Hold on
While searching the internet for German Fare in Rhode Island the other day I linked onto a German speaking group in Providence. I emailed and showed up to barbeque last Saturday. I introduced myself in Schlechte Deutsch (bad German) and told everyone I had just moved from Utah, Mormon slander ensues.
It wasn’t until the end of the night, once everyone was plentifully drunk, that they started asking questions. It started out innocent, “did you do the missionary thing?” “can you have multiple wives?” The conversation was quite pleasant while I was talking with a lady who was from Finland and had fond memories of putting on makeup to play baseball with hansom missionaries (this was especially great because my dad served a mission in Finland).
Everyone seemed to be enjoying poking a little fun at me, including myself when I suggested that I could take all the women at the party home with me where we could marry. Then I meet the ATHEIST! She kept asking for proof and I keep thinking “why, you probably wont even remember this tomorrow.” She kept asking where is the “scientific proof?” and finally I had to counteract.
I surprised myself when I remembered the name of Kurt Gödel as the man who disproved mathematics (it’s fairly complicated, I don’t understand it all myself, but he didn’t really disprove math, just the system we use to comprehend it). I also remembered (although not as impressively because it had only been a few weeks since I was introduced to it) Max Planck’s Quantum Mechanics, which, as far as I understand it, dispels the notion that order exists in the world and physics can explain it (some things just need to be accepted, like why don’t more people like Yoohoo? I don’t know, it’s a great drink, accept it).
When I suggested that I appreciated the morals given in modern Christian theology she retorted that you don’t need God to have good morals or feel good about doing good. OK, I’ll give her that. So why do you need to believe in God to have a better life? Life, or at least an existence, after death. In the end all I could come up with was that I hoped that God exists because I really don’t know (especially in the way she wanted it explained).
I digress. Remembering Kurt Gödel reminded myself that there was a theologist that I wanted to study, St. Anselm. They (and when I say they I mean a lot of “theys,” because this guy lived around the 11th century and people have been discussing him since) say he proved that God exists. His argument is called the “Ontological Argument,” because the only evidence you need is in the proposed dilemma. I cannot give the argument justice in this blog, but I might as well give the Rachel Ray explination; “if you can conceive that God is the grandest idea/concept, God must exist because not existing would be less grand and therefore impossible to conceive.”
In the end, I like theology. I’ve spent the entire day reading bizarre concepts and my mind feels like it’s going to explode within itself (like when Elmer Fudd tried to blow up Bugs Bunny under ground, a bang and a huge lump appeared but nothing came out).
It wasn’t until the end of the night, once everyone was plentifully drunk, that they started asking questions. It started out innocent, “did you do the missionary thing?” “can you have multiple wives?” The conversation was quite pleasant while I was talking with a lady who was from Finland and had fond memories of putting on makeup to play baseball with hansom missionaries (this was especially great because my dad served a mission in Finland).
Everyone seemed to be enjoying poking a little fun at me, including myself when I suggested that I could take all the women at the party home with me where we could marry. Then I meet the ATHEIST! She kept asking for proof and I keep thinking “why, you probably wont even remember this tomorrow.” She kept asking where is the “scientific proof?” and finally I had to counteract.
I surprised myself when I remembered the name of Kurt Gödel as the man who disproved mathematics (it’s fairly complicated, I don’t understand it all myself, but he didn’t really disprove math, just the system we use to comprehend it). I also remembered (although not as impressively because it had only been a few weeks since I was introduced to it) Max Planck’s Quantum Mechanics, which, as far as I understand it, dispels the notion that order exists in the world and physics can explain it (some things just need to be accepted, like why don’t more people like Yoohoo? I don’t know, it’s a great drink, accept it).
When I suggested that I appreciated the morals given in modern Christian theology she retorted that you don’t need God to have good morals or feel good about doing good. OK, I’ll give her that. So why do you need to believe in God to have a better life? Life, or at least an existence, after death. In the end all I could come up with was that I hoped that God exists because I really don’t know (especially in the way she wanted it explained).
I digress. Remembering Kurt Gödel reminded myself that there was a theologist that I wanted to study, St. Anselm. They (and when I say they I mean a lot of “theys,” because this guy lived around the 11th century and people have been discussing him since) say he proved that God exists. His argument is called the “Ontological Argument,” because the only evidence you need is in the proposed dilemma. I cannot give the argument justice in this blog, but I might as well give the Rachel Ray explination; “if you can conceive that God is the grandest idea/concept, God must exist because not existing would be less grand and therefore impossible to conceive.”
In the end, I like theology. I’ve spent the entire day reading bizarre concepts and my mind feels like it’s going to explode within itself (like when Elmer Fudd tried to blow up Bugs Bunny under ground, a bang and a huge lump appeared but nothing came out).
posted by spitzer at 2:46 PM
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