The Beauty Of Dawn

I have recently been thinking about the so-called “institution” of marriage and the controversy over which kinds of people should be allowed to be married and which shouldn’t.

I Don’t Like Marriage

First, let me start out by saying that I don’t like marriage in any of its forms for anyone. To me, it is an institution created at a time when women were considered little more than chattel, property, to be transferred from one family to another. Worse, the transfer out of the woman’s father’s family is considered a good thing because they no longer have to care for the woman who, to the minds at the time, were worthless because they could not do “a man’s job” and were a burden.

Think about some of the traditions that go with marriage. Wedding gifts are considered now to be for both the bride and groom were originally for the groom only. They were a bribe from the bride’s family to get the groom to take her off their hands–a dowery. The changing of a bride’s last name to that of her husband was originally intended to show the transfer of “ownership” of the bride to the groom’s family. The bride was thus “branded” so everyone would know she was no longer the concern of the bride’s father’s family and was now the “property” of the groom’s. Now, these traditions have been altered over time to make them more palatable, but the fact is they were created as a means of transferring property, namely the bride.

If That’s What You Want…

That being said, it’s quite sad that the LGBT community has not been allowed to share in the joy (some would say misery) of marriage because of antiquated laws, based in religion and in clear violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. They violate the prohibition, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” by requiring that people subscribe to the religious idea that marriage was a union “between a man and a woman” when there are religions where the two people’s gender are not an issue. Those laws thus elevated a particular religious belief above others, thus establishing those elevated beliefs as the “official” religion.

However, in light of some of the recent controversy over allowing LGBT couples to be married, those laws have (or had) a more subtle violation of the First Amendment. Namely, those laws prohibited LGBT couples from freely exercising their First Amendment right to freely exercise their own religious beliefs. Why is this important? Because the recent controversy I referred to earlier involves those of a particular religious faith refusing to issue marriage licenses to LGBT couples even though they are required to by law. They claim that to force them to issue the licenses would violate their right to the free exercise of their religion.

And, therein lies the problem.

What do you do when a person’s right to freely exercise their religion of choice curtails the right of another person (or couple) to freely exercise their different religion of choice? That’s really the central issue.

It seems to me that you must try to accommodate both sides as best you can, but one side or the other is going to lose something. The trick is to see if you can find some way to make what is lost something that is not Constitutionally protected. Then, while one side or the other may not like it, they cannot object to it on legal grounds. So let’s examine both sides to see if we can find something.

The LGBT Side Of Thing

One way would be for the LGBT community to accept an alternative form of “pair bond” that functions legally exactly like marriage but isn’t called marriage (e.g. Civil Union or Domestic Partnership). That would allow LGBT couples the same rights, privileges and responsibilities afforded a heterosexual married couple. Those of religious faith who would be compelled to issue the document would not be issuing a marriage license and thus not violate their religious convictions. But, the document would have the same legal weight as a marriage license.

Unfortunately, I seem to remember that something like this was proposed to members of the LGBT community and was rejected. They wanted to be married. I don’t see why the name is that important, but obviously they do. Without that kind of a compromise, there is little that can be done from the LGBT side. And, it still raises the question, which religion gets to define what marriage actually is, from a legal standpoint? Because, if you allow one religion (or group thereof) to define it legally, you have established it (or them) as an official religion, something specifically forbidden by the First Amendment.

Religious Objector Side Of Things

Now, let’s look at the other side. What can be done from the side of the religious “conscientious objectors”? Well, first of all, if the office where marriage licenses are issued has multiple people who can issue the licenses, at least one of whom does not object, then there is no problem.

Or is there? In this case, the simple solution is to simply ask the LGBT couple to go to a different line where the person issuing the licenses doesn’t have a religious objection. Easy, right? Except that the LGBT couple might be embarrassed or receive unkind attention by being singled out to move to another line. Also, the license issuer might not want to have to reveal their religious objection, also for fear of embarrassment or unkind attention. You might try to put up signs that say something like “Religious Marriage Licenses” and “Secular Marriage Licenses” to shunt LGBT couples to the correct line, but that still might be too much “singling out”.

I don’t see what the big deal is. To me, it is like being in line and when I reach the front being told, “Oh, I have an objection to bald men. You’ll have to go over to that other line.” Sure, I might question the sanity of the person, but wouldn’t have a problem changing lines. I might also be a little embarrassed, but not so much as to cause emotional trauma. But, that’s just me.

