God
When I was about six, my dad gave me a Bible Stories in Pictures book. It was beautiful, with old engravings of biblical heroes and heroines fighting each other and prophesizing and conquering and building and destroying, and all the other stuff people did back then.
The relationship between the pictures and the text was straightforward. The story of Joseph was accompanied by an engraving of a young idealist blessing his youngest brother kneeling before him, the story of Sisra and Yael was followed by an image of the proud Yael standing outside her tent with the severed head of the evil Sisra, and Samson’s broken heart was evidently there as he declared himself the first suicide killer.
The first page told the story of God creating the world, daily blessing his creation, altogether pretty pleased with himself. However, the engraving on the opposite page showed dark clouds with scattered sun rays breaking through to shine brightly on a barren land.
And me, being a kid who believed everything he heard and everything he saw, looked at the picture of the breaking clouds and thought this was what God looked like.
I’m an unbeliever, and Atheism is a cherished part of my identity, but I just can’t rid myself of this childhood concept of God. You see, I can ask religious people to prove the existence of God in a logical, scientific world, and I can scorn them, asking, “With all the tragedies in the world, and the wars, and Bush, how can anyone say there is a God?” But maybe their view of the world is just as valid as my own. How can anyone look at the struggling rays of the sun and not see God?
24 comments:
My husband asks the question you mentioned, and it bothers me, for many reasons.
That question, in my opinion, makes it seem as though God is supposed to be all good.
At any rate, I respect what you go through.
Knowing there's an emptiness or a vacuum without faith, I still can't believe in God, whether God is all good or all bad or simply fair. But the idea of God is something I still carry with me since childhood, probably the same way humans have carried that idea with them despite science and accumulating proof against the existence of a higher being.
I'm glad I'm not alone here in my doubts and questions. I wouldn't want to write if my feelings were only my own. Even though I had a specific childhood in a specific place and time, I feel that in general all people share similar doubts and confusions. We all question our values and we all question our belief systems. And we all have crazy aunts. Most of us, at least.
I'm a Christian of the non-evangelizing variety, and I believe that ultimately none of us really knows what God really is,despite the depth of my belief and love. However, if you find that trace of grace in the sun, isn't that wonderful enough?
I struggle to call myself Christian, but I do believe in a higher power. I definitely take the bible with a grain (block) of salt, and I think the Church is an advertising, propaganda, money-printing machine.
That said, I've always found true atheists curious. I think it requires just as much faith to not believe in something that can't be proven as it does to believe in something that can't be proven.
I guess it's like a jury, where as one side believes the burden of proof is on the prosecution, whereas the other is on the defendant.
I say enjoy this life and do the best you can. The rest works itself out.
Cynthia, I agree. We don't need to ask ourselves so many questions. It is probably enough to look at the world and see whatever it is we want to see (or whatever it is we can see). We can look at sun rays and see God or we can see a beautiful sunrise, but in the end, maybe it's all the same.
Ben, I think Atheists wouldn't have been so militant about their/our set of beliefs (or lack of-) if it wasn't for us living in a place where saying there is no God is considered more ridiculous than a literal interpretation of the Bible, including each and every miracle. I think we should be able to find a middle ground somewhere, but maybe not as long as hypocritical politicians use Jesus to gain votes as they trample on others' rights. When they bring out the Bible to fight gay rights and the Plan B pill it's only natural to align yourself with the opposite side.
But I am trying to be as tolerant as I can about others' beliefs. Nothing is ridiculous, and no belief is silly. In the end, it's not about what we believe happens in the afterlife or what's hidden above cloud 9, but about what we do with our beliefs and values.
I completely agree with you. I think that WE are the middle ground. I believe God exists, I have no idea whether or not he gives a rats ass about us, and the idea that the bible is HIS word, and not the words of the men it was written by is ridiculous.
I think the bible has some fantastic stories, but at the end of the day, they are just that: stories. Not truths, epiphanies, or whatever.
I'm also pretty sure God doesn't hate gay people. I'm pretty sure God doesn't hate, period.
Religion and politics make me physically ill.
Anyway, happy to have stumbled on your blog. I'll surely return to see what's next.
I read some Maupassant the other day and your reason for not believing in God is the same as his. He said something like, if God does exist, he is not a good God, he is an evil terrible God who gets bored and must dole out plagues and earthquakes to keep himself from getting bored... Maupassant wrote over a 100 years ago, so his ideas aren't exactly novel anymore! Hehe, but if you get a chance I think you should try and read him, I think you'd like his stuff!
I'm right there with you & with the exact same argument/insights.
Ben, thanks. I also think the Bible is a good book (and I love the Book of Mathew, which I only read a couple of years ago for the first time), but when the first contradiction between the Bible and archeology came up people should have tried to deal with it better than by saying archaeological findings were a test of our faith... Jericho was already destroyed by the time the Israelites got there and supposedly destroyed it by playing music = biblical stories were written by people.
Sebastien, I did read some Maupassant, but what I read didn't have any reference to God (as far as I remember). I read The Necklace (I also saw the short movie as a kid and I still remember how it made me sad), and A Woman's Life, which is full of wisdom. Oh, it's a great book.
