Here’s a basic dilemma I’ve carried with me for many years:
- I consider it more plausible than not that there is a God.
- For every single specification of God I know of (Conservative Christianity, Deism, Mormonism, liberal Christianity, …), I find it more plausible than not that it depicts God wrongly.
So, I’m stuck: I tend to believe there is a God. But it seems that if I believe there is a God, then I have to believe that there is a certain specific God.
But: I cannot believe in any specific God – i.e. I don’t believe in any of the historical proposals for painting a more concrete image of God (and neither can I come up with my own plausible specifications of who God might be).
An analogy is the following: It’s my co-worker’s birthday and he believes that I will bring a cake to the office. At the same time, if someone asked him whether he would accept a bet (which will cost him a pound in case he’s wrong and give him a pound in case he’s right) that I bring a chocolate cake, he wouldn’t go for that bet (because he thinks the chance is less than 50% that I bring a chocolate cake). Neither would he go for the same bet on an angel food cake. Neither would he go for the same bet on a lemon cake or any other specification of a cake. He only believes that I bring a cake; but for any given cake, he doesn’t believe that I will bring it.
What should I do? If I’m right that I cannot give my life to “a” God but only to a certain specific God (such as the Christian Trinity), then both seems irrational: to believe in some such God and not to believe in some such God.
I’m stuck. I offer a prize money of £5 to the person who tells me either what to do in this situation or else what’s wrong with my depiction of the situation.
“So, I’m stuck: I tend to believe there is a God. But it seems that if I believe there is a God, then I have to believe that there is a certain specific God.”
Hey, it seems you may be in the same boat as all the people who wrote the religious books for all the different religions…
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re: the cake bet
Your co-worker would say, “wowy is awesome, I know for sure he will bring a cake, and no way, I’m not going to bet, he hasn’t given me any indication of what cake he is going to bring, and I have absolutely no control over what cake he is bringing either. And so I’m not going to worry about it at all.”
Or he could say, “Uh oh, I can only guess one cake, and I *have* to make a bet, it is required. If I don’t bet, my life will be forfeit, and if I guess wrong, my life will be forfeit too. I better bet on the cake wowy would *want* me to guess…”
And then he would be too scared to make a choice…
;^)
I’ll just throw in a quick comment for now… have you considered religions other than Christianity? (Including “almost-Christianity” movements like Quakerism and Unitarianism?)
(Already hinted at by atimetorend above, I think.)
Dan, not quite what I intended, but perhaps still in line with it. I guess I was wondering if some of the people who wrote things like, say Genesis, would have felt the same way, “I believe there is a God, then I have to believe that there is a certain specific God.” And then they wrote stories about God as part of their attempt to understand and communicate about him.
And I like the Quakers a lot. I was impressed when I saw reallivepreacher refer to them here:
http://www.reallivepreacher.com/node/874
Also, his recent article about visiting a Quaker meeting was very good, if you haven’t read it already. I attended as a child, too young then to appreciate the silence.
oh, great stuff you wrote about the cake bet. “too scared to makes a choice” unfortunately quite often captures my attitude.
I also realize there is a disanalogy between the cake thing and the religion thing. With the cake, I can really choose just not to worry about it at all. But with God, I have reason to WORRY. If I just assume that there is “a” God without assuming anything about him, I cannot reap some of the benefits of traditional religion, e.g. hoping for an afterlife or beyondlife or drawing simple guidance from the bible. So, believing in “a” God without any further qualifications is not as easy as not worrying about what cake I will eat at my birthday…
Your remark about the quakers gave me the idea to see if there’s some around here. I liked rlp’s words “Listening is my favorite spiritual exercise these days. If you forsake your vision, let go of it altogether, you hear so much.”
