Something Extraordinary

Per our good patron Leigh Botts' request, I offer the following anniversary post (although a few weeks overdue) concerning the question of the existence of God (a la Christianity). To me, the question itself is infinitely baffling. Honestly, I have no idea where to begin to answer it. I know, I know, it's a simple question and I'm just managing to complicate it. Well, having multiple degrees in theology will do that for you...but I think having an honest, open mindset to one's everyday life experience will do it too. That's exactly what did it for me, by a long shot.

I think it all began for me a number of years ago when I came to the point where I was no longer afraid to answer the question "Do you believe God exists?" with something besides "yes." I could not imagine myself in a world that did not have a foundation, a structure, and a purpose. Over time, I found ways to let go of that understanding of the world and as I did so, I began to experience my life with an exhilarating freedom, something akin to the gasp of a child's first breath in this world. As time went by, I found that the God that is commonly known in Western Christianity (male, sovereign, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, etc.) was not a God in whom I could believe with any modicum of intellectual honesty. Essentially, if that God is responsible for this world, something is profoundly fucked up. Sure, I knew the standard Christian responses to theodicy -- humans are responsible for evil and suffering and God ultimately has a plan of redemption which began long ago, etc. -- but I simply couldn't buy it. To me, that God would either be astonishingly incompetent or ruthlessly sadistic. Then there was the issue of a number of poor experiences with Christians and the Church and essentially, the deal was sealed. I opted out.

But overall, the only thing I had accomplished was moving away from an experience of the world structured by God and metaphysics. Ah, but there's the problem. When I attempted to move away from that experience, I essentially just walked backwards away from it (and thus still faced it). Therefore, I was still living in that world, only from a standpoint of opposition. It's basically the same reason why I think the atheism vs. Christianity debate is pointless: they're flip sides of the same coin, a romantic symbiosis made for the ages. I found neither side of that coin to be helpful in living my life in the way I desired. I wanted to embrace life in the fullest and live an unencumbered life of faith, love, honesty, and commitment towards myself and others. I simply was unable to do these things within (or against) Christianity. Instead, I opted just to set it aside, leave it within arm's reach for conversation, and move on to something more helpful.

You see, I think it is a basic human need to construct some type of meaning in our lives. Thus, I can identify with Alicia Nash in the movie A Beautiful Mind when she says "I need to believe that something extraordinary is possible." Yes, so do I. I want to dream, to hope, to believe in things beyond what little evidence is given for me to do so. In the next post, I will discuss two sites that I find helpful in this process of constructing meaning: Buddhism and tragedy.

I wanted to get the conversation started in this post by addressing the issue of the existence of God. As I have shown, I am for all practical purposes agnostic. Where do you guys stand on the matter? Are you in with the God thing or not so much? It's spring season at thesecondchance so I'm opening the porch area for your enjoyment. So get your asses in here, order a drink, and toast to something extraordinary... Cheers.