And Jane, calling my posts insights is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.
Yep there is a lot of messed up stuff out there but if there is a God then we have to understand the concept of free will. Once in motion, lots of bad stuff can happen because we, not God, are calling the shots. Free will makes God a spectator of sorts.
Now that is just one view of why good things happen to bad people and bad things happen for good people and I think it's an interesting concept.
We will never have the answers to these questions but there is nobility in exploring it from all sides including atheists who are some of the most rational, sensible people out there yet still get a bad rap.
I am never a very religious person... And I agree with your thoughts. However, I think we sometimes need to turn to the so called God in times of trouble.
Serenity
Ricardo and Amie, I don't know. I am an Atheist but I still don't believe good or bad things happen to good or bad people. We all face challenges and we all believe we are good. Even those who think they are bad justify their actions as necessary evils. If we believe in God and think we live a righteous life we tend to be angry at God, and if we don't have faith and bad things happen we may think it's because we didn't trust God. In the end, good things and bad things will happen to us throughout our lives. Some religions may focus our minds on the good things while other religions will prepare us for a carefree afterlife.
This one is for Sebastien--from Maupassant's A Woman's Life: "Then she added, no doubt in answer to her own thoughts: 'You see, life is never as good or as bad as one thinks.'"
True people, the perception of what's good and evil is hard to split into absolutes when you take your point into account. The world is a very grey place and yes we all face challenges.But I've seen some assholes go without a single trouble in the world. Also, I think you and I are in agreement when we say Bush is evil ;-)
You're right about the assholes with no troubles. But maybe because they live a carefree life they act a certain way. Like Flannery O'Connor said, "She would of been a good woman . . . if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."
And as for Bush, I'm still not sure whether he's evil or just a retarded man-child.
On Bush: He's both.
Sometimes it's so hard to believe that there is a God because of all the crap that keeps happening all over the world. Sometimes you think that darn it, God either doesn't exist or pretty much an evil guy.
But... it's also so much hard to believe that He isn't there. That He doesn't exist. Because, He can be so so real. Being a plain human sometimes suck. Wish I were an animal sometimes, they don't have to worry and I bet they know more about us when it comes to God because they don't question everything and anything that comes their way.
But maybe that's the thing... crap happens not because of the lack of God but because presence of humans who don't really get with God's program, which in all actualty, they're following God's program and they just don't know it.
I used to be an atheist. Guess it's because I watch the sun rise far too often that I finally saw God.
God bless.
Lotsa love, Jana
Jana, things change all the time, I think. You watch the sun rise and think of God, but then you watch CNN and think that No, it's just us people, using our beliefs as excuses for otherwise inexcusable actions.
I will continue looking at the sun and I will continue to remember believing in God as a child, but now I need more. I want a miracle, and the beauty of creation doesn't do it for me anymore.
I'm not arguing with anything you say, though. It's lonely and kinda sad without God, but in the end, when the sun rises in my neighborhood it also sets in Iraq.
I like the Hindu concept of Brahman (not to be confused with Brahma). Brahman is everything ... everything you see, feel, what you don't see, and includes you. It includes the good and the bad. This, in Hinduism, means that everything is God. Of course there is a deeper piece to Brahman - no attributes. But that is for a deeper philosophical discussion.
I'm not Hindu; I'm Buddhist. Buddhism is non-theistic.
Jean, I did recently get a book about Brahman (which, how embarrassing, I got after hearing about it on NPR. I'm such a stereotype), but I haven't read it yet. I have more respect for people who inquire about philosophies and make a conscious choice to belong to a religion rather than just believing what they were socialized to believe in. Then again, who am I to have or not have respect for anyone?
Guess that's why nature is called the introduction to knowing more about God. You don't buy a book and just stick to the introduction. Nature is the beginning. Gotta dig deeper to search for answers and not let the rest of the negative issues stop you from searching I guess.
As before, God bless.
Jana, you're right in a sense, but it's also entirely possible that you dig deeper but still, find only nature, no God. What you find may come from your society or from books you've read or from where life has led you, but it's not necessarily God. I'm not saying I know something you don't, just that we're both as ignorant about the Truth.
But thanks, and if there is a God, I hope s/he blesses you too.
I don't know if there's god or not. I don't know if we are here for nothing or for a reason. But I fill; love(to my family but also to the people in the sun), happiness, sadness, anticipation, excitement, and I admire the beauty in the sunset, the sound of birds in the morning, the smell of this honey flower tree, the laughter of my children(any many other things even less obvious then that).. And I wonder, is it all about survival? Is it all about interests? Maybe, but I guess I'll stick to the belief that there is something good out there. God or goddess, or an entity, or mother earth or nature or spirit or whatever. And I'll keep saying my "shma Israel" blessing every morning or when ever I want or remember, because it makes me fill so good, and it makes me fill protected. So maybe it is about interests after all. Well so be it.
If I have a bad day I still think it's probably because my left foot was the first to touch the ground in the morning. See, no one told me it was a metaphor.
Maybe God is like that. Maybe no one told us God was a metaphor for what we can't or simply don't need to understand.
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