The Philosophy of the Philosophy of God - A Paper by Skyler Graber

The paper below is by a good friend of mine, and is one that I'll be critiquing soon. Please enjoy!

The Philosophy of the Philosophy of God

Skyler Graber

Obligatory Introduction

            Introductions have always been very interesting for me, there are so many kinds, yet, only a select few are deemed adequate enough to warrant any sort of merit. Yes, I could always add a cute story or anecdote about my life and how I've stumbled to this point in life that allows me to argue the things that I do. Furthermore, a collection of facts could be included that build to a grand but non-thought provoking and lackluster thesis such as “God is important to study because we must know things”. If someone wanted to make an introduction really compelling they could connect with the reader personally and try to build a dialogue followed inevitably by a relationship, however the author would just disappoint said reader leading to a complete divorce from the idea being attempted to convey.

            I think all of these methods are idiotic in a philosophy paper. Why? None of them matter. Honestly, no reader is going to care if you got stung by a bee in the 5th grade or that when your father was 60 he had a heart attack. No one cares if dolphins can swim at a certain speed, or that there isn't enough space in an ark made out of wood to fit two members of each species of animal not even considering the amount of food for 40 days. Nope, people don't care about actual causes, or reasons, or facts really unless they prove themselves right.

            This is the problem, the biggest problem; Humanity largely just doesn't care: to explore the universe, to find the secrets to life, to invent medicine diagnosing birth defects. 'Someone with a PhD will go do all those things for me, now leave me along to eat my pizza and watch the cubs get their asses kicked.' People don't care because they have their answer, their answer is a magician who lives in the clouds, someone who loves them very much and saves them after they die from their strokes and sports injuries. This fairy god mother, who've I been told is a man, has the potential to save people from diseases, plagues, fires, floods, asteroids, and just about everything else. So, at this point, why would humanity care to discover, uncover, or explain when everything is so neatly arranged in front of them.

            How can one fix this problem? How can one get humanity to take the blindfold off and show them that a world without the magician isn't absolute chaos? First one has to disprove God, and then humanity will begin to question things. I understand that this is backwards compared to most non-theists, who believe that you must first teach people to question things, and then God will go away; However no one can truly question everything when one thing can exist without evidence. Why would someone ask for evidence on something when they know that God exists without it? They wouldn't, hence the necessity to take God out of the equation by dethroning mentality that God as undeniable. This is why the study of God, the study of logic, and the study of thought is important.

All in the definitions

            It's surprisingly sad how many arguments condense down to the definitions, the most basic of things.  In a world where we can push a button and move something on mars, engineer plants to withstand poor climates, and monitor the economic trends of vinegared rice in japan within a few seconds are something like definitions still such a problem? Unfortunately yes, and not simply to a selective few either, the problem is universal.

            What is love? How about glory? Life? Even to the most literate group of people, these words mean completely different things. Even the most literate group of people can't unanimously define something such as love. Understand that these words do, in fact, have definitions. Merriam-Webster defines love as a 'strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties', so can't arguments on love take place with this definition of love in mind? Well sure, but these arguments would hold as much ground as another set of people using a different definition from the same dictionary, which in Merriam-Webster's case has about 7.

            Basically, words suck; They are objective containers of subjective ideas, one crucial way to transfers thoughts and emotions between minds. For example, if I want to convey what I think is a rock, I would say “Rock!” and point to one, the objective, in order to bridge my mind and someone else's. Without that important objective chain, ideas and emotions could not easily be perceived. However, everyone has a unique subjective outlook and this leads to different thoughts being correlated with the same exact word. Words are labels, most of the time they do their job to add ideas to an argument, however they often can lead to said idea being misconstrued.

            Alas, we are forced to use words; at least until we figure out telepathy. The solution to this is isolated definitions, definitions that are formed and used in an argument. When the word god is mentioned, the definition will often accompany it. This way I can reset social language differences and start my cases from scratch.

Who is on first?

