Goldstein's God Arguments
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein was a philosopher, adamant atheist, humanist, and novelist who wrote about a fictional atheist professor in her book, “36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction”, who made an effort to understand why people believe in God & to understand the idea of religion better herself. Her work was excerpted on the website, The Edge, to provide her insight and counterarguments on the list of arguments.
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein |
The Edge website opened with Chapter I: The Argument from the Improbable Self from “36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction”. From there, we are introduced to the fictional character, Cass Seltzer. Cass Selzer was described to have “owned the psychology of religion” since no one else wanted to pursue the topic as he did. He had the dedication to follow through with the education and time needed to be recognized by this title. He saw religion everywhere and in every aspect, he could inspect in his daily life and would refer to them as “religious frames”. He then was described to have written “The Varieties of Religious Illusion”, which offered his perspective on the religious matters he studied and felt drawn to after reading William James's “The Varieties of Religious Experience” and Sigmund Freud's “The Future of An Illusion”. Little did he know that the novel is what would launch him to popularity in his career. Quickly thereafter, Time Magazine named him “the atheist with a soul” in a cover story about new-age atheists. He was even considered the “poster boy” for his atheistic views on this fictional universe. Funnily, he found their melodramatic phrasing to be comical as he knew how the public viewed those who did not practice a faith. An atheist is defined by the American Atheists website, as a person that lacks a belief in gods. Society typically deemed atheists as ranking lower than “Muslims, recent immigrants, gays, and communists” on the scale of having “low moral value” since they did not share the same views as what was considered normal to the masses. They were even essentially considered more likely to become “criminals, rapists, & drug addicts” due to the misinterpretations and the lack of knowledge of their belief system. All in all, Seltzer was a conventionally attractive "spokesperson for the distrusted minority” that truly felt that religion was a new phenomenon that people could not get enough about discussing which aided him in the quick rise in national attention to his thought-provoking novel.
As for Goldstein's counterarguments, the thirty-six arguments from creationists in defense of God's existence, she was very keen on keeping her arguments factually supported and as nonbiased as possible by refraining from using any persuasive language that could convey an emotionally-driven stance. It starkly contrasted the arguments defending the belief of God like night and day due to the opinionated nature of the tone of the writing. In summary, the arguments relied on the threat of damnation to a person's actively making the "ill" choice to not believe and therefore not repent for their sins. Their arguments also relied on the manipulation of scientific and mathematical conclusions to make their claims appear credible and inarguable. As proved by the principles of statistics, correlation is not causation. For example, the first statement of Argument 9, "The Argument from Answered Prayers", states "Sometimes people pray to God for good fortune, and against enormous odds, their calls are answered". Goldstein states in the second flaw of this statement that the tendency for Confirmation Bias in humans does not confirm that the occurrences of answered prayer are simply coincidences or mere luck. She also challenges them to consider all their prayers of there that have not been answered. The second argument, "The Ontological Argument", states in the fourth claim that "[i]t is inconceivable that God does not exist". This is essentially the equivalent of a child claiming that they find it inconceivable for Santa Claus to not exist.
Santa Claus is a known but not a tangible entity in the physical world. |
As for my takeaway, I truly believe we have the right to believe in what we choose and what works best for us. What I don't agree with is the forcing of one's ideas onto another, which, in my opinion, makes them subject to critique and constructive criticism. As for my personal beliefs, I had always questioned God’s existence once I became old enough to truly question ideas that didn't logically align with the matter I was learning in school. It was surely a sad day when I realized that Santa Claus was never a real being after snooping for future Christmas gifts and seeing that they were most certainly not delivered from the North Pole but disappointingly a local superstore. Since then, I heavily believed that the same situation was at play with the religion I was born into. While I do not believe in the existence of God from a scientific standpoint, I have concluded that I want to choose to believe in the idea of a higher power that might as well be God in the same sense. It serves to loosely guide and provide me comfort in times when too many aspects of my life feel overwhelming and unknown. In short, I am grateful to be able to choose my stance and consider all the others towards religion as it shouldn't be a topic that has a singular right or wrong answer or even a specific connotation that applies to a group of individuals as a collective. It is simply no argument to me that we should all be entitled to choose to what to believe and how we choose to live during our limited time on earth.
Discussion Questions:
Do you believe it is hypocritical to the teachings of "love thy neighbor" to label atheists as "less than" in our society?
Do you believe that religion impedes the principles of free will?
Do you believe in the existence of a higher power?
Does becoming an atheist seem like a common pipeline for those that had religion forced upon them at a young age?
In your personal opinion, is seeing believing, or is believing seeing?
Sources:
https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ces/research/current/socialtheory/maps/ology/
https://www.unav.edu/web/ciencia-razon-y-fe/the-anthropic-principle-science-philosophy-or-guesswork
https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2009/06/01/believing-is-seeing
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