So, what's the point?

[avevale_intelligencer]

If you've followed my wibbling this far, you are possibly envisaging a version of the Christian God who is (a) neither omniscient nor omnipotent, at least in practical terms, (b) neither absolutely nice nor absolutely nasty, being endowed with free will and the capacity to choose, (c) neither helped by our flattery nor hurt by our scepticism...but who *did*, assuming I'm right, send Jesus into the world to try and nudge us in the direction of being better people, an experiment which had results that can best be described as "mixed."

So why in the name of all the thundering, blustering, welkin-wellying winds of heaven should anyone have the slightest desire or need to believe in such a God? Or any God, for that matter?

It's a good question, and there may indeed be no answer. There is (we've established, at some length) no physical evidence for this God, or any God for that matter...not for Kali, or Thor, or Gitche Manitou the mighty. If I'm right, and God created the universe using the physical and evolutionary processes which science has done such a brilliant job of charting, he's managed to make himself completely unnecessary to our understanding of those processes. The song is out there, and the songwriter remains in the shadows, unknown, unidentified, unpaparazzi'ed, and maybe that's the way he wants it.

But let me follow up a hypothetical I raised a little while back. I postulated that some day, if we continue to study those processes, we will come to understand them well enough to create our own universes, and those universes may well contain creatures who will see no need to believe in the possibility of us. And lil_shepherd commented that neither we nor they would be hurt by that disbelief, and she was right. So why does it matter?

*stares into mirror, adopting lip-tremblingly sincere dewy-eyed Buffy expression* Because they would be wrong.

Whoa. That's a switcheroo if you like. Haven't I been saying all along that anyone is entitled to believe anything they want to?

Well, yes. I believe people should be allowed to find and hold on to the answers they need (as long as they don't need them in order to justify, you know, enslaving millions, or having sex with small barnyard animals or their neighbours' children, or teaching said children lies instead of truth). If anyone wants to believe in a God, of any sort, then an it harm none and so on. That's still what I believe. I kind of like the God I've theorised, and even though I can't quite believe in him myself, I know he won't mind...but if he isn't right for anyone else either, that's okay too.

But some people are not looking for answers that comfort them, or answers that make them look good to themselves, or answers that don't make them angry, or answers that give them a reason to stop looking. Some people are not looking for answers that match the answers their parents gave them, or answers that they think someone else will like, or answers that give them something to do with that irritating spare couple of quid they end up with every Sunday, or even answers they desperately, gut-wrenchingly need. Some people are not looking for any particular answer at all...they're looking for the right answer. The one that fits all the facts...not just the ones we know at the moment.

Those people are admirable. I think there are many other admirable people in the world, but those people are admirable. I want them to find that right answer, because I believe there is one, and I think we need it to fulfil our density, sorry, I mean our destiny. I don't want them to be entrapped by any of the other kinds of answers I've mentioned, and I don't think they should be.

And if it should eventually turn out that our universe was created by a fallible, morally ambivalent, terminally modest God...I want them to find him. Or her. Or it, or them, or zie, or p'k'floom*, or any other pronoun in any other language that seems appropriate. And if it doesn't turn out that way, then that's okay too.

There is no answer to the question I posed at the beginning. Or rather, there are about six or seven billion answers, some good, some not so good. Recognising the validity of those answers that are good...recognising the validity of the question...that, I think, is somewhere near the point I have been groping towards. Hopefully one day I'll actually get to it.

*Old High Sh'gorfi; "those persons who may or may not be in a group of up to seventeen, including f'droo, sh'xeeb, and n'garf-garf but not, under any circumstances, g'rblurx." It's a complex language.

In other news, pbristow has taken a more orthodox view (in some ways) and come up with his own answer to one of the problems I've been discussing here. I don't agree with it, but I like it.

Paul is a Christian, and someone for whom I have always had the greatest possible respect; a good friend, a brilliant songwriter, and a man who's had more than his share of bad stuff coming at him for a long time now. And we've argued, and he's got angry at me and I at him, but in many ways he has been an inspiration to me.

As have Cat, and Tom, and Lil and Ina, and Lexin, and Mike and Anne, and Tim and Annie, and Talis and Simon, and far too many more to name. If I haven't settled on one answer and closed off all the others, if I've remained open to unorthodox ideas, it's because of what I've seen in all of you.

So all this verbiage is your fault. *ducks and runs like frod*

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Possibly of interest: A World Full of Gods, a book about polytheistic theology. I was struck by the question: "Why not worship something closer to your own size?"

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Heh. Is that "worship" with the distinct connotation of "pick on"? =:o> It probably feels like that sometimes, too... =:o?

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

OK, something weird is happening here. You've just payed me a huge and mighty compliment, and I haven't run away screaming.

Where's my tape measure...? [GOES OFF TO CHECK ON CRANIAL CIRCUMFERENCE]

[POPS HEAD BACK ROUND THE DOOR]

Thankyou, by the way. =:o}

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

We know that.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

What if the "right answer," the objectively accurate one, is that there is no god, spiritual entity, or anything beyond what is perceivable and measurable by our senses and instruments once we work out sufficiently good sensors and instruments?

Would you be comfortable with that answer? Would you still want the people who'd been looking for the "right answer," not just the comfortable or useful-to-them one, to find it out for certain? Would you be as glad for the ones who'd been truly searching for the "right answer" while believing that the above scenario was the most likely one as you say you'd be if the people who do believe in a deity find out that their answer is the "right" one?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Yes. On all counts.

I might be personally a little disappointed, but I'm old enough to move beyond that. Besides, every significant answer that science has given us so far has come with a batch of new questions, and I'd be interested to see what new questions that one would generate.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Fair answer; thank you. I agree with you about scientific answers always generating new and interesting questions, and I, too, would love to see what questions that one would produce. Or what questions proving that there were a god(s) would produce. Like you in this, I just enjoy complicated questions.

[batyatoon]

"those persons who may or may not be in a group of up to seventeen, including f'droo, sh'xeeb, and n'garf-garf but not, under any circumstances, g'rblurx."

But what about s'quinkyboink?

*ducks and runs for cover*

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

She spoke the Forbidden Word! GUARDS!! ARREST HER!!!