Category: Faith and Wisdom (Page 3 of 6)

We sit in our room blind, attempting to divine the dimensions by bouncing bowling balls off its narrow confines.

There are tons of people out here on the internet writing about their beliefs or beliefs in non-beliefs. There are a million and one smug self congratulatory posts titled thusly, "Why I became an Atheist" "Why Christianity Sucks" "Why believe in something I can’t see, taste, touch, or smell have no direct evidence of is totally silly and you’re all morons for even considering it." I can just see the smug little faces. Go ahead and read this www.godisimaginary.com There’s lots of great stuff there… all of it true. You heard that right, it’s all true. God is imaginary. It is a concept that exists in our imagination. God is a word that exists on paper and in our mouths.

If God is just a word, why capitalize it then? Let’s start there, shall we? Why capitalize the word God? If I don’t, have I blasphemed? Will He/She (there I go again) be offended?

There is a short answer to it all, but I’m not going to give it up so easily. The short answer encompasses all of the rhetoric, the atheists, the religious-ists, the believers, the followers, and the reverent. Perhaps all but the reverent will be offended in some way.

The atheist will retort, how dare you say, sir, that I believe in something which is patently false!

The religious-ist will decry, you are a blasphemer, you malign my faith, a rich tradition with a long history. How dare you!

The believer will say, come child, let me show you the WAY. You are lost and must accept Jesus as your personal savior, or ye shall rot in the fiery torment of hell. God bless you.

The follower will ignore me and continue on his way, busying himself with his good-hearted folly.

The reverent, however, will smile a deep smile and ask, "What did you mean by that?"

And it is there within the question, among all things, that we begin.

Why are we here? Were we created by an intelligence or did we just happen to be. Is our existence wholly a happenstance, contemplated by us only because we happen to exist in it?

"Why are we here" – and deeper, "what is life" are two questions that have no answers. I’m afraid everything you’ve heard up to now is a lie or wrong, or both. We do not know what life is. We do not know why we are here. Maybe there is no reason. Maybe life is a gift from an unknown hand. Maybe it’s just a gift.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I always say.

Maybe life is an opportunity to explore existence. Yes, yes that is it. Life is an opportunity to explore existence, because without it, how could we possibly explore? Life seems pretty essential to exploration if you ask me.

To presume to know is the ultimate sacrilege, the ultimate sin against the cosmos. Scientists, who in their purest form are the most reverent among us, will say we ultimately know nothing, that what we don’t know even about gravity would fill a thousand million libraries. Gravity is something with which we are familiar, but it may as well be magic for all we understand of it. Think about it. Two objects always exert an invisible force on each other. Why? Why the hell is that the case? Well, it just is, you say, and take smug refuge in your equations and mathematical proofs:

          m1 m2
Fgrav = G -------
          d^2
  

But why? That mass one and mass two are attracted at all by an unseen force is, to me, mind boggling. You speak to me again of strong forces and weak forces and atomic forces and quarks and matter and anti-matter and particle accelerators. Like a Jehovah’s Witness you pull out scientific journals and research that "proves" you know more than I do, that you know the "Truth."

But really, truly, you do not know the first thing about anything. It is all imaginary.

Well, you say, I guess you’re right. I don’t know why yet, but we have a good idea how to use it. It yields useful results and allows us to navigate the stars and harness its force to keep buildings from collapsing.

There, there, there, I say, right there! You got it, man. You got it. It is how we use it, not what we have or whether or not we ultimately understand everything or even one thing, but how we use a thing.

Do we care about our gift? Do we challenge it? Do we take refuge in certainty or fly from it out amongst those that would work without a net?

So I say to you, you religion fetishists (that includes you too atheists), you know nothing, yet you presume to know fundamental truths. Shame on you for your lack of reverence. Reverence for the Truth, whatever it ultimately turns out to be is the essence of God. Here’s another equation for you.

Ttruth = TGod

Equal they are, the same thing. In the end, they cancel out and are irrelevant though. What you call a thing is just as good as anything else as long as you are reverent, because God is but a word, a concept of something the encompasses all of existence. Our understanding of existence is pitiful, so is our understanding of God (or whatever word you use to describe the everything of existence, the I Am, the All, Creation). In the end, though, they are just words.

So stop fighting over them, okay?

