posted
Well, it IS unlikely that I'll suddenly decide that Thomas Jefferson was a Mormon at heart simply because Kat has suggested it (facetiously) as a possibility. But if she could present actual evidence of that assertion on par with the evidence presented of Jefferson's atheism, it's likely that I would look twice at my own position.
As it stands, she's only said "it's arrogant of you to assume that you know what someone who's dead was thinking." Since my arrogance doesn't impact the likelihood of my correctness, though, her claim's not relevant to the issue. Given the volume of Jefferson's writing on this very subject, I don't think there's really much room for speculation; like I've said, I don't think any well-read, ex-Christian atheist in America would fail to recognize in his words their own thoughts, and Jefferson's own defense of divinity is explicitly a "well, God has to exist to explain this..." sort of thing. There's clearly no way to be sure, but I think there's considerably a stronger case to be made for Jefferson's atheism than, say, for Lincoln's bisexuality.
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posted
Fortunately for your argument, he's dead and can't dispute the results of your hypothetical experiment that comes up all warm and fuzzy for you.
Was it really hypothetical, though? I should ask Matt. It's hardly concievable that NOT believing in God and trusting that an explanation would come forth for what had yet to be explained had never occurred to anyone by Jefferson's day.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: It WOULD be akin to saying that if Jefferson had just once seen an incident of miraculous healing at a Mormon church he would have been converted on the spot as his only beef with Christianity was inability to believe in supernatural things.
Um, I don't know many people who wouldn't change their minds about god on the spot if they were presented with irrefutable visual evidence. Problem is that's never happened.
Dag got what I was going after. I KNOW of Mormons who converted because of super natural events that defy explanation and later left the faith. You'd be surprised how easily a miracle becomes old news.
I just don't think it's completely accurate to say that Jefferson needed only a single rational explanation for a Godless universe and that he would have embraced atheism and started running with it.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: It WOULD be akin to saying that if Jefferson had just once seen an incident of miraculous healing at a Mormon church he would have been converted on the spot as his only beef with Christianity was inability to believe in supernatural things.
Um, I don't know many people who wouldn't change their minds about god on the spot if they were presented with irrefutable visual evidence. Problem is that's never happened.
Dag got what I was going after. I KNOW of Mormons who converted because of super natural events that defy explanation and later left the faith. You'd be surprised how easily a miracle becomes old news.
Well then, perhaps it wasn't irrefutable?
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posted
Blackblade made the original hypothetical. It certainly seemed that JT was saying that "an incident of miraculous healing at a Mormon church" would be "irrefutable visual evidence." If he wasn't, I'm not sure how his point related to Blackblade's.
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posted
The only pre-Enlightenment atheist I know of -- as opposed to some version of a "God of the Gaps" deist -- is Epicurus, and even he spent a lot of time talking about gods. He just defined the "gods" in such a way that they were non-sentient natural forces. The term "atheist" is very old, but the modern form of atheism -- in which no supernatural forces are believed to have ever been necessary -- is as far as I know indeed very modern.
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posted
I must say that the choice of Jefferson is a curious one. Javert Hugo might have a case with a different historical figure, but Jefferson? To bring it back to the OP, there is a very good reason why Hitchens wrote a very positive biography of Jefferson, we have a very good idea of his thought process and he would be quite hostile to most religion today as shown by his own words.
posted
I was saying that if such a healing happened in a manner that it appeared to be 'irrefutable'*, then I would be surprised if any rational person would refuse to reconsider whether or not god exists**.
*Meaning that god didn't 'heal' back pain, or a stomachache. I'm talking about Wolverine style healing; a closing up of a bloody gash right before your eyes that leaves the skin pink and smooth afterwards. That, I would consider 'irrefutable'. Since BB didn't elaborate on what kind of healing we could expect in his hypothetical, I clarified before responding. Unlike Dag, I can't know what everyone is thinking when they post.
**Since most atheists I know consider the utter lack of hard evidence as a major reason to not believe in god, it seems like finally, for once, providing some might do the trick. Maybe not, though. It's just a 'what if'.
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quote:The only pre-Enlightenment atheist I know of -- as opposed to some version of a "God of the Gaps" deist -- is Epicurus, and even he spent a lot of time talking about gods. He just defined the "gods" in such a way that they were non-sentient natural forces. The term "atheist" is very old, but the modern form of atheism -- in which no supernatural forces are believed to have ever been necessary -- is as far as I know indeed very modern.
This is what I can hardly believe. Thousands of years of human history and only one atheist? Really?
