20 - Rational Religion

Throughout the postings of this blog, I have taken a position that Religion is here to stay, both in its structured and its individualist form. This is not because people are running around eager to find new gods or because they want to start a new religion in order to live off the dues payments of its members. It’s because Religion is a fundamental element of the human species as it has evolved. (This was touched on Post 9.) Science would not have emerged had not Religion started the process by asking fundamental questions of what and why and how. And, although the various fields of human inquiry have long since split off and specialized, and Religion has ceded the understanding of the material Kosmos to Science, Religion remains the best method we have of searching for the fundamental truths that affect our lives.

Back in Post 9, I referred to this search and suggested a set of “primary concerns.” A list of those concerns appears below. This is by no means the only formulation of such concerns, but it is probably reasonably representative.

1. Are there some universal standards of good and evil?
2. What is my motivation to do good and not evil?
3. Is there anything I can do to prevent bad things from happening to me?
4. Is there some purpose for my existence, some meaning to my life?
5. How much control and individual choice do I have in the way I lead my life?
6. What will make me and my family happy?
7. What, if any, form of existence will I have after I die? Is there anything beyond life? Does anything I do now affect me after I die?
8. What, if anything, do I owe to anyone or anything outside of me and my family?

While I believe that Religion is the proper tool for addressing these concerns, I think it must evolve and become more rational before it can be effective in doing so.

Sadly, we appear to live in an era when rationality is not particularly popular (most particularly not in the world of politics). Yet a rational approach to understanding our purpose and our place in the Kosmos is necessary if the human species is to learn to tame chaos and evil, use the information and tools that Science produces, and fulfill its purpose. To my mind, this means we need a rational religion.

A rational approach to religion starts with understanding the difference between faith and belief. With very rare exceptions, every religion offers in its sacred writings a core of ideas and values, as well as a lot of speculation about the makeup of our Universe and how it got that way. The speculation serves as place-holders in our understanding of reality, until we learn more, usually through Science. My religion (Judaism) has faith, for example, that there is a rational intelligence behind, in, or that is itself the Universe, that we were created (through evolutionary processes) for a purpose, and that it is our job to learn (through Science and Religion) that purpose. My religion once believed that our world was flat, and that the Universe rotated around it, and that we were created by fiat. My religion once believed that women were not equal to men and belonged with the kids and in the kitchen. While the faith remains firm, the beliefs have changed as human knowledge has matured.

A rational religion, regardless of its other beliefs, takes on faith that its god is rational. To quote Richard Dawkins, a brilliant atheist who has not come to terms with the reality and nature of rational religion:

Even if you believe a creator god invented the laws of physics, would you so insult him as to suggest that he might capriciously and arbitrarily violate them in order to walk on water, or turn water into wine as a cheap party trick at a wedding? 

Rational Religion can assume two things about its scriptures. One is that they were written by humans, not god, which makes them much more important. The other is that they were written to teach, to share speculation and to amuse, not to provide power to some at the expense of others. Humans, endowed by evolution with spiritual genes, have produced what is truly, in every religion that created a “Bible,” a milestone of evolution.

Scriptures largely include a bundle of wisdom collected over centuries: values, analysis of the human character, and what we understand today to be myth and legend. Rational Religion does not try to sell myths and legends as truth, but as stories to learn from. Rational Religion understands that there are usually lessons far deeper than our forefathers understood buried in the myths. Was there a God who actually spoke to Abraham or Moses? Who cares? That is a matter of belief. Rational Religion can have faith that the authors of the scriptures discovered important truths from the experiences and dialogues they had, whether those experiences were imagined, real, or fictionalized.

Why have many institutionalized religions been losing adherents? Obviously, there have been many changes in society since the Enlightenment. The problems facing many churches, mosques and synagogues have much to do with the failures of their theology to keep up with Science, and their failure to commit to rational Religion.

The largest issues have to do with religious education. When we fail to teach our children the differences between myth/legend and truth, they feel cheated and deceived, and will quickly abandon Religion as early as they can. From the beginning, they must be taught faith rather than obsolete beliefs. When we teach them about the nature of a god and its place in nature, we must make it clear that these are our beliefs, and that these beliefs have changed over time as Science and experience have solidified our faith and altered our beliefs. There is no longer room for kindergarten theology, even in kindergarten. It makes no sense to promise children an all-powerful and “good” god when it's inevitable that history books and news will teach them differently. In other words, don't wait for disillusioned adulthood, but from the very beginning, teach children rational theology within rational religion and encourage them to think for themselves.

Prayer, too, should be updated to reflect what is rational. We must insist that people understand that prayer doesn’t exist to make a god happy, or to lead it, or to bargain with it, but is a means for us to listen to, affirm and re-affirm the orderliness of our universe and to be thankful for it.

Rational Religion is where I wanted to arrive with this blog. Now that I've gotten there, I am finished with the blog and starting on a book that will treat the various subjects that the blog introduced, but in more detail. I hope that I live long enough to complete it, and that I can get it published and that you will buy it, read it, and enjoy it.

Meanwhile, I will keep the blog open in case any of my readers want to offer additional comments or suggestions, or in case I come up with some other cockamamie thing I want to say while the book is being completed. The book will benefit tremendously from the input of those who reacted with this blog, for which I thank many of you. I must particularly thank Bill McCormack, who has most faithfully interacted with this blog and provided me with lots to think about that I hadn’t been thinking about. May every blogger have a Bill McCormack.

19B - Kosmos Theology (continued) - The Search for Reality

In this post: What is the nature of the Universe? What does the Universe require of us? What are some current theories? What needs to change for these theories to be adequately  evaluated?

In the first part of this post (19A) we mentioned that reality is a very important aspect of Kosmos Theology. Not easy to define,  and harder to identify, nonetheless most people think they know it when they encounter it in daily life (see cartoon above).

Within the context of this discussion, reality is defined as the answer to the questions: what is the nature of the Universe and what does it require of us? As a species, we do not have definitive answers to these questions. That doesn’t stop cosmologists, particularly theoretical physicists and philosophers, from putting forth theories. Let’s look at some examples of hypotheses concerning the reality of our Universe, keeping in mind that while these are probably the most prominent hypotheses, they are not the only ones:

The Universe as a simulation hypothesis – (the most recent theory being taken seriously)

In 2003 a philosopher named Nick Bostrom of Oxford University published a paper hypothesizing that our universe is likely to be a computer simulation. (Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?, Nick Bostrom, Philosophical Quarterly (2003) Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255.) To understand how widely this theory has attracted the attention of the scientific world, often in positive ways, simply google the phrase “simulation hypothesis” or the phrase “universe as simulation.”

The Universe as a creation of God hypothesis – (the most widely believed thesis)

The three Abrahamic religions, and many others as well, are based on the concept of a transcendent god that created the Universe and everything in it. Like each of the other theories this one includes multiple variations, such as the fundamentalist (scripture-based), the deist and those who believe in yotzer.

The accidental Universe hypothesis – (no intelligence involved in the creation of the Universe)

This is the atheist hypothesis. It holds that the Universe is either infinite (always existed) or totally accidental (the Big Bang just happening from nothing). There is no god, living or dead, that created our Universe.

The multiverse hypothesis – (a response to the anthropic principle)

By the beginning of the 20th century, this theory was widely discussed, mainly in science fiction. It faded to the background, then reappeared with greater vigour in the early 2000s. The extreme version of this theory holds that there are an infinite number of Universes, some or all identical to one another.

