Thinking Outside The Illusion

There have been some interesting comments on the previous post, including a bit of a therapy session for me! Click here to take a look.

I've finally had chance to read the Time Magazine article on God Vs. Science which I mentioned in the post before last. The article mainly comprises an interview between the biologist and ardent atheist Richard Dawkins, and (in the believers' corner) Francis Collins, who is Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. I find myself agreeing (and disagreeing) with Dawkins and Collins in pretty much equal measure. At the risk of seeming absurdly arrogant, as we're talking about two very clever guys here, it seems to me that both of them allow their beliefs to cloud their judgment from time to time and that both, too, sometimes fail to achieve the shift in perspective which is needed to really tackle the question of God.

I'd better give you some examples of what I mean.

Dawkins remarks: If God wanted to create life and create humans, it would be slighly odd that he should choose the extraordinarily roundabout way of waiting for 10 billion years before life got started and then waiting for another 4 billion years until you got human beings capable of worshipping and sinning and all the other things religious people are interested in.

I find myself kind of amazed that Dawkins should come out with something like this. He appears (from this particular quote) to be as limited in his thinking as some of the believers he so despises. His words summon up a vision of an old guy with a long beard who is watching us from on high, twiddling his thumbs till the dinosaurs die out. But doesn't the latest scientific thinking suggest that time is simply a characteristic of our universe and doesn't exist outside it? So God wouldn't really have to twiddle his thumbs (always assuming he has them, which I strongly suspect he doesn't) because from 'his' point of view, there is no such thing as time. He is in the eternal moment, where everything happens at once (as are we all, I would argue, if only we could remember!) And it seems to me that setting in motion a system which 'starts' with the big bang, then progresses through evolution to finally produce the human race - and probably on, in the fullness of time, to other, more impressive feats - is a perfectly sensible way to create a universe.

(And I feel I should mention in passing that 'worshipping and sinning and all the other things religious people are interested in' are not necessarily of any special interest to God.)

Collins seems to have a much better grasp of things here.

He says: By being outside of nature, God is also outside of space and time. Hence, at the moment of the creation of the universe, God could also have activated evolution, with full knowledge of how it would turn out, perhaps even including our having this conversation. The idea that he could both foresee the future and also give us spirit and free will to carry out our own desires becomes entirely acceptable.

Apart from one glaring point of contention, I go along with that, but Collins gets distinctly dodgy, in my opinion, when it comes to the business of 'intelligent design'. He argues that if the universal constants, the six or more physical characteristics of our universe - the gravitational constant being cited as an example - had varied slightly, then life in the universe would have been impossible. Collins believes that this suggests the existence of a "designer".

Personally, I am not convinced by this argument. Dawkins provides a couple of alternative explanations, including the existence of a "multiverse": a large number of universes, in most of which the constants vary from ours and which therefore cannot contain life. Yet as there are so many of these universes, mere chance suggests that in one of them, the constants will be "correct" - which is how we may come to exist even without a god.

Collins responds that this is unlikely.

He says: I actually find the argument of the existence of a God who did the planning more compelling than the bubbling of all these multiverses. So Occam's razor - Occam says you should choose the explanation that is most simple and straightforward - leads me more to believe in God than in the multiverse, which seems quite a stretch of the imagination.

Though I am a 'believer', I can't go along with Collins here. The 'multiverse' seems a perfectly viable explanation to me. I think Collins just hasn't read enough science fiction. His argument sounds to me like the shellfish which inhabit a rock pool arguing that it is ridiculous to suggest that any other pools could exist. (One for fans of The Perishers there perhaps...)

So it seems to me that both of these men, from time to time, are guilty of getting trapped in the limitations of the familiar human world-view. As Neale Donald Walsch suggests in Conversations With God Book 1 (an excellent book if you haven't read it) this may well have been the origin of our traditional concepts of God, in which the divine being is confused with familiar figures such as earthly leaders and our parents, and is therefore associated with rules and retribution, rather than with the limitless abundance of infinity.

(Speaking of which, have you tried that tree thing yet?)

 

This may also be of interest:

The Nature of The Universe

Comments

[jana]

I prefer believing that there is a God than there isn't.

Amazing, how so many people think that it's a greater leap of faith to believe in God, but I believe it harder to believe in a non-god.

It's just so hard to explain so many other things... and... it's depressing.

Sometimes we complicate God so much, humanizing Him, till He is no longer God anymore.

And it's sad.

Sorry just rambled on. May not make sense and stuff... Haha. But nice post.

[zorak163]

No amount of intelligence will trump personal belief and that's why even those distinguished men can and will get stuck in the occasional bout of their own narrow mindedness.

