Rather, I am speaking of the ultimate category of reality of which philosophers, physicists, and cosmologists refer to, and what religious people and mystics say they experience--the ultimate objective source of Being and Becoming.
Where does "all this" come from and eventually go to?
After this cosmos in so many trillions and trillions of years either stretches out space to infinity or implodes back to a singularity, what will still BE?
Why are we here? Are there eternal truths?
Of course some philosophers and scientists declare there is nothing "out" there beyond matter and energy. The cosmos-- maybe universes beyond universes--has no Meaning or Purpose, only IS for no reason.
Scientists such as Richard Dawkins claim that even to think there might be some Meaning behind it all is to be deluded in the worst sort of way. He wrote The God Delusion to try and demonstrate this central non-theistic thesis.
And Stephen J. Gould the famous Darwinian biologist, in a magazine interview, said humankind itself is only a "fluke" of evolution that probably wouldn't show up again if evolution were re-run another time.
Other famous scientists in this chorus of non-meaning include Coyne, Harris, Cashmore, Hutchens, Monad, Dennett, and Provine.
Dawkins' most famous statement against religion and the transcendent is probably his declaration in River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life:
"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so."
"If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored."
"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice."
"The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."
--
So there is the first option as to the true nature of Reality: Matter, Energy, and Chance or Cosmic Determinism. The natural, indifferent Cosmos itself is all there is.
We humans are an accidental species or "meat puppets" who construct our own illusions.
Then die. Eventually we as a species will go extinct.
In strong contrast, Enlightenment figures argued that consciousness, reason, human rights, justice, equality, and so forth show evidence of the essential nature of existence--the Deity.
And Friends have trusted for 300 hundred years that Ultimate Reality is Loving Relationship, Equality, Purpose--
that at the very center and heart of Reality are eternal truths, everlasting ideals, absolute love.
Some other faiths agree with the Society of Friends. Transcendent Love is the Center of the Cosmos.
Martin Buber, the Jewish mystic wrote a book on God, titled, I-Thou, which speaks of a love relationship between God and each human.
The Baptist minister and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., (despite his own moral failings), strongly held to Ultimate Reality being loving and good and true and just.
In his speech "Rediscovering Lost Values," King said, "The first principle of value is that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations."
"In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws..."
"I'm here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. (Yes) Eternally so, absolutely so."
"It's wrong to hate. (Yes. That's right) It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong. It's wrong in America. It's wrong in Germany..."
"It was wrong in 200 B.C. and it's wrong in 1954 A.D...It's wrong in every age and it's wrong in every nation."
"Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute."
--
No doubt early Friends would have ascribed non-theism to the "ocean of darkness" that threatens humankind. So how is it then that some Friends in the last 40 years have come out stating there is no God to worship, no Ultimate Reality to "quake before"?
They say God is a fiction, a word which does not represent anything real.
It is uncertain why such Friends deny God's existence. We are all doubters to one degree or another, but when humans, especially Friends, claim for certain that there is no God, it is puzzling and distressing.
After all both names--"Friend" and "Quaker"--are in reference to God. And the vital central focus of a Quaker meeting is worship of the Truth, the Light, the Divine.
If there is no One--no Center--to worship, then it would appear that such individuals are consciously choosing to pretend, what other non-theists such as Dawkins term "delusion."
Before I continue with an introduction to the Friends view of worship, let me emphasize that ALL humans are invited to come to commune in worship, even those who don't think there is any Ultimate Reality to live in and commune with. Hopefully, they will encounter the Truth, the Light.
After all, remember what Stephen King that famous Quaker horror writer;-) wrote in his novel, The Stand. In response to an atheist's statement that he doesn't believe in God, the heroic leader in the novel laughs and says, "But that don't matter. He believes in you."
