BBC 1 Debate: Did Man Create God? (The Big Questions 29th May 2016)

today on the big questions did man create God good morning good to see you on the key Campbell welcome to big questions they were back which would school in Oxford to debate one very big question did man create God welcome everyone to the big questions now the the dawning of religious belief is suggested by the graves of Neandertals and other early hominids who live between 225,000 and 100,000 years ago by around 10,000 BC organized religions emerged within the first Neolithic cities States and kingdoms like gobekli tepe in what is now Turkey the oldest human-made place of worship yet discovered and the first wooden posts were erected at the site of Stonehenge 2,000 years later Hinduism the world's oldest living religion began to emerge in the Indus Valley around 5,000 years ago religious beliefs and practices are probably as old as mankind which came first man or gods did man create God well to debate that we've gathered together a distinguished array of theologians philosophers psychologists writers people from various faiths and of none and you can join into on Twitter or online by logging on to bbc.co.uk/topgear it'll university hi Bruce Kenickie right our species Homo sapiens we emerged from Homo erectus heidelbergensis a gasta about 150 thousand hundred thousand years ago our brains grew gradually and they got to the point that they are at today why did we start to need to believe well we're a social animal and social groups coalesce around belief systems and it's a very powerful mechanism to identify who's the member of your group especially if you have to take their beliefs on trust in the absence of evidence but of course our brains have evolved to try make sense of the world to try predicted in an unpredictable world is pretty frightening so if you don't know what's going to happen the crops or the migration of animals you might try engage in some activities to try and control that that's just in our nature to do this so I can see the origins of rituals are serving a purpose to try and explain the world around you but also as a mechanism to kind of coalesce social groups what about dealing with mortality understanding mortality and finding solace for those we've lost it was that an important fact did you think absolutely I think the fact that were there were ritual practices and graves must have been some sense of the afterlife I think most of us still have this urgent need to know what's going to happen to us so that's never really going to go away and of course if someone provides a very good story about what happens then thats easily understood and extended and we can understand that need yeah very much as we know if we've if we've lost loved ones so professor Theresa Morgan here's the thing it's a long span of time isn't it commerce up 150 thousand hundred thousand years why did we as a species live until five thousand years ago believing in supernatural forces and animism and river sprites and gods of thunder and it took until then to get the idea of a single creator it's if God created man it's a bit late in the day isn't it well we don't know very much about what people thought more than five thousand years ago because they didn't leave written records so they didn't describe very much about you know what they did we don't really know actually I wanted to answer Bruce more directly and say that what worries me about that kind of explanation is if you take an example of something else that is very important to us but a bit different religion something like love a sociologist can say well it's all about you know creating stable social structures and a psychologist can say well it's just you know it's a byproduct of evolution or it's a way of creating bond beings so that parents look after their children all that but actually our own experience of love and say love that creates a long-term relationship is that it's far more than that and I think sort of it's an explanations of religion that try to explain religion away never quite capture the full richness of experience of people who believe and so I would say that you know there's always a difference between the sort of the insider and the outsider perspective well I believe it is okay Bruce we didn't quite get into the question which I which I appreciate your saying I want to come back to it but our if you want to come in yeah well I mean well of course there is a difference the inside of the absolute perspective could be said by anyone who believes any kind of conspiracy theory or any of the ninety nine thousand religions which you presumably in all religious people believe to be to be nonsense the other thing I would say is that of course what professor hoods does it two things about what professor had said I mean one of them is that it shows that the widespread nurse of religious belief is no evidence whatever for its truth okay because it can be explained in other ways there's n't a slightest reason to believe it and the other thing I would say is that he doesn't have to show it decisively to be true for the purposes of this debate doesn't have to overcome all the competing scientific theories for the purposes of this debate or or any sentiment sentimentalism about about love or other things he has to show that it's more likely than people who believe in talking snakes and resurrection can I come can I come back to that first point again can you go with me on this there's lots of evidence of goddesses before and many gods and animism and people worshipping animal gods but there is very little evidence going back tens of thousands of years of worship of monotheistic faith can you just address this say I'm right why would why would a rare occasion why would the idea of this single divine entity come so late to mankind well I still think you don't know actually whether it don't go with mrs. Wright just protect leaving that aside why would there not I think you might say in a lot of religious traditions that there is a tendency for a sense of multiple divinities to coalesce over time into a sense of a single divinity and I think it happens for different reasons one is that one sort of brutal epic summation might be that single divinities are more powerful more complex and therefore more satisfying more select illogically satisfying another reason is that cultures collide and get into wars with one another and as it were you decide that your God is first of all the strongest among all the local gods that you know there is a little bit of early evidence in the Hebrew Bible for instance for believers in the God of Israel thinking of him as the strongest of local department but you're saying it's an illogical joke over time it's logical there's actually only one real God fresh unconsciously quite a common freshly also that there's the the fact is that monotheists God do something wonderful which which which other gods don't do their wonderful finger impulse yeah wonderful for bringing a whole lot of heterozygotes for one day and then you all agree with each other this is this is my guy and that's report for em posits that's yeah let me let me take it let me take it back we're navigating some some fascinating terrain here what why not I mean going back is there evidence of monotheism going about 40 50 60 thousand years no but there's an evidence of very much smaller groups of deities the the question about love I thought was look really interesting because of course love is exactly the same as a social explanation for belief or religious practice love is its act the same we begin to believe we begin to develop and construct the notion of a deity something beyond