…..I think that’s what I ought to do… If I can’t believe much at the moment, I should take the chance and use the emptiness to listen a bit….. though it’s difficult. everytime I try to be silent, my thoughts start to try to fit the “puzzle pieces” about God and Jesus and me together…..
re: Quakers — you can bring a book too if you like…
Just kinda stopped by and it interested me. If God is almighty and powerful wouldn’t he make sure that the most popular book in the world would say pretty accurate things about Him? Why would Christianity be so successful and have so many positive morals with it if it were the wrong thing to believe? I don’t think you need to pick a religion to truly know that there is a God and He exists, because there are so many eternal things that exist with us on earth today that show us that some things just don’t die. Like love… we all know what it is and that it exists but we’re unsure how to describe it exactly and how it comes about. Your co-worker might question whether you are bringing him a cake or not but he probably won’t question whether you love him or not… the kind of love that says “I’d give anything for you, that’s how much I care.” We put faith in love. And the bible does say (New Testament) “God is Love.” That seems accurate because these two things seem to be seperate but are the same because you can’t describe God but you know He is there, and like love for someone, you can either ignore it or recognize it and put faith in that it will always be there. Love isn’t something that just dies… maybe our definition of it but not the eternal and perfect love that was given to us.
Hope this made sense to you. i just put things out there as quick I can and hope everyone’s following along. If you have questions or want to discuss this please feel free to message me. 
Once you realize this and put faith that the real God will be the one guiding you and not a limited “earthly” understanding… I’m sure it’ll take off from there.
<3 Tiff
Hey Pink Sea Anemone
Nice blog you have!
thanks for your entry.
you know…when I read your lines (here and on your blog) they touched me. There’s something in between the lines that brings in a totally different angle. You seem to be seriously taken in by Love and by God. There’s a different spirit in between your lines than in between my lines…. your choice of words and so on…..
It’s not like your proofs particularly convinced me….
It reminds me of a chat I had this spring with someone. In contrast to other people, when I told her about my intellectual struggles with faith, she didn’t answer my questions within my paradigm. It was like she didn’t accept my perspective and offer counterarguments within my perspective, but it was rather like she brought in a wholly different perspective, a different spirit, a different angle. (kinda like Jesus, actually °smile°, who didn’t seem particularly interested in taking people’s questions at face value).
That’s actually one of my hopes: that I might find back to Christianity not because I find answers to my questions within my approach (to God, Life, Thinking Straight, the Universe and all the rest) but rather because I find a NEW APPROACH, a new spirit, a new perspective on all this.
(but of course, it’s also difficult embracing a new approach. Why? Because my approach somehow BELONGS TO ME and my identity. And it’s ME who must find an answer and not some distorted version of me)
BTW, I wouldn’t put too much confidence in “I’m sure it’ll take off from there.” Is that how even the bible sees matters?
http://asbojesus.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/736/
Awesome comic!
Can I ask you a question? I want to ask this question because you yourself seem to try to live the approach which the comic advises. Or at least you find the idea fascinating that we can aim at living a life of love without first having to figure out whether some divine being exists or not.
Be assured that I ask this question as one for whose mind and heart meeting the needs of the poor is about the most important thing in life.
“The most important thing…” – that leads me straight to my question. Besides the most important thing in life, there are also the second most important things.
And for some of these second most important things in life, it is important to know whether or not God exists. Examples for such things are:
- Shall I allow myself to have hope at the grave of a dead friend – hope that he is now at a better place? Or should I rather concentrate on honestly facing his end?
- Shall I pray with my children (once I’ll have)?
- Shall I use my finances not only to support my friend who meets the needs of the poor but also to support my friend who lives a professional life of preaching and praying?
- Shall I go to church on Sunday morning?
- Shall I give some weight or not to what the bible says when I make decisions concerning vegetarianism, joining the army, advising a homosexual friend who is considering to give up chastity, Israeli politics, etc.
- Shall I console an 18-year old teenager who is overcome by a feeling of meaninglessness after honestly facing materialist, darwinian theories of the universe? if yes, how shall I console him?
…….I hope these questions (they’re only meant as examples) give enough of a flavour of the kinds of problems I see when trying to live a life of love INDEPENDENTLY of answering the God Question.