At most one of the above hypotheses could be correct. All of them have vehement advocates as well as vehement detractors. None of them can be tested using the classical scientific method, which is to design and perform an experiment, then analyze the results. How then, have scientists and philosophers been going about the business of evaluating hypotheses about the fundamental nature and origin of the Universe? Looking at some of the approaches that have been taken, and the ways in which they seem to fall short, might shed some light on how to proceed.

Robert Wright, a New York Times journalist, wrote a very interesting article in 2016, entitled “Can Evolution have a Higher Purpose?” In that article he points out that the simulation hypothesis has received many positive reactions, with even those who saw it as less than 50% likely to be true, being willing to hear more. (In fact, there are scientists considering the problem of ‘breaking us out of the simulation.’) Wright points out the irony of this response:

If you walked up to the same people who gave Bostrom a respectful hearing and told them there is a transcendent God (the God hypothesis), many would dismiss the idea out of hand. Yet the simulation hypothesis is a God hypothesis: An intelligence of awe-inspiring power created our universe for reasons we can speculate about but can’t entirely fathom. 

In other words, the simulation thesis and the God thesis are one and the same, at the level of Kosmos Theology. Once this is pointed out, it seems quite obvious. That it wasn’t immediately so probably has a great deal to do with the assumptions that underlie much scientific thought about our Universe.

For example, many scientists, particularly cosmologists, have adopted materialism, the philosophy that nothing exists except matter and that all phenomena are the result of material interactions. Accordingly, most scientific cosmologists will not investigate or hypothesize anything non-material, including things that are generally considered supernatural (such as a god – unless, apparently, that god is a computer programmer).

While materialism is widespread in the scientific community, it is not without challenges, especially since the advent of quantum physics. Challengers point out that there are questions about the nature of matter, of consciousness and mind, and about the interaction of matter and mind that materialism does not adequately answer. Clearly, fundamental assumptions, such as materialism or any alternative to it, profoundly affect which hypotheses and phenomena are even considered.

Kosmos theology assumes that there is much more about the Kosmos and about yotzer than scientific materialism can discover. As Hamlet put it: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Before we learned about magnetism, electricity and gravity, these properties were considered supernatural – indeed, magic. In a Kosmos as vast and multi-dimensional as it is, how arrogant we are when we assume that we have learned all its properties. As long as science ignores non-materialist properties, we will continue to be unable to understand our universe and discover reality. We will continue to talk about and avoid reality, and to talk about theories of everything while stumbling in the dark.

There are other ways in which some scientists seem to be adopting methods and approaches that work against an effective search for understanding. Jim Baggott, a highly respected science writer, in 2013 wrote an excellent book entitled Farewell to Reality — How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth. In his preface, he writes:

...Now, modern science has discovered that the reality of our physical existence is bizarre in many ways, but this is bizarreness for which there is an accumulated body of accepted scientific evidence. There is as yet no observational or experimental evidence for many of the concepts of contemporary theoretical physics, such as super-symmetric particles, superstrings, the multiverse, the universe as information, the holographic principle or the anthropic cosmological principle. For some of the wilder speculations of the theorists there can never be any such evidence. This stuff is not only not true, it is not even science. I call it ‘fairy tale physics.’ It is arguably borderline confidence-trickery. Or if you prefer, they have given up… 

Baggot then asserts that contemporary theoretical physics has crossed a threshold in at least two ways: through going too far with speculation that can’t be verified or falsified or even tested and thus bypasses the scientific method; and through popularization of these fairy tales to the point they appear to be mainstream and are often treated by most scientists as so. As he puts it:

The discipline has retreated into its own small, self-referential world. Its product is traded by its advocates as mainstream science within the scientific community and peddled … as such to the wider public. 

Some theories are not provable now, and likely will not be provable for a very long time or ever. This means there must be a way by which, according to strict standards, a level of peer consensus can promote them to reality or temporary near-reality, always subject to the possibility of being disproved. This requires improvements to the management of scientific theories once they are declared plausible.

Without guidance from science, it will continue to be the chore of theologists and philosophers to explore the non-material aspects of the universe. But they too must stay within the bounds of plausibility to achieve any realistic insight. Carl Sagan’s comment on this is worth thinking about:

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?" Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My God is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. 

Sagan claimed he was not an atheist, but his intolerance of religions was well known, so his comment must be understood in that context. Nonetheless, most organized religions have some work to do to achieve the level of Kosmos theology and to reflect that in their liturgy.

Reality is not what we want it to be, or a product of our prejudices, or our votes or polls. Yet facing it is necessary if we are to win a sports contest, compete in a quiz show, or, for that matter, avoid the end of mankind when the next global extinction event confronts us.

19A - Kosmos Theology

God does not want to be believed in, to be debated and defended by us, but simply to be realized through us.  - Martin Buber, On Judaism

In this post: In order for Religion to become a useful path to knowledge, it must change. Religion must embrace a theology that acknowledges the entire Kosmos and an ongoing creation.

In this post I return to a number of themes that have previously appeared in this blog, specifically:     
• Both Science and Religion are essential paths to knowledge;
• Science and Religion are not antithetical and should, ideally, each inform the other;
• Science leads logically not to atheism, but to a theism that sees in the Big Bang scenario a purposeful creation by a rational creator;
• Changes are required in the way we do Religion and the way we do Science (Post 15 and Post 16) if we are to achieve what we were created for;
• Religion has many components, one of which is theology. (Post 7). Theology is the critical part of religion that affects our interaction with science.

I believe that the theology most religions embrace — and atheists reject — must change radically. Our concepts of God and miracles and Messiahs no longer fit that which we know from the experience of life and the findings of Science. Our focus must change from our single, very small world, to the unspeakably immense entirety of creation, and our understanding of creation from something that happened once to some that is happening continually. Both Science and Religion must adopt “Kosmos theology.”

So, what is Kosmos theology, and where does the term come from? Let’s start by reviewing some ideas that have appeared in previous posts. For much of human history, “Universe” (of Latin origin) has been defined as “everything that exists, everything that has existed, and everything that will exist.” (Wikipedia) The word “Cosmos” (from Greek) has meant essentially the same thing and the two words have been used interchangeably. This changed when our theories of the Universe’s emergence changed.

The prevalent theory holds that the Universe is finite (at least in time), the result of something called a singularity suddenly exploding. But before the explosion that resulted in the Universe, the singularity must have existed, and it must have existed somewhere.

Something created the singularity and ignited it, whether it was some form of purposeful agency or something that “just happened.” Whatever that causality was, it could not have happened inside the Universe, since there was no Universe before it happened.

These observations point to something both predating and containing the singularity that caused the Universe — and that is something I call the Kosmos.

I introduced the Kosmos in Post 7, with the nonstandard spelling “Kosmos” to emphasize that I am using the word in its newer meaning (the entity that contains both our Universe and anything outside of it), rather than as a synonym for “Universe.”

If some agency (or god) created us, this creator/creative force is in the Kosmos, perhaps busy creating more Universes or perhaps brooding about why it created one in the first place. Any truly functional religion must acknowledge not just our world, not just the Universe, but the entire Kosmos.

As a starting point for what a Kosmos theology might be like, it’s instructive to consider the thoughts of Albert Einstein, arguably the greatest scientific thinker of the modern era. Few people really know whether he was theist or atheist. I consider his response when he was asked this question to be an emphatic theist statement in a Kosmos theological framework:

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we can perceive with our frail and feeble mind. 

He elaborated on that somewhat, when in 1929 he wrote to a rabbi he knew:

I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the harmony of all being, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of men. 

In these two brief, almost poetic statements are some of the basic elements of Kosmos theology.

• There is a creator that pervades the Kosmos and that embodies order. 
• This creator does not engage on a personal level. 
• Creation — the Kosmos — inspires awe in the human species. Seeking to explore and understand the Kosmos, we should do so with humility, knowing that our ability to perceive, measure, test, and understand it is limited. 

