MovieChat Forums > Mr. Deity (2006) Discussion > Is rationality really the answer? Part o...

Is rationality really the answer? Part one

posted 12 years ago by Wagmore_Barkless
5 replies | jump to latest

Michael Shermer, if you or one of your family or friends happens to check back here some day, I have an exchange to share with you. It's just one example among many you can find on these boards between those who have no strong emotional stake in a belief and those who do. How would you have argued with the poster "visionari" in the following example? Would you have succeeded where I failed? With all due admiration for your superior rhetorical skills, I doubt it. Rationality doesn't seem work when someone is intent on cleaving to beliefs that fulfill a deep emotional need.

The exchange started with me wondering why anyone would pray for the life of 93-year old Hutton Gibson, father of Mel. I said: You mean, like, plead with God to change his mind about "taking" a 93-year old? I never understood the logic behind that.

Visionari (http://www.imdb.com/user/ur9386989/boards/profile/), responding to my post: When a relative of mine died, I did a lot of praying. None of that praying was "please don't let her die," because at that point, death was inevitable.

I prayed that she would pass in her sleep. I prayed for an end to her suffering. I prayed for her soul to be at rest.

What about any of that is hard to understand?

Me: It kind of implies that God is involved in the decision of who suffers and who doesn't, no?

Visionari: Not in the view of those who view God as a Cosmic Parent instead of a micro-manager or a wish-generating machine.

Me: Then why pray to It to end the suffering of a single individual if It's not involved at that level, so to speak?

Visionari: Continuing with the God as Parent theme...

Apparently, you have a different relationship with your parents than I do. Mine will help me out when I ask but in general, they expect me to handle my own business.

Me: Nope, same relationship. Decades ago I won a full 2-year scholarship to grad school and worked part-time to cover expenses. Nowadays, sad to say, the tables have turned since childhood and I help my parents, both financially and in other ways.

But that's neither here nor there.

The question is whether you think God is responsible for individual human suffering. If It isn't, why pray to It? If It is, that only begs the perennial question: why does It allow so many innocents to suffer?

Visionari: I already answered your question; you're just ignoring it because it isn't what you want to hear.

And what is the point, anyway? I can't make you believe, you can't make me stop. So this is accomplishing... what, exactly?

Me: It's creating an opportunity to reflect and to understand people with different views of how the world works.

I genuinely don't understand what you're doing/thinking when you pray for someone who is suffering. Are you asking God to spare that person from suffering simply because you're praying for him or her? What about the individual who is dying slowly of thirst somewhere in drought-stricken Ethiopia and no one is left to pray for him or her because they've all died?

In other words, are you asking God to play favorites? Take intermittent interest in the suffering of individuals? What, exactly?

Visionari: It's not really complicated.

Long and long ago, man decided he wanted to go his own way and God essentially said, "Fine; I'll let you get on with that... and everything that it entails." As the saying goes: be careful what you wish for.

But God remains available... and not just to those who belong to Religion X; I've read numerous stories by (and actually know a couple of) people who became religious because they turned to God out of desperation - even though they didn't really believe anything would happen - and received help.

As to why God allows suffering... I have never understood this question. I have done research into all the major religions (and a few of the minor ones) and have yet to come across one that guarantees that its adherents will never suffer, so I'm not sure how you lot came up with that. It's as if people believe that God is some Galactic Sugardaddy who will ensure that His believers will never have a bad day or want for anything, which is a view that is not supported by the tenets of any religion I've read up on.

Me:

It's not really complicated.

Of course it is. That's why Job is one of the most moving and influential pieces of biblical literature, with predecessors in the folklore of the ancient Near East and Egypt.

The eternal mystery: if God is so all-powerful and just, why does he allow the innocent to suffer and the guilty to die blissfully in their sleep? Why must justice await the afterlife?

Long and long ago, man decided he wanted to go his own way and God essentially said, "Fine; I'll let you get on with that... and everything that it entails." As the saying goes: be careful what you wish for.

Sounds petty, and a mere fable. What makes you believe it besides a sheer wish to do so?

If raindances fail more often than they work, why would you assume the greater efficacy of prayer?

But God remains available... and not just to those who belong to Religion X; I've read numerous stories by (and actually know a couple of) people who became religious because they turned to God out of desperation - even though they didn't really believe anything would happen - and received help.

