by Jennifer Michael Hecht
A dear cousin recently wrote me a note on the internet telling me of his interest in my public atheism and saying that he agrees with my poetic atheism, except for the atheism part. He had a smart mystic believer’s argument: How can such little things as us know that there is no great mind out there pulling all the strings – especially given how weird the world is (consciousness, for example, and life itself). I wrote back and I like what I wrote back so I’m posting it for your reading pleasure.
I, by the way, am Jennifer Michael Hecht, who wrote Doubt: A History, and The End of the Soul, and I’ve been invited to write you a few posts. BTW, I call the audience reading me whenever I write blog posts, “bleaders,” for a host of obvious reasons. So, dear bleaders, I’ve cut some family chat, but am otherwise sending you what I wrote back.
My Charming Atheist Response to My Cousin’s Clever Statement of Belief
Dear Cuz,
What you wrote here is subtle and beautiful. I’m really delighted by it.
Here are my questions. I agree that the existence of this strange universe and our consciousness and feelings is freaking wacky and amazing. (That’s just plain true.) I also agree to making the choice to see this amazingness as essentially benevolent and beautiful. (That’s poetically true.)
But you go a step farther. You guess that there is a mind out there in some way, in addition to the world we know.
Now, why should that be? I see your point that we can not prove it to be untrue and we can see examples of pawns who seem to think they are making their own decisions.
What I want to ask you is why isn’t the world as it is sufficient? Can’t “meaning” be real in its own right? Does it really have to be backed up by some kind of mind or being or spirit?
I believe that our feelings of meaning are sufficient to the definition of meaning. Meaning is real, it is proved by its existence.
Can I imagine a vaster and more objective “eye” out there who would have more knowledge about what’s really going on than I do (like an ant in a plastic ant farm in my office doesn’t know about me or the history of plastic)? Yes, I can imagine it. But why should I imagine it? What’s wrong with what we seem to actually have?
And if there is some mind out there, why doesn’t it contact us in some clear way? Seriously — dogs can’t talk but they make eye contact they bark they let you know they exist and want your attention. Ants don’t seem to have the kind of mind that allows them to recognize us as fellow beings and possible friends. If they did, they’d wave, dance, follow our line of sight until we noticed we had a little friend.
I think if we had a friend out there, we’d know it. What we do know is that we have friends here. Isn’t that marvelous and isn’t that just as good?
“It means something because it means something” is a statement that is weird but has poetic truth.
“It means something because I think it’s possible there’s a larger mind out there and He knows what it all means, and since I think this is possible I go all the way and choose to believe it is the actual case” is a statement that goes off into untruth. we have no indication of this secondary level of meaning. but why do we even want it?
If we want to be what we truly are, it seems to me we have to believe only things we have clear indications of. If that means we have to bear the burden of meaning ourselves, well that is a great and noble adventure and I think we are up to it.
I find reducing the complexity and beauty of Nature to a few typically human patterns, such as “mind” or “spirit” or “consciousness”, to be extremely arrogant an lacking of imagination.
Whenever we inquire into Nature, we discover things that are so alien to us that require great effort of comprehension by our limited brains, just think at the space-time distortion introduced by General Relativity or the causality-threatening features of Quantum Mechanics.
Look at the mountains, at the depth of the sea or at the marvels of biology.
Peer into the Universe, the distant galaxies and alien worlds.
Why isn’t that enough for you?
So, what are you saying? Spell it out for me clearly please. ^_^
Meh…. I guess I got carried away. ^^
“Gods”, “Spirits”, “Conscience” are just ways to impose human features to a Nature that is largely inhuman, to tame the idea of Nature and make it more friendly, more within our zone of comfort, less scary, more understandable in everyday terms.
This view lacks imagination and is very arrogant, because it does not allow Nature to be fundamentally different form a human being.
Through science we discovered a shitload of awesome stuff, yet many superstitious people are not satisfied and think that our reality would be barren and humbled without some invisible superior something.
Read this.
http://www.abstractobjects.net/ip/AbsurdiLifeGod.pdf
That is a very well written and well thought out paper. Though I totally disagree.
Just because you don’t like an answer, such as “you were an accident”, doesn’t make it untrue.
So what if there is no TRUE good and evil, as evaluated by some
all knowing being. Good and evil are simply nice byproducts of our evolution (I apologize for simplifying that so much). We decide what we view as good and evil as a society/culture. It is visible throughout our history that these things have changed overtime.
In summary, the claim that a person’s life without god is absurd… is absurd.
Ahhh. Okay. Wasn’t sure which side you were coming from at first.
I agree with that. Some member’s of my family enjoy the belief that the Universe will respond to their positive thinking (not sure why, it’s probably a Secret). I do not.
Yep… You didn’t know which side I was because I like to turn the tables… ^^
That is a very passionate and logical argument. I hope it makes the cousin think and question a bit.
Sadly I think it will be lost on most Christians.
That, in my opinion, is the fundamental question. Sure, any number of things could be, but why should we think they are? What at the lowest levels ultimately motivates people to believe they are? There’s certainly nothing in evidence in the real world to suggest there’s a God. God is simply an attempt–a guess–to account for the real world. What causes people to guess, “Ah, God!”? As best I can tell, it’s just that God is the stab at an explanation that’s been suggested to them by others. If somebody eons ago hadn’t thought up the concept of deity, it probably wouldn’t even occur to anybody today.