us because of our continuing social bonds with the people that have gone with the dead dead people our ancestors and these gods basically become more and more powerful and but it's purely because of love we're unable to let go or sever bond looks even those of us that love is still it's one of the greatest social it's not as a social tool is it we are social beings and it's what keeps us all together but alone still alone stalky um theologian and author it you know we are social beings it keeps us together social cohesion and also the creation of myths and telling stories to each other and the fire the remembrance of of those who are gone you can understand the logic from this side of the argument about that but if if we were created in the image of God and I know you believe that what about I mean this evidence of ritualistic behavior by Neanderthals were they for example created in the image of God huh there were so many things all packed in to take the last question first last question of a rather rambling question now and it was would they have been created in the age if they were human beings yes whether they were species of human beings well I mean in a sense doesn't matter whether they were or not so that's the first question I'm agnostic on Neanderthals completely agnostic what does that mean it means that I believe they were there at some point in even human evolution sometimes us there whether they were human in the same way that we are and therefore in a sense whether they had the same relationship with God that human human life has is for me questionable and therefore I'm agnostic on it I'm not but it's interesting but it's a four or five species of human on the planet at the same time about fifty thousand years ago a week but we are the survive Bruce the point information is that they're still here genetically we contain DNA from the aunt Atossa unless you went away unless you're from Africa that's the interesting point yes yeah I'll say monotheism predates polytheism and basically if if you took all the Scriptures of all writing of the world and and everything removed it my thousand years in the future people would say well Islam and Judaism didn't believe in any God because we can't find any statues of the gods of Judaism and Islam and so on right well no not of this language adays no a big difference and of course if you look at all if you look at all world religions polytheistic ones ones the millions and the Egyptians so on they always have a head God a creator god in some cases not even represented with an image what I would say is that polytheism is a degeneration of monotheism and I think and I think all that the research has shown by some of the research done down there shown that humans have a tendency to believe in superstition and anthropomorphize natural world yes but it doesn't mean an actual world doesn't exist just because humans amplify the Sun exists even though people used to think it was a man or a woman or that the the sky was made of a woman which was added Gyptian belief but doesn't mean at the sky doesn't exist and the Sun doesn't exist it means that humans have incorrectly a morph as natural world and they've also incorrectly anthropomorphize God but people come to the conclusion of God because God is the rational conclusion based on the problem of Abdullah causality when you said that to polytheism was a degeneration from theism yeah so remember this dude was a comedian what's called Frankie Howard usko oh you just did that Tim I did just do that yes and yeah I thought when you said there's a comedian who used to and then he pointed to me I thought I was going to be like you can do it so yeah no I think I mean firstly there's absolutely no evidence that monotheism predates polytheism and we need to talk in terms of evidence don't we about to be responsible rational about this we need evidence ok the oldest evidence that we have for religious practice is polytheistic ok the other thing I'd say is that we're folding an awful lot in here together religion is a modern category I mean it's been very well documented lot studies on this religion is is a way of understand the world that we impose on things so all of these things that we're talking about here say ritualized behavior by early Homo sapiens and other hominids and other hominid Civic cult in ancient Greece modern Islam judy judy or christian monotheism so forth these are not necessarily the same categories of experience but one thing that we can tell is that all of these categories are socially responsive they reflect the makeup of the society at that time they do things that that society wants them to do so you don't get Islam before Mohammed you don't get as the protoforms of Judaism and Christianity before these religions emerge they are historical constructs and they emerge in that way for a particular reasons ok so the Civic religions of classical Greece responded to a Civic structure which was basically everyone lived in a city so you needed a religion unifying that city Christianity and Islam emerged in very sort of complex situations but they gained power as part of as somebody said earlier as part of a kind of Imperial systems that they respond very well the centralizing religions based around a single God who rules everything they're very good allegories of Empire they do many other things as well I'm not saying that's all they do but they are socially responsive and if you want one very good piece of evidence for the idea that religion is a social contract think again about gender ok the fact that almost every society that we've had so far has been male-dominated or almost every religion is male dominated that is because the two are responding to each other religion and society Raoh target home I thought it all Swink on your either yeah I don't have any problem with that and as a religious leader as a rabbi within a congregation who's dealing with real people who are scientists doctors what about the goddesses where are the goddess I think we're in I think we're reaping them back in when we perceive God in within our within our modern eyes I don't think that there's a problem with the fact that revelation continues and that we're as religious leaders or as people who are practicing religion within a modern world that we can't have both that we can't understand that the way that we perceive the world is through our own construct because we are human and so therefore the way that we perceive God and the way that we perceive religion is is limited by the fact that we're human and so I look at my text and obviously they're female voices missing and but Here I am as a woman rabbi in a progressive movement know very much the rabbi than liberal Judaism who practices her religion in a way that feels relevant and real to me and that's because I have reconstructed my view of religion based on my own contact that doesn't mean that God doesn't exist because I happen to be limited by my own human power like I want to see cuz because I know you've Selena O'Grady author of and man created God where are you coming from on this where are the goddesses now I need to put Hotpoint very vertically put by articulately put my Tim there that the mere you know the manifestation of religion in its womanless form shows that it's created by men do you buy that oh yes I do you I mean not because but I think that the gods that we create changes over time so you get a Jewish god that's for a particular tribe you've lost their homeland who says I'm just going to protect you not and if you remain my rules I'll give you promised land you get that the Roman gods exactly that which is based on the client patron relationship