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Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

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Questions from an atheist about common religious views answered from a Bahá'ís point of view.
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Questions from an Questions from an Atheist Atheist The Granularity of God
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Page 1: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Questions from an Questions from an AtheistAtheist

The Granularity of God

Page 2: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Day and night you must strive that you may attain to the significances of the heavenly Kingdom, perceive the signs of Divinity, acquire certainty of knowledge and realize that this world has a Creator, a Vivifier, a Provider, an Architect—knowing this through proofs and evidences and not through susceptibilities, nay, rather, through decisive arguments and real vision—that is to say, visualizing it as clearly as the outer eye beholds the sun. In this way may you behold the presence of God and attain to the knowledge of the holy, divine Manifestations.

You must come into the knowledge of the divine Manifestations and Their teachings through proofs and evidences.

— Abdu’l‑Bahá, Promulgation of Universal Peace,pp 227-8

Page 3: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Behind the QuestionsBehind the QuestionsAn online conversation started by an atheist philosopher and blogger: “Maynard”

He asked these questions because he felt “the God hypothesis” wasn’t granular enough. He wanted every detail filled in. An interesting request given that few, if any, scientific hypotheses

leap fully formed from even the most advanced minds;

leap forth proven or even with enough evidence to satisfy the scientific community.

Page 4: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

The QuestionsThe Questions1. Is God a (a) material or (b) non-material entity? (i.e., is God made up of the same

kind of stuff like protons, electrons, etc. with properties like mass, charge, spin, etc. that every other thing in the universe is made up of, or is he made of something that is non-material?)

2. Does God exist everywhere in space?

3. Is God a sentient being like us, with thoughts and feelings?

4. Can God change the past?

5. Does God know the future?

6. Does God know absolutely everything that happens every moment, including every thought of every being?

7. Can god intervene in events whenever and wherever, to violate natural laws and change their course (i.e. perform miracles)?

8. Do you believe that you have a soul or spirit that will continue to exist in some form (perhaps reincarnated) even after you are dead?

Page 5: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Nature of the Nature of the QuestionsQuestions

The questions spring from a number of assumptions:

That our concepts of omniscience and omnipotence are applicable, realistic, or even rational.

That God is a type of being with material qualities, such as physical strength and a human perspective.

That our concept of something being “made” applies to God.

Page 6: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Question 1:Question 1:Question 1:Question 1:

Is God a (a) material or (b) non-material entity? (i.e., is God made up of the same kind of stuff like protons, electrons, etc. with properties like mass, charge, spin, etc. that every other thing in the universe is

made up of, or is he made of something that is non-material?

Page 7: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

What Sort of Being Is What Sort of Being Is God?God?

All the visible universe comes from my invisible Being. All beings have their rest in me, but I have not My rest in them, And in truth they rest not in Me. Consider my sacred mystery: I am the source of all beings, I support them all, but I rest not in them.

– Krishna, The Bhagavad Gita 9:4.

Page 8: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

The Writer’s POVThe Writer’s POVI am “in” the books I write.

But I am not literally or physically in the book.

I created the characters, laws and plot out of my innermost thoughts and imagination, and the characters continue to live and grow in my mind. But ...

I am not encompassed or defined by the story in the pages, nor do I have to abide by the laws I establish for my fictional universe. Yet, the book…

reflects my emotions about certain things and people,

reveals my thought processes,

shows the reader glimpses of my life.

Page 9: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

“All my visible literary universe comes from my invisible being. All characters have their rest (and origin) in me, but I don’t rest in them. Really, they don’t rest in me. I am their source, and I support them all by writing about them, but I’m not in them.”

In other words, I’m not defined by my stories or limited by them. I don’t begin and end in them, but rather transcend them.

Their reality reflects my reality and my intellect.

Page 10: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

““He hath known God who hath He hath known God who hath known himself.”known himself.”

— Bahá’u’lláh

Page 11: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

In God’s Image...In God’s Image...Sacred texts dating back millennia tell us that human beings are, in some essential way, created in God’s image.

