Why the subject of faith is unarguable despite science and fact
A lot of fuss has been kicked up on JU recently over the Bible and its literal interpretations, the counterproof to refute and the arguments that get bandied back and forth to try and convince someone else that you're right and they're wrong. I've made clear my approach, which is essentially this:
The ten commandments, the rules and guidelines of the Garden of Eden (don't eat the apple), all the strictures on what you can and can not eat, do, sleep with etc all boil down to a few simple rules:
1. Don't be a dick.
2. Don't overcomplicate things that don't need overcomplicating. The simple answer usually ends up being right.
If you do those two things, you'll find that probably all of the rules and guidelines that make up the Bible, and by extension Christianity (or Judaism if you just look at the OT) becomes redundant/moot. To me, it's the message that is important, not the words. I don't get caught up in the veracity of Noah, or Eden, or the whole virgin birth thing, because to me, it doesn't matter in the slightest. To me, that's like looking out over a vast forest with beautiful trees of all sorts, animals, sounds and smells that make up an engrossing place, one of beauty and serenity, and instead seeing only a pine tree, or a deer. It's like looking at a beautiful tapestry and seeing only the individual threads and not what they make up.
Unfortunately, history has been dominated by those who look at the threads, at the trees and completely miss the forest or the tapestry. It comes from both sides too. It comes from the zealot fundamentalist and it comes from the staunchest atheist. It happens when someone latches on to ONE thing, one specific thread and starts screaming from the rooftops that that thread is the ONE TRUE THREAD and through that, that person either knows the will of God, or has proven that God is a bunch of bunk.
Let's look at how the whole God thing works.
God requires faith. It's easy to believe that fire is hot because it simply IS. That is not faith, that is knowledge and knowledge is easy. You can measure the temperature of fire. You can set something ablaze, point at it and go "Look! Fire!" You have no choice in believing in its existence. Denying that fire exists is pretty much pointless and will get you laughed out of any conversation you're participating in.
Faith is tough. Faith requires belief with no proof. You have to honestly want to believe in God. As soon as the atheist says "Prove God exists!" The whole thing is over and done with. You can not prove that which is un-provable. The atheist, demanding proof has no desire for faith. No faith, no God. If God physically proved his existence, then people would follow out of fear, not out of love or an honest desire to do so. That's not the goal. God proving himself also totally shoots free will in the head, because you certainly wouldn't do as you like if you knew for 100% fact that there was an old white-haired guy in the sky watching your every move and judging it against a list of rules.
So we end up with a lot of people that miss the larger picture (and I'm given to believing that God is a big-picture kinda guy...I mean, come on, this hasn't exactly been a short-term project going on Planet Earth) and zero in on those little trees and threads. Why? Well, it's safer for one thing. You can get your head around one issue, one topic, one little point and pick it apart from every angle. It also doesn't risk showing faults in ourselves. You can argue over gay marriage, over Noah/Eden as being possible/impossible, over evolution versus intelligent design (creationism for those who are being honest with themselves), over young-earth versus old-earth etc... Focusing in on those things allows everyone to ignore the bigger picture, the whole point of what God and any and all of his prophets (Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, insert your favorite religious pillar here) which has always been "Love" That scares us though, because if we look up from our little trench, we may catch a glimpse of how we're stacking up against what we probably should be.
Holding up gays, evolution, divorce etc... as being the main thrust of God's will allows the believer to hide out and avoid the big issues. It allows them to keep their mind off how they are or aren't doing on the whole "Don't be a dick" scale.
Holding up science and such as disproof of God allows the non-believer to make themselves feel like they can do whatever without final consequence. It allows some of them to ignore the "Don't be a dick" rule, because to them it doesn't matter so much since if they are a dick, they die, if they're not a dick, they die anyway and there's no final reckoning.
God preached and preaches Love. Unconditional, complete and absolute love. Any time I hear someone say "God hates..."or "God condemns..." you know that person has missed the point. Through history there's been a lot of bad shit done in the name of God (Crusades, Spanish Inquisition [which nobody every expects], Salem Witch Trials etc...) and a lot of bad shit is laid at the feet of God as far as blame goes (natural disasters). We bounce back and forth a LOT on what God does and does not do, what he does and does not condemn, what is and isn't his fault, and it comes out to being pretty random. Yet some still hold to the idea that the Bible is the perfect translation of God's word to the original authors and there was a guiding hand through every translation to keep them all perfectly in-line with His word. Literalism has led to a lot of bad things done in the name of God, I find it odd that God himself would promote a literal view of His word. It's usually the literalists calling for this to be outlawed, that to be banned, or some person to be lit ablaze for being a heretic.
You can not prove or disprove God through words, through facts, through science or through logic. You can not convert someone to or away from faith through arguments of wording in a book. Those who believe blindly will continue to do so, and those who staunchly disbelieve will continue to do so as well. If you truly want to believe, you will, and if you don't want to, you won't.
Don't get caught up in the man-made aspects of faith. Religion (the man-made extension of faith) is pretty much a crap shoot as to who got what right. Most people of faith (any faith really... excepting extremists of course) believe in a loving deity who rewards those who lead good and wholesome lives and punishes the wicked.
It is through actions, not words, or speeches that people prove or disprove the individual presence of God. You can go to church every Sunday, do all the potlucks, stand on all the street corners yelling the message of Christ you want, but at the end of the day, are you a good person? Do you follow the whole "Love" deal? Or are you a dick? If you're a dick, you've latched onto the tree and couldn't care less if the rest of the forest burned down.
Those not of faith aren't condemned to the fiery pits of hell for not professing belief in a supernatural being they can't grasp due to whatever notions and prejudices they have. If they lead a good life and are good people, and generally aren't dicks to others, then they've fulfilled the charge of God and Christ a heck of a lot more than someone who's preaching fire and brimstone, declaring who is and isn't going to hell.
You can not prove God. You can not disprove God. The best you can do at the end of the day is not be a dick.
It is important to note that when I say believer and non-believer in this article, I am indeed generalizing. I know not all believers are as I characterize here just as all non-believers aren't all the same. It was just easier to write to a broader label and kept this article from running 10 pages long. I am mostly characterizing those who sit at the further ends of each side. Those who want desperately to prove or disprove God, and those who are so staunchly militant in their beliefs that even if they say "Yay Jesus" they're just paying lipservice and aren't actually doing any of the things they should be doing as Christians. And no, I'm not writing this about YOU specifically. If you feel I've targeted you and am ridiculing your beliefs etc... take your fingers off the keyboard and walk away. I wasn't talking about you.