And Dog Created Man

One of the most troubling questions brought before pastors, priests or any other apologist for God is this: Why did God create mankind? While I would argue some things just are the case, to say God did create man with no further explanation would be disturbing to any believer who wishes to assume there is a perfect being that at the same time has reasons for its actions. (It seems odd to me a perfect being would have reasons for its actions, that is to say, has desires.) Apologists hate this question primarily because the faithful hate being challenged on their beliefs and secondarily because they simply don’t know. But asking why God created mankind is important if we’re to be inclined to follow the dictates of any creator of ours. The answer to such a question would give human life direction, a direction we would be able to say we might be compelled to follow if we also hold the belief that we should listen to our parents for no other reason than they created us.

The fact that apologists don’t know the answer to this question is evidenced by pages and pages of Google searches that turn out the same few unsatisfactory explanations or dodge the question entirely, as if you had put the question to a nearly deaf lunatic. Here are some of the explanations:

Christianitytoday.com is of the opinion that mankind was created to play a rule in some ultimate plan God has for the universe. However, prior to this revelation, the author of the article, Dawson McAllister, acknowledges that God has no need of us per se, but decided to make us out of His love for us, a love which preceded our very existence. (How is McAllister sure our creation wasn’t done out of malice? This would seem more consistent with the world we actually live in.) BUT since God did make mankind, we might as well serve some purpose for Him. While we don’t know this purpose, we can help fulfil this purpose by worshipping God, first of all. Nevermind that McAllister states earlier that God did not make us out of some vain need to be worshipped. The explanation ends with the unfounded assertion that we need God, not the other way around. Please note that this decrepit reasoning doesn’t necessarily make McAllister a bad person, just a poor thinker.

Goodnewsaboutgod.com’s explanation, given by an M.D. (allegedly) is that our existence is necessary for the redemption of our spirits from sin by dying. Feel free to read that again. Apparently God cannot stop or redeem the sins of eternal beings – such as, say, a fallen angel – so God had to make mankind so that someone could be saved from sinning by choosing to follow God. "Thus humanity is made the vehicle through which the reconciling of the universe is to be effected, even though all efforts of humanity itself are in vain and come to nothing, and it is left to God to provide, in the person of His Son, the one effectual means by which this reconciliation is to be accomplished." So it seems God is not omnipotent after all. God isn’t much of an architect either, if He’s relying on mankind to redeem the entire universe. Should of just created the universe right the first time, God. Just sayin.’

 John D. Morris of the Institute of Creation Research is a bit more humble and is inclined to say, in part, that this is a sufficiently difficult question to fully answer. But Morris tries anyway, saying that God is love and (for some reason) showers love upon things that deserve punishment. (I know, I know.) Morris continues: “But in His love He desired reciprocal love, so He created man in His own image. Man was given the ability to respond to God's love or reject it. In the beginning man enjoyed full fellowship with God, but soon rejected Him, bringing the ruination of all creation. This wasn't God's intention, so He implemented His plan for creation to fulfill its intended purpose.” Morris begins his piece by saying we don’t know why we were created, then says he does know why. But if what Morris is saying is right, God is fallible. Moreover, Morris’ claims conflicts with other apologists who insist that God did not create us in order to be worshipped. But, in being consistent with other apologists, Morris claims our existence is part of some greater plan though whatever this plan is is never fleshed out. Morris claims to be a PhD, but his institution’s website will not say of what. No surprise there.

One of the more (?) baffling answers is given to us by gotquestions.org. Their short answer is that God desires worship even though God doesn’t need it because God is perfect. Question: As I hinted at earlier, wouldn’t a perfect being be free of desire, of the need to please itself? And, for no apparent reason speaking on God’s perfection, the anonymous author goes on to illogically conclude that in God’s perfection, He cannot make anything greater or even equal to himself because than God would not be the One true God. That’s the equivalent of saying I could not have a son who is better than me because then I would not be the one true Theory Parker. The answer provided eventually concludes that we were created to have the pleasure of knowing God, which surely does not speak to the vanity of God which so many other apologists avoid saying. 

