No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers

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I've really had the urge to bump this these days so here it goes.

Just out of respect - he does a really good job in this book reminding atheists and theists both that were all really in this together.

Being an atheist is sure demanding. No big guy to look up to. But I know this: Just believing in it won't make it so.

I guess some people just can't handle it.

That goes both ways even-handedly; believing won't make it so, not believing won't make it not so.

Yes, but one must have good reasons for believing in something. I believe the sun will rise tomorrow, since I have witnessed the sun rise many times, and I know that the sun not rising is unlikely. People used to believe the sun was god, since that was a good substitute for knowledge they did not possess. They also believed that they would go to an afterlife because they could not comprehend of ceasing to exist. Now, I would like there to be an afterlife, but since my personal beliefs won't make it any more true (it only will in Discworld), I see no reason to believe in it. Of course, that's why a lot of religions have Pascal's Wager and so on, presenting their personal religion as the only one worth considering.

You accept your religion, but reject all others?

Well... I was agnostic for a long time, leaned atheist, caught a glimpse of something in Buddhism that I felt was very interesting but that fell out with me over certain things...then I took a look at Gnosticism, like the cerebral angles of it but have heard many people say that its just mind-candy for the visual minded and little more.

I guess that when I look at the world around me, the fault lines in human nature, the societal problems we can't fix, the brutal even sadistic coincidenced that happen repeatedly in my life and others, and when I think of these things in conjunction with the problem and horrid/torturous impractically of what we call consciousness and awareness - I logically find too much dissonance, me personally, with the concept that we came from nothing, are here for nothing, will suffer 80 years for nothing, die for nothing - usually the best answer most atheists can give me on that one is something related to sensory or emotional hedonism; it sounds like a whole mass of suffering creatures that need to be put out of their self-perpetuated misery(which I don't advocate a self-induced final solution like that but when you think about it - we dance around a lot of subjects rather foolishly when we discuss 'what it means' for there to be purpose here or no purpose, a God/Gods/nirvana/etc. or from nothing to nothing). Don't run to any conclusions that because I said that I don't believe that we could have come from nothing that I'm a creationist - I don't believe that science and faith can be at odds, and just as I believe we're here for whatever reason we are I also believe that there's no need for there to be some eternal mystery of where the first cell came from or how the big bang happened for there not to be all kinds of to keep the door open for faith - there is such a thing as double entente, dual meaning, dual purpose.

As for my religion - I accept it because I find more congruent angles here than in other places, that and I personally am not of the concept that being of different faith or even being an atheist is something that condemns people; I don't move in fear of that, I don't try to move other people in fear of that on their behalf, ultimately everyone's existence is their own metaphysical and epistemic problem to solve - I'll be there for advice if anyone's curious on a second opinion but that's it.


The reason that I brought this book back up to the top though - for the reason that Michael Novak wrote the book from the standpoint that theists/atheists are both beneficial, both enhance the other's quality of thought as the other's arguments become more eloquent (or at least its what a person who wants to see forward psychological and cultural evolution in our race would hope for - either side having it too easy is a disaster and a sad loss of self-knowledge). You may not be able to relate to a word of what I've said in this post or any others; I don't know, just that I'm strongly convinced that Novak is right - we all are agnostic whether we know it or not, not because its the new 'pc' thing to do, but because no one really knows - people might hunker down and defend one side or the other but, its the truth - no one knows. He explains it as a theist sympathetic toward atheism, much like he mentions in his book Jugen Habermaas as an atheist who writes sympathetically toward theism. The lack of a clear answer may put this debate on the farthest back burner imagineable for some people; not everyone is good with that though. Understanding our existence matters, we can't plot a sane course without sorting details like these.