Gori

First off, I just want to state up front that I would characterize myself as a "seeking agnostic." Meaning, while I currently neither believe/disbelieve, I would like to believe and am trying to find a reason. I can't really explain the desire; it is just there. Also, while questions of faith can never be resolved simply by the rules of logic, they should not be wholly inconsistent. The breach of faith must be crossed at some point, I am just trying to get the two edges close enough together so that I can make the leap.

Now to the meat...

Two things that have been bothering me lately are the "nature" of God and the concept of free will. Laugh if you will, but the former was instigated by watching the movie "Groundhog Day," and the latter was the result of some introspection due to the former.

If you haven't seen the movie, it is about a man who relives the exact same day over and over. The main character remembers the events of each day and carries them over to the next while the other characters are unaware that things are repeating. Part of the movie I had really never given much thought to was the effort the man gave to alleviating the suffering of others. In one vignette he attempts many different ways to keep an old homeless man from dieing, in another he checks his watch just in time to run and catch a boy right as he falls out of a tree.

This got me to thinking about the virtues espoused by the church. The very paragons of the religous virtuosity are those who, above all else, give of themselves so that others will not suffer (think Jesus and Mother Theresa). Everyone has some capability to alleviate suffering, and it is those who most nearly reach their full potential that we deem "most good." I know the old "Why does God allow suffering in the world" question has been beat to death, but I am having a problem reconciling the two. If it is ok for God not to intervene, why is it good(religous) for us? Are we God's hand so to speak, in that he does act to alleviate suffering, but only through us?

The second thing that has me flustered is the concept of free will. One one hand one could argue that since God is all knowing he knows our choices before we do. If he knows ahead of time what the choice is going to be, how is it free? Or, if the brain is just an extremely complex organic machine succeptible to chemical balances and wiring, what "external force" acts to make us chose one thing over antoher. If I am low on serotonin, high in dopamine, x level in hormone I make one decision, but if the levels are all changed I make a different one? If I truly do have free will where does the push come from to make one decision over another? My Soul?

These aren't meant to be any really deep observations, so please keep that in mind. I am just trying to think things through. Anyone know of any good websites where religous issues are discussed in an academic(non-preachy from either side) manner?

Sorry to put you through reading my ramblings if you took offense.

MysidiaDrakkenbane

It would depend on which version of "God" you believe in or base your observations off of.

I think that certain aspects of our lives are "prewritten" for us - fate, if you will. When you're born, who you marry, how many children you have, and when you die. Everything else is pretty much up for grabs.

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ForsakenFalcon

I don't belive in god, espcialy not the mainstream religon's one's.

However I do belive in some form of creator (or some form of starting point of the univers) & with the concept of How could it know all pre-ahead of time if We have free will?

I think our end result is allready known by what ever form of higher power, However how We get to that point will be completely our own doing (free will)

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Calthine

One of the very best essays I've ever read on Free Will vs. Determinism is, believe it or not, the second Epilogue of War and Peace. It's actually what the author hinges the whole book on. (Reading it first makes the book easier to read too, IMO). The short version is: everything that has ever happened "before" creates a set of circumstances whereby, when a decision needs to be made, there is really only one choice.

I was raised Presbyterian. They believe in Determinism, IE: God has made all the decisions. But we have no way of knowing what these decisions are, and must still use Free Will to make our choices.

Now, the way Doctrine is in my head currently (filtered with long years of no church influence), it works like this: Christ died on the cross for us and God cut us loose. He gave us the choice to believe or not believe, pointing out that there are rewards if we choose to believe.

Sounds like Free Will to me.

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Calthine

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Both

I think things become difficult to understand once Faith is introduced into the situation. If you want to become righteous, then you need to have faith in a certain belief structure. That is, you must make choices based on preconceived notions of what is right and what is wrong in the context of your chosen belief structure(religion). Not much free will, if all of your subsequent choices are made in the context of one big choice that you have already made.

If you just want to be a better person, I would argue that you would need to see the difference between morals and ethics. Once you can see the difference then you can see that you don't need a religion to be a good, and whole person.

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Ninibi

I've been at the preview screen trying to condense this for 20 minutes. :\

Anyway, long ramble:

I've been in the "questioning" phase for a long time - having dipped into a couple heavy churchy religious phases then right back on out when they ultimately fell apart in front of me - mainly as I realized I'd put my faith in humans and what I'd been taught/scared/guilted into believing rather than what was really on a gut level MY beliefs.

I picked up a book a while ago called Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God, by Jim Palmer. He gives you about 5 pages of disclaimer before he even starts writing about what a whack job he is, but for a whack job, he has some pretty good things to say and seems to address (maybe from a sideways tackle) the issues you raise here.


