Don't Talk To Me About God in the Morning.

For the last several weeks I have noticed myself becoming increasingly irritated by the inane, innocuous, but ultimately innocent comments of my co-workers. I'm not sure if it's the stress of the job getting to me or just because I don't seem to be sleeping up to par on many nights, but I can't deny that the thirty minutes or so of our daily morning meeting have become increasingly tiresome and annoying to me for no particularly good reason. I've been working with basically the same individuals for three and a half years now, and there's really no reason for me to react any differently to them now than ever.

Let's take my over-reaction to Thursday morning's conversation for example...

My boss, stated she has taken a picture of the sun rising over the pond behind her house, and although she doesn't know about the spiritual beliefs of her staff, she finds the beauty of this scene to be infallible proof of God's existence. This sentiment was seconded by several others at the table who agreed that anyone who could not see God's presence in scenes of natural beauty must be spiritually blind or incredibly stupid. The psychiatrist, chimed in that Einstein himself came to believe in God through his scientific observations of the Universe, and a counselor added that some well-known philosopher had proven God's existence through the use of a Johari Window.

I added nothing to this conversation although I silently chafed at the thoughtlessness of their conclusions, but realized, even as I did so, that the comments they made were hardly controversial and would probably be endorsed by the majority, particularly in this true believing region. Why then did their comments ring so false and simple-minded to my ears? Do I really imagine that I have a higher intellect, a deeper understanding, or or a more profound insight into matters of God than the other people at the table?

I don't know. Probably not, but I do feel my views are at least as well thought out and reasoned as theirs. I chose not to engage in the conversation because I do not delude myself in thinking that my views might change anyone's opinion, and did not wish to bring unneeded negative attention to myself. But my blog is a safe place to do so (as long as I don't publicize it) and I feel compelled to write my views here:

I too have often felt moved by the wonders of natural beauty. Any time I look into a clear night sky to see the stars overhead and choose to place myself in an introspective mood, I feel a sense of mysticism and am moved to think of how wonderfully insignificant I am in comparison to the vastness of existence. Standing on a mountain top in Colorado looking over the tops of other snow-capped mountains in every direction for as far as I can see or standing at the edge of the ocean and looking out at the seemingly endless waters of the Atlantic, I am moved to feel the same way. But is the fact that this beauty exists, and that I as well as many others are moved by it proof of God's existence?

I don't believe it's a logical leap unless by God, you are referring to Him as a metaphor for all of the wonders that lie beyond human understanding. (This, I believe, is what Einstein had in mind when he referred to God.) It is certainly not proof of the existence of an anthropomorphic God who has created all of existence in order to please some humans who live on an otherwise insignificant world within an insignificant solar system located within an insignificant galaxy. It used to amaze me that the majority of people in the world are so short-sighted when thinking about these matters, but now I think I understand why religious feelings are so wide-spread, and so many people are so passionate about them. It is because religion is not at all based on logic or reason, but almost entirely on emotion. The Bible does not stand up as a historically accurate document in any objective test, yet many, many people take its words as Truth and would curse you and hate you for even questioning its authenticity. Why is that? It seems to be that it's because so many people place their very identity as well as all their hopes for eternal happiness on the words of this book. There's nothing reasonable or rational about it, but that doesn't matter. What matters is the passion--the emotion that fuels these beliefs. The fact that religious beliefs do not stand up to reason or even the slightest logical scrutiny is irrelevant.

Of course, if you choose not to believe in the literal truth of the God of the Bible or of Jesus for that matter, then where does that leave you as far as eternal questions are concerned? If you take out the options of Heaven and Hell when you die, then what happens to you? I don't know, nor does anyone else that I know of. I think it's most likely that conscious awareness of ourselves ceases when we die, but perhaps our energy, our essence, lives on in some form. In any event, there seems to be no practical reason to dwell on an event that is both inevitable and unknowable.

Does not believing in the Christian God nor any other man-invented one for that matter make you a person incapable of recognizing beauty or knowing right from wrong. Clearly, it does not. If that were true, wouldn't the prison I work in be full of Godless atheists? But it's not. In my time of working at the prison, I have rarely been in a place where more people professed a belief in God with such conviction. Believing in God or not has no bearing on the personal ethics we choose to exercise in our daily life, and I can't believe that anyone who tries to do good only out of fear of going to Hell if they do wrong is truly a moral person. In my experience extrinsic motivators are invariably weaker than intrinsic ones.

On the other hand, it does seem to me that pondering the spiritual side of life does add depth and character to a person's makeup, and that's why it's important to notice and feel essence of the spiritual beauty that exists all around us. It doesn't matter if you label the source of the wonder you feel as God or Nature. What we all long for is something transcendent that explains all the cosmic questions humans have been asking since the dawn of their existence. What's our purpose? What happens to us after we die? Why are we here at all? For that matter, why is there anything here when their seems to easily recognized purpose for any of it. The religions of the world seem to try to throw out nice, pat answers to satisfy their followers when the truth is there are no pat answers. There may in fact be no external answers at all, and our challenge is to live with that.