of Rome so you get these these huge big patrons if you give them alarm with any luck they'll cure your fertility problems or whatever but it's a client patron relationship on which Rome is basically you get the Christian God and I'm surprised that love comes in so innocence the Christian God seems to be the first real loving God the these with music these Roman gods that's ridiculous what these Roman gods do do do nothing but just get just give or not I think want to do it but the Jewish God I think is it's for a specific people and the thing about that the Christian God is is that this is what Paul does so cleverly I think in creating Christianity is to open up that love and protection of a particular tribe to a whole group of people you are living in this of the first phase of globalization in the Roman Empire where they've lost all sense of community they're in these huge big cities and he he he gives them a sense of look you know I love you all you love each other all in a way that that the Jewish God just goes for this particular group can you find you me okay a lot look all you need is luck and you get a previous gods and goddesses cost you Jim I think this incredibly arrogant of any kind of Christian to present their own religious somehow or any idea Shanti as being somehow more elevated and something in a vanilla I'm not saying it's more it just does it just you know what favorite bath for Francesca what are you a biblical scholar or something that doesn't I'm single what do you leave your planet it's a ministry and I'm amazed that it's such an outdated idea of course the Jewish gods the god of the Hebrew Bible it's a loving God I'm just it's not about particularity and to suggest that Christianity somehow opens up this man doesn't rest of the world is incredibly out its alternative I'm opposite all speaking at once but I want to hear no wait wait I want to listen I wanna hear we're having a civilized Sunday morning discussion about God all right listen what about goddesses listen come on is just on this okay okay good but I'm just saying this is how these these gods arrived they arrived to fulfill particular purposes that the Jewish God arrived to fulfill a particular purpose for particular sunny vanessaanddan is a distortion to say that either the god of the Old Testament or the god of the New Testament is probably called loving yeah I can't believe it I can't they give a more darling spiteful character than the general but anyone who's Korea for instance the Catholic Church okay everybody okay I want to talk about God nurses I want to talk about goddesses it's not a sentence I've said a lot in my life but I do I think right now I know you said one time where are the goddesses why did the goddesses or goddess get squeezed out of the religious equation and partly because the goddesses were massively powerful and they played a really important role with the male deities but also because gender in the ancient world including the ancient world from which the Hebrew Bible emerged the world from which the new testament text emerged there their notion of gender was very very different from ours the deities had very fluid sense of gender there wasn't just one male and one female gender it was a very very dirty exactly and they were very and so different deities could perform different roles the goddesses become a raised sometimes literally in terms of their statues and they're in their cult objects but sometimes literally as well and from the text they are raised because of this prioritization of a particular deity at a particular political point in a particular time in history as Tim was saying it's all about politics that's why you get hierarchies when a human society becomes more hierarchical even a very small group it's basically earning the money you've got one temple one deity all the money from that is going to come to that temple whoever's in charge of the temple is going to have more physical power it's a centralization and that's where the idea of the prioritization of one day as he comes from so the Sadducees never disappear people continue to worship the goddesses I mean in one way she's she's reinvented if you like in the figure of Mary the Queen of Heaven within Christianity yeah oh I heard I heard out the corner of my erection oh yeah Elaine's talking I'm sorry this has been around 30 years it's a tired wearying concept that somehow mary is a reincarnation of a goddess queen appellant how am I to you it's a plea oh let me finish I think what we're hearing here and I'm interested in the debate it's a good debate because we're looking at the social constructions of religion the social constructions of deities and so on and in that sense of course human beings have been creating gods since time immemorial and they have been worshipping and bowing down to them they made them a marble stone war trees TUI's songs moons yes everything male-female all kinds of genitalia going on within the Godhead and not various relationships you know really we're those things going on between women sexual or not one person's weirdo thing is another person you know leave it aside Nikki vacations here yeah I mean so nobody's disputing this I mean this you know any scholar any half-baked scholar can go to any book anywhere and find this out um so please please let Elaine why are we giving this an enormous intellectual status as though somehow this solves the problem of religion right through the odd and explains I know this half-baked scholars they're the Great British Bake Off full on four wonderful fake stories any half-baked scholar corner find this information but the point is what we're looking at here are epistemological questions questions about how we know how we do our research what kind of research do we do and what methodology we're doing is we're actually the questions about God ontological questions about the whole nature of being what is it to have a divine being and what does that divine being look like and that divine being is not something we can create as little Olivia 12 year old said to her mother the other day we just don't have the intelligence to create a creator we're only mortal human beings with more premised on which point on which point this time don't don't what everyone is time on which by I think so I think is the perfect segue now into a representative of the oldest existing religion on earth no it's not you Abdullah it is it is our our Hindu representative Satish Sharma general secretary of the National Council of Hindu temples all this existing religion so when um when Hinduism first emerged would it have been by revelation by intuition I mean you know how it's a been difficult to sit here but it's always good fun to see our adolescents at play I would just share that the lens through which all of this discussion has happened so far what about the question I just never mind and also very little minds yeah very straightforward yeah we have a tradition which says that mystics are always followed by miscreants and so far in the discussions that we we haven't really touched on the notion of a mystical experience in our earliest records there are records which are recorded by mystics and in terms of our time frame we go back a little bit further than that oh we celebrated 5150 for years of the articulation of one of our core central texts because there are astronomical references within it which help us to define time frames so we work on a different cosmology in a different time frame but this notion that mystics are always followed by miscreants is very very valuable there is there is a an established tradition we have thousands of books and they're all the records