            Regardless of the extensiveness of the label, one can't truly equate two separate things to be equal. However, this is seen constantly. An elm and a pine tree are classified as trees, even though one is coniferous and one deciduous. Enough though an elm and an oak are both deciduous, during fall one has bright red leaves while the other a darker shade. Even two elm trees planted adjacent to each other grow to different heights, all while still being labeled the same. Labels simplify things, acting as a bookmark of thought, and attempt to convey an intelligible distance towards truth. They fulfill their purpose on multiple iterations of depth: from tree, to deciduous, to elm is a much clearer path than straight to understanding elm. Although, labels can provide a disservice for a true understanding of the subject. Suppose a man is having eye surgery and can chose any person in the hospital to perform it, by simply taking first step iterations and asking for a 'doctor' a complication arises and he dies during surgery. Why? The 'doctor' that he chose was a cardiologist who, despite reading about the procedure, had no practice in the field. If the man had chosen to ask for people labeled 'doctors' then add another label iteration by asking for 'ophthalmologists', he would have most likely survived the surgery and been correctly treated. This is an error, not in the design of labels, but in their usage.

The difference between one philosophy

            The word philosophy is a label in itself, there are so many different kinds of philosophical types of thinking. Three major types are subjective to objective, objective to objective, and objective to subjective. Some of these are really useful, some are a little more than brain candy. Although they may be branches of the same tree they are not interchangeable, you can't prove something with one branch and say it is correct in the other. The first problem is that not all philosophies are logical, logic is actually only one of these three.

           Objective and subjective are one of those fun words that really need definitions. Some would say that everything is subjective, that the very idea of perception nullifies the objective world; Claiming that equipped with simply our senses, perceivers could simply be deluded into thinking what they see is actually real. This is called bullshit, but is modernly known as extended solipsism, which I don't dare go into yet, yet being the key word. Barring this objective and subjective are not to difficult to define.

           The objective is a reproducible, universally, and measurable shared face or attribute to the natural world. Grass has a certain wavelength it gives out, the sun contains reactions that give off heat and light, chalk is CaCo3, stoplights have three settings, and the Earth tilts on an axis of 23.5 degrees. Things that any person could do and would experience the same result. It doesn't matter if two isolated people drop something, they both fall with a downward acceleration of g. Granted, these two people can have different opinions as to why the different objects fell, but they fall nonetheless.

           The subjective is quite different. It is emotion, it is thought, anything that cannot be reproduced by another with the same result. While everyone gets angry, no two people react the same way. While two people believe in a god, their experiences and emotions lead them to believe in a slightly different one. If a man walked up to another man in a flustered rage, the only objective bases the other man has is the anger. He can't know why he is mad, who caused it, or how he copes without some objective display. This could be through words or actions.

           However, I'm not demeaning the subjective, it is completely necessary. The subjective is responsible for thought, and that just so happens to be a pretty useful tool. Without interpretation of the objective, sentient beings would not be able to, well, be sentient. Think of a rock, and then think of you without thought, they look pretty similar. Ergo, subjective reasoning and deduction are useful.
Mathematics, logic, and philosophy are all subjective, and all are positive tools. Ok, definitions done.

            Subjective to objective is the most common, and it is derived from a standpoint of bias and falsehood. Oddly enough it is also the major foundation for religions, the subjective feeling and perception of their thoughts on the world around them without any base conformation leading to an objective truth. The largest problem with this is the reliance on the individual, simply because you can only begin with the subjective through the mind of a single person. The moment you introduce a larger set of subjectives, the conformation of the objective can be achieved. A common example of this is preference, someone doesn't like a certain color so they objectively think that color is worse.

            Objective to subjective is math, it is logic, and it is the basis for philosophy. To allude to the example earlier with the two things being dropped, the objective truth is that they both dropped, however the reasoning for this is subjective. One person can argue that all objects want to move to the center of the universe and the Earth is simply the center. Another could argue that a giant invisible wail hovers over everything and pushes them down as it sees fit. Both are subjectively true, however neither  are reproducible to the rational of the cause, nor are either measurable. (The falling is measurable, the whale is not)

            Finally, the objective to objective is a summation of the previous two, using the objective to deduce subjective reasoning to further deduce the objective. You could use logic to conclude that grass does in fact have a wavelength that looks green, this is the subjective to objective. Furthermore you could conclude that wavelengths are created with such a method and adopt a theory, which for yourself is subjective. The cycle then repeats, which is the basis for the scientific method.