That I have that book on my shelf at all, is sort of my little "mustard seed" that something bigger than myself may have a finger stirring the pot, as, I was in a decidely sour perspective on religion in the moment and, while walking through a bookstore on my way out to the car, the color of the cover caught my eye. It was bright blue, and I'm fairly heavily soaked in Attention Deficit Disorder. I went right for the pretty colors. ^^

My concept of God at the time was: why do I want to believe in anyone who creates us flawed, then judges us and puts a condition on our acceptance due to those flaws? The whole concept of it made me angry - I've been through so much crap thanks to the church and people's misguided ideas about judgement and religion and honestly, don't even know of a HUMAN parent who would give birth, then threaten to reject a child because of their shortcomings, nevermind one who is supposed to be infallible and loving.

So, the cover caught my eye and I stopped, picked it up and read a paragraph where he points out that Christianity in particular has a tendancy to fill people's heads with the idea that by living a certian lifestyle, behaving a certian way, etc. we can somehow "earn" our way into God's good graces and are therefore more entitled than others. I thought "heh no shit" and picked it up to read the rest later.


I realized later that the idea of rejection was something I was taught by evangelical Baptists with a flair for manipulation, control, and fearmongering - the hell and brimstone thing. Not, necessarily, what I believed in my gut. What if... it's simpler? Like, Occham's Razor... utterly no-brainer so simple that people step right over it and go for the extra red tape to make it SEEM more complex than it is?

The Christian church I experianced teaches "you must believe in Christ to be accepted by God" - then they lay out conditions and make everything CENTER on that one condition and by doing so, they mak e it a focal point while everything else in the picture goes blurry.

Rather than a simpler: live God's love and acceptance and understand that as people experiance it and are touched by this and understand what you believe, then they may also begin to believe, and the "condition" becomes a moot point.

The Christian religion *I* experianced (I.E. I'm not saying this is necessarily the rule or what others go through) hinged everything on rituals and behavior modification, oh, and a little prayer where you say "jesus come into my heart (and please, while you're there, check my cholesterol levels)."

They may have been better off teaching that by the whole concept of putting ourselves second vs. our egos first, we'd be firsthand experiancing the Divine and - seeing that at work, would come to believe in something greater than ourselves. Again, the mustard seed... many churches/branches seem to teach that everything must be a grand gesture, on large proportions, or if you give your 10% on sunday, you're on the right track to winning over heaven itself.

(That said, I'm sure many others have a bit better grounding than what I experianced)


So, I may be warped - I know I'd be thrown out of my old church on my face for what I'm saying here (blah blah satan will warp the truth and make it nice for you. blah blah lukewarm blah blah spit you out of his mouth etc. blah etc.) - but...who cares what they think? They are not God, if he exists, and I don't answer to them when I keel over...and, I don't believe in *conditional love* - I believe that, if there is a God, his love for us is nurturing, unconditional, and subtle.

If you've ever seen the movie "Love Actually" - there's a collage of love shown in unconventional ways. Yeah it's a bit sappy, and sure they throw in the "romance" factor - but they show love, also, to be something that isn't showy, isn't braggy, isn't hinged on the other person's actions or behavior... hm, isn't that a bible verse I heard at my wedding? Love is not... ?

That, to me, is what God is - or what the God I choose to believe in is. God, to me, accepts that I swear, that I make dirty jokes with tongue in cheek, cuss at assholes on the freeway with vigor but w/o any real ill intention...that, as a child, I was a pathological liar in the name of constructing great fantastic imaginary worlds.

God is, to me, the teacher that sits there, bemused, knowing your "tell" part of "Show 'n Tell" is complete bullshit, but suggesting to your Mom that you have a creative spirit that should be nurtured.


I am happy and content to live without religion or attending a church and signing a nametag to wear along with everyone else that I'm baptist, catholic, methodist, etc. That might make me an unbeliever and dirty heathen to many but, eh, again, I won't answer to them & therefore don't seek their approval. To me, I see some value in organized religion, but it is offset by years of fearmongering and manipulation. Much of this is only possible by a choice on our part to believe what we're told & taught rather than setting out for ourselves seeking what it is we can believe in with our whole heart. There's nothing, anywhere, biblical or otherwise, that I can recall that promotes blind faith or following another man/woman.


So all that babbled at you (you caught me caffienated ;)):

Free will - I think like all other things, you need to find your own answers, but my .02:

I look at it in the same sense of: you know your teenage daughter is going to have sex - but while you know this, and can try to prevent it, the decision is still theirs to make regardless of how you might try to advise them.

If there is truth to religious texts, there's a scripture somewhere that talks about the birds of the field being under his care. If he's involved with things to that level, it's reasonable to think that while *we* may not see it in the moment, there may be subtle hints and ways he does try to advise us otherwise that aren't big flashing billboards.

Or, perhaps like most parents, while he/she/it knows the choices we'll make and some of them are lousy, he 'interferes" in subtle ways that help us handle or get through it, or grow from it - those choices that are "bad" right now might be necessary for you to move past something later on in life. I've gone through some gnarly crap this past year or so - and while *I* have felt mostly like shit, I've found friendships in a video game that have nurtured me and made me feel good, and in my surroundings, I've found peace out hiking - and in some of those cases, I'm simply glad that I have a scenic place to go think, vs. "I want the answers." Some mornings, it makes me feel just a bit less like a 98 degree cadaver to wake up with my cat's big furry ass parked on my hip. It makes me see the humor in life: no matter how low I am or high I think I am, I'm still a cozy sofa for a cat when I'm sleeping.


