No reasons to believe in god
Religious Impulse - part 1
I saw this video recently
When the lady said “I did not see reason to believe that there was a god”, I realised I have actually changed my stance on this issue.
I used to say I believe in god but I don’t believe in religion.
But now I think believe in god and in the importance of religion. I see why we can’t help but create them. They’re useful [1].
First let me say that I define religion as a manifestation of and organisation around the faith in a shared concept of god. And I define god more broadly as something that exists beyond our human understanding, including all its forms and attributes we can conceive.
I still don’t buy into any major organised religions, but I have more compassion and less judgement towards those who do now. Thankfully my curiosity saved me from being a snob. It helped me stay interested in other people’s experiences. I have always leaned towards agnosticism as I have never managed to gather the amount of hubris needed to fully identify as an atheist. And the number of snobbish atheists I’ve encountered throughout the years are driving me further from that end of the spectrum.
There definitely are good valid and useful personal reasons to believe in god.
This brings me to my main point: I think ‘reason’ and ‘faith’ are themselves the wrong approaches and limited dimensions to deal with god.
God will always exist even if no one can reason themselves into believing or not believing in it. Therefore, god (in my conception of it) doesn’t require any worship or respect or believing to affirm itself. It’s not even something we can define or perceive.
In a way, any god defined or perceived by us humans is god, but it is also not god. It’s not even just about how language, words, and feelings are limited. And yes, this argument invalidates my own idea of god anyway, but #eh.
We can’t help but conjure entities and concepts. And we need to weave stories and assign meaning to them to orient ourselves in life.
And if those entities, stories, and meanings are subjectively useful in someone’s life in any way, then why not?
Next post in this thread: Religious impulse runs deep.
Footnotes
And the other side of the coin of this is: they can be used. There is much to be said here but let’s leave it at that.