Is There A God? (by alaric)
When I filled in the application forms to be a cub scout leader, I was faced with a problem. There was a little box, long enough for one or two words, called something like "Religion".
The notes explained that having some kind of idea of spirituality was a prerequisite for involvement, which I agreed with; I think that many people these days, rejecting the interesting creation Christianity has evolved into over the past couple of thousand years, have gone rather too far to the opposite extreme, adopting materialism and nihilism.
But I'm afraid I don't have any simple "religion" that I can write a name for in that short a space. If I had to summarise my philosophy of life, I think I'd have to write "Fundamentalist Taoism with influences from Chaos Magick and Fight Club". Which (a) wouldn't fit in that space and (b) might lead people to ask if I'm trying to be funny.
So I panicked and wrote "Methodist", because that's what my wife had put on hers...
But it got me thinking: "What is the most concise description of my philosophy of the world I can write, that won't still require further explanation?". So here's a stab at it.
For a start, I'm agnostic. Now, the image that "agnostic" seems to conjour in the minds of many is of a fence sitter; somebody sitting there agonising about deciding if there is or isn't a god, too afraid to make a choice that might be wrong. Uncertainty has a bad rap; the image that comes to mind is somebody confronted with a fork in the path they are following sitting there agonising about which route to take, terrified of taking the wrong route; yet taking neither route is guaranteed to fail to get one home.
So, yes, I'm justifiably afraid of making a choice that might be wrong. But I quite happily live my life without having to choose. Going back to the "fork in the road" metaphor, I come to the fork, look down each path to see if there's any clue as to which is the right one, reflect for a moment, then if no hints as to which one is best are forthcoming, take whichever path looks most pleasant to walk along.
The key is that I have no problem with choosing a path to take; I will do that without hesitation. Just I do that without any delusion that I know it's the right path. Which means that if I come across evidence that the path I'm on may be wrong, I am quite happy to retrace my steps and try the other one. I feel no compulsion to defend my original guess!
So is there or is there not a god? I don't know. I see no evidence either way. But I think that it's most likely that there is no god - in the sense that I don't see any reason to believe the universe was created by an intelligent entity, nor that some omnipotent being is watching over us and/or judging our behaviour.
Tue 1st May 2007 11:00 pm 
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By David Cantrell, Wed 2nd May 2007 @ 8:00 pm
Never having done any scouting I know nothing at all about it, but what makes you think that making "some kind of spirituality" mandatory for group leaders is a good thing?
By Lionel, Mon 7th May 2007 @ 9:27 am
I am interested in the current debate, especially in the US, between the fundamentalists (who assert that not only does spirit exist, but that it is the ultimate good and that the problems of the world can be traced to society's abandoning spirit), and the humanist extremists (who, like Dawkins, argue that not only does spirit not exist, but that it is bad in that the belief in it has caused more wars, tyranny and misery than good).
I do think the Dawkins folk have a point when they deny that religion is necessarily a force for good or the answer to our problems (and I recall, Alaric, you once gave a talk on those lines at your prep school). But I see more resson to believe in spirit's existence.
The existence of spirit, as generally understood, seems to me to require 3 things:
That there can be some interaction between our universe and those outside intelligences.
Clearly a universe can exist, because we live in one. If something can happen once, the minimal expectation is that it would happen more than once - otherwise we have to explain why it could happen once and only once. For example: an explorer lands on an island and sees his first ever pineapple plant, so the natural assumption is that there must be other pineapple plants around somewhere. But if the explorer finds a unique statue, then there has to be an explanation of how it could have been created, and that probably requires a human creator.
I would also expect intelligence and conscious self awareness to exist "out there", because darwinian theory seems to illustrate that these qualities tend to evolve because the have survival value.
The interaction is the problem bit. When i was going to give a talk on this subject i did the sensible thing of telling the spirits that I was going to talk about this and would they be so kindas to provide irrefutable proof of their ability to not only hear me but also interact with our universe in time for my talk. Nothing happened. Are they insufficiently intelligent to get the point? Unlikely, as that would make us the greatest intelligence and that requires a reason why. Or are they too intelligent to accept my offer - can't comment on that! Or did the interaction fail?
Whereas the existence of intelligent spirit is a logical argument, based on likelihood, the interaction bit requires evidence. there is plenty of evidence, but it is not scientific evidence. So all I can say is that there are times in mediatation or quiet acceptance in my life when i do get a feeling of something big and beyond that i can commune with.
Therefore i come down on the side of spirit's existence but, like Alaric, I would never seek to persuade a doubter.
The next bit - is spirit good or bad for us - is a bigger subject.
By ella gale, Fri 11th May 2007 @ 2:51 pm
Hi Al. I think we have some similarities in outlook. I was an agnostic for a while, then atheist (and I like the metaphor of exploring each path). I now believe in something I call God. Science can take you as far as agnosticism and leaves you there with the question of whether there is a God or not unanswerable. So I came to choose to believe there was one based only on the fact that the idea seemed right to me and path seemed more pleasant. I have no idea if this God really exists or if I'm fooling myself, but it seems a nicer worldview than atheism. I also have no idea if this God is a Christian God or just some sort of universe/spirit force. I don't know.
And there is sort of strong anosticism that is to say that you can't know either way, you're not trying to decide, you've decided it's an undecidable question and are happy to not answer it.