I suppose my science teacher would be gratified to know that a class discussion has prompted in me some sort of crisis of faith, but I suppose really that this has been brewing for sometime now, my whole life at least if not millenia. I am either going mad or coming into my birthright--preaching runs in the family. I am a lapsed Quaker agnostic limping towards God.
In science class we had been talking about science versus religion, reading the words of great atheist thinkers and attempting to explain how morality evolved. It was an interesting discussion with opinions coming in on both sides, but, this being Boulder, most coming out in favor of science over religion, religious sentiment dismissed by these great atheist thinkers as an archaism, some quaint practice indulged in by the uneducated or the weak. Religion is, in the opinion of these many, something that flies in the face of rational thought, with the most convincing proof of God's existence expressed as "I DO believe in God! I DO! I DO! Therefore God exists." The pettiness of it all infuriates me. How can these great atheist thinkers win any supporters when they all seem to operate under the assumption that those opposing them are stupid? Religion will not accept science until science makes some concessions towards accepting religion--not by backing down on well-supported theories but by losing the dismissive attitude. It is unnecessarily reductive, divisive, combative, and impolite.
Finding myself siding with religion is an unusual experience for me--my mother is a devout atheist and I was raised without religion, apart from a brief period when I attended Quaker meeting, meditating every week on the importance of brotherly love. I experimented with Christianity, dabbled in Wicca, and expressed an interest in Buddhism before deciding to remain undecided. And so I did remain, content with stumbling blindly, waiting for a revelation, a fit of epilepsy, a vision of the Virgin Mary.
Even as an agnostic I have been faithful in my observances, consistently leaving offerings at a neighborhood shrine, keeping a painting of Saint Cecelia nearby, offering up the occasional prayer. I doubt it does much good--it certainly hasn't got me much-- and I have found no world peace, no cures for illness, no faithful lover. It remains difficult to reconcile the existence of God with the manifest truth of human suffering. "If you are feeling sinister, go off and see a minister/But chances are you'd probably feel better if you stayed and played with yourself." I suppose it's true--religion has never done anything for sexual frustration. But prayer and ritual offer me something like peace, and something like hope, too, when the greatest of my sorrows are illness and unrequited love, and the greatest revelation the collarbone of someone who loves me.
So I'm praying now, praying for my aunt through her cancer, for my brother through whatever he may face, for my grandmother who always wished that I would pray, for the light through the leaves, for the holiest sinner I know, who tried to explain through insomnia and madness that God is love and we need only know why.
I am praying, but I don't know what I am praying to.
Posted by if you're feeling sinister on August 26, 2008 9:12 PM
18 comments:
Just for the record, I believe in God because by doing so, by surrendering my pain and worries, heartbreak and fears, to someone that I know will take care of them better than I could, has opened my life to joy, goodness and light. Its not a blind thing--I of all people do not believe in actions without substance. It is a conscious, firm, liberating choice that has in FACT, given me MY life back.
I feel like some people will use God as an excuse not to deal with their own problems, and I understand that there are definitely problems bigger than the self, but I don't think God should be the outlet for issues we don't have the heart to deal with ourselves. To the op, I would say look to those a little closer to home before relying on God; you may find that having people who exist are a little better at giving help.
Anon. 1, thank you.
Anon. 2, I can only reassure you that God is something most people turn to when all, absolutely all, earthly possibilities have been explored.
I do somewhat resent your statement about "people who exist." I just saw a bumper sticker that said "I am a militant agnostic. I don't know AND YOU DON'T EITHER."
But it is ultimately your own choice and I will support you in whatever course you pursue.
I suppose I need to qualify my remarks somewhat.
Anon2, I am not trying to shirk my earthly responsibilities by placing it all on God. Prayer is a last resort, something I can do when I can do nothing else. I cannot give my aunt any better medical care than she is receiving. I don't have the means or ability to be by her side now. But since she is a mildly religious woman I know that the best comfort I can offer her is through prayer. It is something she believes in and something that can give her great comfort, and therefore something that I know I can give her when I know I can give her nothing else. That is what I mean by prayer. I am not forsaking earthly aid for the ethereal, nor am I expecting divine intervention in my own problems. I am merely relying on the comforts of prayer and meditation in order to help me help myself.
I suppose what I have found is not so much the existence of God (I still don't know about that) but rather the benefit of meditation (something clinically tested--look it up). I still don't believe it is possible to know absolutely whether or not God exists--there are equally few proofs against the existence of God as there are in favor of it. But if atheism is the system that makes the most sense to you, then I applaud you for having worked it out. I have worked things out in my own way and you have worked things out in yours.
Anon 2...
I recognize your atheism, and here's what I would say to you. If you think that God is far away, or detached, or unreachable, then you haven't actually looked. And in my opinion, how can you tell if something is there or not if you haven't checked to see if they're there?
Also, some people DO use God as an excuse. But not all of them by any means. I suggest a survey...apparently data never lies.
Anonymous 2-- I don't know what kind of ignorant atheist you are but the majority of people don't turn to God to ignore their problems. People look to God to help them work through the uncertainties of life.