In any case, while there might be some mild embarrassment, transferring the LGBT couple to another line is a reasonable, rational compromise. The religious license issuer does not have to do anything that goes against their religious convictions. The LGBT couple still gets their marriage license.

But, what if all the issuers object or there is only one person in the office who is authorized to issue marriage licenses and they are a religious objector? Now what do you do?

Undue Burden

That situation is much harder. The LGBT couple would have to go to another county in the state where there would be able to receive a license. Unfortunately, they may have to travel several counties over before they find one that will issue them a license. This could result in a trip of a hundred miles (or more) and several hours worth of time. For a poor (financially) LGBT couple, this could be the difference between being able to get a license or not, thus preventing them from exercising their Constitutionally guaranteed right. Clearly that’s something we cannot allow.

Perhaps the office could issue vouchers for bus tickets to carry them to a county that will issue the license, but it still has a possibly onerous time burden. Given that they are poor (in our hypothetical), they are probably hourly workers and any time they spend travelling to another county is time for which they don’t get paid, which is an unfair burden (and might even be considered a tax).

It seems now that the only way for the LGBT couple to get their license in a reasonable fashion, would be to compel the religious objector to issue the license. But, is that legal?

Free Exercise Of Religion

I would have to say, no, nor is it right (in a moral sense). Then, how do you solve the dilemma?

I would approach it from an employer/employee perspective. If the employer (the government) hired the employee (the religious objector) to do a job and one of the requirements is to issue marriage licenses to any couple that qualifies, then the employee cannot perform their duties and should be replaced. Yep, I said it. Replaced.

But wait, isn’t that illegal because it requires the worker to be of a particular faith to hold the job? Actually, no. It doesn’t matter what religion the employee is. If they cannot perform their duties for whatever reason (religious or otherwise), then they should not be in that job. Period.

For example, let’s say we have a firefighter, who has served their community well, saving many lives, dashing into burning buildings to rescue people in need. But, one day, through no fault of their own, they get into an automobile accident, off duty, and are now a quadriplegic. They are now unable to perform their duties. Should they still be able to hold their job? Of course not. While their service was admirable, even exemplary, they cannot go into burning buildings to rescue people or even hold a firehose to extinguish a fire. Obviously they cannot do the job they were hired to do. Thus, they need to be replaced by someone who can.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to fire the person. Perhaps there is a job at their fire station or within the fire department that they can do even though they are quadriplegic. If that’s the case, then by all means move them into that job! But, someone still needs to be hired to be on that fire truck to do the job they can no longer do but sill needs to be done. If their disability is such that there is no job they can hold, then, sadly, they must be let go for the good of the community. It’s harsh, I know, but it’s necessary.

Now, with regards to marriage licenses, if the government employee that is tasked with issuing them is unable to do so, for any reason religious or otherwise, they should also be replaced. Again, if there is another position in the office they can do that they can do (e.g. doesn’t require them violate their religious convictions), then great; transfer them and get someone who can perform all the required duties. And, it’s not about religion. The new person could be of the same religion but simply is able to issue the secular document without compromising their faith.

If there is no other job in the office the religious objector can perform, then, sad as it is, they must be let go, just like the firefighter in my hypothetical above. If they cannot perform the job they were hired to do and no reasonable accommodation can be made, they need to be fired and someone hired who can perform the job. Unfortunately, irrational and illogical union and Civil Service rules may make that difficult to do. So, there may still be no reasonable way to accommodate both sides.

A Modest Proposal

Actually, I think there is a reasonable way to accommodate both sides. It’s something that I think should have been done at the start, but lawmakers were a bit too short sighted (and biased) to have done it. Now may be the time. Also, I don’t claim to have thought of it first, but I did think of it independent of any outside influence I’m aware of. Someone smarter than me (and there’s a bunch of them out there) may have thought of it first.

What I think needs to be done is to split marriage into two pieces, a secular piece and a religious piece. Now, this is similar to what the LGBT community seemingly rejected, but I think I have a small twist that may make it palatable to everyone (although religionists may find it difficult to swallow).