To be continued
In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox
4 comments:
I'm a child of postmodernism. There's my opening apology for what follows. My problem with Theism isn't so much that I choose a Spirit-less Cosmos but that I find the metaphor of "God" and simple monotheism limiting and/or misleading. Through listening closely to someone's life and words, I can usually come to understand what they mean when they say "God" or "Gods" or "Gods and Goddesses." Of course there is such a range of possible meaning from anthropomorphic to the use of the term along the lines of "Reality" or "Truth" so I have to listen very carefully to discern their own treatment of the term. I suspect that when the latter group uses the word "God" they are likely not too far off of my own perceptions. Sometimes I am surprised to find, however, that someone really does mean an anthropomorphic God and then s/he and I are not on the same page at all though we are using similar terms. Or sometimes a person thinks they reject anthropomorphism but the power of the metaphor overwhelms their better judgment (as in seminary when I caught someone saying, "God is not male or female. He has no gender.")
My preference is to utilize a broader range of metaphors for the Ineffable to prevent calcification of my potential relationships to the Divine and as a means of challenging cultural assumptions unconsciously embedded in my thinking. Part of this means that I have to maintain somewhat of a distance from the word "God." I can engage in God-talk as well as anyone but I find that it leaves me with a sense of deep unease. Sometimes it seems like so much troublesome semantics and theology but given the deep spiritual injuries caused by hierarchical, patriarchal, and imperialist theologies, methodologies, and practices still embedded in our languages, I don't mind the trouble.
Hystery,
Thanks for the response.
I typed out some reflective answers to your points, but then deleted the post because I felt that it didn't reach to the deepest depth of Spiritual truth.
I basically agree with your view of the problems concerning religion, but don't agree with your solutions.
I'll write you later after I've waited in expectancy in the Light.
Thanks for sharing,
Daniel
I look forward to your expanded answer. I have enjoyed reading your blog and I like the way you think.
Dear Hystery,
Here's a few of my thoughts in response to yours.
Hopefully some Light, and not too much smog;-)
>>I'm a child of postmodernism. >>There's my opening apology for >>what follows.
Me, I am very much a child of the Enlightenment (though I have read about postmodernism). I am convinced that some acts are 'really' wrong and some right, that there is Essence 'behind' the cosmos, that the Essence is imaged in human female and male--"that of God" in each individual (as explained in Genesis 1, by Jesus, and by Paul in Ephesians, though the latter couches this truth in his sometimes chauvinistic prose; I try to remember when reading Paul that he probably prayed, from boyhood, each day the Jewish prayer that denigrates women.)
I agree with you that Christianity has often been responsible for "deep spiritual injuries caused by hierarchical, patriarchal, and imperialist theologies.."
To me it seems to make such ethical judgments, means there must be objective Ultimate Truth on which to base them universally.
And the treatment of women historically by religious people has often been reprehensible. Even among Quakers, the ideal of total equality has sometimes been more talked about than lived out.
Though, of course, according to historians some forms of Christian faith have done just the opposite, been at the forefront of liberation. Some writers have pointed out how critics of Christian faith have accused it of being a "women's" religion. This is particularly true of some Islamic thinkers. I forget which historians said this (maybe Karen Armstrong in Battle for God or History of God. I probably wouldn't be a good PhD candidate because I have a hard time remembering sources. Even if I write them down, I forget which folder I stored them in. And like a good ol' literature and writing teacher, I have multiple filing cabinets and boxes stacked high in the garage:-)
>>My problem with Theism isn't so much that I choose a Spirit-less Cosmos but that I find the metaphor of "God"
I am not sure I understand what you mean by calling the word "God" a metaphor. I would say "Father" or "Shepherd" are metaphors. Unless you mean that all language is metaphoric.
I would agree that the word has taken on a "mean anything, so means nothing" connotation. C.S. Lewis points out this problem of religious language in one of his essays. It's why during the 70's I stopped describing myself as a Christian, because what I meant is not what most people thought. Maybe, the word "God" does need to be replaced.
>>and simple monotheism limiting and/or misleading.
I can't identify with this, will have to read more of your reflections before I understand your meaning.
For I find within monotheism the basis for all that is true, good, and beautiful. One of my very favorite selections of literature is Plato's The Cave and I love some of the passages of the Jewish OT prophets, especially Isaiah and Second Isaiah. And I find ultimate meaning in Jesus like GF in his famous conversions story.
