(My answers to Ben's questions are at the end of this. I thought, in the interest of keeping Philippi involved, I'd put the more accessible stuff at the beginning, which doesn't require any sort of foreknowledge of the other post.)
Ben posted an interesting response to that "Street Preachers" post I had a week ago and I thought I'd respond more fully in a post, rather than cram a bunch of words into a comment section. Besides, I'd rather bore everyone with this sort of talk rather than just those unlucky victims who wander into the comment section of an old post.
I suppose it's worth regurgitating the stuff I talked about in that old post, but I'd rather not. It's right there if you want it.
Why I’m Interested in Religion et al.
I think I can truly say I’ve never had any serious rumblings about God existing or whether the whole thing might be true in some fashion. I’m not sure why I say this in the beginning except to direct this explanation towards other people as opposed to myself and maybe that’s wrong. But I’m not sure.
It’s true, though, that I’ve never sat down and prayed or seriously imagined that God was real – any god, mind you, any deity or supernatural entity. It all seemed so fantastic, so other-worldly, and not the least bit true.
But as to my deep fascination with religion and the potential existence of any deity(ies): I think it has more to do with my deep desire to understand the way other people think and operate. I find the belief systems of other people so terribly fascinating, not necessarily why they do certain things but why they believe certain things. (Why they believe is more important than why they do stuff, I think, because belief, to a large extent, informs action.)
Like why people believe supply-side economics is a great way to run financial systems when they know nothing about it. Now, if they were economists or had some training/background and had a grasp of the science, that’s a different story. But so many people feel supply-side economics is the way to go without understanding the technical aspect of it one bit – and that’s fascinating. I myself only understand the science to what I would deem is a passable extent, but even that might be not nearly enough to hold a claim. Maybe it's all about belief in authorities, maybe we can't ever know a lot of stuff and so we have to put our belief in someone we think does.
This is the large reason I find belief in religion fascinating, because so much of it is predicated on very little knowledge or substance of the religion and its logical implications. So much is based on very little information given out at church or at home and yet people believe it, readily, and without much awareness of their lack of knowledge.
And that’s fascinating! I can understand why a trained missionary with a sufficient background in theology and the philosophical implications of such would believe in a God/religion. They have reasons and the reasons make sense them. But for most people, it boggles my mind. They just believe, without much care and without much to base it on. And it’s not like they’ve read the whole bible: they’ve read a few books, maybe, been told a bunch of stuff, and God just seems like an okay dude.
Perhaps it’s fear, fear that the people predicating belief on so little have the ability to affect my life in tremendous ways. I’m less afraid of the missionaries with lots of training than of the proportionately greater number of people who just believe, because if they justify belief on so little, then what else? Hating gays? Blacks? Supply-side economics? Voting for the guy who talks better? Becoming an extremist? Of worse: getting passable knowledge informed by liberal views and then hating all conservatives. It’s kind of scary, isn’t it?
That’s what interests me so much, that’s what drives me. If I can understand why people believe in God/religion with so little to go on, then maybe I can understand why people believe other things in the same manner. Of course, why not study someone’s largely unfounded belief in supply-side economics instead of their belief in God? I focus on the religious belief because we can only have so much to go on in that realm, whereas in economics we have graphs, charts, years of study and data, and lots of experts who really know what they’re talking about. Whereas with God/religion, we have a bunch of thought, some of it logical and rational, being spewed by various people claiming authority – there’s much less solid ground to stand on. Certainly economics is not infalliable, and it certainly has errors, mistakes and such (because it's an evolving science) but there's much more to rest my life on than with religion.
I’ve always wondered, too, about how to approach those who say they feel God, or it all just feels right. I’m never sure if I can just toss this thinking into the “psychological not mystical” trash heap or if it means something. I suppose it’s necessarily the most convoluted and misunderstood reason for believing because it’s so personal – only you can know, no one else can experience it. Every time I think about it, I dismiss it with the thought that if it’s so personal then I can’t possibly be involved in it and nor can anyone else. If I experience it, I experience it. If they do, they do. What can I say? I sometimes feel that my belief in God's nonexistence is visceral in the same way: it just feels right, sometimes, like it can't possibly be wrong. What can I say?