Krishna says that the atman (soul) is “God’s spirit in man” and that atman makes the human precious in the sight of God and drives us to seek Him.

Bahá’u’lláh writes of the capacity of the human soul to reflect the “names and attributes of God”. He says,

O SON OF MAN! Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity of My essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee My beauty. – The Arabic Hidden Words, #3.

Page 12: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

What does this mean?What does this mean?

Page 13: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

I think if we recognize the uniqueness of our own rational faculty, we’ll have a fraction of a glimmer of a clue about the sort of intelligence human beings reflect in the universe.

Page 14: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

So, here’s a neat So, here’s a neat twist...twist...

The scriptures of the world’s religions tell us the human spirit is a reflection of the God who is the origin of the Universe.

Perhaps this is why we ask “Why are we here?” and “How did we get here?” (which are not the same question) and seriously expect an answer.

We can employ that rational faculty to arrive at the idea that a transcendent, non-physical God logically exists.

Page 15: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

How so?How so?If we posit that God is, like us, made up of star stuff (atoms, etc) then we end up with an infinite regression. (Meaning, we have to ask what caused God.)

Hence, the Origin of the laws by which this universe works, cannot, itself, be subject to universal laws.

It must be something fundamentally different.

Page 16: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Question 2:Question 2:Question 2:Question 2:

Does God exist everywhere in space?

Page 17: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

God’s AddressGod’s Address

God dwells in the heart of all beings, Arjuna: thy God dwells in thy heart. And His power of wonder moves all things… – Krishna, Bhagavad Gita 18:61.

If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. – Jesus Christ, John 14: 23

O SON OF DUST! All that is in heaven and earth I have ordained for thee, except the human heart, which I have made the habitation of My beauty and glory… – Baha’u’llah, Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah, vs. 27.

Page 18: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

The Home of GodThe Home of GodThe scriptures of these three faiths (Hinduism, Christianity and the Baha’i Faith), though thousands of years apart, speak of God’s “place” as being the human heart.

In the Baha’i writings Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l‑Bahá use more straightforward language to assign this “realm” to what Baha’u’llah refers to as the “rational soul”, the reasoning faculty that separates us from the animals.

Krishna said: Brahman is the Supreme, the Eternal. Atman is His Spirit in man. Karma is the force of creation, from which all things have their life. – Bhagavad Gita, 8:3.

Page 19: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

How does How does God dwell in God dwell in our hearts?our hearts?

My understanding: He dwells there when we

live by the spiritual principles and practices

that can transform human life and

character.

Page 20: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

The AbsoluteThe AbsoluteKrishna gives God absolute existence (a concept repeated in diverse scriptures) and the capacity to pervade and support the entire universe without “resting” in it.

Buddha further refers to this absolute Being in this way: There is, O monks, an Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unformed. Were there not, O monks, this Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unformed, there would be no escape from the world of the born, originated, formed. – Udana 80-81.

Page 21: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Something to Something to ponder...ponder...

The human intellect has the capacity to escape the world of the “born, originated, formed”. It can escape the animal condition and the limitations imposed by nature, not just through abstract thought, but by observing, articulating and manipulating reality.

Page 22: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

If we are “chips” off the Divine If we are “chips” off the Divine Block...Block...

Why is it so hard for some of us to accept the idea of a Being even more placeless and more powerful than our own intellect, and more capable of creating and manipulating reality?

When we deny the possibility of the existence of God, are we not calling into doubt the reality of our own existence, as well?

Page 23: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

The Placeless...The Placeless...According to Bahá’u’lláh, God does not have a distinct physical “place” in space — especially if by this we mean outer space. He refers to God as the Placeless. Clearly when the scriptures speak of the “heavens” they do not mean the physical skies around our planet or even the outer reaches of the cosmos, but something else entirely.

Baha’u’llah refers repeatedly to “the heaven of God’s will” — something that one can perhaps best find through intellectual rather than physical search.