Lastly, for now, Biblestudy.org claims “The culmination of God's creation was to create US, man, which is what Genesis clearly states (see Genesis 1, especially 1:26),” in effect saying that mankind is the equivalent of the star you put on top of the Christmas tree, that last little touch that really makes the tree come alive. Basically, mankind is a decoration. But God also made this pinnacle of God’s creation incomplete – only a physical being – and only worshipping God makes the physical creation complete by adding its spiritual dimension. Deeper into Bilblestudy’s explanation, things get stranger and further from any rational explanation by asserting we are basically copies of God who can become equal to God if we follow God’s dictates.

Now, it can’t be the case that all of these viewpoints are correct, so one or more of them are wrong. (Likely, all of them.) If any one of them were correct it should be obvious and that would be the default answer. The plethora of answers indicates apologists are simply guessing. But we must reiterate why this question is important: We should know why we are created if we are to fulfill any purpose our creator (or creators) may have laid out for us. But would that purpose even be necessary to follow?

Imagine if you will a deep sea robot sent to record data from the ocean depths. If the robot were able to reflect upon it’s own existence, it might ask why it is doing the job laid out before it, that is, collecting data. Should the robot say to itself, “Well, this is what my creator wants me to do, so I’m going to do it”? The robot is under no obligation – simply because it was created by someone – to do the job it was programmed to do, and if it doesn’t do its job or fails in its job, it creator doesn’t condemn it to hell. If anything, the creator of the robot will say, “That’s unfortunate. I should build a better robot next time.” The creator doesn’t hold the failure of the creation against the creation, he or she holds it against themselves. [While it can be granted that the robot needn’t know why it is collecting data for the creator, a self-aware robot may not choose to follow its programming for any number of reasons. It may not like the job laid out before it or may not like the creator’s ultimate reason for creating it. Or it may not do its job due to a glitch.]

To draw the analogy closer to home, imagine you have a child and the child grows into a rebellious teenager, or heaven forbid, a ‘moral’ vegan. Is the child you created obligated to follow your rules such as eating meat simply because you created them? What if your intended purpose in having a child was to create a pro football player? If they don’t make the cut, do you hold it against the child? Surely too many people hold the acts of the child against the child, at least over the short term, but this is simply the avoidance of responsibility by their creator. Or is it? When there is a conflict between the creator and the created, who is at fault?

The only possible answer is no one. There is no reason for a creation to follow the dictates of a creator simply for the act of being created. After all, the creation usually has no say in the matter of it being created. At the same time, the creator cannot account for every action the creation might take, not unless they were omniscient. Theologically, the problem in God’s creations not following the dictates of God are God’s fault because God should have known better if God is omniscient.

Back to how this relates to the purpose of mankind from the apologist’s perspective. People ask apologists why mankind was created, but for the most part, the answers are unsatisfactory or at best, partial guesses. If God at all requires or desires worship, God is vain. This is unacceptable to most fair-minded theists, or they will at least try to avoid saying this outright. If instead mankind is part of a plan, which plan is it? If the purpose of mankind is to follow God in hopes of redemption from original sin, this is both redundant and cannot be mankind’s original purpose since there was no sin until Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. If mankind is part of some greater plan we are not privy to, this is not very convincing in trying to get a skeptic to follow God since we can’t know that God’s ultimate plan isn’t evil. Moreover, mankind is under no obligation to follow God’s plan just because God decided to create mankind. To be obliged in such a respect, mankind would have to know the full details of the plan while at the same time universally conclude that the plan was good (insofar as we recognize goodness beyond the dictates of the creator or creators). The only other reason someone might feel obliged to praise and follow God is because their life is so good they want to thank someone. That’s all well and good, but this is not the same as being obliged in the true sense of the word.

If you’ll notice, a man or woman confident in themselves and able to give their own life direction doesn’t ask why mankind was created or what their purpose in life is. It is a person in a moment or moments of weakness (who is also the easily led on occasion) who will ask “Why am I here?” The answer is “Why do you want to be here?” Obviously, by the myriad of answers given by apologists, they have answered the question for themselves. They simply don’t realize that is exactly what they have done.

