As I jot down thoughts for this post, it’s midnight and I’m holding my 9-month-old nephew, because he was crying so loud in his cot I couldn’t stand waiting for him to calm down and fall asleep, so I got him up to give him some food and just calm him down. Presently, he’s absent-mindedly pulling my hair and putting his hands in my face, looking around, quite obliviously. He’s generally a happy baby. Since his parents put him on solids though, I just realised for the first time that he has bad breath. Of course, no one brushes his teeth, since he only has one that’s not even above surface yet, but that’s about to change… I’ve gone through so much recently, bringing to an end the first semester of my Master’s degree; I spent a lot of time in the library, for multiple reasons, I fought through my exams and came out on top. I’m about to dive into the second semester, which will no doubt be lots of fun and hold plenty of challenges.
My latest “catch-phrase” (not sure whether that’s the appropriate term) is “such and such is proof of God’s existence!”… It generally relates to food. For example, “meringue is proof of God’s existence”, or “pancakes are proof of God’s existence”! But it applies to so many categories of things: waking up in the morning with snow falling outside your window, covering everything with a sheet of white; riding on the bus seeing light mist hovering over the lake; walking in the centre of town to see the sun rise above the city, breaking atop the buildings, “God exists!”
… One can see proof of God’s existence in the smile of a woman, the cry of a baby; or, in the cry of a woman and the smile of a baby, for that matter. The truth is, evolution doesn’t explain everything, even for its greatest advocates. How can music be a product of evolution? How can art? To take us back to the earlier subject, how can great, tasty food be the product of evolution, if all that differentiates us from other animals is our greater mental faculty, if all we are meant to be is thinking animals, whose unique purpose is reproduction and survival? These are things some people live for, yet, there’s nothing functionally useful about them, indeed, we’re going into the area of existentialism.
And why, oh why are we so appalled at the violence and suffering that happens in the world? Surely, that’s perfectly in line with the evolutionary worldview: there is no rhyme to the world, the strong eat the weak, how can we morally judge the world when we believe that’s the natural order of things, and therefore it’s perfectly normal for powerful nations to devour weaker ones… The base of the worldview does not warrant the moral outrage issued from our hearts.*
As such, we are freaks of nature! We call for judgement of a behaviour which should be perfectly acceptable, by the standards of nature. But this world isn’t fair, and without God, there is no rightful judgement of evil, indeed there is no such thing as good or evil. In an effort to make scientific sense out of the world, but taking God out of the equation, we have created an existential mess, generating more questions than answers, which simply bring on more hypotheses that are based on nothing much more than the fantasies of people with degrees. But since it comes from them, it’s called science. **
It’s easy to miss it when that is the world that you live in, where everyone thinks the same way, and God-whom-I-do-not-believe-in forbid, someone challenges the comfy worldview that glosses over the big questions, but these are all signs of man running away from God. People judge the Bible, calling it the product of man, and then go and produce theories (which are, therefore, product of man) and tell others to believe these! I can’t help but see that as a little hypocritical, to denounce someone for making a claim to know the truth, and then go ahead and create one’s own truth.
No, I believe in a beautiful Maker, with a sense of beauty, of holiness, and goodness. And I believe in sin too, which is the act of running away from that maker. To me, this baby I’m holding is proof of God’s existence, for he is beautiful.
And you could say that the reason I see him, and all those other things as beautiful is because I am born into it all and I have a socially constructed view of beauty, but that just doesn’t satisfy me, neither existentially, nor intellectually. And the thing is, it can’t satisfy you either, and you know it. And if it does, friend, nay, I do not judge you. I weep for you.
* Point taken from Tim Keller’s “Reason for God” series, part. “Suffering: If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world?” (Link in the title, little Easter egg there!)
My latest “catch-phrase” (not sure whether that’s the appropriate term) is “such and such is proof of God’s existence!”… It generally relates to food. For example, “meringue is proof of God’s existence”, or “pancakes are proof of God’s existence”! But it applies to so many categories of things: waking up in the morning with snow falling outside your window, covering everything with a sheet of white; riding on the bus seeing light mist hovering over the lake; walking in the centre of town to see the sun rise above the city, breaking atop the buildings, “God exists!”
… One can see proof of God’s existence in the smile of a woman, the cry of a baby; or, in the cry of a woman and the smile of a baby, for that matter. The truth is, evolution doesn’t explain everything, even for its greatest advocates. How can music be a product of evolution? How can art? To take us back to the earlier subject, how can great, tasty food be the product of evolution, if all that differentiates us from other animals is our greater mental faculty, if all we are meant to be is thinking animals, whose unique purpose is reproduction and survival? These are things some people live for, yet, there’s nothing functionally useful about them, indeed, we’re going into the area of existentialism.