Page 24: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

““And also in And also in your own your own

selves: will ye selves: will ye not then not then

behold the behold the signs of God?”signs of God?”

— Muhammad

Page 25: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Question 3:Question 3:Question 3:Question 3:

Is God a sentient being like us, with thoughts and feelings?

Page 26: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Is God Sentient?Is God Sentient?The scriptural record — from all major Faiths, not just the Bible or the Baha’i Writings — tells us that we are created in God’s image.

What does this mean?

Baha’u’llah says that the rational soul reflects the Divine Intellect.

So, given that we are sentient, it stands to reason that if our intellect is a reflection of God’s, He is also sentient.

Page 27: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

““God is God is sentient in a sentient in a

‘supereminent‘supereminent’ fashion.”’ fashion.”

— Thomas Aquinas

Page 28: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

The Writer MetaphorThe Writer MetaphorConsider the genesis of the book I’m writing.

I tell the story from the viewpoints of about half-dozen different characters and I have to put myself in their shoes to do my job.

Page 29: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Like, But Unlike?Like, But Unlike?Perhaps our thoughts and feelings are at once like and unlike God’s in the same way that the reflection of something in a mirror is like, yet unlike the original image.

The original object has three dimensions, while the mirror image has two. God has, as my son likes to say, additional dimensions that His creations, including us, do not.

Page 30: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Between Two WorldsBetween Two WorldsFood for thought: Many of our thoughts and feelings result from interactions between our material/physical and spiritual/intellectual realities.

God, having no material/physical component, cannot be caught between the two realities as we are.

Page 31: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Why Would God Why Would God Create Us?Create Us?

O SON OF MAN! I loved thy creation, hence I created thee. Wherefore do thou love Me that I may name thy name and fill thy soul with the spirit of life.

– The Arabic Hidden Words, #4.

Page 32: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

My short My short answer:answer:

“Yes, God is sentient. And yes, He has

thoughts and feelings that are at once like and

not like our own.”

Page 33: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Questions 4, 5 & 6:Questions 4, 5 & 6:

Can God change the past?

Does God know the future?

Does God know absolutely everything?

Page 34: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Can God Change the Can God Change the Past?Past?

God, Time & Science

Heisenberg proved that we can measure either the momentum or location of an entity. We cannot measure both.

Consider a movie: If we try to measure the speed of the film, we cannot determine the position of a single frame; if we determine the position of a single frame, we can no longer measure the speed.

Page 35: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

What Sort of Being is What Sort of Being is God?God?

If we try to observe an arc (a two dimensional object) we capture only a single point (a one dimensional object).

We humans cannot see the universe from more than one point of view.

Can we reasonably expect to comprehend a Being that can see, not just individual points, but arcs and waves as well, including the arc of time?

Page 36: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Why?Why?God could change the past, but why would He?

We humans long to do that, because we’re so clueless about how to learn from the past.

Layli & Majnun. If God had spared Majnun the calamity of being pursued, he would not have found his true love. His ill-informed impulse to have the past rewritten would have robbed him of the very thing that reunited him with his beloved.

Page 37: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Rewriting the Rewriting the past means past means

we’d lose the we’d lose the lessons we lessons we

have gleaned have gleaned from it – and from it – and we’d never we’d never know the know the

difference.difference.

Page 38: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Does God Know the Does God Know the Future?Future?

Bahá’u’lláh and Abdu’l‑Bahá’s statements about the future indicate that certain arcs across time—Divine Goals—proceed in a pre-determined way.

For example: Progressive revelation of religion and the maturation of humanity from savage to civil, from material to spiritual, from irrational to rational, from selfishness to community-consciousness.

How that comes about is up to us.

Page 39: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Does God Know the Does God Know the Future?Future?

No human being can answer this question with any certainty. How does a being who can only see points answer questions that relate to an arc?

It’s as if one of my fictional characters asked another, “Do you think there’s a Writer out there who knows exactly what I’m going to say on page 123?”