Why am I here? To tell you that you can tell yourself why you are here. If you believe God gave you free will for a reason, then use it.

Miracle Whip

“No miracle has ever taken place under conditions which science can accept.” Renan

On occasion, the believer likes to point toward fulfilled prophecies and/or miracles in their scriptures as evidence for the existence of their god. To these people I have but one thing to say…C'mon! How much of a sucker do you have to be to think that prophecies and miracles aren't just the ravings of madmen? Okay, enough of the ad hominem attack.

Sure, prophecies have come true in the most vague senses of interpretation. Surely miracles happen too, because really there is just no other possible explanation for some events than divine intervention. Riiiiight. When it comes to prophecies and miracles, theists are quite ignorant of the criteria needed to fulfill the definition of these two divine words. And away we go…

Let's start with prophecies. A prophecy is the description of an event that is told will come to pass to fulfill a spiritual message. Now, what kind of criteria must a prophecy stand up to, to prove that it's of supernatural origin and is genuine? First, a prophecy must be clear and give sufficient detail to exclude its fulfillment by otherwise vague events or details. In the NT, the savior's name is Jesus; not Immanuel or Joshua or whomever, as loosely prophesied in the OT. You can't toss around the notion that Jesus is just another name for Immanuel or Joshua after the fact to justify a prophecy coming true. Nor can I predict, "Something bad will happen next Monday." Given that bad things happen everyday, and Mondays are typically the start of the work week, it wouldn't be much of a startling prophecy.

Furthermore, common events are not subject to being called fulfilled prophecies. Anyone can say a city, or any particular city for that matter, will be destroyed. It's guaranteed that at some point (no matter how far into the future) a city will no longer exist. Next, a prophecy cannot be staged or manipulated. Did Jesus really rise from the dead (which by-the-way was never foretold in the OT)? I seem to recall Jesus' followers not recognizing him when he returned from the grave. Maybe he had an impersonator. Maybe he didn't die at all, but was just wounded and then nursed back to health. I'm just brainstorming possibilities here. Finally, a prophecy must be made in advance of the predicted event, obviously. Sadly for the believers, no fulfilled prophecy has ever stood up to the test of these criteria. 

Miracles pretty much suffer the same fate. What is a miracle? A miracle is the supernatural violation of the laws of nature. Some of the previous criteria for testing prophecies apply here. A miracle should be unique and be unable to be staged for the amusement of those who don't know much about how the world works. I might mention then that eyewitness accounts of miracles are not the extraordinary evidence required to believe that a miracle has taken place. Would you believe me if I told you I had tiny people living in my air vents and that they every so often would attack me with laser beams? No, because such things are not consistent with the reality we're all familiar with. Moreover, it cannot be shown that a ‘miracle’ has violated a natural law of the universe when not all the laws of the universe are known (or at least not known how exactly they all work together). Reports of miracles may be chalked up to unknown forces and have nothing to do with a god. It seems it would take a miracle for there to actually be any miracles. 

Now, I do apologize if it appears I’m nit-picking the subject, but we must do so to ensure we’re not being duped. It's not likely that theists can rule out possibilities other than "God did it" in their quest to believe in prophecies and miracles. What with the simple criteria I've advanced here, no prophecy or miracle stands up to the test. It is exceedingly more possible that prophesies and miracles are merely stories meant to be inspirational (though I don’t see how) or influence the actions of the easily manipulated. [Think David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, or Shoko Asahara and the Supreme Truth Movement, or the Heaven’s Gate/ Halle-Bopp suicide cult, or…] Yet theists cling to these stories as some kind of truth like naïve little children, afraid of the Big Bad Wolf that is reality. Well, reality is not a Big Bad Wolf, it simply is what it is. In that reality the criteria for validating prophecies and miracles are not satisfied. Such is the legacy of theistic belief. 

Does Sun Gazing Work?

I am fascinated by the endless ways in which humans can construct cockamamie beliefs and connect dots where connections don’t exist. For instance, it appears as though many U.S. citizens who just happen to believe in a global conspiracy to control people also believe in things like the healing power of a stare from Croatian mystic Bracco, orgone energy, or sun-gazing, all of which sure sound like crazy, if not pseudo-science, to me. 