I believe there are other principles embedded in this approach that can be uncovered by the study of Science and the application of reason. In the list below, I set out some of my provisional conclusions. For purposes of discussion, I have been calling the creative entity yotzer, Hebrew for “creator.” (More of my thoughts about yotzer are laid out in Post 13.)

• The human species was not created directly. Rather, yotzer created life, and homo sapiens was one of the species that evolved. We have every reason to believe that humankind has been the most successful earthly species to emerge through our as yet incomplete evolution. There probably are, or will be, other species on other planets, of equal or superior intelligence.
• Yotzer is rational and had a reason for creating life.
• Yotzer’s reason for creating life probably involves the evolution of a species that can be of importance to it.
• The process we call creation, started by yotzer about 14 billion years ago, has not been completed. 
• The human species is still a long way from being useful to yotzer, but it will eventually learn how it can become so. At least one of the requirements for reaching this goal is the containment of human evil. 

A key element of Kosmos Theology, to be examined in greater depth in the second half of this double posting, is the concept of Reality. Religions have for millennia slowed the advance of human knowledge concerning our Kosmos by confusing myth, Biblical scripture, and ethical teachings with history and science. At the same time, Science is retreating from its original  adherence to scientific method, and confusing theory with reality and maths. Kosmos Theology demands of both religion and science a more rigorous approach.

This discussion began in prior posts with some thoughts on how Religion (and its constituent, theology) could evolve to be a meaningful part of humanity’s search for its role in the Kosmos. From there it went to the introduction of Kosmos theology. Of course, theology is only part of Religion — and in truth, it’s the part that many adherents pay the least attention to. In a future post, I will look at Rational Religion, an approach that is compatible with Kosmos Theology, while allowing full participation in the religious communities, values and traditions that we traditionally embraced.

18 - Yotzer and Deism

There is another comment that I would like to bring to your attention because it leads to a topic that I want to discuss in somewhat more detail: that of Deism, and how my thoughts about yotzer compare with the beliefs of Deism. The comment is short, but demands a long reply, and so I will not have enough space to address in this post any of several other comments that are important. Responses to these other comments will be slipped in to subsequent posts.

Comment #2, Post #13:

I'm reading your blog & interested in where you are going. I don't know that I agree with all of its Deism.

My response: 

We can start by understanding what is meant by “Deism.” The most succinct definition I have ever come across, found on the “Religious Tolerance” website is:

Deism: A religion whose followers believe in a God who created the Universe, established its rules of behavior, set it going, left, and hasn't been seen since. 

In fact, Deism is not a religion but a philosophy (or theology) that can be held within any religion. The three key points that underlie any variety of Deism are:

1. It is only rational to conclude that at some time, a god of some sort, created our Universe;
 
2. Contrary to scriptures, If that god continues to exist, it has completely withdrawn from any contact or involvement with humankind;
 
3. It is therefore up to humankind to fend for itself in defining the good life, the ethical way to behave and its own direction as a species. 
 

I, too, believe that it is only rational to conclude that some kind of god (yotzer) created the Universe and everything in it. I also agree that there is no evidence of direct interaction between the creator and humankind, though there are some deists who believe there once was such a relationship. However, my personal concept of yotzer is quite different from that of a disappearing god.

Deism sees the lack of human-divine interaction as evidence that the creator has withdrawn or ceased to exist after creation. This is based on the belief that creation was a singular, time-limited event.

In the yotzer paradigm, creation began with the Big Bang, and after roughly 14 billion years, is still happening. Humanity is one of a vast number of species in the evolving Universe, and has not evolved to the point where it is capable of perceiving and communicating with its creator (yotzer).

Deism does not attribute any purpose to creation.

In the yotzer paradigm, the purpose of the Universe is to produce one or more life forms that are sufficiently evolved to perceive yotzer, communicate with it, and participate in some way in the as-yet-unknown ultimate purpose of yotzer. In this vision, yotzer has a purpose and humanity has the potential to be part of that purpose.

Atheists believe there is no god. Deists believe there was a god. I believe there is a god, which I call yotzer, which is active at the Universe level, waiting for some species to evolve to the level where it can learn its purpose and become instrumental in accomplishing it. We may be the only species in the Universe that is close to that, or there may be millions of others with the potential to make contact and collaborate with  yotzer. At this point, we don’t know if we'll ever evolve far enough, or exist long enough, to reach that level of awareness and agency, and be part of achieving yotzer’s purpose.

The yotzer paradigm—a summary 

Unlike the Biblical telling, in which God created the Universe, including humanity, in a six-day period, I believe that the Universe’s creation only began with what we call the Big Bang. That creation, after approximately 14 billion years, is still incomplete and ongoing. Something is continually creating the Universe. I choose to call it yotzer. (Hebrew for “creator.”)

We know nothing about yotzer other than that it is creating the Universe. However, based on what we have learned about the Universe, there are a number of things that we can surmise:

• The materials, forces, and rules of the Universe were first created and launched by yotzer;
 
• Nobody knows how life was created, but the entire evolution of the material Universe appears to have been intended by yotzer for introducing and maintaining life on at least one planet;
 
• Evolution, as built into the universe, is not only about survival, it is about at least one species developing sufficient intelligence to become aware of the Universe and the process of its creation.
 


Our species has developed a range of qualities that do not have obvious survival value. These include: the drive to learn and understand, even when the subject has no immediate or clear connection to human needs; a sense of aesthetics (art, music, etc.) and a drive to create aesthetically; a commitment to ethical systems, which generally privilege the species over the individual; a sense of spirituality, which, though difficult to define, involves an intense drive to search for meaning and purpose outside of the material aspects of life and the Universe.

It is the spirituality drive that is behind the founding of religions. Humans invented gods because the spirituality drive required satisfaction.  The basic questions (“primary concerns” - Post #9) that humans have been asking themselves and others for at least 5 millennia needed answers, as do many other questions about the world and the Universe.  

In their search for meaning and purpose, humans envisioned gods.  This invention resulted in laws and narratives that helped humans to develop codes of ethics and morality, as well as myths that became part of communal identity and helped explain how the physical Universe sustained us.

For millennia, these god-concepts and the myths surrounding them, served to advance our progress as a species. However, as human knowledge has advanced, they have failed to serve us effectively.  We have largely outlived our theologies, though the religions, including their traditions, communities, ethical codes and values, are still alive and useful.

I believe that the yotzer paradigm can point the way to a new theology, one that can be absorbed into any religion and is not only consonant with our growing scientific knowledge, but can help humanity, as a species, to continue its spiritual evolution.

17 - Some Responses to Comments on Atheism vs Theism

One of the joys of doing this blog has been reading comments from its readers. Your input has motivated me, impressed me, and made me think. A heartfelt “thank you” to all who have taken the time to add their voice to this conversation.

In this and the next few posts I will respond to some of these comments. In each “response” post, I will choose comments that bear on a specific topic, with this post being devoted to perspectives on atheism and theism. In some cases, what you see here is just a portion of the original comment. To read the complete comment as it was originally phrased, go to the comments section of the original posting.

Comment #2, Post #1: 

...I may be a "Fool" but I'm not an Atheist, Theist or some of those in between. I am a Christian & believe in God. I respect all other religions except the fundamentalists... 

...The attempt by mankind to explain the creation of our planet, God, gods or other Supreme Being depends not on theories but upon Faith in an unknown event which I believe is an intangible that can be argued but not proven. 

...All the formulas, theories, & word definitions perhaps are man's creation yet to be proven true or false. In my opinion, "Faith" in God/god/Supreme Being, as intangible as it may be, is the only answer regardless of religious belief. 