The legal, secular portion that confers all of the legal rights, privileges and responsibilities is issued by the state and is called a Civil Union. This gives the LGBT community the rights they are entitled to and religious objectors cannot object because it isn’t a “marriage”. Everyone, heterosexual or LGBT who wants to “pair bond” must have this document for the bond to be legal. It also has the effect of pulling religion and what they consider marriage out of the legal realm and plants it squarely back into the hands of the religionists who seem to want to control what is and is not a marriage.

The second part, called a Marriage Certificate (not License), is then issued by the religious official or organization appropriate to the couple being married. It certifies (hence Certificate in the name) that the Civil Union meets all the requirements, under their religious doctrine, of a marriage. However, it has absolutely, positively, no legal weight or power at all. Then, religious organizations can refuse to issue a certificate to anyone they choose on religious grounds thus preserving their “free exercise of religion” rights. They can refuse to recognize the certificate from any other religious organization(s) they choose (again a free exercise of their religion). It will then be up to every religious organization to decide, based on their faith, what they will certify and what they want. This should appease the religionists. They believe that marriage is a religious institution and this will make marriage just that: purely religious.

LGBT Marriage

The twist is, that since it is up to each individual religious institution to decide for itself what it will certify and what it won’t, LGBT couples may be able to find a religious institution that will recognize and certify their Civil Union to be a marriage under their religious doctrine. Thus, LGBT couples can, assuming they can find such a religious institution, get married just like heterosexuals can. Other religions can refuse to recognize such a certificate (for example, if the couple changes religions) as is their right. But they cannot deny the legal Civil Union rights nor can they prohibit the certification of the union as a marriage issued from a different religious institution.

Any current marriage licenses, of course, would be grandfathered in. They would serve as both a Civil Union contract and a Marriage Certificate from the religious institution that issued the license at the time. If the marriage license was obtained through secular means, such as a justice-of-the-peace, the license would serve only as a Civil Union contract. If the couple wants to be married in this case, they would need to seek out their religious institution to issue a Marriage Certificate.

I think this is a reasonable, rational logical proposal. It gives control of marriage back to the religions where it belongs, preserves the rights of the LGBT community to pair bond in such a way they they have the same privileges and responsibilities as everyone else and can be “married” if they can find a religions institution that will certify it.

Everyone wins if they will remain rational and reasonable about it. Unfortunately, people are rarely rational and reasonable.

Be well and think well…

I have recently read several articles from anti-evolutionists that supposedly “prove” that the extreme similarity between humans and chimpanzees (or bonobos) is a “myth”. Their argument depends on the fact that when doing this type of comparison, Count Number Variations (CNVs) (among other things) are not included and if CNVs are included, then the percentage drops to ~95% (or lower).

Indeed, this is true. CNVs are generally not included as they are not considered by most geneticists to be relevant when making a comparison. If this is the case, doesn’t it blow the idea of us being similar to chimpanzees out of the water and that the anti-evolutionists are right?

Well, not exactly, but the anti-evolutionists would like you to think so.

Here’s the problem. Indeed, if you include CNVs, the percentage of similarity drops. However, if you include CNVs when comparing humans to other humans, recent studies show that the similarity of human genes to each other drops from 99.9% (on average) to as far as 90%! What that means is that it is possible that a given pair of humans may have more in common genetically with a chimpanzee than with each other if you use the same criteria! Are one of the two humans not really human? Or, is the chimp more human than one (or both) of them?

Nice try anti-evolutionists, but no cigar. You need to make sure you are comparing apples to apples.

But here’s the real “hidden” myth. The real myth is that life on our planet is actually organized in discrete groups like species, genus, phylum, etc. That whole taxonomy is a structure imposed on life by human beings from the outside and is completely arbitrary! Life on our planet and the DNA it is based on is a continuum (at least until you get down to the atomic level–but the number of base pairs is practically limitless).

Where do you draw the line between species? Originally, it was all about how things looked. Well, that can’t be right because a dachshund and a great dane look quite a bit different (to me at least) so they’re different species, right? Nope. Well, of course not. All dogs, wolves and coyotes are canines, so they must be all the same species. Nope. Canines, belong to the genus Canis–it’s a genus not a species. But, dogs, wolves and coyotes are still the same species, right? Nope. Dogs belong to the species Canis Familiaris, wolves (some of them at least) belong to Canis Lupus, and coyotes belong to Canis Latrans. (To be fair, Canis Familiaris can be considered a subspecies of Canis Lupus, but that doesn’t change that coyotes are a different species).