of people who have engaged in some sort of a practice involving them in traversing and connecting with a sense of union with every other creature on the planet and every on the planet itself and they've tried to articulate that but when you articulate a personal experience to people who haven't had that experience their chattering Minds get involved and so that's where the miscreants come and there are always miscreants who are happy to leverage the adulation that mystics seem to get for political purposes so we have a precision that we need to that we would apply and that is you use the term religion we would say that when you say religion you're actually discussing theocracies our perspective is a theocracies the merely dictatorships with an invisible immortal dictator who cannot be deposed and they're the ideal tool for anybody wanting to exert political power so we would separate we've had to get it out so far absolutely better but it's actually very honorable because at this time we have two theocracies from our perspective now perspective battling for primacy of power on the on the earth and indeed in this country it's wonderful here we have a tradition of democracy which is battling with theocracy as well and the House of Commons was established as a challenge to the Church of England and autocracy through that one yeah absolutely but the the notion of the mystical experience is has primacy with us once a person's had a mystical experience then you recognize that actually that mystical experience represents itself in a gender free environment our our tradition 5,000 years we would say a lot more than 5000 years we have never had a theocracy in India and that's because of the multiplicity the pure democracy of how you wish to engage like the caster's divinity what caste is a Portuguese word and like all words words have concepts behind them there is no word in the Indian Sanskrit or indeed the Hindu vocabulary forecast I would share with you the caste is something that was exported to India and it has no place in the Indian scriptures still got it though or indeed prac in a miracle areflexia I think actually it has been our own important distinctly there is a difference between the set of voters side of religion in the mystery side of religion the side which improve all social crowns our interactions and the side which involves a kind of inner experience and it's true that a lot of these explanations we've been discussing have to do with religion as a social phenomenon but there is something else as well which is that the mystical experience but of course that's not to say that that has got no explanation there's a variety of competing psychological explanations for that to do with behavior of the temporal lobes and various other sorts of theories many of them certainly one of them is true and many of them have a great deal more plausibility than the idea that any religious claim it's really so so so I think the inclusions would be the religion obviously has a variety of explanations because it covers a variety of phenomena analyzed I wouldn't be really I want to I want to I want to just move it on slightly but Celina you have been trying to jump back into things I'm not telling you I let me a nice may make an announcement we're going to talk about the relationship between religions and God and no God in just a second so it you've led us very nicely into it Satish organized religion we've been leaving a long time you've been very desperate to say something I want to say two things one is that Isis was a goddess and she did incredibly well and she really was a kind of way it felt like a sort of world beater religion that was going to do far better than this little and Christian Jesus cult what she didn't do it as well as as as as Jesus and and Christianity did under Hall which is she started addressing these questions of a personal relationship with your her devotee promising some kind of afterlife it wasn't quite clear with it was going to be just longer life or afterlife of giving you a sense of community of doing all these things but that little Jewish card under Paul did all this much much better and gave you which I think Teresa kind of didn't say in your that you know that why we need God and why God is there which is a sense of of oughts that's what religions do so well which is actually give you a sense of values and how you should lead we were she know apocalyptic was she know the other Isis what Christ was at what Christ wasn't apocalypta cysts wasn't he absolutely was yeah well there's lots of evidence that he was a messiah at the end of the world would come in your time he said to his disciple time yes they got you got that ya know Kollmorgen hundred from call yet um now you yeah very very intelligent man and marvelous writer yes you you're not a great fan of religious you're not great find religions but you're a big fan of God I know that if I say that's fair to say if there is no God can you understand the logic of the development of religion in our minds absolutely I can I'm not a theologian or a scientist I'm just a storyteller and I know that when you start to tell a story one of the things that happens next is that people begin to take control of the story they say this is my story and maybe it forms their community maybe it forms their identity maybe they go to war on the basis of it and what we've seen in religionists we've seen that I mean one of the reasons why we talked about the goddess or and the reasons why the goddess is very popular in contemporary culture why neo-paganism is embracing the goddess in a big way is because we've had many many years of patriarchal oppressive religions so that is bubbling up and we're seeing that but we're now in also in a place where one of the stories that people are telling is and we can we actually have grown up we understand the world better we can do all of this on the basis of rationality and science and therefore as you said earlier you know all of these stories from all of these places have now got to be judged on the basis of science well that's another perspective it's another act of faith and when I when I think of this know an active phase they say paralyzer evidence well okay I mean if you're telling me that you think that science ultimately sustains all of the answers works what I'm talking about working and it's a scientist tentative that's the beauty of so yeah indeed it is when it's done properly but what I'm talking about is is we can description you tested it revived what is happening in front of us we teach different ways but that doesn't take away the sense of mystery the sense of there is something else and it may be that all of these competing stories have an element of truth in their own way but what they're not doing is all revealing to it aren't you in the danger of falling into the notorious God of the gaps here that once upon a time I was saying your thing is there's always going to be mystery we're never going to understand what thunder is then they understand it and the gap moves elsewhere you're in this subatomic world we're never gonna sign the so embrace it that's where God is and then when we understand the subatomic world you got a problem yeah well we're 96% of matter we don't know what it is at the moment you know I mean but when we do when you go somewhere so when you go somewhere Tomic the mystery widens when you go cosmic the whispering mystery I want you I want you guys so the gaps are moving in but something from the Indus Valley okay this is this is my favorite story about this there's there's six y six blind men they've blown folded in a room and they're holding on to this this