My response: 

I agree with you completely that the question of whether there is a deity responsible for the creation of the universe is no better answered or proven by science than by religion. Although we can go a ways in disproving some specific description of a deity, we can never prove there is none. Despite your denial, you are a theist in that you believe there is a god. But being a Christian you must deal with the far more complex issue of Jesus and the miracles attributed to him and the miracle of his own rising. Great Man? Messiah? Aspect of God or son of God? What is your belief in this area? Or does it really matter what is myth and what is history?

Comment #3, Post #1:

Science is a wonderful methodology -- a tool that helps us explore and describe our universe in all its immensity and minutiae with increasing accuracy. …[It] can tell me the probability that my baby will have brown eyes, but it cannot explain the loving bond that ties me to that child. The joy we experience in meeting our children's children, who are our link to future generations and thus to eternity -- that ... is bound up with Faith. 

I am a scientist, and the more I learn about the intricacies of our universe, the stronger is my faith in a Unified creative force that brought it into being. 

I love Julius Lester's description of prayer as our Lovesongs to our Creator, or however we each may understand the notion of God. I don't know whether God lost interest in our world after creating it, or if God maintains a personal relationship with each of us. I can't prove it, but I do believe that God hears my prayers and cares about all of us. For me, God exists in the infinity of time and space and love. 

So I guess you'd count me in the Theist camp, though I've never thought of myself as a fundamentalist. The closeness I feel with God, and my gut-sure certainty of God's existence does not require that any one else's path toward Faith or Doubt or Wondering or Agnosticism or Atheism be the same as mine. In the words of Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?" 

My Response: 

You are most certainly not a fundamentalist. Your description of your beliefs is consistent with what Einstein and many other scientists and cosmologists, who have said, in essence: “There is a god out there and I can sense it and appreciate the unification of its architecture.” Your penultimate statement, however, is very consistent with that of a theist who has been influenced by his/her religion to believe in a particular god that hears prayer, and that has relationships with humans. I admire and envy your ability to live in both of these perspectives at the same time.

Comment #5, Post #1: 

…it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of a God. The question then becomes if there is a God what has it done and what does it continue to do. And if you believe god created the universe or the multi verse, as is more popular today, where did god come from? It seems to me that believing in the creation of an all powerful god is probably more difficult than believing that random events created the multiverse, as if you believe that random events did it that's the end but if you want a god there is no ending of trying to find the origin of such a god. 

My Response: 

While you are right when you say it’s impossible to disprove the existence of a god, there is one situation in which a god’s existence could be proven. That is, if there were a god and that god wanted to prove to our and/or other species that it existed. Thus, the questions a theist must address when developing a theory that a god exists is: Why would a rational god not want us to know that it exists? Or why would a rational god want us to not know it exists? I also question your assumption that the god must be all-powerful in order to exist. A god could have had no origin, could possibly be infinite in time within the Kosmos, or it could even be the Kosmos itself, and yet could be limited in one of several ways. We’ll explore this in later posts.

Comment #3, Post #11:

As a self described "atheistic agnostic", the issue of a god or a God or a greater power larger than ourselves is a non-issue. The question of a greater power, which I believe is unanswerable within our limited ability to understand our universe, is to my mind nothing more than a philosophical head game whereby the goal is to arrive at a similar conclusion to the question of "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin". 

As an agnostic, I cherish and revel in the ability to doubt everything. ... I hold a similar view to that expressed by Jean Paul Sartre in his existential work, "Being and Nothingness". Sartre stated that even if one could prove to him that a god exists it would mean nothing in how he would live his life. For Sartre and existentialists, god is a non issue. Life is meaningless and the important and crucial matter in life is to find and bring meaning and purpose to one's life. 

Therefore, the real question of our lives does not involve the question of the existence of a greater power. The question and discussion we should be having is how to create meaning and purpose in our lives which is reflected in our resulting behaviour. Good religion or good spirituality should focus on how our lives should be lived… Within [at least ] Judaism, there is a strong current of thought that doubting the belief in a higher power is not an impediment in being part of the Jewish tradition and the Jewish people. The importance of behaviour over belief in a higher power has been an acceptable part of the Jewish tradition. 

My Response:

Saying “I am agnostic” is simply another way of saying “I don’t know and it’s not an issue that’s high on my priority list.”

To me the most significant part of your comment is to be found in the reference to Sartre, and the question as to whether a god is required to bring meaning and purpose to human life. There has been a god, in reality or in our imaginations, ever since we became sentient, and god, as understood by one religion or another, has had profound impact on our lives through a wealth of myths, literature and laws. The Western world is, in many ways, characterized by its legacy of ethical and moral values inherited through so many generations of religious belief. The idea of a god has clearly affected how our species has developed.

This does not prove that it is impossible to construct meaning and purpose in the absence of belief in a god, or at least, without reference to the convictions and structures that have grown out of humankind’s belief in a god. The point is simply that so far, this has been humankind’s most productive way of approaching the problem, and the alternatives are less well tested.

Summary

We have witnessed here four very different comments on the subject of theism vs atheism. Two were identifying themselves  as theists of different faiths, one as an atheist, and another as an atheist who is querying why it even matters.

I will respond to  more comments in my next posting, including ones that have been made to posts 1 to 16, and as well as any comments to this post or simply ideas you have that are not specific to any post.  Feel free to comment on anything.

16 - Religion in the New Millenium

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.  - Carl Sagan

In this post: Religion/Philosophy and Science should be partners in humanity's search for its role in the Universe. Here are some thoughts on how Religion must evolve to serve that purpose. What do you think of these ideas?

In Posts 14 and 15, I suggested that Science, far from competing with Religion and Philosophy, should be, ideally, a partner. Both paths to knowledge are needed for the task of discovering and implementing our species’ place in the Universe. The role of Science was discussed in Post 15, along with some of the obstacles that stand in its way. But how are Religion and its cousin, Philosophy, to make their contribution?

Given that both Science and Religion/Philosophy are essential tools for learning humankind’s purpose in the Universe, how have they, over the ages, performed?

Science has, after a slow start, become a very impressive and productive tool — especially in the last 500 years or so. However, unless it can kick some of its more recent habits, (see Post 15) it might well be at its most productive right now.

As for organized religion, no matter how its performance is measured, it is now probably close to its lowest point since the Dark Ages. Sadly, most of organized religion’s woes have been self-inflicted. These issues include:

Fundamentalism, violence, and the loss of adherents (See Posts 4 and 5) The three Abrahamic religions have traditionally chosen, to differing degrees, to declare their scriptures to be the Word of God — true, inerrant, and unchanging. In ancient times, this belief structure provided stability and imbued the scriptures with authority.

However, scholarship since the Enlightenment, in fields ranging from text analysis, to science, to history and archaeology, has challenged the concept of divinely given scripture, and set in its place the understanding that the scriptures are the works of humans, created over a lengthy period of time. Modern scholarship has also shown that much of the scriptural understanding of the Universe and the history of humankind is either incorrect or mythic.

For some, these changes have produced crises of faith. Many have either left or become distanced from their religion. For these people, the scriptures upon which the faith is based seem irrelevant, incomprehensible, or just plain wrong.

In other cases, the challenges to orthodox belief about scripture have produced the opposite effect. Instead of accepting the results of modern science, followers have clung ever more tightly to traditional beliefs, moving toward fanaticism, fundamentalism, and a shutting out of the modern world.

Condemnation of sexuality The astounding error of confusing sexuality with sin has adversely affected the lives of countless people both within and outside of the church, including women and children. It has also driven many people to reject religion in its totality. What a complete misunderstanding of the nature of humans!

