The Holy Trinity

[Miles Coverdale]

I have tried to "do" religion. But I feel people who have faith have a sixth sense that I don't have - as If I was born without the organ needed to apprehend that sense. Like someone deaf from birth trying to understand other people discussing music.

I love liturgy. I can be deeply moved by it and by people's prayer requests - by their plight, their distress and their helplessness in the face of loss, illness, death and the thousand ills that befall mankind. I embarrassed myself at evensong in St Albans Abbey some years ago by being a sobbing wreck listening to Howells' Collegium Regale after reading some particularly poignant petitions on the prayer board.

But God and Father Christmas are very much the same substance in my mind. And I simply don't understand what is meant by the word "spiritual".

It's just blindingly obvious to me that religions are a load of tosh made up by slightly unhinged people. This week's IOT only served to strengthen that belief.

I wonder if there's an IOT to be done on the history of atheism?

I agree with much of what you say, although I don't think you should berate yourself for your lack of faith. After all, faith is belief without good reason to believe.

The sheer number of religions that have existed over the course of history is surely testament to the notion that they and their gods are, without exception, the invention of human beings, specifically men, often with the handy side-effect that they can be used to control other people, often women.

Regarding the atheist question, I has often struck me as peculiar that when people declare themselves to be an atheist, they essentially only refer to the god of the Abrahamic religions. No one feels it necessary to declare themselves an atheist with regard to Pan, or Zeus, or any other god of the ancient world, because people stopped believing in them hundreds of years ago.

Not that I think for a moment that this will happen during my lifetime, but I do look forward to the day when the human species has evolved beyond the need to believe in the supernatural.

[Alison]

What I fail to understand is why so many non believers attach themselves to the world of religious music, indeed making careers in the very same, only to then delight in tearing the whole thing to shreds.

These often delightful folk - as we have seen in this thread - are yet so quick to condemn the art of fudging and the lack of joined up thinking among their 'religious' colleagues.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have tried to "do" religion. But I feel people who have faith have a sixth sense that I don't have - as If I was born without the organ needed to apprehend that sense. Like someone deaf from birth trying to understand other people discussing music.

You are able nevertheless able, one presumes, to appreciate through the senses; faith is like feeling gratitude in one's appreciation of the objects of ones sensory capacity, because you go on to say:

I love liturgy. I can be deeply moved by it and by people's prayer requests - by their plight, their distress and their helplessness in the face of loss, illness, death and the thousand ills that befall mankind. I embarrassed myself at evensong in St Albans Abbey some years ago by being a sobbing wreck listening to Howells' Collegium Regale after reading some particularly poignant petitions on the prayer board.

But God and Father Christmas are very much the same substance in my mind. And I simply don't understand what is meant by the word "spiritual".

Your description of this experience is what I would describe as being "spiritual", since it passes your understanding. Understanding, in the everyday sense, applies to that which can be translated into words, sentances and concepts, which what you have described cannot be, words being inadequate to the experience, and is thus probably what some religious people mean when they talk about the definition of religious experience as being that which passes understanding, or is transcendent of logical explanation.

It's just blindingly obvious to me that religions are a load of tosh made up by slightly unhinged people. This week's IOT only served to strengthen that belief.

I think religion is the mistaken attempt to encode in words experiences more properly describable as aesthetic experiences which cannot be captured in words. In this sense it is I think akin to music. I hope this helps clarify what I obviously didn't put across very well earlier.

I wonder if there's an IOT to be done on the history of atheism?

Jonathan Miller did an excellent TV series on this subject a few years ago.

[Serial_Apologist]

What I fail to understand is why so many non believers attach themselves to the world of religious music, indeed making careers in the very same, only to then delight in tearing the whole thing to shreds.

These often delightful folk - as we have seen in this thread - are yet so quick to condemn the art of fudging and the lack of joined up thinking among their 'religious' colleagues.

It may then be that they are in denial as to the possibility of having a "religious" or "spiritual" experience that is untied to faith, or belief. From personal experience I would disagree; but, there again, a religious person would probably disagree that I can have a religious experience which excludes God.

[Magnificat]

How do you define "created" in this context?

I am referring to scientists trying to tell us that there was nothing then there was a big bang and the universe and ultimately our evolved existence came into being. No doubt there was a big bang but something, or someone must have caused it.

We have to understand this existence we experience and for us nothing has to be nothing how can we comprehend it to be otherwise.

The trouble with all this is that we are part of it so, although we can make some sort of sense of a lot of it, we cannot possibly understand all of it.

