God's Professed Power

Here’s a question for theists: Is God’s power fundamentally beyond understanding?

Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark wrote “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” To a cave man, an iPad would appear magical. To us, an alien hologram would appear magical. Neither are magic, but both are so beyond the understanding of the viewer that any realistic explanation is out of reach. According to many theists God’s miracles are also not magic, but not because they are within our understanding. Rather it’s because they define magic as either illusions or fiction. I can’t disagree. Magic is either illusions or fiction, so I will continue to call God’s work magic until I have good reason to believe otherwise.

For the sake of this inquiry, lets say there is a God and that he can and occasionally does perform acts beyond our understanding. The key word here is our understanding. We know enough to land crap on Mars and clone donkeys, which is awesome, but we don’t yet have a “Theory of Everything.” Could some future, smarter version of humanity understand how God parted seas and raised the dead? If so, shouldn’t you, as a Christian who believes this stuff, be trying to figure it out? Not only would success validate your beliefs, it would likely make you rich and famous. Yes, it’s a long-shot that you would indeed succeed, but it is certainly a more worthwhile venture to “know the mind of God” as Einstein put it than to tell God what He already knows via prayer.

Conversely, if it is impossible for us to ever understand the process of miracles no matter how intelligent we become, why is that so? What property is it that category of knowledge possesses that no other information has? I know it’s a strange question, but it’s a valid one that applies to anything claimed to be supernatural.

I have a theory.* Since religion relies on faith, doctrine was invented to provide a learning barrier about the primary topic of the religion itself--God. This effectively squelches the pursuit of intellectual curiosity. If knowledge of God was discovered, then faith in God is extinguished; faith in God is needed for heaven, so knowledge of God removes the possibility of religion’s promised reward. Ignorance is bliss, and, as implied by most religions, necessary. The intended function of doctrine that makes understanding God and His power either impossible or damning is to discourage followers from trying to understand it. Truth seekers become science deniers while churches maintain their flock and bank accounts.

*The above is a theory in the colloquial sense and not by the scientific definition. It’s actually appropriate to say this is “just a theory,” but if you do so, please provide one of your own.

Death and Penalties

So we have Dzhokhar Tsarneav in custody, a kid with a charge of “using a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death.” It’s an impressive crime, insofar as crimes can be impressive, but I kinda wished they tacked on a possession of marijuana charge for good measure. As it is, this kid either faces life in prison or the death penalty, which got me thinking more about the surviving Boston marathon bomber.

First, there’s way too much unneeded discussion on the guy. I know the 24 hour news cycle needs to fill time and I’m as tired of Justin Bieber stories as he next guy, but it’s already starting to sound like the bomber is a victim in the narrative. Frankly, I don’t care if the surviving bomber came from a culture where brothers stick together and was stuck with a manipulative extremist sibling. I don’t care if he came from a hostile environment, was indoctrinated or was born with a dusting of psychopathy. We are all victims of our brain chemistry, genes, upbringing and surroundings--that doesn’t lift responsibility off the guilty. If these topics matter, we need to address them with solutions in mind that can be applied to our future safety. If his culture is the problem, the culture should be changed. If Islam promotes extremism, then Muslims should fix that or the rest of us should judge them accordingly. I don’t know what parts of the story are true anymore, but it applies to all the acts of violence in the news from here to the dawn of man.

My second thought is this: how are Christians supportive of the death penalty? While not all Christians are conservative and not all conservatives approve of capital punishment, there’s no argument that there isn’t massive overlaps in this ideological Venn Diagram. Not only do Christians need to ignore everything their namesake preached from “turn the other cheek” to “love thy enemy,” they also are taking responsibility for hastening the criminals decent into hell without a fair shot at forgiveness. I don’t mean forgiveness from society, I mean forgiveness from the Almighty in which they believe.

Ironically, atheists are generally liberal who are generally against capital punishment. I don’t have the hold up of breaking a divine law that transcends humanity. “Thou shalt not kill” is an awesome guideline, but I can waive it when taking a serial killer permanently off the board. Apparently Christians can waive it too, but only hypocritically. Not only do they endorse infinite torture for finite crimes by worshipping the God who instates it, they do their best to limit the chances of rehabilitation/confession/conversion/whatever they believe is necessary to enter the Kingdom of God. It really boggles my mind that these types of Christians claim the moral high ground on anything.