jeffma (04/19/83)
Suppose I make the following statement for the purpose of argument:
I do not have any reason to believe the Christian (substitute
Jewish, Islamic, etc.) conception of a "God" is correct. Why
should I believe it?
This type of position has been presented on the net in various disguised
forms; the question of evil, attempts to illustrate internal contradictions,
and so on. One of the first observations that must be made about the
above statement is that I AM NOT criticizing "God," I am criticizing what
Christians say about "God." Let's use an example which has less emotional
significance for readers: Suppose somebody tells me that "munchkins" are
breaking into peoples' refrigerators at night (including mine) and eating
their food. I, for one, would respond by saying I don't believe him. Can
it be said that I'm criticizing "munchkins?" Of course not. I'm criticizing
what somebody said about "munchkins." I might elaborate by saying that I
don't believe him because an "elf" told me that "munchkins" don't exist,
I might say that my own observations fail to establish his statements (I've
never seen one, except in a movie, and I've never been unable to account
for food missing from my refrigerator), or I might say nothing at all.
The statement he made does not constitute even the weakest reason to believe
him; the ball is still in his court.
Now, suppose our intrepid munchkin-promoter proceeds to flesh out his
scenario by countering one of my potential objections: "Aha! But munchkins
are a clever lot; they're completely invisible to those who don't believe
in them (sometimes even for believers), and they never eat non-believers'
food without replacing it with identical substitutes. Also, if you
try to stay up and watch, or set up traps or equipment to detect their
presence, they'll just go somewhere else. So there!" Has he succeeded in
building a compelling case for ice-box raiding dwarves, and in the process
forced me to give in to the validity of his story? By no means. On the
contrary; I have been given no more reasons to believe him at all. He has
merely built a scenario which is not investigatable by a non-believer. If
I'm forced to believe in his proposition before I can gain evidence for it,
I'm still being asked to believe without evidence. If anything, he has
made it even harder for me to "come around" to his beliefs, because, not
only has he closed any channels the unbeliever has for investigating the
phenomenon, he has made his story "internally consistent" by asking me to
believe EVEN MORE without evidence. Not only must I believe in "munchkins"
who steal my food, but also in their invisibility, their ability to get
"duplicate food," and their ability to detect any sort of trick. Why
should I adopt his belief, if I have neither evidence for it, nor a
shortcoming in my present belief-structure which will be efficiently
relieved by the new belief (Occam's Razor)? What difference does it
make if he dangles a carrot in front of me by saying "Gee, if you believe
in those little guys hard enough, you'll really see 'em!" I have no
doubts about that: once I've determined, arbitrarily, that those "little
guys" DO exist (I'm not just talking about SAYING IT; we're talking
hardcore belief here...) it would be quite easy to convince myself that
I've "seen 'em." After all, they probably look quite different to different
people, and to me they may look like cockroaches.
Take the issue of God's "goodness" versus the evil in the world. If the
Christian is not only asking me to believe in a "good" God, but also in the
concept that God's motives and actions are not accessible to the feeble
human who trusts his mere senses and reason (but, of course, there's a
chance that you'll "see the light" if you become a Christian), he has done
absolutely nothing to verify the validity of his beliefs to me. Even if
I were to concede that Christianity can be forced to be internally consistent,
it would be a mistake to assume that I'm accepting the Christian belief
structure as valid. It is not particularly difficult to generate off-hand
belief systems which are both internally consistent and totally ridiculous.
It is, of course, highly unlikely that any devout Christian will ever be
convinced that the beliefs he/she holds are inconsistent. There are far too
many "invisible munchkins" built in, like God's "mysterious ways," the
subjective validation by believers of divine intervention in their lives
(rescued avalanche victim: "Thank God!" For what, causing the avalanche
or rescuing her?), mystical experiences ("visions," prayer as a channel
of communication with God), and so on. Once a deep religious belief is
adopted, it causes you--by definition--to see things much differently than
before.
Obviously one of the primary reasons for the durability of Christianity
or any other well-established religion is those built-in "invisible
munchkins" which allow believers to shield themselves with arguments which
are convincing to BELIEVERS, but totally inadequate to those who have yet
to adopt their beliefs. If I tried to establish a religion based on a God
who drops into Times Square on New Year's Eve and performs any and all
miracles specified by the crowd, I would probably have a hard time maintaining
a faithful "flock" for very long--unless I cleverly modified my religion such
that the God will only come down "soon." One might think of this process
as the "natural selection" or "survival adaptation" of religions and cults.
This leads me to my main point: there is, to my knowledge, absolutely
NO EVIDENCE FOR THE VALIDITY OF CHRISTIAN BELIEFS. In other words, there
is no evidence which compels a reasoning individual to change from a
non-Christian to a Christian (I am excluding "evidence" that the religion
will provide relief from anxieties, which is readily available--if Christians
can come up with nothing more compelling than this, and freely admit that
they adopted their belief as a drug, then my point will be made). All of
the material that I have seen bandied about on the net--appeals to the
Bible, historical evidence for Jesus, miracles, evidence of "design,"
personal "experiences of God," "Pascal's Wager" (has this one been brought
up?)--all represent types of evidence which rely on a PARTIAL PRE-ACCEPTANCE
of the principles of the religion (petitio principii, or "begging the
question"), or on other self-serving and unwarranted assumptions. This
obviously does not mean that Christianity is "false," of course; I challenge
you to "prove" the non-existence of my nocturnal refrigerator raiders. But
that's not the point--I'm asking for evidence of the validity of Christian
beliefs; not an explanation of how those beliefs can withstand the scrutiny
of people trying to find them inconsistent. Internal consistency is only
a NECESSARY condition for validity; not a SUFFICIENT condition.
Thus it seems to me that a productive line of discussion on net.religion
would be to discuss Christian (Jewish, etc.) motives for adopting their
religions, and for Christians to present any reasons they can (remember:
reasons accessible to non-believers) for the person who is not a Christian
to become one. Surely there must be SOME sort of motives for taking the
plunge to Christianity, folks. If you appeal to the Bible, though, you
must first show me why I should believe the Bible is the "Word of God;"
if you appeal to "miracles," you must first show how they provide evidence
for the Christian conception of God; if you use "Pascal's Wager," you
must first show me why I should assume that the adoption of Christianity
can't harm me, and so on. Am I being unreasonable to expect a thoroughly
explained (i.e. "good") reason? If so, tell me why.
Since it is innate in their beliefs to seek converts, I think this would
be an attractive topic to Christians. But if they want ME to become a
Christian, they will have to provide me with reasons to believe their
conceptions are "correct." It seems to me that their prior efforts in this
area have been weak. In fact, the lack of evidence for the validity of
Christianity (note that this is not merely an exercise in proving the
existence of God) has even been capitalized upon by those who (like
Kierkegaard) maintain that "Faith" must be maintained in the absence of
evidence, and that the "True" Christian never asks for evidence (I assume
he must also enter Christianity on these terms). I consider this
subterfuge, however: it merely succeeds in making a virtue of ignorance.
I refuse to turn off my brain unless I am first convinced that it's the
right thing to do (which unfortunately means USING my brain).
The failure to offer any reasons for assuming the Christian belief structure
is typified by the simple appeal to "allow Jesus to come into your heart."
Make a small (!) exception and let Him slip right on in there, without asking
why. I do not doubt that my outlook would change if I adopt this religion,
but will this outlook be a valid one? Will I be in a position to evaluate it
after I accept it blindly? I think the answer is obvious. Am I doomed to
"eternal damnation" because I refuse to make an unjustified leap?
Waiting to be convinced....
Jeff Mayhew
Tektronix