So it seems to me that there must be a creator - God - who exists completely outside our time and space, an existence we cannot possibly know.

The Genesis story of creation is not accepted literally by intellectual Christians but seen as more of a poem to the glory of creation as it could be understood at the time of writing.

Perhaps God was, in fact, playing with His version of the Large Hadron Collider and created our universe ( The Big Bang )

Perhaps there are parallels with the computer and the virtual reality world that we are getting to know and develop.

For example, there is God the Father turning on the power to make our existence ( His computer ) work.

There is God ( Jesus ) becoming involved personally in the highly developed complex animated existence He has created as we are increasingly able to do with virtual reality by developing our ability with animation e.g. avatars which could be seen as a sort of Christ like intervention of our own.

Similarly He ( The Holy Ghost/Spirit ) may respond to whatever needs to be done in respect of circumstances that arise in our existence in ways that we cannot understand or explain and this could be seen to be akin to our tinkering with our computer systems to maintain and improve the performance of the virtual reality that we have created.

The Christian religious or poetical concept of the Trinity to explain things about God that we humans cannot fully comprehend seems to me to be perfectly understandable and logical in the context of a highly intelligent creator.

VCC

[Pabmusic]

I am referring to scientists trying to tell us that there was nothing then there was a big bang and the universe and ultimately our evolved existence came into being. No doubt there was a big bang but something, or someone must have caused it.

I’m not aware of any scientist who argues that nothing caused the Big Bang. Just what it might have been is still a matter for research. No doubt the answer will be “the laws of physics” or something very like it, though the interest will be in ‘how’ and not ‘what’.

Of course it’s perfectly possible that time was created at the moment of the Big Bang and that any talk of what preceded it is as meaningless as what is north of the North Pole.

We have to understand this existence we experience and for us nothing has to be nothing how can we comprehend it to be otherwise.

I’m not sure that we ‘have’ to understand our existence, but it’s fair to say that we understand very much of it already. What science doesn’t provide is a single, simple answer such as “a god did it” or “it was magic”.

As for ‘nothing’ – you are using your own definition. True, it’s no doubt the old philosophical definition, but we’re not in the realms of philosophy here (your point was made about science after all) and it may well be that ‘nothing’ as we have understood it previously does not exist.

The trouble with all this is that we are part of it so, although we can make some sort of sense of a lot of it, we cannot possibly understand all of it.

And your authority for that is…? We understand more and more of it every year. Perhaps we’ll not understand everything in our lifetimes, but it is impossible to believe that our level of knowledge will remain as it is now. There are things that we can’t understand yet – and, yes, maybe we never shall – like the inside of a Black Hole; but that may be because it will take a new Einstein to develop general relativity further than we can envisage. It does seem arrogant or pessimistic to say we never can understand.

So it seems to me that there must be a creator - God - who exists completely outside our time and space, an existence we cannot possibly know.

Here I am reminded about Carl Sagan’s tale of the dragon in my garage. I tell you there’s a fire-breathing dragon living in my garage. You (understandably) ask to see it. When we get to the garage, it’s empty. “I should have told you” say I “that the dragon’s invisible”.

“No problem” say you “we’ll put flour down to track its footprints”.

“Nice idea” I say but it floats two feet off the ground”.

“Alright” you say “we’ll install heat sensors that will react to its fiery breath”.

“Good thought” say I “but it breathes heatless fire”.

And so on. Every time you suggest a test, I tell you why it won’t work.

Now, the point is – what is the difference between an invisible, floating dragon that breathes heatless fire and whose presence cannot be tested in any way, and – nothing at all? How can you tell them apart?

The Genesis story of creation is not accepted literally by intellectual Christians but seen as more of a poem to the glory of creation as it could be understood at the time of writing.

There are actually two different stories of creation in Genesis (chapters 1and 2) and plenty of Christians believe them – some literally. I doubt that many Christians doubted their veracity before some became ‘intellectual’ and could not reconcile (say) the creation of light on day 1 and of the sun on day 4.

Perhaps God was, in fact, playing with His version of the Large Hadron Collider and created our universe ( The Big Bang )

There have been Christian intellectuals who argued that Earth was made by a lesser (apprentice?) god who is not around anymore.

Perhaps there are parallels with the computer and the virtual reality world that we are getting to know and develop.

For example, there is God the Father turning on the power to make our existence ( His computer ) work.

There is God ( Jesus ) becoming involved personally in the highly developed complex animated existence He has created as we are increasingly able to do with virtual reality by developing our ability with animation e.g. avatars which could be seen as a sort of Christ like intervention of our own.

