Pearls ...

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. -----