Exclusion or debasement of women Many, if not most, traditional religions have been strongly patriarchal. Not only have women not been allowed into the governance of these organizations, but their role in worship and in just about every other aspect of life has been severely limited and controlled. Effectively excluding half of the human race as equal participants has not strengthened organized religion’s ability to advance human knowledge and understanding. Although many if not most religious organizations have rushed to fix this problem, that has not been completed, and, in any event, most of the damage has already been done.

Where Does Religion Go From Here? 

In spite of its many issues and current weaknesses, Religion of one sort or another will probably survive as long as the human race does, mainly because it appears to be something we have been endowed with as part of the creation of the Universe. (See Post 9 about spirituality brain parts and a spirituality gene.) However, organized Religion as we know it will survive or die based on its ability to face its current problems and adapt to future ones.

One such problem, and one that is arguably the major obstacle to our species’ progress, is that of human evil. In every generation a minority of people commit legal and moral crimes including theft, racism, violence, murder, bullying, rape and terrorism. While we argue about what roles both nature and nurture play in this phenomenon, questions abound. Why doesn’t punishment work? What can be done to completely eliminate human evil? Would a society without evil experience a reduction in energy, entrepreneurism, drive or creativity? So far, in spite of condemnation from just about every form of Religion, evil persists. Is it possible that an evolved Religion, working with Science, could finally succeed in removing this scourge?

It probably won’t surprise you to know that I have some ideas about the ways in which Religion might best evolve. I will elaborate on these ideas in future posts. For now, though, I’ll simply list them, in the hopes that they will stimulate questions, comments and challenges from you, Dear Readers. In fact, the next two posts will be my responses to the comments that I have already received, as well as those that come in response to this post. Here are my thoughts on the ways in which Religion should evolve in order to best serve humanity. What I would hope to see is:

• A move toward Cosmotheology, which focuses not just on our single, very small world, but on the entire, unspeakably immense Cosmos. 
• The construction of Rational Religion, based not on scripture, but on information, much of it supplied by Science. 
• A theology that is future-based, that anticipates issues and proposes questions to Science. 
• A practice of practical prayer and meditation coming from thankfulness and self-examination. 

Let me know what you think. Please either use the Comment feature of this blog, or send me an email.

15 – Science and its Contribution to Knowledge

Science is not perfect. It's often misused; it's only a tool, but it's the best tool we have. Self-correcting, ever-changing, applicable to everything; with this tool, we vanquish the impossible.  - Carl Sagan

In this post: The working hypothesis of this blog is that the Universe has a purpose, and humankind has as role in that purpose. We must use both Science and Religion/ Philosophy in order to discover our role.

In the first fourteen posts of this blog, I have proposed (not necessarily correctly) one possible paradigm for a 21st century understanding of cosmology. In doing so, I have tried to address some of the unresolved questions that we have today, such as: Is there a deity or not? Is there an intelligence behind the creation of the Universe, or was that simply a random event? Is there only one Universe, or are there multiple or even an infinite number of Universes?

My line of reasoning has been:

• If we look rationally at what is known about the origin of the Universe, we are led to the concept of a creative force behind the origin of the Universe. That is, a deity of some sort. It is my belief that this hypothesis is far more likely than that of a random set of accidents and coincidences that happened to the infinitesimally small object that already existed before it blew up to become the Universe. [Posts 7, 10]
 
• That deity, within the confines of this blog, is called yotzer (Hebrew for “creator”). We know nothing about yotzer, other than that it somehow created the Universe. [Posts 8,13]
 
• The Universe is yotzer’s footprint, and it is  reasonable to infer some things about yotzer from the nature of the Universe it created. The Universe has inherent in it laws of physics, as well as a consistent, but not predictable, system of evolution. Although we have observed only an infinitesimally small sampling, what we have learned so far indicates that these laws operate consistently throughout every aspect of the Universe. We have also learned that the Universe seems to be structured toward the creation of life, and the evolution of that life toward intelligence. [Post 10]
  
• The Universe appears to be consistently evolving towards intelligent life forms that can observe and understand the patterns and rules of evolution. Could it do so without there being a creator (yotzer) with both intelligence and a purpose? (Posts 9,10)
 
• Thus we can infer a deity (yotzer) that is intelligent, rational and had a purpose in creating the Universe. What was that purpose? We don’t know. But it seems logical that the evolution of intelligent life is part of that purpose, and that we, as part of that purpose, have some role to play.^{note 1} (Post 14)
 
• Religion and philosophy together provide one of two paths toward the knowledge that we require to discover our role. Science provides the other path. Neither path alone can provide this knowledge. To learn what we humans must know, we must walk both paths in collaboration. (Post 14)
 

There are obstacles along both paths, especially the scientific path. (Post 14)

Does this mean that science, somehow, is failing humankind, or not positively affecting us? Not at all. It is impossible to deny the contribution that science has made during the last half millennium to knowledge, longevity, fabulous toys, and, to at least some degree, an understanding of the Universe we inhabit.

In spite of this, cranky critics may want to blame science for lots of things. We worry that the creation of nuclear science may lead to us blowing up the Earth. We see the Internet leading to the mess of hacking, scamming and electronic theft that we consistently face today. In fact, just about every contribution of science to the progress of humanity has also increased the risks of inappropriate use and its repercussions. Take, for example, the new epidemic of smartphone-driven distracted driving and street crossing.

Those with the ability to reason, however, are fully aware that science leads to information and capability, while it is ignorance, unintended consequences, and nasty, short-sighted and/or misguided people that convert the benefits of science to danger and injury.

How will we, as a species, during the next 1,000 or 10,000 years, use Science? Will we continue to make scientific advances that dazzle and amaze, but do very little to shed light on humanity’s ultimate purpose?  Or, will we start to turn the incredible capability of Science toward trying to discover the purpose of the Universe and the part that we can play in that purpose? If so, it is possible that our species could earn the privilege of eventually working with yotzer as a junior partner, to accomplish the purpose for which yotzer created the Universe and life.

Ultimately, it depends on how quickly and well our philosophers and scientists respond to some obstacles along the road to knowledge.

It is my opinion that the first and greatest of such obstacles is humankind’s somewhat uncertain future, and that Science must be deployed to insure the continued existence of our species. This means finding responses to threats such as large asteroids striking the earth (as has happened in the past), nuclear war, mass extinctions and stressed eco-systems resulting from climate change, or even backfiring scientific experiments. In many cases, we must find ways to save our species from ourselves.

The obstacles faced by Science are not, however, limited to dealing with existential threats. Some obstacles have to do with Science itself, both how it is currently structured and how it is practiced.

One such obstacle is the issue of “reality.” As touched on in Post 14, fields such as astrophysics and theoretical physics deal with objects and processes that are beyond our ability to directly perceive and measure. Hence, theories in these fields cannot be subjected to the experimental approach of the scientific method that has guided much of Science for the last several centuries. Computer simulations and models often replace reality. As a result, many of the most popular theories in cosmology are not supported by any form of reality. Even the Big Bang Theory is open to challenge, and String Theory is as far away from reality as is Peter Pan. ^{note 2}

A new investigative method needs to be developed for those hypotheses that cannot be tested using the scientific method. Such a method will be effective only if it gets widespread acceptance from the scientific community.

Another type of obstacle faced by humankind in achieving the knowledge that it needs is posed, ironically enough, by some scientists. We have to start with an understanding that not all scientists are Einsteins or Newtons. Not only did half of them graduate in the bottom half of their class, but some copied from their pals. It should be no surprise, then, that not all scientists produce equally powerful and accurate results in their research. Some of them cheat deliberately or unconsciously; others err because they mistake the results they get for the results they want.   ^{note 3}

Further, the scientific community can be quite conservative, particularly regarding new ideas catching on. Sometimes, important new finds are ignored, or even laughed at, for years, because these ideas don’t fit in with the interests of the more popular theories of the day.