I don’t know why I seem to get the word "sin" under my skin. I guess it comes from seeing it misused so frequently. "Sin" is something bad. Religions tell you to stay away from it. Don’t drink, don’t fornicate, don’t do drugs and don’t use the Lord’s name in vain. Those are sins and they are bad. If you do them, then you are bad too. Don’t be bad. God hates bad people. If you are good, he will love you.

There are others for whom "sin" has become so tied to orthodoxy as to become meaningless. What do I care for this "Sin" of which you speak from your fundamental superstitious little perch? Your sin has no meaning to me. And of "sin" in its general sense? Well, let’s just live and let life shall we? Good – bad… it’s all relative. To each his own.

As usual, my personal opinion differs greatly from either of these viewpoints. Consider the following questioning of some omnipotent sort, someone to whom we look when we are unsure if what we have done is okay. Call it an inner voice, some sort of reverberation, a kind of internal therapist.

Us: Lord, have I loved enough?

Him: Why don’t you wish to love more?

Us: Oh dear God, have I been patient enough?

Him: Why don’t you wish to be more patient?

Us: Am I forgiven?

Him: Will you let yourself be?

Us: Did I do the right thing?

Him: Why do you think you’ve done the wrong thing?

I imagine it’s sort of like this therapy session. We ask those questions, but we really know the Truth. We can never love enough, we will never be patient enough, will never be able to completely accept forgiveness, and if we wonder if we’ve done the right thing, we probably haven’t.

So, "Sin" that thing that seems discrete, quantized, measurable – isn’t. It is immeasurable, a fabric stretching through all time and space in every direction. It is a condition of our very existence.

There is no such thing as "good enough." You will never be impeccable. You will never reach your potential. You will never fulfill your perfect design.

Everything short of that is, my friends, sin. Welcome to the club with an extremely inclusive membership.

Well, mostly they are necessary because I consider myself one. With that said, there is some truth to this though.

Where did we get this idea that complaining never helped anything? Where did we get the idea that those who talk ill of the establishment rather than "Be quiet and suck it up" or "Make it work" or "Be a team player" are somehow miscreants and to be shunned?

Did you ever stop to ask yourself how all movements for change begin? Did you ever wonder how a society, organization, or government changes direction?

It starts with the complainers.

It starts with people who won’t be quiet in their discomfort. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a complainer. Thomas Jefferson was a complainer. Abolitionists were complainers. The fourth branch of government, the news media, is a big fat loud whiner. Everybody who has ever resisted the status quo is a whiner and a complainer.

We need whiners and complainers. They save lives.

Let’s not undervalue our complainers and whiners. Without them/us you’d all think you were happy until it was too late.

Biological and language variations are constants of the human condition. As we walk this earth and congregate, language tends to change and evolve at the same time it holds onto pieces at its core. Language becomes a venue ripe for misunderstandings. In our complicated and segregated modern life, it is easy to live in a city with 7 million people, speak the same language and yet not understand our neighbor. There is an ever growing need to pay attention to the variations in language styles. The economy of speech creeps in to facilitate conversation between parties that share common experiences. Whether we are hanging out on the corner, working in a deli, or at a physics lab, we each easily dominate many language styles. Our days are full of examples of heteroglossia, and yet strangers meet and think they understand each other. Inevitably though, there is a "you people!" and "but you said!" Our expressions vary and our differences seem insurmountable.

I believe a handy translation would save us from unnecessary strife and aggression.

1. Christian-speak: God has a plan for your life.

   Science-speak translation: Your unique set of circumstances including DNA, talents, upbringing, and environment, have the possibility of an optimal outcome. It is up to you to figure out for which optimal lifepath you are suited. All others are suboptimal although not necessarily wrong.

2. Christian-speak: Accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

   Science-speak translation: The cosmos or universe or some first-cause event has yielded a sequence of steps all of which have lead to your existence. We don’t care why, it is irrelevant for the purposes of this problem set. What we do know is that all your ancestors, all past life has lead up to you since the beginning of time. Does that humble you in any way? Great! Now you need to open yourself and listen. Read #3 for further explanation.

