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My limited understanding of philosophy, as it pertains to God any way, suggests that in general believing in God can be a rational choice. Indeed, it is a choice, as some of us quite obviously chose not to believe.
Each of us, has our reasons, logical or otherwise, yet it is not whether our reasons are logical (and often they aren’t) but whether rational reasons exist. And most philosophers tend to say yes.
Beyond this, they often say nothing more. What can be said of God is an entirely different thing. Most, I think, argue that very little of anything can be said of God. This is for a variety of reasons, and I won’t go into them here, since they are developed in the link to this post.
The Contrarian intuitively grasped this concept long ago. He studied the various faith systems, and concluded that God existed, but that very little if anything more could be “known.” And he let it be, content that his responsibilities are to do the best he can here and now. I can both understand and accept this, if indeed I don’t agree.
Well, I agree perhaps mostly in principle, but, not in the shrugging off the pursuit. I don’t mean this in some, I don’t know, superior stance or anything. Rather, I mean that for me, the idea of God, the attributes of God, the desire to know God and how it all is, are compelling. I am drawn to try as best I can with my mind, to understand that which I believe IN.
I am eager to grasp others opinions and lay them alongside my own. I discover of course, that my own machinations are no way original, but have been written about by others, sometimes eons ago. This in some ways is comforting, for I feel that I’m on some right track, all the while realizing that there may be hundreds of right tracks, and that is okay too.
My basic premise has been for many years that God is bigger, better and more awesome that anything I can create in my mind, but he is at minimum at least that–what I can create. That is why the God portrayed in the Hebrew Bible never worked much for me, for I saw that God as all too human and thus flawed. My God is not flawed. At the same time, I find the bible filled to overflowing with metaphoric truth about life and God too. It’s a paradox in some sense I guess.
I ran across this article today, and thought it one of the most fascinating I’d ever come across. It simply talks about what we can know about God, from a dozen different prospectives. It is one of those rare articles that should be printed and safely kept in your notebook–should you have one that is, of things to go back to and revisit periodically.
I have notebooks of all kinds of things, like quotes and inspirational things, and notes on various books of the bible, and theological positions. The narrow margins of the bible are far too small to contain all the notations I wish to make and the directions to see, this or that for fuller explanation. My desire to know drives this, and of course is never ending.
If you don’t subscribe to Science and Religion Today, in your reader, you should. Only of course if you are interested in such matters. I haven’t yet got it on the blogroll, but will shortly. I’ve already in a week or so been rewarded with a number of good reads. This is simply one of the best. If you believe, want to, used to, or don’t at all–well, read on. It may not change you mind one whit, but then again, you may find your foundation. Who knows.
Just a tidbit from the post:
there is an atheist at the heart of every believer and there’s a believer at the heart of every atheist
That alone is worth a look. There are a number of links embedded, and the article is somewhat long, so do bookmark to return and follow some of the links that interest you if you don’t have time to run through them all today.
Blessings.
** this writer of this conversation is one Robert Lawrence Kuhn, who has a PBS show called Closer to Truth. It may be broadcast on a subchannel of the regular PBS called, PBSWorld. This was a transcript of Episode 16. I’d make a DVR search of the title to see if your cable or satellite service picks it up. Looks like a superb series.
Existential Ennui 