Suppose you have a box full of shapes: cubes, spheres, and tetrahedrons (four-sided solids). They are of various sizes and colors (let’s assume red, green and blue). Now, you want to organize them so you can better classify and understand them. One obvious way to organize them would be by shape; group all the cubes together, all the spheres and all the tetrahedrons. That would be perfectly valid if shape were important to you.

But what if color were more important? You could group all the red shapes together, all the green shapes and all the blue shapes. That would be equally as valid. So, how do you choose which way? It’s totally up to the person (people) doing the grouping and what’s important to them. In other words, arbitrary.

What happens if you have a shape that’s a bluish-green and you are grouping by color? Someone might say it’s blue, but someone else might say it’s green? Who is right? It depends on who is looking at the object. Of course, you could always create a new “blue-green” group, but where do you draw the line? When does a blue object become green enough to be blue-green (or green) or when does a green object become blue enough to be blue-green (or blue)? Again, it’s completely arbitrary.

The divisions used for life on Earth are also completely made up. You could draw lines between animals in other ways than we currently do, and those groupings would still be valid. For example, we could group animals by whether they live on land or water. That would group fish and cetaceans together where, traditionally they are not. You could group land animals by whether they live (make their home) in trees or on the ground. That would group birds together with other non-birds that live in trees (such as some primates). You could group animals that fly and those that don’t. Birds and bats would go together when ordinarily they wouldn’t. These are all valid groupings…and just as arbitrary as the groupings (e.g. species) we currently use.

At one time, anti-evolutionists maintained that evolution did not happen at all. Then, as evidence mounted, they had to concede (there may be a few die-hards out there) that it happened, but only within a species, not across species. But, if the concept of a species is completely arbitrary (and it is), how can you know that a mutation did not cross a species boundary line?

You can’t, because it depends upon where that boundary is and that depends upon who’s drawing the line.

Now, if an anti-evolutionist can show me in one of their holy books where their god has specified to which groups (species) all the animals (and plants) on Earth belong and the criteria by which we can judge, then they might have something. But until then, the divisions between species is something man-made and imposed from the outside and is subject to question and error. That means that the idea that evolution cannot cross species is also subject to question and error.

Every time that religion has come up against science regarding anything in nature, religion has lost. The Christian church once taught that the Earth was the center of the universe and punished, sometimes severely, anyone who dared to say otherwise.

But, they were wrong.

Religion needs to stay in the realm where it belongs: the realm of things outside or beyond nature (the so-called “supernatural”) and leave natural things to that which has a much better track record of being correct.

Namely, science.

Be well and think well

I began this journey with two posts here and here trying to determine if it is indeed the case that you cannot apply logic to god. I came up with four possibilities to explore and have already addressed the first two. They were, “you really can’t apply logic to god” and “you can apply logic to god but he’s so far beyond our understanding it won’t matter.” The conclusion I came to for those first two possibilities is that, if they are indeed true, then no one can understand god, so those of faith telling us they understand the nature of god are mistaken. They tell us things are true about their god that they can’t possibly know to be true by their own definition of god!

Now on to the final two…

3. You can indeed apply logic to god and he is also omnipotent. Well, to understand anything at all about god, we must be able to apply logic, so the first part is okay. But, oops! The minute we actually do apply logic however, we discover that god cannot be omnipotent without some really twisted attempt to redefine omnipotent to mean something other than “all-powerful” but still meaning “all-powerful”.

Now, if we change the definition so that god cannot literally do anything and everything but that he has some limitations, we actually have case number 4. below. But most of these definitions require that we be able to apply logic to god (something many people of faith reject and I addressed in case number 1. already) and that there are actual, real limitations on what god can do (something most people of faith will also reject).

So, we either hit a logical contradiction or a definition that people of faith will reject, namely that there are things god cannot do. As we’ve already seen, anytime you allow a contradiction, truth cannot be determined as things can be both true and false simultaneously (or neither true nor false, whatever that means). If this is a definition that those of faith reject as not possibly true, then we can reject it, too.

Thus, in this case, no one can know the truth about god at all. It either requires a definition those of faith reject or a logical contradiction. So, those people of faith who contend they “know” the truth about god are, once again, mistaken. They cannot know the truth, or anything really, about something that is a contradiction.