But of course many, many more devout believers don't get help. What do you do with disconfirming evidence? Toss it aside?

As to why God allows suffering... I have never understood this question. I have done research into all the major religions (and a few of the minor ones) and have yet to come across one that guarantees that its adherents will never suffer, so I'm not sure how you lot came up with that.

My lot didn't come up with it. (And on the contrary, it seems that some of the most devout believers actually believe in the efficacy of prayer for something as trivial as a football game).

It's built into the paradox of divine omnipotence and omniscience and has thus been a thorn in the sides of monotheists for millennia. To have the power and the knowledge to spare the innocent of suffering and yet to let it happen: what do we call that if not evil, whether malevolent or merely of the banal, bystanderist variety? Yet how can God be evil? Some Gnostics decided to answer that question by positing a distinction between two gods, one good, one evil.

Buddhism and Taoism do show a path to transcending suffering - but those religions are not riddled with the kinds of contradictions that plague monotheism because they're not predicated on the belief in a Creator God who is locked in a direct - and intermittently interventionist - relationship with humankind.

It's as if people believe that God is some Galactic Sugardaddy who will ensure that His believers will never have a bad day or want for anything, which is a view that is not supported by the tenets of any religion I've read up on.

Argument by trivialization, and a surprisingly uncompassionate stance for a believer to take.

If I were a god, why would I allow babies to suffer, innocent people to suffer, if I could help them? Why would I choose to help some who prayed to me and spurn others who prayed just as hard if not harder?

And that story of the sins of the father visiting untold generations (aka The Fall)? It doesn't mesh with more humane parts of the Bible or with humane values today. We don't believe that children are culpable for the sins of our parents and neither did Jeremiah. Why then is humankind culpable for the sins of its "Ur-parents?" (Leaving aside the fact that our Ur-parents were actually australopithecines, etc, not Adam and Eve.)

Your portrait of God strikes me as disturbingly narcissistic, viz, God spares those who have the humility to acknowledge His (male?) majesty - well, some of the time. I fail to see why you find that story satisfying. It doesn't strike me as deeply moral and/or just in the least. When I was a child and in pain, I didn't need to acknowledge my parents sovereignty or superiority before gaining their help. They offered it freely, out of empathy.

Is God empathy-impaired?

[–] Wagmore_Barkless 12 years ago

Visionari:

Of course it is. That's why Job is one of the most moving and influential pieces of biblical literature, with predecessors in the folklore of the ancient Near East and Egypt.

Actually, the tale of Job isn't complicated at all. The entire story (which I agree is incredibly moving) can be summed up in a single sentence: A man keeps his faith in the face of unimaginable suffering and is rewarded in the end.

What makes you believe it besides a sheer wish to do so?

That's kind of the definition of "faith", you know. Once there's empirical evidence, it becomes "knowledge".

But of course many, many more devout believers don't get help. What do you do with disconfirming evidence? Toss it aside?

I don't know that there's evidence. I personally have sometimes not gotten the exact help I was looking for, but I've always gotten help. I've watched as people who have relatively few problems crawled into a bottle or sought solace at the end of a needle, or have just become bitter and filled with rage. Meanwhile, I've had people ask me how I managed to deal with all the crap I've had to cope with in my lifetime and I tell them that as a result of my faith I have become stronger and wiser and have learned to appreciate my blessings and be happy in spite of my trials.

My lot didn't come up with it. (And on the contrary, it seems that some of the most devout believers actually believe in the efficacy of prayer for something as trivial as a football game.)

They are in error and religious people laugh at that just like you do.

Argument by trivialization, and a surprisingly uncompassionate stance for a believer to take.

I'm not trivializing anything; this is honestly how I interpret this. Like I said, I have never researched a religion that promises that its adherents will never suffer. Suffering is inherent in the human condition (actually, it's inherent in the condition of all sentient things). Faith does not protect you from suffering, it gives you the resources to endure it.

Your portrait of God strikes me as disturbingly narcissistic, viz, God spares those who have the humility to acknowledge His (male?) majesty - well, some of the time.

I have no idea where you came up with this. How is it that asking your parents for help is simply asking your parents for help, but asking God for help is having "the humility to acknowledge His (male?) majesty"?

