Stephen,
That could be a good potential title for the hypothetical exhibition we
have been discussing..."World Religion and Belief: Death Sucks."
You are absolutely right in that there is often far too little made of the
satisfaction and "spiritual" enlightenment many people, whether they
"believe" or not, derive from exploring the physical universe through
science and rational thought.
There have been many biological and psychological experiments over the
years looking at the effects of prayer and worship on both individuals and
groups. They all show that there is no chemical/biological difference
between the positive effects that prayer has in the mind of a faithful
person versus meditation, quiet thoughtful reflection, or any other form of
calming/positive mental state. Think positive, is all that really needs to
be done to achieve the same chemical state of mind. Regular repetition of
any of the methods enhances the effects.
Of course, that physical reality has nothing whatsoever to do with the
faith itself, which can not be assailed logically. I am wondering if the
"prayeradox"(very interesting concept) might revolve around the concept of
free will, and whether or not we really have it. In a truly predetermined
universe, free will is an illusion, and prayer is meaningless. The general
theological response to that is essentially "so what." We can not tell the
difference, and prayer is just part of the fabric of what is supposed to
be.
The real trick comes when the assumption of free will is made. In that
case, the universe can not be fully predetermined. Assuming God exists,
then prayer could actually have some substantive effect. At that point your
logic applies, and calls into question the omniscience of the being. There
are a great many websites discussing the issue. Perhaps God simply chooses
not to know everything all the time, preferring to allow the universe to
run itself according to His design, and freeing Him up to watch His
creation unfold and to answer the occasional prayer. Please forgive me if
anyone out there believes God should be referred to in the feminine.
The main thing going through my mind at the moment is why we are trying to
apply logic to the notion of God anyway. Other than that it is interesting,
of course.
Mark Janzen
Registrar/Collections Manager
Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art
Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection
Wichita State University
(316)978-5850
Stephen Nowlin
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On 7/5/05 6:09 AM, Nina Stoyan-Rosenzweig's electrons arrived as:
> For some people there
> is nothing wrong with that- Richard Dawkins for instance doesn't have a
> problem with that being the total of human existence. For many, though,
> there is a deeper spiritual need and a belief in higher spiritual
> purpose.
Nina, thank you for continuing this thread -- as others have indicated I
also agree it is of relevance to musuem personnel who must ultimately
decide
how to present such sensitive and important topics to their audiences.
To some degree, your points can be summed up by the oft-heard and rather
exasperated plea offered by theists when confronted with atheism: "Do you
mean to say THIS is all there is?" i.e., no heaven, no life-after-death, no
human-centrism to the universe, just (apparently) random chance.
But I would respond, keep in mind that the secular and non-supernatural
"THIS" includes all the deepest mysteries, the entire unknown, the sublime,
the beautiful and poignant, the thrill of existence, and I would strongly
disagree that Dawkins and other atheists do not acquire a deep "spiritual"
and emotionally fulfilling satisfaction from comprehending the world
through
science and reason.
The "need" you are describing differs, I think, for theists and atheists
only to the extent that they confront the finality of death. At its core,
religious belief is about avoiding death and the apparent lack of
meaning/purpose death casts over the whole of human existence. It's all
about death, and although their rhetoric might give it a positive spin, I
don't know of any believers who in practice do not as gingerly avoid death
as do their non-believing counterparts. Death sucks.
An interesting aside, though, is that while it for eons attributed certain
feats to the realm of the supernatural, the human species has been quietly
going about achieving those same feats in the natural world. We now
perform miraculous cures of the sick, even to the point of "resurrecting"
people who have died; we travel to the planets and romp in the playgrounds
of the gods themselves; we fly like birds; we speak across oceans.
Perhaps,
someday, we will also conquer death, halt aging, and achieve through
natural
means the age-old quest for immortality.
> By the same token, findings that during prayer, the
> moment when people say they experience a connection with a supreme
> being, there are physiological changes in the brain that some
> neurologists say shows religious feelings are physical.
We would want to see a set of replicable double-blind controlled
experiments
including other forms of mental concentration, meditation, listening to
music, or bio-feedback techniques, to see if the anecdotal findings you
cite
are unique to prayer and therefore meaningful as evidence of a connection
with God.
One thing I've never really understood, though, about the subject: if God
is
omniscient, he already has a plan and knows the outcome of all human events
in the future. Then isn't praying for one outcome over another a form of
blasphemy -- a presumption that God might change the (already planned)
future according to the sincerity, frequency, or sheer volume (or worse,
good reasoning) of mortal prayers being offered? By praying, isn't a
person
implying that their desire for a certain outcome is more important than the
alternative which may be God's plan -- aren't they presuming to change
God's
mind -- to persuade him that one outcome is better than another?
It seems to me to be a sort of "prayeradox" (forgive the pun) -- if God
truly answers prayer, then he's not omniscient; but if he's God, he has to
be omniscient.
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