It is correct when I say that I am an atheist. This does not mean I do not believe in God. It means I do not believe in how God is taught. God is the ultimate equation, life is the ultimate solution. The very fact that we are able to survive, each day despite all the conditions in the universe, that we are given a choice and that we are aware of that choice and the many means of survival at our disposal. Out of the infinite forms of life on this planet alone, to think that in the entire universe so far known to us, we each day wake up, not yet dead but given another chance to experience our cognitions and perceptions is a wondrous allowance. Should it not be worthy of our greatest respect?
Does this not mean that prayer is not invalid a notion? To believe in one’s one dignity and want of survival is nothing to be ashamed of. To believe and hope for the protection of what one holds dear, is that not common to us all? To will oneself the favour of the energy that binds all life together is that so far fetched a notion? So ridiculous? To believe so deeply in our own worth, we will our every day into existence, surviving simply on the idea that it is worth living, and therby making peace with our circumstances in some manner, however crude.
The implication of this, is that we could live forever.
God is Life?
ReplyDeleteTo live is to court the divine?
I like it. God is survival and persistence. God is our very breathing. God cannot be used to oppress when God is the act of eating and sleeping and loving. God cannot be said to be selective when God is the process we all follow. God's love is unconditional in the sun's rays; God's gifts are undiscerning in the summer rains.
And it would follow that God is as infallible and invulnerable as the Earth. God's body is as fragile as the trees; God's circulatory system is tied up in the seas. Just as God works on us, we work on God. Just as God, in the form of a planet, can be dangerous for us, we can be dangerous for God.
It comes to a process of symbiosis rather than dominance.
While I totally get where you're coming from, I find when the G-word is used, it invokes connotations that go much deeper than your poetic descriptions. For even in some psychological philosophies, I can admit to a "god like" presence in the brain, even if it's that subconscious portion that is always watching over your conscious actions... but as soon as one is willing to admit that there are strange unexplainable things occurring, some will immediately jump forth and yell, "SEE! THAT PROVES IT!" and push forward a theistic (or even simply a deistic) ideology.
ReplyDeleteI, too marvel at the wonders of the planet and the earth, I merely assign it no "reason" or "purpose" beyond what we make for it in life. Much of what Nick describes sounds almost like the humanist manifesto.
Very nice post.
i agree that the "idea" of God has become another "idead" entirely. When i use the word and capitalize it, it stands for (at least for me) something greater, something grander a deeper purpose, an underlying reason even if it is deterministic or chaotic. I agree with that whole god like presence in the brain...it is that very thing that wants me to search, to seek to entertain and to ponder. God to me is the ultimate question and the ultimate answer and it will take lifetimes upon lifetimes to find even some semblance of the words to form the question and the words to describe the answer, but it is the search for truth and for meaning that makes it worth something.
ReplyDeleteI think in the end my reason and my purpose are God. It is something so personal yet so universal when i feel it.