creature and they're saying what is this creature and one of them saying well it's a rope it feels like a rope another one saying it feels like a sail another one's saying it feels like a great big tree trunk they're all grasping onto different aspects of Nell ofin the elephant is still there even while they're arguing about what the elephant is really the message is be careful with your grasp especially episode absolute you want to come back India Oh sign yeah and one thing about one thing that I would say about then we'll go beyond to religion a bit because of course they've been as you said Nikki low thousands of gaps as in things we couldn't explain at the time every single one of them that has been explained by science hasn't been explained by religion so we've got about as good evidence as you could possibly have it no gap concerning our understanding can be filled by by these religious beliefs on the point about mystery I mean I agree that in a sense a lot you bun needn't be a materialist or something you can certainly think that you know there are there are other things in life there are things that have value to people and so on but people can have value for each other people can care about things that mattered like music the arts or science one another personal relationships political activism there are so many things in life that can master people and give life me that it is nothing you're doing the same as the reviews a different claim this is my story and my story is true but to move on to really we can pick up that in monotheism and religions in general move Islam the new kid on the block Abdullah came along came along very recently and you've got well a couple years yeah well no you've been coming on the show for about three years but Islam itself came along what seven century was it something like yeah said I'm a big mamas in the six seventy something like that and so basically got this religious monotheism a great week if I'd mentioned this already it's a great means of political control and empire building isn't it and you know the Islamic empire one flag one Empire one nation one people and we never well it'll turn into an empire after that but you can understand the logic can't you taking away from your religious belief you can understand the logic and the efficacious politically efficacious nature of monotheism not really people can be really the same God and be divided it doesn't make any difference it's better than Impala feel but but but the point I've been trying to highlight is firstly science itself is limited to the natural world yet and we don't put religion into the natural world in terms of well I list Muslims and Jews and others don't put religion internet or so it's saying this is miraculous here here and here religion is a science limited to the goldfish bowl of this universe and OPIC goldfish bowl and if it's these two atheists goldfish inside this garbage ball would think there's nothing outside their garbage ball but rational rational you can deduce there must be something outside it and this is where rationality and pure atheist empiricism clash I want to talk about than sort of religious and social control well what's the thing is this military control one think of this we approach this history with an anachronistic secular kind of perspective in in the Indian culture for example Dharma was I suppose what they would call their entire culture Dharma meaning law and of course the taurah the word means law as well the religion religion culture law were all one and the same thing secularism is a very modern construct people didn't divide religion here every country in a way or every civilization was quote unquote a theocracy in that sense because everyone's politics was driven by their morals which was driven by their belief in an afterlife in God's in cosmology and so on and the modern day the desire for land and a religion that controlled people is nationalism I would say because we would get out the current ruling party telling us that we will have to follow for example British values to unite another debate what exactly that's also that's also you could argue that's also means let me try it again Theresa Morgan in terms of in terms of social control to use it for rulers for Chiefs for Kings for for that for tribal chiefs whatever religion is handy isn't it oh no question religion is very handy but anybody can use more or less anything to exert social control I mean democracy is is a value which autocrats can subvert for their own use autocratic instead just doesn't doesn't invalidate it I mean so in a sense that's not here or there I think in a way you are under estimating the extent to which religions are also counter cultural and demand things of their adherents that are unexpected and often on the face of it unhelpful I mean I certainly feel that in trying seriously to follow my own faith tradition in my daily job I am constantly shooting myself in the foot doing things that actually will not serve me well when Jesus Christ himself was extremely bothersome wasn't to you quite good right I mean so and that's true I mean that's even true of traditions like Greek and Roman religions I think Tim made us moving but who which it is easy for us to think about in rather socially reductionist terms as reflecting and serving social and political systems because there are no longer living believers in those systems to kind of give a different view but for if you think for instance about a concept like justice decay or sonoda care in the Greek world it has a whole and several different ranges of meaning justice can mean what is socially normative whatever the mass of people think it's okay it can mean what the law or says it's okay which may not be the same as public opinion or what the current leaders of the city want or it can mean what the gods think is justice and Greeks often struggled a lot with their sense of what the gods thought justice was which didn't always fit with their sense of justice at all either because it was more demanding or because it looked actually cruel or random you know both of you know people protest against the justice of the gods both that it's cruel that it doesn't fit what we would hope for but also it's too high standard for us to kind of aspire to so in all sorts of things know something when you God knows best so all sorts of reviews and it's true all the way through the Hebrew Bible it's true in Christian tradition certainly the traditions that I know a bit more about that they can be intensely demanding from a perspective wholly outside society's norm infection Tim you will you immensely I mean out in despatches actually agree with an awful lot of that I mean I do think that the issue is not whether religion can only be used by dominant forces in society I mean religion and if you believe that religion is a social construct which I do then clearly it follows that societies are much more than just their dominant forces so I mean we see it in the modern world we see you know whether it's liberation theology Salafism or anything like this you know there are ways of being countercultural through the religious idiom but that doesn't necessarily mean that religion so the question really is here is what is driving what isn't it I think that's the and I'm kind of quite open-minded about this actually but the question is whether religion is something that we can identify as distinct from society that somehow stands behind it and pushes it forward which seems to me more of a kind of believers point of view or whether as I would say it religion is actually part of the idiom of a given society and is a flexible medium that can be used by