Holy Hand Grenade

Missing God

Looking back on the posts I have been writing here, I notice that I have been interested in writing about religion, but not very interested in writing about God. In fact, the only times I have felt it necessary to write about God are those times when I have said that certain beliefs in contemporary Christianity having practically nothing to do with God at all. I have a bunch of other things I mean to write about here, and none of those are directly about God, either. So, before I get to all that, I figure it might be worth acknowledging the various reasons why I’m not really acknowledging God here.

One major reason is that I avoid mention of God when addressing others on matters of religion, and while I do see this blogging exercise as serving a personal use for myself, I am also mindful of my potential audience. Avoiding mention of God is something of a practical strategy when discussing matters of religion and spirituality with atheists and agnostics. I’m wary about scaring such people away from conversation, and invoking God is generally an easy way to do this. I can understand why many would throw up their hands in frustration when trying to discuss substantive issues such as the ethics of abortion and meeting with arguments that seem to lack substance. Perhaps it is fine when debating with other theists to say, “But the Word of God says…” This is pointless when trying to engage with anyone else, though. (But as a side note, I do think the flip side of this ought to occur to atheists and agnostics, though most probably reject it as a waste of time. Yes, many simply pick and choose and twist the words of the Bible to match with their fears and/or political dispositions, but not all. It can be productive to learn a bit about scripture to engage with theists on their own terms.)

To be honest, though, my avoidance of discussing God here has more to do with me than with you. It didn’t even occur to me until a friend of mine told me he had been enjoying my “godblog,” and I suddenly realized God hadn’t really been a recurring character. What it really comes down to more than anything else, I suppose, is that I write about what has been on my mind, what I find interesting and intellectually stimulating. Simply put, I have been thinking a lot about religion. I have not been thinking much about God.

Part of the reason behind this may be because the style of writing I typically engage in is social and media research, which requires me to make arguments based on evidence. If God exists, then God exists on such an abstract level that there is little use in pointing and saying, “Here.” It is much more feasible for me to point at scripture, at people, even at my own feelings, as evidence of something. I find such analyses the most personally fulfilling to perform. Starting the analysis with God, rather than data, quickly leads me to the dead end of perpetual uncertainty.

Another personal reason I haven’t thought much about God lately is that my own personal system of ethics and spirituality relies on God much less than it used to. Part of this is due to the lingering sense of doubt that grows when you are separate from a larger community of believers. I feel the want or need to practice a moral code of some sort, though, so I tell myself that the one espoused by Jesus in the Gospels is as good as any other — and, so far as I can tell, much less likely to piss off others if I really do it right than practicing the codes specified elsewhere (e.g., Leviticus, where we’re told to stone adulterers). So I sort of treat my ethical system one where God is entirely optional: I can make people around me happy (and this will make me happy) if I remember stuff like “love thy neighbor” and “[don’t] cast the first stone,” and if God’s real, then great. If God’s not real, though, I didn’t really bug anybody else too much, at least. (This approach, of course, requires a certain interpretation of Jesus’ post-ressurection call to spread the word of God. If you interpret that to mean distributing Bibles door-to-door, you may be more likely to irk others. If you interpret it as Aquinas did — “Spread the word of God. Use words if necessary.” — then you’re probably safer.)

So, yes, I think about God because part of me doubts God. More often than not, though, I do assume that God exists, but the God I assume must exist doesn’t really care if you believe in God. I have always had a hard time buying the idea that one needs to believe in the “one, true religion” in order to be “saved.” That seems monstrously unfair to me in a way that not even being born into an unhealthy body, in poverty, in a war-torn nation seems unfair. At least in the latter scenario, there are many potential roads to virtue, and thus perhaps into the afterlife (a related intangible that I have trouble forcing myself to think about). But how can you expect everyone to choose the “one truth” when there are so many compelling — and often, quite closely phrased — religious truths available to us? Or when the “one truth” is not readily available because of a lack of missionaries, or general illiteracy?

Part of what this also implies to me is that the the road to salvation must not solely reached through solving some intellectual puzzle. In other words, I don’t believe that we need to figure out the one truth of God’s nature and God’s will in order to “win” because those of us who are less gifted intellectually are just screwed.

Indeed, a large part of why I favor the brand of Christianity I do is that Jesus, as I read the Gospels, doesn’t really require anybody to understand God. Jesus was constantly hanging out with the uneducated and telling the educated folks that they should be more like the children. Moreover, as Fred explains, Jesus seems to directly state that doing good is no less important in the eyes of God than calling oneself Christian. Fred notes, “Jesus isn’t interested in franchise fees. He’s interested in casting out demons” — and feeding the hungry, healing the sick, etc. See, for example, Matthew 25, quoted in that linked post:

Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?”

The King will reply, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

I may accept the basic assumption of God’s existence as a given because denying a universal intelligence implies to me a completely amoral and meaningless world, and that is something so depressing to me that I cannot bear to contemplate it for long. But the exact nature of God is not known to me and will never be known, and the God I’d like to believe in couldn’t possibly be so unkind as to set anyone up for failure from square one.

So yes, I do believe in God. Mostly, anyway. But no, I don’t really think about God because I don’t know what to think anymore. I feel at an intellectual dead end contemplating God, and I feel kind of silly talking to a God I’m not certain is listening. But I do rather miss feeling like God had a personal interest in my life, so perhaps I’ll see if I can strike up conversation with the Lord again in the future.