Monday, January 17, 2005
Some Musings on God and Belief
For the first time since I started, I have not been able to find a topic for my Sunday (sometimes Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday) post on religion. I have harvested all my previous writings for what I wish to share at the moment, and there were no outstanding scriptural considerations this week. In thinking about what to post, I realized I had a number of scattered thoughts, but nothing coherent. So that is what I will post.
From non-belief to belief in God
One of the things I was thinking about tonight was the process of going from non-belief to belief in God. Some people describe it as a sudden AH HA type incident. Sometimes they describe it as suddenly providing a missing piece, not so much of puzzle, but rather within themselves. I was reading Jeff Miller’s (The Curt Jester, of MS Forgery fame) description of his arrival at belief after years of atheism, and he noted that he spent a lot of time reading everything he could find on religion and religious belief. It was like he was looking for something but wasn’t sure what, other than that it was religious.
I have done much the same in my life. When I was in my late teens and early twenties in college, I started seriously questioning religious belief and its basis. When I discussed this with the assistant priest of the Episcopal church I was attending, he gave me a book on Christian Apologetics to read. He didn’t realize it, but from his standpoint it was a big mistake. I found in print that the entire justification of belief in the Bible rested on the Bible’s statements of its authority. [The mistake was in trying to logically justify that which must be assumed.] I saw it as a merry-go-round or in more neutral terms, begging the question. It didn’t take much more, and I was a confirmed atheist. I thought that science had all the answers, and for forty or so years continued to think so. However, during that time I read widely in all the religions of the world except Hindu. I had the most interest in Zen for a while, and still have a strong identity with the tiger Koan.
After I married, we attended church regularly. I was not so arrogant in my belief that I considered myself to be absolutely correct, and I believed that it was easier to go from belief to non-belief than to go the other way. If I were wrong and encouraged my sons in my beliefs, I would be double-damned, and they would be damned. What I first found was that the ideas frequently were interesting when the scriptures were discussed from the pulpit. In fact I scandalized my wife by trying to take notes. [I never did ask, “Then why do they call them ‘Lessons’ if I’m not supposed to learn?”]
When we moved to Ohio, and changed churches, I then found that not only were the sermons interesting, but I had a feeling of sanctuary in the Sanctuary. For one hour a week, I could simply be, with no demands on me, and no need to be or do anything other than not act rudely. I stood when all did, kneeled when all did, etc. I did not participate in any way like praying, singing, or reciting. I did not participate in communion, considering that with my beliefs at that time, it would be a mockery to do so. That continued for some years. But as I listened, I realized that regardless of whether one believed in God or not, much of what Jesus taught made good sense in its own right. Not in a literal sense, but in the allegorical sense it was given originally.
I then started sensing a conflict in myself. I saw belief in God and religious practice as negating the science that I so strongly believed in. It was like giving up a part of myself. I posted on that feeling with the story of the wonderful fur coat. Finally, I decided to make the existence of God a working hypothesis. This was a psychological trick on myself as it were, since I reassured myself that anything that negated the hypothesis would then allow the discarding of the belief in God. What has occurred is that I have found that my belief structure in God does not conflict with my belief structure about the physical world. In effect the working hypothesis has become an accepted hypothesis.
So rather than a sudden Ah Ha moment, I just slowly moved into a belief. Now that I have that belief, it provides me with the satisfaction of my particular religious cravings.
What does God do?
This question is almost like asking, “What is the point in believing in God?” Given that I don’t believe God can mess with Nature, he is not out there punishing us with floods and tsunamis, or helping us with rain when we need it or sunsets to inspire us. I think what he is doing is helping those of us who need and ask for His help, but in ways that only involve human interaction. I don’t think God puts his finger in our brains and drops in answers or gratuitous advice. He is more interested in our doing as much as we can on our own, but he can provide awareness of choices in ourselves and others.
I have watched some problems get solved, and the solution is so different from what I would have conceived that I have a hard time thinking it came about by chance. I think if we are relaxed and allow our thoughts to be open, we receive suggestions on what might be better courses of action. We are always free to ignore the advice, and in fact there may be no grudge on God’s part, if we do. What happens is that the consequences provide the lesson.
I do not believe in a judgmental God. When we ignore the good and do the bad, the consequences and our own consciences are more than sufficient to punish. For those who desire evil, they eventually get their own pay-off, they spend eternity truly alone, with only the memory of their sins for company, and those from the viewpoint of the victim.
I envision God and the souls in Heaven acting as our advisors and guardians when we let them.
Possible changes to my theology:
In an email I sent to the Big Hominid, I mentioned that I thought God might be the accumulation of good souls over the millennia. And that given that as the mechanism for a good moral agent, one could also argue that the same might occur for an evil moral agent, i.e. the Devil. However, in reading my post on the Devil and why I did not think he existed, I was again convinced by my own arguments that the Devil may not exist as a separate entity.