Don’t get me wrong: I am very intrigued by the idea of just leaving the God Question unanswered and getting on with life – i.e. getting on with living, loving, fighting for justice, beauty and community. I also found the idea fascinating when I saw it in Real Live Preacher’s biography.
But: I’m not sure whether it really WORKS.
So, if you’ve experimented with prioritizing action before belief, please tell me about your insights…..
Interesting stuff!
I’d say that “Meeting the needs of the poor” is a specific subset of “loving your neighbour”. And I think that all of your questions can be resolved in terms of loving your neighbour, rather than belief in God. I know your questions were only examples, but it’s an interesting (to me) exercise to try and answer them in that way:
- Shall I allow myself to have hope at the grave of a dead friend – hope that he is now at a better place? Or should I rather concentrate on honestly facing his end?
In the extreme case that he was suffering badly through illness, then maybe he is in a better place. I have no reason to believe that anyone’s soul lives on after their body dies. But I do know that their spirit, the quality that they brought to the world, *does* live on, every time we think of them. It’s just that we can only interact with them in our imagination.
- Shall I pray with my children (once I’ll have)?
I occasionally do this (my oldest is 6 years), generally only when they ask, e.g. to say grace before a meal. I do think that prayer is a beneficial meditative tool, even if God isn’t actually listening. So I think that it can be done in a neutral way, and they can be allowed to form their own opinions (in time) of what prayer is and isn’t.
- Shall I use my finances not only to support my friend who meets the needs of the poor but also to support my friend who lives a professional life of preaching and praying?
If you feel that overall the world is a better place for his work, I would say yes. (In other words, he tends towards actually helping people, rather than for example aggressively evangelising people into a fundamentalist belief.)
- Shall I go to church on Sunday morning?
If it helps you to live a better life, and allows you to help others through contributing to community, yes.
- Shall I give some weight or not to what the bible says when I make decisions concerning vegetarianism, joining the army, advising a homosexual friend who is considering to give up chastity, Israeli politics, etc.
I think the authority of the Bible is a different question to the existence of God. But as a minimum, you can treat it as the collected wisdom of a bunch of essentially good and hopeful people, and try and interpret it sensibly (mixed with your own judgement, for example).
- Shall I console an 18-year old teenager who is overcome by a feeling of meaninglessness after honestly facing materialist, darwinian theories of the universe? if yes, how shall I console him?
Yes! Love is still the most powerful force in the world, God or no God. You can show him a million people whose life is given meaning through many different kinds of love.
So….
I think it’s possible. But I think you need a support network of like-minded people. And then you’ve almost created your own religion, all over again. The driving force for me is that I’ve spent so long pondering the question, and got no closer to an answer, that I feel I’m literally wasting my time.
I must stress that I’m a million miles from having this all sorted out. Right now I seem far too busy to follow a philosophy – I just need to get from one day to the next (in a good way).
By the way, the last two Sundays I’ve felt really out of place at church – a “what am I doing here?” feeling? It was nice to read your words and remember that there are people in a similar position.
I like Dan’s responses, I think they are similar to my own. In regard to yourself, practice what you know is right. In regard to others, practice what you know is right, and counsel/teach them in a way that allows them to learn and reach their own conclusions.
And Dan, I feel the same way in church most of the time.
Your example:
“…advising a homosexual friend who is considering to give up chastity.”
I would start with the assumptions that I am to love that person, and that it is their decision to make. If they asked my opinion I would let them know what I believe and why I believe it, but I would want to communicate it is their decision, and be able to provide support and information to help them if they wanted or needed.
There is one big question I have concerning your thoughtful replies.
Do you really say that we can aim at living the same life of love indepently of whether the Christian God exists? Or do you not RATHER say something like: even if the Christian God does not exist, we can aim at living a life of love?
