I’ll believe in God etc one day when I’m certain I’m strong enough to do good in the world without them. Until then I will try to contribute to a higher good before taking solace in the symbols and prosey words that one religion has assigned it.
A Facebook friend attributed this to Pat Sajak. I have no idea if Sajak actually said it, but I’m gonna roll with it.
Folks, this is what we call a non-sequitur…at least the first part. His inability to do good apart from God (or apart from believing in God) is a good reason for rejecting the existence of God? How does that follow? At best, it’s a lame excuse.
It’s kind of like me saying, “I’ll believe in farmers when my stomach is big enough such that I can eat a 100 oz. steak in one sitting.”
On the second half of the quote, here was my response to my friend: Sajak spoke of a “higher good.” If God doesn’t really exist, and He’s just a cultural projection or something of the sort, the “higher good” turns out to be the herd instinct. That’s not very…high. In other words, in a world without a real supernatural God, what we *call* good is nothing of the moral sort: its merely behavior that has helped us survive up untl the present as a species…that’s not “good” in any moral sense, its just survival.
In my mind, if Sajak’s attitude is the way to go, we’re all shuffling chairs on the Titanic. He can behave in a way he calls “good” without believing in any specific religion (people do it all the time), but his beliefs won’t cohere with his actions….to continue with the above analogy on farming, it’s kinda like a suburbanite sitting down to a meal of eggs and bacon who doesn’t believe in the existence of farming.
I know, I know: don’t expect a game show host to follow logic in spiritual and philosophical things. People on Facebook were giving “amens” left and right on it, though, so I just gotta say, you know?
