Questions from an Atheist

The original godfather.

A friend, more or less an atheist, having recently watched a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair, asks some questions on religion. I respond. 

How can you believe in God? I'd like to, but I can't. 

One of the biggest lies we are all handed these days is the claim that the existence of God is in some doubt. No faith is required on this score. Almost all the great philosophers since Aristotle, 2,300 years ago, have given proofs of God's existence. You can ignore them, but it takes a supreme effort of will to reject them all. We have far stronger reasons to believe in the existence of God than in the existence of the word we perceive through our physical senses, or in our own existence. Yet nobody ever questions those, do they? 

The real issue is usually that people do not want to believe in God. Look at Hitchens. He is clearly angry at God. How much sense would it make to be angry at a nonexistent entity? 

Pas le Dieu des philosophes.

Can't we at least keep religion out of politics? 

No problem. The concept of the separation of church and state is a specifically Christian one. It comes from the New Testament--”render unto Caesar what is Caesar's; render unto God what is God's.” “No man can serve two masters,” and so forth. The point, of course, is that true Christians should reject politics, not that true politicians should reject Christianity. The implicit suspicion of the political enterprise that this Christian idea produced has led directly to making governments in Christian countries more honest, less intrusive, and more respectful of human rights than governments anywhere else. 

But this separation of church and state necessarily does not mean religion should not be heard from in the public square. If that happens, we lose the true separation of church and state: there is no longer the independent check on government that the separation is meant to provide, and the religious are no longer free to be fully, expressively religious. And it certainly also does not mean that the devout should be excluded from public service. That, too, is not the separation of church and state, but its opposite, a belief system sponsored and enforced by the state. 

God's penmanship

Hitchens won the recent debate with Blair—arguing that religion has not been a force for good in the world. Not my opinion--by audience poll. Isn't he right? Look at the Indian parochial schools, the priest abuse scandals, September 11, Iraq, Afghanistan... need I go on? 

Taking your examples in turn: 

Indian parochial schools—the churches are being scapegoated now because they were the only folks back then who cared enough about Indian kids to give them an education. Those now levelling crazy accusations against the churches would have been the same “progressives” then forcing sterilization on the native people and leaving their children to starve or die of TB. There is precious little hard evidence of any kind of sexual abuse in the residential schools, and it is almost certain that the level of sexual abuse in the residential schools was lower than it is in the average public school, not to mention the average exclusive upper class residential school. 

The “priest abuse scandals”--any reputable studies show the rate of sexual abuse of minors among the Catholic clergy is lower than the rate of sexual abuse of minors among clergy of other denominations, which is probably lower again than the rate of sexual abuse of minors among the general population. The detected rate among Catholic clergy since about 1980 is very close to zero. The only reason Catholic priests are in the news in this regard is because journalists and the secularizing elites in general hate Catholicism, and are determined to pin something on them. This is payback for the Church opposing abortion. Secular elites always at least secretly hate religion, and will move against it whenever they feel they can get away with it—religions, with their insistence on moral behaviour, are checks against the will and the free rein of the powerful. It is interesting and not coincidental that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis used exactly the same charges against the Catholic priesthood: that they must be sexual perverts and child molesters. 

September 11—not to endorse the act or the people who committed it, who were common garden-variety assassins, losers just wanting to be famous, but Arab Muslims are fundamentally on the defensive here. It was Western secularism and Western feminism that attacked first, objecting systematically to pious Muslim traditions such as veiling and the separation of the sexes. Because they are relatively powerless, Muslims and Arabs resort to terrorism, as the relatively powerless have throughout history: as my Irish ancestors did in their day, or Ukrainian resistance fighters did under Nazi occupation, or John Brown in his. A nasty and a sad business, with many innocent victims; but it is not religion that has caused the conflict. It is secularism and feminism. If you wiped out religion, people would just find another fulcrum for their prejudices; and this result would itself be no more a just solution to the problem than wiping out the Jews would have been a just solution. Would you blame the Jews for the war? 

Iraq--Saddam Hussein's regime was a secularist regime that modelled itself first on Hitler, then on Stalin. Saddam himself modelled his public image on Stalin right down to the moustache. The official creed of his Ba'athist was not just secularism, but atheism; seems odd then to blame Iraq on religion. He made a show of embracing Islam late in his career, when it looked like enlisting the support of the devout might be to his political benefit. Same for Muammar

So the solution to the problem of war and conflict is obvious: get rid of secularism, and get rid of Marxism. 

Like World War II and the Cold War, it was secularism that caused the Iraq War. Sadly, though, the Americans, when they came in, thanks to feminism, failed to respect religious and cultural norms all that much better than Saddam did. Rumsfeld went on public record to say the Iraqis would not be allowed to have a religious government if they voted for it. If the Americans had not insisted on imposing secularism and feminism, I suspect the war in Iraq could have been over about when that famous banner on an American ship said it was (“Mission Accomplished”). 

Afghanistan is the same story, only more so: first the Soviets ploughed into Afghanistan attempting to wipe out all their religious and cultural traditions in the name of secularism, Marxism, and atheism. The Taliban formed in defence against this attack. As soon as the Russians were driven out, Western feminism almost immediately began demanding a new invasion. NATO finally did it, if not in direct response, and once there took up right where the Soviets left off, trying their best to wipe out the only two institutions in Afghanistan that still worked, the family and the mosque. Thank feminism and secularism for the deaths and the terrible financial cost. 

Somewhat similarly, the clericalist regime in Iran came to power as an immediate reaction to an aggressively secularizing, “modernizing” (and much less democratic) government under the Shah. 