[Desiree]

Truly a thought provoking post. I think I shall have to come back and read it again! Most interesting! Great job!

[Secret Simon]

I'm running a bit behind on my responses! Welcome to you all and thanks for leaving these comments. Just to respond to zorak163 (who I now know from visiting her site takes her name from "an evil and sarcastic praying mantis") - I think you are dead right. This is something we all need to be aware of. I like to think that I will change my beliefs if they are shown to conflict with the facts. But as I become more and more convinced of the truth of my personal vision, can I be sure that I will remain so open?

[Templar]

One of the most convincing arguments that I have heard lately for the existence of God relates to the existence of language.

The basic premise is that all languages are created by minds, without exception, and are used to convey information from a source to a receiver.

Isn't DNA such a language? Does it not have its own alphabet, syntax, symantics and intent? Therefore DNA must be a creation and not a circumstance of chance as no other language has 'evolved' by chance...DNA must have come from a mind.

[Secret Simon]

Templar - Although we both believe that God exists, I don't share your belief that it is possible to prove this. (Though I have to admit that I haven't had chance to read your large post on the subject yet. If only I could blog full time...) Here, for instance, I am not convinced. Surely languages *do* evolve, just as life evolves? No one set out to 'design' our modern languages. They just developed gradually.

[Phil King]

All i will say is i don't think it's logical to believe in a "creator", but if you choose to believe in one i have no problem with that

[Secret Simon]

Hi Phil - Nice to hear from you, and of course I have no problem with you *not* believing in a creator either. I wonder, though why you don't think it's logical to believe in one? I suppose my own belief in god goes beyond logic. It's all about gut feeling and personal experience and how I choose to interpret that experience. If we choose to use logic alone, then I reckon the most appropriate stance may be one of agnosticism, as we simply don't have enough information to go on.

[Phil King]

Yes i agree with the fact that logic should truly lead to agnosticism, since science can't prove definitely whether god exists or not.

But here's samples from my discussion with Templar as to why i think it's illogical to believe in a god.

how is it logical to believe in something that we have not the slightest shred of evidence exists?

The fact that you claim you can only prove god exists to oneself is a clear indicator that there is no proof of his existence.

Now even if he does exist and he exists primarily outside our universe, based on our CURRENT LOGIC and Understanding, IT IS logical to question who made god. If everything in our universe had to be created, then IT IS logical assume everything outside our universe also had to be created. Until someone can prove otherwise, there is no reason for this logic to alter

Right if you could prove god's existence then that would be a new discovery would it not? Can you tell me any new discover that has ever been based on logic? I can't think of any. All new discoveries that i can think of, were discovered by free thinking, guess work and hunches. Isn't it new discoveries that alter our logic?

Now before you tell me people have thought "logically" in th past and been wrong, then yes i agree. But that logic was PROVED wrong by GUESS WORK

Now i'm not saying god does not exists, even though i believe he doesn't. I'm just saying it's not logical to believe in god, at least not in the sense we define him

The rest of discussion can be found here
http://templar.osmthu.org.uk/blog/_archives/2006/12/9/2560989.html?message=

[Phil King]

Maybe one day it will be logical to believe in god, however, with our current understanding i don't see how it is

[Secret Simon]

Hi Phil - I agree with a lot of what you say. I'll just pick up on one point. You say: "If everything in our universe had to be created, then IT IS logical to assume everything outside our universe also had to be created." The only trouble with this is that scientists now believe (as I understand it) that time is a characteristic of our universe and doesn't exist outside it. Therefore cause and effect (which are a function of time) don't exist outside it either. As God must originate outside the universe which 'he' arguably created, he isn't therefore subject to time or to cause and effect. So no one needed to create him . He simply is. Our universe, on the other hand, definitely started with the big bang - and something had to bring that into being.

[Sunflower Optimism]

Yes, theologically, that is also what I have been taught, Simon - God is not bounded by time or space.

[Secret Simon]

Yes, so I think that theology and scientific theory agree pretty well here - assuming my interpretation is correct, for which I make no definite claims! But I stick to my belief that no one can prove (or disprove) the existence of God - at least not at our current level of knowledge.

[Phil King]

@Sunflower - Yes you may have been taught that, but have you ever questioned it? Do you have any evidence to back it up?

I have this funny feeling if one day we find a way to tap into alternate universes (if they exists) or tap into, for want of a better word, none existence, that the theists will create another place for god to hide

See i look at the evidence and the current evidence suggests that a creator does not exist. As Simon rightly put that true logic should lead to agnosticism, but after looking at the current evidence i bring in reasonable doubt.