And by the way, I should talk about the background that missionaries receive, at least to my knowledge. Jon and I had various encounters with a pair of Mormon missionaries a few years ago, when they came to our house every Wednesday for a chat and what not. I’m not sure why we obliged them at first, but after a while, when our interest was clearly waning, they kept coming and that was kind of annoying. But whatever, they came. I had always heard they were schooled in basic religious philosophy – the logic behind their beliefs – but I never noticed this. I asked them some questions along logically-related paths and the answers were either vague or so far removed from logic as to appear irrelevant to my question. Now, I can’t say anything with regard to Catholic missionaries, but at least for this hapless pair of Mormon missionaries, that was my experience.
So, to encapsulate the above peripatetic thinking: I’m interested in God/religion because the reasons people believe fascinate – and infuriate – me. If they believe with such little evidence (including those well versed in the arguments) then what else will they believe?
Reading over this, I’m beginning to realize, Ben, that you’re revelation (no pun intended) of why you had such a strong interest in God/religion is turning out to be much more powerful than mine, which is based largely on why other people believe rather than why I don’t believe. Harumph – that’s sad.
Does this mean the elimination of desire begets perfection?
Nah, I’m not Buddhist. To want is to lack, and to lack is be imperfect. In other words, to not have something, whether that be strength, some sort of object, or an intangible thought for the way the world ought to work, is to lack something. And if one does not have everything, then one is imperfect. It’s an odd claim, and certainly to say that God can’t desire makes for an interesting Christian worldview.
Does this mean perfection in its entirety is an emotional state of being?
Nah, as well. I would actually think that to be perfect would be to lack an emotional state of being, for to have emotions is to be in a state in which you might lack something. Of course, to not have emotions means God can’t love (but to say God can’t want is to say as much, I suppose).
I guess this really just speaks to the incomprehensibility of God’s supposed perfection. It’s so complicated and full of potential (and actual) paradoxes and contradictions that it’s either A) horribly inconceivable both in our minds and in reality or B) something real that is, however, beyond our comprehensibility and thus we should just stop worrying about it. The latter claim is often employed to say that we can’t know God in the same way we know our neighbor Bob and so we shouldn’t try to understand him up to a certain point. Of course, this begets the question: why should I care about him at all?
Does one have to have the capacity to want without having the want to achieve perfection?
An interesting question. In some muddled form of perfection (they’re all muddled, really) it would seem that this could be the case, especially if we ascribe omnipotence as a quality of perfection. Speaking of omnipotence, I had an interesting question about it that came to me once while reading something for a philosophy of religion class: Has God done everything, committed every conceivable and inconceivable action?
If I recall correctly (and I very well may not), the logic went like this: if God is omnipotent then he has to be able to say anything and mean it – he has to have the ability to say anything and make it true. So God then would have to be able to say “I have done everything (like, say, kill babies).” And if he has to be able to say this and it’s true, then that means God has done everything (like, say, kill babies).
I remember spending days thinking about this and I never worked up the courage to ask my professor, because I was always (and still am) too insecure to approach a question I might be completely wrong about. I was always afraid (and still am) that I would be so off base I might as well quit life. I also thought I might have been on to something, which was scary.
As to my apparent equivocation of want: you might be on to something. I’m thinking, though, about your example of wanting a woman to love you and a woman loving you (alongside that want). So you’re saying that while the woman is loving you (it seems odd to say) you want a woman to love you? Hmm. I’m imaging a constant action of a woman loving you (emotionally, now, mind all those perverts out there – [that would be me]) and you desiring that a woman love you. It seems that at some point your desire would be fulfilled. I’m having a hard time reconciling the notion of you wanting something that is currently being had by you. But again, my confusion may lay in my conception of desire (hence the supposed equivocation).
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