Presumed dead in the water
Julian Baggini points out “an inconvenient truth about science that religion would prefer to ignore”:
[A]lthough it is true that science doesn’t rule out a role for religion in providing meaning, or a God who kick-started the whole universe off in the first place, it does leave presumed dead in the water anything like the God most people over history have believed in: one who is closely involved in his creation, who intervenes in our lives, and with whom we can have a personal relationship.
Most people over history, and to this day. People who believe in the attenuated hand-wavy god of Karen Armstrong and Terry Eagleton are a tiny minority of believers.
Yes, humans created the ‘Invisible Friend/Parent’ deity so that they could make imaginary bargains with it,what’s the point otherwise?
Hawking’s “philosophy is dead” metaphor from his most recent book will certainly replace the “mind of God” metaphor from yesteryear in the contest for “best way to obscure your own point”.
Have you noticed the furious gnashing of teeth at Cif in the wake of Hawking’s recent comments about god? Quite a line up of articles to rebut him and even an editorial. Theo Hobson’s effort was such an epic fail that I felt embarrassed on his behalf. Looking forward to Andrew Brown’s and Our Lady Madeline’s efforts.
There was something odd about the Julian Baggini article in the Independent. Perhaps it’s worthwhile quoting again (though it is in part quoted above):
Now, the strange thing about this is that it is precisely in those aspects of the supposed religious understanding of God that includes God’s creation of things that meaning resides. So, if you can simply cancel through by God’s creation of things, because that can be accounted for by science, religious meaning falls with it.
I can remember when, not so long ago, the walls of church halls were littered with posters of the following description: first, a scene of natural beauty and wonder, and then the slogan: “Our God is an Awesome God!” But if God is not responsible for the first, you can’t really say the second, since there’s nothing left for God to be awesome about. He comes on the scene as a low paid extra. Not even any special effects!
Meaning, for religion, depends upon power. It’s just that simple. And if God doesn’t have the power, then he can’t provide the meaning. The Guardian wants to preserve the power, so it says, in its Editorial on this — imagine, an editorial on God, today, in “the year of our Lord” 2010! — entitled, of all things, “In praise of God”:
One wants to say, “So what?” But even that doesn’t capture the problem. It’s not so much a contradiction in terms as a deflation of the concept of God. A God not responsible for creation? Impossible! That means that God has no power, no power, most importantly, over death, no power to make up for the mess of this first creation, a mess which, we are led to believe, is all our fault. Delivered into our hands perfect, we turned it into a hell on earth. Had it not been for human failure, this would still have been a perfect creation — this is strictly a Christian idea, but the other monotheisms pay tribute to it in one way or another, usually by imagining a realm following death, which is without the problems of this one — but if God had nothing to do with this one, because it is self-explanatory, not only the how but the why, then he has no control over the next one either. In fact, there can be no next one.
In an CIF piece in the Grauniad this morning Mary Warnock tries to explain why it really doesn’t matter. God was never a real entity anyway, just a creation of human beings. So, the religious project can keep on going as though nothing had happened. Hawking set off his bomb in an empty room. Well, perhaps. But all the philosophical argument in the world telling us that God could never have been just another existent is not going to answer to the religious need for that transcendent power which is responsible for everything we see, and especially for us, the crown of creation, the reason for the passing show, and the promise for its continuing in some dimension for ever. Religious people don’t want to hear that we just made it up. This doesn’t answer to the two big needs that religion provides for, the need for real meaning (that is, not just something we made up, but something that is conferred), and the need for real power, that puts us (for any us group) smack dab in the middle of things, so that we cannot only tell others that they are wrong, but have a reason, in the nature of things, for interfering in other people’s lives. This is what religious meaing allows people to do. And Hawking hasn’t left room enough for this kind of meaning, and that’s why there is such a flurry of damage control by all the usual suspects.
Oh, there, I’ve gone on and on again.
I’ve started to wonder how many of the Armstrong/Eagleton persuasion feel a measure of disdain for the majority of their co-religionists who believe in that old personal god who listens to prayers etc. The god of the punters, as it were.
Excellent point, Eric. I think people tend to make that claim about god-as-meaning without really thinking about it – Martha Nussbaum leans heavily on that claim (it appears again in her second “the burqa is just fine” piece for The Stone) but without spelling out what kind of meaning derived from what. It’s as if it’s a kind of sop. “Here, use it for meaning.” “What meaning, how?” “I don’t know; that’s your problem!” It’s a pious empty deepity that really doesn’t mean much of anything – just as the scenic posters with “awesome god” captions don’t mean much of anything. Where are the posters of a rotting carcass full of maggots? Of a desert littered with skeletons? Of a large chunk of Pakistan under water? Of Nawlins ditto? Of people with malaria, Ebola, plague, TB?
Thanks for the C is F pointer, mirax. I couldn’t find Theo Hobson’s effort though – the last item a search turned up was pre-Hawking fuss and on another subject. Was it Mark Vernon perhaps? I confuse the two of them!
My mistake, Ophelia. It was Vernon, not Hobson. CiF’s religious apologists are so vacuous and inane that they all segue into an amorphous, indistinguishable blob for me.