Our sensory abilities
Are insufficient, surely,
To examine God’s complexity
Through observation purely;
Past the limits of infinity,
Beyond mere time and distance,
God defies our best description—
We require some assistance.

We can claim that God is singular—
No entity is greater—
But we have no way to verify
Or spy on the creator;
Might more gods exist in heaven
Than their followers below?
With our human limitations
Why, I guess we’ll never know.

Some may claim a revelation
Was delivered in a dream;
(I once dreamed that I was flying,
Visions are not what they seem.)
Some claim I have no evidence
For any god, save one…
They’ll claim their god is proven
But I’m rather thinking… none.

Long-time readers may recognize “The Wintery Knight” from his selective definition of atheism a few weeks ago. Today, he presents a false dichotomy, in defense of the claim that science fits a theistic view better than an atheistic one–“http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/four-ways-that-the-progress-of-experimental-science-conflicts-with-atheism/.” I won’t go into detail on the four cherry-picked articles, nor his unorthodox interpretation of their difficulty for science. Let’s just, for sake of argument, assume that his observation does present a genuine problem for science (or, “atheist science”).

Completely missing is the part where a theistic intelligent design is evidenced. There is nothing drawing a line from these studies (let alone the rest of the scientific literature) and “theistic science”. Even assuming that this was a devastating blow to what we now consider to be settled science, all it would mean is that we go back to the drawing board; there is nothing that says “if science can’t explain it perfectly, religion is right” any more than “if today isn’t the Fourth of July, it must be Christmas”.

And some of his arguments are with fairly speculative theories rather than with the bulk of science. Multiverse arguments, for instance, I have seen criticized by scientists, too, for being too speculative; I don’t have the knowledge to even voice an opinion there, but let’s say it is beyond our observation at present. Perhaps some day an experiment will allow us to test implications (for all I know, they are under way), but for now it is speculation (again, we are assuming). Don’t build big constructions of flimsy foundations.

Thus my verse. What has organized religion done but build big constructions on flimsy foundations? The science on sensation, perception, cognition, memory, etc., makes it very clear–if there was a god with the characteristics of the Abrahamic God, human beings would be unable to perceive (let alone understand) His attributes. All the details that split one denomination from another, one faith from another–we are arguing about things we cannot know, not just things we do not know. (Yes, that makes me a hard agnostic.) We say God is X, Y, and Z, but we cannot possibly perceive those characteristics; we say there is only one God, but if He exists outside our realm, how on earth (and on earth is where we are doing our perceiving) are we to know that?

But of course, that is what faith is for!