I was listening to an atheist podcast yesterday. I was initially
hesitant to do so. Why? Was it fear that they might persuade me to
abandon my belief in God? It’s not as if I hadn’t heard their sorts of
arguments before, in some way, shape, or form. Was it because I did not
want to be nagged with spiritual doubt? Maybe I feel that I have
enough on my plate, so why be nagged with spiritual doubt? Did I simply
not want to feed my mind with that sort of stuff? Could be.
Anyway, I listened to it. I got a chuckle out of something one of
the counter-apologists said. She said that she talks to Christians and
they tell her that the universe is so fine-tuned for life, and so there
must be a God. She responds that actually there is not that much life
in the universe. Christians then say that it is such a miracle that
there is life on earth, amidst a largely hostile, lifeless universe, and
so that shows there is a God! My hunch is that there is something
wrong with how she was laying out the Christian arguments, but I cannot
really point out what. The fine-tuning argument, as I understand it,
says that the universe is finely-tuned for life on earth. The
question would then be why God would create life on only one planet,
amidst a vast, apparently lifeless universe of other planets, stars,
black holes, etc. (“Apparently” may be too strong a word here, for
perhaps there is life on other planets.) That Matt Papa book that I
recently read, Look and Live, said that God did so to teach us
about his own vastness. Could be. The church tradition in which I grew
up said that Christians as spirit beings would create life on those
planets and rule them after Christ’s second coming!
I got a laugh out of what the counter-apologist said on the atheist
podcast because, at first, she sounded spot on! She actually was spot
on when she made a similar point in discussing how Christians point to
the good things in the universe and say that demonstrates there is a
God, but, when someone points out to them the bad things in the
universe, they blame that on the Fall.
Of course, we cannot stereotype what Christians say. The people on
the show were speaking about their own interactions with Christians and
Christian apologists, and there are many Christians who believe as they
say. But I was listening to the radio program, Unbelievable,
recently (for the first time in a long time), and it had a debate on
animal suffering. Is God’s existence and benevolence incompatible with
animal suffering? Why would God allow animals to suffer? I got mad
when I heard a clip of Christian apologist William Lane Craig saying (as
I understood him) that animals technically do not feel pain. But the
guest on the show who was speaking from a Christian perspective said
that animal suffering was part of the order of nature. He also seemed
to dismiss that it was the result of the Fall.
But back to the atheist podcast! The counter-apologist made another
point: that answered prayer is totally subjective. There is no
objective way to say that God answers our prayers. It’s all based on
how we interpret what happens. We are the ones deciding if what
happened counts as God’s answer to our prayer. For some reason, I
actually like that point. She, of course, was making it to dismiss
religion, and that soured the point a bit for me. But I still liked the
point, for some reason. Maybe it has to do with liking the concept of
interpreting circumstances positively.
The atheist podcast also made me think about reasons that I believe.
A lot of it has to do with fear: I am afraid of life. The
counter-apologist was saying that religions prey on that. Not long ago,
I was browsing through the library, and I saw a book by Hans Kung on
the existence of God. He interacts with Freud, Nietzsche—-you know,
critics of Christianity who saw it as immature and as relying on a
crutch—-and I did not want to read that book. I just figured that I
already knew, at a basic level, what Freud and Nietzsche said, that I
did not feel a need to justify my faith to others, and that, therefore, I
was not interested in rehashing those debates. But the podcast
yesterday helped me realize that maybe those debates are more important
to me than I think. When does believing in God discourage me from
taking action myself? Yet, I can’t do everything, and there are things
outside of my control, so when should I trust in God? And is it wrong
to rely on something? I wouldn’t be surprised if even atheists
rely on something or someone—-family, a social network, maybe some take
medication.
Of course, my usual response to those who say that Christianity is a
crutch for the weak is for me to acknowledge that, yes, I am weak. But I
think that faith should be about more than looking for a security
blanket.
Anyway, those are some scattered ramblings.