Why do you believe what you believe?

I know the answer that I'd like to give.  But I'm not sure it's true.  We'd all like to say that our beliefs are based on evidence and reason.  But I doubt that's always true.  How big a role do our emotions play?  How much do I believe something... because I want to?

I've noticed how what I want to believe affects how I weigh up competing propositions.  If I want to believe something then I'm more prepared to listen favourably to the arguments.  If I don't want to believe something then I'll search high and low for reasons not to.  I'll still try and rationally weigh up the arguments, but I'd be naive to think I didn't require different burdens of evidence in each situation.

So for Christians and atheists, what might it be about our beliefs that causes us to cling to them?

For Christians:
It's comforting knowing God's watching over our lives and loves us. We cannot face the meaningless of a universe without God. A desire to see justice finally triumph.

For atheists:
A desire for autonomy and not wanting to be accountable to a higher being.  To be thought of as an enlightened person who can see through all this religious bunk. A dislike for who you perceive God to be.

So do you have better reasons for why you believe something?

Or do you just want to?

Determinism and the Death of Justice

We cry out for justice.  When we see the murder of an innocent we demand that the perpetrator should should be held accountable.  We long to see wickedness punished. But how does this desire for justice fit into a world without God?

In order to be held accountable for an action a person must have been free to do otherwise.  Whatever the pressures on the person when they committed an act, to be accountable they still must have had an alternative option, even if it was an unattractive one. But if naturalism is true, i.e. all there is is the physical universe and the laws that govern it, then no one can be held accountable.   If materialism is true then we are simply complicated biological machines responding to various stimuli. The brain processes the information it receives, following the laws of chemistry and physics, and the person reacts.  They may have the illusion of choice but in fact the wiring of the brain and the physical processes dictate the reaction.  They have as much freedom as a computer.

When I rant and rave at my computer for its latest malfunction I am being irrational.  The computer was just following its programming.  When Basil Fawlty chastises his car we know he's gone over the edge.  You cannot hold a machine accountable.

Yet we hold humans accountable.  We lock people up or execute them for murder.  We act as if people have a choice.  If atheism is true murders, rapists, and terrorists have no choice.  The best we can say is that they are sick: their brains have their wires crossed.  They should receive our sympathy and not the due penalty. We shouldn't lock them up.  But can we live with this reality?  Do we really believe that we have no choice?  That when our consciences scream at us but we ignore them that we really couldn't have listened?

If atheism is true then justice is dead.  And my desire for it is just the symptom of a malfunctioning brain.

But this is not the view of the Bible.  God holds us accountable for our actions; that we should turn from our wickedness to Him and live.  How can this be?  The answer is that we are not just physical beings but spiritual. We are not constrained by the physical laws of cause and effect but, as spiritual beings, we transcend them.  We have genuine moral choices.  We are accountable. God has given us all a conscience that tells us when we are wrong, even when it's not in our interest to listen to it.

The Meaning of Life.

What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? What is the point of life?

These are questions we all ask. Philosophers ponder them. We all long for an answer. But the question I'm asking is: why do we ask these questions?

To ask the meaning of something is to ask about its purpose. When an archaeologist finds a strange object he wonders what it was for? What is the meaning of a kettle? What is the meaning of a knife? The meaning of the kettle is to boil water and the meaning of knife is to cut something. In both cases their meaning is external to them. The creator – man – decides what the objects purpose is and the object fulfils that purpose when it does what it was designed for. Another picture might be, what is the purpose of a private in an army? He cannot see why he does what he does, risking life and limb, but the General, whose plan it is the soldier follows, has a purpose, which he hopes the soldier will accomplish. Again we see that the soldier cannot define meaning for himself amidst the chaos but it is an external agent who defines his meaning. So when we ask what is the meaning of life we are asking: for what was I made? And only our creator can tell us.

If Atheism is true, then why should we ask these questions? We are here by chance and natural selection. There is no purpose. We are nothing but specks, screaming into the darkness to be blown away by the winds of time. This is the conclusion of Nihilism. There is no God therefore there is no meaning. And yet the fact remains they wrestle with this question. We all desire meaning. Some Atheists advocates a form of existentialism where we define our own meaning. But this is nonsense. The kettle and the knife cannot decide what their purpose is. The kettle cannot cannot decide today to be a spoon. The private in the army cannot decide he finds meaning by doing his own thing. Meaning is external. So Nihilism is right. If there is no God then there is no meaning. But in stating that they must have asked the question.

So why do we desire meaning?

If Athesim is true then there is no meaning and it makes no sense to ask about it, think about it or worry about it. We should live like animals, following our instincts to try and pass on our genes. We shouldn't waste time and energy with such questions: they don't help us survive. In fact they could be detrimental – because if there is no great purpose in life why bother even to pass on my genes? Why make the world a better place for my children? Why help humanity or nature to survive? We're all dust. No one will notice if we're gone. The universe will march on in indifference if humanity should cease to look on it. In short, to ask why we are here does not have any evolutionary advantage, so can only be explained as an accidental by-product of conciousness. This is not explanation but a mere just-so story and doesn't really satisfy. The same as life without meaning doesn't satisfy. Instead, I think, a better explanation is that we were indeed created.

When we ask the question: what is the meaning of life? It is a tacit admission that deep down we know that we are created even if we deny it to ourselves. If there is a creator it makes sense that we should want to know why He made us. It makes sense that He should place it in our being to want to know why he made us. It makes sense to ask the question - why is there meaning - as there is the possibility of an answer even if we may not like it.