Miracles and Realism

"...in my experience miracles never bother a realist. It is not miracles that incline a realist towards faith. The true realist, if he is not a believer, will invariably find within himself the strength and the ability not to believe in miracles either, and if a miracle stands before him as an incontrovertible fact, he will sooner disbelieve his senses than admit that fact. And even if he does admit it, it will be as a fact of nature, but one that until now has been obscure to him. In the realist it is not faith that is born of miracles, but miracles of faith. Once the realist believes, his realism inexorably compels him to admit miracles too. The Apostle Thomas declared that he would not believe until he saw, and when he saw, said: 'My Lord and my God.' Was it the miracle that made him believe? The likeliest explanation is that it was not, and that he came to believe for the sole reason that he wanted to believe and, perhaps, in the inmost corners of his being already fully believed, even when he said: 'Except I shall see...I will not believe.'"

~ The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Weight of the World

Too many hopes are riding on one man's shoulders and to be certain the weight of these hopes will crush him or at least crush those who have chosen to put their hopes there. But perhaps he asked for it when he campaigned for change, he asked people to rest their hopes on him, to bet on him, to vote for change. He didn't really comprehend what he was asking, or perhaps he comprehended but thought he could do it, or perhaps he was too successful in getting what he asked for. But the weight of this world's burdens will crush him. No man can live up to these expectations, there's too much that has gone wrong with the world for one man to change it all even if that man occupies the most powerful position in the world. The quality of hope has changed, it has become a hope that something decent starts changing in the world, but the world is not a place for decent things to happen. There's too much evil, there's too much hate and it's easier to destroy than to build. 

With the kind of expectations that people have, he has no choice but to disappoint, not because he had the world fooled and that his hidden agenda was sinister, but because he is a good man and it takes more than being that to eradicate evil. Do I make it sound too simplistic like a superhero comic? Well, when it comes down to it, after all the shades of gray are attributed to their respective black and whites, it's approximated to this kind of simplicity.

A video I watched addressed to Obama triggered these thoughts. The letter to Obama relayed through video by an Israeli human rights activist was roughly save us Obama from the evil we inflict on palestinians and save us from our aching conscience. The video recalled Obama's promises to save the world, and they were calling him in to live up to these promises;  save us from our acts, save us from our sins. She asked him to stop how complacent the IDF soldiers felt while killing young children, to stop the inhumane treatment of Palestinians, to end the terror inflicted on palestinians by Israel. The woman in her letter said that she prayed for Obama to win even though she didn't believe in God. In a way, with her letter she was praying to Obama. How many of us want to send out a letter or video to someone out there to change the way we live? I would suppose that most people on the globe would want to send out a letter entitled Dear Obama, or Dear Mubarak, or Dear Qadafi even. The reason we don't send out to the latter two is because we're certain they won't listen, or perhaps we don't send out to others because we know they won't be able to do anything even if they wanted to.

The world has replaced the prayer to an all powerful God, to human beings who can hardly live up to their promises, who can only try to change the world and most likely will fail. The world says it doesn't need God anymore, but strip the world of the facade they believe in called a system and a government and you will see how much they need God. The ongoing prayers to other humans who control their fate is strong evidence that there is a need for God even in the presence of a government and rules. Who do you turn to when the law has failed you? When your leaders have failed you? When humans have failed you? When the world has failed you?

That woman in the video has chosen to turn to Obama, a man who has promised with words what we all want to see happen. He has promised that the most powerful man will be all that we wish him to be. But even if he did live up to his word, can he answer all prayers?

I'm not saying that God answers all our prayers, or that God must exist just because man has failed. I know many people who at some point in their life felt no need for God. I'm just saying that the need for God is real in a world gone wrong, when all the systems that man has made could not protect him. The need to thank someone, the need to call out for someone, the need to find someone to help you through the hard times, because I imagine it would be very lonely when all men as well as spirits have forsaken you. I see many lonely people, trying to find someone to call out for. They call out on people that will probably never be able to help, like another Obama who is probably too busy failing others he has already promised to make yet another promise. 

On Atheism

A friend of mine asked me why I joined a certain group comprised of atheists, agnostics and non religious people. There was a quote on that group about how atheists should not be defined as anything, that there should be no word to reflect their belief. So my friend asked me for an answer, and I said that I disagreed because atheists have a positive belief rather than a passive or neutral one. Agnostics can claim this, but not atheists.

From Wikipedia:

Atheism is the disbelief in the existence of any deities.It is contrasted with theism, the belief in a God or gods. Atheism is commonly defined as the positive belief that deities do not exist, or as the deliberate rejection of theism. However, others—including most atheistic philosophers and groups—define atheism as the simple absence of belief in deities (cf. nontheism), thereby designating many agnostics, and people who have never heard of gods, such as newborn children, as atheists as well.


I'm using the common definition as positive belief that deities do not exist, deliberate rejection. This is not like saying I don't know, or I don't have a point of view regarding the matter, it says I know for sure that deities do not exist. The modern view which encompasses more numbers is to say those who are not against us are with us, this refers to agnostics who do not know and others who claim they’ll never know. And so, newborn children are atheists by that rationale, while in fact they're agnostic.

Since my contention is that newborns are agnostic, that also extends to treating those children who are born with religious backgrounds as agnostic as well, it is only when they decide to answer the question of whether God exists or not that they may be one or the other.


As for the quote:

"Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, "atheist" is a term that should not ever exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non astrologer" or a "non-alchemist". We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs."

Let me tell you my opinion about the statement, there's one factual flaw that makes this statement fail, the word 'unjustified'. The truth is it's very justified, if not from an evidential point of view such as miracles and a variety of other experiences that point to the presence of God, then alone by the social necessity of the presence of a god. According to most philosophers who don't believe in God, man needs God and man needs to create God (if he doesn't exist), so that in itself justifies it. So in light of a generally accepted claim, there is a need to say your stance or whether you have none. It’s like saying I don’t believe in galaxies and expecting this to be the norm.

Also, there are people who say Elvis is dead and people who say Elvis is alive, and people who just don’t know. Now here's the problem. Imagine I say a Michael exists. Now I know this Michael, and I've seen his emails, but others haven't. If they say that they don't know if Michael exists then they have no opinion on the matter, which is fine, but if they say for certain that he doesn't, then there’s a problem cause I've experienced him. Why preach to the world that Michael doesn't exist and that it's absurd that someone with the name Michael should exist? I mean I understand if he doesn't exist to them because they haven't experienced him or sought him out, but why should that be the normal if I can see traces of his existence?

The quote goes on to say:

"An atheist is simply a person who believes that the 260 million Americans (87 percent of the population) claiming to "never doubt the existence of God" should be obliged to present evidence for his existence-and, indeed, for his BENEVOLENCE, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day."

So basically, what he's trying to say is that HE demands evidence, rather than people asking him for evidence.. now the trouble with that statement is that he will never accept evidence that's personal to someone else, so his demand that others provide it is totally bonkers for lack of a better word. People don't demand that atheists prove that God doesn't exist, they only present them with evidence that is usually refuted.

In the end, doubt is a part of faith, not the opposite, because it takes overcoming doubt to have faith really.

I hope that explains my view of atheists, who are at the other end of the spectrum that contains religious believers, and the real neutral ground is agnostic, once you incorporate agnostics into atheists, it becomes mixed up and ambiguous.