But, then, from whence comes our feelings of evil and our bad behaviors? I have seen in myself what almost seems like a separate bad agent encouraging really evil thought. Upon closer examination, however, it is not separate, but rather an aggregation of the bad thought passed on to me during my upbringing, and other bad behavior and thought of my own over my life. It is almost as if our brains can accumulate such things into a separate personality. When it becomes overt, one gets the situations in “Three Faces of Eve”, and “Sybil”, where distinct personalities are expressed in the same physical body. The clinical term is dissociation. (This makes a very strong moral point, that we are responsible for our bad behavior—the Devil did NOT make us do it.)
Ah ha! then says the militant atheist or agnostic, then the good is not God, but simply the good side of us accumulated as a personality. A reasonable thought, but I don’t think it is true. Such an approach does not account for or leave a place for the existence of a soul. I have posted on what I consider the nature and source of the soul before, and it is from my considerations of the soul and extensive anecdotal material relating to it, that I created my asymmetrical concept of a Heaven and God with no equivalent Hell and Devil.
A thought that continues this is, that evil is inherently self-destructive. Since it always has as its goal, something ultimately destructive, eventually it must consume itself when nothing else is left to consume.
Having written all this, I will not make any significant changes in my theology at present.
Mission:
In thinking about all this, I started thinking about Paul, the Epistle writer. Paul struggled with trying to put what he saw as the meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross into terms that the people of his day could understand. In the process he of necessity had to make interpretations and constructions to fill in the gaps. Though I do not consider myself the equal of Paul in any way, I realized that I am trying to do the same for myself and any who stay with me during these efforts. I am trying to make sense of the desire for religion, the belief in God, and the refusal to negate the findings of science which I have studied all my life. In the process I share what I am doing and try to give meaning in terms of modern understanding to these beliefs.
In the process, I am hoping that there are those who have had the same kinds of struggles I have had, seeing so much of religious belief not make sense in light of modern discovery, and “throwing the baby out with the bath water” denying any religious belief on those grounds, and that they will rethink their total denial of God and belief. This is not an attempt at “conversion”, but simply a presentation of a way to look at things that allows a belief in God without negating that which is strongly demonstrated by science. The choice to believe or not is always there; sometimes we need to remember there is the choice without sacrificing accepted belief about the physical world.
[I have not put the links into my post this time. Everything can be found in Bill’s Religious Archives for those interested, and maybe other things of interest as well.]
For what started as having little to say, this turned out rather big.
From non-belief to belief in God
One of the things I was thinking about tonight was the process of going from non-belief to belief in God. Some people describe it as a sudden AH HA type incident. Sometimes they describe it as suddenly providing a missing piece, not so much of puzzle, but rather within themselves. I was reading Jeff Miller’s (The Curt Jester, of MS Forgery fame) description of his arrival at belief after years of atheism, and he noted that he spent a lot of time reading everything he could find on religion and religious belief. It was like he was looking for something but wasn’t sure what, other than that it was religious.
I have done much the same in my life. When I was in my late teens and early twenties in college, I started seriously questioning religious belief and its basis. When I discussed this with the assistant priest of the Episcopal church I was attending, he gave me a book on Christian Apologetics to read. He didn’t realize it, but from his standpoint it was a big mistake. I found in print that the entire justification of belief in the Bible rested on the Bible’s statements of its authority. [The mistake was in trying to logically justify that which must be assumed.] I saw it as a merry-go-round or in more neutral terms, begging the question. It didn’t take much more, and I was a confirmed atheist. I thought that science had all the answers, and for forty or so years continued to think so. However, during that time I read widely in all the religions of the world except Hindu. I had the most interest in Zen for a while, and still have a strong identity with the tiger Koan.
A man is chased by a tiger. He comes to a cliff. He jumps off and grabs a bush growing out of the cliff. As he is hanging there, with the tiger pacing above, a black mouse and a white mouse start eating the roots of the bush. He looks a branch and sees a large, beautiful strawberry growing there. He grabs it and eats it. How delicious!A-th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks. That is the nature of Zen. Honi soit, qui mal y pense.
After I married, we attended church regularly. I was not so arrogant in my belief that I considered myself to be absolutely correct, and I believed that it was easier to go from belief to non-belief than to go the other way. If I were wrong and encouraged my sons in my beliefs, I would be double-damned, and they would be damned. What I first found was that the ideas frequently were interesting when the scriptures were discussed from the pulpit. In fact I scandalized my wife by trying to take notes. [I never did ask, “Then why do they call them ‘Lessons’ if I’m not supposed to learn?”]
When we moved to Ohio, and changed churches, I then found that not only were the sermons interesting, but I had a feeling of sanctuary in the Sanctuary. For one hour a week, I could simply be, with no demands on me, and no need to be or do anything other than not act rudely. I stood when all did, kneeled when all did, etc. I did not participate in any way like praying, singing, or reciting. I did not participate in communion, considering that with my beliefs at that time, it would be a mockery to do so. That continued for some years. But as I listened, I realized that regardless of whether one believed in God or not, much of what Jesus taught made good sense in its own right. Not in a literal sense, but in the allegorical sense it was given originally.
