What follows is not a verbatim quote because I recognize his right to his own copyrighted material, however I do encourage anyone reading this note to check to see what exactly he says so that everyone can be clear that I am not slanting the information for my own purposes: a link to the Amazon book search page is here.
So, Mr. Banks asks the following questions: what god would create a universe that would have his creations suffer or to cause the suffering of others? What sort of creator would impose such conditions? He then goes on to call such an activity: infinitely sadistic, cruel deliberate premeditated barbarism on a horrific scale...
My purpose in writing this note is simply to respond to the idea that the creator of the universe must be involved in such activities, is an anthropomorphic conceit, and of course there's no particular reason why the point must be either black or white... Inherent in the statements above is that the creator of the universe must be that one claimed by Judaic/Christian theology. Why is this? What if god had nothing to do with any of the myth? I would suggest at least being open to other possibilities, even if one considers them to be improbable... One must consider at least, that a creator of a universe might just have no more use for human qualities than a rabbit has for clothing... Further, it must be noted that taking this stand against god, asking such questions or attempting to answer them is really not all that original. There are plenty of these arguments and more that have been used many times by many famous people.
Nevertheless Mr. Banks I must ask if you have ever had an experience that you could not explain away with logic? Surely in your "rock’n’roll days" there were often events of the senses that would not fit into any tidy little logical boxes... It's worth a thought or two, for I would suggest that nothing in this world is exactly as it seems. I would ask this as well: what if god where inside you (and everyone) at this very moment experiencing the world through your senses - as a connected observer, yet not as a direct participant? What if said god simply gave each individual the full capability of making their own decisions, thinking their own thoughts, writing anything they wanted including their own lack of belief or even hatred for such a creator? What if, Mr. Banks, such a god wanted nothing more than for you to have whatever experience you have?
Please know that I am not in any way writing this in defense of God or against atheism, for neither has need of my input. Rather I write this in an effort to open a wider dialogue than can be offered within the confines of your book in which you make the statements (above) with what can easily be described as a religious fervor. I would not be any better pleased to have you make statements within your science fiction stories about how one must properly pray.
Mr. Banks' I can see by your statements that, for whatever reasons, you presuppose that the word creator implies guardianship... which it does not necessarily do: If a group of people were to be given a beautiful ceramic vase created by an artisan of the highest caliber, and that vase was later to be broken or marred in some way - who could blame the potter? On considering the previous line - I do suppose it might be possible to return to the potter and request a repair, (and one might consider that the entire group making such a petition might carry more weight), but it would be inappropriate to ask for repairs as though they were implied as a matter of the artisan's responsibility in having made the vase in the first place.The way I see it Mr. Banks (and I think that you will agree) is that we live in a world for which we must each take personal responsibility - if, that is, we wish for a better life for all. Whether or not God is involved - this is still an essential truth. But think for a moment, what would that responsibility look like if it just happened that God was within us... perhaps motivated by a united thought? What then would we be collectively if everyone on the planet worked toward a single purpose?
Peace on Earth
I agree that the argument from evil is very weak. The world is what it is with or without the gods. The fundamentalists claim evil is caused by the sin of Adam. I can't help but think of a crocodile eating a struggling, screaming wapiti. Imagine telling the wapiti "you're feeling all this pain and terror because some dude ate an apple several thousand years ago." It doesn't seem like a proportional punishment to me. Probably not to the wapiti either.
ReplyDeleteThe wapiti suffers because the crocodile is hungry and no better explanation is really needed. Every life has some pain and terror and there's nobody we need to blame for it.
If the same being were looking out of every one's eyes nobody would have an original thought and nobody would ever disagree. Nothing that happened would be a surprise. What a barren world THAT would be!
As for your your very last question, I can't imagine anything more terrifying. What if we all worked collectively toward a single purpose and that purpose was wrong? There's nothing wrong with dissent, in fact dissent and argument are valuable beyond gold and jewels.
Hello Susan - very interesting.
ReplyDeleteRE: If the same being were looking out of every one's eyes nobody would have an original thought and nobody would ever disagree. Nothing that happened would be a surprise. What a barren world THAT would be!
I believe that you've hit the nail on the head with this statement - however let me ask this as a hypothetical: what if said being - who looks out of everyone's eyes - had purposefully forgotten that this was the case? The forgetting, you see, would be self imposed for exactly the reasons you state, "nobody would have an original thought and nobody would ever disagree." - How incredibly boring that would be." - The act of forgetting, Susan, would solve that problem. The interesting thing about a being that had the power to forget at such a level - would be that each and every part of itself would inherently have built within them - the power to remember.
And RE: What if we all worked collectively toward a single purpose and that purpose was wrong?
I was not referring to some communist ideal with my statement - rather I'm suggesting that such common goals would be so obviously beneficial to all that dissent would always be a function of inspiration rather than one of obstruction. (Say we decided as a global community that everyone was entitled to a decent standard of living no matter what their color, nationality, ethnicity, religion, atheism, or whatever makes people different? What if, out of that idea, we worked further to make war obsolete? Such things could only be possible, of course, through agreements that went beyond personal thoughts of gain.) Personally, I'm a dissenter myself. I always make the choice to speak out against what I feel is wrong, and I appreciate having the right to do so. Yet even in dissent I try to keep in mind that those I disagree with are as much a part of everything that is - as I am.
Peace. It is possible.