That people believe in sun-gazing or orgone energy baffles me the most, with sun-gazing the more puzzling to me of the two. (People who believe a stare from a New Age Fabio look-alike will heal them will surely believe anything, provided a desperation to believe anything. That doesn’t intrigue me.) Why? Because one has to forgo asking critical questions about said beliefs in order for the beliefs to exist, much like the beliefs of any given religion. But I digress; I’ve asked many sun-gazing believers exactly how staring at the sun during sunrise or sunset is supposed to heal the human body, but no one ever engages me in that conversation presumably because they don’t know. Thus, I can only assume sun-gazers believe in their practice because it is an “ancient art” of “noble savages” that is no longer practiced (read: suppressed). The most I’ve ever been told by a sun-gazer when questions are put to them is, “Do your own research and make your own conclusions.” Okay, sure. Problem is, when I do my own research and I come to a different conclusion, it’s a conclusion believers are unwilling to accept. 

To wit, I am unwilling to accept that sun-gazing can heal a human body that for one reason or another is out of homeostasis without any empirical studies to support such a conclusion. Second, no one can say what it is about photons hitting your retina that can heal problems with one’s body. Exactly how does the simple act of looking at the sun help combat or heal cancer or even relieve stress, for instance? Are the effects derived from a meditative state (in which case any meditation will do)? For anyone who knows anything about human physiology, as I do, maybe photons hitting the retina causes the release of sedative neurotransmitters such as dopamine or serotonin? I might accept such an answer into evidence, only you’ll never hear this kind of explanation from a sun-gazer because they haven’t, ahem, done any research nor are they likely to have any educational background in physiology. Third, if one practices sun-gazing based on the assumption that ancient peoples had things figured out long before modern man ever did, why doesn’t a believer practice all of the other ancient peoples’ cultural practices; why not practice ritual live sacrifice, too? That’s an “ancient art” practiced by “noble savages.” Fourth – perfect segue – where is the evidence that ancient peoples were noble or noble because they were savage? Is the belief that ancient peoples were noble stem from a believer’s simple dislike of the own modern culture? It’s a specious chain of reasoning. I can go on with these types of questions all day. In the end, though, people often believe what they want to believe. I have contempt for those who do not admit it. 

I can admit it. Here’s my example: I eat two Kellog's Pop Tarts ™ every day and believe doing so is in part what keeps me healthy and youthful. Despite the fact that Pop Tarts ™ have polyunsaturated fats and high fructose corn syrup – terrible for you, evidentially – I am the “picture of health” to quote my doctor just a few days ago. Granted, I also exercise six days a week and eat healthy for the better part of any given day, but Pop Tarts ™ are a necessary part of my daily regime, a guilty pleasure that makes my workout worth it to me. My point it this: Is it at all possible that by just believing in this routine that I create a positive effect throughout my body? I realize it is entirely possible that I am fooling myself, but based on the evidence – my health – Pop Tarts ™ are good for me. Admittedly, since I have no empirical evidence, that Pop Tarts ™ are good for me is simply something I want to believe. It appears, though, as if the belief helps me maintain my health whether it is because of the other factors that contribute to my health or the benefit of belief. There are enough studies to suggest that people with religious beliefs, for example, do tend to live longer and healthier lives than those who are not religious. Granted, this may be due to the health benefits associated with social connections or that healthier people tend to be religious (instead of the other way around), but still, there is at least a correlation. 

All this said, I would have much more respect for someone who, when challenged on their beliefs – whatever they may be – said they weren’t sure how their belief works but that they were nonetheless better off because of said belief(s). One can do all the sun-gazing they want but without an empirical explanation of how the practice works, I will not cease to rebuke those who insist the belief is helpful for everyone. If belief itself is the essential factor contributing to health, one is best off believing whatever suits their particular taste. Unfortunately, the egoism of sun-gazers often gets in the way. One then wonders why sun-gazing doesn’t cure such egoism.