I don’t know yet what my hero will say on page 123, but I do know that he will, in his own way, help move the plot forward.

Page 40: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

The Creator’s Eye The Creator’s Eye ViewView

Story junctures.

Which path to take?

Certain things must happen in the book before the plot unfolds.

BUT...how my characters arrive at the end point changes as they navigate turning point after turning point.

If I’m doing it “right”, the interactions between my characters will determine their path through the plot, rather than my forcing a particular sequence of events.

Page 41: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

A: Only God knows. His educators, the Founders of the world’s Faiths, can only tell us what we have the capacity to understand.

Q: Does Q: Does God work God work that way? that way?

Page 42: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Does God Know it All?Does God Know it All?This question deals with God’s omniscience with regard to time.

Human beings have no experience of omniscience. None. Irks the heck out of us, but there it is.

Buckeroo Banzai put it eloquently: “Remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”. I take this to mean, in part that we each have only our singular, microscopic viewpoint.

We can’t know what a super-eminent Being knows or does not know unless He tells us, because we lack the capacity to do more than imagine omniscience.

Page 43: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Question 7:Question 7:

Can God intervene in events whenever and wherever, to violate natural laws and change their course (i.e. perform miracles)?

Page 44: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Does God Does God intervene in intervene in

natural natural processes?processes?

I don’t know.

Page 45: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

None of us, not even Alan Guth, knows everything about natural laws and how they function and what constitutes “breaking” them as opposed to merely using those laws in ways previously unimagined.

I think God intervenes through natural processes.

Does God “Do” Does God “Do” Miracles?Miracles?

Page 46: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Not long ago, human flight seemed a breakage of laws.

People don’t have wings, ergo, people don’t fly.

But we do. And we live in space, and at the bottom of the ocean.

What these miracles require is a sufficiently advanced technological understanding (which, as fellow science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke pointed out, is indistinguishable from magic).

Does God “Do” Does God “Do” Miracles?Miracles?

Page 47: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

If we can do such things with the little bit of subjective knowledge that we have, what might the Being who has a Creator’s knowledge of the system and its potential be able to do?

Page 48: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Why?Why?The Prophets tell us that God’s activities are rational and purposeful.

Think about some of the miracles you’ve heard about.

Now ask yourself: Why? What purpose do they serve?

Page 49: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Abdu’l‑Bahá Abdu’l‑Bahá said:said:

[Miracles] do not constitute proofs and evidences for all the peoples of the earth, and they are not decisive proofs even for those who see them; they may think that they are merely enchantments. – Some Answered Questions, p. 37

Page 50: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

What is the Greatest Miracle of What is the Greatest Miracle of Any Divine Prophet?Any Divine Prophet?

Healing the sick?

Walking on water?

Calming a raging elephant?

Restoring physical life to the dead?

Rising from the dead?

Page 51: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Or is it Or is it this:this:

That a Man with no worldly power is

remembered world wide, has transformed billions of lives, and is revered when great kings are forgotten.

Page 52: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Who Has Performed this Who Has Performed this Miracle?Miracle?

Only a handful of individuals in all of history have performed this miracle.

Baha’is believe this is the chief way that God “intervenes” in history — by sending beings like Christ and Moses and Muhammad and Krishna and Buddha and Baha’u’llah to guide us through Their words and deeds.

Page 53: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

And it shall And it shall come to pass...come to pass...

...in the last days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and the nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us his ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their swords into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord. – Isaiah 2:2-5

Page 54: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

How Does God How Does God Intervene?Intervene?

His “house” is established (He has a presence on earth).

People willingly “visit” it.

His law goes out.

As a result, mankind will “beat their swords into plowshares” — turn destructive implements into productive ones.

Page 55: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

What does What does the verse the verse NOT say?NOT say?

It does not say that God will do these things for us. It says that we will do these things in response to God’s presence and law.

