A Revelatory Moment about God - from an Agnostic Atheist

[PaulS]

Bart Ehrman is currently posting a series of his 'most commented on' blog posts which can be read here: https://ehrmanblog.org/member-landing-page/.  The entire blog is a great value read from one of our current generation's most distinguished New Testament scholars and is available both free (a few restricted blog posts) or for the low annual membership fee of $25 (all proceeds go to charity).  The below is one of his free articles recently shared, which I in turn am sharing here (but you can read it direct at https://ehrmanblog.org/a-revelatory-moment-about-god-most-commented-blog-post-3/).

From Bart:

January 12, 2020

I had a “revelatory moment” last week that I think may have changed my view about “God” for a very long time – or at least about the existence of superior beings far beyond what we can imagine.

As most of you know, I have long been an agnostic-atheist, and as some of you may recall, I define “atheist” differently from most people, at least in relationship to “agnostic.”   The word “agnostic” means “don’t know.”   Is there a God?  I don’t’ know.  How could I possibly know?  How could you?  I know a lot of you do “know” – or think you know.  But my view is that if you’re in that boat you “think” there is a God – really, really think it, deep in your heart, and maybe even deeply “believe” in God – but really, at the end of the day, there’s no way to *know*, at least in the same way you “know” that you have two knees, live in Pennsylvania, or like lasagna.

Anyway, I’m not asking you to agree with me.  I’m just saying it’s my view.  We simply can’t “know” that there is a God in the same way we know other things, and I myself, long ago, came to the point where I had to admit I *really* don’t know.  It’s not that I deeply believe there is a God but admit that technically I can’t know.  I mean I really don’t know.

Over the past fifteen years or so (more? Less?) I’ve also been calling myself an atheist, but I have always meant something different by that from what other people say.  Usually people think of an atheist as a more extreme agnostic, someone who doesn’t say “I do not know if there’s a God” but who says “I know there is not a God.”  I’ve never meant that.  How could I know that *either*?  I’ve taken “agnosticism” to refer to what you KNOW and “atheism” to refer to what you BELIEVE.   Do I believe in God?  No, I do not.  So I’m an agnostic and an atheist at the same time.

My revelatory moment has softened my view.  I guess I’m still an agnostic and an atheist, but I think it makes much, much better sense to stress the “I SIMPLY DON”T KNOW” part, and stop implying that I firmly believe one thing or another.  Here’s why.

I have a meditation practice and in it over the past year or so I’ve spent a lot of time meditating on consciousness, especially the marvel that I am a self-conscious being (you are too, but I’m usually not thinking about you when I’m meditating.  Sorry….).   Consciousness is one of the most mysterious and imponderable aspects of the multiverse, period.  Philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, theologians, and all sorts of very, very smart people have written extremely erudite books about it, most of them disagreeing with one another.  How does something made out of “matter” have the ability not only to think, reason, decide, achieve its own will, and so on – but be aware of  doing so?

If you know the answer, you should write a book and you will receive many international prizes and be the greatest explainer of human existence who has ever lived.   Many have tried.

So I ain’t goin’ there, to give my sophomoric, neurologically- / philosophically- / psychologically pathetically unnuanced views about it.    But something did occur to me the other day during meditation that came as a revelation.

In my experience, one person’s light-bulb moment, when something really clicks, is completely *obvious* to everyone else.   And so I’m always hesitant to share mine.  Some of you will say, THAT’S what you finally realized?  Uh, yeah, duh….    So, when you do think that, well, hey, I knew you would.

But here is the thought that occurred to my head, for whatever it’s worth.

In our way of thinking (this isn’t shared by all cultures), there are different orders of existence/being.

