I thought, in the spirit of finding the time to reinvolve myself in my blog, that I should re-evaluate my position on what is still my only major blog post, that about God, nearly six months from when I first wrote on the topic. I think it is important to remember that for a long time prior to this year I was a nominal Christian alone, attending church only on holidays and not caring greatly for the Church's position on most issues of importance to me. Over the turn of this year, I decide to once and for all confront myself about my religious beliefs and decide where I stood, and I decided it was not on the side of Christianity.
However, this realisation did not occur in any singular, violent incident, but rather over time, much more gently, and as such there was something of a grace period of a number of months, wherein I made my first blog post, where I may have been somewhat guilty of mincing words, though that certainly was not my intention at the time. After many, many years of believing in a god, taking the step towards nontheism, and making that step earnestly and sincerely, was not easy, and it took a good lot of mental exercise to reconcile my logical side and my spiritual side, although I don't think my spirit was my only concern. However, this is not the time to go in any great depth into my personal history with religion and irreligion; that story will have to wait for the future.
The point of this post is to explore in more concrete terms, concisely, where I stand today to dispel any confusion that may arise. So, do I believe in God?
To put it in one word, no. if anything, since my last post, my atheism has become significantly stronger. My research into the topic never ceases, as I still find great value in reading the works of theologers; however, this is nothing more than an academic exercise, attempting to know the man, and indeed all men, not God. In my research, I continue to be further convinced by the seemingly never-ending arguments against the existence of a god, but I have come up against fairly few arguments in favour of a God, but the best of these argue only that a God exists; not that this God figure is the God of any religion. Assuming these arguments convinced me, and they do not, they are not of any help, because they only establish the existence of a god, and thus does not resolve the problem of inconsistent revelations; which religion, if any, is the best way to worship this god, or gods?
This thinking is best demonstrated by the Christians I talk to, who establish that their God is the True God. How do they know? It says so in the Bible. But how do they know the Bible is reliable? God said so. This is the sort of circular reasoning which exists in most if not all religions, as, unless there has been some congress during the past few hours of which I was not informed where all of the major religions decided that, instead of them each knowing the Truth alone, decided they were all right and that only the one god exists, no other religion particularly claims another to have a better understanding of God than they. Why would they? But even if such a congress did occur, and every religion banded together and set out their Holy Laws as ordained by God, does that mean they're right?
No. For all the same reasons as exist now, they could still be wrong, in which case we could be in some trouble.
Before I move on, I should take care to address the point of the God I mentioned in my original post. I remember that I felt, writing it up, that the idea of this God was bigger than I was capable of properly explaining, and so my description was poor, clumsy. I do not think it was too big, but that my comprehension of it was not quite fully formed. My God, the God of Einstein, was described by Dawkins as a pantheistic god, but I do not entirely agree with this description. It implies too much activity, too great an identity; this God, after all, has no physical or metaphysical being. It was this idea which I was unable to convey, but which Dawkins kindly explained to me in a single word in one of his books: metaphor. When I speak of my God, I speak of a metaphor for the way the Universe works, the laws behind it, the cogs and wheels, if you will, of everything from the smallest subatomic particles to the grandest galaxies. That is my "God".
I know when I was discussing this one of friend, he criticised me for using that term, though certainly I am not the first to do so. He told me that the name God implies sentience, some being, theistic or deistic (his perception being the former), but nonetheless conscient and possessing all the powers of omniscience and omnipotence you would expect of a god. This is a fair comment, I think, but I humbly disagree; if one was to look at the heavens and merely contemplate the processes behind the entirety of existence, from those stars to the blades of grass under your feet, one would be so overtaken by awe that God would be the only term sufficient to describe this, the majesty of Existence.
With this said, I sometimes like to contemplate what it would be like if God in the more traditional sense did exist. Your classic omnipotent, omniscient body. I imagine myself at the gates of Heaven, not because this scenario necessitates them of course, but simply because it's a nice place to meet God, I think. I suppose this means I've died. All the better for living out the rest of eternity in endless expanses of clouds, I suppose. But enough of my rambling.
My first thought about God was what He would be like. It is not enough to simply assume benevolence; if I were God, I might be benevolent, but I might not. Who's to say what God might be like? He could, after all, be exceedingly temperamental. Having just written that, it occurs to me that most gods are to some degree, from the Gods of Olympus to Jehovah Himself. Irrespective, however, I realised that Creation would have been something of a work of art for Him, and what better way to learn the soul of the artist than by look at the art?
What do we have in this Universe of ours? Assuming he had humanity in mind, or at least some form of intelligent life, the Universe is extraordinarily old, much older than any single lifetime, so He must be awfully patient. The Universe also seems to operate according to a system of mathematical laws, so He must be a fairly logical god. Given He's gone to so much effort to create a system of laws to govern the Universe, it seems unlikely that he would want to intervene, and if he had humanity in mind, then he seems like a fairly emotionally stable God, and if he wanted us to be in His image, He'd probably want us to be the same. Now, assuming He's doing all of this for us, he must be a loving God, so I see no reason why He would create any sort of Hell for us; if anything, our tribulations in the Universe we know would be test enough. I think the existence of disease, for example, would merely be a side-effect of Creation and the laws he gave it, and his refusal to intervene an example of the fact that he wants us to learn to deal with suffering on our own, mature enough to accept Him in the afterlife. And of course, whether it ends in a crunch or a chill, for humanity, the Universe will eventually end, and so I imagine this certainty of death is another way of affirming his love. If there is an afterlife where everyone gets to be happy, what more supreme example of love is there than to grant entrance?
I think this God would particularly welcome atheists, for they would be the ones who looked at His Creation, rightly saw it was beautiful but did not see Him, and got on with their lives, rather than devoting their lives to worshipping some imaged version of Him who does not seem to be nearly so grand or level-headed. Here is a God to relate to.
It's a touching tale for someone like me, because it vindicates my beliefs and values. That's how religion gains followers, of course; it offers them acceptance, and peace of mind. But I have to remind myself, and in the beauty of such an image, it is not always easy, that this is not the case; that it is simply an imagining which I have created. A private fantasy, nothing more than baseless fiction. Even so, it makes more sense, I think, than weekly readings from a book written by people who approved of stoning others for minor crimes, faux pas, or simply for being different.