While “dogma” and “fundamentalism” are phenomena most often associated with religion, they occur in Science, as well. For example, the unfounded assumption of materialism makes it “impossible” for some scientists to discuss any “non-physical” topic. (The fact that astrophysics and cosmology deal all the time with (hypothesized) things that cannot be directly detected or measured doesn’t seem to occur to them.) Hence, topics such as ESP, near-death experiences and other supernatural experiences persist as phenomena that are reported, believed, and discussed, but never subjected to rigorous scientific examination. I, personally, am very skeptical of these phenomena, but that is an opinion, not a scientific conclusion, because the scientific method has not been brought to bear on these subjects.

As discussed in Post 14, collaboration between Religion/Philosophy and Science is a necessity. The “why” and the “how” cannot be effectively investigated independently.^{note 4}

Further, Science can benefit from the insights of Religion/Philosophy in dealing with its own obstacles. The nature of reality, the interaction of the observer and the observed, and the concept of objectivity are all subjects of philosophic discourse. I feel strongly that both approaches to knowledge are necessary and neither should be privileged over the other. The degree to which we, as a species, can employ together the modes of knowledge acquisition will likely determine how much progress we can make in discovering our ultimate purpose.

14 - The Two Major Paths to Knowledge

Apologies for the lateness of this post; a number of circumstances conspired to impact the schedule. Hope it proves to be worth the wait.

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There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.  - Aldous Huxley
The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.  - W.B. Yeats
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.  - Robertson Davies , Tempest-Tost

In this post: Humankind seems driven to understand the Universe, and our role in it. This drive may be built into us by yotzer. Science and religion/philosophy are the two main tools we use to reach understanding.

We have seen In Posts 10 to 12 that the two most popular myths of how our Universe and our species came to be — the scriptural God myth and the random accident myth — do not hold up to the scrutiny of scientific investigation and common sense.

Religious theology — the source of the scriptural God myth — has played a major role in the intellectual growth and early scientific discoveries of our species (except for the period of state-controlled fundamentalism). However, the major myths of religious theology have been, for the most part, discredited, their sources identified, and authors and redactors differentiated.

Atheism  — the source of the random accident myth — has not fared any better. In fact, it has probably done worse. If the scriptural God made His contribution to philosophy and inspired somewhat the early pursuit of science, atheism has made no contribution to human intellectual growth or early science. Its basic premise of a totally accidental explosion somehow resulting in a Universe with consistent physical and natural laws, a set of basic properties that support life, and a set of rules for the evolution of that life, just doesn’t work.

This has led me (Post 13) to the conclusion that there has to be a god, but this god is not God. yotzer is the name I have given to the concept that such a god exists, and to that god itself.  In this formulation, yotzer has the intelligence necessary to create the Universe and ensure it can produce life and, eventually, intelligent life forms such as us. This indicates it is rational and has some kind of purpose.

Although I believe, knowing only what we know and can infer, that this is a rational conclusion, that does not guarantee that it is correct. We have no way to know at this time, and the odds that this analysis is a million light-years off the mark are pretty good. Nonetheless, by adopting it as the most rational conclusion we can arrive at about the creation of the Universe and everything that has followed that event, we can proceed.

If we buy into the yotzer concept (at least until we learn differently) then there are several implications. We are at least a means to whatever end yotzer has. The spirituality gene and the fact that there is a specific part of our brain that responds to spiritual stimuli (see Post 9) points to the development over time of a communication channel. Our scientific drive to understand our Universe is probably also a result of yotzer’s evolutionary plan. If so, then we must at some point try to assess our progress towards deciphering the kosmic code and discovering our role, in order to accomplish it.

In Post 9 I listed nine primary questions ^{note 1} that almost every human asks from time to time. Any effort to answer these questions leads to a consideration of how and why the Universe came to be, whether the Universe has intelligence, purpose and direction, and other questions for which at this time we do not have answers. In other words, the primary questions, which are asked at the personal level, lead to the fundamental question we must ask at the species level: What, in return for the Universe and the anthropic (human-friendly) environment we have been given, is to be our role in the Universe? What is the purpose that yotzer had in mind when it launched the creation and evolution process that has produced us?

As a species, our awareness of the world developed very slowly. We likely did not think about much except for survival until, say, about 50,000 years ago. Then, from about 5,500 years ago there was steady progress in our learning about our Universe, (with the exception of the dark ages from about 476 CE to about 1000 CE), By the 17tth century came both the beginnings of the scientific method and the realization that our study target was so much bigger than the Earth, the sun and the moon. The two major paths that humans have taken towards knowledge about our Universe have been religion/philosophy and science.

Religion/ Philosophy

Throughout history, wise people have consistently speculated about the primary questions and blended what they thought and observed into myths, legends and codes to live by. They added their own explanations of phenomena they saw, and invented narratives to explain why things were as they were. Some who were most intelligent and, perhaps, most spiritually sensitive, probably envisioned and dialogued with the supernatural beings that they imagined must exist. In any event, these geniuses spoke and wrote about their visions, and formed religions. They gradually attracted adherents, and the most charismatic of them were able to draw sufficient adherents to develop major sustainable religions. Thus most major religions of today had formed by 1,000 CE.

Philosophy first developed in the same period, but with a slightly different focus. The focus of Religion (Post 8) is on customs and practices, on how to live and behave and cooperate with one another; the most important element is belief. and prescribed practices in support of belief. Philosophy, on the other hand, is driven not by belief, but by logic; it seeks to determine not how people should behave, but how they should think.

Eventually, when philosophy looked at religion, it saw too many claims of a supernatural nature and too many improbable narratives. Philosophy began to focus on how to separate truth from invention. By the modern period philosophy had developed a much wider scope of thought, utilizing reasoning to uncover issues of metaphysics, logic, epistemology, language, ethics, aesthetics, and many other disciplines.

Science

Most subjects that we now call science were originally explored through philosophy. Initially, the words science and philosophy were virtually synonymous. Gradually, though, science shifted its focus to the study of natural phenomena, and then, beginning in the 17th century, to the development and use of the scientific method. This process matured in the 20th century.

By the 20th century, science had become systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical world, using research disciplines and tools such as the scientific method. Scientific research followed a process of observation, theorizing, and then testing to either prove or disprove these theories. In modern science, a certain amount of thought also goes into the significance of its findings, and how they correlate with other findings in the same or other disciplines. Peer review confirms the logic and usefulness of what is proposed. Sometimes, over time, even after acceptance, some theories are disproved, but for the most part, the method works incredibly well, and provides us with a lot of accepted knowledge.

Divergent paths

If it is true that religion/philosophy and science are the two major paths towards understanding our Universe, its purpose, and our species’ role, then it is also true that we have a long way to go before we arrive at definitive answers. Instead of these paths converging towards the truth, they are both missing the mark. In 1940, Albert Einstein stated:

...for science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain, value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action; it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts… Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exists between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goals, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. 

As necessary as it may be, religion/philosophy becomes fossilized when it continues to address the world of thousands of years ago, using texts from that ancient period, rather than focusing on the Universe as it is understood today. In making this statement, I’m not referring only to religious fundamentalism; I’m making a statement about the failure of religion in general to stay relevant. 

Science, too, has some deficiencies. Although the scientific method has been a remarkably versatile tool, it is, in some ways, not well adapted for fields such as astrophysics and theoretical physics. 

