The Experience of God

[dastardly stem]

Thanks, Stak. That was an extremely helpful response. And I think you've nailed Hart's position, obviously you've considered his ideas before. But yes, his point stated early in the book was to speak to atheists and help them understand why they are wrong and he is right. But I don't think he did a fair job in defining an atheist position and I don't think he attempted to simplify his take enough for us lay readers to make much of his points. As I said, to me it seemed like he intentionally attempted to confuse his readers rather than clarify anything as he intended. That is extremely frustrating for me.

I think there is a tendency for theists writing ostensibly apologetic material to focus on what they perceive to be “popular” forms of unbelief in lieu of engaging the more obscure yet more substantial manifestations. I can imagine the rationale for doing this is along the lines of, “More people are being influenced by a Christopher Hitchens, Penn Jillette, or a Sam Harris than a Jordan Howard Sobel or a Graham Oppy, so I should focus on the former instead of the latter.” I can appreciate why that appears to be a prudent course, but I think it is fundamentally misguided.

Every person you engage with exerts some kind of influence over you whether you are conscious of it or not and so if you wade into a pile of bellicose atheists and start responding to them, you run the risk of behaving like them or worse. Religious fundamentalists of every stripe understand this very well, but their folly is to try and insulate people from ever being influenced by those outside the community in the first place; it is a short term solution that inevitably will fail. I think the best course of action is to be mindful of the influence and take appropriate steps to mitigate the negative aspects and accentuate the positive.

So Hart comes to the contemporary issue of theism versus atheism and starts surveying the landscape by reading post 9/11 critiques of religion by atheists. What he finds is an aggressive denunciation of religious belief predicated on social issues like Creation Science and Intelligent Design advocates trying to manipulate school boards, rampant sexual abuse perpetuated and shielded by clergy, violent acts of terrorism, discrimination directed at LGBT individuals and communities, and so on. These litanies against the social ills of practiced religion are joined with refutations of the classical arguments for God’s existence and rebuttals to contemporary arguments that, at best leave a lot to be desired and at worst are totally incompotent. All of this material is organized around the motif that there is no intellectually respectable form of religious belief and those believers who are undeniably intelligent are assessed as being religious for social and psychological reasons that make them suspect.

It isn’t hard to understand why Hart decides to push back in a similar manner, but in doing so his message gets lost in all the rhetoric and intellectual posturing. In all his chest-thumping about how atheism has no foundation to it, curious readers struggle to understand just what exactly Hart is trying to say or even what he really believes outside theism is better than atheism. I’m sure there was a sizable audience who were happy to read atheists getting a taste of their own medicine by someone capable of delivering it, but serving fans is better left to entertainers than theologians.

Nicely put. If all he wanted to do was attack Dawkins, whom he most focused on, and the others, then he should have clarified that. Instead he said he had the whole of atheism in his sights and declared it a defunct and completely incompetent way of thinking all because it fails to accept his presupposition that God is simply defined as the ground of all being. He needs all theists to see things his way and all atheists to think precisely opposite in all things. But its clearly not that simple.

[Rivendale]

It seems clear that an ultimate kind of God would be far beyond our understanding, while that God would presumably understand us completely and effortlessly—for whatever ineffable value of “understand” may apply. It’s not clear to me, though, that such a God would therefore have no interest in us.

One of us could surely only command an infinitesimal fraction of such a being’s attention. An infinitesimal fraction of the attention of such a being, though, might be more than the most intense human love.

Why would he have interest in us? Why not find interest in unfound microbes on the moons of Jupiter if they are there? If he's interested in us, is he interested in virus' too? Is his interest a "I need something to watch" kind of thing? Or is his interest in a "I really want these particular thingies to succeed in some way, even though I'm also causing, you know, serial killers and despots, earthquakes and Tsunamis? Sure their egos and motivations are causing death and destruction at times, but their innovations, as they see them, are, what, making life easier for them, and extending their disease filled lives."

Or do we want him to find interest in us because we love each other, and whatever we find good in that must be good to him?

And why be interested in rituals? Mormon god has so many covenant rituals it makes your head spin. Someone who is capable of manufacturing immense stellar nurseries cares about hand gestures and tassel movements in a cement building? And not only participating in these rituals one has to discriminate between humanities billions of other tribal patterns to find the legitimate pattern.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Mormon god has so many covenant rituals it makes your head spin.