In the meantime, I should strive to be more in touch with my spiritual side, and not feel so cranky at the morning meetings.

We're all on the Same Team

So I'm 38 and still a sports fan even though I wonder why the heck that's the case. Why should I care if the Braves, Falcons, or Bulldogs win or lose? What's the point? Their success or failure has no bearing whatsoever on my life, and yet in the midst of watching them, I do have to resist the irrational feeling that they do matter. If they win a big game, it feels magical and wonderful. There is a momentary feeling that all is right with the world although the rational part of me realizes that nothing has really changed for me as a result at all. It's not like I think, in a real and logical sense, that the team I root for deserves to win any more than the other team or that the members of my team are any better people than those on the opposing team. It's all very irrational, but there it is nonetheless.

If you really think about it, this syndrome of rooting for your favorite team is somewhat metaphorical for a lot of human behavior in general. You could substitute sports teams for religions for example. Any thinking, rational person must be able to realize that if they were born in a different place or of different parents, they might follow an entirely different religion, and yet so many people have the irrational impulse to believe that the way they worship God is the best way--or in some cases really the only way to do so.

The same could be said of peoples of different nations or different races, or even different families. To me, it seems endemic of human nature that we believe that whatever group we are a part of is the best, superior to all others outside of their group even in the absence or in the face of evidence to the contrary. How many wars, atrocities, and general human misery have come about because of this irrational impulse? And yet it's easy to see why this phenomenon exists. In an evolutionary sense, it's easy to understand how a group of people needed to bond together in order to survive. Loyalty to the family...the group...the tribe...had to be observed above all else. Otherwise the hostile forces outside of that group would destroy it.

But like everything, the same thing that helps us survive also has a destructive side. To wish to destroy "the other" or to fight what is outside of us in natural, but it's not always the rational thing to do. Humans have the capacity for great reason and rationality, but we don't always stop to think of using it. We all have the potential to be really smart and really stupid at the same time.

So with that in mind: Go Dawgs!!

Preamble

So I keep telling myself I want to blog, but so far I haven't done it with any consistency. I've been asking myself what I need to do to blog consistently and why I want to do it at all. Here's the reasons I want to do it: I like to express myself in writing. I always have. I feel like blogging would give me a forum to put down my thoughts and to organize them as well. I think a blog could be a place where I could let all my interests mix and simmer like a hot, delicious stew. I am currently frustrated that I spend so much of my energy at work doing things I have to whose very value I question. I have no choice but to go to work and do these things because if I didn't, I wouldn't have the means to live the way I'd like to live when I'm not at work, and to have the things I like to have. But I wish my work was what I enjoyed doing. I suppose that's having your cake and eating it too, but I know there's plenty of people out there who have that, and wish I was one of them.

But at the same time, I'm more fortunate than many because while I don't love my job, I don't necessarily hate it either, and at least I have a cake to eat. There are plenty whose cake is stolen from them and eaten by others right in front of them.

So to have a forum in which to explore my interests and passions is why I want to keep a blog. The second part of the equation is keeping it updated consistently, and by consistently, I'm thinking at least once a week. These are the ways I'm thinking I can accomplish this. The best way, I think, is for me to not share it with everyone, and maybe not anyone in the beginning until the thing begins to roll of its own momentum. I want to be free to say what I feel without fearing the judgment of others. Perhaps it's gutless to not feel free to say what I think anyway, but I have to be honest with myself about how I am. I don't want to always be having to defend my opinions or to be worrying about offending others with my words. I consider myself a reasonable, thoughtful person, but I certainly don't have charitable opinions about everyone and everything, and I want to be free to express those uncharitable opinions if I desire to do so.

Of course, I do want my blog to be read by others at some point. It's sad for me to think of writing my heart out, and having my words exist in oblivion where they are never seen by anyone. If no one hears a tree fall, did it make a sound? If no one reads what you write, do your words really exist in any meaningful way? I'm not sure. But I do know I don't need to be linking my blog to my facebook page for awhile if I'm going to successfully keep a blog rolling.

I'm thinking my second key to keeping a regular blog is to keep it simple. I don't want to be trying to write the Magna Carta every time I sit down to blog. I want to write down what's in my head without over-editing myself. When I write fiction, I tend to move at a slow pace much of the time because I'm constantly wondering if I'm actually writing as well as I can. When I'm writing this blog, I don't want to care if I'm writing as well as I can. I just want to put the words down and let the pieces fall where they may. I don't want it to be a struggle. I just want to say whatever comes to mind. Also I don't want to narrowly define what I'm going to write about in my blog. I want it to be about whatever I want to say, and allow it to define itself.

So with all that said, let's see if I can do this thing!