Nothing but the truth

Dear All

Lately I have been in quite a few situations where I've had to tell people uncomfortable things about themselves and it got me thinking: what do you think would happen if everyone was able to tell only the truth and everyone was able to accept the truth all the time (especially when it's not pleasant to hear).

In my mind there is an absolute truth. This is not an assumption on my part, but comes from my belief in the Christian God. Obviously, if this is not the case for you (if you don't believe in absolute truth) then the basis on which this article relies is false in your opinion and discredits the whole article. Feel free to read on though, because I only want to get my point across about people being truthful. Now I don't believe we can always know exactly what the truth is. I believe that biblical literacy might get us close, but as we are a flawed species close is our uttermost best and we can never reach that level of certainty about truth in every single situation. That still doesn't stand in the way of what I want to say.

What I want to get at is that we are able to always say what we think. Truthfully. Respectfully. Lovingly. Honestly. Too often I see people mistake being truthful or "straight" with being harsh and in an attacking mood. Please note that being truthful has absolutely nothing to do with the attitude that you do it with. I do believe though that being truthful without being harsh narrows the gap between your truth and absolute truth. What I mean by "your truth" is those concepts that you believe to be true in your mind.

It follows then that to be as truthful as you can be, the best that we can do is to speak about the things that we believe truthfully. Even if those things are uncomfortable for some to hear. I am not quite sure what to make of society in its current state yet. Look, it's obviously a stretch to say that my philosophies are correct and the way to move forward so I won't say that. I am simply asking that you think about this with me. If we always (when the opportunity is adequate) speak the truth (bearing in mind that sometimes it's not necessary to speak; let alone speak the truth), and our fellow humans learn how to accept it and the same can happen the other way around, wouldn't society be better of? Wouldn't we learn how to deal with so many more issues in a mature and much more efficient way?

I certainly believe that. I have heard the harsh truth about myself many times. I can tell you that it is not always pleasant, but I have come off the situation as a more mature person every single time and in my heart of hearts I am thankful to every single person who has had the stomach to be ruthlessly honest. Again, the tone in which we do this always has some sort of effect, but nonetheless I have an immense sort of respect for anyone who treats me that way and who are willing to be treated that way.

Leave your thoughts. I learn from every single one of you every time that I read :)

Have a great weekend.

Hermann

Intelligence vs. Christianity

Good morning

This will just be a short piece on something that I again noted last night: the comparison of being a Christian vs. being intelligent.

My wife and I were watching this series called 'Bones' when the protagonist questioned a man on his beliefs and then referred to her having a hard time seeing how he can believe when he looks like such an intelligent man. Obviously this is simply a television series, but I have encountered this notion among other serious atheists before. Richard Dawkins, for one, thinks that Christians should be ridiculed for their beliefs, which to me shows that he thinks that Christians (among other believers) are lesser than others on Earth. I mention him since he is one of the biggest proponents of atheism.

Now, to me, it seems to be a false argument on Dr. Dawkins's side, because I can't possible imagine how an intelligent person like him can believe that all Christians fall into an "unintelligent" category. I'm not writing solely about Dr. Dawkins today, though. The point that I want to make is that I think the argument has no merit whatsoever, and I truly hope that all of you can see that. If we only take Christians and Atheists, surely all of us have to be able to see that there are intelligent people on both sides. For example, Peter Singer (atheist) is intelligent and so is Francis Collins (Christian).

Intelligence (and in my mind scientific reasoning) has nothing to do with whether one is a Christian or not. We can have them on both sides.

Hermann

Big questions (part 3a)

Hi guys,

Today we begin our discussion about some of the world's biggest questions and I am pretty excited. I hope we have some great discussions here. The first topic that I want to get into is the existence of a god. Now, as I've mentioned before in Big questions (part 2), it is impossible for us to construct an absolute proof (the kind which we find in Mathematics) to show the existence of a god since those kinds of proofs only exist in the mathematical realm. Thus, I feel that the only approach to take is to consider everything that could possibly serve as evidence that, again possibly, points to a god's existence instead of his non-existence. I use the word 'possibly' here since I realize that not all of you will come into this discussion with the same opinions as me. For me the evidence (which I will provide) points more likely to a god than away from him, but we will get to everything in good time.

I am not going to make today's writing very long. I will provide one piece of evidence which, to my mind, points me to an intelligent creator; however I will provide more in subsequent writings.

For me one of the strongest suggestions of an intelligent creator is the universe around us. To be more specific, the rational intelligibility and the complexity of the universe, I think, quite strongly suggests a mind behind it. We see information of the most complex forms each and every day. Indeed, by looking at some physical laws alone, it is obvious that the cosmos is an extremely complicated entity. To me, it is quite rational to think that an intelligent mind is behind this cosmos. I would also say that I think it is more rational to think that there is an intelligent creator behind it than to say that the universe is a brute fact. In other words: the universe just is.

Here is why I say so: when we come across any piece of information (for instance a book), we immediately assume that some mind way more intelligent than that book is behind its existence. We don't assume that the information in the book has come into existence by a random unguided process (I am assuming that is what most of my non-believer friends think). Now, by this analogy, it seems to me that it cannot be suggested that believing in an intelligent mind behind the cosmos, is irrational, since this is the process of reasoning that we are very much used to.

