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I recently saw a short video clip of psychologist Jordan Peterson explaining the difficulty of establishing unquestioned moral precepts in the absence of them being ordained by authority.[i] He illustrated the difficulty by using Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. In the novel the impoverished Raskolnikov murders an unscrupulous aging pawnbroker for her money, which he thinks will allow him to do great things. Leaving aside Raskolnikov’s subsequent mental anguish, the question is whether his original rationale for the crime can be justified.
After all, the world is rid of an aging parasite and gains a young person with the means to do good. What is wrong with that? Peterson’s point is that without an external point of reference, to wit a god figure, no watertight conclusion is possible. Peterson gives an entertaining performance. But his take on the matter is commonplace. Morality is just one of a number of concepts which lose specificity in the absence of God. Absolute truth, for example.
Does the precise and whole truth exist? We think it does but, beyond the trivial, fail to find it. Even scrupulously honest people who search for it will admit that coming close is all that can be expected. Ergo, effectively, it doesn’t exist unless an all-knowing God knows it. Analogous to Schrödinger’s cat, think of yourself asleep while camping alone in the deep woods. You will either awake or die in your sleep. Which of the two events are true will not be known to the world until you wander into town or a park ranger discovers your rotting corpse. But God would know.
Take equality between men and women. As a human concept it is meaningless. Men are stronger and faster than women and there is evidence of there being fewer women at the extreme end of high intelligence than there are men. Women are better looking and, according to Peterson, more likable. I will let women folk add to the many attributes of the fairer sex. But it will end inconclusively unless we bring in the Christian God.
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
— Galatians 3:28
I happen to think that the absence of an objective and complete measure of morality, truth and equality among humankind points to God as the missing adjudicator. But this is not the kind of evidence you could take to a court. And it doesn’t move militant atheists like Richard Dawkins.
They are steeped in this material world within which all aspects of the human condition are shaped by evolution. God is absent the scene. In other words, you can argue earnestly and endlessly about the importance of God as the ultimate adjudicator. None of it comes to a hill of beans if God is non-existent, a fairy tale, as they firmly believe.
Dawkins (The God Delusion) puts religious beliefs; which, he concedes, all cultures have, down to “an accidental byproduct [of natural selection] – a misfiring of something useful.” His variant of this theory (there are others) has natural selection favouring the reproduction of children obedient to authority. Thus far, this makes sense. Children who mind their parents are less likely to be eaten by crocodiles or run over by trucks. However, according to Dawkins, this leaves the same said children susceptible to accepting fairy tales about god figures. How one leads to the other, I have no idea. It is an almighty stretch.
Almighty stretches litter evolutionary science. Dawkin’s proposition that belief in God is an accidental and misfiring byproduct of something useful for survival is without scientific foundation. Where is the evidence? How can the evidence ever be found? It is a pure guess and one that can’t be disproved.
Start with the certainty that natural selection can explain everything and, then, all observations must be shoe-horned in. And if one explanation doesn’t suit, Darwinians have others. Take our feathered friends.
Dawkins describes the activity of certain birds “such as jays, of ‘bathing’ in an ant’s nests or otherwise applying ants to their feathers.” He doesn’t know why, but notes, that this shouldn’t “stop Darwinians from presuming, with great confidence, that anting must be ‘for’ something…if the birds didn’t do it, their statistical prospects of genetic success would be damaged, even if we don’t know yet know the precise route of the damage.”
This is an example of what passes for evolutionary science. He speculates that the birds might be using the ants to rid themselves of parasites, while noting that “there are various other hypotheses, none of them strongly supported by the evidence.” You can say that again!
Why don’t other birds do it then? Are we to assume that the forerunner of jays which first engaged in anting thrived while those which didn’t died out? How did the anting birds ever discover this unlikely key to survival? Never mind, Dawkin’s quotes a fellow geneticist: “The one point which I think all evolutionists are agreed upon, [is] that it is virtually impossible to do a better job than an organism is doing in its own environment.”
So, it comes to this apparently, whatever we see around us in nature is bound to be optimum for survival otherwise it would have died out. I have another theory about jays. Maybe they enjoy being tickled by the ants and pass this insight on to their offspring in the way that birds do. It is a pleasure yet undiscovered by robin redbreasts. Prove me wrong.
I find so much that is sheer speculation when I read evolutionists that it is richly ironic that they have the gall to dismiss God because of an absence of material proof. To be clear, armed only with the tools of this earthly life, such proof is unobtainable. If it were not so God wouldn’t be God.