different people for different purposes because here societies are companies like Ripper root but we haven't heard from you hello hello welcome isn't the as we're on religion isn't universal consequence of monotheism an in-group and an out-group of them and on us we know the truth and they don't no absolutely not I mean one of the questionable statements made so far today is if I think my religion is right then the other ninety nine thousand are wrong I think on the contrary it's the consequence of believing in the that that were all made in the image of God that makes some the the the core element of Christianity the what I take away from the story of the lost sheep is that it's actually people who are outside but we've had countless over the years countless people of all faiths who have been strict adherence to the thought not everybody of course but of certain faced strict adherence to the thought that they are right that is the only way and everyone else is wrong yes I'm not so it's notorious at killing parity absolutely I'm not saying that the the message hasn't been corrupted I'm going to a slightly higher authority and religion my pretending that what you want its message to be has actually been corrupted by the way it's played out and it's in history it's very hard to think it's true no it's not restricting anything I'll tell you what I stay because me love historically verified it's disingenuous to take into religious to say the institution of religion and and and judge a set of beliefs on the basis of what some people have done in that institution is disingenuous what Rupert is talking about is what that what his particular religion calls us to which is a higher kind of love and actually you know you know that's the two things that can provide a kind of love than what um you know if Ripa cannot so that's the priority of the ripa outsider I think the the idea that I mean that the church is sometimes said to be the the one organization that exists for the sake of its non-members and when when when Jesus's teaching is being taken seriously I mean that's the--that's the question wouldn't deny I difficult it's because I'm a Christian that I've got fairly robust views on the dysfunctionality of the church yeah when when when the gospel is taken seriously then the message surely no one would deny that the core of Jesus's message whether one accepts it or not is one of radical self giving love okay then it's not about them an audience there let's have some thoughts from the audience ready to go gentlemen air hello yeah when you go so essentially um quick quick point okay so it seems to me that the question did man create god of what the Honorable rabbi said earlier is very important ultimately any any conception of God that we have is going to be through our hearts and minds through two ears 1 nose two eyes one brain and so corporations in the case of somebody but of course there may be two brains in the front row but it seems that you know so obviously it's gonna be able to promote wised so the question then becomes you know does God exist which is cause an impossible question and I think although this question is important may be a one which might be more worthwhile asking is how does how does God um whatever we mean by God realize himself in our hearts and minds and he's doing for 40 minutes in but yes I mean but this is entering about social constructs and so forth later than the red top just a quick point from you going the point you just made and does God exist I don't believe it's an impossible question to answer it's just that it's whether or not people want to believe that God exists or not and I believe that the evidence of God is all around us if only we were to open up our eyes and accept that Chris hood what does the concept of a divine judge if you've been good if you've been bad tell us about in your view the societies from which it comes we've heard a lot about love haven't we but I have point out that a lot of religion is fear and that works in that way and that's a way in which you can improvise or you can put into place social control by not breaking the moral codes so a lot of religions are based on on fear fear of death fear of a fertility fear of poverty and fear of retribution so one of the icy fires of hell fires of hell I mean if you just have to look through the history it's quite clear not only are they are attacking other religions but within the within their own they're using that to control people so I think that's something about control accountability it's still it's bill don't want you don't want by Hitler getting off scot-free in the afterlife right you want him to be punished or at least at least this should be something I don't this gets off scot-free in the afterlife if you believed in a God of forgiveness actually that might be better I see okay we're still over here because it's injured obviously that's an internal diversion there but they're they sold the idea of hell and of punishment carry on yes so there's research showing that children will spontaneously think or behave themselves if they think there's a ghost in the room or they think that they're being observed by some supernatural agent and one of the ideas is that we then kind of transpose that father figure or that authority figure to become a divine God so that becomes a moral compass for how we behave yeah there's an ancient Greek said exactly that in fifth century BC said that there was a wise lawgiver who gave us laws and then we carried on being naughty in practice in in private and then that wise lawgiver also invented religion so that we would be policed in private as well it's exactly the same idea speculation speculation says I want to hear from from cetaceans a second but Elena whoa I feel I want to hear from you on this I want to hear your your wisdom and your thoughts on on this idea of divine judgment to the casual observer it looks like a human construct yes and and in many ways the way in which we go about fabricating judgment and pronouncing judgment on one another is really Minh and it's it's about blame it's about vindicating one's self-righteousness and we have all kinds of mechanisms for handling this in society after society where people will not put their hands up and say yeah I was wrong I made a mess I screw this up I'm the guilty one please forgive me the point about religion is it Hunnish yeah but the point the punishment is is almost irrelevant it's a secondary issue the big issue is all of your being ponent the big issue is what why do people do this why do people relate to each other in this kind of way and what do they expect as a result of it and I'll refer earlier on said that science has explained so many things and religious explain and religion explains none of these things that science does explain this is not what religion is about religion and I would include many scientific religions in this what science if it really kela religions which are scientistic in other words they have faith in science as producing all the answers all the understanding and so on communist it's not it's not done isn't it now it's a very vital point to get a quick response on before we proceed Aref not yet just it on that particular point it's a common trope amongst theists and it is a complete completely false but science is some kind of faith there is no better evidence for anything then there is for any of the many scientific videos like a mention like quantum theory you saying quantum theories of faith you say relativity no no you're not you're calling yourself a survivor bunch of scientists always want to disagree with each other always want to disprove each other and