Meanderings on Faith, Reason, and Loneliness

I’m still working on a couple of the books from my previous list, but I started on a couple of others as well.

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris is a letter from an atheist to all Christians (especially conservative or fundamentalist Christians). The book begins, “Thousands of people have written to tell me that I am wrong not to believe in God. The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ’s love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse.” Personally, I think Christians everywhere ought to read this work. It points out many weaknesses of Christianity as it is practiced and lived today.

I stopped halfway through that little book to start Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller. It is a collection of essays by a Christian author, but he is not your standard late 20th early 21st century Christian writer.

The two books being read together create an interesting mix and confluence of thoughts. I’m not very certain that I have fully processed even the parts of the books that I’ve finished so far. However, there are a couple of things that seem to recur.

First, I have struggled with a sense of borderline depression for a number of years. I think that at least a part of that is loneliness. “Tony the Beat Poet says the words alone, lonely, and loneliness are three of the most powerful words in the English language. I agree with Tony. These words say that we are human; they are like the words hunger and thirst. But they are not words about the body, they are words about the soul.” Miller’s words seem true to me.

Second, we have words and very large concepts built around the terms God, Man, reason, science, faith, religion, and belief. It seems to me that we have equated science and reason. And we have equated God and religion. And we have equated faith and belief. And it seems to me that we have decided that Man is trying to come to terms with God/religion vs. science/reason vs. faith/belief. It seems to me that some want to present us with choices – choose one as true and the others as false – or choose one as preeminent and the others as lesser.

Well it seems to me that God & religion aren’t necessarily the same thing at all. And it seems to me that science and reason are not the same things either. And, I’m not so certain about this, but I’m not sure that faith and belief are really the same thing. God is, in my opinion, beyond understanding. Religion is one way that some people try to go about understanding God. And it turns out that Religion at times also tries to be a lot of other things. Religion is bound up in man. It is full of culture, man’s culture. And, it seems to me, that because religion is oriented at helping to understand something as unknowable as God, it is also used to explain all kinds of things that are currently unknown. I suspect that this is where the religion vs. science problem starts. Once science helps us understand a previously unknown aspect of the universe it may run afoul of religion’s previously incomplete or inaccurate description.

And just because science relies upon reason to arrive at hypotheses and conclusions, doesn’t really mean that there is not reason outside of science. Science didn’t invent reason and doesn’t own the monopoly today. It seems that a lot of folks want me to choose between religion and science. The religion argument tends to be trust God and your faith and trust what the religious traditions have taught you. And the science argument tends to be trust reason. And my answer to both is, okay. I agree. But I don’t really see or sense the need to choose definitively and for all times. Sorry folks, I’m going to choose issue by issue, and item by item. I’m going to flip-flop.

• Is the universe infinite? I don’t really know, but science is probably better equipped to answer/describe this.
• Is there a God? Yes. And I also think that science helps us learn more about the universe around us which provides us with some clues about God, but that isn’t the same as proving one way or another that God exists.
• Can I prove that God exists? Nope. I’ve got some evidence that is pretty convincing to me, but I doubt that it would convince many skeptics.
• Is Christ the only way to God? I don't know for certain.
• Have a lot of bad things been done in the name of religion? yes
• Does that mean religion is a great evil? Bad things have been done in the name of science. Bad things have been done in the name of religion. Men have done bad things. I don't think getting rid of any of those is the right approach.
• Can we discover a great deal about our universe by assuming that everything is rationale and explainable through science? Yes.
• Is there such a thing as evolution? Yes.
• Is it possible that God guided, programmed or otherwise devised humans through the process of evolution? Sure. Who am I to say what God can or cannot do?
• Is there something wrong with abortion? Probably.
• Can we firmly establish when life begins? Not in my opinion.
• Should we outlaw abortions? Probably not.

And on and on and on…….

And a third thought that is swimming around in my head after reading all of this…. Is happiness really the objective? It seems to me that Harris, the secularist, ultimately judges the effectiveness of religion by claiming that lots of unhappiness stems from it. Yes, Harris does speak of moral or ethical truths and rights and wrongs that can be perceived without religious instruction. However, it seems to me that his moral compass is largely guided by what produces happiness and unhappiness. And it seems to me that many Christian writers discuss feelings to such an extent that it scares me. Feelings? What are they and do we even mean the same thing when we describe feelings of love or happiness or whatever? Is happiness really what it is all about? I’m not opposed to happiness, but I’m not convinced that it is the ultimate guide. There are other choices – species survival for example.

A final thought - I've got to finish some of these books. Next time I post, I'll have finished at least one of them and hopefully two.