Why would you or anyone have to disprove every piece of made up baloney anybody comes up with that he shoves in your face only because it seems cool to him?
Another nitwit will demand proof the world wasn’t made by Slartibartfast for the White Mice.
Nyah, nyah! Prove I’m wrong!
Wow, a guest post from Jennifer Michael Hecht. I am impressed. I am filled with Doubt, but still impressed.
I was visited in a dream by Bengy Mouse, who assures me that Slartibartfast did indeed create the world for the Mice. He also said something about Vogons and bypasses and 5th march 2010, but it all got a bit confused at that point.
“Yes, I can imagine it. But why should I imagine it?”
“Stand back! I’ve got Occam’s razor and I know how to use it!“
This. A million times.
I keep saying this, but people don’t seem to get it – there’s no need for a god to exist, and if s/he/it does, there is no need for it to be understandable, acknowledgeable, interested in us, or a single one. I find multiple gods more likely than a single god.
If this universe was designed, it was clearly designed by committee.
I dunno. If it was designed by committee it wouldn’t be so pretty.
Pretty but breakable *nods*
Yeah, pretty and breakable and violent and… (sigh)
And things would probably not work as well or all of the time:
Homer wakes up in the morning. Everything is floating in the air.
“Uh oh. Looks like gravity is out again.”
My Favorite part, “Ants don’t seem to have the kind of mind that allows them to recognize us as fellow beings and possible friends. If they did, they’d wave, dance, follow our line of sight until we noticed we had a little friend.”
Must be my Disney Conditioning kicking in, but I like that image.
If there is a “great mind out there pulling the strings” and it is doing so in such a way as to be undetectable then why does it even matter if we believe in it or not? If it does exist then the strings it is pulling are explainable as the laws of nature whether we place a greater mind to it or not. Science is doing its job here.
If it doesn’t exist we are wasting our time.
I meant the image of an animated ant wanting to be noticed and be our friend.
I confess, I loved that image too.
Bambification of nature FTW.
Maybe they do wave, dance, and follow our line of site. But maybe we’re just not able to accept that an ant could communicate with us, so we don’t see it. Just like god doesn’t see it when we try to communicate with him/her/it/them. Or at least, he/she/it/them wouldn’t see it if he (etc) actually existed.
Doubt: A History – is one of my favorite books! Welcome Jennifer Michael Hecht, it is an honor and a pleasure to have you as a guest blogger here!
I enjoyed it as well, although the section on Carvaka was not that great. On the other hand, when’s the last time you even read a book that had a section on the Carvaka?
He will no doubt shake his head and say a prayer for you. You poor misguided soul – surely the devil has his hand in this. Once you FEEL Jesus IN you – to the absolute CORE of your entire being and existence there is no logical reasoning you can pretend to spout. Pointless….worthless…the mere fact that you try betrays you as a fool!!!! You and your smart little mind. I’ve FELT God himself within my eternal being, body, soul and mind – there is absolutely nothing you can say or demonstrate to sway my thinking. Sorry – but you lose.
At first I thought this was surely satire, but the ending cast some doubt on that hypothesis and moved this post firmly into the realm of poe. I’d say it’s nearly a toss-up, though I’m still leaning toward satire. Either way, it’s good for a chuckle.
Good guest post. Doubt: A History just moved a little higher on my to read list. I know I used to have similar sentiments, but at this point I find the urgent desire some people have for a vague “higher power” to be perplexing. I think (or at least hope) that messages like this guest post will help people understand that those emotions can be better spent appreciating the plentiful beauty and mystery of the cosmos we live in.
made up… just repeating what my very own family members say to me. I used to post on here…haven’t had time to read up on this site in awhile though. The gist of it…emotion wins over logic and reason any day. It’s kinda like watching the most beautiful sunset you’ve ever seen in your entire life and unexpectedly you start to cry. Why do you cry? The beauty? Or is there something more? Emotion can be amazingly powerful. Once you get the feeling…well you know the rest.
I have a friend — love her to pieces. She’s a believer, although she is seeking a softer, gentler Christianity, one more accepting and less judgemental. She believes God is perfect, the Bible is divinely inspired, and mankind is responsible for screwing up religion. Sigh. I highly doubt anything I ever say or do will help her take the path of higher understanding and free thinking aka atheism. I’ve even pointed her to this blog, but I doubt she’ll ever click on the link. It’s saddens me that she’d rather believe what she’s always been taught than think for herself, and she’s gifted the poison of Jesus to her children in the process. Granted, her religious values may be more generous than most, but we all know how easy it is for fundamentalism to gain a toehold once the seed of Christianity has been planted. It’s my sincere hope that her two children will see through the smokescreen of Christianity and use the brains they were born with in the way they were meant to be used — logically!
Right on, Tabbie! The seeds of this silliness are sown with each child who is indoctrinated.
Love. It.
Yuks!
What does it matter if there is or is not? Our mind, however large one wants to imagine it, or how small it actually is, is the sole responsible for our actions.
As far as the existence of “God” that really depends upon which one you are speaking about. The one in the Judeo-Christian Scripture is the only one I know of that makes knowledge of “it’s” existence contingent upon a definition, the definition of sentience itself–which is exactly what the human mind is suppose to be responsible for.
Therefore, by text and fact (in reference to this one source), one can neither prove nor disprove that author, it is, by text and fact, up to the participants in a conversation.
However, Lucid Dreaming is back, and there is someone here, now who can demonstrate a something about that text as promised in that text.