Can't Get No Satisfaction

"Sationes" by Julie Robison

It amuses when you talk of doing things
As if our calender was thus dictated, like the days of kings,
and instead of replying, I let my mind wander:
Feeling sorry for those who fill the clock and don't ponder
The un-amusing and ordinary act of eating ice cream
Perhaps bought after watching your team;
Staring at the headlines, but ignoring the news
and I smile and think, yes, this is what I choose:
An organic transition (not yet the flower, but beyond the seed),
not letting the Word get buried in the lede.
No! I decide where and when I want to fly a kite;
happily study the Cross to better understand humanity's blight;
at some point I'll wash the dishes and use too much soap;
talk to God and try to cope.
The sun does not always shine bright,
but it's possible to know wrong, and choose right.
There is a stigma today to say, "I am satisfied"
and so much of history cries out, "At least I tried!"
Made flesh, our Lord hung upon a tree
so that we can freely be.
If this is so, then how can we accept mediocrity, or ever be bored;
and how can there be people who so arrogantly deny the Lord?
I know there are children who are born of parents who never danced,
and those who can't be happy without their features being artificially enhanced:
so I can't accept mankind's dispassionate pleas for more,
when all they do is see living as a chore,
to be completed in the appropriate time
and, in the meanwhile, waiting for a chime.
How is that living? To only live for one:
less convinced of Him, and more seduced by fun.

The Reasonableness of Believing in God

By John Creech

A few days before Christmas, in anticipation of Christian’s celebration of God’s incarnation, the Wall Street Journal published an article by Ricky Gervais, a British writer, actor and comedian, entitled “Why I Do Not Believe in God”, which can be found here.  Though not academic, Gervais’ article offers his sincere reflection on the question of God’s existence.  While I disagree with his answer, I found it refreshing that such an important and age-old question made its way into popular media.  Given the importance of the question and Gervais’ provocative answer, I though it appropriate at the close of the Christmas season to offer a response.

Gervais makes a number of interesting and provocative claims in his article, some others of which I hope to address eventually.  For now, I’m limiting myself to his claim that God doesn’t exist.  The reasons Gervais gives for his claim are that “there is absolutely no scientific evidence for his existence... and “science seeks the truth,” basing “its conclusions and beliefs on hard evidence.”  In order for his conclusion that God doesn’t exist to be true based on the reasons he provides, Gervais must assume that scientific knowledge is the only true knowledge we can have and we should only believe what we can know through such knowledge.  Had Gervais given us a formal, philosophical argument it would have looked something like the following:

1.  The only true knowledge humans can have is scientific knowledge.

2.  Humans should only believe what is scientifically verifiable.

3.  God’s existence cannot be scientifically proven.

4.  Therefore, we cannot know, nor should we believe, that God exists.

While Gervais’ argument is logical, it isn’t sound, and not because the existence of God can’t be verified through science.  In fact, I am not only willing to grant, but would even agree with Gervais’ assumption that we cannot scientifically prove God’s existence.  Rather, it’s the first two premises that are false and that undermine Gervais‘ argument that we shouldn’t believe in God.