IS GOD IN CONTROL?

Some of the great saints who have influenced me most were sustained by an unshakeable faith that, no matter how bad things might look, all is going “according to God’s Plan.”  It’s easy to see how comforting this belief is, especially in the face of the horrors that face us.

But for me, the horrors are inexcusable—if we assume that God is capable of making things better than they are.  An all-powerful, all-knowing AND good God should be able to do better than this!  I remember talking to a Jewish lady at a scientific conference and I asked her if she was a practicing Jew and she said “No I am not. The holocaust was a betrayal.”

 

The bitterness of her statement comes from the idea, the hope, that God will do better, especially for God’s own peope!  The fact that God does not intervene in the horrors of this world is the single most painful and reasonable reason to believe that God does not exist at all.  I reject this—the evidence for the Holy is too strong for me—but then why is it so bad? Even if you argue that much of the evil we experience is due to human evil (war, exploitation, genocide), which we bring on ourselves and thus presumably “deserve” (call it original sin), what about the horrors of simple existence in this particular world? Earthquakes, cancer, the terrible waste and suffering of life in nature.

Am I myself bitter? You bet.  Raised to believe in an all-powerful loving God, much of my belief system now has been impacted by watching the three most important women in my life—my mother and two wives—all die slow and horrible deaths: cancer, bipolar disorder/suicide, and dementia.  All blind, hideous, random, undeserved.  I cannot forgive God for this.

    

However! If God is good (and I still believe in a good God), then there are two logical possibilities: either God is unable to intervene in the course of nature, or if able, unwilling.  The latter case suggests maybe some deeper good exists in God’s plan?  See the Biblical book of Job!  I have wondered if there might be some sort of metaphysical reason God doesn’t or can’t intervene.  Maybe there is something to do with free will!  Maybe a universe in which free will is possible is a universe in which God cannot intervene? An interesting idea but not very meaningful.  It really doesn’t matter whether God cannot or will not  intervene, does it?  The result is the same, a cruel existence in which kindness, generosity, love gleam faintly in the darkness.

Kindness, generosity, love—these are the evidence that there is a God. Not a God for whom we must be obedient children, but a still, small voice that keeps us from being animals.  We must listen to that voice and be adults, and try not to be the cause of suffering beyond that which we must endure from nature.  We are on our own.  A terrible burden, to be sure.  It's hard to be optimistic about humanity's ability to make it better.  I believe it is up to us, though.  What's more I believe we are capable of doing much more than we have accomplished so far.  

LIFE AFTER DEATH

LIFE AFTER DEATH

I hate to say it (I really do) but we simply don’t know.  To say there is, or to say there isn’t, are both assertions for which there is very little evidence.  If you exclude religious mythology (the golden palaces of heaven and burning lake of hell of Christianity, for example), and don’t believe in ghosts, what remains to suggest that life goes on,  maybe in some spiritual form?  

For me, there is only one, rather faint, hint: I have known some individuals whose soul was so great, their personalities so indomitable, it seems hard to imagine that mere death could have put a stop to them!  Christians refer to a “cloud of witnesses,” the saints, who live on. Having known and mourned some saints it is attractive to imagine their spirit lives on.  Attractive, but certainly wishful thinking.  “Wishful” isn’t necessarily wrong! But a certain healthy skepticism here isn’t a bad idea either.

So: I hope to be pleasantly surprised if I “cross the river” and discover there is a happy land on the other side—or that somehow I get to stay conscious, at least. I would miss awareness!

However, there is a definite downside to a too-certain belief in a blissful eternity (and maybe a hell for those we disagree with?): it leads to a certain detachment and disengagement from this world, and at worst leads to a violent religious extremism that sees little value in this life and, abominably, the lives of others.

So--to sum up: allow for the possibility that there is something beyond death, but don’t count on it! Iive your life as if this is all you will get. And be a good steward of your time . 

The Project: Myths, Reality and Behavior

The project here is to look at some common beliefs or myths, (remembering that we do not necessarily mean “untrue” when we say “myth”) and try to determine what their connection with reality, if any, might be.  Why do this? Because if we believe something is real then we will behave accordingly.  If we believe monsters live under the bed we will miss a lot of sleep.  If we believe angels are hovering nearby and one has been assigned to look after us, we might be a little more careless. If you believe in ghosts and believe they can do you harm then you will likely avoid cemeteries. More seriously, If I imagine, for instance, that I will live beyond the grave, this belief has consequences, as I will discuss below.

If we have a belief that is false, or at least appears to have no basis, we may act mistakenly as a consequence. The reverse is also true!  If we disbelieve a truth we also may act mistakenly.

If a false belief (or disbelief!) is very widely held by humankind, then humankind as a whole may be acting mistakenly.  Are we, child-like, clinging to fantasies that, Iike Santa Claus, are beloved but unreal? Are we doing ourselves harm by doing so? Adult fantasies can go much deeper than Santa, to the very core of our fears and hopes.  To abandon them  would be infinitely more painful and grievous then learning there is no Santa. But is that what it will take for us to be adults?

So let's look at some widely held beliefs and disbeliefs. We will try to understand their origins.  We will ask ourselves if they are true or false--or something in between, or maybe we simply can’t know.  If we conclude that a belief or disbelief is false, or at least unproven we will ask ourselves: is this belief harmful? In particular, if widely held, does this belief get in the way of mankind taking responsibility for our future?