Tony\'s God (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, November 25, 2011, 16:06 (4725 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Tony, we’re rapidly approaching the point at which we need to round off this discussion. The prosecution/defence roles have been a useful exercise, in so far as they have forced us to examine our positions very closely, but the polarization inevitably leads to misunderstandings. Your latest posts have helped to clarify these, and although I must admit I was slightly shocked by the first one, those that follow bring us much closer together, as well as helping me to understand the background to some of your thoughts. Thank you for being so open.

Let me in turn clarify a couple of points. You wrote: “I simply do not share your optimism that man will start making good decisions any time soon”; and “You can put your faith in men. I know where my faith belongs.” I don’t have any such optimism, and I don’t have faith in men. Human history lurches from one man-made disaster to another, and in my crystal ball I see no change. We are a destructive species – destroying both ourselves and other forms of life. But that is not the whole story.

I found your personal experiences very moving and illuminating, and to illustrate my viewpoint, I’ll recount two of mine - not as dramatic as yours, but for me just as far-reaching. I was brought up during the war, and was old enough to be shaken to the core by the newsreels of the skeletal Belsen survivors (David will remember them) and by the gradually emerging tales of the Holocaust. As a little Jewish child, I knew that could have been me. Even now a film like ‘Schindler’s List’ makes me churn. In my teens, because I was gifted at languages, I won a travel scholarship to pay for a trip to Germany. I hid my terror, even from my parents. More in a moment. In my early twenties, I applied for a teaching job in Ghana, West Africa. In my ignorance – shared by many of my generation at that time – I had strange preconceptions of the oh-so-different “Dark” Continent, but was eager to learn. Both experiences were life-changing. What I discovered was that Germans were not monsters, and that Africans were not aliens. Despite cultural and, in Africa, even physical differences, our basic core was exactly the same. We had the same needs, weaknesses, strengths and, above all, emotions. My ties with Germany have remained very strong, and I’ve been married to my African wife for nearly 46 years. My experience is that wherever you go, you will find among ordinary people just as much warmth, humour, empathy etc. as you will find cold and callous self-interest. There is a balance in human nature, but it has been distorted by a now seemingly unchangeable institutionalization of power. We all know that power corrupts, and those who have it are the ones who tip the balance towards what you call “mistakes”, whether political, economic, educational, or religious.

I’ve left out the most important emotion of all, because I want to comment on your final paragraph: “The problem as I see it, is that as a race, we do not temper our actions with love. If, as David and BBella maintain, God is all that there is, and if, as I maintain, God is love, then perhaps viewing all of our actions through the lens of love will reveal the fundamental truths we have been searching for. You cannot tell me that mankind, as a species, puts love first in all the things that they do. At least, you can not tell me that while being honest with yourself.”

Tony, I’ve never thought, let alone said any such thing. That is a misunderstanding brought about by my questioning God’s nature and my suggestion that he’s a mixture of all the attributes – good and bad – that he has poured into us, his image. The mixture is at the heart of all my arguments. You’ve put in a nutshell precisely what’s wrong with the world, and precisely what could set it to rights. Where we differ is that I don’t need belief in God to see this fundamental truth. Nor do I see any solution through faith in a God whose existence and nature are so much in doubt. Evolution will run its course – whether he is there or not – and we as individuals can only do our best to base our actions on love. Many people do, and despite global suffering and future disasters, the present moment can be made happy, and it should be relished. You might argue that if we followed God’s teachings, all would be well, whereas I will argue that if we followed the principles of humanism all would be well. Perhaps that’s as close to each other as we can get. Pax?