Believing in Todd
Imagine that the kids in a family blamed broken items discovered around the house on "Todd." When the parents ask more about Todd, and ask the kids separately, they get conflicting answers about Todd’s height, skin color, personality, and so on. These facts would count as evidence against Todd:
The parents have never seen Todd, though they are around often.
The kids want everyone to believe in Todd so less blame will fall on them.
The kids give conflicting stories about Todd’s features.
This seems similar to disagreements about God, and addresses the question Nick raised about Hal’s comment. The facts that religions disagree about God’s features, that they have reasons to want to believe in God even if he did not exist, and that skeptics find it hard to find independent evidence for God beyond what supporters say, all suggest that religions are independently making up this story of God.
Added: I wonder how well a similar structure could rationalize other situations, such as in morality or paternalism, where some want to take disagreement as evidence for skepticism.
So Robin,
Why for your e-mail address does not work?
At least this one did not: rhanson@gmn.edu
I wrote you an email about "ViewQuakes" and requested a response only to have it come back. So, PLEASE E-me at: religionsucks@webtv,net
THANKS
Neil
"A View Quacker"
P.S. "Reason" helps a believer? GIVE ME A BREAK!
Reason Child, is why MILLIONS & MILLIONS & MILLIONS or FORMER Christians have STOPPED believing in yourchildish myth and become Atheists.
Hey Robin,
You make an interesting point, but I think it is flawed. You do present some strong reasons why Todd might not exist, but comparing Todd with God is not an apt approach to take. Todd is an individual within a concrete set of boundaries: the family home, with limited access to that space. Thus, the differing descriptions of one distinct physical individual would be sketchy to anyone investigating this case.
Religious believers, on the other hand, claim distinct experiences with different manifestations of God at different times and in different circumstances. These experiences do seem to show some consistency with the idea of God and thus, are not contradictory. The contradictions tend to come from the interpretations of these texts as done by the believers in their own situations.
As an example, all three monotheistic religions recognize Jesus:- Judaism recognizes Jesus as a heretic (or a prophet, depending on who you talk to - I don't want to split hairs here though).- Christianity recognizes Jesus as the Messiah.- Islam recognizes Jesus as a major prophet.
Thus, there is some consensus around the main claims of Jesus. Does that mean that Jesus does or doesn't exist? No. The evidence isn't sufficient enough either way here.
So, all three faiths make mention of Jesus. They interpret him differently. Other dogmatic discussions occur for numerous other religious topics. Does disagreement mean that the subject doesn't exist? Not at all... in fact, based on the great deal of discussion and early source documentation pointing to the subject (God), I'd argue that there is some strong justifications to believe.
Ultimately, the question becomes one of epistemology. And, with all things dealing with truth, we never can be too sure. As a Christian, reason helps me, but ultimately there is some level of faith involved. But, isn't faith also involved when you look at other worldviews?
Feel free to check out my blog (http://toddhdow.org/) for plenty more discussion on this topic.
Thanks and talk soon!
Todd Dowhttp://toddhdow.org/