And I think we're done here. You claim you're attempting to understand but all you're really looking to do is debate... and as I've already pointed out, debate is pointless because neither of us is going to change the other's mind.

Your belief is that there is nothing above yourself; you're entitled to it. My belief is that there is a God; I'm entitled to that
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Me:

Your belief is that there is nothing above yourself; you're entitled to it.

You've misrepresented me. I don't believe there is nothing above myself. I believe in transcendent purpose, in responsibility toward the common good of all humankind. (As opposed to the salvation of a few select individuals who got lucky because someone decided to pray for them and God was in a good mood that day.

My belief is that there is a God; I'm entitled to that

I believe in tolerance, but even tolerance can be problematic. Belief in God can be accompanied by morally unpalatable actions and schemas that have disturbing repercussions for the rest of society.

Actually, the tale of Job isn't complicated at all.

Frankly, you don't know what you're talking about. Job's appeal lies in its mystery and paradox, its dual capacity to comfort and disturb. It explores the question of whether suffering can be rationally comprehended as part of a moral universe.

A man keeps his faith in the face of unimaginable suffering and is rewarded in the end.

One man, whose story is belied by the counterexamples of millions of others. Below the surface, if you cared to look, you'd find hidden undercurrents and contradictions, questions without answers, existential questions about faith in the face of injustice. For example, how far does God answer Job's questions? Why, exactly, does Job repent? No wonder there's a multiplicity of differing interpretations of Job in Jewish and Christian tradition. Not simple at all. Very little in the Bible is simple, given its allegorical nature.

_
That's kind of the definition of "faith", you know

In other words, you choose to believe in a God whose actions give the appearance of arbitrariness, even pettiness?

I don't know that there's evidence

_

Of course there is. Think of all the believers who prayed for the lives of millions upon millions of innocents, yet few were spared. Have you already forgotten the colossal scale of human suffering in WWII, to take one example among many?

but I've always gotten help.

Conveniently vague. It overlooks placebo effect, false attribution effect, confirmation bias, and a host of irrationalities we humans are prey to.

Meanwhile, I've had people ask me how I managed to deal with all the crap I've had to cope with in my lifetime and I tell them that as a result of my faith I have become stronger and wiser and have learned to appreciate my blessings and be happy in spite of my trials.

Faith certainly is powerful. So is the placebo effect. Of course, some people manage to overcome their personal trials without either faith or drugs. I know I have.

They are in error and religious people laugh at that just like you do.

How do you know? What makes your faith or religious knowledge superior to theirs? It seems the only difference is that you don't believe that God picks favorites in football games. But in the "game of life," it would seem that It does pick favorites.

I have never researched a religion that promises that its adherents will never suffer. Suffering is inherent in the human condition

But can be transcended through one's own efforts, according to Buddhism and Taoism. Look it up.

Faith does not protect you from suffering, it gives you the resources to endure it.

It certainly helps, but that doesn't make it any more true. It only attests to the powers of the human mind.

_
How is it that asking your parents for help is simply asking your parents for help, but asking God for help is having "the humility to acknowledge His (male?) majesty"?

Because when you pray, you are in effect dialing It up to get special attention for a loved one, for fear that without acknowledgement of Its (His) majesty, It/He (you said it yourself) will respond, "You're on your own, kiddo."

By contrast, when a child suffers, s/he doesn't have to ask for help. Parental love and succor are unconditional. That elevates parental love to a higher plane of morality than divine love as you conceive of it, IMO.

And I think we're done here.

Don't forget that, initially, it was you who replied to me, not vice versa. "We" are not done, you are done.

I'm not afraid to be disturbed by rational thought, nor am I afraid to acknowledge the amazing "powers" of faith.

You claim you're attempting to understand but all you're really looking to do is debate

What's the difference between a debate and a dialogue here? Through this dialogue, I've learned some interesting things.

For example, you think the story of Job is "simple."

You think praying to God for help with a football game is silly, perhaps immoral, yet you fail to see the immorality of a God who gives preferential, yet highly unreliable, attention to those who pray for his help, when, by definition, It is capable of alleviating suffering without being appealed to by human agents.

And you have learned that I do believe in transcendent purpose.

