God is Fake.
Danny, over at Personman, claims that God is imaginary. He points his readers to this site which outlines 50 reasons why God is not real. Danny then takes two examples that be believes demonstrate that the God of the Bible is not an actual God.
The first line of reasoning concerns the body of Jesus - but not in a manner you would expect. The Bible says that God was once in human form and then withdrew into the heavens. Humanity has spent quite a bit of time looking in the heavens - no God to be had up there. We have been to the moon and have peered light-years into the past, yet no we have seen “gold-plated kingdom floating up there. We see only the vacuum of space. But now God and Heaven have moved to ‘another dimension’ or ‘outside of space and time.’”
The second line of reasoning examines prayer. Quoting Mark 11:24 and John 14:14, Danny establishes that if the Bible is true and there is a God, then prayers must be answered. Given this, the effects of prayer in human lives should be verifiable. However, Danny lists three scientific studies that demonstrate that it is not - Study 1, Study 2, Study 3.
Because prayer does not work and God, through the Bible says it will, and the Bible describes Jesus as physically going up to heaven and there is no physically visible heaven, then God is imaginary.
Danny issues a challenge to his readers at the end of the post - and this is the strongest portion of the post. He says that if you cannot come up with concrete proof that our God exists, then “can you claim that your beliefs are any more rational than Islam, FSM or Scientology?”
I have a few problems with his arguments. Firstly, he is operating from a purely empirical and rationalist standpoint. We posit a spiritual God that is hidden. Because of this, setting up a falsifying experiment (looking for a physical Jesus in a physical heaven) that does not test for what you are looking for is just bad reasoning. Secondly, the prayer experiment does not test for a God, it only shows a non-positive correlation between two phenomena - outcomes of heart surgery (as in the last study) and prayer for that outcome to be positive. It really does not show anything about God from an existential standpoint. Lastly, and this is the most important point, if, on the one hand, you assume from the beginning that God does not exist the studies only confirming what you already think is the case; if, on the other hand, you assume beforehand that it does exist, then all you say is that it is not easily swayed to act as humans want it to act and that the study has wrongly interpreted those two naked sentences from the Bible.
Why does a presupposed spirit God have to be physically observed? I submit that we see indirect evidence of God everyday. Wondrous mountains, the fibonacci sequence in nature, beautiful star factories, and the eyes of my niece all serve as indirect evidence of God’s hand in the world.
“Does God exist” is an unanswerable question from a purely empirical standpoint. We can interpret the observable phenomena as evidence for a creator/God or as natural and random processes. What it comes down to is that Danny’s interpretive framework does not allow for a god who hides himself - mine does. It is a difference in framework.
What remains is Danny’s last challenge - why the God of the Bible? To quote my good friend JR, “We have the best story.” When I consider what I can see, what I can deduce, what I can reason, the story found in the Bible is the best one. Buddhism has a nice one, but I don’t have their givens.
What do you all think? I highly encourage you to respond to Danny at his blog.
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Comments
On Study one, some patients are supposed to have asked “for a successful
surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications.”
Regarding the Christian God, I think the request itself negates the intended
result. How can I ask for something I can’t do, but then dictate the
process of recovery? My Christian God is a living God, not a computer
program. He owns life and he decides what gets done, when and how.
He does not use the same logic that humans use. Otherwise we
would not need to pray as we would be able to perform the miracles
ourselves.
God is a powerful God, who is able to see what is beyond a human
being’s sight. If I ask to live and then I die, that does not mean that my
prayer has not been answered. Abraham was promised that he would
have countless number of children. He did not leave physically to
see those numbers of children, but the promise did certainly take
place as we can witness today.
Remember that as a Christian I believe in eternal life. that means
that Life on earth is part of the chain of life. For the human eye it
may look as if my prayer was not answered when I die physically, but
my prayer could have been answered for the eternal life.
I think the biggest problem with not believing in God is that we fail to
understand that God’s miracles take place in a context. It is not a
matter of a dry prayer in some sterile environment. There are other
variables that have to be in place to support that thing happening. It
could be under an environment to convince masses of people that
God exists, it could be supported by historical factors associated with
the sick person, it could involve faith, but I don’t think healing just
takes place just on its own.
I generally find this kind of discussion rather unproductive. In the end, this guy has a certain wordview (a modernistic one) which simply will not allow him to consider evidences and answers which fall outside of his naturalistic, empirical evidences. In the end, my narrative is not bound by such fetters. Thus, where do we even begin this discussion? The answer is not in attacking other religions, it is not in critiquing these prayer reports - it lies in challenging the very foundations of a naturalistic worldview and the (arrogant) assumptions which lie behind it. I suppose that’s why I think post-modernity is a good thing for the church in some ways - it allows us that voice without looking unreasonable.
I agree that we have a better story. But I think it’s more than that - we really do have the truth, the only story. I suppose my PoMo tendencies only go so far. :)
This is a very good discussion! I will just add some of my minor notes to what has been said.
I do think that God is observed indirectly by the works of his creation and by the moral laws that are written on our hearts. It really is beautiful that we can see how God works both by looking outside and inside of ourselves. So, this is indirect awareness of God. However, I am not so sold that we cannot have direct awareness of God. Why limit our knowledge of God to only the indirect? If we have the Holy Spirit, that means that God is in us, speaking to us, guiding us. This seems pretty direct to me. I have not done a lot of study on this idea of direct awareness, but it prima facie seems to be the case we have direct access to God. (William P. Alston’s “Percieving God” is the archetypal vanguard for this view).
