The other Gods

Today, I wrote something about the Vatican astronomer’s recent statement regarding extra-terrestrials and how their existence – if ever they’re out there – does not contradict the idea of God. Serendipitously, I also re-discovered Atheista. That particular combination of events – finding an affirmation of the idea of Deity, and a blog whose central theme is the denial of it – started me thinking: so is there a God?

And if there is a God, how relevant is that Deity to our everyday lives?

My answers: We need for there to be a God; and, it depends.

Is there a God?

The most common arguments used to answer this question in the affirmative have to do with the concept of Intelligent Design, i.e., the idea that the universe cannot be so perfect unless someone with intelligence designed it to be so. My problem with this line of reasoning is that how can we say that the universe is perfect if we have nothing to compare it to?  I mean, of course the universe as we know it is perfect, but that’s only because it’s the only universe we know; and life by default acts in the manner that allows it to persist.

There are many other arguments for the existence of God, but as I go through them, I am forced to accept that they’re all just variations on the basic idea of intelligent design. I am more inclined to agree with Kant’s conclusion: that God is unknowable simply because if there is a God, then that Deity must exist outside our frame of reference. And that to me is the clincher. We cannot prove that God exists, but conversely, we cannot prove that God does not exist.

But if its existence is unprovable either way, why assume that God exist?

I think that man defaults to belief in God (And I’m not talking of a Christian God either, just the generic idea of a higher intelligence.) simply because the universe is so vast and complex that the human mind just cannot take it all in. We need belief in God in order for us to have a fixed point of reference on which to plot our path through life. Kinda like a north star for ancient mariners, or a magnetic north pole for modern day navigators. We need the concept of God to make sense of everything.

Without God, you see, everything must be considered random and therefore everything we do is inconsequential. If you save a man from dying for instance, in a world without God, what’s it for? If he doesn’t die today because of your intervention, he’s gonna die some other day for some other reason. Do you do it then, because it is the right thing to do? But then who says its the right thing to do? In a world without a God – and the moral order that necessarily accompanies the concept of God – you have to assume that you are only looking at one aspect of an infinity you cannot possibly comprehend. So, how do you know that letting the man die is not the right thing to do?

In a world with a God and the accompanying moral order, however, the options are clearer. If you accept the existence of Deity, it follows that you ascribe to this Deity a preference for some sort of moral order: Do this, instead of that; act in this way, not that. And this Deity need not be in the mold created by religions either. This Deity can be simple concept, like the pursuit of wealth, for instance; or self-actualization; or hedonism even.

So, assuming that your God is the idea of wealth, you might choose to save the dying man in anticipation of a reward; or if your God is the idea of self-actualization or hedonism, on the other hand, you might save the man because it makes you feel better about yourself to do so. The very concept of a moral order – of whatever shape or form – necessarily implies the existence of a higher standard external to the self. And that standard is, for that person and for all intents and purposes, a manifestation of God.

In this sense, I believe there are no true atheists; there are only people who reject the traditional notion of a benevolent (or sometimes malevolent) and interventionist Deity. But, because they still act out of a sense of some moral order, be it the pursuit of self-actualization or the pursuit of humanistic imperatives, or whatever, they are unwittingly subservient to a different and perhaps intensely personal concept of Deity.

Is God relevant?

In the sense that a person’s concept of God dictates how he will act, yes I believe that God is relevant. But maybe the better question is, how relevant? And that’s where it gets tricky because the answer really depends on which God you are talking about.

Most people have two or more Gods. One they know about and proclaim to others; and the others they don’t realize they serve.

For too many people, the concept of their first God is straightforward and incredibly narrow: a Supreme Being whose favor we must forever court in anticipation of an otherworldly reward. In this regard, the little old ladies who kneel-walk to the altar in Quiapo are identical with suicide bombers – it’s just that they are pursuing their eternal reward in different ways. They may disagree with each other’s methods, but they will have to agree that their goals are the same.

But also too often, the people who believe lives of benevolence (as opposed to those who believe that the easiest path to paradise is through death and destruction) fall prey to other imperatives, whether knowingly or unwittingly, such as self-aggrandizement, self-enrichment, or just plain spite. When that happens, their first God falls into irrelevance, and their other albeit unacknowledged Gods become their true north; those other Gods then assume the greatest relevance.

This dichotomy, i think, is Abraham’s fault.

Abraham’s fault: A digression

Modern theology accepts that the concept of monotheism effectively began with Abraham. For this reason, he is key to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But Abraham’s fault was in forcing people to believe that there is only one God – the first God; the God that espouses all good things and frowns upon all evil. Abraham’s fault was in labeling everything that was contrary to the morality of the first God evil or bad or unacceptable, thus effectively demonizing other Gods. This created the concept of good and evil in a world where no such clear cut concepts existed. Abraham’s fault was therefore the true fall from innocence.

Prior to him, all variations of human behavior had divine sponsors – greed, discord, lust, whatever. And because of that, all these concepts were not evil per se, just part of human nature. If ever these behaviors were prohibited, it was not because they were Evil, but simply because they made society uncomfortable. Proscription, therefore, was not based on some fundamental principles of right or wrong, but on social  necessity. Killing someone, for instance, was not rewarded with eternal fire, but it was frowned upon because it was disruptive of the social order.

The Greeks understood this very well, as perhaps did all the major ancient polytheistic cultures. And in an attempt to institute some sort of mechanism for the enforcement of social order, they evolved the concept of the Furies and Tartarus – but only for especially heinous crimes against the accepted social order, rather than as a catch-all penalty for “sin.”

Conclusion … sort of

So what does all this have to do with anything? Only this:I think it is important to have an idea of why we do things on the most primordial levels. We are all motivated by an innate desire to fulfill the demands of our Deity – whether the first or the other Gods. Understanding and accepting this may not have that great an impact on the price of rice or whether the President screwed us with ZTE, but I think it helps to have a little perspective. After all, when we die, the world will go on without us and all we really need to take on the last journey are two coins for boatman.

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