The lawgiver cannot be derived from the laws. Examining the innards of a jet engine will not lead you to Sir Frank Whittle. Though you might be disinclined to believe that no-one invented it?
Scientists have no quarrel with God that they do not themselves invent. Many natural scientists see their science as uncovering God’s laws which govern the universe and life within it. Others see their science as uncovering rationalistic laws which govern the universe and life within it. Neither insert magic into their scientific endeavours. They do not clash in their pursuit of knowledge.
Best, though, to observe two rules when in the realm of science. Don’t spray around unfalsifiable propositions and call it science. Don’t use science as a weapon against God. It is not fit for purpose.
In the God Delusion Dawkins describes the notion of Non Overlapping Magisteria or NOMA and he dismantles this as you might expect. It seems that there is overlap or at least Darwins theory of evolution should give pause for thought even for the most devout unless they reject science completely.
If a person is capable of faith, or belief in the absence of evidence surely the same person could not fail to acknowledge an idea that his or her god given reason must tell him there is observable evidence for. Speculation from evidence I can engage with, speculation from faith less so!
Nice one Peter. It is all too rare for the atheistic community to be called out on claiming that science and Christianity cannot coexist. It’s a ridiculous position to take, especially given that modern science was nurtured in the womb of Christian faith. Hume, Darwin and the like deliberately set out to replace Christian faith with their indefensible, existential scientific materialism and empiricism. Thankyou Enlightenment, for nothing. “On the Origin of Species..’ was published deliberately to counter Paley’s ‘Natural Theology..’. It failed then and it continues to fail.
The author of Genesis took pains to present a unique creation account, deliberately opposed to the myths of the time. The account goes to great lengths to dissemble any form of existentialism, and provides precise timings and sequences. The historical narratives then present detailed genealogies so that we have a clear picture of the entire history of the earth and mankind. There is nothing else like it in existence. As with early scientists such as Newton, many Christian scientists today recognise the veracity this clear narrative (although now they are often derisively referred to as ‘creationists’), in what is a burgeoning field of scientific re-thinking on not only origins, but current natural phenomena. They are even beginning to provide a natural framework for the long ages of the antediluvian patriarchs.
Sorry I might be a bit dense is this Sarcasm?
I hope so, but doubt it.
Let’s start with a basic mistake: no, Genesis is not *one* account. It has *two* creation stories, that contradict each other. And then two genealogies. After that the tales intertwine, making it harder to notice that there are two tales, but it continues though (and the experts claim that there are *four* strands, although ‘unknown quantity + drip under pressure’ is relevant to them).
It incredibly unlikely that the narrative is going to be confirmed, given that it self-contradicts, and includes such joys as plants being created before the sun. *Because*it*was*never*intended*to*be*a*science*text*. Genesis denies that the stars, sun and moon are gods; they are merely part of creation like ourselves. That was the shocking revelation that Genesis had to hammer home. And by doing so made the world a better place.
RELIGION AS METAPHOR – BEYOND LITERAL BELIEF
Read David Tacey’s latest book: https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Religion_As_Metaphor.html?id=sP-8rQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y&hl=en
Full of interesting insights:
“Biblical stories are metaphorical. They may have been accepted as factual hundreds of years ago, but today they cannot be taken literally. Some students in religious schools even recoil from the “fairy tales” of religion, believing them to be mockeries of their intelligence. David Tacey argues that biblical language should not be read as history, and it was never intended as literal description. At best it is metaphorical, but he does not deny these stories have spiritual meaning.”
For example, a lot of problems arose when the “Promised Land” is taken to mean an actual place – that folk can fight over – other than the human heart.
On the other hand, if a talking snake in a Garden appeals to you…..
“…They may have been accepted as factual hundreds of years ago, but today they cannot be taken literally..”
Alice,
The Bible does contain some “stories” that a metaphors (such as Jesus’ parables) but it’s mainly propositions that one can either accept or reject. For example:
God appeared to Moses in a burning bush
Jesus was born in the time of Caesar Augustus when Quirinius was the Roman Governor of Syria
Jesus rose from death and was seen by a hew hundred people who then told others etc. etc.