I even have stirrings in the back of my mind of counter examples and where I was when I read about them, but they weren't permanently filed away in any accessible place because it was in passing in the pursuit of another subject. Maybe I'll find them later.
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posted
Atheism definitely existed in Jefferson's day (and by that name). Washington at one point makes specific reference to atheism as being an acceptable property for people he hires.
edit: and it seems to be a meaning of someone who does not believe in God. He lists a few religions that are acceptable (all the major ones, I think), then says something like "or even an Atheist".
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quote:Meaning that god didn't 'heal' back pain, or a stomachache. I'm talking about Wolverine style healing; a closing up of a bloody gash right before your eyes that leaves the skin pink and smooth afterwards. That, I would consider 'irrefutable'.
And my original point stands: "That's hardly irrefutable visual evidence. Just because someone heals you doesn't mean everything they say about how and why they did it is true."
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posted
The trouble is saying that one's belief is the necessary result of mental rigor, be it Mormonism or Atheism, in my opinion. Everyone will one day know that Jesus is the Lord, but only those who have believed on him will be made sinless. No one will be compelled, by the burden of evidence, to be saved.
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posted
Heh, c'mon atheists out there. Would you really believe 'God did it' if a priest laid hands on an injured person, prayed for healing, and then the injured party was healed Wolverine style? Or would you instead believe, "Coincidence coupled with some other rational explanation?"
Despite this example singling out atheists, my point is that to people as a whole, nothing is ever irrefutable. There are people out there who believe the Earth is flat. Nothing is ever irrefutable.
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quote:Meaning that god didn't 'heal' back pain, or a stomachache. I'm talking about Wolverine style healing; a closing up of a bloody gash right before your eyes that leaves the skin pink and smooth afterwards. That, I would consider 'irrefutable'.
And my original point stands: "That's hardly irrefutable visual evidence. Just because someone heals you doesn't mean everything they say about how and why they did it is true."
Yay! Definition time!
Enjoy talking to the brick wall -- peace out.
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quote:Notice in particular that he never says that God has necessarily granted the North anything,
Of course. That's the point, and it's why he's closer to Edwards than to the creeping Arminianism of early nineteenth century evangelicalism. The theological portrait he paints of the world is quite clear, and distinct from the most-favored-nation status of progressive American Protestantism.
quote:He dances around the exact properties of God very deftly.
Not really. He's talking in language theologians of the period understood clearly. God's providence, his sovereignty over history, was his paramount attribute to old line Calvinists, and Lincoln sounds here like one of them. This is partly because he was steeped in the Bible; he quotes Matthew early on in the address and closes the second to last paragraph with that resonant phrase from Psalms: "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Furthermore, the Second Inaugural is clearly an evolution in his theological views. For instance, early in his presidency, he sounded like a fairly typical American of his time:
quote:Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.(Collected Works, 4:270–71)
After the second battle of Bull Run in 1862, however, he wrote this, titled, "A Meditation on Divine Will," and which, his secretary John Hay recalls, was kept private.
quote:The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for, and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true—that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds. (CW, 5:403–4)
This is the sort of reasoning that pervades the Second Inaugural, and it's the sort of theological reasoning - an unwillingness to claim God's favor, an acknowledgment of human flaws and a sort of collective morality, and an ultimate certainty in God's sovereignty - that characterizes the Edwardsian school of American theology that had been dying out since 1802.
Anyhow, I'm not so sure Lincoln was a Christian, and he certainly never joined a church. But he seems to me to have had a deep, deep sense of providence. Some historians call him a post-Protestant, like Melville. That might fit, I suppose.
Scott - I certainly don't agree with Hitchens, but I find this new atheist movement (of which he is certainly the most eloquent member) interesting, so I read them. Hitchens's book is riddled with logical fallacies, but he's mightily entertaining, I think. I'm not sure why we should find him threatening.
Tom - Actually, the Deist God was explicitly not a God of the gaps, which is a nineteenth century phrase of the natural theologians, who would have recoiled at the accusation of deism. The deists were constructive theologians; they did not believe they were struggling to explain the world but approached it with confidence in reason. Jefferson (and other deists like Franklin) found deism useful intellectually and politically in its own right, not merely as a crutch.
Anyhow, the argument you're making has been made before, but I find it's generally more useful to approach historical figures in their own context.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Heh, c'mon atheists out there. Would you really believe 'God did it' if a priest laid hands on an injured person, prayed for healing, and then the injured party was healed Wolverine style? Or would you instead believe, "Coincidence coupled with some other rational explanation?"