that's the dynamic of science which is absolutely let me get back there is no let me I stay where I am because I need to finish this out ok umm scientism is a faith in science it's a faith that actually science ultimately will have all the answers to all the questions that we can have whereas often science simply does not have even all the questions so they've got more answers than it did have so it's moving it's moving like that the gas that is fantastic that we actually know they're a scientist can I just finish what I'm trying to say Coursera so basically what's going on with all of these kind of positions whether they're religious positions whether the secular positions whether the political positions and so on is that they're offering people worldviews and worldviews are those things that are actually underneath all of our social amplifications and our societal developments so worldviews answering fundamental questions like who or what is gone okay Who am I what is it to be they would say the non-overlapping magisteria their separate somebody got to say I'm God's reality cause right we're good a good asset Ishim is some of the great scientists are thea some of the great evolutionary biologists Ken Miller Francisco Ayala our are theists way up which makes the point that they are they are separate magisteria it's at each I wonder if institution I'll tell you why I'll tell you why I want to hear from Satish because if we're talking about divine punishment or retribution or reward you are on a constant as we all are as you believe a constant cycle of reincarnation until we reach the stage where we are free from birth and free from death and that's a kind of that's an optimistic view ultimately because we're all heading in the right direction despite the fact that we may have some diversions along the well starting is that be an accurate way of putting it so it's not about sorting from that both cannot be proven that either we're doomed and we have to be redeemed or that were actually on a positive journey assume for a moment that neither can be proven the more positive one would seem to be more reasonable to adopt but turning to whether it can be proven pure scientific method replicable something that anybody can do requires if you want to establish did the mystic establish a connection with some divine entity you follow and replicate his experiment you don't talk about it you actually go be still and know that I am divinity and so unless you have actually done that then it's all noise it's just mental and cogitations and what's one of these mystic mystical of next life what is it what is it like to experience have some of us experience it before when we're listening to I don't know Elgar's cello concerto or sergeant pepper's Lonely Hearts clock have we experienced it we got in a kind of state that you're what are you talking about when in fact I don't suggest that it's it's the natural default for all of us we are all created to experience something within us which when it's removed this body falls apart and decays and decompose have some of us experience it without realizing that it's a mystical thing I mean what is it and I would suggest that there are the chattering of the mind once that ceases then you start to have an opening inside right and that opening is the first of the other journeys but in something francesca said which I've wanted to touch on which is to do with gender and to do with creating and she can answer you correct misogynists create misogynist gods yeah right you can identify the nature of the person who has created that God and indeed that then reeks of a theocracy in its birth where there is divinity there has to be no violence it can't be intellectually violent it can't be emotionally violent it can't be physically violent if there is any violence present there is no divinity present so there's no divinity any of the major religions that case I started Phantasy director something no no I need you to answer your phone Cheska I think it's a real shame that and we find this I mean there's a lot about Hindus and I particularly like actually as opposed to a lot of other religions but I think it's a real shame that in all of the people representing different visions here they're so down on humanity and what it is to be a person why is you want to get rid of the human body but its are amazing what's wrong with material world no we have what's wrong with it you're bitten thing I'm young I wear dismisses a lifetime but that's what I watch what it but all of thee but religion seems to want to be able to offer some kind of an escape from the world that we have and we live in paradise charlie rabbi Charlie I miss so much about this world it's not about doing things because right now because the roared in the next world it's very much and I think a lot of a lot of Jews would talk about their relationship with God is in their relationship with other human beings it's not about the future it's about right now and because of that the body is very much part of there so one of the first blessings that Jews would say when they get up in the morning is one to thank that the body still works there are yeah but absolutely it's a great thing to be thankful for and it's not about separating the soul from the body but actually that the reality is in that relationship that actually we find gold how much of your day I'm not as you spend because some people say that I think that Islam is very much thinking about what will happen in the afterlife and it's kind of quite afterlife centric a lot of the time how often do you think about the afterlife well you know what I mean if you have to look at human existence if we believe that human isn't there's more than just this life we shouldn't neglect our portion of world of our worldly portion as the Quran says we do not neglect your worldly portion but at the same time also work towards something greater people even atheists would work towards a future for their kids they will never see which is beyond their lifetime so they do working for something outside their lifetime yes but the point I really wanted to raise the day is manding really Craig God God created man and man create idols and we shouldn't throw God out with the idols okay they're different they're different things and atheists do not have a monopoly on scientists for the vast majority I said that have been said all right well I'm not yeah that's not good news for apologist sir as I said but there is no scientist there are no clash between I'm good thank you guys overlapping magisteria just like you two okay I think one thing about Islam is is is that actually in many ways Islam is very focused on on life in this world in a way the Christianity isn't so for instance Islam places constraints on a great deal of people's everyday behavior the Christianity doesn't it constrains your financial transactions it constrains your personal hygiene it constrains the way you dress because strings of vast amounts are many ways it's it's bigoted to turn totalitarian and the other thing I would say is that of course Islam is not the only one these other religions do but many religions have have a very severe until Oteri's effect on people's lives in this world if you think all the people who are homosexual and the some things they've suffered because of religion does it everyone conscience is that it going on right everyone say everybody right now well if you're religious everyone's conscious well there might be an easy for you to say but everyone's branches where everyone's conscious conscience is a totalitarian everyone's conscience guides them throughout the entire day deep in everyone's consciousness