More Thoughts...
This will probably be a regurgitation of what others might have said, but it was something that hit me last night as I was pondering stuff while sitting in front of a nice little bond fire in the back yard last night and wanted to write it down.
I watched this debate between D'Souza and Hitchens and one of D'Souza's claims is that our morals came from christianity and that many of the great minds that founded science were also founded on christianity as well. Between this argument and a documentary that I watched on the History Channel called "A The History of God" got me thinking....
In the documentary they were showing how god evolved throughout the bible. The "Evolution" of god so to speak or if you prefer how our understanding of god changed through time. How the biblical patriarchs (Abraham, Jacob, Moses, etc..) began the transition to a monotheistic religion and how god changed from knowable to unreachable or incomprehensible. They explained how the god started as El during the time of Abraham, then transitioned to a no name god when Jacob wrestled with him and won, then turned to a deliberate vague god with Moses by answering Moses's question as to what god's name is with Eyeh Asher Eyeh: "I am what I am"; A mysterious phrase, A Hebrew idiom of deliberate vagueness. Again this happen because in those days knowing a gods name gave you power over that god. I'm not going to do a full review of this show, but my point is there is clear evidence of how god changed over time to become what we know and don't know about god. This boils down to the simple concept that no one can grasp a new idea without growing it from the old ones. Something that we see when we look at the history of god. He started as El a knowable god and ended up unknowable as well as personal.
So, as I thought about this evolving of god I thought hey wait a minute. If the concept of god can evolve over time. Why can't the same be said of morals, and values? Not only that, but if new ideas and concepts must be grown out of old ones within the same confines of the current environment or belief systems, then surly the same is true with morals and values. Realizing that god is not going to provide all the answers, and is not THE answer to all unanswerable questions forces one to no longer rely on a god, but to rely on other people. The transition to this line of thought would then force people to admit they do not know everything and through communication with other people they would learn that other people can also have value. Not to mention the morals and values that developed around the same time in other religions.
And this leads me to contemplate other issues as well. If we ideas are grown from old ones, witch is very clear throughout history. In every field of science, math, philosophy, astronomy, even theology we can see how ideas and concepts were born then evolved to what we have today from within the confines of the idea's in their own times. So, when someone tells me Einstein was a believer it really does not shock me. I would not be surprised if Einstein used wording that was vague as to his beliefs. Look at the time in witch they lived. They were trying to breed new thought from existing idea's in order for those thoughts to be taken seriously they had to find common ground with the majority. In my opinion, if any of these excellent thinkers of their times were here today it would be very unlikely they would be theists at all.
I'm sure you've heard the old adage that great minds think alike. I disagree with that statement, I think great minds simply think.