I use therm current evidence since i'm living in the now, not the past or the future. Religion and theists seem to me to live in the past and point to what might happen in the future, while forgetting about the now

Again i'm not trying to convert anybody or say god doesn't exist, i'm just offering my thoughts on why it's not logical to believe in a god

@Simon - Yes i kind of agree. However i will only believe that for sure when we can show some evidence to back it up.

I'd also like to pose this question. Was time really created with the universe or was it created by humans after our level of understanding had reached an high enough level?

[Phil King]

If we did create time, then chances are that it is a characteristic of our universe, but only in the same way a car is

[Phil King]

Oh i have another question you might offer to shed some light on. How come scientists claim that our universe is expanding, yet it's also infinite

P.S sorry to bug you with all these questions, but i find it all interesting and none of my piers do. Well they might if i started using numbers instead of letters and ended every sentence with roflzorz!!!11elevenone

[Secret Simon]

Phil - I don't think God is hiding anywhere. "He" is everywhere around us, only we're not aware of him because we're not in the present moment. Our heads our full of what happened in the past and what might happen in the future. If we can train ourselves to be actually present, here in reality, instead of away in our thoughts, we may realize that there's a quality to the present moment of which we hadn't previously been aware. Meditation and/or the teachings of Eckhart Tolle are useful in this respect.

What I am drawn to myself is the (Hindu) concept of Brahman, which means that God is not only the creator but also the substance of the universe. So we ourselves and all the natural world are a part of God. So God isn't hiding anywhere. He is everywhere and everything. He is What Is.

The Christian concept of God is somewhat different, of course, but God is said to be omnipresent and the spiritual prescence which I perceive in the present moment I take to be (in Christian terms) the Holy Ghost. I myself take the view that all these teachings are true in their essential essence. They stem from the same place (God) and, if we pay attention, lead us to the same place (God). But of course we humans are hung up on analyzing things and picking out the differences between them. (And then fighting wars about it.)

And before you ask, no, I don't have any proof for all this. And if you want any proof of the existence or non-existence of God, I don't think you're going to find it. But if you are interested, I suggest that you try investigating meditation and similar practices and see what you discover through personal experience. Then it is up to you to see how you interpret what you experience. One easy thing you could try doing is to pretend that what I've suggested in my posts 'Let's Pretend' and 'Waking Up' is true: that we are all one, we are all the same person. Yes, I know it's a wacky idea but just try it. Try walking around and interacting with people with that concept in mind and see how it makes you feel. Just an idea...

[Secret Simon]

And another thing, Phil - Your question about time is an interesting one and I see where you're coming from on this. But as I understand it, scientists believe that it's a characteristic of our universe in the same way that, say, gravity is. It came into existence at the big bang, along with all the physical laws of our universe.

Do scientists claim that the universe is infinite? We often think of it as being such, but as far as I'm aware it is finite. It started off very small (at the big bang) and has been growing ever since. But I also have a concept of "What Is", which consists of this universe, any other universes which may exist, and whatever may be outside them. This is infinite and this is what I think of as God.

It occurs to me that you may also be interested in the Way Of The Mind forum (link on my sidebar) where they debate the existence of God endlessly. Do come back here as well though.

[Phil King]

I sure will come back, as i find all this stuff interesting and i'll checkout that forum too.

Your take on god is an interesting one and one which i haven't heard before. I have considered trying to learn some forum of meditation in the past and it's possible i may try it in the future.

As for you believing we are all one. I don't know you have noticed from my posts on templar's blog, but i'm a massive fan of David Icke. He is a firm believer that we are all one and that in fact we are actually infinite and not finite. He claims the 100th monkey syndrome is proof of it too.

He also claims our world is not physical unless you are tuned into it's frequency. He claims that our universe occupies the same space as every other universe. He likens them to radio frequencies and use to radios, but claims we can't tune into other frequencies (like people in the know can) because of our schools fill our brain, with left brain info to suppress the real truth.

Our left brain apparently handles the "real world" stuff. Basically our 5 senses. Our right brain handles all our creativity and imagination.

these are but a couple of his interesting theories. If you like the sound of them you should watch this

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=3768533123649481476&q=secrets+of+the+matrix
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-1880814077515097058&q=secrets+of+the+matrix
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=733382654820436671&q=secrets+of+the+matrix

In the order i posted :) Although the really interesting part doesn't start until the third part and it's 7 hours of viewing in total. It doesn't really get boring though since he uses a lot of humor too :)

as for scientists claiming the universe is infinite, one of Einstein's famous quotes was something like, "There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity". Maybe their thinking has altered since then /shrug

Thanks for your answers

[JERRY]

What you prefer to believe is not what the reality is.
The reality cannot be come out of discussion.