An infinity of things that could exist do not exist – either they never did exist (an infinity themselves) or they once existed and do not any longer.
Most of the things that do exist we would call “inanimate” – minerals and stars and black matter and so on and on. There may be even an infinity of that category too, depending on your view of astrophysics etc.
Most of the things that do exist and are “animate” we would classify as … what? Non-animal?    Most obviously to our senses (I’m simplifying), for example, plants: grass and oak trees and such.
Some few things that exist are animals – however you define that (I’m not interested in refined generic definitions here or exceptions here). They can move themselves, they differ at the cellular level, etc.
Some of these animals have brains and have instincts and some ability to assert a will, and so on.
Humans, in our way of thinking, are on the top of the chain. It’s not that warblers, and copperheads, and orangutans are all the same – there are enormous differences, of course.  But usually we conceptualize the human with, well, the ability to conceptualize and reflect on the past and future in systematic ways and so on.  And yes, I’ve read Frans de Waal – fantastic!  But still, on some level, I’m not doin’ the same thing with my brain as my cat is…..   Still, it doesn’t much matter: arguing one way or the other on it isn’t going to change my revelatory insight.
 

So here is my “duh” moment.   A rock has no way of recognizing that an animate object such as a dandelion exists.   A dandelion has no way of recognizing that a panther exists.  Now it gets a bit tricky.  A panther has no way of recognizing that a superior intelligence exists.  Yes, a panther does recognize in some instinctual sense that there are things out there to look out for.  But it has no way of realizing that there are people who can engineer sky scrapers, or split atoms, or reconstruct the history of Rome.   It simply is not in its purview.

Humans can and do recognize, analyze, study, think about, reflect on these other forms of life.  You don’t need to say they are “lower” life forms or that we are “superior” to recognize this.  We can understand all these things because in some sense (not all), our cognitive abilities are superior.

But here’s my point.  Suppose you WERE to think (whether imperialistically or arrogantly or not) that we are talking about levels of existence, from lower to higher: rocks, trees, non-human animals, and humans.   The fact is that the lower ones can never know about the higher ones, what they really are, what they are capable of, how they exist, what they do, and so on.  They can’t even conceptualize their existence.

Then what in the blazes should should make me think that I could possibly know if there was a higher order above me, superior to me in ways that I simply can’t imagine?   Not just one order above me, but lots of orders?  If there are such orders, there is no way I could ever know.  Literally.  Duh.

And so really, agnosticism is the ONLY option.  Not in the sense of a shoulder shrug, “Hey, how would *I* know?”  but in the sense of a deep thoughtful response – I have precisely no way to adjudicate the view, one way or the other.

The PROBLEM is that we humans always imagine we are the pinnacle of existence.  We’ve always thought that.  That’s why we have no trouble killing other things to satisfy our needs.  I’m not opposed to that in every instance: every time I eat a meal or scratch my arm (killing who knows how many microbes) I do that.   But it has always led to some rather enormous problems, from massive destruction of others in war to, now, our rather determined efforts to destroy our planet.

This idea that humans are the pinnacle of “material” existence has always (so far as we know) been promoted in religion, especially those that dominate the West.   In Genesis, humans are the ultimate goal of creation, the reason all other living things came into being.

This idea that we ourselves are all-important has ironically crept out of our religion into our secular epistemology.  If we are the top of all existence, then there must be nothing above us.  And so we can use our brains to figure out everything else that exists.  In principle, our brains can figure out *everything*.

My revelatory moment showed me with graphic clarity  that that just isn’t true, on epistemological grounds.  Who says we’re the pinnacle?  If quartz stone and maple trees and slugs could think, they would think *they* were the pinnacle – they wouldn’t have the capacity to imagine a Stephen Hawkins or a Steve Jobs or a Frank Lloyd Wright.   But they can’t imagine something higher than them.  So what make us think we  would have the capacity to imagine whatever it is that is above *us* in the pecking order?  Frankly, it’s just human arrogance.  Pure hubris.   And I must say, looking at the world today, I’m not a huge fan of human arrogance and hubris.  It’s not doing too well for us.

I am obviously not urging a return to traditional religion.  This insight decidedly does NOT justify anyone in saying, “See, I was right – my view of God is plausible.”  Your view of God might be completely *implausible* and based simply on what you heard from people living 2000 or 3000 years ago who were generally far more ignorant of the world than we are and were simply doing their best to figure it out.  So my insight does NOT argue that there must be a (single, Jewish or Muslim, or Christian) God, or archangels, or demons, or whatever.  For me those are just mythological constructs that are trying to make sense of it all.

