Those of us who believe in God and who think that such a belief is the most important thing there is have a responsibility to make sure it is the right God we believe in. I mean by this that it is the highest and best representation of divinity to which we give our allegiance. Generally speaking, our belief in God will be modified and affected by certain ideas we might have about God. That is an inevitable outcome of how we as human beings are. At the moment, we are outside God so our sense of him will be to a large extent mentally bound. There may be certain occasions during which we experience something of the majesty and wonder of God but these pass and we are left with the memory which we then adorn with our own thoughts about it. These will necessarily reflect something of ourselves.
Atheism is one of the great evils of our time but it is clear there are two sorts of non-believers. There are those who don't care about God and who may be relieved there is no God because they can get on with their lives without being concerned with someone looking at them. They consider they have greater freedom now, that is to say, freedom to do what their ego wants. They actually have less freedom because true freedom can only be found in God as only he can release us from the constraints of the separated and alienated self.
But then there are those who react against antiquated notions of God. We have evolved intellectually over the last few centuries and some previously held ideas about God may have been outgrown. These people do need to explore a little more deeply and learn to separate divine reality from human notions about it. Nevertheless, it could be said in their favour that what they are rejecting is not God but false ideas about him. This is part of a growing process but it means they may now experience life as without meaning and as a consequence turn to spiritually harmful ways of behaviour. However, show them a God who can satisfy their doubts and they could well return to a more developed faith.
If you are an atheist, is it gladly or reluctantly? If the former, you are a true atheist and that is a problem which one day you will have to deal with. If the latter, then I would suggest you deepen your ideas about God. Many of the beliefs people have about him, both non-religious and religious people, are the reflection of their own minds and do not indicate anything about God as he truly is. God is a mystery beyond understanding of course but perhaps a way to approach him that does not do him an injustice is to think of him as the fundamental 'I' behind all consciousness, the root subject of the universe which reflects him in expression. This 'I' he then bestows on us as our own individual self. We are his children.
Then you must know that God is good. Good must be prior to evil because everything in itself is good. Evil can only mar the good by corrupting or attempting to destroy it in some way. You cannot destroy what has not already been created and you can only make bad things by deforming good things. Thus, the basic driving force in the universe is good.
These two facts about God tell us that the universe is founded on a person and that person is pure good. I don't say this can be proved as first principles are beyond intellectual proof which can only deal with the results of first principles. These just are. But taking them as base reality releases the mind from the cramped darkness of ignorance, opening it up to a spiritually expanded world of light and truth which in itself is a higher kind of proof.
Ultimately, a universe without God is meaningless. The, shall we call him, bad atheist either doesn't think about this or doesn't care. The good atheist does care and that is the potential cure for his ailment. He has rejected God because he seeks truth but the God he rejected was only a human one. If he persists in an honest search for truth, he will find the true God.
I found today's post brought me hope...always a good thing...
ReplyDeleteI used to be in the second camp my whole life as a spiritual seeker (reluctant atheist unable to accept the traditional conceptions of divinity, because, well, let's face it, often they are of a supernatural tyrant, to be obeyed -or else- whose behaviour is alien to my deepest intuitions about love, beauty and virtue and he is going to send my Hindu friends to hell for following the wrong God, and so, being told this by Christians many years ago rather put a wedge between me and the desire to believe in Christianity. Could a loving person respond otherwise? who cared about their friends from other religions or of the atheists you describe). I'm sorry to say that in the face of lifes trials and the inevitable onslaught of a world that denigrates and denies the reality nor value of God, I periodically even now have lapses of doubt and existential angst, in which I am trapped in my limited understanding of practically everything and experience the world as a veil of tears/suffering and indifferent to my existence or the wellbeing of my loved ones and family... surely it's hard not to feel like this from time to time, except for the saints perhaps? It feels like the last year has been especially brutal at a personal level that has left me feeling cast adrift in the Buddhist samsara, without any real sense of being loved and supported by a personal deity. Nevertheless, I refuse to let go of my wavering faith, I wish to follow Jesus refardless. But then somehow the mental clouds clear a bit and I can see the divine again a bit more clearly from afar. Usually, unsurprisingly in an encounter with nature or private reflection, a piece of music, etc. I repent my failure to achieve more but actually I find the attitude best to cultivate is humility and looking towards divinity like a child to an adult. The feeling I get is that a loving parent does not want a self-flagilating child (the hair shirts of history attest to this error of attitude in an attempt to align with the divine) but a trusting one who joyfully seeks to grow in independence, whilst always having a deep loving bond and remembers where home truely resides. It's easy though to suddenly find the thought upon you...what if it's all just a story you tell yourself to avoid the abyss of despair?! There is no 'proof' to alleviate that doubt only faith, hope and love.
