If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, 'How about the tortoise?' the Indian said, 'Suppose we change the subject.I'll talk about Elaine Pagels' book later but a few thoughts on a somewhat related matter. Not that long ago, I looked at a book that did something a bit ironical: it in effect tried to use reason against atheists [A Shot of Faith (to the Head)]. Personally, and people with much more religious faith than I tend to agree, this sort of thing is not really advisable. A professor in the early 1990s show She-Wolf of London noted society has always needed myths. Myth of not, we also show a need for religion. Trying to make religion a matter of science is not really the way to go though.
Evidentialism is a theory of justification according to which the justification of a belief depends solely on the evidence for it.The book strikes against this philosophical argument, which means more than simply relying (as we generally do in our everyday lives) evidence and rational basis as a general matter. We don't rely merely on that though; we rely on feelings too and "faith" is a form of feeling. It might ultimately be based on subconscious reasoning process in some fashion but like love and hate, "evidence" is not the only thing that really matters here. I think the term takes things to a bit esoteric level myself.
Things are taken even further with some debates about "God," the quotes quite advisable since here we are talking about the concept, including such terms like "necessary beings." I got in a back and forth, tad tiresome with a thumb on the scales (out of left field, suddenly a "Christian God" was necessary) one, on this matter in response to something I said about the book. Simply put, the term for a long time seemed artificial to me in this context. First off, like aliens populating the earth (a comparison that threw the person off ... but aliens still aren't "necessary beings" ... not the same thing ... what are you saying?!), why stop there? Avoidance mechanisms might take questions off the table, but they don't cause them to totally disappear any more than other avoidance mechanisms do.
The all knowing, all powerful and all good idea of "God" (and this sort of gets into Pagels book though there we just have something of a new level -- there being a flawed "creator" figure below the ultimate source) are not really "necessary" even to avoid the so-called "infinite regression" problem. Why is creation "good"? Why does the creation of our universe require unlimited power? The ancients who thought up of Zeus et. al. weren't so pure in their reasoning. Personally, if there is a God or supernatural universe out there, I think it's made up of flawed forces, which might not be as reassuring to some, but it is to me in a way, since it seems more satisfying given how imperfect life is.
We rely and get solace from imperfect things, including our loved ones and religious communities. A nod to last night's Army Wives, which I saw shortly after catching up with the new episode (after a short hiatus) online. Good episode with various powerful subplots, including another good guest appearance, this time from Anna Chlumsky -- yes, the young actress from My Girl (tempus fugit) dealing with a husband injured in an explosion. Also, how to handle a birth father imperfectly handling seeing his son again and the aftershocks of killing in self defense. Toss in some marriage woes and the episode followed the skill of an earlier story arc.
Anyway, the nurse/mom/quiet soul who killed the person went to her minister for counseling. His comments to her were a sign of the excellent writing and performances of this season. One thing he said that in this imperfect world that we can honor life even if sometimes we need to take it. How far this goes, putting aside the fact he is a minister to many soldiers, can be debated, but there is a clear truth to it at least in some cases. She went to him not because "evidentialism" is not a way to live our lives, but because religion served a role in her life and he provided a means to deal with her issues here. This is fine, even if someone thinks her God is mythical and I am against "strong atheism" that doesn't respect that as much as excessive remarks from the other side.
And, after what seemed a fairly rare positive comment about self-defense, we have a fairly rare case of religion explicitly playing a part in television outside of the usual suspects.