As long as people have honest questions1 about belief, then it remains a logically legitimate enterprise, but it can be taken too far easily.

For me, I’m interested in taking away needless barriers to faith2.  Increasingly for me, it’s been exciting to see just how complimentary an evolutionary understanding of nature is . . . → Read More: this blog]]> I’m often conflicted about the whole apologetics thing.

As long as people have honest questions¹ about belief, then it remains a logically legitimate enterprise, but it can be taken too far easily.

For me, I’m interested in taking away needless barriers to faith².  Increasingly for me, it’s been exciting to see just how complimentary an evolutionary understanding of nature is with Christianity.  And as long as there are a) Christians who see evolution as a threat to faith and b) people for whom evolution has been a key point on their departure from faith, I think it’s hugely valuable to show and explore just how harmonious they are.

It occurs to me that believers and unbelievers³ both participate in the apologetic endeavour.  At their worst, both belief and unbelief ‘need’ a ‘defense’⁴ for why they are justified in being what they are.  Insert any usual topic (evolution, abortion, morality, cosmogenesis, abiogenesis, sexual ethics, religious violence, etc.): the believer defends belief, and the unbeliever defends unbelief.

The believer (often) needs to feel justified in their belief – “Belief in God is reasonable and logical!” (or the psychological translation: “I’m a totally reasonable and logical person for maintaining my faith!”)

The unbeliever (often) needs to feel justified in their unbelief – “Belief in God is silly and superstitious!” (or the psychological translation: “I totally made the right decision in giving up my faith!”)

I’m aware of this need to feel justified, so I try (as best I can) to be genuinely open-minded.

I genuinely think various theistic arguments (like the First Cause argument) work.  And that’s really cool for me, because I’m a Christian!  But I also think it’s important to recognise that (as Rob Bell has said) ‘What you look for, you will find.’

I hope believers can evaluate their beliefs and challenge them.  I think faith is of the good kind when it is open to being challenged.  Believers that recoil from questions and insulate themselves from challenges to their belief have a kind of faith that I can’t help but see as (perhaps ironically) ‘faith in faith’ – and not faith in the God of all Truth.  My experience is that my beliefs get sharper the more I expose them to criticism.  I’ve changed my views about several things – and long may that continue.  I’ve also maintained and deepened a lot of my beliefs as well – and long may that continue.

I also hope unbelievers can be sceptical of even their own scepticism.  If belief is sharpened by criticism, then this should be true for unbelief as well?  However, for me, this should logically lead atheists to become more and more agnostic – or even ‘fall’ from unbelief altogether?  Or at least go from being a Richard Dawkins style atheist to a Michael Ruse type one…

At any rate, I’ll probably always ‘do’ (with varying degrees of passion) the apologetics thing, but I’m feeling less and less like it’s something that I need to do for my own justification, but rather something that I simply enjoy doing and find worthwhile.  That’s all for now

1. as opposed to dishonest questions; the kind that merely serve to insulate people from having to believe
2. And I anticipate the charge that I have “faith in faith”…
3. I’m inclined to believe that we all ‘believe’ something, however – which makes ‘unbeliever’ a questionable term.
4. Gk. ‘apologia’.

I just had a truckload of beauty dumped in my lap as I took part in ‘Mixi Club’ at my church.  Mixi Club provides community and food to the most interesting and wonderful range of people from the community around.

I lunched with *C* (name withheld to respect privacy), who told me (not for the first . . . → Read More: beautiful]]> Is beauty completely subjective?

I just had a truckload of beauty dumped in my lap as I took part in ‘Mixi Club’ at my church.  Mixi Club provides community and food to the most interesting and wonderful range of people from the community around.

I lunched with *C* (name withheld to respect privacy), who told me (not for the first time!) his life story of being abused sexually as a child, getting into ‘drugs rock and roll and women, ya-know?’ and how coming to church has helped ‘everything start makin’ sense – know-wadda-mean?’.  He could write a book, he tells me, about the things he’s seen.  He has 50 pages at home that the world would be richer for reading, if you ask me.

