{"id":66,"date":"2010-01-11T08:20:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-11T08:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html"},"modified":"2010-01-11T08:20:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-11T08:20:00","slug":"god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html","title":{"rendered":"God and Gardens and a Big Question"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The December issue<\/span> of Intelligent Life<\/a> magazine describes a certain horticultural parable<\/a> first told by the mid-19th century British philosopher John Wisdom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s the parable:<\/p>\n

Two people return to their long neglected garden and find, among the weeds, that a few of the old plants are surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other, “It must be that a gardener has been coming and doing something about these weeds.” The other disagrees…<\/span> They pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. The believer wonders if there is an invisible gardener, so they patrol with bloodhounds but the bloodhounds never give a cry. Yet the believer…insists that the gardener is invisible, has no scent and gives no sound. The sceptic doesn\u2019t agree, and asks how a so-called invisible, intangible, elusive gardener differs from an imaginary gardener, or even no gardener at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

—————-<\/p>\n

Wisdom’s parable raises a pretty important religious question: is the world watched over by a loving God? Since we can’t touch, taste, see, or hear this God — at least in the verifiable laboratory sense — is it reasonable to assume that this God (or, um, gardener) exists at all?<\/p>\n

Here’s what the article’s author, Anthony Gottlieb, had to say about Gardener’s old parable:<\/p>\n

It seems that no evidence could make the man who believes in a gardener concede that he was wrong. Come what may, he will hang on to his faith in a guiding hand with green fingers. <\/span><\/p>\n

The guy who believes in the gardener won’t accept the lack of evidence as disproof of his invisible-gardener theory. The obvious follow-up question<\/a>, then is What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of, God?<\/p>\n

I think that’s a really interesting question, so I thought I’d pose it to you guys. Aside from a few of the atheists who read my blog — and I love that you folks are here (stick around, please!) — most of us believe in God. Despite the lack of physical, demonstrable evidence, we believe.<\/p>\n

So here’s the question: What would it take to make you stop believing? Is there anything that, once and for all, would disprove to you the existence of God?<\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s discuss.<\/p>\n

[Thanks to my friend, Matt, for the H\/T.]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The December issue of Intelligent Life magazine describes a certain horticultural parable first told by the mid-19th century British philosopher John Wisdom. Here’s the parable: Two people return to their long neglected garden and find, among the weeds, that a few of the old plants are surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other, “It must…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-questions","category-religion"],"yoast_head":"\nGod and Gardens and a Big Question - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"God and Gardens and a Big Question - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The December issue of Intelligent Life magazine describes a certain horticultural parable first told by the mid-19th century British philosopher John Wisdom. Here’s the parable: Two people return to their long neglected garden and find, among the weeds, that a few of the old plants are surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other, “It must…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-11T08:20:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.planandplant.com\/image-files\/greenthumb.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Boyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"God and Gardens and a Big Question - O Me of Little Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"God and Gardens and a Big Question - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"The December issue of Intelligent Life magazine describes a certain horticultural parable first told by the mid-19th century British philosopher John Wisdom. Here’s the parable: Two people return to their long neglected garden and find, among the weeds, that a few of the old plants are surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other, “It must…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html","og_site_name":"O Me of Little Faith","article_published_time":"2010-01-11T08:20:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.planandplant.com\/image-files\/greenthumb.gif"}],"author":"Jason Boyett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html","name":"God and Gardens and a Big Question - O Me of Little Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.planandplant.com\/image-files\/greenthumb.gif","datePublished":"2010-01-11T08:20:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-01-11T08:20:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.planandplant.com\/image-files\/greenthumb.gif","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.planandplant.com\/image-files\/greenthumb.gif"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-a-big-question.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"God and Gardens and a Big Question"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/","name":"O Me of Little Faith","description":"A blog by Jason Boyett about Doubt, Christianity, Culture & Writing","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7","name":"Jason Boyett","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","caption":"Jason Boyett"},"description":"Jason Boyett is a writer, speaker, and the author of several books, including O Me of Little Faith (Zondervan), and the Pocket Guide series (Jossey-Bass). His work has appeared in Salon, Paste, The Daily Beast, Relevant, and a variety of other publications. He has also appeared on the History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Jason lives in Texas with his wife and two kids. Follow him at twitter and jasonboyett.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/author\/jboyett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}