A recurring theme in the skeptic J-blogs is academic arguments for, or against god. Bloggers debate the merits of Nietzsche and Slifkin and raise topics like Gödel's theorem. But you don't need a PhD to discuss the question of god's existence.
There is no entry fee for believing in god. Early man and native peoples have believed in god for thousands of years without any understanding of the complexity of DNA. According to the Jewish tradition Abram applied logic to understand there must be only one god. He didn't go to college. Today, thousands of haredi believe in god and shun higher learning. I don't hear anyone suggesting they can't truly have faith without understanding the esoteric debates taking place here.
Why should belief in god be any different than belief in electricity? You can believe in electricity without understanding electromagnetic physics. A five year old doesn't have to understand the properties of an electron to know he shouldn't stick his finger in an electrical socket. You don't need to be Nikola Tesla to recharge your cell phone. The study of electricity is a deep and complex discipline but its application is easy for the layman to understand and apply. The same is true for the debate about god. There may be fascinating questions raised by the complexity of the genome, and intellectually challenging debate about whether one can know anything, but you don't need a background in applied physics to have or lose faith.
You don't have to be Hawking to accept god, or Dawkins to reject him.
LNM
3 comments:
true. but the people who care enough to get into the nitty-gritty details either 1)have an agenda or 2) are actually seeking the truth of the matter. which is kind of a losing game on all accounts, but you know,... to each their own. and in the end, you've gotta love their passion...and their patience....
Miri, Ha! You are very right that both 1) and 2) are losing games. I don't care for 1) but I respect those working on 2). But as you said, in the end it's kind of a losing game. That's why I don't believe.
I kind of like to see it more as you choose what you believe. Like, this belief has exactly as much to support it as the other belief and neither one of them are even theoretically empirically provable so....I'm just gonna pick the one I like.
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