Unlike yourself, for me the words "polytheism" and "paganism" have extremely negative connotations. I came to your website in the backdoor, so to speak, via Ben Franklin and Quakerism, despite your title--and was very deeply enriched reading your keen insight and deep spiritual yearning. Which just goes to show I should never judge a blog by preconceptions. I can see why you rate C.S. Lewis high on your reading list since while he was a devout Christian, he, too, had a very high estimation of pagan literature and some of its spirituality--as evidenced in his books such as Till We Have Faces.
>>Through listening closely to someone's life and words, I can usually come to understand what they mean when they say "God" or "Gods" or "Gods and Goddesses."
Wouldn't you agree that "listening" is one of the central benefits of Friends? I'm such a blabbermouth, even here on the Internet. And my wife is always telling me to give her the short version when I start talking;-)
I think Quakerism is teaching me about learning to be still with expectancy, to really hear what others are saying, sometimes not even in the denotation of their words but deep down--
>> Of course there is such a range of possible meaning from anthropomorphic to the use of the term along the lines of "Reality" or "Truth" so I have to listen very carefully to discern their own treatment of the term.
I agree, there is a danger in the anthropomorphic . However, I would say, there is equal danger in thinking Reality is somehow impersonal.
Indeed, to me that is the wonder of Friends; its key phrase is "that of God" in each person. So God (Ultimate Reality) isn't some impersonal Fate (like the Greeks), or Chance, Energy, and Matter (like modern Non-Theism). Humanity is in the image of True Reality. And for me that is what the Incarnation is all about--not some abstract theological doctrine--but that Ultimate Reality is revealed in the life of a common laborer born in a despised backward corner of the Roman empire, illegitimate in birth, and finally executed as a common criminal.
>> I suspect that when the latter group uses the word "God" they are likely not too far off of my own perceptions. Sometimes I am surprised to find, however, that someone really does mean an anthropomorphic God and then s/he and I are not on the same page at all though we are using similar terms.
Since earlier you identified yourself as both pagan and non-theist, I am not sure we understand each other philosophically or theologically, or even semantically.
However, my name could actually be Doubt Wilcox;-) since there was never a doubt or question I didn't like. So I am seeking to see how you see Life.
>>Or sometimes a person thinks they reject anthropomorphism but the power of the metaphor overwhelms their better judgment (as in seminary when I caught someone saying, "God is not male or female. He has no gender.")
Yeah, that reminds me of a classic error back in the Civil Rights days (pointed out by the editor of The Other Side Magazine). A person said we need to give people in the South time to get used to Integration!--the underlying meaning, of course, Blacks aren't people in the sense Whites are.
But, Hystery, also keep in mind that some such remarks as "He has no gender" are the result of English not having a personal neuter. For a while in the 70's I tried using he/she in all my writing so as to not be sexist, but it is awkward. As one very pro-feminist writer once pointed out, he was using "he" in his text not in a sexist way but because it was linguistically more user friendly than trying to generalize pronouns. Though I have seen some really good writers, switch back and forth when using general pronouns and when referring to God. I am sure She is happy with that:-)
>>My preference is to utilize a broader range of metaphors for the Ineffable to prevent calcification of my potential relationships to the Divine and as a means of challenging cultural assumptions unconsciously embedded in my thinking.
Probably a good idea. I like the term of Paul Tillich--"the Ground of All Being," though sometimes I change that to the "Ground of All Becoming."
>>Part of this means that I have to maintain somewhat of a distance from the word "God." I can engage in God-talk as well as anyone but I find that it leaves me with a sense of deep unease.
Maybe this shows the depth of sorrow from your father and family's tragic experiences serving churches.
For me, it's the exact opposite. The word "God" (except when Calvinists are browbeating me with it) has deep warm significance. In the case of my father's pastorates (I, too, am a preacher's kid:-), we had mostly warm spiritual times. Indeed, some of those experiences are the happiest of my life.
>>Sometimes it seems like so much troublesome semantics and theology but given the deep spiritual injuries caused by hierarchical, patriarchal, and imperialist theologies, methodologies, and practices still embedded in our languages, I don't mind the trouble.
Well, I already responded to this earlier so won't repeat.
I hope I have been clear, too much haze;-)
In the Light,
Daniel
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