God does not (not) exist.
I don’t agree, but I thought it was a good read. Good religious philosophy.
Comments
I’m no theologian, but since when is god not a thing? I guess I am not educated enough to step beyond the “child’s theology” I was brought up with, and I definitely only have vague ideas about how non-Christians view god, but I thought humans were special and created “in god’s image”? Doesn’t that make him a “thing” and therefore well within the power of our language to describe and discuss?
This guy says:
“It may sound like mere mental gymnastics or game-playing, but it has a very serious purpose: To question and test language, to step outside of ourselves and ask ourselves what we are doing when we talk about God, to critique the very ground upon which theology stands, to search for that place—if there is a place—where concepts fail.”
I understand what he’s getting at – question the tools at our disposal, in this case language, so that you can open your mind to other possibilities. I can see how a similar argument can be made now that we “know” all that we know having been equipped with science as a tool for so long (after not having that tool for even longer). But is it correct to equate science and language? Are they both just tools at our disposal?
I kind of agree that they are, but language seems much more innate and natural to me. It doesn’t seem prone to the same level of development and evolution that something like science does (it changes all the time, but not fundamentally), so I fail to see how we’ll ever be able to “grow” the ability to change the way we articulate our thoughts about god.
Is this all just a fancy new way to say that god is beyond our comprehension so stop trying to figure it all out?
There is seriously nothing worse than someone who is religious trying to intellectualize their faith and discuss it on the same level as people of science or lack of faith do.
You believe. Fine. You think you’re different from all those other pesky evangelical types. Fine. Then just believe. Please don’t look for my validation and please don’t try and discuss faith in any kind of intellectual or scientific manner.
These people invariably think that what they are doing when they are doing this is not proseletyzing or evangelical in nature but it absolutely and completely is. And it’s just kind of embarrassing.
I also fully realize that they also tend to do this because they are goaded by atheist types provoking them, but still. Other people’s (especially non believers) opinions just shouldn’t be that important to them.
I don’t like what Wallace says about one’s atheism being an inversion of their religious upbringing. First of all, there are atheist who were not raised under any religion. Secondly, one of my more common opening arguments (within a debate) addresses how any one religion can be considered “the right one.” I don’t see how this reflects that I was raised Catholic.
His section on science being limited was a little weak. That’s the great thing about science, just when we think we know it all, we realize that there’s something deeper. Take atoms and anti-matter and string theory. Science is exploring its limits all the time; I thought that was the point.
I see phrases like “unjustified assumptions” and “taking them for their word” in regard to atheists’ arguments. But it’s factual usually, isn’t it?
This is one of the most powerful aspects of negative theology: It cleanses the mind not only of assumptions about God, but of idols (like science, say) that can so easily replace God.
This just makes negative theology sound like regular old theology. Like Kevin said, it might be twisted with a fancy title, negative theology but it sounds like Wallace is selling God.