David
David, when you say "a loving parent does not want a self-flagilating child but a trusting one who joyfully seeks to grow in independence, whilst always having a deep loving bond and remembers where home truely resides" I think you have it just right. The thing is God has to remove himself from us so we make the effort to get closer to him and therefore become more like him, something that could never happen if he was there holding our hands all the time. This also shows who really wants God and who doesn't. Only those who want him get him. It's a test of the heart.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to God's existence, I reject the premise that a dualistic answer can be given objectively. In that case, scientists would have discovered God. The context of the question is larger than a yes/no answer can provide. It is not something we can establish, but has been revealed from above. We must make a personal commitment. Atheism is not the neutral position.
ReplyDeleteModern thinking is based on the principle of opposites, resulting in the binary state of computer-electronics. This is materialism. Zen Buddhism provides a third answer - which is referred to as "wu" - and implies "no thing" or "unask the question". Spirituality unites and absolves opposites. When one realizes this, one is above the circus of "religion vs atheism". For there is no such thing. Religion is a given and the history of mankind is encoded in scripture. Fundamentalism is a product of modernity. So militant atheism in a sense fights its own creation, understandably. The heroic task would be to fix religion rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Man cannot live without narrative.
The atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel says that he "fears religion." He cannot deny that many intelligent people are believers, so he does not side with those who dismiss anyone who believes in God as stupid, and the fact that he cannot do this disturbs him. Why? Because, as he freely admits, he does not want there to be a God. He does not want the world "to be like that", as he says. He wonders whether it is possible to be neutral in examining the question of the existence of God, or whether one necessarily comes to the examination with a desire for a particular outcome. There is in us an echo of the original "non serviam." This original sin predisposes us to atheism. But should we yield to it, we soon find that the initial exhilaration of an imagined freedom has landed us in the narrowest of all prisons: a detention in a meaningless world while we await an execution that equals oblivion.
ReplyDeleteI always equate the initial exhilaration a person might feel on being "liberated" from God as the energy released when you break something open. But this energy is soon dissipated and you are left with a flat emptiness.
ReplyDeleteI was an atheist for roughly nine years, but if you ask me whether it was gladly or reluctantly, that's not so easy to answer. I believe I was able to accept the atheist worldview with equanimity, largely because of my belief (what I termed "antisolipsism") that at some level all selves were equally "I" and all times were equally "present." This robbed death of its sting; and so long as consciousness was in some way eternal, meaning was possible, and that was (and still is!) enough for me. I was never particularly happy about the non-existence of God -- a world with God or Gods would have been a better, richer one -- but I didn't lose any sleep over it.
ReplyDeleteWell, you introduce a third category then! More seriously, I was probably going for the extreme cases scenario here but weren't you brought up a believer? In that case, not believing might be a development to a new stage of belief.
ReplyDeleteYes, the energy of nuclear fission rather than the energy of nuclear fusion. A lot of things are like fission: the choice to divorce, the choice to embrace psychopathy, sexual depravity etc etc. Very interesting you noticed that. I experienced precisely that when I left my childhood religion in my early adulthood.
ReplyDeleteI first realised that when I thought about the effects of the '60s. First, freedom, colour etc then a feeling of emptiness and deflation which has to be constantly fought with new stimulation.
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