Theoretical physics employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experimental tools to probe these phenomena.

Astrophysics uses the principles of physics and chemistry to determine the nature of stars, galaxies, extrasolar planets, the interstellar medium. It draws substantially on the realms of theoretical and observational physics.

Neither field lends itself to the design and implementation of experiments to either prove or disprove hypotheses.

Both astrophysics and theoretical physics are like walking in the garden in total darkness, with no flashlight or other aids. You can pick up the occasional sniff of an odorous flower, you can hear (and feel) the insects, but it's very hard to confirm your impression of what the garden looks like. You can produce models and theories, but you can’t necessarily produce provable knowledge.

Assume, as I have speculated in Post 13, simply because it seems less improbable than any other likelihood, that the Universe has an intelligence and a direction, and that we have some role to play in that purpose. Then our species has to learn what that role is before we can evolve to carry it out. A number of things have to happen before we can do that, (see Post 16 when it happens), but I’d like to just mention one or two here:

1 - Astrophysics and theoretical physics must find a way to treat currently untestable theories; science needs a new category for hypotheses that can neither be proven nor disproven.

2 - A number of forms of fundamentalism must disappear from serious religions and from serious science. Religions must abandon the stance that Scriptures are divinely written and therefore true and unchangeable. Science must let go of materialism, which does not allow for the existence of anything in our Universe that doesn’t evidence itself as matter.

13 - Understanding yotzer

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it ...  - Genesis 28

In this post: Yotzer is shorthand for "that which created the Universe." We know nothing else about yotzer, but we can speculate. Naturally, the most interesting speculation has to do with what yotzer wants of us.

Yotzer is not just another god being introduced into the already crowded panoply of gods. Yotzer is a concept.

We have already seen (Post 11) that the atheist proposition that the Universe was not created, but rather, happened by chance and then randomly evolved to where we are today, does not stand up to rational questioning. Questions remain about how the singularity that exploded did so, where the singularity was located in space or spacetime,^{Note 1} why the laws of physics were shattered in the process, and why the universe seems to be so well suited for life, including intelligent life, when the odds of it being so are so miniscule. (see Post 7)

We have also seen (Posts 2, 3, 9 and 12) that the God of monotheistic religions, described by the scriptures and writings of these religions, is a creation of the extraordinary human mind. This fact in no way denigrates the beauty, wisdom or relevance of those scriptures.^{Note 2} However, once we accept that they were written by humans, we can understand that these scriptures are limited by what humans of that time could know or understand about the Universe and its operation.

When atheists refute the existence of god, it is generally the Scriptural God, the product of writers who lived more than 2,000 years ago, that they are denying. We came up with that God long before we understood that our earth was a tiny piece of a universe, and we have, as a species, probably outgrown this type of god-concept, although it has most certainly made its contribution to the world.

Yet the Universe had to have come about somehow.^{Note 3} Any good bookie would prefer the likelihood of some sort of a creator to that of an incredible  series of accidents. It was our instinctive understanding of this fact that caused us to develop our creation stories and the scriptural Gods. I don’t know what or who created the Universe, nor do you or any scientist. However, I have full confidence that something or someone did. Yotzer is simply the shorthand I use to mean “whatever or whoever created the Universe.”

Do we know anything about yotzer other than it created the Universe? No. Are there things that we can infer or assume about it? Maybe. For example, we can probably assume it is intelligent and rational, because the Universe appears to be intelligently implemented If we assume that yotzer is rational, then we can guess that it had a purpose in creating the Universe, that it didn’t do so just for fun, and that there is a direction built into the Universe. Otherwise, why would yotzer create it in the first place?

Are we part of the purpose yotzer had in creating our Universe? No and yes.

On the one hand, I doubt that yotzer is aware of us as a species, never mind as individuals. It is likely no more aware of Earth and its inhabitants than we are of the microbes in our bodies. Its scale of time and space is just too massive.

On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine that the entire system of evolution, including mutational genes and the double helix, didn’t have a reason. I think it is possible that yotzer wants to evolve a species with sufficient intelligence to play a role in a greater direction for which the Universe was created (whatever that may be).

How many such species, in our Universe and, perhaps, other Universes, have emerged? We don’t know yet.

What is the nature of yotzer? There is no end of possibilities. Is it a committee of some sort? Is our Universe a homework assignment for some elementary students in a classroom in the Kosmos? Perhaps, as proposed by Isaac Asimov in his book Nine Tomorrows, a human species that existed on earth prior to us had developed an incredibly powerful computer, but as that species died out the last survivor instructed the computer to take all the time it needed and recreate humankind, and, finally, it said: “let there be light,” and became our yotzer. Another idea that is interesting is that the entire universe is a computer simulation, programmed by yotzer, perhaps in a university somewhere in the Kosmos.

The common vision of the scriptural God has, for many centuries, been of a stern but loving parent. I think yotzer may be more of gardener. It provides “fertile soil” that includes all the rules of physics and evolution, plants “seeds,” which are the stuff of life,  and lets them alone to develop naturally, visiting only to add fertilizer and water when necessary, and perhaps, anxiously waiting to see what emerges.

As discussed in Post 9, our concerns as humans come down to a number of primary questions about ourselves.  But what might yotzer’s concerns be -- especially as they concern us?  What role does it desire of us, if anything, as a/the species that made it to the top of the heap -- at least on this planet?

We don’t know yet, perhaps because we have not evolved enough to know. The first commandment given mankind, according to the Bible, was “Be fruitful  and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it...”  Perhaps that is all that we are mandated to do at this time -- to propagate, to mix our genes until we produce some level of enhanced human that is able to discern what we cannot understand now, and meanwhile, ensure that our little home, Earth,  continues to exist, along with the lifeforms with which we share it.

12 - Theists

God is dead.  - Nietzsche  Nietzsche is dead.  - God

In this post: There are many different types of theism. Of the many different types of "god concept" that of the scriptural God is probably the most common. It's time to re-evaluate the scriptural God.

What’s wrong with theism? Nothing at all. Like atheism, theism is a belief like any other belief. And anyone can believe what he/she wants.

Atheism is a singular belief. That is, that there is no deity or intelligence involved in the creation, design or operation of the Universe.

Theism, however, is a much more complex bundle of beliefs.

One can believe in a god that is omnipotent, omniscient, both omnipotent and omniscient, or neither. 

One can believe in a god that is benevolent, malevolent, indifferent, or even ignorant of humans.

One can believe in a god that is transcendent, immanent, or personal.

One can believe in a god that is the only such being, is one of two or a few, or is one of many.

One can believe in a god that either does or does not desire to be known to humans.

One can believe in a god that is the only supernatural entity, or in one that is accompanied by a “court” of lesser entities such as angels, demons, Satan, etc.

One can believe in a god of peace or a warrior god, or a god that takes on both of these roles, just at different times.

We could continue creating this menu to cover the nature of all the gods that each religion and scripture describes, but you get the idea. [Choose one from each column. Egg rolls are extra.]

The people believing in all these gods are at least as numerous as the gods themselves. The ways in which people become theist are also numerous and highly variable. Among them:

A religious theist (the most usual) believes the precepts of the religion into which he or she was born or converted. That person was taught, in the context of that religion, about a particular God that has particular characteristics and behaves in a certain way. The great majority of theists were born into families that are/were theist, and their home life, their teachers, their religious schools and the books they were encouraged to read (including the scriptures), gave them a theist perspective within their religion. Usually, religious theists think of their God as described in their scriptures: all-powerful and all-knowing, benevolent, and demanding certain standards of behaviour and ethics.