You may go on. More anti-religious charges, by all means. This is fun. 

The bird is the word.

How do you see God...as man, child, Holy Ghost? When I had faith I believed in a huge thumb just waiting in his vengeful way to crush me for any action, thought or deed done accidentally or on purpose. As I grew older, as a dictator. 

Christians have been given by God himself a very clear picture of God as God wishes us to think of him. We should see him as a thirtyish Jewish man, probably brawny, having been a carpenter, and bearded. And most perfectly portrayed at the moment that he died for us, nailed on a cross—the essential event of history. 

God is of course, pure spirit, and so does not really “look like” anything. If he has a physical body, it is the created universe as a whole, which, while fallen, still expresses his nature. But it is very useful to have a mental image for contemplation, and this is the one he has given us. 

He also chose to appear to us as a white dove, so that is necessarily a legitimate image. He has chosen to appear as a hand or finger pointing or writing, so your own image is pretty good. In Cebu, it is traditional to portray him as a child—as we do at Christmas. Also correct. A flame or a burning bush is also a good image. So is a lamb. All express some symbolic truth about him. 

Then there is the old man with a beard. The justification for that depiction is that the Bible refers to him several times as “the Ancient of Days”; and Jesus refers to God frequently as “Father.” It's okay, given that we are supposed to think of God as our father, but it seems to me it is actually much less defensible theologically. It flirts with breaking the OT prohibition against specific depictions of the Creator. Why go there? 

He is the opposite of a dictator. When Christopher Hitchens stood up in front of that audience in Toronto, and complained that God was a “kind of celestial dictator like Kim Jong-Il,” he was automatically disproving his point. If Christopher Hitchens stood up in front of a public audience in a real dictatorship, like North Korea, and complained about that dictatorship, do you think he would even have been permitted to finish his speech? Do you think you would ever see it on YouTube? And God is all-powerful. But what, exactly, did you see happen to Hitchens? Exactly nothing. 

God will never violate our free will. This is the opposite of a dictator; dictatorship is all about violating free will. And religion, unlike the state, never compels anyone to do anything. A human dictator is a being who has no legitimate claim to power, but exercises power in almost all possible circumstances. God is a being who has every legitimate claim to all power, but almost never exercises it. God is the absolute opposite of the human dictator. 

Despite this obvious truth, what becomes a problem for many people—and it was a problem for me too—is that, especially as we are growing up, unscrupulous and abusive powers, including politicians, parents, teachers, secular authorities of all kinds, bullies of all kinds, will whenever it is to their advantage co-opt for themselves supposed religious authority, and use falsifications of morality against the weak and impressionable to support their own control. Saddam is a good example: when a religious revival came along, he cynically tried to co-opt it, having a copy of the Qur'an written in his own blood, and putting the words “God is Great” on the Iraqi flag. Ghaddafi in Libya has done more or less the same. So, in effect, did the September 11 terrorists; in 1980, they would simply have done the same thing in the name of Marx. Precisely because he is not a dictator, God will not step in and prevent such abominations. 

For anyone who has been abused, therefore, it becomes essential to understand that they might have been fed a load of crap growing up, more or less precisely to separate them from the comfort and protection that God and religion can give. It is essential not to rely on what we might have been told as a child, or indeed as an adult, but to make our own careful examination with ears and eyes and minds and hearts open. The devil himself can and will quote scripture. 

Hell of a first step.

Who is He to say "I am not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs from under thy table"? How dare I be told I'm not good enough?? Who the hell (pun intended) was anyone to tell me this? 

I had to look up that quote. Catholics do not use it. Apparently Anglican. A bit over the top to my taste; smacks to me of exaggerated false piety. 

But, frankly, don't be silly. Of course you are not worthy to so much as gather crumbs from under his table. Reality check: he is God. You are not. The difference between being God and not being God is in principle infinite. 

Modern psychologists and educators have done incalculable harm by pushing a cult of “self-esteem.” This is purely the devil's council: Lucifer fell for pride. Most people demonstrably have too much self-esteem, not too little. I recall a poll run by Time magazine some years ago, asking the general US public who they thought would go to heaven. Oprah Winfrey came third on the list. Mother Theresa came second. And first, by a large margin? Themselves. 

Most people, in other words, have an opinion of themselves that is so high it is objectively delusional. They hardly need more encouragement in that direction. 

From my own experience, contrary to everything we have been told, a lack of self-esteem is not the problem even for those of us who are depressed, or depressive, or have been abused. We don't need to be told we are always right—in fact, this approach is guaranteed to make depression worse. What we need, always, is to be reminded that right is right, wrong is wrong, truth is truth and lies are lies. 

Bosch: Light at the end of the tunnel

How do you see heaven and hell? Real places where we are cognisant? Or otherwise? 

I have a lot of personal opinions on the nature of heaven and hell, but that is what they are, personal opinions. I don't want to go into it here, not because I think Heaven is impossible or even difficult to conceive, but because any descriptions are highly likely to be misunderstood. Jesus himself resorted to parables, so I am unlikely to be able to do better. 

They are real places, but not physical places as we understand “physical”--you are of course never going to see heaven with a telescope. They are outside of any limits of space and time. I believe we will be fully conscious in heaven or in hell, but “consciousness” will also be something different from “consciousness” as we use the term now. “We see now as through a glass darkly, but then face to face.” 

The essential feature of heaven, of course, is that we will be directly and completely aware of the presence of God. The essential feature of hell is that we will be directly and completely aware of the absence of God. 

Those who go to hell will actually choose to go there, just as Lucifer did.