So I'd say that, while dialogue may not have moved us closer together, it has afforded us a better understanding of where our differences lie

[–] Wagmore_Barkless 12 years ago

Visionari:

_
I'm not afraid to be disturbed by rational thought, nor am I afraid to acknowledge the amazing "powers" of faith.

Extra points for the condescension but backhanded insults aren't really going to go very far in convincing me to continue the debate.
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Me: I'm not trying to convince you to continue. The choice is yours. If you're interested in a rational discussion you'll continue (after all, you initiated the dialogue to begin with), and if you're grasping for any excuse to back out, you'll find that as well. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect you were looking for the latter several posts ago.

Visionari: not looking for understanding, you are looking for an argument. If understanding was what you were actually looking for, you would ask questions and if you didn't understand the answers you would ask further questions. If an argument is what you want, you will ask questions, and then immediately refute whatever answers you're given... which is exactly what you are doing.

And I am supposedly the one who is insecure in my position, but I am not the one resorting to insults and condescension. Why is that?

As for your contention that I started this... you asked a question. I answered it. Spinning it off into a general debate about religion was your decision.

Me:

My faith is strong and I am secure in it.

Is faith more important than justice? Is faith more important than empathy?

you are not looking for understanding, you are looking for an argument

How do you distinguish between the two? I have refined the problems, while you seem to zoom away from them. That's neither debate nor dialogue. It's avoidance.

If understanding was what you were actually looking for, you would ask questions

Read this thread again. I believe it will reveal that I've asked more questions than you have.

If an argument is what you want, you will ask questions, and then immediately refute whatever answers you're given... which is exactly what you are doing.

I think you misunderstand the meaning of dialogue. In dialogue there is a commitment to questioning and open-ended discussion, not a commitment to withhold disagreement. What makes it dialogue is the belief that it is possible to learn from the Other. Whereas you took the trouble of answering a question I posed to the board and then seemed to reject the possibility that a dialogue on this was possible.

And I am supposedly the one who is insecure, but I am not the one resorting to insults and condescension. Why is that?

_

The insecurity I spoke of is the fear of submitting one's views to rational discussion. Which one of us is afraid of that - and why? As for insults and condescension, I believe your bootstrap ideologizing and self-congratulation was not exactly free of either.

Do you have anything else to say about the problem of God's selectivity when it comes to alleviating the suffering of innocents?

Edited to take account of your edit:

As for your contention that I started this... you asked a question. I answered it.

Not really. You simply offered what you felt was an example of the efficacy of prayer and then proceeded to contradict yourself left and right:

God is not a micromanager

vs

God listens to prayers and intervenes on behalf of individuals.

[–] Wagmore_Barkless 12 years ago

Visionari: Suggesting that I'm a coward hasn't inspired me to give anyone what they want since... oh, fifth grade or so.

I think you misunderstand the meaning of dialogue

_
Please don't be disingenuous.

dialogue
[dahy-uh-lawg, -log]; Example Sentences Origin
di•a•logue
;[dahy-uh-lawg, -log] Show IPA noun, verb -logued, -logu•ing.
noun
1. conversation between two or more persons.
2. the conversation between characters in a novel, drama, etc.
3. an exchange of ideas or opinions on a particular issue, especially a political or religious issue, with a view to reaching an amicable agreement or settlement.
4. a literary work in the form of a conversation: a dialogue of Plato.

You have an agenda, and it's a transparent one. The fact that you have been able to goad others into being defensive and giving you the battle you're looking for in the past has no bearing on the current situation. I am not that person.

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Me:

3. an exchange of ideas or opinions on a particular issue, especially a political or religious issue, with a view to reaching an amicable agreement or settlement.

That's a shoddy definition. It better describes a discussion, which is relatively focused on resolution, than a dialogue, which is an open-ended and unpredictable inquiry.

Indeed, the best definitions of dialogue come from those who have written whole books on the subject, such as David Bohm, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levitas.

Bohm, for example, sees dialogue as a multi-faceted process, looking well beyond typical notions of conversational parlance and "amicable" exchange. It is a process which explores an unusually wide range of human experience: our closely-held values; the nature and intensity of emotions; the patterns of our thought processes; the function of memory; the import of inherited cultural myths; and the manner in which our neurophysiology structures moment-to-moment experience.

