Is God a Delusion?
Now We're Getting Real
I was introduced to Centering Prayer in the late 1990s while living in Rockford, Illinois. If you aren't familiar with Centering Prayer, it's a lot like Eastern meditation, except your intent is to open yourself up to God and let God transform you.
One Saturday morning, I sat in my chair and allowed myself to fall into the sacred silence. I don't know how long I had been sitting there, but suddenly I heard a close friend's voice call out to me through the darkness…
"Bo!"
It startled me. His voice sounded both near and far at the same time. Such a surreal experience.
It took a moment to reorient myself as I looked around my room wondering, "What the hell just happened?"
An hour to two later I received a phone call. It was my friend. He was in trouble. Long story short, he ended up in Portland, Oregon, without any cash and was living in his car.
I invited him to come stay with me, and I wired him the money he needed to make the trip.
Beyond reason
I consider myself to be a rational person.
But how in the world am I supposed to make sense of that?
The closest I can come is to say maybe it has something to do with things happening at the quantum level where information can be in more than one place at a time, and I just happened to tune into it.
To be honest, that sounds like no less of a stretch than if I were to say, "I believe it was a God thing."
(Of course, according to Diarmuid O'Murchu, who I talked about last week, those would both be saying the same thing.)
Will the real agent of "God" please stand up?
In the early 2000s, I was talking with a charismatic Christian. She definitely disagreed with my inclusive stance for LGBTQ+ people in the church. When she brought up the topic, I simply mentioned my support for the cause, and I intended to allow the conversation to keep going in another direction.
However, it was then that she told me she had a "Word from the Lord" for me, because that was her spiritual gift. She then proceeded to basically rebuke me for my stance in a generalized way. In short, she said I was walking away from God, and God wanted me to come back.
Yeah, not buying it.
I'm sure in her own mind she intended to help spiritually. But I also think on a deeper level—perhaps subconsciously—she was trying to use her God-concept to theologically intimidate, bully, and coerce compliance, which would mean me abandoning my position and accepting hers.
I opted to respond simply with, "Thank you for sharing," and I left it at that.
I believe my experience of hearing my friend call for help during Centering Prayer was a God thing. And, I'm sure the charismatic Evangelical woman who spoke to me believes her Words from the Lord are also a God thing.
How can I say that my experience is a God thing and hers isn't?
The limits of "God"
While this may be uncomfortable to hear, the reality is that none of us have a perfect perception of God. The only thing we have to work with is our interpretation of our spiritual experience, which is shaped by prior experience and interpretation.
I know I can never get past my perceptual grid. I know I am always limited to working with personal interpretations.
Truth be told, I don't even really know for sure whether or not God exists, because…
It could all be a delusion.
And, I wouldn’t be able to tell if it were.
The bottom line is that "God" is the name that I give to a perceived Animating Force in my story. As part of my story, “God”, too, is a narrative construct.
So, I always have to be careful not to wield my “potentially make-believe God" against others as justification for gaining power and control over their lives.
The power of "God" over my life
Even though I realize that God is a narrative construct (and possibly a delusion), I also realize that God powerfully influences me every single day of my life.
Think of it this way…
If you believe that your neighborhood is perfectly safe and you are in no danger at night, you would probably not think twice about leaving all your doors unlocked.
If, however, you believe that your neighborhood is full of thieves, you would probably double-check your doors at night to make sure they are locked.
Whether or not there are actually any thieves in your neighborhood is irrelevant. Your behavior—the way you live your life—is based on how real they are to you.
Think of these ways perceived reality affects lives…
Some people believe Satan is real, and they spend time and energy fighting him
Some people believe aliens from outer space are real, and they spend time and energy looking for them
Some people believe astrology is real, and they spend time and energy designing and interpreting star charts
Some people believe astral projection is real, and they spend time and energy practicing
And, in the same way, I believe God is real.
A lot of people get hung up on whether God exists. But, whether God exists or not is irrelevant to me.
In fact, I don’t even think of God as something that can fit into what we call categories of existence. While I believe God is an integral part of existence and I experience God through existence, I also think God is beyond that which we think of as existence.
In my mind, to say “God exists” is to miss a greater truth, and to say “God doesn’t exist” does the same.
So, I like to think of my awareness of God this way…
God neither exists nor does not exist, but is very real to me.
All language is symbolic
One way to understand my "possibly non-existent God" is to see it as a symbol of Ultimacy in my life.
All language is symbolic. Words have no meaning in themselves. The only meaning they ever have is that which we give them as we interact with them.
That's why "God" means different things to different people. The word is a symbolic word, just like every other word out there. "Apple" is another word-symbol that can mean something different at different times and in different contexts to different people.
The meaning of a symbol is not inherent to it, but rather is created by participation with it.
Symbols attain meaning at both the cultural and personal levels. When we encounter them for the first time, we encounter the cultural meanings that have been assigned to them. By interacting with the symbol within the context of its inherited meaning, we create our own personal meaning for it.
Symbols and new meaning
To make things even more complicated (and possibly more fun), when symbols interact with one another, new meanings can emerge.
Let's look at the word-symbol "nihilism", for example. It signifies a belief that everything is ultimately meaningless. The root "nihil" is also the root for "annihilation".
Is “nihilism” a good word or a bad word? Generally speaking, for most people this is considered a bad thing, and something we want to stave off.
Here's another word-symbol: "Christian". Obviously, this means different things to different people.
Is "Christian" a good word or a bad word in our culture? That definitely depends upon one's perspective, but it's safe to say that it's sliding into the bad word category relatively quickly.
Now, here’s a fun experiment…
What happens if you put these two mostly-bad word-symbols together? You get…
"Christian nihilism".
Do two negatives make a positive?
I certainly hope so because one of the ways that I self-identify is as a Christian nihilist.
(Yes, it is a term that I created myself to describe my theological position.)
And I want to dip into that and reveal more about what that means to me next week.
Peace, Bo
www.evolvingchristianfaith.net
PS: If you found this article valuable, please hit the "like" button. The more likes I have, the more likely the post is to be found on Substack by others.
PPS: I would love to hear feedback on what you like about my newsletter and what I could do to make it better. To send me your thoughts, just reply to the email.
Want to know more about my perspective?
Feel free to pick up my book, Drinking from an Empty Glass: Living Out of a Meaningless Spirituality on Amazon.
Please Help Me Spread the Word
As I try to grow my audience, I need your help.
If you know anyone who would find value in what I have to say, please let them know about this newsletter.
I would greatly appreciate it.
Very good Bo. Look forward to discussing more