And why, oh why are we so appalled at the violence and suffering that happens in the world? Surely, that’s perfectly in line with the evolutionary worldview: there is no rhyme to the world, the strong eat the weak, how can we morally judge the world when we believe that’s the natural order of things, and therefore it’s perfectly normal for powerful nations to devour weaker ones… The base of the worldview does not warrant the moral outrage issued from our hearts.*
As such, we are freaks of nature! We call for judgement of a behaviour which should be perfectly acceptable, by the standards of nature. But this world isn’t fair, and without God, there is no rightful judgement of evil, indeed there is no such thing as good or evil. In an effort to make scientific sense out of the world, but taking God out of the equation, we have created an existential mess, generating more questions than answers, which simply bring on more hypotheses that are based on nothing much more than the fantasies of people with degrees. But since it comes from them, it’s called science. **
It’s easy to miss it when that is the world that you live in, where everyone thinks the same way, and God-whom-I-do-not-believe-in forbid, someone challenges the comfy worldview that glosses over the big questions, but these are all signs of man running away from God. People judge the Bible, calling it the product of man, and then go and produce theories (which are, therefore, product of man) and tell others to believe these! I can’t help but see that as a little hypocritical, to denounce someone for making a claim to know the truth, and then go ahead and create one’s own truth.
No, I believe in a beautiful Maker, with a sense of beauty, of holiness, and goodness. And I believe in sin too, which is the act of running away from that maker. To me, this baby I’m holding is proof of God’s existence, for he is beautiful.
And you could say that the reason I see him, and all those other things as beautiful is because I am born into it all and I have a socially constructed view of beauty, but that just doesn’t satisfy me, neither existentially, nor intellectually. And the thing is, it can’t satisfy you either, and you know it. And if it does, friend, nay, I do not judge you. I weep for you.
* Point taken from Tim Keller’s “Reason for God” series, part. “Suffering: If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world?” (Link in the title, little Easter egg there!)
** I'm more thinking about the multiverse hypothesis than evolution right here... I thought that came out wrong after re-reading.
3 comments:
je suis assez d'accord, mais je trouve que tu réduis trop les choses.
la science en elle même n'est pas du tout un problème. Et quand elle est faite proprement (ok j'avoue c'est pas tout les jours) elle ne va jamais à l'encontre de Dieu!
la science est censée, par l'expérimentation, proposer une théorie sur la base de nombreux résultats et ce dans l'unique but d'expliquer le "comment" d'une chose qui nous entoure. Tout le reste n'est simplement pas de la science.
A l'inverse, la foi se base sur la Bible et sur Dieu, elle est la entre autre pour expliquer le pourquoi des choses.
le problème sur cette terre c'est que tout le monde veut avoir réponse à tout et on se retrouve avec des scientifiques qui utilisent leurs théories pour expliquer des choses qu'elles n'explique pas, le pourquoi des choses par exemple.
et à l'inverse malheureusement il y a aussi des croyants qui pense devoir tout expliquer avec la Bible et avec la foi et invente eux aussi des théories géniale qui ne sont simplement pas biblique.
je trouve juste dommage que ce post soit à mon avis plus de l'huile sur le feu qu'autre chose.
But I'm I overreacting? Mabe :-) but it's a blog and talking is the purpose of it :-)
Hehe, t'as raison, c'est de l'huile sur le feu pour certains, mais surtout pour ceux qui n'aiment pas avoir leur vision du monde défiée. Le truc c'est que d'après moi, le dialogue n'est pas ouvert, et il faut l'ouvrir; parler science, c'est pas la chose la plus importante, en effet ce n'était pas l'objectif de ce post, plutôt défier l'inconsistance de la vision athée du monde, qui n'explique pas les choses, mais qui se cache derrière des propos qui sont parfois scientifiques, parfois moins. Je crois parfaitement ce que tu dis dans §2 et 3, je n'ai pas un problème avec la science, ce serait comme dire j'ai un problème avec 1+1=2, la vérité c'est que certains des grands scientifiques de l'histoire étaient chrétiens, ce ne sont pas deux choses opposées, on croit au Dieu qui a établi tous ces principes. J'ai un problème avec ceux qui disent que la science et la foi sont irréconciliables, et ce faisant, ils s'approprient le domaine de la raison, envoyant les croyants dans le domaine de l'imbécilité.
Je voulais juste m'exprimer sur toutes ces choses mélangées ensemble, car la vie est un tout, des choses que l'on vit au jour le jour, aux croyances établies dans nos coeurs, à nos passions et à notre humour... Je ne pense pas que cela devrait offenser, à moins que l'on ne se prenne trop au sérieux.
là je suis d'accord ^_^ bonne journée Frèro!!
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