The propositions regarding historical context can be checked with what we know about those times at present (though our knowledge is always open to revision – ceterus paribus, it’s just our best guess at the moment)
The propositions regarding the divinity of Christ can’t be checked per se using experimental methods but are nonetheless compelling for some people and not for others. It comes back to two simple premises – either God exists or He doesn’t exist. If you start with the premise that God does not exist, then Christ’s divinity is a meaningless concept. If you start with the former premise, then it is not meaningless and then one needs to look at the available evidence of His divinity. The evidence is the eyewitness accounts that remain extant.
It never ceases to amaze me that people still believe the “fairy tale” that human reasoning (I use that term lightly) is the “infallible” guide to truth.
Alice, why would I want to read recycled 19thC trash? This rubbish was all the rage before Schliemann discovered Troy, but the causal mocking of legends only survives in the most backward of locales – Classics and Theology departments in trendy universities. From a Roman fort in Ireland to ‘dragon bones’ (ie dinosaur fossils) in Russia and China, the reliability of ancient sources has been shown again and again. Read up on the Sarmatians some time, the heavy cavalry that the Romans posted to Britain directly before abandoning the island – and learn how Arthurian legend after legend is part of their culture (the finest example being their habit of when a warrior was dying, his best friend would be asked 3 times to throw his sword into the nearest body of water, but only doing so on the 3rd request).
Metaphors? The *borders* of the Promised Land are set out in great detail in the Bible. Fighting over it? Oh yes, General Allenby used the Bible as a strategy guide, following the prophecies telling him where and when to fight – and in a world war marked elsewhere by deadlock and slaughter won victory after victory, liberating the Holy Land. Lord Megiddo *knew* what he was doing – and today the Israelis do.
Yes, there will continue to ongoing carnage and wars for the Promised Land…wars that were described in details over 26 centuries ago.
Modernists, humanists, atheists, liberals; all love to critique the Bible and particularly Genesis, yet their understanding of it is inevitably, and perhaps necessarily simplistic.
It is common knowledge within Bible scholarship that Genesis is written as a series of toledots, or summaries of generations. This is its core structure, so anybody discussing of arguing about Genesis without taking this into account is indulging in nothing more than vapid windmill-tilting, discussing a subject without actually addressing it.
But for those who are interested, Genesis consists of a precursor and eleven toledots. The precursor is the creation account of God himself, which precedes the generations of the creation itself. The first toledot begins at Genesis 2:4. ‘These are the generation of the heavens and the earth’, which narrates that which followed from creation. The second toledot begins at Genesis 5:1. ‘This is the book of the generations of Adam’, which narrates that which follows from Adam. The third toledot begins at Genesis 6:9. ‘These are the generations of Noah’. And so on. So there is only one creation account, followed by that which followed from the creation.
The remaining toledots I will leave as a treasure hunt, knowing that all Bible critics will be keen to sharpen their knowledge so that they can forever win arguments based on their personal eisegesis.
pgang: “It never ceases to amaze me that people still believe the “fairy tale” that human reasoning (I use that term lightly) is the “infallible” guide to truth.”
Agreed.
“It is one thing to celebrate science for its achievements and remarkable ability to explain a wide variety of phenomena in the natural world. But to claim there is nothing knowable outside the scope of science would be similar to a successful fisherman saying that whatever he can’t catch in his nets does not exist. Once you accept that science is the only source of human knowledge, you have adopted a philosophical position (scientism) that cannot be verified, or falsified, by science itself. It is, in a word, unscientific.”
https://www.aaas.org/page/what-scientism
My reading, and personal empirical evidence, suggests that not only are there “fewer women at the extreme end of high intelligence than there are men”, there are also fewer women at the extreme end of low intelligence; men dominate the low ground as well as the high – that while the IQs of both men and women are somewhat normally distributed, maybe around the same mean (but Darwin would take issue with that), the men’s IQ distribution has a larger Standard Deviation, the “bell” is flatter.
To proponents of Darwin’s evolution theory, I proffer some of Darwin’s statements on evolution that they “religiously” ignore:
As a married man he would be a “poor slave, . . . worse than a Negro,”
“males are more evolutionarily advanced than females”
“the child, the female, and the senile white” all had the intellect and nature of the “grown up Negro”
Since humans evolved from animals, and “no one disputes that the bull differs in disposition from the cow, the wild-boar from the sow, the stallion from the mare, and, as is well known through the keepers of menageries, the males of the larger apes from the females,” the same must be true with human females.
Some of the traits of women “are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization”
Thus man has ultimately become superior to woman
The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than woman can attain
The average standard of mental power in man must be above that of woman.
Thus “Darwinians” cherry-pick the parts of his theories that they agree with while closing their minds to the many others with which they would disagree.