It's not a matter of "You raised a question; I answered it" (amicably or otherwise.)

What I'm attempting to do, apparently without much help on your part, is to take advantage of a common interest to do what? To win? No, to inquire more deeply into the meaning of our differing opinions. That's why I brought up Job and all the rest.

Visionari: Actually, no. A discussion is closer to what you're doing:

dis•cus•sion
[dih-skuhsh-uhn] Show IPA
noun
an act or instance of discussing; consideration or examination by argument, comment, etc., especially to explore solutions; informal debate.

Me: I'm not exploring solutions, since there plainly are no "solutions" to theological questions.

I'm doing what Bohm challenges us to do. Since you don't seem to have any interest in continuing, I'll leave the question you left unanswered open for others to consider:

"The question is whether you think God is responsible for individual human suffering. If It isn't, why pray to It? If It is, that only begs the perennial question: why does It allow so many innocents to suffer?"

By "responsible" I mean capable of alleviating human suffering, not necessarily responsible for causing it.

Which also raises another question: what about animal suffering?

Visionari: I did answer your question. Granted, it wasn't in a single comment, but you'll find the answer to the first part on the first page and the answer to the second on page 2.

You didn't see it because it isn't the answer you appear to be looking for. Unfortunately, it's the only answer I've got to offer.

Maybe someone else will give you what you want.

Me:

Unfortunately, it's the only answer I've got to offer.

The question is, "unfortunately" for whom?

Who is it who is being shortchanged here?

And how is faith more moral and worthwhile if it promotes short answers rather than protracted questions about the nature of suffering and injustice in the world?

Visionari: But you're not asking about "the nature of suffering and injustice in the world". You're demanding that I justify the existence of what others like you refer to as my "Giant Sky Fairy" which you think is disproved by the existence of "suffering and injustice in the world".

Those are two very different conversations.

Me:
I laid the foundation for that when I asked about the logic behind prayer.

How can we effectively alleviate suffering and injustice? Does prayer do much good?

You insisted that it saves individuals. At the same time, you declared that God is not a micromanager.

Which is it?

And how do we make the world a more moral and just place when we implore God's selective mercy (typically on behalf of ourselves, our loved ones, and those with whom we identify? - a form of tribalism).

Visionari: Our definitions of "micromanager" are apparently as far apart as our definitions of "dialogue".

I work for a wonderful man who is the polar opposite of a micromanager. According to you, that apparently means I can never approach him for assistance.

That is not the case.

Me: But your boss is not God.

Think globally and in terms of universal morality. Think past your experience of ringing It/Him up now and then for assistance.

How do you decide who merits your prayerful attention?

Why should God need to be approached to alleviate the suffering of one person if he is capable of doing so without a "heads up"? Doesn't that selective attention to some (by God and the person praying) smack of injustice to you? Why are equally worthy others passed over? (How does one even determine who is "equally worthy?")

And doesn't the whole exercise imply that those who did suffer weren't prayed over hard enough or weren't favored by God?

Is that a morally satisfying way of thinking about the efficacy of prayer?

Visionari: So according to you, "micromanage" has different definitions depending on whether we're talking about God or a person?

Alrighty, then.

And again... I'm not continuing this argument.

THE END

[–] dont_b_so_BBC 12 years ago

"Is rationality really the answer?"

That is a strawman argument/bait-and-switch.

Rationality, just like skepticism and the scientific method is not an answer or the answer to anything-- they are METHODS to finding an answer, aka MEANINGFUL/LOGICAL WAYS of asking questions... so the first thing to do with someone asking such a question, is to get them interested in thinking and learning to ask the RIGHT KINDS of questions.

And if anyone baits with the argument/question "Is rationality/science/etc. really the answer?"-- tell them you are teaching them how to fish (for whatever they want), not giving them the fish (which you had to find for yourself).

If you care enough to go around telling people you don't care... you obviously care.

[–] jackbandit4 8 years ago

Mad old, but I did take the time to read some of this so I just want to add in my quick 2 cents. I dunno how this fits into your argument against religion, which I agree with, but a quick thought I had.

He says "I didn't pray for them to live because at that point death was inevitable." But death is inevitable from the moment you are conceived. Why not just pray for an end to suffering? (which surely wouldn't work).

Nest. Use it, live it, love it.