3. Christian-speak: Jesus died for your sins.

   Science-speak translation: I’m just saying, don’t let imprecision or uncertainty get in the way of
   living. Rather than scrape and claw at the multitudes of things that go
   wrong, are imprecise, or flawed in some way, just try to make what you
   have better. Make sure your general tendency is toward justice. It’s a
   sort of asymptotic function whose limit is perfection. Rather than
   focus on the impeccable (from the Latin, meaning without sin), just go
   ahead and round to a reasonable figure based on the task at hand.

   Look, we live in a world where there is no perfection. That is, like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, you can measure a particle’s momentum or position but the more precise you are about one, the less you know about the other. Life’s not perfect, get over it. You deal with what you have. So, with that said, imperfection is your natural state of being and death will come to you. Those are our boundary conditions. They contain the meat of the problem at hand, which is: How do you live the intervening space time.

   What about the rest? Well, the Prof said not to worry about them, because they don’t matter.

More translations to come, as I think of them. Perhaps a science-speak translation would be in order too, I dunno.

Yeah, you heard me right. Oh sure, Picard and his lot are all: "Some people believe in a higher power, but we here in the 24th century believe in the power of our human compassion, will, and nobility."

Bah! I say to you, Jean-Luc Picard. Bah! I say to you, Gene Roddenberry. Bah! I say to you, Rick Berman.

Two words: Prime Directive.

If that’s not belief in God, I don’t know what is. And it’s not just any God, but a Puritanical micromanaging control freak who’s already decided everything that will ever be decided.

Who came up with that Prime Directive shit anyway? Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t help you because it might affect some future event in a way such that it will not transpire in the natural (read: pre-destined) fashion. WTF? Is the future Federation a bunch of cowering Calvinists with their pre-destination crap?

I mean, really people, how did this escape unanswered for so long? Star Trek fans will go long and hard for the Prime Directive, that it’s somehow pure, clean, unencumbered by our messy superstitions, organized religion, God.

Look how advanced we are in the future, they say. That future is something for which to strive.

I suppose we look to that Prime Directive as some sort of ideal simply because we’ve seen how self-interested intervention in the affairs of other nations has ripped them apart and fomented so much suffering. The twentieth century, for example, is littered with meddling gone bad. Vietnam, possibly the crucible in which the Prime Directive was formed, is perhaps the best reason for its creation.

Then there’s the model of Switzerland, the model of, "Well, if you were meant to live, you will live. If you were meant to die, you will die. I cannot interfere." This Prime Directive of neutrality has somehow been held up as the ideal of behavior. We hold inaction as the highest morality. Do nothing, speak nothing, hear nothing, and all will cruise along at His will.

Don’t you see how loony it all is, you bunch of superstitious Calvinist freaks? We were not put here to play our parts in God’s little Broadway production, thank you very much. We were put here for, and only for, to live, to choose, to learn, and to love.

The noblest of all possible courses of action is not to withdraw, back away, and let it all transpire by some unseen hand. No, our best hope is to act in the best way that we know how with the information we have at moment. If a stranger needs a hand, we help him and damn the supposed later consequences. We don’t know much, and we can’t rely on God to push it all along like some divine universal machine.

Life is messy. We make choices. We make mistakes. We fail. We succeed.

What sort of world or universe would accept us into its cradle where we impacted nothing, did nothing, took no stock of our surroundings, and did not act as if we were the masters of our destiny.

No, Star Trek people, the Prime Directive is NOT good and noble. The Prime Directive is at best a "Hope for good but do not interfere" and at worst, a retreat from the universe of flesh and blood.

You may as well have not existed.

Back in 1995, Laura and I were preparing to head to Spain, she for her doctoral research, me because I wanted to tag along. It was a period of uncertainty and I toyed with the idea of staying behind. I put out my resume and started a job hunt for something that paid well. I got a bite from a publishing company called Nano-thinc (IIRC) to be their web editor.

Things started out normally enough. They had an office on Geary Street right off the bay in San Francisco. Pleasantries were exchanged all around. I was to be interviewed by the owner, a large, loud, and agitated man. He had passion and he believed in something. It was clear. But what? I asked them about their company, what they did, what was their vision etc.

"We at Nano-thinc want to become the ZiffDavis publishing empire of nanotechnology (remember, this is 1995). We think that in 5 years nanotechnology will eliminate death, and as a side effect, all religion."

