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. -----