Grace, who has less than half her sight, stooped down very close to me to get a good look at me, so she could put a face to the voice she knew from my preaching.

Ken, whose post-stroke condition made it frustrating for him to match words with what he was trying to say, was passionately concerned (‘…but maybe I’m wrong’ he said) about my casual attire being someone who worked for a church.  We had quite a nice chat and his utmost concern throughout was that I understood him and was not offended.  Peter who had shared his thoughts during my talk and remained mostly quiet during lunch, raced up to me as I was leaving to tell me that my outfit was perfectly fine and looked quite nice.

It is enough to make one cry

The philosophy of naturalism says that mind is not a distinct category of existence (ontology), but is rather some kind of emergent property or state of purely material elements.  It actually proposes not that matter ‘makes’ or ‘gives way to’ mind, but that mind actually is nothing more . . . → Read More: mind over matter]]> The mind/matter issue is centuries old, and is probably here to stay.

The philosophy of naturalism says that mind is not a distinct category of existence (ontology), but is rather some kind of emergent property or state of purely material elements.  It actually proposes not that matter ‘makes’ or ‘gives way to’ mind, but that mind actually is nothing more than matter behaving in a certain way.  It’s the classic naturalistic insistence that – at the end of the day – there is only one kind of substance/stuff, and it’s natural.  All phenomena can be explained in terms of the most indivisible units of matter.

One of the most interesting corollaries of this view is that the view that if everything can be explained in terms of, say, atomic behaviour, then this would include the view of naturalism itself.  Naturalism can be explained by atomic behaviour.  After all, at the end of the day, there’s no ‘evidence’ that ideas or truths or values or logical contradictions are in any sense ‘real’; and it can all be explained in terms of atomic activity.

If true, then all views (whether ‘facts’, ‘opinions’, ‘hunches’ or just plain silliness) and all statements which express them…

• God is a meanie
• I am God
• The universe is all that there is
• You’re a kind person
• I hate orang-utans because they’re so darn smart
• Spiders make better webs than I can
• It’s mean to eat animals – coz they’ve got feelings too, ya know?
• Everything is meaningless
• We make our own meaning – yay for us!
• Naturalism is true
• Naturalism is self-refuting
• We are an evolved species
• Evolution is a jerk
• etc.

…are all meaningless at bottom, and are the result of atomic collisions or some other material phenomena.

The funny thing is that not only is there not one shred of ‘evidence’ that naturalism is true (well certainly not ‘natural’ evidence, anyway!), but the sheer weight of reason, passion for truth, logic and the experience of thinking and relating gives us every reason to take it for nothing other than (at best) a bad joke or (at worst) an evil distortion of the truth.

There are scientific experiments which everyone knows (accessibility: tick) without question (authority: tick) simply should not (prescriptive: tick) be performed1.

EDIT: lest it need to be said, the previous post makes no . . . → Read More: moral truth]]> To demonstrate not only the difference between scientific/descriptive knowledge and metaphysical/prescriptive knowledge, but also the greater degree of both accessibility and authority in the latter, consider the following:

There are scientific experiments which everyone knows (accessibility: tick) without question (authority: tick) simply should not (prescriptive: tick) be performed¹.

EDIT: lest it need to be said, the previous post makes no claim, of course, for human omniscience in any area.

1. and there honestly is no need for me to give examples of such experiments

One thing I found interesting was the particular (and familiar) feeling of deep satisfaction and relief I (and my wife – and anyone with a pulse) when the . . . → Read More: true feeling]]> Just watched The Changeling with my wife (‘endured’ would be the term she’d use!), and really enjoyed it.  There are some real gut-wrenching moments in there, which I won’t elaborate on here.