Not only that, but rituals that change when fashion changes, or someone complains. Garments are literally optional these days, which blow my mind. I can’t fathom a Universal Intelligence caring to impart rituals that change with the whims of the governed. It’s nonsense.

- Doc

[Marcus]

Mormon god has so many covenant rituals it makes your head spin.

Not only that, but rituals that change when fashion changes, or someone complains. Garments are literally optional these days, which blow my mind.

Wow, seriously? That's huge.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Not only that, but rituals that change when fashion changes, or someone complains. Garments are literally optional these days, which blow my mind.

Wow, seriously? That's huge.

Yeah, I watched Consiglieri’s and Bill’s ML episode last night. And they went into the history of garments pretty thoroughly. Not only are garments optional these days, but the Cult came out and actually said they don’t protect you, either. I’m completely gobsmacked at how rapidly Rusty is pushing the Mormons toward a more charismatic Christianity kind of church.

- Doc

[Marcus]

Wow, seriously? That's huge.

Yeah, I watched Consiglieri’s and Bill’s ML episode last night. And they went into the history of garments pretty thoroughly. Not are garments optional these days, but the Cult came out and actually said they don’t protect you, either. I’m completely gobsmacked at how rapidly Rusty is pushing the Mormons toward a more charismatic Christianity kind of church.

- Doc

My goodness. I had noticed Nelson’s propensity to preach himself as the reigning “charismatic,” whether he does it or he has his wife do it for him, and these changes are piling up. Mormons are no longer proud to be known as “a peculiar people,” that’s for sure.

[Physics Guy]

Why would [a transcendent God] have interest in us? Why not find interest in unfound microbes on the moons of Jupiter if they are there? If he's interested in us, is he interested in virus' too?

Having infinite intelligence and working memory presumably means not having to choose which channel to watch. God can follow all the microbes in the universe, and for that matter all the moons. For all I know God likes to chill by watching all the stray hydrogen atoms drifting through the intergalactic void—every single one of them, all at once, with a negligible fraction of divine attention.

[MG 2.0]

It seems clear that an ultimate kind of God would be far beyond our understanding, while that God would presumably understand us completely and effortlessly—for whatever ineffable value of “understand” may apply. It’s not clear to me, though, that such a God would therefore have no interest in us.

One of us could surely only command an infinitesimal fraction of such a being’s attention. An infinitesimal fraction of the attention of such a being, though, might be more than the most intense human love.

Just a layperson popping into this high falutin conversation about GOD to simply say that I heartily agree with the simple sentiment expressed here.

Regards,
MG

[Gadianton]

Just a layperson popping into this high falutin conversation about GOD to simply say that I heartily agree with the simple sentiment expressed here.

That simple sentiment is incompatible with the Mormon God of flesh and bone. At you're next temple recommend interview, you'll need to disclose that you sympathize with doctrines contrary to the teachings of the Church.

[MG 2.0]

Just a layperson popping into this high falutin conversation about GOD to simply say that I heartily agree with the simple sentiment expressed here.

That simple sentiment is incompatible with the Mormon God of flesh and bone. At you're next temple recommend interview, you'll need to disclose that you sympathize with doctrines contrary to the teachings of the Church.

I don’t see a contradiction at all. Can you conceive of a God as described here:

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/ans ... ity_of_God

If not, then He is beyond your understanding if He is indeed a corporal God who can exist in and outside of space and time. I know I can’t/don’t understand it all. So anyway, sure, I’d feel comfortable going into a temple recommend interview and admitting that there is a LOT that I, and everyone else for that matter, don’t know about God’s physical nature and how this dovetails with the all powerful God of the universe.

But I am willing to accept in the affirmative that we are created in his image and likeness.

Jesus was resurrected. Is it so hard to think of a God who is a resurrected exalted being?

Yes it is. And yet it is true if LDS doctrine of the Godhead is true.

It seems clear that an ultimate kind of God would be far beyond our understanding, while that God would presumably understand us completely and effortlessly—for whatever ineffable value of “understand” may apply. It’s not clear to me, though, that such a God would therefore have no interest in us.

One of us could surely only command an infinitesimal fraction of such a being’s attention. An infinitesimal fraction of the attention of such a being, though, might be more than the most intense human love.

Again, I like the way PG expressed this sentiment.

Regards,
MG