the supernatural. There was a God for rivers, a God for war, a God for farming and a God for sex. Whatever the activity, there was an agency behind it. Ancient philosophers gradually came to explain the existence of these things in non-supernatural ways and so, over time, less and less was ascribed to the divine.
Christianity merged Greek philosophy with Jewish monotheism and outsourced this, as it were, to one distant and all-powerful creative agency. St. Thomas called this agency the “First Mover.” Now, St. Thomas failed in his proof of God, for such proof would require one, again, to be detached from the universe. This is impossible for a human. Nonetheless, St. Thomas may have been more correct than he knew. His notions are entirely consistent with physics as we understand it today.
Science, today, has just become another buzzword. To most people the workings of the natural world are just as mystical and difficult to understand as they were for the wogs who prayed to river Gods. Your average man cannot explain Newtonian Mechanics much less Quantum Mechanics. He could not follow the intricacies of Climate Change data. But he trusts the priests, which we call “scientists” today, to interpret the signs and tell him these things. For the proles, you might as well be a sorcerer throwing runes in the air. As in history, the priests are tempted by corruption. They might, for instance, interpret the signs in their own financial and political interests.
Pop Culture tells us that Atheism is good and rational. All the scientists are doing it now, they say. And so people follow them into folly.
Disbelief in God is actually highly irrational. One could defend Agnosticism through rational argument. “I don’t know” is a valid answer to metaphysical questions. You could also defend personal knowledge of God rationally, i.e. you believe that God spoke to you or did a thing for you. You can’t prove this to another, of course, but for you the argument is still rational. Many come to faith feeling as if God touched them in some way.
To say God most definitely does not exist is claiming knowledge that is impossible for any human to possess. You cannot exit the universe and see it objectively. It is the height of folly, the celebration of ignorance.
But this is par for the course for the modern scientific priesthood. Science, remember, is not coextensive with rationality or logic. It is merely a method of experimentation and observation (one among many). It can explain a great many things within our universe, but it cannot comment on existence itself.
For that only philosophy, metaphysics, and religion will do. Even then, the answer will not be known for certainty until such time as you meet your maker.
In simpler terms, there will never be a time in human history in which an outside agency will not be necessary to explain existence. As Voltaire tells us, even assuming God did not exist, it would be intellectually necessary for us to invent him in order to comprehend our own existence.
Spacelike beings sense Time as subjective. Timelike beings sense Space as subjective. Loss of synethesia is a hard fall. Erase the Titans and changelings, and repairs are tough. Then, it is like there are hardly any left that remember.
It is nicer when repairing space with time is moral instinct.
Not so much of a damned mess. I think your kids are going to have to ride this. Maybe before this happens.
“Christianity merged Greek philosophy with Jewish monotheism and outsourced this, as it were, to one distant and all-powerful creative agency.”
Sorry, I just stopped reading there. Once you reveal that you really don’t believe anything about Christianity and view it as just a syncretism of disparate human beliefs unconnected to an actual supernatural being, you lose all standing with those of us who believe.
I’m afraid I have to disagree. He actually got it pretty close to right. Except for the fact that it was *Catholicism* that merged Greek philosophy in. Mainly, of course, because they were just about the only flavor around at the time. But sadly far too few of the “movers and shakers” in the 3rd and 4th centuries stood firm against the Gnostic heresies that Paul spent somewhere around 50% of his writings disproving. And I can’t hold the others blameless, as many others have just followed right along without bothering to check their “facts” against the Bible.
Like it or not, it’s simple reality that there is a HUGE amount of Greek mythology woven into the doctrines of almost every form of Christianity you can name. If you ever have the chance to tour the Musei Vaticani you’ll see TONS of it… just about everywhere. But while Catholicism may be one of the most heavily influenced (although so-called unitarians are worse, assuming you consider them Christian at all…) the others are by no means exempt. Much of it is subtle and hard to spot. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Some forms of Christianity are LESS influenced by it. Very VERY few have NO influence.
I’ll accept that correction. Catholicism certainly seems to contain more Greek influence than other brands, excepting, of course, the Eastern Orthodox church.
Actually, Voltaire didn’t say that. Bakunin did.
Actually, I checked, and you were.right. I got it inverted in my head. Bakunin said “I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him. ”
As it so happens, sir, I am a Christian and believe fully in its teachings and tenets. I don’t view it as a “syncretism of disparate human beliefs unconnected to an actual supernatural being.”
Perhaps if you had read the rest of the piece, that would have been made clear to you. Rather than seeing it a synthesis of disparate beliefs, I see that the Greeks (or Gentiles, if you prefer) had some wisdom and that the combination of their efforts with the texts revealed to the Jews pushed us closer to God. When you read some of Plato’s work, it becomes clear that the Greeks were struggling toward an understanding of God in their own way.
I should add also that I understand your hostility. Christianity is often denigrated and demeaned as superstition and mythical claptrap. I’m as exhausted of this as you seem to be. Nonetheless, this does not mean we as Christian intellectuals should ignore the influences on our own belief system.
Just because Christianity contains varying amounts of Greek influence does not mean it is wrong, or less pure as a result of it. If we accept the existence of God, and that He chooses to communicate with man throughout history, then it is plausible that the Greeks were reaching for the Divine as much as the Jews were. Christian monastic tradition owes much to the influence of Stoicism.
When I was reading The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, I noted how similar his text read to works by Christian philosophers. If I didn’t know better (and if the text did not contain a reference to Christians as an “other”), I would have thought Marcus Aurelius *was* a Christian.
Now, the Gnostic beliefs Friar Bob referenced are a different ball of wax, although he seems more knowledgeable on that matter than I. But the point is, similarities to Greek philosophy are not some kind of universal bad. Rather the opposite. It is proof that a certain innate morality exists in mankind, a morality that is not duplicated in the animal kingdom. That, to me, is the signature of the Divine.
For me, sir, it is precisely why I am a Christian in the first place.