One Utah

Sunday night posting - probably dangerous territory.

My day today has been oddly bookended. This morning Pastor Erin Gilmore guided the congregation into the writing of the hebrew prophet Malachi. She posed two questions:

1. Where is the God of justice in the world when horrific, unjust crimes are being committed against God’s people?

2. Where are the people who would follow the God of justice?

This evening, I began reading Richard Dawkins The God Delusion. In the opening chapters, he makes the assertion that there is no God, the evidence is poor at best and religion is incredibly dangerous. Dawkins explores the idea for that for some reason, when it’s time to discuss things, we can say any damn fool thing we want, proclaim it is part of our religion and demand others respect the damn fool thing. Dawkins says that in such cases, the burden of proof should be on believers not those who doubt (after all, if its a daft idea, the person holding it should have to offer proof, rather than the unbeliever offering disproof.). Dawkins describes, in a memorable turn of phrase, Deism as watered down theism and pantheism as sexed up atheism. (I’d guess he’d include Borg’s panentheism as sexed up atheism as well.)

So tonight, I find myself in a deep karma canyon (thanks to Bob Mould for that phrase btw).

Erin’s question strikes me as eminently sensible. It’s not enough to whine that God isn’t there for us - were we there as the followers of God before?

Dawkins assertion also echoes powerfully for me. I know the positive evidence for God is pretty thin. Certainly, based on the behaviors of God’s most vocal followers, belief in God doesn’t exactly result in positive outcomes for society. God seems like a baneful influence at best.

So tonight, I am in this deep canyon of moral, ethical, existential questions. Belief versus unbelief. Dawkins talks about Einstein’s unbelieving religion in which God is not a being or a force but a metaphor, a poetic term. I think it’s fair to agree the majority of believers of almost any theistic faith would find such an approach difficult to swallow. But, using Dawkins formulation, the discomfort of those invested in an inherently illogical believe system shouldn’t slow anyone’s inquiry into the universe and it’s truths.

In this approach, God is a null value - the character inserted into the lengthy equation that moves us to the next point. It is the unknown but some day to be known value. God in this model is not a force, a being, a knowable entity unto itself. God is simply what we don’t yet know or cannot explain.

The late Carl Sagan wrote (with Ann Druyan) a powerful collection of essays - The Demon Haunted World. Sagan explicilty wrote that science, not faith, is the salvation of humanity. More knowledge, more education more information, more power. Sagan acknowledged that science can be misused and misapplied - but far less so than, for instance, religion.

Marjorie Heins’ book Not In Front of the Children, ends with a powerful summation in favor of more knowledge, more education, more information.

“. . . in the words of the much censored Judy Blume: “Children are inexperienced, but they are not innocent. They need help from adults to figure out how to act in the face of life’s realities . . . We cannot restore a ‘lost innocence’ that may never have existed, but we can offer perspectives from our experience and help interpreting the world, flaws and all.”

“Intellectual protectionism frustrates rather than enhances young people’s mental agility and capacity to deal with the world. In inhibits straightforward discussion about sex. Indeed, like TV violence, censorship may also have “modeling effects,” teaching authoritarianism, intolerance for unpopular opinions, erotophobia, and sexual guilt. Censorship is an avoidance technique that addresses adult anxieities and satisfies symbolic concerns, but ultimately does nothing to resolve social problems or affirmatively help adolescents and children cope with their environments and impulses or navigate that dense and insistent media barrage . . “(Page 257)

I’d add to Heins’ words my own: avoiding ideas, especially uncomfortable ones, leads us away from solutions. Adult fears about adolescent sexuality explain the popularity of abstinence only (mis)education; but in no way are the needs of adolescents met. In matters of spirituality, faith and belief, avoiding the hard words of a man like Richard Dawkins or Albert Einstein doesn’t help faith. Avoiding the tough questions doesn’t resolve them, doesn’t address social needs or problems.

If belief in God, as Dawkins asserts, is actually socially and personally harmful, then I have to face hard questions as not only a member but a lay leaders in a church community. Certainly, the evidence suggests that belief in God results in a wide array of damaging behaviors and attitudes. Atheism - not agnosticism - may in fact be the healthiest choice for society - rationalism, the human institution of science, a way out of problems.

But for tonight, since I don’t have answers and haven’t finished Dawkins book, I’m left in a deep karma canyon without answers and a wide array of questions, wondering if I can face my own values honestly and look at the evidence and follow it to the reasonable end.

This entry was posted Sunday, December 3rd, 2006 at 11:48 pm and is filed under Atheism, Religion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.