My honest answer?
Maybe.
If I saw it in person, and we had a doctor to indicate that both the person was really injured in the first place and then that the person was really healed...that would definitely give me pause.
If it was repeatable, that would put me well on the way to becoming a believer.
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Heh, c'mon atheists out there. Would you really believe 'God did it' if a priest laid hands on an injured person, prayed for healing, and then the injured party was healed Wolverine style? Or would you instead believe, "Coincidence coupled with some other rational explanation?"
Screw coincidence, I'd start investigate whatever biotechnology companies that the Church is invested in and start *buying stock*
(Assuming you know, I could verify that it really happened as I saw it)
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quote:Meaning that god didn't 'heal' back pain, or a stomachache. I'm talking about Wolverine style healing; a closing up of a bloody gash right before your eyes that leaves the skin pink and smooth afterwards. That, I would consider 'irrefutable'.
And my original point stands: "That's hardly irrefutable visual evidence. Just because someone heals you doesn't mean everything they say about how and why they did it is true."
Yay! Definition time!
Enjoy talking to the brick wall -- peace out.
Wow. What the **** is wrong with you today?
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quote:He was an atheist who believed in a godlike mechanism because no alternative mechanism had been posited at that point; we can call these people Deists, if we must, but they were really just atheists with insufficient information.
On that note, perhaps we should call Tom Davidson a theist because, even though he explicitly says he doesn't believe in God, he nevertheless thinks like many of us believers in God do and so we can conclude he would believe in God if he had sufficient information.
---
Aside from that, though... I think religion is a valid thing to look at when selecting a President. However, I think it's pretty clear that wise leaders have come from almost any religion, so I don't think you could ever say Romney would make a poor President just because he is Mormon. Instead you have to look at how he approaches his religious views and applies them to his political life and judgement. Jefferson was a great choice for president partially because he explicitly was open to religious viewpoints other than his own. Whether he was atheist or theist, he was not the sort that would oppress people just to advocate his religion. Is Romney the sort that would do so?
Frankly, if Romney is the sort that will heavily push religious viewpoints through political means, I don't want him as President whether he is Mormon or Christian or Atheist or whatever. I see no reason to believe that is the case, though.
posted
Yeah, Lincoln's Second Inaugural is one of the main reasons I find him a kindred spirit. Now maybe all the references to providence were inserted by his handlers, but I don't think so.
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Exactly! Faith doesn't come from miracles - faith precedes the miracles.
Someone with no faith who saw a miracle generally will labor to make the event fit the beliefs in his/her head.
The people of Nephi saw the miracle of the sun never going down on the night the Savior was born, but within their lifetimes it had all fallen apart anyway. Miracles don't create true faith - faith and people are more complex than that.
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quote:He was an atheist who believed in a godlike mechanism because no alternative mechanism had been posited at that point; we can call these people Deists, if we must, but they were really just atheists with insufficient information.
On that note, perhaps we should call Tom Davidson a theist because, even though he explicitly says he doesn't believe in God, he nevertheless thinks like many of us believers in God do and so we can conclude he would believe in God if he had sufficient information.
Yes. Because that's exactly what Tom is arguing....... Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Mucus and Javert:
Exactly! Faith doesn't come from miracles - faith precedes the miracles.
Someone with no faith who saw a miracle generally will labor to make the event fit the beliefs in his/her head.
The people of Nephi saw the miracle of the sun never going down on the night the Savior was born, but within their lifetimes it had all fallen apart anyway. Miracles don't create true faith - faith and people are more complex than that.
I love this argument.
'To believe it, you have to believe it!'
And around the circle we go.
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posted
Oh, I'm pretty sure Lincoln was a Christian at some point, or at least strongly inclined to the idea. The statement you've provided is a much nicer indication of a belief in an active god (I suspect that if Lincoln was a deist, it was earlier in life).
By dancing around, I was referring to phrases along the lines of "if we suppose", which permeate the speech. Most of the references to any active property of God in the second inaugural are approached hypothetically, not as a statement of belief.
Of course, this sort of strongly evolving belief is exactly the point I made earlier, about Lincoln's beliefs probably having changed significantly and at several times over the course of his life.
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posted
It's more of an explanation as to why relying on miracles for faith is a bad idea.
That's a poor recap of what I said. More like "If you didn't believe before the miracle, you won't believe after."
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: It's more of an explanation as to why relying on miracles for faith is a bad idea.
That's a poor recap of what I said. More like "If you didn't believe before the miracle, you won't believe after."
How is that not "to believe, you have to believe"?
