The Man Behind the Curtain

I find it fascinating how often we allow our philosophies to drive our acceptance of various interpretations of data.

That sentence sounds kind of strange, so let me explain.

Scientific data that lends itself to multiple interpretations. Social norms and conventions that seem to have sprung from anthropological evolution. These sorts of things are interpreted through the framework of our own philosophies. And it's amazing how infrequently we consider the little things that break many of our personal ideas or else fail to recognize the far-reaching implications of our attempts to explain these things.

For instance, let's examine a complaint that I hear quite frequently that lead one Charles Templeton to the explicit rejection of the notion of God in general and Christianity in particular. Templeton's chief complaint is that the universe is too broken and imperfect a place to have been created by any sort of loving God. It's an ancient argument that says God cannot be all-powerful and all-good because of the state of the world. Given that the world is screwed up, many people assume that God either doesn't care that it is (making him by no means good) or else he is incapable of fixing it (making him less than all-powerful, and as such, not God).

This is a pretty haughty stance to take.

When we look at the world and state "the world is screwed up," then by what standard are we making this judgment? To make ANY qualitative statement is to beg the question of a standard of judgment. Atheists frequently say "the universe is a savage and broken place, and that's just the way it is". If that's so, then how is it you say it's broken? If this were "just the way it is" then we have no room to proclaim this universe as being anything more or less than that. However, those who do not believe in God will often be those to most quickly point out the savagery of mankind and the atrocities committed in this world.

This is like rejecting a ruler because another ruler measures 12 inches to be slightly longer or shorter than the one being rejected. We've unconsciously selected a standard and rejected another.

If there is no right or wrong, then the universe could not be anymore imperfect than anything else, and as such, the non-existence of God would be acceptable in relation to the current state of affairs. But this isn't the case. We human beings recognize a universal right and wrong. We understand that there are standards by which we ought to behave and ought to live our lives.

The existence of that standard, something beyond Nature and the implications of the materialist view, is what one might call the cardinal difficulty of the atheist. Morality is in and of itself a powerful argument for the existence of something more than this universe, as it acts in contradistinction to instinct and unlike natural laws, allows for man to choose whether or not to obey.

There's tons more to say on the subject, but this is just what's been floating through my mind lately.