One thing I found interesting was the particular (and familiar) feeling of deep satisfaction and relief I (and my wife – and anyone with a pulse) when the ‘code 12′ women were freed from the mental hospital, and when the lawyer offered to defend her pro bono. It’s just that familiar, deep-seated, very human feeling we all get when the right thing is done – when a horrible injustice is righted.  The opening scene of Amistad, where the slaves on the slave ship break loose and take over the ship, though violent and bloody, also provoked that same feeling – that kind of fist-pumping ‘yeah!’ feeling. Emotions aren’t infallible, and in terms of epistemology I don’t think any source of knowledge is (reason, logic, etc.); but sometimes they (emotions) can be very, very good conductors of Truth.

And I love how immediate, every-day, down-to-earth, and universal these kinds of emotions are.  No philosophy degrees needed here, no deep pondering or reflection, just deep, gut-level ‘knowing’ that – though we don’t know everything – we know that we know that we know ‘this is right’.

I could give a ‘what we got up to’ report of the work our team did (some still over – some still yet to go) on the new Freeset T-shirts building.  But we didn’t only go as labourers – we went to observe as well.  Kerry took us on . . . → Read More: india: different]]> So I should probably post about my recent trip to India.

I could give a ‘what we got up to’ report of the work our team did (some still over – some still yet to go) on the new Freeset T-shirts building.  But we didn’t only go as labourers – we went to observe as well.  Kerry took us on a couple of ‘walks’ to see the areas around Freeset, and also we saw other bits of Kolkata as well.  I suppose I’m more inclined to reflect on what I observed and the thoughts it brought to mind – many of which will still tick over in my head for some time to come.

Kolkata is dirty (except for the clean bits) and smelly (except for the non-smelly bits).  They’ve got the latest technology (laptops, cellphones, etc.) but also way more poverty/beggars than many places (certainly developed/western places!).

I used to argue that people were happier in the 2/3 world (as opposed to ‘third’ world – 2/3 better reflects the balance of population and land mass).  To some extent, this may well be true.  But this doesn’t mean that many people wouldn’t choose a “1/3 world” lifestyle if they could.  I sometimes assumed they would just want to carry on as they are, but that’s not true.

Take drinking water, for example.  The water most of them drink carries disease.  They would drink clean water if they could (and thankfully, the community around Freeset will soon have access to safe drinking water – though the issue of how to ensure it doesn’t contribute to inequality – the powerful taking all the clean water, etc. – is an ongoing issue).

Or take the controversial (or not, or in different ways, depending on where you’re from, influences, cultural assumptions, etc.) example of prostitution.  The women are nearly universally pressured/forced/bullied/threatened/coerced into the trade by pimps, boyfriends or even husbands or family.  Their bodies are turned (by others) into a commodity to support needs of all kinds (and all levels of legitimacy).  These women would do something else if they could.  Matter of fact, show me any any 12 year old girl anywhere in the world who would choose (apart from manipulation or coercion) to sell her body to strangers.  Apparently, you can spot the new girls to the trade by observing the ones who aren’t smiling.

It is true that we cannot simply cut/paste our cultural sense of what is appropriate or not onto another culture.  But I’m convinced that there are real and true modes of existence for the world that are better or worse than others.  Some things are indeed merely cultural differences.  But other things we just ‘know’ are better or worse than others.  A lot of morality may well be grey, but not all of it.

On one of our walks, we stopped to play a game with some children – like 3-4.  In minutes, the whole street population (it seemed) had gathered to watch – including (I’d barely noticed) an older drunk man.  As we eventually moved on, a young man commenced giving the older man a hearty beating – young, angry fists connecting with elderly, weak skin/bone.  Kerry (who later told us that it would have been due to their seeing the drunk man as an ‘embarrassment’ to the community – esp. with foreigners present – time to make an example of him) quickly broke it up and gently-yet-firmly – with fluent Bangla – rebuked the younger man.

Was Kerry imposing his Western values onto them?  I think not.  I think some things aren’t as complicated as others may be.  I think they understood – and even respected – his actions.