In God Delusion, Dawkins cites a 1-7 scale where 1 represents a probability of 1.0 (100%) that God exists and 7 represents a probability of 0.0 (0%) that God exists, Dawkins classified himself as a 6 – viz he thinks there is a significant possibility of God existing. That, unless like misogyny, atheist has be redefined, marks Dawkins as an agnostic rather than an atheist. Adding to the veracity of that tag is the title of Chapter 4 “Why there almost certainly is no God” – again Dawkins declines to deny the possibility of God existing.
Is your argument “science doesn’t know therefore god”?
Iso that is a God of the gaps argument, what happens when scientists find an explanation for Jays “anting” what of your argument then?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2630239/
Try that, science bitches….it works.
Is this entity you persist in postulating simultaneously all-good and all-powerful ?
Do answer the question …
To ianl. My answer is YES.
“Best, though, to observe two rules when in the realm of science. Don’t spray around unfalsifiable propositions and call it science. Don’t use science as a weapon against God. It is not fit for purpose.”
Thanks Peter
Nietzsche also urged us “not to be taken in by “the theologian’s trick” of mingling scientific knowledge with superstition or speculation. For religion and real science “live on different stars”. Religion should not pass itself off as science, [or pontificate ex cathedra on climate change.]
Conversely, climato-therapists and (postmodern) scientists should resist the temptation to proselytise, to politicise and to encourage “a religious comet to trail off into the darkness, making suspicious everything about itself that it presents as science”— especially where their arguments lack clarity or evidence.””
https://quadrant.naphix.com/magazine/2014/07-08/nietzsche-climato-therapy-swiss-alps/
As for God, you will know his views on that subject.
Car bumper sticker: “God is dead. Nietzsche. Nietzsche is dead. God.”
Jung had a different perspective. He was fascinated by the multiplicity of gods. So much choice. So little time.
“We think we can congratulate ourselves on having already reached such a pinnacle of clarity, imagining that we have left all these phantasmal gods [and goddesses] far behind. But what we have left behind are only verbal spectres, not the psychic factors that were responsible for the birth of the gods [and goddesses]. We are still as much possessed by autonomous psychic contents as if they were Olympians. Today they are called phobias, obsessions, and so forth: in a word, neurotic symptoms.The gods [and goddesses] have become diseases.” (1929)
Today we worship in the Temple of Mental Health, not that of Apollo or Athena at Delphi.
Food for thought.
Alice
Without religion, human society might be a very dull affair. Gun ownership would be top of the debating list. It is almost as if some higher authority calibrates and dishes out beliefs in such a manner as to guarantee constant quarreling and even at the best of times no end of debate. Before the jealous One laid down the law there was much competition between gods. Then the High Chief took charge and decreed the chosen people would obey only Him and no other. Then J. Christ appeared, not to overthrow the old, jealous God’s law, but to affirm it. It took several centuries for the top of the religious hierarchy to sort itself out and smite the competition, and, in the best, or worst, tradition of the Roman Empire/Autocracy/Republic, went to slaughter, slash and burn any person or party not willing to be told what to believe by the Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern/Orthodox Christian Church(es) was/were not as vicious in laying down ecclesiastical law, apparently. I have come around to the idea that agnostics are the most sensible in this regard, though I know a lot of Christians who are equally as sensible about their personal beliefs in relation to what they require of others in the way of belief, that is, they are either non-proselytising or do not persist if rebuffed. Atheists, on the whole, seem to me more genuine about what they believe, quite unlike many who call themselves Christians or believers in a Christian God, who, by the way, rules over the gods of all other religions, or, conversely, denies that there are any other gods, Gods, And such like competition, God believers who seem to be in the business of constantly courting controversy and taking offence when somewhere someone happens to disagree with them. Like the boys who were smoking during breaks between class, many Christian God believers simply cannot stomach it when there people who do not share their belief. The God believers who are so unsure of their own faith that they must always offer it to others do not really have faith. Then there are many who make a living from the courting, cultivating and fomenting of disagreement-As if there is nothing better to argue about. Have we not had enough bloodshed due to religiously inspired beliefs since, ah, Adam and Eva were kicked out of the Garden of Eden?