totalitarian yes because that means what totalitarian means if innocent comes every aspect of your life so we would like to think that a person's conscience would guide them for every aspect of their life what they do how they treat people and helping people and so on everyone's consciousness or Tartarian is just saying the work this is to on to either side you would have to do it a person treatment on students is a hypocrite who acts on pragmatic official doesn't tell yourself threats I really don't tell me why not based on hype my conscience doesn't tell me how I should prostrate myself in a certain direction five times a day well we disagree Elaine stalky let's get on to the basic point and I know you're off lighter fantastic have you died philosophical and I know double logical rhetoric as you do and that's why we have you on here we cherish your presence let me answer this question there are high Brian Cox talking the other day I in fact the cosmos about the universe yes this is overwhelmingly awesome it's mind-bogglingly wonderful and he said there are but out there there are billions of planets where does quite possible that there will be life out there say that there were to be a planet there with intelligent life and there is every possibility that that is the case in somewhere we may never we will never know about it would they have the same God that we do of course of course because if we created God is creator of the entire maybe monotheists would they it got it known monotheism is that's just the word um but it would be the same God let God who created the whole of he or she would have trance transmitted the divinity God consciousness to them the understanding of God is that God is actually the eternal creator the one who pretend everything into place the Big Bang and within within seconds of the Big Bang all of the structures and the fabrics of the possibility of creation were already there we've been working on those structures ever since and so the the concept of God is creator and then God is incarnated I mean the operating a world that created itself yes that then comes how I'm working with God creating itself but then God becoming part of the world and this is why I Francesco so utterly wrong about the fact that they that Christianity doesn't care about the body of course it does Christ became a body he wasn't but in all the love I just got to answer that question wait let's get let's get a clear answer gone it's in order to push through mortality in order to deny human experience not at all this is a it's not at all binding like human who supposedly didn't have sex didn't have very many much to do with women told people to release that Reilly balloon when they not be back with you I'll be back biblical portrayal obviously don't believe this that he taught people to reject their family and to give up on their sense tradition this is not a God who cherishes what it is to be a human by becoming materially embody this is about a god that puts it on like a dressing-gown and takes it off again it's absolutely ridiculous to think that that poor crumpled corpse on a cross is somehow a celebration of what it is to be human well well who writes of course you do first of all Jesus was very very fully human in the sense that he what you look that demonstrate go demonstrate love um he was there to actually call human beings to a different kind of life a different life of love towards one another towards God and actually well-being of doing the extra mile of forgiveness most of all of forgiveness I'm not allowing somebody to leave any finish not allowing somebody else's gold damage to damage you but to actually be able fi said that it's your women or women it's such a nonsense because the people who support it with Jesus financially were women some of the crease disciples were women yet the women are messin yet where are these women represented in the religion where are these audited workplace I'm afraid you need to read the Gospels veteran and I'm going to stay with a women why you need to she's a biblical scholar to be a scholarship and scholarship oh hang on listen this is good I'm going to stay where this one Francesca the scholarship and scholarship yeah well I find really interesting about scholarship quite often is there's an awful lot of intellectual gatekeeping and there's an awful lot of them older generation scholars who'd like to keep younger scholars down I don't like there's nothing wrong with me okay I think to be said to Francesca where I agree unless the peacemakers what I said I've kind of a great field of super thing with both of you I would like to say um I mean oh where I sympathize with us I don't think I don't think it is sensible to deny that there is a very world to denying and body denying straining Christianity there's no question but all the major religious traditions that were talking about are very complex things and they have within them both in everything they have things about them that out that we may find difficult and not like a well denying strain in Christianity I don't like very much an Australian Christianity which colludes with worldly rulers I don't like very much but that's not the whole of the tradition one thing I find um we were talking about to go about science in religion one thing I find um discouraging a little bit about debates between science and religion and scientists not realize this but yeah well well we have been talking about it and um I think it's kinda it's an important kind of framing issue in the argument is that um we think about and talk about and evaluate science on its aspirations on the best of it on what it hopes to achieve we slightly tend to ignore all the ways in which science is also socially framed and socially so regulating that's I want well it but it's not it's drug company regulated it's Bruce Chris : that's quite nothing to say my groups it's fundamentally wrong no no no you have to sign a declaration if you have a conflict of interest if you're producing a scientific paper now of course drug companies driving the agenda but a good scientist will be accountable the results will be replicable everything will be evidence unrepeatable there's not the last word again it's going to be a special second sentence from Cole Marquis Morton and will as long as we're on the planet Homo sapiens will God be around yes God created man and woman equal in his image and it's preposterous to think that Christians exist on another planet but if if God does exist then that God exists in that other planet and it's the kind of God that Elaine and Arif and Francesca and my friend here are all trying to describe them to get to or to ignore thank you very much thank you all very much and be I was for you that lack of a broad as ever the games continue until the next time they were live from ups bridged you join us then from now it's goodbye from everyone here in Oxford and have a great Sunday thanks again for watching you you

Channel: Muslim Debate Initiative Archive

Views: 448,763

Rating: 4.4845505 out of 5

Keywords: bbc, tbq, the big questions, atheism, atheist, theism, god, monotheism, polytheism, islam, christianity, science, history, pagan

Id: 258cesWsu38

Length: 59min 44sec (3584 seconds)

Published: Sun May 29 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/minigunman123]

Yes, plain and simple.

Religion clearly evolved through history in different areas of the world.

Humans created superstitious beliefs for varieties of reasons, but they were all man-made, not divinely inspired.

I have a blog that talks about this and is currently running a series specifically on this topic, if you want me to link it to you.