Similarly He ( The Holy Ghost/Spirit ) may respond to whatever needs to be done in respect of circumstances that arise in our existence in ways that we cannot understand or explain and this could be seen to be akin to our tinkering with our computer systems to maintain and improve the performance of the virtual reality that we have created.

The Christian religious or poetical concept of the Trinity to explain things about God that we humans cannot fully comprehend seems to me to be perfectly understandable and logical in the context of a highly intelligent creator.

The problem with a highly intelligent creator is that his or her alleged existence can be only a stopgap answer, because it does not begin to address where the creator came from. And as science provides ever more answers, the space left for a creator gets smaller and smaller. At present, it is something like 10^–43 seconds after the start.

[Bryn]

And how did this 'ere 'God' come into being? No less, indeed rather more, valid a question than that raised re. a fillip for the Big Bang.

[Pabmusic]

What I fail to understand is why so many non believers attach themselves to the world of religious music, indeed making careers in the very same, only to then delight in tearing the whole thing to shreds.

These often delightful folk - as we have seen in this thread - are yet so quick to condemn the art of fudging and the lack of joined up thinking among their 'religious' colleagues.

Not me, I'm sure.

I don't 'attach' myself to any kind of music, but I'll be first to admit that religion has inspired some very great art (and some not-so-great as well). Non-believers have written great 'religious' works (Vaughan Williams is a perfect example - Ursula described him as an 'ardent atheist', though he's often described as an 'agnostic' - I've even seen 'Christian agnostic'!).

The belief-system and the art it inspires are - to me at any rate - entirely separate. If it were not so, and if I were - say - a Christian, should I have philosophical objections to appreciating the beauty of the Parthenon, or the Temple at Karnak?

I certainly don't try to 'delight in tearing the whole thing to shreds'. However, I do not remain quiet when things are discussed. Should I?

[Alison]

No not you Pabs.

[Pabmusic]

No not you Pabs.

That's a relief!

[ardcarp]

What I fail to understand is why so many non believers attach themselves to the world of religious music, indeed making careers in the very same, only to then delight in tearing the whole thing to shreds.

Alison, the bit I have highlighted in bold is very true, and I plead guilty. I'm not so sure about the 'tearing to shreds' bit. Church musicians lie on a spectrum of completely committed Christians to total atheists. One is reminded of Ursula VW who described Ralph as 'an atheist [who] later drifted into cheerful agnosticism'.
I have not met anyone in the biz who actively campaigns against God though.

I hope Mr Ardcarp is now happy having heard from a variety of non-theologians.

Yes, very happy, but slightly bemused by what has been detonated by my innocent little thread-starter. I'm currently trying to source a supply of pins with larger (or do I mean smaller?) heads, which I'll hand out free to the punters.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What I fail to understand is why so many non believers attach themselves to the world of religious music, indeed making careers in the very same, only to then delight in tearing the whole thing to shreds.

Let me say categorically, then, that I don't believe in John Rutter.

God does not exist - Bach does. It's great Music, and it is the Music (and the poetry and the visual art) to which I respond. Do believers suddenly become polytheists when they read Homer or watch Sophocles? Do Christians become Hindus during their reading of the Bhagavad Gita?

And faith systems at the heart of so much actual and attempted social and political oppression, thriving on making others feel guilt where none exists, needs "tearing ... to shreds" with as much delight as we can muster.

These often delightful folk - as we have seen in this thread - are yet so quick to condemn the art of fudging and the lack of joined up thinking among their 'religious' colleagues.

... as a flash.

[ardcarp]

Let me say categorically, then, that I don't believe in John Rutter.

...and yet.... last night we did a choral piece by Knut Nystedt, a cello piece by Peteris Vasks, an organ piece by Jehan Alain (Litanies, of course) and ended with....Rutter's Te Deum. When the big C major Elgarian tune began near the end, one could sense a broad collective smile (of relief?) spreading through the audience. So maybe Rutter does exist after all.

[Pabmusic]

...and yet.... last night we did a choral piece by Knut Nystedt, a cello piece by Peteris Vasks, an organ piece by Jehan Alain (Litanies, of course) and ended with....Rutter's Te Deum. When the big C major Elgarian tune began near the end, one could sense a broad collective smile (of relief?) spreading through the audience. So maybe Rutter does exist after all.

No. The idea of things may give comfort, but they're not 'real' because of it.

[jean]

Do believers suddenly become polytheists when they read Homer or watch Sophocles?

No, but the Greek pantheon is a very different sort of thing from the Christian God.