I heard many comments along the lines of "just because that is the process that we know, doesn't mean that the universe came into existence by the same processes". I want to make it clear that I absolutely agree with this. I would want to come back, once again, to the fact that I want to look at which option looks the more likely to me. I would also suggest that to a big extent, this is the way that we make progress in Science: by following the "more likely" outcomes.

I know that this has been a far too short introduction, but I decided that I would rather keep updating the blog on a regular basis than write long articles (which would take me longer to finish obviously). For that reason I have called this part 3a because this is not the only argument that I want to present.

Thanks guys,

Happy reading and as always, please feel free to write me.

Hermann

Big question series (part 2)

There are a couple of things that we should be very clear on before we continue.

The first one is that there do not exist any concrete proofs outside of the world of mathematics. That is, nothing can be proven to be absolutely true as it can in mathematics, hence it is impossible to give a concrete proof that God indeed exists. I hope that all of us agree on this at least. In the same way, it should be said that it is impossible to absolutely proof that God does not exist.

Nevertheless I am quite fond of mathematics and the way that things are proved in mathematics involves assuming certain things and then based on those assumptions, trying to prove something else. I do believe that we should take a similar approach when talking about the existence of God. At least that is the approach that has made the most sense to me.

What I mean is this: we deal with many difficult questions about suffering (to give just one example). When we get to those, you will see why I think we need to have discussed certain other aspects already. So I think that the evidence build on each other in a similar way as in mathematics. I realize that in order for someone to arrive at the same conclusion as me, that person has to accept the previous arguments as true, so I know that all of you will not arrive at the same conclusion as me. Once again I am simply stating my arguments and I will be happy to discuss and defend them at any point.

Having said that, I think that we should start at the beginning, which in this case is whether God exists or not. That is where we will go in part 3.

Hermann

Big question series (part 1)

I recently had a very interesting talk with one of my very closest friends. We mostly discussed evolution and the impact of the subject became very clear to me, even though I had not been unaware of its impact. We also discussed other questions that are difficult to deal with such as: If there is a just and all-loving God, why is there pain and suffering in the world?

These are questions that take quite a long time to answer, and in this case I think we should establish what we mean by "answer", but I will get to that. This series is meant to address some of these questions in a clear and concise way. My goal is not to persuade anyone. I myself believe that there is an all-loving God. In particular I believe in the Christian God. Nevertheless, like I said before, my goal is not to persuade anyone and neither is it to claim that I am absolutely right and that there is no other option.

My goal is to present an all-loving God as a very viable option, an option (in my opinion) to which Science strongly points. I am interested in thoughtful discussion. What I am not interested in is people disrespecting each other's viewpoints and opinions and people getting mad and annoyed at each other. If you want those kinds of discussions, there are several other blog sites on this topic where people do that.

This is such an interesting and important topic. Let's treat it with respect.

That being said, I will try to write as often as possible, but I am hoping that the discussion gains enough followers so that keeping the thread alive wouldn't just depend on me :). Anyone is welcome to participate. I will probably do most of the writing, but I also plan to ask a good friend of mine, who has studied this subject a bit as well.

I hope you guys enjoy it.

Thanks,

Hermann

Do we get rid of the agent when we don't need the agent to understand the mechanism?

I recently saw a debate between John Lennox and Richard Dawkins, titled "Has Science Buried God?" One of Richard Dawkins arguments were really weak in my opinion. He argued that if we don't need an agent to understand a certain mechanism, then we get rid of that agent.

My objection to that argument is maybe illustrated well by the following example (which has been used many times by John Lennox): Suppose that we say the same of the Ford motor engine. Suppose that we say that we get rid of Henry Ford, since we don't need him to understand how the motor engine works. Obviously (I hope), all of us can agree that the argument in this case is not valid, since without Henry Ford we wouldn't even have the engine to understand.

For me it seems rational to reason that the same logic can be applied to the existence of a creator and His relationship to the cosmos. We do not get rid of a Creator simply because we can explain how things work in the cosmos, without needing a Creator.

Feel free to leave your comments.

Thanks,

Hermann

The importance of distinguishing between Religion and God

I have a lot of European friends and I used to date a Spanish girl so I have learned quite a bit about how religion is seen in at least Western Europe. It used to be something that I didn't understand as I come from a pretty conservative and stable background as far as that goes.

To my surprise many Europeans that I met were extremely negative towards religion. It was quite a shock to me at first since I knew that many of those countries were countries in which the main religion was Catholicism. Nevertheless, as I learned more about the history of especially Spain I came to understand more and more about why certain people feel like they do about religion and I have to be completely honest and say that I will never speak out against that again because I completely understand now.

Here is the important thing: I believe that if we knew God, we would be able to clearly distinguish between Him and religion, so that we can forget about religion and still follow God.

Well, I have a lot more to say, but on a slightly different topic (religion vs. science) so I am not going to continue with that here.

Please feel free to comment on this post,

Hermann