Archive for March, 2012
March 25, 2012 1 Comment

Reason and the Reason Rally

Today being Sunday, I thought of the Reason Rally.  That was the rally for atheists on the Mall yesterday that headlined scientists Dr. Richard Dawkins, comedian Eddie Izzard, and magician James Randi.  That and yesterday a good friend sent me a piece that appeared in the New York Times by Gary Cutting with the provocative title, “Does It Matter Whether God Exists?”

The event and the article got me thinking about all my atheist, agnostic and theistic friends and as a Christian, the many wonderful and oftentimes impassioned conversations we’ve had about God, faith and religion.  As I thought about my friends and read through Gary Cutting’s article I also thought about how many things atheists and Christians can actually agree on (that is of course, putting aside the question of whether there is or is not a God.) and how silly it was that we can’t embrace our agreements and move on to more interesting discussions and do so as Peter admonished Christians in “gentleness and respect”.

Here are at least three things on which I think many Christians and atheists can agree.

  • You can be religious and spiritual without a God.  This is most certainly true.  There are many people who are religious and spiritual and don’t have a belief in a God.  At least not the God that I know.  Now I’d be quick to say that most Christians wouldn’t advise this.  Jesus criticism of the Pharisees was, in part, that religiousity and spiritualism absent God quickly leads to legalism.  But  people can be spiritual and have a sense of ethic and moral rightness without a belief in creator God.  I know because I’m friends with many!
  • You can be a “good person” without believing in God.  Absolutely!  I know a lot of great, wonderful, decent people who are atheists.  They are honorable, trustworthy, and people of integrity.  Moreover, I’ll be the first to admit that there are a lot of people who believe in God (e.g. Christians) and who fall woefully short in this category – that is, behavior.  You have to go no further than me.  I’m a really good example.  There are a lot of people I know who are not Christians and behave much better than me.  I’ll be the first to admit that.
  • “Being good” is important.  Or as philosopher John Gray closes in the BBC article, “What matters is how we live.”  Totally agree.  (Note that Christians would challenge the prior statement  – that what we believe doesn’t matter – but that’s a whole different issue.)  A good part of the book of James talks about behavior.  What we do.  And if anyone wants to read the Gospels they can count how many times Jesus said that “if you love me you’ll do what I say”.  He said that a lot.  I don’t think he was kidding.  And what did Jesus say?  “Love your neighbor as yourself” – a pretty high standard of “being good” in anyone’s book.

So on this Christians and atheists can agree:  (1) you can be religious and spiritual without a God; (2) you can be a good person without believing in God; and (3) how you behave is pretty important.

On this, we agree.

All I’d ask of friends at the “Reason Rally” to consider, is that belief in a God is a quite reasonable and logical conclusion when working through the answers to three important questions about life.

  • How did life come from non-life?  This is a tough one if you exclude a Creator.  We can say we don’t know.  But the conundrum of how animate, sentient, spiritual life came from a big blob of earth, water and air is a tough one without injecting a Creator God.  String theory?  Sure.  But isn’t it reasonable to think belief in string theory is as much of a faith leap as believing in God?
  • Are there objective, irrevocable, eternal moral truths?  Is it right to tell the truth?  Is is bad to murder someone?  Is love the highest ethic?  And are these things all true regardless of when you were born or where you lived throughout history regardless of our evolutionary state?  God explains eternal truths in a very compelling way.  Without God we are left to genetics, evolution, and societal norms which by their very nature have and continue to change over time.  Without God eternal moral truths are hard to reason or logic.
  • Is there a purpose and coherence in life?  Absent a God, purpose and coherence become a struggle.  That’s not just me.  It is everyone from Darwin to Nietzsche to Sartre to Betrand Russell.  They understood, recognized and openly spoke about it.  One can conclude that purpose and coherence is self-made.  But then man becomes the measure of all things and its reasonable for some to worry which “man” becomes that “measure”.

You can disagree with ALL of the above.  All I’m trying to do is suggest to atheists, agnostics and those who challenge faith in God that (a) we agree on more than you might think we do; and that (b) while you may not agree or believe that a God exists, belief in God is indeed a quite reasonable thing.

And if you’re interested, read the thinking of legendary British philosopher and former icon for atheism Anthony Flew – “My Pilgramage from Atheism to Theism.”  We’re not that far apart.

Really.
March 23, 2012 1 Comment

Human silliness and $2.50 a gallon gasoline

You can learn a lot about people and politics just by looking at the silliness surrounding the price of a gallon of gasoline.

The discussion over the price of gasoline is downright bizarre.  In the strum and drang on the price of filling your tank (car, not stomach!) we see the frail irrationality of the human condition in all its glory.

  • Things that are small, we make big.
  • Things that are important, we ignore.

Let’s put the real bizarre stuff – that of conspiracy theories, the secret agenda of the socialist, Muslim Obama presidency, big oil’s manipulation to squeeze the common man until we all end up in “The Hunger Games” – let’s put that to the side for the moment.  (And if you’d like to delve into that read Krugman’s piece in tne NYTimes.)

Let’s focus for a second – just a second! – on the facts.  How much does the price of gas REALLY matter?  How much will a hike in gas prices REALLY mean to the average American?

How about we do the math?

For the sake of my own poor math skills let’s assume that we’re looking at the difference between $2.50 a gallon gas (a la Gingrich) and $5.00 a gallon gas (a la near term market reality).  And for our example let’s assume the average American drives 1,000 miles a month and has a car that gets an average of 25 mpg.

[Note that this OVER estimates the actual impact given that the real numbers are approximately 650 miles per month (Experian) and an average of 22 mpg (TruCar). But the math is easier so let’s stick with 1,000 miles a month and 25 mpg.]

That’s 40 gallons of gas a month. At $2.50 a gallon the monthly cost is $100.  At $5.00 a gallon the monthly cost is $200.

So let’s make this clear.  A DOUBLING of gas prices from $2.50 to $5.00 a gallon is going to cost the average car owner a total of $100 extra dollars a month.

$100 extra dollars a month.

Let’s see … that is …

  • the average monthly cable bill
  • a (very) cheap data plan for your smart phone
  • one (1) dinner for four at Olive Garden
  • a bad Starbucks habit

And that is what we’re excised about.  Medicare is broke.  Infrastructure is crumbling.  The cost of college is skyrocketing.  And we’re worried about the possibility of an extra $100 a month.

[Quick side note.  Since the Obama administration took office the Dow is up 60%.  For a lot of people with 401ks that real money.  Or consider that that home mortgage rates are down nearly 50%.  Again real money. And we’re getting apoplectic of $100 a month gasoline.]

Now don’t get me wrong.  There’s a lot of people out there for whom $100 a month is a LOT of money.  They are the type of people that my wife works with.  She’s a social worker.  Many of her clients live off disability or in section 8 housing or supplemental nutritional assistance (food stamps).

For them, a doubling of gas prices really hurts.

Then again, a lot of them don’t have cars.

And for the ones that do, I don’t think they were the ones that Rep. Gingrich was worried about when he launched his $2.50 per gallon campaign.

Fact is, for the VAST majority of Americans, $5 a gallon isn’t much in the scheme of things.

Which is why a lot of politicians make it such a big deal.