Yes, this is Darkmatters, and yes, your eyes don't deceive you. I'm starting a thread about God that isn't atheist in nature.
I guess it's high time I put on my agnostic shoes and hit the dance floor.
I wasn't always atheist - though I can't say I was ever strongly religious or anything. In fact I don't think I can say I ever truly believed, but when I was young I did attend church for a while and I read some tracts by a medieval Christian scholar - I think it was Martin Luther (in fact the church I attended was Lutheran, though I didn't and still don't really know what the Lutheran denomination's particular beliefs are). Or did I read Thomas Aquinas? It may well have been both actually - and this reading was not in relation to the churchgoing - it was many years later when I was in college I believe, looking for stuff to read to fill the hours in between classes as I sat in the library.
My parents were both atheists and my sister and I knew that, but there was never really any talk about it at home - no reason to, since none of the family friends were religious, or if they were they didn't make it an issue. When we were young, I was probably 7 or 8, they sent us to the closest church, just up the street, for Sunday School, which was for kids, with the understanding that it wasn't to make us become Christians, but only so we could understand religion to some extent in order to make our own choices rather than be forced into any. And at that point they did tell us they were both atheist and what that means, in order to balance things out.
So I went with a completely open child's mind, sort of like I was auditing a class to decide if I wanted to sign up or not. I never considered myself a Christian, but I did listen and I remember thinking about God and Christian concepts a good deal as a youngster. Sort of trying it on for size.
I had a fairly sophisticated (I think, especially for a child) concept of what God must be, which is doubtless completely at odds with the concepts of God I used to argue against when I first arrived here 4 years ago after coming off several Carl Sagan books and later reading some Dawkins - not on religion but strictly to gain a better understanding of evolutionary biology, though of course it was Dawkins - he can't NOT say anything about religion, and he can't be anything but an asshole about it. And after several courses of Sagan, Dawkins fed into it and moved me to strong atheism. In fact for a while I was a very strong atheist and believed it was our duty to destroy organized religion and to try to change the minds of religious folk.
I've softened on that stance since then (though occasionally I do find myself espousing strong atheist beliefs and ideals). Now I'm an agnostic atheist - I don't believe there's any way we can possibly know anything about God(s) (unless (t)He(y) decide(s) to make their (damn - can't make it work with that word! ) presence known, in which case we would know unequivocally.
I always thought of God not as a He, because gender is something that only really applies to animals or plants - things with physical bodies that need to reproduce sexually. And even though God did the Nasty with Mary, she was a virgin, after as well as before, right? So it wasn't really Nasty in that sense - it was a truly immaculate conception. Ok, just having a little fun with that last part, but I really didn't see why an omnipotent, omniscient, disembodied divine being could in any meaningful way be considered to have a gender. I always assumed the Hebrews considered him male because he was the supreme ruler - of COURSE that would need to be a male in that part of the world at that time, right? Pretty well goes without saying.
Also, already being educated (at a very grade-school level of course) in Evolution and the Big Bang Theory, I considered the biblical stories to be intended strictly metaphorically. In fact it seemed to me, when I heard people who seemed to take them literally, that that downgraded the ideas considerably.
I also understood him to be everywhere at all times, so I didn't understand why it was necessary to pray to him, as if he isn't already aware of your every thought probably even before you are. I considered the formalization of prayer to be just a way to concentrate on your thoughts better, probably mostly in order to help you solve your own problems rather than because he has trouble hearing you unless you shout - metaphorically speaking of course.
I also never believed that people were supposed to pray for favors or to ask for material possessions or things like that, I thought the only thing that made sense really - considering the nature of God as I understood it - was to pray for greater understanding or strength (emotional, not physical) or for the ability to cope with your problems rather than for the problems to be solved for you through external agency. So I definitely believed "God helps those who help themselves".
So I saw God as pretty much a spirit that was suffused through everything all at once, not centered in some mystical Heaven up in the sky, but in between all the subatomic particles - in fact I had heard something to the effect that he should be thought of as some kind of musical note or vibration that came into existence before the rest of the universe did, or simultaneous with it, and that serves as a primal vibration - sort of the energy that all matter is made from or something.
I saw good and evil as choices people make, not external forces that try to take over people. And I always thought God somehow was our conscience, and that as long as we 'listen' to it rather than to the metaphorical 'devil' on the the shoulder then we'd be a lot more likely to make the right choices, or at least to make our choices for the right reasons, not that that means things will always work out.
It's been a long time since I've thought about any of this stuff. But I find that when I start to think in this way I slip right back into the same mode of thought - which is very different from the mode of thought I picked up from Sagan and Dawkins. I can also easily slip back into that mode whenever I start thinking about Science and Reason. It's weird how that works - I don't think I can hold both sides simultaneously - I'm either in one mode or the other. That's something I'd like to examine more. But after making a thread directed against religious thinking tonight (loosely, though I never specifically stated that in the title or the OP) and another one asking if atheists should pull their punches when debating with theists in order to not make them lose their faith, I found myself thinking like I used to again, back when I believed in God.
And here's what I thought tonight.
You know, if I were God, and if I had created human beings with Free Will so they could choose between Good and Evil, there's no way I would make them believe in me. What would the point be? If God did make us with free will, then it would be so some of us choose faith. I also wouldn't ensure that the Bible was written in such a way as to reveal actual factual scientific understanding about the nature of the universe, the course of life on earth, and etc (which would be very strong evidence that God does exist and that the Bible was divinely inspired) - because it's about faith.
Oh, and probably goes without saying, but I don't believe in Hell or the Devil. I don't recall any particular beliefs about an Afterlife, but thinking about it now, it seems like simply believing there's an afterlife that's blissful would make people feel good right up until the end, which would tend to dissipate existential dread (the wages of atheism).
And when I think like this, I feel like faith is a beautiful thing. Especially if it's not coupled with a literal belief in the Bible stories, and if you believe that people are ultimately responsible for their own actions.
I also think we lost something precious when we lost the reverence for God that powered so much amazing artwork in Medieval and Renaissance times. Sometimes looking at some of those statues and paintings and cathedrals I find myself filling with a powerful sense of - something. Not sure what to call it. It's what religious people would call ecstasy I suppose. And yes, I get something very similar from the splendors of nature and the universe, but there's a basic difference. When it's religious in nature, or I should probably say spiritual - there's a sense of being filled with an overflowing force of goodness that flows through the entirety of the universe and fills all other people as well. Ok, no particular religion is necessary for this feeling - it's spiritual. And actually, thinking about it more, I do actually get the same sense of being filled with this force just from the splendor of nature, as long as I'm thinking in terms of the connectedness of everything
I need to spend more time thinking like this. I like it.
How about you?
How do you conceive of God? Preferably those who have also belonged to other belief systems at times - atheist, agnostic, another religion, or maybe another denomination - you know, so you have some perspective on the subject rather than just repeating what you were told in your church. And please, I don't want this thread to be filled with Chapter and Verse or repetitions of the most familiar and well-known ideas about God.
Also, what are your thoughts on switching between modes of thought like this? Either between religion and atheism, or maybe between different religions. I think its an amazing exercise for people to switch sides and each argue for the opposing side. Especially when they really get into the spirit of it and don't just espouse the straw man arguments, but really get into character like a method actor, really search your mind and your heart for answers that feel right to you.
Try it - honestly, if you're religious, I ask you in all seriousness to write something from the perspective of an atheist (or vise versa), and try to really do it justice. See if you can find it inside you and be truthful. It probably gets even better if you do it for some time - a few days would be better than just ten minutes. I think it's amazing in terms of developing your self.
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