If a miracle is a miracle, it should be miraculous enough that I don't have to assume it's true before I see it.
If you go around assuming everything is true before you have evidence, then you end up believing many many silly things.
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Someone with no faith who saw a miracle generally will labor to make the event fit the beliefs in his/her head.
The people of Nephi saw the miracle of the sun never going down on the night the Savior was born, but within their lifetimes it had all fallen apart anyway. Miracles don't create true faith - faith and people are more complex than that.
Give me a break! The whole point of my joke was that "wolverine"-style healing is a very poor excuse for a miracle. We can fake it with special effects and I would not be particularly surprised if a biotechnology company managed to do it in oh, twenty years.
Your hypothetical is not a proof that miracles do not create faith. If anything, its proof that people are very crummy at manufacturing miracles.
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posted
People pretty much believe what they decide to believe. That decision is influenced by the evidence they observe, but believing (or disbelieving) anything is still a decision.
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: People pretty much believe what they decide to believe. That decision is influenced by the evidence they observe, but believing (or disbelieving) anything is still a decision.
I disagree. I think you can decide on the level of evidence you're willing to accept. But belief itself isn't a decision. I couldn't just force myself to believe something. (Which is one of the reasons Pascal's Wager fails.)
At least not in the same way that deciding to get up and get another cup of coffee is a decision.
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quote:People pretty much believe what they decide to believe. That decision is influenced by the evidence they observe, but believing (or disbelieving) anything is still a decision.
I disagree partially. I don't think you can simply decide to believe something - I don't think you can really believe in something you know is false, for instance.
I think your beliefs are determined by your intuition or subjective judgement (what seems true to you). And that judgement is influenced by evidence and logic, but isn't solely determined by it.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: I'm saying that faith and miracles shouldn't be connected, and relying on miracles to produce faith won't work.
I guess I may be saying that they should be.
If you lack the evidence that miracles would provide then having faith is irrational. IMHO.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: I'm saying that faith and miracles shouldn't be connected, and relying on miracles to produce faith won't work.
I guess I may be saying that they should be.
If you lack the evidence that miracles would provide then having faith is irrational. IMHO.
That kind of defeats the whole purpose of faith, I think.
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: I disagree with your contention that miracles are the only acceptable evidence.
quote:I guess I may be saying that they should be.
It would be nice (easier, anyway), but lots of things should be that are not.
Then substitute "anything that is attributed to god that can effect objective reality" for "miracles".
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: I'm saying that faith and miracles shouldn't be connected, and relying on miracles to produce faith won't work.
??What hypothetical?
And I'm saying your logic is flawed since you cited my response to Rakeesh's hypothetical as part of it.
My response to Rakeesh's hypothetical is not evidence that faith and miracles are not connected. It is just evidence that Rakeesh is really bad at coming up with miracles, as are many people as is readily apparent.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: I'm saying that faith and miracles shouldn't be connected, and relying on miracles to produce faith won't work.
I guess I may be saying that they should be.
If you lack the evidence that miracles would provide then having faith is irrational. IMHO.
That kind of defeats the whole purpose of faith, I think.
posted
What kind of evidence do you think is provided by miracles?
My evidence for my belief in God has very little to do with the miracles I've seen (or think I've seen, when looked at from a different point of view).
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quote:Then substitute "anything that is attributed to god that can effect objective reality" for "miracles".
Yes, I'm aware of what a miracle is.
I know you know. I meant that that would be what I would consider acceptable evidence. I'm sure we disagree.
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posted
I think a lot of things are miracles like gravity, human speech and how many babies are relatively normal considering how much can go wrong.
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quote:"anything that is attributed to god that can effect objective reality"
I don't normally point out typos, but this one struck me as profound, since the statement as written means "anything that is attributed to god that can make or bring about objective reality."
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posted
It's like asking any other candidate with Christian beliefs if he/she really believes that the tomb preportedly to be the tomb of Jesus is the ACTUAL tomb.
I'd say it is more like asking a candidate if they believe in young earth six day creationism. Sorry, but the wrong answer to that question should disqualify you from the presidency.
Edited to add: not in a Constitutional sense, of course.
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quote:What's the proper word, Dag? Affect? I never get those right.
"Affect" as a verb means to "influence or alter." It could be paraphrased as "having an effect on something."
The big confusion with affect/effect is that both can be used as a noun and a verb. The verb form of affect is much more commonly used than its noun form. The noun form of effect is much more commonly used than its verb form.
To go back to your original use, I would say that God can affect objective reality because he effects it.
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