God(s)
A friend of mine asked me, sincerely, whether or not I believe in God.
(I emphasize "sincerely" because such questions are usually
not sincere at all. They're usually asked as a part
of some childish rhetorical diatribe, especially if asked by a
self-professed atheist, which this friend is.) The actual question
was: "You believe in God, don't you?"
I answered "No." At the time, it surprised me that this friend (who
I've known for a very long time) would think I believe in God. It
occured to me later that I may have argued as the Devil's Advocate in
the past, defending theists in some context. Or, perhaps some
statement or other that I've made implied that I do believe in God.
Or, perhaps I even answered differently at some time in the past.
Let's assume it's the latter, that at some point in the midst of some
particular conversation, where specific concepts are being kneaded and
chewed, I answered "Yes, I believe in God."
It seems common for one person to accuse another of contradicting
themselves where the accused denies a contradiction exists. It's
happened to me quite often and I'm almost always surprised by it
because I spend quite a lot of time and effort ensuring that I don't
contradict myself ... or, rather, that my system of beliefs and
concepts is consistent.
I have two resolutions to this problem, one difficult to understand
and one quite simple. Because very few of the people I meet on a
daily basis have the time, energy, or will to understand the difficult
resolution, I had to adopt the easy one.
Here's the easy one, in case you, dear reader, don't have the time,
energy, or will to understand the difficult one. Walt Whitman's
quote:
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict
myself; (I am large -- I contain multitudes.)
In other words, so what? People are complex, confusing, and
irrational and if I want to contradict myself, then I will. Pfffft!
I usually only pull this resolution out when I feel like I'm dealing
with dispassionate people ... those who don't give a rat's ass about
me or my opinions. And there are many of them out there, as there
should be.
But for anyone who is a facile thinker, the more difficult resolution
is much more enlightening. I'll state the difficult resolution as
directly as possible and then heap more words on afterward.
Apparent contradictions are usually paradoxes, not contradictions.
Technically, a contradiction can't even exist in normal human
discourse because it requires unambiguity, which can only exist in
formal languages like math or programming languages. For example, if
your mom says something like: "I weeded the garden today." And then
an hour later, she says: "I didn't really weed the garden today." She
is not contradicting herself. Sure, you may
think
she's contradicting herself. But she's not. And it's not because
she's got Alzheimer's or she's become a pathological liar. It's
because English is an ambiguous language. It is an
apparent contradiction ... i.e. a paradox.
The way out of a paradox is quite simple, actually. You broaden the
frame. In the case of "weeding the garden", it may be as simple as
loosening up your concept of what it means "to weed" or "the garden".
The ambiguity of English allows us to use words without precisely
defining them. And such language allows us to make apparently
contradictory statements without it representing an inconsistency
within our own belief systems.
As for my friend thinking I believe in God well, technically, I both
believe in a God and don't believe in a God, primarily because my
concept of God is relatively complex. The first point is that if
there is a God, that God has multiple aspects. And each individual
aspect can be (not just appear, but actually be) entirely disjoined
from any other individual aspect. Hence, when I talk to people about
God, I usually use "gods".
So, just from that simple tip-of-the-iceberg point, if I were asked
whether or not I believe in God in a context where most people in the
discussion inherently understand aspects and the relationships between
subject and object, I will probably say "yes, I believe in gods." In
contrast, if asked in a context where most of the people in the
discussion are talking about the Protestant, singular God with a
personality, gender (male), etc., then I will probably say "no, I
don't believe in God."
A deeper explanation of my concept of God is not necessary, here, to
make the points above. But because nobody actually reads this web log
anyway, I'll present a brief description.
I believe reality is a holarchy, a system of systems of systems,
forever extensible up, down, and sideways (actually, since there are
more than 2 dimensions, 1-ways, 2-ways, 3-ways, ..., n-ways,
... actually that doesn't even cut it ... the holarchy is a dense
infinity of dimensions).
Such an extensible reality is, I suppose, impossible for an animal
like us to understand tacitly. We can think and reason about it,
especially armed with math; but since we can't toss it around in our
hands, smell it, eyeball it, lick it, etc., we will not be able to
really grok it ... at least not in the same way we grok a hamburger,
bicycle, or music.
Now, just because we can never comprehend the entire holarchy doesn't
mean we can't forever grow in our own mental, inferential examination
of that holarchy. I.e. I have no doubt that our understanding of the
holarchy is more accurate than, say, my cat's understanding of it.
OK. Here's the punch line. My definition of God is "whatever lies
just beyond our current understanding." I'm not talking about things
that lie way out beyond our understanding. I'm talking about what
lies just barely beyond our reach, along the same lines as Arthur
C. Clarke's "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic."
Two side notes are warranted:
1) I get my definition of God directly from my Catholic upbringing,
which is why I can honestly answer my mom (in some contexts) with
"yes, I believe in God." The Catholic God carries, at its core, the
concept of mystery and the uncomprehendable, as well as the more banal
multiple aspects of God. And in a fully fleshed out context for this
discussion, it would be very easy for me to identify the two concepts
"mystery" and "God". Just because I don't stop at 3 aspects (Father,
Son, Spirit), doesn't mean I don't share the same fundamental beliefs.
Of course, when I'm talking to myopic and dispassionate Catholics, I
usually have to say "no, I don't believe in God ... at least not
your God." It's worth noting that when I've had the
opportunity to discuss this sort of thing at length with priests, we
don't usually disagree.
2) Magical Thinking. Lots of modern atheists (and others) have been
criticizing magical thinking these days. This is not merely
disrespectful or the nightmarish rhetoric for the death of
imagination. It's actually an insidious and cowardly attack on the
identity of an individual. True, it's important for people to
sporadically realize that "it takes a village" and to an extremely
deep extent, our entire mental worlds are built upon society and the
external world around us. But to attack magical thinking is to attack
innovation. Every inventor, scientist, and child on the planet
achieves everything they ever achieve via magical thinking. It is
normal and healthy to imagine and try to achieve the impossible. And
to denegrate such imagination is despicable beyond comparison. In
fact, it is magical thinking that allows me to imagine a world filled
with idiot robots who can only concieve of what we already know
exists. Such a society defines Hell for me. So, I'll gladly put up
with Christians and their flying spaghetti monster, mushy-headed
co-workers who consult the Zodiac every day, and angst-ridden
sociopaths furtively glancing up from their Chaos Magick books in
order to revel in a society full of magical thinking.