Be aware of this truth that the people on this earth could be joyous,
if only they would live rationally, and if they would contribute
mutually to each others’ welfare.
--Clemens Vonnegut, quoted by his great-grandson Kurt, in Palm
Sunday
Revelation - The Age of Reason pt. 2
What would it take to convince me that there was a new revelation from God?
My family, when I was young, attended a church where people gave what they called "prophetic" messages. Someone would stand up during the service and speak a "word from the Lord". Mostly, these were general words of encouragement ("'Take courage', says the Lord, 'for I am with you in the difficult battle that you are facing!'") or general words of warning("'Repent', says the Lord, 'and return to me while there is still time, for the end is drawing near!'")
It's a bold claim to say that God has revealed to you a message for others. Yet most of us simply nodded in agreement at these "divine messages". Why? Well, once you get used to hearing these things in church every week, it's easy to take them in stride. And the messages, as I said, were very general. I never heard one that challenged me to do anything specific. Take courage? Of course we wanted that. Repent? Sure, no one is perfect. It was easy to accept that maybe God had whispered these words to our local "prophets", without putting too much stock in their special abilities.
But what if a message had been more specific and demanding? "God wants you to give away your life's savings and trust him for a reward" "'Give up those jobs at Ford', says the Lord, 'for my face is set against that company!'" Even committed believers would shake their heads at such statements. People don't take such commands as divine without more proof than the word of a prophet.
Now suppose that a local prophet said that gravity is a lie, or that bypass surgery is the devil's work. Or suppose you heard from a friend that a prophet from a church across town said that a great earthquake was coming in three days.
Reading The Age of Reason again recently reminded me that much of what people accept as revelation from the Bible is similarly attested.
The Bible opens with two creation stories - one begins in water (Genesis 1) and the other in a desert (Genesis 2-3). The second one ends with a story that explains how human life became so difficult. Neither story names its author. We don't have any historical evidence about who wrote them. Neither claims to be written by God or revealed from heaven, nor does the book in which they appear (Genesis) which is also anonymous but contains signs that it was compiled much later than the events it describes.
No Bible-believer who ran across such literature in another place would take it as serious history. Yet many today take the creation accounts so seriously (it's revelation after all!), along with the flood story starting in Genesis 6, that they are willing to say (and impose on everyone) that biology, anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, and the other sciences are lying to us because they have been captured by Satan (a character who evolves from being a tester of the faithful in his few appearances in the Hebrew Bible [as a member of God's council!] into the ever-more-powerful master of evil starting in the Gospels).
So I return to my starting question: What would it take to convince us that there was a new revelation from God?
I have to admit that, for me, it would be a hard sell. In the many years since I attended that church of my childhood, I have read many documents claiming to be divinely inspired and had many self-proclaimed prophets tell me what God had said to them. In every case, the content of the "new revelation" could easily have been created by human imagination - motivated by insecurity, or by the desire for recognition and power, or by the need to create meaning for oneself and one's people. Why accept a message as a word from God when a much more likely explanation is at hand?
But for years and years, I didn't apply that skepticism to my own cherished communication from God: The Bible.
When I first heard that the Bible was the word of God, I was a young child, not yet skilled in critical thinking. But even after I went to Bible college and learned a bit about where the Bible came from, I rarely asked the hard questions I would ask of other religious messages.
In progress - last updated Mar 2, 2025
The Age of Reason
Any seeker of reason would do well to read Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason, the classic popularization of deism which was first published in the United States at the beginning of the republic (1797-1807). In a brief and straightforward text, Paine lays out his case regarding the Bible (its inspiration, authority, and morality), supernatural revelation, the authority of religious organizations, etc.
Paine wasn't a biblical scholar and his writing contains some obvious factual errors (such as when he states that "prophet" originally meant "poet" or "musician"). Nevertheless, he provides a layperson's overview of the content and history of the Bible that has long been understood by scholars but is still nearly unheard of by religious zealots who make policy today.
In a better world, students at seminaries and Bible colleges would study The Age of Reason alongside their survey courses of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. And Sunday School superintendents, members of local school boards, and Congress people would actually read the whole Bible (many never have) and Paine.
Key quote: (The religious person) despises the choicest gift of God to man, the gift of Reason; and having endeavoured to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason, as if man could give reason to himself" (Part 1, ch. 8)
The Age of Reason at Standard eBooks
Reason Cafe
Reason Cafe is a place to think about reason, reasonably - a place to elevate reason, critical thinking, and rationality over dogmas of every kind.
Dogma: Authoritative ideas accepted uncritically and (often) on insufficient evidence. Dogmas come from many places, including religion, politics, community standards, family, etc.
Reason: The human ability to weigh evidence and think about what is true, what works, etc. Reason is often done best in community with people who will challenge each other.
No one is free from dogma.
Reason isn't everything, nor is it an infallible guide.
But it is the best thing humans have. And it is way better than the irrationality in ascendency today.
Reason Cafe launches today, January 20, 2025 - a date which I fear will become known as a dark day for reason. Time will tell.
What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are
seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow
up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that
our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural
law.
--Kurt Vonnegut
The gods value morals alone; they have paid no compliments to
intellect, not offered it a single reward. If intellect is welcome
anywhere in the other world, it is in hell, not heaven.
--Mark Twain
I shall tell you a parable about people who do things that they think
God Almighty wants done. In the meanwhile, you would do well, for
background on this parable, to read everything you can lay your hands
on about the Spanish Inquisition.
--Winston Rumfoord in Kurt Vonnegut's
The Sirens of Titan
If he is being scolded at this moment at the Pearly Gates, it may be
for his overemphasis of rationality and compassion at the expense of
piety.
--Kurt Vonnegut in a tribute at the funeral of James T. Farrell, in
Palm Sunday