I may have posed this question a bit confusingly, so let me try to restate the question: Are you really saying:
“REGARDLESS of whether Christianity is true or not, we should arrive at the same decisons concerning such issues as mentioned above (praying with one’s children etc.): our decisions should be aiming at love
(In other words: If Christianity is true, we should behave exactly as you advised above and if Christianity is not true we should behave exactly as you advised above).”
Or are you not rather saying: “Well, if we’re really honest, it seems rather like Christianity is nNOT ot true, but this does not make aiming at a life of love impossible for us. Love can be held to be the central value even if Christianity is not true (and it seems to us that it is not true)”.
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Let’s call Christianity “C” and the lifestyle of aiming at love “L”. The problem I see is that while C and L OFTEN do suggest making exactly the same decisions, they do not so ALWAYS.
Sometimes C advises taking into account other values besides love or it interprets love differently than L. So, even if it is true that we can aim at love without C, this doesn’t mean that C and L are equivalent. Sometimes, when L does prescribe choosing the path of love, C will prescribe choosing the path of love but with a different twist Or sometimes it will place other values above love (at least, above “love” as understood by L).
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BigDan, you wrote: “I think it’s possible. But I think you need a support network of like-minded people.”
I think that’s a crucial issue! Very true.
The problem I see is that whereas for C, there’s many well-developed communities that work, for the L-religion there’s few communities and these communities seem to be less “stable” and “vigorous” (Quakers may be one of these communities? Certain political movements may also be one of these communities?)
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BigDan, you wrote: “The driving force for me is that I’ve spent so long pondering the question, and got no closer to an answer, that I feel I’m literally wasting my time.”
This I can very well understand. I think this might happen to me, too. If I just try and try again to answer the God question; and if, time and again, there’s just no progress. …..at some point of time, you just have to “cast the net on the other side of the boat”. If the search for truth does not bring any fruit, none of us wants to pursue this search for ever……
“There is one big question I have concerning your thoughtful replies.”
There are a few too many choices there! But I think “even if the Christian God does not exist, we can aim at living a life of love” comes the closest to my thoughts.
This life of love can be acted out in a christian setting or not. For those of us who find ourselves part of a church community, generally for family reasons, it often makes sense to do this, and i believe there are great positives that can be drawn from such a community (which is why I haven’t quit, and am [for now] happy for my children to carry on). I guess if you weren’t involved in Christianity in any way, there’d be no obvious reason for you to pray with your children.
“Sometimes C advises taking into account other values besides love or it interprets love differently than L. So, even if it is true that we can aim at love without C, this doesn’t mean that C and L are equivalent.”
Yep. I think this works both ways. I think sometimes C produces a response that is unloving in some respects. But in other ways, Jesus’ teachings on and example of sacrificial love (however you interpret them) take “average” human love to another level.
“The problem I see is that whereas for C, there’s many well-developed communities that work, for the L-religion there’s few communities…”
Yeah. (I like that you have named our new religion, BTW.) In a sense, religious groups are the only groups that get together to “do love” in a general sense. Every other group has an ulterior motive. Of course churches soon generate ulterior motives. And many charity organisations are probably, on balance, more love-generating than some churches. But I can’t think of anyother (mainstream) example where members of the community, no matter how little they know of each other, can take for granted a certain set of values and a certain mutual love.
Thanks for your reply (and I like very much how you’re not a black-or-white-kind-of-thinking person!)
I wish more people would develop, flesh out, live and describe the kind of philosophy you are after. It is also relevant for me because it is one of the main alternatives I want to consider if I should decide with more definiteness within the next months that my faith is bankrupt.
(One thing I am afraid of when it comes to committing myself to the L-religion (not a very nice word, sounds like some kind of programming language), is how to motivate myself for love. Within Christianity the call to love is set within a much larger framework. Following the L-religion I would have to tell myself to love even if I don’t know WHY I should love. Of course, love is something beautiful, good and natural. But the call to love stands so naked in the room within the L-religion, it “hangs in the air” without support. Is it possible to live a meaningful life of love simply on the basis of considering love to be something beautiful, natural and good (without considering love to be set into a larger framework such as the Christian story)? Or, if it’s possible – is it difficult? Being difficult wouldn’t necessarily speak against it, of course…).