I don't care about Venn Diagrams, philosophy is not science

            Modern philosophy is the study of 'what ifs' and not 'whats'. It seeks to comprehend ideology and the subject of meaning. Science does not, science seeks understanding of the world around it through accumulation of evidence and the elimination of personal bias. To make the argument that they are one in the same is ludicrous; However many arguments are made philosophically and then interpreted scientifically, this is an incorrect manner of thinking. Philosophy is not specifically bound to any objective base assumption in its entirety, only certain branches of it.

God without the sugar

            The God talked about in the next few paragraphs is a non interventionist one, one who created the universe and does not act in it. The God that can't be proven to exist or not exist, the deist God. God in this sense is used heavily in philosophical arguments to make a point that a God could, in fact, exist. The deist God is an interesting one because it leads to a large portion of agnosticism around the world, while you can't disprove him, you can't that one does exist, and furthermore will never able to. This is not the God I will be talking about heavily.

Too much frosting, not enough cake

            The God that will merit my attention is the common one, the interventionist, the one depicted most notable in the the bible. Unlike the deist God, which had no doctrine and therefore no stance for or against it, the Bible God has many qualities that he must achieve to exist. Many theists actually draw and create God from depictions of the Bible, ergo, their God must have many similar attributes. The problem at this point is that God can be picked apart and falsified, and must fall back to deist one.

            If an argument relies on the use of evidence, then it can be analyzed, and ultimately disproved. Was the red sea really parted? If so how, by what method, at what time, and by whom was it parted? When the Bible builds the basis for God, God becomes just another theory that can be tested. If one were to come upon the realization that a large body of water cannot physically be parted with the technology of the time, then criticism of the Bible could follow, and ultimately the foundation for God.

            At the beginning of this essay I stated that people rely on God, not only to prove their existence and give meaning to it, but also to prove their morality and dictate how they should live. Once you accept that God can intervene and affect what you do, your actions are in the hands of someone else. The all powerful God is an attempt to control and diminish the masses into a dogmatic and enslaved system. Put frankly, people should not rely on Christianity or any other religion.

Baby shoes for sale; never worn

            In an attempt to convey the invalidity and absolute disregard towards logic presented by the notion of the western God I will break his attributes into 3 well received claims. That he is all powerful, all knowing, and all loving. These in themselves hold true and cannot be disagreed within a world of utopia and benevolence. Unfortunately, the last time I checked, we didn't live in such a peaceful great place. Murder, genocide, disease, natural disasters, pain, suffering, loss, and enslavement are all characteristics of the world we live in, some of which are awkwardly caused by the belief in God.

            So how could a being with these three attributes allow such a horrible, sinful, and evil place to form and operate? This is the problem of evil, no matter which way you slice it, you can only have a maximum of two of these attributes while the other falls by the wayside. In a world where God has the ability to intervene, create, and destroy, the constant reminder of his lack of power, knowledge, and love are readily displayed. Now to play the definitions game, for power, knowledge, and love are hard to define.

            All powerful simply means infinite power, nothing is greater than it, nor will ever be. God could achieve things without even thinking to do so. He could stop tornadoes, make cancer disappear, and stop the devil in his tracks if he so chose. All knowing is the knowledge of everything, past and future. The knowledge of who is going to win the playoffs this year, what Christine is going to get on her spelling test, and who Jack the Ripper was going to kill and where. Finally, all loving means a deep love of all things; See the above definition of love if needed.

                        If you can't tell already, some problems begin to form when God is all three in a world of evil. Why doesn't he stop the devil if he can? Why does he allow those he loves to die? Why didn't he strike Jack the Ripper down before any harm could be done? All of these things are a deducible using just two of the three, however there is a paradox when using all of the them. Alas, dear reader, do not despair for there are other solutions to the problem of evil that allow God to still exist! What joy that we have fixed this problem and cannot consider it evidence against God! Well, we could if the solutions, in themselves, were not problems.

            The major solution is free will, God wants humanity to grow and begin to not rely on him, but rather develop their own world. This is pretty nifty at face value, God loves us so much that he is giving us the freedom to act as we chose. However, if God is all knowing then he knows what we will do, all the pain we shall cause to one another, the suffering of the world. Eh, God can know all of that and still be an all loving God, right? Wrong, an all loving God could not stand to see a single person suffer; But what if God knows that some suffering needs to occur in order to achieve the maximum amount of happiness and love in the world? Doesn't really seem like an all powerful God, and this is the problem. A God that gives us free will can't be all of the above, because A, B, and C contradict one another.