So I’m not at all advocating we return to the religious constructions of previous centuries and millennia.  I’m just saying that the possibility that there really *might* be orders of existence higher than I can imagine strikes me just now as completely plausible.  Why not?  Who says *I* can figure it all out.   If superior forms of intelligence and will do exist, I would literally have no way of knowing.  And how many different forms/levels could there be?  God knows.  So to speak.

[romansh]

This diagram I hope helps with with the agnostic atheist dichotomy that I think Ehrman is trying to describe.

 There is an informal fallacy along the lines, I can't see how something could have happened therefore God did it. Ehrman has changed it to, I can't see how something could have happened therefore God might have done it. Personally, I would leave it at I can't see how something could have happened.

[David Sundaram]

IMO, which opinion I submit in the form of a logical argument, a one can only organically 'know' what one actually experiences. The 'problem' built into such 'knowledge' is that, because of the 'power' of 'Mind', we experience whatever we imagine (image-in) to be 'real' and, barring awareness of contradictory 'facts' (i.e. experiences)  which  contradict said 'knowledge', regard it to be 'true'.

We therefore have to construct theories which make sense of and synthesize our experience(s) as conscious beings, hopefully ever being 'open' to the idea of there being ever more experience-integrating syntheses possible in such regards.

Here is an excerpt from my (freely downloadable from https://davidsundom.weebly.com/uploads/7/7/6/5/7765474/godspeak2000.pdf) book titled Godspeak 2000 which shares my synthesis facts pertaining to (our) Earthly existence (as of the end of 1999):

"2:6  Efforts to creatively resolve our dilemmas and diffi­culties have been confounded by distorted formulations of the truth which are cherished and maintained by those who are fearful of Life’s flux, because they provide them with a ‘sense’ of order and certainty. Many who are awed by the momentous effects of psycho­spiritual dynamics, for ex­ample, postulate and believe in the potency of petitionable movers and governors, above and beyond the range of ‘normal’ being. With conviction, they pity and proselytize people of different persuasion. Zealots even go so far as to condemn and treat as damned anyone who will not acknowl­edge and uphold what they brandish as supreme. Ostensibly rational others, on the other hand, codify the existence of invariant ‘natural’ laws and forces, and believe them and nothing else to be determining. They self-righteously regard as stupid, even treat as insane, anyone who doesn’t talk and act as if what they imagine to be paramount is con­trolling.

2:7  The trouble is, though they make much of their differences, members of both such schools of thought erroneously agree. At most they dispute among themselves whether the rules or rulers they’ve mind-enthroned are biased in relation to particular values or personages and, if so, for what purpose(s) and to what degree. In the end, they are similarly hamstrung by the common assumption they make, for all who believe in the absolute dominance of other forces then think of Life as one or another sort of script being staged and act puppet-like within it accordingly.

2:8  The potentially liberating and amendatory truth (which, for the forementioned reasons, many don’t appre­ciate) is that everybody in existence is spiritually motivated by a mindfully discriminating intrinsic potency. This was termed ‘atman’ or ‘soul’ by sages of old, who recognized everyone and everything as an immediate expression of the universally present, intelligently creative essence which they understood to be the real meaning of ‘Brahman’ and ‘God’. But, because such words have been misappropriated by cus­tom and their significance sometimes grossly distorted by mis­usage, I generally refer to it alter­natively, as Intelligence, Creativity, Life Itself or the Life-Force. However labeled, it is the source ‘element’ from which all Being springs, the core I-Am-That-I-Am, That which is at root within each and everyone. (Though the full import of this cause of all causes may yet escape you, the following review and analysis of our catalog of scientific knowledge should at least make its fundamental character obvious.)

2:9  Even the simplest cases of what’s called gravitational attraction provide perfect illustration, if viewed without prejudice. Bodies of matter-energy must move themselves, for nothing 'really' pushes or pulls them one towards the other. And they must perceive both presence and relative location, else they could not attempt to move as they do, with an acceleration pro­portionate to the mass and proximity and in the direction of coexisting others.

