Is There A God? (by alaric)
As such, despite having suggested above that I reject religion, I also accept it where it seems useful to do so. All the times in my life that some little coincidence has occurred that helps me in some way or gets me out of a difficult situation - I say inside myself, "Thanks God/universe/invisible friend/benevolent aliens [delete as applicable]", because in those situations existence in the aforementioned seems harmonious with reality. And when things are bad, I say inside myself something along the lines of "I could do with a hand here; if anyone's listening, please consider helping me out, then giving me some kind of hint of what you'd like in return!".
I have a hunch that the "what you'd like in return" is an important part, so I include it. If there are powerful entities about who can help us mere humans out, then it seems a likely possibility that they'll be more keen to do so if I offer to help them in whatever way I can.
For example, once, when I was a kid, I had a toothache. My mother and I happened to be passing an ancient stone circle somewhere (how handy!) so, being an occult magician, she took me there. I stood in the centre of the circle while she walked around it. I thought to myself: I don't know if there is any power in these old stones. But from what I dimly recalled, people would have come here and made sacrifices of some kind in exchange for good harvests and the like. So I said within myself that I'd very much like this horrible pain in my jaw to go away, and if it did, I'd leave something behind that I cared about; this little paper cocktail umbrella I had in my pocket.
Anyway, my mother finished pacing, and we went back to the car, and as I strapped in, I felt a sensation like two warm hands on my cheeks, as if a person was standing behind me and laying their hands on either side of my face. It made my ache abate significantly. So I hopped back out of the car, nipped back across the road, and carefully pressed my cocktail umbrella into the grass.
Again, an experience totally at odds with my usual mechanistic worldview, but I have no problem with that. Maybe my healing was entirely psychosomatic. But even if that was the case, my leaving the umbrella behind could only help to strengthen the effect.
Put another way - the placebo effect is definitely rather potent. Rather than thinking I should be so strong-minded as to not be affected by such quackery, I'd much rather use the power of belief to its greatest extent 🙂
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.