Also, I completely agree that we have the best story. But, in what way is it the best? “Best” is a superlative term, but it is very general. In what way does Christianity have the best story? It is the “best” what? Best goodness? Excellence? Eloquence? I completely agree with Tom’ take on this: we have the true story, the only story. We have the beautiful metanarritve that rises to the top: the Gospel.
Tom,
I agree that it is an often unproductive argument for the reason you give - but the argument itself can bring awareness as to why it is unproductive - to raise awareness to the fundamental differences between the two camps. I think that can be fruitful.
Tom and Travis,
I do not doubt that the Christian narrative is a/the true narrative. How do you get there without resorting to saying, “The HS told me?” How do you talk to people who reject our true narrative? When I talk of Christianity as the best story, I mean it is the story that describes the world as I see and experience it and my intuitions the best. I don’t have any empirical proof, I don’t have any iron clad arguments that don’t start out presupposing what I am going to prove (see Plantinga as Travis has described it to me) such as the activity of the Holy Spirit.
I am not necessarily arguing against anything the two of you are saying, just clarifying my position.
EI,
While I agree with you, I think you might be selling some of those other religions a bit short. For instance, certain constructions of Buddhism are so amazingly logical to the point that they put out constructions of Christianity to shame. Plus, they do see the issue with nonattachment and not being attached to nonattachment. Mindblowing stuff - because they have thought it through. They don’t get to a contradiction and just write it off as a “mystery” as some people here, including myself do.
But, there is a one and only God, one who had a son - Buddhism does not allow for that.
I think one powerful witness to God’s existance is the resurrection of Jesus. Here is a guy who came from Galilee and began teaching and acting like he was the God of Israel, the one and only true deity. To prove it he said he would die and be resurrected. The canonical NT gospels and Paul (1 Corinthians 15:3-11) pointed their readers to the witnesses of this resurrected Jesus so that they could know for themselves. By dying and being resurrected from the grave as the promised evidence, Jesus proved that the God of Israel is really alive and is in fact God. Jesus’ resurrection proves the narrative of Israel and her God, Yahweh, to be the true meta-narrative (Paul argues that all of our faith as Christians hangs upon the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19). The narrative of Jesus and his resurrection is one way to show that God exists without resorting to “The Holy Spirit Told Me So” argument (this also helps to keep one from getting too far drawn into circular arguments about the Scriptures from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and 2 Peter 1:20-21, although these verses can help with validating the OT texts).
I really like what has been said so far in the post and comments by everyone. It is a good conversation.
I’m going to land with Hank’s resurrection answer. That’s the ground of my faith. In that story/event you have both ample historical evidence and the testimony of the Holy Spirit. It need not be an either/or dichotomy either way. We both experience God and have a God who is intimately and immanently at work in history. This empirical evidence vs. experience debate is a false dichotomy.
I agree, Honzo, there is benefit. I was just saying that I often find it wearisome.
Travis:
I agree that we can, to some extent, see Yahweh in the creation (ala Rom. 1). But honestly, as a Christian even, when I look at the creation and I look at humanities moral capacity I often see the absence of God more than the presence of God.
As a Christian, I look at the evil of this world and the brokeness, and though I know that God has conquored these things, I also can see why people don’t believe that He exists. What would you say to a person who see’s the creation and determines from the presence of suffering (children dying, molestation, rape, purposeless pain, etc.) that no god must be ‘out there’?
As I said, as a Christian I often have a problem jiving this knowledge with my experience (why did my father die in an unnecessary accident merely 2 months ago? it seemed so purposeless - almost like God wasn’t even there.) of suffering in this world, so I understand completely why the atheist rejects our God.
Just wondering how you would handle such a question if it came from an unbeliever who had seriously suffered real evil and concluded that there was not God? - no mere intellectual ‘problem of evil’ but real life suffering.
Honzo, your point is well taken. Lusani made a good point about prayers not answered here but may be answered on the life to come, or even on a different time-line than what we might hope for.
Tom, can I steal this PoMo word? pretty cool… I also think PoMo brings us a lot of benefits. I would rather have someone with a PoMo perspective than a fundamentalist that wants to do us bodily harm.
i think we want immediate answers to prayers. GOD works according to HIS schedule, not mine or yours. scripture has to be interpreted. scripture is inerrant. i aint. but sometimes the HOLY SPIRIT helps me to stay on track. one day it will all be clear.
Bart Erhman has used the same type argument. That is, God doesn’t answer our prayers so he probably doesn’t exist. I just want to remind everybody that - Jesus himself had prayers that were unanswered. Jesus prayed: ‘Take this cup from me’ before he was crucified, and before that night, he prayed for his church to remain united (One Church). Neither of this happened. So prayers cannot be a test for God.
Now to answer your questions Honzo, I agree with you. Christianity has the better story. It also explains and answers life’s most important questions: Origin, Morality, Meaning and Destiny. It is the most coherent.
Take the two you mention: Buddhism is illogical. Its greatest goal is to stop all desire. But why does the Dalai Lama desire the liberation of Tibet? Why desire anything? Why do Buddhists protest?
Islam claims Jesus didn’t die on the cross. Among all historians, there are two groups: the ones that say Jesus didn’t exist (small group), and the rest of historians that say he died on the cross (resurrection aside). In any case, Islam is false.
The rest of the world religions (except for hinduism perhaps) are weak candidates. Mormons, Jehovas, the christian cults, etc. have nothing against the historicity of the Bible. Hinduism is a little tougher to chew on (haven’t thought much on it) and my only argument against it would be that - again - we have the better story.
thoughts?