4. Finally, we come to the fourth possibility. This possibility is that you can apply logic to god and he is not omnipotent.

Hmm…

You know, there’s nothing really wrong with this idea. Bet you weren’t expecting me to write that, were you? Despite what atheists would have you believe, this is a real possibility. Now, while there’s still no positive evidence to indicate it is true, there also is no evidence or logic to contradict it either. It simply requires a slight adjustment in the concept from an omnipotent being to one that is not “all-powerful” but immensely powerful. One that is not omniscient (all-knowing) but vastly knowledgeable. And, given some of the current cosmological theories, it is conceivable that some incredibly powerful (but not all-powerful), incredibly knowledgeable (but not all-knowing) being might exist that could create a universe.

For example, if black holes are indeed the starting point for a new universe, it is conceivable that a being or beings of sufficient intelligence and (possibly technological) ability could create a black hole and thus a universe. All they would need to do is gather enough matter together so that it has enough mass to collapse into a black hole or compress a smaller amount of matter enough that a black hole forms. Hell, we had some people thinking that the Large Hadron Collider might create microscopic black holes! If we can (possibly) do it, there’s no telling what a civilization or being hundreds of thousands or millions of years more advanced than we could do. Gives you something to think about, doesn’t it?

However, since this real possibility requires that god not be omnipotent, it is in direct conflict with the concept held by people of faith, namely that god is omnipotent. So, if this last possibility is true (and it could be), then those of faith who say they know god and that he is omnipotent are again mistaken.

So, there you have it. I couldn’t come up with any other possibilities that weren’t some variation on these four. I think I have shown that those people of faith who claim to know anything about god are utterly mistaken. Their own definitions betray them. However, I think I’ve also shown that their belief in some sort of supreme (but not all-powerful) being is not without merit. The current concept of god espoused of those of faith is simply flawed.

But, the idea that there might be a non-omnipotent supreme being out there is an important one to think about. That’s especially true for a few, vocal skeptics out there who have gotten a bit arrogant of late. Because, even if everything science teaches us is 100% true including evolution, even if we could prove all the world’s religions wrong with absolute certainty, even if we discover the ultimate scientific theory that explains literally everything and thus god is unnecessary, it doesn’t mean that a supreme being doesn’t exist anyway. He or she or it or they just aren’t what everyone thinks they are.

I’ll close with a quote from Andre Gide who said, “Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”

Especially people of faith. Especially when logic is forbidden and contradictions reign. And most of all, doubt your own certitude.

Be well and think well.

Last time, I mentioned that a friend of mine, who is a person of faith, had gotten into a spirited discussion with me about my lack of faith. When I pointed out the logical contradiction that an omnipotent being presents, she informed me that you can’t apply logic to god. I realized I wasn’t actually doing that in our debate; I was applying logic to her concept of god. But, she got me wondering if you really couldn’t apply logic to god.

I came up with four different scenarios related to the idea of applying logic to god. Now, I want to go into each one in detail.

1. You really can’t apply logic to god.

That’s the first, most obvious scenario. However, it seems to me that if it were true, we couldn’t know anything at all about god. Logic and reason are used to determine if something is true or not. Unless knowledge, through divine revelation to each and every person on the planet, is imparted without the need for reasoning and logic, we must at some point utilize logic to understand god. What I mean is, a lot of what many people know about god (or think they know) they have learned either because they read it in a holy book or they were told by someone who (supposedly) knew more about it.

If they read it in their holy book, they had to use reason to even understand what the words mean. If you can’t use logic and reason to understand god, how can you understand god’s holy word without them? Now, if you argue that the person(s) that wrote the book did the reasoning for us so we could understand what they wrote, didn’t they just apply logic and reason to god, something they insist can’t be done? They had to use logic and reason to write down what they knew or learned, otherwise it would be unintelligible gibberish. So, someone somewhere along the way had to apply logic and reason to gain an understanding of god. But that contradicts the basic premise.

Some would argue that the problem is the incorrect definition of omnipotence. That there are “definitions” of omnipotence that don’t result in a paradox. I submit that they are “moving the goalposts.” They would assert that omnipotence doesn’t really mean all-powerful but something else–something less. So, they are changing the definition of the word omnipotence to avoid the paradox. Well geez, if I change the definition of god to be “a fictitious entity” then it would be easy for me to “prove” that he doesn’t exist. Changing the definition to avoid the paradox doesn’t actually solve anything and is only semantics.