Atheists can be idiots

            I often bash on Christianity not simply for being believers in God, but for admitting that nothing could ever proving them wrong, 100% believing in God, blind belief. The statement that I could never convince some theists that there God is not correct even with evidence is not a false one. One of the largest problems of theism is that you are stuck in jail without bail and never roll doubles, people can find that they build so much of their life in devotion and study of God and without him, they couldn't function or find meaning. I half-understand this, one part of me sympathizes with the notion, but urges them to better themselves and their knowledge of the world around them. The other part remembers how each person used to believe in Santa Claus, but could cope with the news that he was not real.

            In short, the logic of blind belief escapes me; It can be destructive and contagious. However theists are not exclusive owners to blind belief, certain atheists hold the title as well. In order to move forward I feel as if I should separate the two major types of atheists in the world. The first is the soft atheist, who does not believe in a higher power. This is a lack of a belief and not a belief in itself. The second is the hard atheist, who does believe that there is no God. That, dear reader, is just as bad as a theist. I consider myself a soft atheist, understanding that you cannot prove the existence of a God means you must understand you cannot disprove it either. Therefore you cannot have any evidence one way or the other and ergo cannot form a belief holding one true.

            Hard atheists can be just as bad as theists, although they are often worse. Hard atheists cite science and logic to determine why no God can exist, however they can't conclusively prove that he doesn't. The game they play is the same one as theists, using their subjective ideology to dictate the physical world. It is only made worse by the fact that they mascaraed as men of reason further hurting the identity of agnostic and the label of atheist.

The first and last step is agnosticism

            Agnosticism is the belief that questions should be approached with doubt and skepticism, that we must not participate in conformation bias, but understand that a deist God cannot be defended or debunked. Agnosticism criticizes Christianity, but not the idea of a non interventionist God. It is open to possibilities that are not falsifiable, but encourages the pursuit of answers to testable questions without bias or personal objection. This is a trait that should be encourage among realms of thought and philosophy.

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The question of 'Why?'

            'Why?' questions have always bothered me, they seem rather pointless. No, I don't mean questions such as 'Why does water evaporation' in a technical sense, it evaporates due to rapid increase of heat and collisions of the polar water molecules, this can be explained. I mean questions such as 'Why are we here' as opposed to 'How did we come to be here', the meaning questions are the ones I take issue with. That being said, the question of 'Why is studying atheism important?' is half the former and half the latter. There is no profound meaning to atheism, just as there is no profound meaning to theism. There is, however, a reason to study it, and in the philosophical manner that we do.

            Arguments for God are not made using direct scientific logic, they are made using philosophical logic. In order to create a counterargument for these, we must use a philosophical stance ourselves. This is why it is important to study this subjective, to argue the stances I have in this essay, without the drive to answer questions such as the importance of atheism you could never make such conclusions and points. Basically, the tool and thinking ability while attempting to answer the question is the most important reason for asking it.

The same side of two different coins

            One of the most common stances to take when it comes to science and religious philosophy is that they answer the same thing, just in different ways, that they are different sides of the same coin. This is a cop out, an attempt to subject science as the special group that demands evidence while the rest of logic and philosophy don't. Saying that God holds you on the ground, that the world is the center of the universe, and that there is an afterlife is not akin to summarizing gravity, astronomy, or biological death; It just isn't. The ideas and methods for both explanations are completely different and void of much compatibility.

            The more logical analogy is that science and religious philosophy are the same side of two completely different coins, one of which may not exist. That they compete against one another in an attempt to reveal truth. As scientific reasoning progress, the need for a God declines.

Knowledge inside-out

            Everyone has their ideal world in mind, whether it be a giant Chucky Cheese's ball pin or a blossoming utopia forced upon its people. No matter how much we want to become unbiased and fair, we can't do it, because personally we strive towards this ideal. In some senses this is fine, in others its somewhat destructive, but ideal drive is a universal attribute. Some see happiness as the end all-be all goal, some see it as liberty; I see it as knowledge and ultimately power. This is why I strive to answer questions such as this, to understand the world I live in, and urge others to do the same. When it comes to questions such as 'Why atheism?', the easiest answer is almost always wrong, and that is why the study of it is important and necessary.