There aren't a whole lot of options in terms of solving issues such as life or death. People are scared of the uncertainty and finality of death and it is very hard for the human mind to grasp such a vast concept and decide that death happens and the soul dies along with the body. Will your parents be there tomorrow? You probably either said "most likely" or "maybe" because it is so hard to not have the people that have been there for as long as you can remember not in your life.
Your being is all that you can prove to yourself to be real in this world. You may speak to and hear others speaking but do you know that they are as real and as human as you are? You may feel the earth and the man-made structures that now fill it but how do you know that they are not just an illusion?
Do you have to have more faith to believe the idea that there is some cosmic being (God) that somehow creates or controls such unfathomable things such as the soul, birth, and death or that there was a "Big Bang" that created matter which evolved into everything else?
Whether you call it a scientific phenomenon or a cosmic being, they are awfully similar concepts. Now obviously the concept of God differs from the beliefs promoted by organized religion to individual spiritual beliefs but it often comes down to a similar search for the belief in something that led ironically to the mental and spiritual depth that leads us to ask.
So, whatever you believe in, whether no God, one God, many Gods, or something entirely different, is it really so outrageous that someone believes something else if they are only trying to have something solid to believe in and give their life some purpose?
We must all maintain an open mind and not just hear but really listen to and understand what people say about their beliefs. And support each other because it is hard enough to face these dilemnas on our own.
anon 1, anon 2 doesn't think God is detached. they think he doesn't exist and thus that there is no use in looking. I agree with anon 2 in that it is important to stick to reality in solving problems. People's trust in God has led to so many problems including wars and genocides. I have nothing against people who believe in God as a way of making some sense of life, but those who think there is someone out there who will give them answers need to consider the consequences of following the advice from someone that appears to have let so many bad things happen. I would agree that looking to those in front of you will probably be more helpful.
I repeat--I'm not looking for answers or divine intervention or anything like that. I'm just praying because it organizes my thoughts.
For the purpose of debate, I'm going to ask something: Would you really want God to interfere? I think one of the most precious things he could have given us is free will, the ability to make choices for ourselves. Maybe we make the wrong choices (oh hell do we make the wrong choices), but there is no purpose in having an easy life if we didn't know why we had an easy life. God doesn't make food grow. God doesn't end war and genocide. We do. And doing so gives those actions meaning. What God does do is give support, give personal peace, and maybe nudge us in the right direction. (Bullshit, you say. I say: have you ever meditated? Not prayed in the "I'd really like a million bucks now, thanks," but in the way where you ask yourself who you are, and how you can help other people.)
Not to sound like a martyr, but choices and suffering are what makes us human. Heaven comes later.
It is possibly to be supported by God without hiding in God.
Honestly, I feel that we all pray in our own, way, we all worship something we feel is greater than us. It's a condition that we all have. Some of us pray to a bottle, while some of us pray to a name, and some of us pray to an idea, but we all pray. A crisis of faith isn't so much faith gained or lost, just changed or realigned, or so I see it. On notes of faith, have you seen the movie yet? If not, I chastise you.
I just can't imagine this "all-loving" God that Christians believe in would possibly let the horrible things that happen occur. I've never seen any sign of some higher being, or needed anything to pray to to accomplish my goals, and as far as I can tell, I'm a pretty happy person who just can't understand how people can believe in someome that just doesn't seem to be there.
No sorry not yet but I will! I promise! and I'll mail it to you when I'm done...yes?
OK, so here's what annoys me about the whole God v. No God argument: both sides get so worked up that they never present convincing arguments. And even if one side manages to come up with a good one, the other side rarely even makes an effort to understand. Its something akin to two people plugging their ears and screaming at each other. No matter how loudly you scream, the other person will not hear you. So unless you find people who actually want to understand each other's views, the whole debate is pointless. So unless both sides can get over themselves, stop trying to prove the other wrong and understand one another, its not worth it. Food for thought, my friends: if people all over the world would get over the God argument and find the similarities between philosophies and not the differences, the world be a much happier place. Try to accept that other people's thoughts have value too.
"People's trust in God has led to so many problems including wars and genocides"
Frankly, unless someone was severely delusional I don't think people's trust in God leads to problems. I think that people sometimes use God as an excuse to create their own problems.
op said...
crisis of faith...lapsed Quaker agnostic limping towards God...stumbling blindly, waiting for a revelation, a fit of epilepsy, a vision of the Virgin Mary
and op said in a comment...
I repeat--I'm not looking for answers or divine intervention or anything like that. I'm just praying because it organizes my thoughts.
was this the same person??
I suppose you could argue otherwise, given that when I wrote the original post I was rather bleary with ibuprofen, an unfortunate overabundance of hormones, and lack of sleep. I've since backed off a little from the religiosity of the first post (as evidenced by my comments). All of my opinions are in a pretty much constant state of flux, hence the "stumbling blindly" remark.
I agree with anon 7. People who are taught to believe something from birth are very unlikely to change their minds just because of and argument with someone of different beliefs. We can do little to change others beliefs and why should we. We don't want our beliefs changed. Let others find comfort in their religions/lack-there-of and try to understand them, becuase sttacking them will only lead to problems. It's not any god who causes human wars, it's people who won't accept the fact that others don't believe in the same god.
ibuprofen doesn't make you bleary
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