"Okay," I said, blinking. Did I miss the "Beware: Here Be Cult" sign on the way in? Well let’s have a little fun with this, hell what have I got to lose?

"So, you think think that eliminating death will destroy religion? Why the grudge against religion?"

"Religion is responsible for all the worlds ills. It has killed millions, caused untold despair. If we didn’t die, we wouldn’t need it any more." His tirade had gotten to a fever pitch. He liked talking about this, I thought, so I decided to give him a run for his money.

"But it’s not religion that causes hate and despair, it’s humanity’s inherent smallness and fear that brings that on. Let me ask you something: If you eliminate natural death from old age, disease, sickness, then what are you left with? Unnatural death? People will still die. It’s just that now, it’s going to be murder, accident, decapitation, whatever. As you increase lifespan, and eliminate natural death, you are only left with the assurance that when you go, and you WILL go, that it’s gonna be ugly."

"Yes, but," he blustered, "People won’t fear death any more, and as such they won’t need superstitions like religion. We will control everything and religion won’t be necessary any more."

I replied, "That’s assuming religion exists because of death – a logical fallacy. I think it exists because of life. So you live for 2000 years. What are you going to do with yourself? How are you going to live? We can barely eek out 75 years as it is, without getting bored, falling into despair, self destructive behavior, selfishness. You have to ask yourself, why do you want MORE life? What are you doing with this one? Religion attempts to answer these questions by helping us come up with a framework of service to our fellows. I grant that religion goes astray by claims that it SOLVES the riddle, but by and large it’s our petty fears that trip us up. It’s life that trips us up. Give us more, and we will cling to it with even more fervor, only to find that it ends just the same. Give us the illusion of longevity and we will spend our lives consumed with inaction and self-indulgence. Religion doesn’t help us with death, death is inevitable. Religion helps us with life. Nanotechnology will inevitably lead to a greater belief in God/presence/creator/something greater than ourselves."

"Well, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree," he blustered. It seemed to me that he had not examined his position sufficiently well.

"Good day," I said. Now that was fun. I’m gonna look this crackpot up in five years and see what he’s up to.

I’d like to lay it all out here.  Here it is in a nutshell, post Easter.  I’ve always been bugged by the whole scene in the Bible with Tomas the apostle, the poster-child of doubt and lack of faith.  I’ve always thought he got a bum rap.  My version would go like this:

"Dude, dude, we so totally saw Jesus today."

"What have you all been smoking.  And for Christ’s sake, take a bath, y’all smell."

"No, no, totally, Tom, we saw him, didn’t we Peter?"

"Yeah. And the girls saw him too."

"Hmm, okay.  Look, if it makes you feel better after having watched him be crucified and then locking yourselves in that room you call "the pad" for the last few weeks, that’s cool.  I’m glad you think you saw him or something."

"Aw, man, Tomas, thinks we’re lyin’.  He doesn’t BELIEVE.  He doesn’t believe.  He doesn’t believe."

"Now you’ve got too far, my brothers.  Look, whether he’s actually walking around or not is totally and in all ways irrelevant.  You all saw what he did.   You KNOW what he stood for.  He was the best.  We lived and studied and hung with him through thick and thin.  I KNOW who he is.  He’s right here.  I don’t need to see any bloody nail marks or spear wounds.  

I looked deep in my heart and I realized that I know him.  I know who he is.  I don’t need any more from him.  What more could I ask. 

You mistake my skepticism for lack of faith, but it’s not that.  It’s that I don’t really NEED anything more from him.  He already gave us everything.  He gave us purpose.  He showed us the way.  He died for us.  I know that man believed what he said – what he told us.  I know it.  I know him.  So don’t you assholes with your, ‘Oh, look Tomas doesn’t believe what his eyes don’t see,’ selves give me crap and ask for the Messiah to go around on your little puppet stings dancing through magic fairy dust for you to feel good about yourselves.  It is you who doubt.  It is you who look for magic signs and voices from the heavens and burning bushes.

Now, if I know Jesus, I know he just might oblige your puny minds with a heavy sigh.  ‘Oh, okay one more time for Peter’ and he’d wave his hand or something, but after, he probably ask you why you couldn’t be more like Tomas.  ‘Tomas didn’t make me do any miracles.  Tomas didn’t ask me to rise from the dead.  Y’all did, ’cause you needed it.’