The other side of theology

Sometimes it's a long time between drinks in Erleichda. Since my last posting I've concluded stage one of a comprehensive personal study of theology and philosophy and reached certain conclusions.

I've whipped through Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity and certain primal religions. You might notice that these are the major chapter headings in Huston Smith's The World's Religions.

I've considered the teachings of Aristotle, Plato, Hume, Kant, Mills, Nietzsche, the Dalai Lama, Camus, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Dawkins, Teehan and countless other experts.

This personal search has been going on for many years, probably most of my life, not just since my last posting, so my conclusions are not totally superficial.

Here are some of my conclusions.

When it comes to the question of the existence of God, there are only three answers - yes, no or maybe.

If the answer is yes, there may be one god or multiple gods, all or any of whom may or may not be interventional.

No matter what the answer is to the preceding questions, by any reasonable definition of God, he/she or it must be beyond the possibility of human understanding. Ayn Rand said that God is "a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive." I reject the reasoning of the atheists - I lack the arrogance which is a pre-requisite to atheism.

With no certainty possible, I have reached the position reached by the Ch'an Buddhists some 1500 years ago, when they decided that if they needed to renounce all desire to achieve Nirvana, then the last desire, the desire to achieve Nirvana, would be the first desire they would renounce.

The Ch'ans, in rejecting the desire to achieve Nirvana did not necessarily reject the concept of Nirvana. Having rejected the need for God, or any perception I might have of God, I am now able to open my mind to the possibility of God, which is an interesting position to find myself in. I can only state with conviction that I choose to believe that what I choose to believe is true.

Voltaire thought that " If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." I say "Not necessary, but very convenient".

If I define (as I do), God as being "What is", then I can move beyond the need to believe in any particular anthropomorphic projection of God, and understand that observation is revelation. In the words of Spinoza "The more we know of things, the more we know of God."

I'm back to what I posted on October 19 2011 (qv). There's just no point in theology, which is my excuse for not doing what needs to be done, endless quibbling about how many angels can dance on the point of a pin and similar mysteries.

On the other side of theology is the important question: "So what, now what?" That's the only question that matters. 

Here are a few opinions that I've discovered on my journey that are worth sharing. Being a Lennonist, I have to quote Lennon first. He said " I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong."

George Santayana: Experience has repeatedly confirmed that well-known maxim of Bacon's that "a little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."  At the same time, when Bacon penned that sage epigram... he forgot to add that the God to whom depth in philosophy brings back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them.

Leo Tolstoy: How important the concept of God is, and how instead of valuing what has been given us, we with light hearts spurn it because of absurdities that have been attached to it.

R. Buckminster Fuller: God is a verb, not a noun proper or improper.

Albert Einstein: That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

Voltaire: To believe in God is impossible. Not to believe in Him is absurd.

And finally for now, from Art Hoppe: "If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?"