[Vision2020] News Article, Mental Illness, Fixation of Belief Discussion

[George Potter]

Mr Fox, et al.

You would like proof of the existence of God.  You want proof that religious beliefs are true.  You believe that if there is one God, then there must therefore be only one set of religious beliefs that are true, and you want logico-mathematical proof of that truth, or of the truth of that belief system.

Are these statements correct?  Because if they are not, they I have misunderstood your arguments.  If they are incorrect, please let me know so that I may address them from my level of knowledge and understanding.

Mr Fox, I would love to prove to you that God exists.  However, I'm not sure that proving the existence of God to you is going to be any more successful or possible than describing a sunset to a person who has been blind from birth.  You seem to refuse to look at the issue in any other way than through your use of logico-mathematical arguments.  God's existence cannot be proved ultimately and definitively in that way.  The same things that prove to me there is a God (the orderliness of the universe, the laws of nature, the variety and nature of life, and the organization of living organisms, among other things) are the same that prove to you there is not a God.  You have to go outside of those systems in order to prove Gods existence.

Now, you are probably going to accuse me of making excuses and not answering your arguments, blah, blah, blah.  But let me give you an example of other areas of our lives where logico-mathematical arguments do not explain their reality.

First, I love my wife.  Can I "prove" that to you according to your guidelines?  No.  I can describe the actions I take to show love to her, I can describe my feelings, I can lift up examples of my behaviors and our interactions to demonstrate that love, but that is not proof according to your criteria.  There is nothing empircal that can be used to show the love I feel towards my wife.  I could be faking all of it.

Second example:  If your wife/husband, boy/girl friend, or significant other gives you a massage, it should produce feelings of pleasure.  However, if some stranger off the street did the same thing, it might produce feelings of revulsion.  Now, why would that be, if our nervous systems acted simply based on electricity?  If that were the case, then any stimulation of the nervous system in any person with a normal nervous system should produce the same reactions/feelings not matter the origination of the stimulation.  However, that is not the case.  The thalamus and hypothalamus are responsible for the association of sensations with emotions.  The response pattern is very complex, and not very well understood.  At some point it may be understood, and then we might have a logico-mathematical way of describing it.  But until then, that type of questioning/evaluation cannot be used--there is no empirical way to prove what kind of feelings a person wil associate with a given stimulation.  We are not hard-wired like a computer, thank (deity of your choice)--which your system of analysis would be able to evaluate very effectively.

Now, I said earlier that you had to go outside of those empirical, logico-mathematical systems to prove the existence of God.  This is where faith comes in.  Faith is a type of hope--only more strongly held.  Faith is based on both knowledge (which may be evaluated empirically), and emotion (which is usually not conducive to empirical evaluation).  Faith is what leads to the belief in God, based on the knowledge of that individual professing faith.  Empirical evidence has never, and will never, by itself, lead to the type of faith necessary to believe in God.

Now to you, that shows the weakness of religious belief, and of religious believers.  To me, it shows the strength.  As a religious person goes through life, their experiences and the knowledge they gain should make them question their faith, and through that questioning, their faith may be strengthened or it may be weakened.  In my life, it has been strengthened.

The second way to know the true nature of God?  Ask Him/Her/It/They.  According to the Bible, James Chapter 1, verse 5-6:  
      If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
     But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.  For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

This is the reason, Mr. Fox, et al., that I don't believe you will get the answer you want.  Knowledge of God always comes after the expression of faith.  Without faith, there cannot be knowledge.

Finally, as to the multiplicity of religions and religious beliefs.  You are right.  I do not think they can all be completely true.  But it is a falsehood to say they must be completely right or they are necessarily completely wrong.  It is also a cop-out.  Scientists used to think there were 48 human chromosomes.  When they found out there were 46, did that mean that Mendel's studies and hypotheses were wrong?  No.  I do feel that there is one true religion, but just because someone else has a different viewpoint on one or two issues of the nature of God does not mean they are absolutely wrong.  And it definitely doesn't mean they are mentally ill.

By the way Mr. Fox.  You take Mr. Wilson to task for a supposedly denigrating joke based on ethnicity.  Couldn't your snide comment: 

        "He [Smith] said the Laneys were a "very stable, loving family," and the suspect has no history of mental illness [except deeply held religious
convictions one might conclude from the facts given]"

be considered denigrating based on religious beliefs?  Appears a little hypocritical to me.

George Potter