Ray a Day: 3:5

In today's Ray quote, Ray talks about heaven, and says that science has discovered lots of "invisible realms" in the last couple of centuries. He gives radio and television "waves" as an example, saying,

We can't see them, but they are there whether we believe in them or not. It's the same with the spiritual realm. It, like television and radio waves, is invisible to the human eye.

No, it's not the same. There is a massive difference between the "invisible realm" of radio waves and the "invisible realm" of heaven. Radio waves have an observable affect on the universe. We can measure them and their affect. Reliably. Replicably. The same is not true for heaven, which is akin to an invisible dragon in one's garage.

I am now going to quote a small chunk of Carl Sagon's delicious book, The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, in a completely unapologetic manner:

"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"

Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle--but no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility.

Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative-- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."

Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons--to say nothing about invisible ones--you must now acknowledge that there's something here, and that in a preliminary way it's consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.

Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages--but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence"--no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it--is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

Comfort is clearly comforted (um... ...ha?) by the dragon in his garage. He goes on to talk about how wonderful heaven will be, how it will actually come down to earth from... wherever it's coming from (?)... how the earth will be restored to the purity of Eden, how those who trust Jesus will be given bran new bodies, how there will be no natural disasters, lions will lie down with lambs, there will be glorious fruit and fish and birds and waterfalls... He says that we won't need the sun because God will be the light.  But if we don't trust Jesus, we'll end up in hell. Comfort says that we justly deserve this eternal torment instead of pleasures that "don't even come close" to the pleasures on this "sad old earth" because we won't change our minds and repent.

It is very sad to me that so many people in this world believe that this earth is a sad old thing. If one believes that this earth is old and that Jesus is coming to rain heaven down to the earth and make everything new again, what is the onus to protect the planet? What is the onus to make life better here, if it is to be so much better later on due to supernatural intervention? Why intervene to have a positive impact on humanity, if you believe your god will do it for you?

The other day I attended a lecture by a fellow occupational therapist, Frank Kronenberg - author of Occupational Therapy Without Borders: Learning from the Spirit of Survivors.  Frank talked (among other things) about the philosophy of Ubuntu, which can be summed up succinctly at thus:

A person with ubuntu is open with others and affirming of their intrinsic value. They delight when others are successful, able and good without feeling threatened if they do not do the same. The reason they do not feel threatened or ashamed is because they recognize that they are a part of the larger whole that is humankind. He or she is uplifted when others are uplifted and recognized, and diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, tortured, oppressed, or treated as less than who they are. For people with ubuntu, social harmony is the greatest good and anything that subverts or undermines this good is to be avoided. A person with ubunto says "I am because you are. My value comes from my positive interaction with those around me."

 A Comfortian Christian, on the other hand, is nearly the polar opposite of this. Instead of affirming an individual's intrinsic value, he affirms an individual's intrinsic worthlessness. Instead of delighting when others are successful, he asserts that they are incapable of being good. Success is measured not in actions or deeds but in firm, unwavering belief in a deity and that deity's ability to save us from our own worthlessness. We are seen as deserving of consequences that by their definition cannot be equal. The greatest good is not social harmony but servitude, thanks and belief of the entity with the most power. Comfortian Christians, believing that eternal torment for those who reject god is absolutely perfect justice, are not humiliated or diminished when others are tortured - for how could one possibly be diminished by perfect justice? They see eternal torment as perfectly justified and an example of perfect morality and righteousness. I guess this means that they are actually lifted up by this perfect justice - a concept I find to be abjectly repulsive.

From the mouth of St. Thomas Aquinas: "In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned." [Summa Theologica, Third Part, Supplement, Question XCIV, "Of the Relations of the Saints Towards the Damned," First Article, "Whether the Blessed in Heaven Will See the Sufferings of the Damned. . ."]

P.S. This is my 300th post!