Walking the Smiling Dog On the Slippery Rocks

“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.”
--Richard Dawkins (scientist, author)

"My sense of God is my sense of wonder about the universe."

--Albert Einstein (scientist, author)  

"In the places I go there are things that I see that I never could spell if I stopped with the Z. 

I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends.  My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!  So, on beyond Z!  It's high time you were shown that you really don't know all there is to be known."  --Dr. Seuss (scientist, author)

NOTE:  I have no idea why I wrote this except that of all the threads and potential posts running through my head these days, this thread has been screaming the loudest "Me!  Write Me!" So, without meaning to offend anyone or even spur debate on the subject, I bring this to the Chronicles.   When you're done you might find yourself asking "Jeez, what's next?  Politics and Sex?" I promise, neither of those is even the inkling of a thread for me here. Enjoy.  Or not.

You might remember a while back when I told of the man here in Key West who would stand on highly trafficked street corners and wave a sign about that read "God Hates..." And then sometime later how I had occasion on one of my lunchtime runs to stare down one of his colleagues carrying a similar sign--an Evil who thought he was powerful enough to stand in my path. I looked in his eyes and found him wanting. The God that I believe exists does not hate. He's not even fearsome (except in the enormity of His presence and my corresponding inconsequentiality) or vengeful or wrathful. He just is and that's all I will say about it except that I think She might have a sense of humor (examine my life's details to find out why I believe this) in hopes that you remember this at the end of this post that will spend some time on the notion of "God or not".
The quotes above are notable for me. Big minds spent on big thoughts came up with these ideas, and I will admit that I favor Einstein's notion and Seuss' admonition over Dr. Dawkins' perspective. More on that later.
To believe or not to believe, that is the question. I have friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues whose beliefs in the divine cover the full range of the faith and religion spectrum. I love and respect each and every one of them even when I cannot fathom the source of their assuredness. Don’t get me wrong: if you start handling a pit viper and mumbling ancient curses and verses, or you try to tell me that the universe is only 2000 years old despite the best scientific evidence to the contrary, or if you ridicule my family or friends for their devout practice of their religion, we will, at a minimum, engage in healthy debate.

I find myself in the role of "wonderer"; my perspective falls between the two ends of the spectrum, and what's interesting to me is that I see it as not so much a linear spectrum from faithful to atheist as I do a set of crossed axes--trust me, the imagery I just set out here of the cross was not intended but perhaps a Freudian call back to my Catholic indoctrination. I mean nothing more by it than a set of Cartesian axes, X and Y. In the X axis is faith, or belief in God, from a zero level, abject atheist, to full-on devoted believer in a Supreme Being that takes an active part in one's life. In the Y axis is religion.  The zero on this axis is the adamant non-practitioner of any religious practice of any kind.  The high end of the Y-axis is the devoutly dogmatic adherent to whatever practice to which he or she may subscribe.  Having described it this way, I think most people I know live somewhere on  the “45” between these two axes (I keep company with very few priests, pastors or mullahs--not for lack of want-to, we just don't move in the same circles).  I consider my own beliefs to be high on the X-axis and very near zero on the Y-axis.  I believe in a Supremacy—something bigger; much, much bigger--the presence of Whom actually leads me to questions about, well, everything, and the concept of Whom provides me a sense of "direction" as I wonder.  But I have almost no use for Man’s religions.  Many folks I know, atheist and believer alike, have a hard time severing faith and religion.  There is the thought from faithful folks that you cannot believe in God and not go to church and practice the rites and ceremonies that God demands.   And there is the atheist’s idea that both God and religion are inseparable because they are man-made myths and crutches for limited intellect.  I disagree with both notions as absolutes.  I will respectfully point out that there are a slew of different sets of rites and ceremonies and doctrines which describe a great many different religions, cults and practices, and you can find a different interpretation for most of them by simply going to the next city.  I am sincerely challenged to believe that God whispered separately in the ears of the likes of Jesus, Abraham, the Buddha, and Mohammed (or anyone else; I don't mean to exclude here), and gave them each completely different sets of instructions and then left them to "work it out among yourselves."  It's a recipe for chaos...seen the news lately? I will also point out that some of the greatest acts of care and kindness are more regularly dispensed as an act of one's faith than they are as a result of reason and rational thought.

Some of my friends might read this and say, “Yeah, that.  Exactly.”  Some will just shake their heads and sigh, “There he goes again.”  Yes, I did, didn’t I (you should know that I enjoy this type of discussion)?  Some will stop reading at the subject line and walk away (sorry.  Okay, not really).  And some from both sides of the debate will actually have issue with this.  The faithful will use doctrine and dogma to highlight my errant ways.  The atheists will try “logic” and “reason” and the “expertise” of celebrated others of their kind to highlight the flaws of my thought processes.  Believe me, I’ve easily spent half of my life considering this position. And what I’ve come up with in answer to both of you is simply “We do not and we cannot possibly know.”

The faithful by definition do not know if there is a God or whether their religious practices “work”.   But they believe, and that provides them comfort and fulfillment (something a ton of folks could use from day to day). That’s the nature of faith—the leap you take when your capacity to know falls short of your ability to understand.  In my mind, it is a beautifully uniquely human trait. 

Likewise, the atheist cannot possibly KNOW that there is NOT a God.  Sorry, smart as you are, rational and reasoned as you are, you aren't enough of either to discern your belief as FACT any more than the believers can discern theirs.  And so yours, too, is a matter of faith, which I respect no less than that of the believer.  But from my conversations with my atheist friends (and they are interestingly more numerous these days) I get the the distinct impression that their specific quarrel is not so much with God's existence but with the religion(s) used to acknowledge it.  Don't misunderstand, the atheist does not believe in God. But I know few of them who will get so worked up about that issue as they will about the practice of religion.  Dr. Dawkins' quote above is illustrative of this position.  I can site examples that make his statement ring true.  But as a credo for atheism, it falls short because it is far too absolute a statement. There are a great many scientists, philosophers, reasonable and rational people who are also people of devout faith in God and who adhere to one or the other of the world's religions.  In many cases, it their faith that drives them to be curious and to use their minds to the  maximum extent possible to answer the nagging questions we all have about life, the universe, and everything else. And though I am not one of these luminaries in thought and science (by a considerable margin), I do understand this perspective best of all because it best describes my experience.  

Neither side of this debate will ever be won. There will forever be the axes of faith and religion, and those who live their lives somewhere between them.  For my part, this is as much "witnessing" as you will ever get from me.  It is also no further persuasion than you will receive to the contrary.  I stand as he who is comfortable in the simultaneous presence of “that than which nothing greater can be thought”, the omnipresent and all-powerful wonder of “how it all works”, and without need for rite, ceremony, ruffle of flourish, to bring it all together. I believe, I wonder, I search and I think.  I can do it with complete cool rational thought processes as well as with the occasional suspension of disbelief in recognition of the fact that, for the time being, what I experience is beyond my ken.  And that for me is enough.  If at the End of Days I am wrong in this; if I truly did need a set of rites and ceremonies, then perhaps as I am brought to judgment (if Judgment there be) the acts of waking and drawing my first breath in thanks (for ALL of it), and walking outside and looking into the stars at dawn and wondering at (and respecting) the immenseness of it all, and smiling back at my dog who ALWAYS has a smile for me, will be seen as practice enough to render the honor due.