Thus, if someone had to apply logic and reason to god to understand him but that isn’t allowed, we have a contradiction. And, whenever contradiction is allowed, truth cannot be known. Therefore, anything they think they know about god is at best suspect, it’s truth completely unknowable and at worst completely wrong! They’ve used logic themselves to understand, but since you can’t use logic to understand god, they cannot have any understanding of god by their own definition. To me then, that means nothing they say about god can be trusted, including the idea that you can’t apply logic to god.

2. You can apply logic to god, but he’s so far beyond us we can’t understand it.

This one should be self-evident in its absurdity. If god so far beyond us that using logic and reason won’t work, they how did they get their understanding? If he’s beyond my ability to understand, why isn’t he beyond theirs? Do they really think their ability to use logic and reason is that much better than mine  (or other skeptics better at them than me)? I’ll be happy to put my ability up against those people of faith any time. So the very premise itself indicates they can’t know what they are talking about when they talk about the nature of god.

One of their arguments against this might be that, because they believe, they have a better understanding or use different “logic.” Well, logic is logic; logic determines whether something is true or false. If you can’t understand the logic then you can’t determine if something is true or false. So that won’t wash.

If believing is required to have an understanding of god, isn’t that a circular (illogical) argument? You have to believe in god to have the ability (to reason well enough) to believe in god. That’s a vicious little circle. Circular reasoning is an indication of poor thinking and calls into question (again) whether they really know anything about the nature of god or not.

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So far, we’ve looked at two cases and in both, those of faith can’t actually know what they are talking about with regards to god and that’s by their own definition!

Next time, I’ll explore the last two scenarios and come to my conclusion about the nature of god and what those of faith can actually know about it.

Stay tuned…

Not long ago, I and a friend of mine, who is a person of faith, got into a spirited discussion about why I could not share her faith. She actually believes that the Universe is less than 7000 years old, that dinosaurs coexisted with human beings (the Fred Flintstone School of Paleontology) and that the flood of Noah laid out the fossil record (even though there’s no sedimentation process that would deposit the fossils in the particular layers we find them–were it true, we should find the heaviest creatures, e.g. dinosaurs on bottom, then lighter ones, e.g. humans and finally the lightest on top, e.g. trilobites. That’s not what we find. In addition, it also doesn’t explain why the pattern from simple to complex life repeats multiple times. Were there multiple floods?).

So, one by one I laid out my logical arguments, not to convince her that god didn’t exist, but that a literal interpretation of the stories in her holy book was not well founded. She is an intelligent woman and I thought that logic and reason would reach her, but she wasn’t having any of it. Finally, in a desperate attempt to reach the logician I knew was within her, I trotted out an old chestnut and asked her, “Can god create a stone so heavy even he cannot lift it.” As many of you know, the question shows the logical contradiction of any entity being omnipotent (all-powerful). A more general version is, “Can god perform an act that even he cannot undo?”

Anyway, she knew I had boxed her into a logical corner. But, instead of admitting that and rethinking her position, she did what most people of faith do and proclaimed, “You can’t apply logic to god!” She’ll never admit it, but at that point she had conceded the argument to me. Indeed, it’s really not even possible to win a rational argument defending a concept that is inherently irrational.

However, she did get me thinking (and I would like to thank her for that here–thinking is always a good thing). Was I really trying to apply logic to god? Was that really what I had done? Well, I thought about it for quite a while when I realized the truth. I wasn’t applying logic to god. I was applying logic to her concept of god. Those are not the same thing. While a god of some kind may very well exist, that doesn’t mean that her (or anyone else’s) concept of who and what he/she/it/they is/are is correct. In fact, the logical conundrum I presented to my friend is exactly why I think she and others like her are wrong. What they consider god cannot exist, because whenever you allow a contradiction, you cannot determine truth. In fact, things must be both true and false at the same time or neither true nor false but not unknown, conditions that simply cannot exist if we are to have any understanding. And, understanding is the key.