I really wonder why there aren’t more blogs of
- skeptical Christians
- agnostic churchgoers
- doubting believers
Most blogs on the topic of whether to be a Christian or not seem to be either of Christians, Atheists or else on people who see their current state as one of de-conversion or conversion.
There do not seem to be many people who are HALFWAYS on the journey from Christianity to Atheism/Agnosticism or HALFWAYS on the journey from Atheism/Agnosticism to Christianity and who REMAIN there, halways along the way.
Let me toss something else into the discussion, as it’s less effort than writing a proper comment
What do you make of these 8 points?
http://www.tcpc.org/about/8points.cfm
Thanks, BigDan!
Actually, that’s what I’m looking for: people who are FLESHING it out what it means to be following the love of Jesus without believing everything to be true that traditional churches believe to be true.
If there are other readers here: I pasted the 8 propositions below. And I allow myself to make some comments (in capitals).
1. Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.
THAT SOUNDS GREAT!
THAT’S A VERY ATTRACTIVE IDEA, VERY ATTRACTIVE.
AND: IT DOESN’T COMMIT YOU TO BELIEVE MUCH. THAT’S WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR.
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2. Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us.
THAT’S MUCH LESS CONVINCING TO ME. THAT ONE RELIGION SHOULD BE TRUE IS ABOUT AS DIFFICULT FOR ME TO BELIEVE AS THAT MANY/ALL SHOULD BE TRUE (AND NOT ONLY TRUE, BUT EVEN AS TRUE).
WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR IN PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY IS NOT A CHRISTIANITY THAT SIMPLY REPLACES THE DOGMAS OF TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY WITH NEW ONES (AND EQUALLY UNCONVINCING ONES) BUT THAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO BE A CHRISTIAN WHILE BELIEVING “LESS”.
I DON’T LIKE NUMBER 2 BECAUSE RATHER THAN LEAVING THE MYSTERIOUS STUFF OPEN THEY TRY TO NAIL IT DOWN AND CAPTURE IT IN A PROPOSITION AGAIN.
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3. Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus’s name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God’s feast for all peoples
AH, GREAT. ANYTHING THAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO LIVE A FULL-BLOODED, NON-WATERED-DOWN VERSION OF CHRISTIANITY without HAVING TO BELIVE MANY PROPOSITONS IS GREAT.
SHARING BREAD AND WINE IS A WAY TO LIVE AS CHRISTIAN WITHOUT INVOLVING MUCH COGNITIVE ASSENT TO STATEMENTS
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4. Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable.
AMEN, AMEN.
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5. Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe.
AMEN, AMEN.
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6. Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty – more value in questioning than in absolutes.
HM… IT SOUNDS SO GOOD WHEN THEY WRITE IT HERE. BUT TO BE HONEST: I WONDER HOW MANY MYSTICS, PENTACOSTALS, SIMPLE-HEARTED, PIOUS TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANS ARE BETTER AT THAT THAN THE TYPICAL PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN WHO SOMETIMES IS FAIRLY IDEOLOGICAL AFTER ALL (SEE COMMENT ON POINT 2)
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7. Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God’s creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers
AMEN, AMEN
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8. Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.
THAT’S GREAT! THIS SHOWS THAT THEY’RE SERIOUS ABOUT IT. IT’S AUTHENTIC.
I THINK THAT RELIGION WHICH DEMANDS SOMETHING FROM HUMANS IS MUCH MORE ATTRACTIVE (I’VE READ THAT SOMEWHERE, TOO). I THINK THAT REFLECTS THAT WE INTUITIVELY KNOW THAT THE GOD ISSUE IS SOMETHING serious. IF THERE IS A GOD, THERE IS SOMETHING SERIOUS, DRAMATIC, HOLY, LIFE-AFFECTING ABOUT IT.