My own meeting with God did not leave a lasting impression. At least, it was not strong enough to stop me thinking about it. Many people have experience of the Numinous. It can be explained in many ways, other than the traditional. There is no religion higher than truth(Blavatsky), but what is truth? Buddhism recognises two contending, opposing or complimentary truths- A higher and a common, or garden, truth. Buddha Gautama, apparently, never mentioned any such thing. The two truth concept evolved due to the complimentary opposites of Emptiness versus Maya/material manifestation. Since quantum physics and quantum philosophy offered a better understanding of our place in the scheme of universal things, there is no need for primitive explanations and indefensible positions. All is connected. That is why it is called the Universe. The inner life is as big and expansive as the outer. Religious belief evolved much like computer programming, the genetic pre-disposition evolved with it. The riddle of the existence of God and gods can be solved, but not without some extra programming over and above what religious institutions and other worldly authorities, notably the Establishment and its mainstream mouthpieces, will allow. Religion, and with it the belief and disbelief in God, is too useful a tool of exploitation and, again, of late, oppression and mind manipulation, to power mongers in the West to let go of. It’s a matter of true philosophy and, yes, there is a catch. There is, apparently, a moral dimension to it, in addition to a strong personal wish to seek the truth. Imo, much speculation with certainty, for or against, the existence of just a one and only God, is a sign of ignorance. But, it’s only what I believe.
Dawkins is a twerp – which the better atheists will happily acknowledge. While calling him out is productive, the article has a few issues.
The fundamental thing about evolution is that it *works*. Biologists can use the theory to help develop cures, new strains of creatures, and make falsifiable predictions. No other theory of life can do this: Spontaneous generation, Lamarkism and Intelligent Design are all useless. While the misuse of the theory of evolution can and should be called out, the primacy of the theory needs to be accepted.
‘Anting’ – over 200 species of birds engage in this behaviour, and there are multiple different possible reasons for doing so. Natural selection ensures that the feeling of pleasure usually occurs when engaging in a behaviour that improves your likelihood of reproduction; exceptions occur when a sensation is introduced which has not been selected for/against in the past, with brutal consequences: sugar and alcohol being the most important examples for human atm.
Can morals exist without God? Well, the obvious thing to do is to look at non-religious societies. Not promising. The claims of individuals within society at large are dubious, as they obvious thing for an immoral person to do is to claim to be moral, and it’s too late after they are truly tempted. Neither of these points are proof; so rather than even engaging the question, it would make more sense to offer to those who believe that it can be done the chance – let them create communities elsewhere and prove it.
I highly recommend this series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w
Can someone of an evolutionary bent explain the following to me please.
What in the evolutionary train suddenly decided that men and women needed to have the complex complimentary reproductive makeup that they and most animals have??
I say suddenly as it must have happened instantaneously otherwise the outcomes would have been strange mutations that as far as I know are not in evidence.
Jim, if you didn’t study biology at school you would not know of the enormous variety of ways in which males impregate females. The human way is just a variation and there are many. Darwin and Dawkins and many others could explain it all to you.
Macspee – with respect I didn’t ask to be referred to Darwin or Dawkins – please review my question and, if you can, give me a simple answer that can be understood by a simple man.
Kim, you assume that in the eons of evolutionary time SUDDENLY men and women NEEDED to have complex complimentary reproduntive makeup. Nothing in evolution suggests that kind of suddenness, the reproductive system isn’t particularly complex, yet you can’t be bothered with the task of finding out the answer and want others to give you simple answers. No wonder some people want their morals, biology, politics, sociology, philosophy and everything else given to them on a platter so that they can avoid thinking for themselves or doing the hard yakka to seek out what those who appear to know what they are talking about have to say and evaluate that to the best of their ability.
Macspee – just looking to be educated by a clever fellow such as yourself – but, sadly, you don’t seem to be able to provide an answer to my question – I do regret my ignorance but biology was for girls when I went to school.
I a finding it surprising that 2016 conference at the London Royal Society (yes: Boyle, Newton …) resulted in statements that random selections are not sufficient to explain evolution. Not all invitees, but a significant number of them claimed so.
Would it be the first step in demolishing the theory of evolution? Time WILL show. Irrespective of the outcome, “only TRUTH is interesting” (this is actually a motto of one European political writer from the last century).
The topic of evolution in the media is on my radar, so why I could only read about the mentioned conference only a few months ago?
pabloAU – if you are interested in truth – go to http://www.ttwsyf.net – the truth will set you free – all the best.
Oh Peter, Peter, Peter………..moral precepts have been with humanity for millenia; many are pretty-well agreed upon, many are disputed. What I would dispute is that a moral precept ordained by authority cannot be a moral precept although it might be a good idea for people to act upon. But if the reason you accept a precept is because someone in authority says do this or you are a bad person doesn’t make your acceptance a moral act.