That got me thinking even further. What if she was actually right? I was applying logic to her concept of god. But, what if you really can’t apply logic to god at all?. What would be the implications of that possibility? I spent many weeks pondering that idea and came up with four possibilities. There may be more, but these were all I could come up with.

1. You really can’t apply logic to god.
2. You can apply logic, but he/she/it/they is/are so far beyond our understanding that we wouldn’t understand the logic anyway.
3. You can apply logic and god is omnipotent/omniscient (a logical contradiction)
4. You can apply logic and god is not omnipotent/omniscient

In my next post, I’ll start to examine each possibility and what I think the implications are. After examining them all, I’ll then draw a conclusion based on my findings.

Stay tuned…

I know the title of this post is going to annoy a lot of atheists out there and maybe surprise a lot of theists considering I’m agnostic (but agnostic≠atheist). Theists have it wrong because their view has no evidence or, in some cases, logic to support it. That’s why their view is often referred to as a “faith.” They cannot prove or even test their hypothesis that there is a god. However, atheists cannot prove or test theirs, either.

“Now wait a minute, Lee,” I can hear some atheists say. “The burden of proof is on the positive (theists) not on the negative (atheists).” And, they are exactly right–the burden of proof is indeed on the theists. Some might even point out that it is not even possible to prove a negative, but that simply proves my point that atheism is an untenable position. But, atheists have the right idea, they just go wrong when they go too far and stray outside rational thought. Here’s what I mean…

Most atheists start their belief with a foundation in science; a good place to start. Science, and more specifically the scientific method, has a process that many are familiar with but I’ll briefly go through them now. First, you create an hypothesis, in this case “there is a god.” Second, you devise an experiment, experiments or observations that will either add positive evidence for the hypothesis to be true or contradicts the hypothesis proving it to be false. Then, there is a step that many are not familiar with: you assume the “null” hypothesis. I’ll explain what that means in a bit. Finally, you perform the experiment(s) and/or make the observations, collect the data and try to determine if the hypothesis is contradicted or that you have collected enough positive evidence to now reject the null hypothesis and assume the positive hypothesis.

Now, what is a null hypothesis? Many will assume that it is the negation of the positive hypothesis; in our case “there is no god” or, to be pedantic, “it is not true there is a god.” But, that is where the atheists are mistaken. More properly it should be, “there is no proof (yet) there is a god.”

You see, there is a basic tenet of rational thought that says, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” which simply means just because there’s no evidence for something doesn’t mean that something doesn’t exist or isn’t true. Let me give you an example. For centuries (millennia really) we didn’t have evidence that atoms existed. The ancient Greeks believed they did, but had no evidence. Yet, we now know that atoms do indeed exist. They also existed in ancient Greece. So, the absence of evidence (at that time) was not evidence of (the) absence (of atoms).

What’s even more disturbing about the atheist position is that they employ that same type of bad thinking that creationist theists use when attacking evolution. When creationists attack evolution, most assume that if they can prove that evolution is false, creationism, by default, is true. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if evolution could be proved false (and that’s highly unlikely), that fact says nothing about the “truth” of creationism. Likewise, it seems that many atheists want to believe that, because the theists cannot produce any evidence that a god exists, therefore a god doesn’t exist. And that is a non sequitur; it does not follow (from a logical, rational standpoint).

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some very specific ideas in certain specific religions that are demonstrably false. Some of their basic axioms are logical contradictions (e.g. omnipotence) and some are contradicted by physical evidence (e.g. the Earth and the (observable) Universe are without a doubt older than 6000-7000 years). So, those things, among others, at the very least should call into question the veracity of those religious views that espouse them if not out and out prove them false. But, just because their particular version of a god does not exist does not preclude the existence of some other god, goddess, gods or other type of supreme being. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Many atheists will bristle when they are told by someone, especially a theist, that it takes as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a theist. But, they are right. The idea that there is no god is as much lacking of evidence and proof as the idea that there is. The best, most scientific point of view, in my opinion therefore, is one of agnosticism. In the absence of evidence either way, it is better to say, “I don’t know” than to stand on an unsupported position.

And, “I don’t know” has always been a very important scientific idea to me. For decades, if have always said that the three most important words a scientist can say are “I don’t know.” But, as time went on, I decided that it needed a little addition.

Now I believe the most important words a scientist can say are,

“I don’t know. But I aim to find out.”

Be well and think well.