Page 56: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Question 8:Question 8:

Do you believe that you have a soul or spirit that will continue to exist in some form (perhaps reincarnated) even after you are dead?

Page 57: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

You You are are a soul. You a soul. You have have a body.a body.— C.S. Lewis

Page 58: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Stating Stating the the

obvious:obvious:Humans clearly have

a capacity that animals do not.

Page 59: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

The Rational SoulThe Rational SoulI wrote this material in characters that symbolize sounds and that, configured in diverse ways, form words that carry abstract and concrete meanings (in human minds).

I also composed this thing not found in nature using technology devised by other humans and which I understand only dimly, though I’ve worked with it for over 20 years.

The things I use these tools to describe are rarely material, real-world things that have happened.

I also arrange my characters and words to tell of things that did not happen to people who do not exist in worlds that I made up out of whole cloth.

Page 60: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

The Rational SoulThe Rational SoulHuman beings—though naturally wingless—have invented ways to fly.

They have done this, not by brute force, but through the use of abstract reasoning and extrapolation, something that other animals—even those with opposable thumbs and DNA that is 99+% identical to ours—cannot do.

Is a bird’s ability to fly the same, categorically, as our ability to write fantasy fiction or build spacecraft?

Page 61: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

An An inescapable inescapable

fact:fact:Human beings have a literally supernatural faculty that allows us to transcend nature. All of us interact with the supernatural on a daily basis, but especially those of us who do such things as science, art, music, writing, technology

… and baseball.

Page 62: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation

of wave pressure. of wave pressure.

—Albert Einstein

Page 63: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

The power of the rational soul The power of the rational soul can discover the realities of can discover the realities of things, comprehend the things, comprehend the peculiarities of beings, and peculiarities of beings, and penetrate the mysteries of penetrate the mysteries of existence. All sciences, existence. All sciences, knowledge, arts, wonders, knowledge, arts, wonders, institutions, discoveries and institutions, discoveries and enterprises come from the enterprises come from the exercised intelligence of the exercised intelligence of the rational soul. There was a time rational soul. There was a time when they were unknown, when they were unknown, preserved mysteries and hidden preserved mysteries and hidden secrets; the rational soul secrets; the rational soul gradually discovered them and gradually discovered them and brought them out from the plane brought them out from the plane of the invisible and the hidden of the invisible and the hidden into the realm of the visible. This into the realm of the visible. This is the greatest power of is the greatest power of perception in the world of nature, perception in the world of nature, which in its highest flight and which in its highest flight and soaring comprehends the soaring comprehends the realities, the properties and the realities, the properties and the effects of the contingent beings. effects of the contingent beings.

— Abdu’l‑Bahá

Page 64: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

The Sign of GodThe Sign of GodBahá’ís believe the existence of the soul gives life meaning and depth, joy and sadness, exuberance and wonder. Without it we have no real purpose beyond the physical; with it our existence becomes a powerful and purposeful journey toward transcendence. We are more than the sum total of our physical parts.

Page 65: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Know, verily, that the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel. It is the first among all created things to declare the excellence of its Creator, the first to recognize His glory, to cleave to His truth, and to bow down in adoration before Him. If it be faithful to God, it will reflect His light, and will, eventually, return unto Him.

— Baha’u’llah, Gleanings LXXII, p 159

Page 66: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

Of this essential piece of the human being, Krishna said:

“It is God’s spirit in man”

The authors of Genesis said we were created “in God’s image”, and Baha’u’llah said:

“He hath known God who hath known himself.”

If true, this makes self-knowledge critical to human existence — most especially to a human existence that will someday be free of the conflict between our natural and supernatural selves.

Page 67: Questions from an Atheist: The Granularity of God

And now concerning thy question regarding the soul of man and its survival after death. Know thou of a truth that the soul, after its separation from the body, will continue to progress until it attaineth the presence of God, in a state and condition which neither the revolution of ages and centuries, nor the changes and chances of this world, can alter.

— Baha’u’llah, Gleanings, LXXXI, p. 156


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