2:10  Electromagnetic and nuclear interactions, where repulsion occurs as well, are additionally revealing. Ongoing scientific investigation has led us to understand the fact that sense perceptions are basically ‘gross’ acknowledgments, and that everything is fundamentally a wave-form and nothing is actually solid at core. So, besides there being no substantive means to constitutionally 'link' those bodies which form conglomerates, there is no real ‘boundary’ that so called objects bump into when they apparently bounce off one another. The only inference this permits, if one has enough courage and faith in Life not to [imaginatively] 'invent' extrinsic agency as a false postulate, is that the movements that bodies make and the stations they take [actually] result from the impulses and choices of discerning, autogenic ‘interiors’.

2:11  The direction and purpose of such inherent power and intentionality can be deduced from the cumulation and trend of results which have so far occurred. Pro­gressively, the creative essence of Being has conspired to form an array of what, because of our material orientation, we’ve called ‘sub-atomic particles’; these have interacted and engaged in such ways as to produce ‘electrons’, ‘protons’ and ‘neutrons’ which, in turn, have combined to create the various ‘atoms’ and ‘molecules’ we have become familiar with; and these, through more concerted effort, have coalesced into cellular and multi-cellular units, in stages, generating ever more complex aggregations of body,a mind and spirit—the whole hierarchy and procession we know as Life.

2:12  In ascending sequence, with prior developments integrated and built upon, ‘bodies’ have become more coordinated, ‘spirits’ more potent, ‘minds’ more perceptive, resident Intelligence more designful and adept. Even what some call ‘simple’ single-celled organisms are architectural masters capable of cognizing, culling and compiling environ­mental ingredients so as to reproduce themselves and further their particular line of development. Each succeeding level of integration further demonstrates the aim of the impetus inherent within all being—that is, to seek and establish cooperative affiliation with suitable others in order to enhance creativity and increase the degree of intelligent actualization.

2:13  Life’s evolutionary accomplishments in such pursuit are extremely varied in range and infinitely diverse; and, because of the involuted nature of their interconnectedness and interdependence, the ways in which its many forms and levels are related cannot be simply stated. Generally speak­ing, however, one might say that ‘lesser’ combina­tions of body, mind and spirit tend to be incorporated by, and serve to sustain, those more comprehensively developed.a With their more energized spirits, more mobile bodies and more dimensional minds, for example, animals prevail over vege­tation for the most part; and the more capable among them prevail over the rest.

2:14  Members of our species stand at the peak of a fantastic living pyramid, borne by the earth and sustained by energy continually streaming from the sun. Cresting a progression that has taken place over aeons and ages,a we have emerged ascendant, capable of much more than great physical dexterity and coordination. Our laughter and our tears demonstrate, in dimensions of Mind and Spirit, how far beyond its other earthly manifestations Intelligence has devel­oped in the process of becoming human.

2:15  We are in a preeminent position because our Intel­ligence is more capable. Knowing the habits and tendencies of animals, we can hunt and herd them for everything from milk and manure to skins and meat. Knowing the proclivities of plants and trees, we can sow and reap them for food, shelter and variety of drink. And, knowing the patterns and affinities of atoms and molecules, we can manipulate and reorder them to fulfill practically every structural possibility we desire.

2:16  What’s more, because we can categorize and communicate aspects of experience using sounds and word-symbols strung together in sentences and paragraphs, knowledge gained by any member of our species is poten­tially available to everyone. We can thereby transcend limitations inherent in the ‘me’ of self and the ‘here and now’ of immediate perception. And because we can logically contemplate concepts of ‘before’ and ‘after’ and system­ati­cally correlate effects with causes, projecting any imaginable ‘if’ into the latent potentials of every possible ‘then’, we can also transcend the circumstantial limits of prior experience and conditioning. In sum, because we can broadly compre­hend the significance of past patterns, current trends and future portents, we are capable of knowingly choosing the path to optimal actualization."

There is much more in the book relating to the topic, of course. I hope the above excerpt stimulates readers here to delve into it.