A philosophical theist (rare) is one who deduces that there has to be a god by applying observation and logic, or by reading and understanding what philosophers (ancient and modern) have to say on the subject. Philosophical theism does not necessarily derive from the experience of any formal religion, but it may be expressed in terms of the religion within which that person was brought up. Generally, the god of the philosophical theist will tend to be more cosmic in scope and less specific than the gods described in most religions.

A scientific theist is one who, in studying the scientific evidence, becomes convinced that some agent had to be responsible for the creation of our Universe. No assumptions are necessarily made concerning the nature and capabilities of that agent/god other than at some point it was capable of creating our Universe ex nihilo or from other material in the Kosmos, such as the singularity that would become our Universe. Many people who call themselves deists fall into this category.

An experiential theist is one whose belief arises from personal experience, such as an encounter with a god and/or any other extra-natural being. One example of this type of experience is the “near-death” vision; another might be contact with a person known to be dead; yet another might be a prophetic experience such as Isaiah is described as having in the Book of Isaiah. Experiential theism may lead to a belief in a specific God related to the individual’s experience, or provide reinforcement of the person’s existing religious theism.

An irrational theist

is one whose belief system is logically irrational. I believe that all fundamentalism falls into this class. An example of an irrational theist is the individual who posits that the solar system was created less than 6,000 years ago in only six days, despite the fact that scientists have discovered rocks billions of years old. The hallmark of the irrational theist is the belief that his/her religion contains all truth and any input contradicting it is, de facto, false.

A non-rational theist is one who feels that the hypothesis “God exists” is neither provable nor falsifiable and hence is a matter of faith, rather than science. (In order for the scientific method to be applied in a meaningful way, the hypothesis being tested must be provable and falsifiable. If this is not the case, the hypothesis is not a matter of science.) Comment 1 in Post #6 is an example of a theist who thinks this way. That commenter recognizes that science and belief exist as two occasionally overlapping realities. This is an excellent way to cope with the overlap, or to deal with information that is doubtful, but it removes theism from the realm of rational discussion, which is not something I intend to do.

As we have seen above, we can have a wide variety of gods, but when most theists or, for that matter, most atheists, refer to God, they usually have in mind one of two types of god.

The scriptural God is the God most often referred to, since this is the God that most people grew up with. I call this concept the “pre-third millennial God.” This is also the God of the monotheistic religions. Although the image of this God varies somewhat between religions, particularly between Eastern and Western religions, its main characteristics are that God is good, powerful, personal, all-knowing and involved in the affairs of mankind.

The universal god (what I call yotzer) is the god that created the entire Universe. This is the god that the scientific theist identifies as the agent that created the Universe and the physical laws that govern it.

The scriptural God has been invented many times over by human beings. It is a concept that has allowed our species to progress by providing divine authority for standards of behaviour and rules for working with one another. However, it is quite possible that we no longer need this concept. Does anyone still believe that an individual who is secular or atheist is automatically less moral or contributes less to the wellbeing of the community? Does anyone really believe that if we pray hard enough and sincerely enough, we get what we pray for? Does anyone really believe that evil people get punished by a divine judge? There are too many flaws in the original concept of the relationship between humans and God. The third millennium provides us with an opportunity to grow our god concept from the scriptural God of the planet earth to the universal god yotzer. The only thing missing is the collaboration of science and religion.

11 - What’s Wrong With Atheism?

To whom or what does the atheist, if he is thankful for his life as a whole, feel grateful? This is not easy to answer, if one believes that our lives are a product of chance, and molecules in motion.  - Dr. Oliver Sacks

In this post: What are the different types of atheism? How does one become an atheist? Is atheism more logically defensible than theism?

What’s wrong with atheism? Nothing at all. It is a belief like any belief, and thank yotzer, here and now, there are no laws against believing anything you want. Once there were laws against believing in atheism aloud or in print, but in North America and most of the “free” world, you can now do so quite freely.

People who believe in atheism range from very simple to very brilliant, with intensity of belief that ranges from minimal to overwhelming. People who call themselves atheists fall into two major groups:

1- Those who deny the God they were brought up with or taught about (generally the Scriptural God). When these atheists say: “I don’t believe in God,” they mean they don’t believe in the omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent God that they learned about in the Bible or Religious School, prayed to in their house of worship and may have hoped forgave them their sins. These individuals have not considered other possible ways of defining “God.”



2 - Those who believe that the Universe is without cause, without purpose and without direction, and that its existence and evolution is simply the laws of chance at work over a very long period of time, within some sort of self-ordering principle, itself just an accidental.

Only the second group are truly atheists. The first group I call pseudo-atheists. The pseudo-atheist has little to contribute in a theism-atheism debate because disproving one’s God does not in any way affect the truth or falsity of all other possibilities of a deity.

There are several ways that people get to atheism or pseudo-atheism.

Scientific atheism is arrived at and promoted by people who believe that scientific knowledge leaves no room for a god. Included in this group are those who have read the well-written prose of, for example, Dawkins, and those who have become convinced that there is no god by a science teacher.

Philosophical atheism is arrived at through observation and logic that is not subject to the stringent rules of science. Statements in philosophic atheism often take a form similar to “If there were a god, then…” [e.g.] “If there were a god, then terrorists wouldn’t exist, but that is not so, therefore there is no god.”

Religious atheism is arrived at most normally through the disappointment of expectations. “The God I used to believe in wouldn’t have let the Holocaust happen.” It happened. Therefore, there is no God. The atheists in this class are denying the particular God they grew up with, as opposed to true atheism, which denies the possibility of any god. For most of those who started within one of the Abrahamic faiths, the God they deny is omnipotent, omniscient and good, as well as immanent (and therefore willing to interfere in human affairs). For most, consideration isn’t given to the possibility of other gods with other traits, such as a god constrained in its level of intervention in human affairs. Religious atheists are amongst the most intense; a child who learns that he or she has been duped concerning Santa Claus can become very hostile to that dear old gentleman, and perhaps even to his reindeer. Likewise, people who are convinced they have been duped by or about God well may become truly hostile to God and to the religion that promoted Him.

King-of-the-Castle atheism is often arrived at through admiration of, and wish to identify with, those currently advocating atheism. The New Atheists are strutting their stuff. Scientists are the new superheroes and the New Atheists — and some media — make it appear that all scientists are atheists (certainly not true). This makes an atheist (or agnostic or anti-church etc.) stance seem ever so much more sophisticated than any sort of belief. For many who do not think for themselves, no further reason is required to be atheist. “Only nerds believe in that superstitious stuff.” Add to thais the fact that while ever-fewer children are receiving any kind of religious education, those who have received such education are often required to defend their belief to themselves and others, and you have a situation for youth that is often inimical to religious belief.

[Read more about atheism in Postings #3 and #6]

So if there is nothing wrong with atheism, and we can believe what we want, then what’s the problem? The issue arises only when an atheist is selling or defending atheism as logically more defensible than theism of any type.

Let’s assume that the Big Bang Theory (not the TV program) is valid (something that I personally believe, but against which there is an increasing amount of resistance among scientists. ^{Note 1} ) The atheist must believe the Big Bang happened as an accidental explosion of an incredibly dense singularity that occupied no space, that “ballooned” into our universe, complete with an accidentally consistent set of rules of physics, chemistry and evolution.

From nothing, the atheist must further believe, an incredibly number of chance happenings must have happened, each at just the right time, to allow for the development of life, some of which evolved to the point where it was intelligent enough to observe the universe, and be reading this blog. The odds against this are estimated by one scientist as 10¹⁴⁴ to 1 [See Post #10].

There are few scientists, atheist or not, who do not sense something larger than our current collection of traditional gods and blind chance in the creation of the universe and of life. ^{Note 2}