{"id":8554,"date":"2012-05-27T14:12:55","date_gmt":"2012-05-27T12:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=8554"},"modified":"2012-05-25T14:17:33","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T12:17:33","slug":"the-will-to-believe-is-not-a-will-for-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=8554","title":{"rendered":"The will to believe is not a will for the truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

(from atheism to agnosticism and back) [II]<\/span>
\n[Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief,<\/em> translation by Silvia Palade, Curtea Veche, 2009]<\/strong><\/p>\n

by \u015etefan Bolea
\ntranslation from Romanian by Alina-Olimpia Miron
\n 
\nclick aici<\/a> pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103<\/p>\n

\n 
\nCollins\u2019 approach is circular (A => B, B => A) and can be debunked through a Nietzschean image: \u201cWhen one hides something in a bush, then goes back and finds it<\/em> (m.n.) in the same place, the search and finding are not worthy of praise. However, this is exactly how things are when it comes to searching and finding \u00abthe truth\u00bb in the field of reason.\u201d Collins sets out to reach a rational demonstration of God\u2018s existence by using scientific hypotheses. The title of his book is a euphemism for an indemonstrable platitude: \u201cIf a man of science proves God exists, he must know what he\u2019s talking about.\u201d Actually, Collins\u2019 approach is a completely different one: \u201cI believe in God, therefore I must find Him anywhere, even in science.\u201d Just like in geometry, the result is given beforehand, one just has to \u201cconfirm\u201d it via an elegant demonstration.<\/p>\n

Psychologically speaking, what is the cognitive value of an approach starting from A=A,<\/em> passes through A=?<\/em> and still gets to A=A<\/em>? That ? <\/em>is hypothetical and practically inexistent. I am sorry, but when I find what I have hidden in the bush (who hid it? I?<\/em>), I can neither rejoice nor be amazed<\/em>, if my memory and attention are intact. Atheists who become religious people believe because they want to believe, they are convinced because they wanted to be convinced: it\u2019s just the effect of controlled autosuggestion. If, however, one considers lacunas and caesura, faith (not the will for the truth) will suffer because of discontinuities.<\/p>\n

The scheme is the following:<\/p>\n

a)\u00a0\u00a0 God exists. (An authoritarian, compelling observation.)<\/p>\n

b)\u00a0\u00a0 Science is characterized by the search for the truth.<\/p>\n

c)\u00a0\u00a0 Therefore, the truth of God\u2019s existence must be proven scientifically.<\/p>\n

But how does one prove a)? If one uses scientific and philosophical means, it\u2019s impossible to prove a) (as well as non-a)<\/em>). Therefore, one turns to biography<\/em> (but even an atheist can use this method \u2013 see Beauvoir\u2019s biography). One reaches an aporetic movement of faith one\u2019s own tastes, in the territory of inclinations:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0 Lampedusa\u2019s character believes in God due to the mathematical observation of the pre-eminence of universal order.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0 Tyler Durden, a disciple of Freud, determines that \u201eOur fathers were models for God\u201d.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0 A disciple of Sartre will determine God\u2019s inexistence, unlike prince Fabrizio Salina, on the basis of contingency and the immense universal arbitrariness: nothing seems necessary.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0 A disciple of Eliade will determine that the exigency of signs and the directness of coincidences are suggestive of divine will.<\/p>\n

Regardless of how one goes about it, the issue of theodicy poses the gravest of problems: why does suffering occur randomly? why does it hit anyone, good or bad? Just like the principle \u201cif you can\u2019t beat them, join them\u201d (as major trauma leads to neurosis), faith takes one into the realm of the irrational. Faith is a Stockholm syndrome where Prometheus falls for Zeus. The issue of suffering can lead either to the hypothesis of a bad demiurge, or to that of a god lacking omnipotence. Rather than investing God with these two attributes (malice, inability \/ impotence), we might as well give Him up altogether.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(from atheism to agnosticism and back) [II] [Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, translation by Silvia Palade, Curtea Veche, 2009] by \u015etefan Bolea translation from Romanian by Alina-Olimpia Miron   click aici pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103   Collins\u2019 approach is circular (A => B, B => A) and can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[822,817,27],"tags":[304,1157,1117,893,403,39,312],"class_list":["post-8554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ateism-agnosticism","category-egophobia-34","category-filosofie","tag-alina-olimpia-miron","tag-egophobia-34","tag-filosofie","tag-from-atheism-to-agnosticism-and-back","tag-mttlc","tag-stefan-bolea","tag-translation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-2dY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8556,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8554\/revisions\/8556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}