The Hindu caste system was behind this and other inequalities we saw (and seeing the inequalities in India made me more aware of inequalities in so-called ‘egalitarian’ NZ…).  Widows in India lose their entire identity and worth (in the past, a practice called ‘sati’ was common – but is now outlawed apparently – where widows would throw themselves onto the burning graves of their dead husbands).  Again, I don’t oppose this simply because it’s not American or Kiwi, but because I genuinely don’t believe it is right that a widow need be stripped of honour and dignity.  One truly amazing and inspiring woman, Mina, had just lost her husband, and even though she has turned to Christian faith, she is still struggling massively with feelings of un-worth and uselessness.

That’s probably as good a place to stop as any for this rambling, unstructured post.  I may post again on other things, and I apologise (sort of) for the philosophical/ethical bent to this so-called ‘report’ on my trip to India, but it’s just what came out as I typed.  Cheers.

…for a friendly, respectful, engaging and thoroughly enjoyable conversation about life, god, the universe, morality and all the rest.

It has various forms, and is worded differently, but is essentially the same question:

Where did we come from?

Alternate forms include: Why are we (or anything!) here?  How did things come into being?  Why is there . . . → Read More: the most basic question]]> The most basic question one could ask is one which is asked and wondered at both by small children and genius level intellectuals.

It has various forms, and is worded differently, but is essentially the same question:

Where did we come from?

Alternate forms include: Why are we (or anything!) here?  How did things come into being?  Why is there something rather than nothing?

It’s the question of the ultimate origin (or original beginning) of everything.

A few things about the question:

First, it is valid to ask this question and to seek at least some kind of answer.  The level of certainty which one has concerning their answer has nothing to do with whether or not it is a valid question.

Second, we are never done asking the question.  Comparison between the various kinds of answers will never be finished.

Third, it is the most basic question.  It is the question where all other questions lead to.

Now, this most basic question has three kinds of answers (each with presumably infinite variations):

1. Everything* is an illusion.
2. Everything is eternal.
3. Everything was created.

Now, I’ll comment on each option in more detail.

1. Everything is an illusion. This is not a popular view.  Who would want that to be true?  More than this, it immediately raises the question of “If things are illusory, then who/what is having the illusion?”  Descartes famously said “I think therefore I am.”  So things are real.  Option one is neither desirable nor logical.
2. Everything is eternal (uncreated/uncaused). This view encompasses all views in which the idea of an ultimate ‘beginning’ is rejected.  Cosmology (whether big bang theory or multiverse theory) seems to point ‘back’ spacially, temporally and causally to an ultimate beginning.  Also, even the views that are cyclic in nature would seem to be in need of a prior explanation.
3. Everything is created (had a beginning / was caused). This view can be split into two: a) Everything is caused/created by a cause/creator other than itself; or b) Everything is caused/created/originated by itself.  More succinctly: a) Created by creator or b) Self-originating.  If it is arbitrary or ad hoc (which I reject) to postulate a Creator, than it is certainly and utterly arbitrary and ad hoc to postulate that ‘Everything’ just had to exist of necessity (by nature).  This leads me and countless others to conclude that the most rational and reasonable position to take (however tentatively or confidently) is the view that Everything was created/caused by a creator/cause other than itself.  This view encompasses all kinds of beliefs in any/all kinds of creators/causes.  Affirming a 1st cause does not instantly commit someone to any particular kind of set of beliefs – only the simple affirmation of a 1st cause.  Pantheism, Panentheism, Deism, Theism, Spinozian/Einsteinian cosmic ‘god’, Mother Nature, etc. are all encompassed here.

This question, again, is the most basic question and is the starting point of theology.  Theology starts with the assumption (and a rational/reasonable one) that the only valid answer for the existence of things is a Creator who is other than the things created.

Theology must be taken one step/level at a time.  It is utter nonsense to reject the general idea of a Creator because of some specific question at a later logical step/level.

That brings things to a natural breaking point, so I’ll finish there.

Can anyone think of a 4th possible ‘kind’ of answer to the question – or another example of one of the three answers given that I did not mention?  Other responses?

***

*The word ‘Everything’ is being used here in the most basic sense, to refer to all existing ‘things’.  Much argument can be had about this usage.  But not here.