I then started sensing a conflict in myself. I saw belief in God and religious practice as negating the science that I so strongly believed in. It was like giving up a part of myself. I posted on that feeling with the story of the wonderful fur coat. Finally, I decided to make the existence of God a working hypothesis. This was a psychological trick on myself as it were, since I reassured myself that anything that negated the hypothesis would then allow the discarding of the belief in God. What has occurred is that I have found that my belief structure in God does not conflict with my belief structure about the physical world. In effect the working hypothesis has become an accepted hypothesis.
So rather than a sudden Ah Ha moment, I just slowly moved into a belief. Now that I have that belief, it provides me with the satisfaction of my particular religious cravings.
What does God do?
This question is almost like asking, “What is the point in believing in God?” Given that I don’t believe God can mess with Nature, he is not out there punishing us with floods and tsunamis, or helping us with rain when we need it or sunsets to inspire us. I think what he is doing is helping those of us who need and ask for His help, but in ways that only involve human interaction. I don’t think God puts his finger in our brains and drops in answers or gratuitous advice. He is more interested in our doing as much as we can on our own, but he can provide awareness of choices in ourselves and others.
I have watched some problems get solved, and the solution is so different from what I would have conceived that I have a hard time thinking it came about by chance. I think if we are relaxed and allow our thoughts to be open, we receive suggestions on what might be better courses of action. We are always free to ignore the advice, and in fact there may be no grudge on God’s part, if we do. What happens is that the consequences provide the lesson.
I do not believe in a judgmental God. When we ignore the good and do the bad, the consequences and our own consciences are more than sufficient to punish. For those who desire evil, they eventually get their own pay-off, they spend eternity truly alone, with only the memory of their sins for company, and those from the viewpoint of the victim.
I envision God and the souls in Heaven acting as our advisors and guardians when we let them.
Possible changes to my theology:
In an email I sent to the Big Hominid, I mentioned that I thought God might be the accumulation of good souls over the millennia. And that given that as the mechanism for a good moral agent, one could also argue that the same might occur for an evil moral agent, i.e. the Devil. However, in reading my post on the Devil and why I did not think he existed, I was again convinced by my own arguments that the Devil may not exist as a separate entity.
But, then, from whence comes our feelings of evil and our bad behaviors? I have seen in myself what almost seems like a separate bad agent encouraging really evil thought. Upon closer examination, however, it is not separate, but rather an aggregation of the bad thought passed on to me during my upbringing, and other bad behavior and thought of my own over my life. It is almost as if our brains can accumulate such things into a separate personality. When it becomes overt, one gets the situations in “Three Faces of Eve”, and “Sybil”, where distinct personalities are expressed in the same physical body. The clinical term is dissociation. (This makes a very strong moral point, that we are responsible for our bad behavior—the Devil did NOT make us do it.)
Ah ha! then says the militant atheist or agnostic, then the good is not God, but simply the good side of us accumulated as a personality. A reasonable thought, but I don’t think it is true. Such an approach does not account for or leave a place for the existence of a soul. I have posted on what I consider the nature and source of the soul before, and it is from my considerations of the soul and extensive anecdotal material relating to it, that I created my asymmetrical concept of a Heaven and God with no equivalent Hell and Devil.
A thought that continues this is, that evil is inherently self-destructive. Since it always has as its goal, something ultimately destructive, eventually it must consume itself when nothing else is left to consume.
Having written all this, I will not make any significant changes in my theology at present.
Mission:
In thinking about all this, I started thinking about Paul, the Epistle writer. Paul struggled with trying to put what he saw as the meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross into terms that the people of his day could understand. In the process he of necessity had to make interpretations and constructions to fill in the gaps. Though I do not consider myself the equal of Paul in any way, I realized that I am trying to do the same for myself and any who stay with me during these efforts. I am trying to make sense of the desire for religion, the belief in God, and the refusal to negate the findings of science which I have studied all my life. In the process I share what I am doing and try to give meaning in terms of modern understanding to these beliefs.
In the process, I am hoping that there are those who have had the same kinds of struggles I have had, seeing so much of religious belief not make sense in light of modern discovery, and “throwing the baby out with the bath water” denying any religious belief on those grounds, and that they will rethink their total denial of God and belief. This is not an attempt at “conversion”, but simply a presentation of a way to look at things that allows a belief in God without negating that which is strongly demonstrated by science. The choice to believe or not is always there; sometimes we need to remember there is the choice without sacrificing accepted belief about the physical world.
[I have not put the links into my post this time. Everything can be found in Bill’s Religious Archives for those interested, and maybe other things of interest as well.]
For what started as having little to say, this turned out rather big.
// posted by Bill @ 9:32 PM 