I suggest that the concept of absolute truth is a will-o’-the-wisp. One doesn’t have to be an advocate for “truth is relative” to assert that “absolute” is a term that hides a dirty little secret: in the context we have no idea what it means.
Dawkins would, I suppose, want you to please tell us what in earth is an all-knowing God? I guess that one reason he doesn’t think much of the concept is that neither you, nor anyone else is prepared to explain precisely what it is you speak of – you speak of God as a kind of person who knows things but surely in personifying this God you very much beg the question and appear to justify the assertion that man invented God in his own image. How or why do you come to the conclusion that there is a God who has the capacity, somehow, of knowledge (with what?) and that this knowledge is attuned or relevant to the interpersonal behaviour of human beings.
As for Almighty stretches litter evolutionary science… Where is the evidence? How can the evidence ever be found? It is a pure guess and one that can’t be disproved, applies a fortiori to the God conception. But contra your assertions Peter, evolutionary science has a pretty firm foundation and is falsifiable – except that smart people (creation scientists) who try haven’t yet succeeded.
None of which is to say, as Dawkins has said, that despite the horrors imposed by priests shamen and mullahs, there are good things at the core of some religions and to a very large extent we are the inheritors of the good things that have been distilled from their writings, distilled not by faith but by the application of reason towards the kind of behaviour that best provides the rules or precepts for human beings to live good lives making use of the experience of our ancestors and trying to make things better in a world so far removed from anything they could have imagined that only our capacity for reasoning is likely to enable us, if not to succeed, at least to make things better.
The all-knowing, all-powerful, etc. was sussed out ages ago when a man looked up at the starry sky at night and started wondering. When I first heard about outer space and the universe, I was about seven or eight, I did not think about it for very long at all before I ask myself, and then my mother, “What is beyond this space where it stops, and what is beyond that next thing when it stops?” The very realisation gave me some kind of philosophical basis which put everything else in perspective. Science has nothing on true philosophy. The former has become a Walt Disneyesque performance to mesmerise the masses, which includes the Mickey Mouse philosophers of our day and the scientists and academics who are part of it, the latter is rare, and only to be found amongst non-conformists. Thankfully, we still have true scientists doing sterling work. Since Planck, we have come to know and understand what has never been known or otherwise not been been left to us in historical records in the manner which western scientists would recognise. The universe is one=The Universe is One.
Every Planck moment material reality is made manifest. It is a moot point whether this universe had a beginning and will have an end or not. How it started if it did have a beginning? That is something which cannot, per definition, be known except by a consciousness, I would say Consciousness, which was there before the beginning.
The point has been made before, but not often enough, though it is patently obvious to any thinking person. God is, or has been, said to have a million million names, but it is a word to denote a certain phenomenon given certain religious interpretations. However, any qualities attributed to this phenomenon have been and are attributed by man, as in, mankind.
The inexplicable and unexplainable, the inner life of people and all that does not at a given time, under givern circumstances to a particular person or group allow for an explanation where one is sought and desired is prey to people’s imagination, intuitional guesswork, etc. The real God thing will always be a mystery to thinking individuals, even when it is recognised that the Universe will answer to all the descriptions of attributes pertaining to this mystery, because…, to even have a chance of finding out what made our universe, how it started if it did, how it came to be if it always was, etc., etc., one would have to step outside this universe and go back in time. But, by stepping outside this universe, if there is time outside of it, going back in time is not going to be of use. It will be not the time of life of this universe we would be going back in. Who or what made this universe must be rated as the most useless speculation of all. It’s a Mystery. Find out how this universe works and speculate no more. Ask any, scientist or religious proselytiser, or anyone claiming to know the unknowable, what was before this universe, what is beyond it, and beyond that. It has been said in so many words before. Apparently, the experts cannot stop averring, prating and preaching long enough to let it sink in.
‘The absence of an objective and complete measure of morality, truth and equality among humankind points to God as the missing adjudicator’
Peter
Couldn’t the Islamist use this same argument.
It seems to me all’religiinds’ with a monotheist god could apply your argument.
Kim Campbell
In Shakespeare’s A Mid Summers Nights Dream, a character said ‘ the truth makes all things plain.
If it doesn’t it’s mothetruth
The truth, about science: How about Joseph Leonard Fone’s ” On the Shoulders of Heretics “.