So in that matter, I think it's a matter of how you choose to percieve things - do the little things around you have meaning, or not? Maybe that belief that "there may be something there" is all it takes to change your perspective from taking what is around you for granted, to searching - while maybe not for God -for the lessons in your surroundings.

Again my .02 - it may be that it happens through us or through some other means, but, I can accept, also, that it may not seem to happen at all.

It could be that it happens in a way I don't comprehend or recognize in the moment - I didn't appreciate until I was an adult the value of having a space to detox and be alone - and now, looking back - as a teenager - when I could not get away from my dad and his abusive temper and threatening behavior, I had the barn to go to, where i could spend time by myself brushing the horses & just getting all the crap out of my head. I thought I was in hell then, but, I had an out. Was that luck or divine? Well, that's subjective.


I don't buy the concept in the old testament that God was jealous, spiteful or vindictive - I think that was man's perspective of what was going on at the time, a relfection of himself in attempting to comprehend the divine - much in the same way that currently people mistake manipulation and fear mongering for "love."

I hike a lot, and tend to be observing things around me while I'm out there and I don't see real vindictive spite in nature itself. And, I see nature as a sillouette of something bigger - God being the easiest name to tack on to it. It's harsh, it's immediate, it's beyond our understanding in many ways, but it has to be what it is in order for us to exist and thrive. National geographic shows videos of crocodiles gobbling up zebras at waterholes. One minute the Zebra is drinking the next second this THING has its teeth in his face and is dragging him into the water. CHOMP. It's not pretty or "humane" by our standards, but it's clear that everything must suffer at some point.

That said, I doubt there's support groups in herds for zebras who feel it's really the shits to be food for crocodiles. Maybe it teaches a few other zebras to stay out of muddy water or reinforces some evolutionary pull towards a smarter, more savvy uberzebra who digs a hole 2 feet over from the waterhole, and drinks where nothing can pop out at him and eat his face. I can't know - but there may be nothing more to it than "food chain in action"

Or, it might be for us, since we've essentially bucked the food chain, that we're our only natural predators and some of the mayhem in the world is culling our numbers down... it may be a totally insane theory (it certianly is off the cuff), but who knows.



The one thing that - whether or not we understand it - has to be accepted, is that reality skips over no one, God or no God, and maybe that is a big red exclamation point we're missing: being "godly" or "good" or a great religious person or true believer, does not make US any more special than anyone else and thereby excempt from that reality. Maybe that's the broom that's been sweeping the hypocritically religious along the corridor for years that they just don't see - that for many, despite their sunday best, judgemental finger-pointy behavior and ability to talk a slick sale for Jesus - the concept of perceiving yourself worthier, more loved, or valued above anyone else is fraudulent and misconcieved and one of the great downfalls of "religion" that was supposed to support spirituality (rather than destroy it).

I always liked this paritcular perspective, if I was going to consider myself "Christian" at some point.


Edit - heh others said it much more succinctly while I've rambled all over the place. Yikes!!

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Ily

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Lamil

That was the best read I've had in a while. And I may be picking up that book now.

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Gori

Thank you everyone for your replies.

I think my first step was in mentally overcoming of the stigma of publicly acknowledging my doubt. At least now I am talking about it with someone. Lord knows I really wouldn't feel comfortable discussing this with my wife much, or my priest even.

I know some of you may find it odd that I wouldn't feel comfortable talking about it with my wife, and it's not that she would think less of me really, it is that I would hate the notion I might sow seeds of doubt in her head. You see, she is not a bible thumper or anything like that, she will occasionally miss church, and she has had bouts of doubt, but nevertheless she is committed in her belief (more so as the years go by). It has gotten her through some pretty tough times, for example when we had a son who was stillborn. Her belief in God comforts her and I would never ever do anything that might take that away. As a matter of fact, it is her I would like to mimic in my belief structure; not too far one nor too far the other.

I think my biggest struggle has been feeling that I have to believe in this type of God or that type of God. The type of God I can believe in would never send a Hindu to hell because they didn't convert to Jesus. For that matter, the type of God I can believe wouldn't send people to Hell at all, maybe make their souls just cease to exist, but eternal punishment?

It may be that I have to look outside of organized religions to find God at all. Thankfully though I am Catholic and our theologians can be fairly liberal. Maybe I will get lucky and find something I am comfortable with inside my existing church.

I think I am going to try to find a copy of that book Nini suggested. Maybe even check out War and Peace...epilogue only :-). If anyone else has any suggestions please let me know either here on this thread or through a PM.

Gori

I am glad you mentioned this because I had forgotten about him. Years ago, I think it was right after he died and they were showing some stuff on PBS with him, I read one of his books. I really enjoyed it.