@SuperMouse I am curious about what kind of God you believe in and why you do.
It sounds to me as though you are what I call a “soft theist,” in that the “higher power” you believe in embodies a kind of deep morality which invites you to love your fellow man and treat even the lowliest among humanity with compassion; and that you even treat your enemies as you would wish to be treated if you were in their place (when you are at your best). In another context, you might easily be a Buddhist, or a follower of Quan Yin, or Gandhi because you don’t see any one religion as having a monopoly on compassion or spirituality.
When you meditate, you might even hear a “small, still voice” (which was how God spoke to the prophets and St. Paul). If you were of a more secular mind you could say that this was the voice of your own deep humanity, and that what the voice conveys to you are the moral claims of your fellow man. You place this higher power outside of yourself, in part, out of a sense of humility; but also, because the great bulk of humanity is outside yourself. You participate in the spiritual/moral life of humanity as an incarnate human being, but you recognize correctly that it does transcend you, and that it does have a kind of god-like immortality and a life all it’s own.
More important, “soft” theists recognize that their beliefs are “true” not in the sense that facts and information are true, but in the way that literature is true: such as, the way the parable of the Good Samaritan shows, in a morally self-evident way, that true compassion knows no boundaries or social distinction. Soft theists have faith, but they also have doubts, and so they are humble in belief, and therefore not inclined to force their beliefs on others. In this respect, I think they rightly take offense at both atheists and believers alike who arrogantly and dogmatically assert their belief or disbelief or call them “weak minded.”
@Qingu There is, of course, another kind of believer—whom I call “hard theists,” who believe in a supernatural Being, not because it is particularly believable but because it isn’t. For them, Faith and Faith Alone, is their ticket to Salvation. Should they fail to believe; should they harbor even the slightest doubts, they are convinced that they will be cast into a fiery pit and suffer the tortures of eternal damnation.
The first question that comes to mind is, “Why would anyone believe in something so patently unworthy of belief?” What kind of God has so little respect for humanity and so little to recommend him that he has to resort to terrorizing people into believing in him? Indeed, what kind of God demands that you believe patently ridiculous things, like the earth being only 6,000 years old? What kind of desperate, fearful and weak-minded people would embrace such a deity, much less place such a despicable being at the center of their religion?
Obviously, it is people who don’t see that they have much choice in the matter. No one would come to such a belief through principled reason alone. Such beliefs are acquired by coercion. They require brainwashing, manipulation and the systematic destruction of one’s critical faculties, and the sense of being in command of one’s own will. If you read the letters, diaries and biographies of prominent Protestants like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Cotton Mather, and the founders of the born-again denominations of American evangelists and Pentecostalists, you find a preoccupation with harsh punishment and obedience from infancy onward.
Here, the goal was to break the child’s will, in order to make them instantly and automatically obedient to their parent’s and God’s will, which were often hopelessly confounded by the highly conditional love of scripture quoting parents. You find an extremely vengeful theology, preoccupied with sin and punishment, doctrines like the “total corruption” of human nature, accompanied by fantasies of intense apocalyptic retribution and violence.
People aren’t born “weak minded.” Their intellects are systematically broken and subverted by literally having the fear of God beaten into them. Their capacity for empathy and compassion are stunted to a point where they are genuinely perplexed by the idea that someone would consistently behave morally out of Love in their heart. They are so alienated from their own authentic needs and emotions from such an early age, that what is left of their intellects is tasked with suppressing cognitive dissonance by smothering inconvenient facts, desires, and intuitions under a blanket of dogma.
Punishment has convinced them that they are intrinsically sinful, worthless, and in dire need of “saving.” They generalize this self-loathing not only in a profound hatred of their own humanity, but toward Humanity in general, which (when they look inward) they tend to see as intrinsically corrupt and evil. In this respect, the emotional underpinnings of belief trump anything they could arrive at by reason.
There is a kind of radical go-for-broke, all-or-nothing aspect to the Born Again conversion experience. In becoming Born Again, one wagers one’s life, one’s soul, and one’s sanity on the proposition that one’s particular set of religious beliefs are Absolutely True. One then awakens into a “new reality” founded on the “eternal certainties” of dogma. One’s self-worth becomes entirely contingent on the approval of a vengeful, inconsistent, and cruel God.
Unfortunately, this is a different reality than the rest of us live in. And any clarity of mind that comes from possessing Absolute and immutable Truths comes at a terrible price: One must jettison everything that doesn’t fit—reason, feelings, facts and, ultimately, the ability to distinguish one’s religious fantasies from the reality that the rest of us inhabit.
In other words, the believer comes to inhabit a God-centered universe in which reality emanates from God the Creator, rather than existing unto itself. In this alternate reality, the truth of things is only “testable” through reference to Scripture, which is the God-centered world reputedly revealed to us by God Himself.
Reason is how people normally hold one another accountable to each other and to humanity. To a god-centered person Reason is a form of idolatry, insofar as it dethrones God and places Humanity in it’s place. In this respect, the believer is not only unhinged from the reality that the rest of us live in, he is hostile to it. And, to that extent, he has no compunction against forcing his beliefs on the rest of us, beating his kids, banning stem-cell research, or throwing people who take drugs in prison because he regards as “immoral.”
Arguments based on a sneering contempt for the absurdity of this such beliefs simply have no traction with Born Again believers. In fact, these “slings and arrows” of outrage only serve to press the believer into a glorious and much anticipated martyrdom at the hands of evil God-hating “atheists.” Their shields go up and any chance at dialogue ceases
On the other hand, arguments which do seem to have traction with them have to do with the immorality of coercion, and the immoral implications of being irrational and anti-human. Such arguments appeal to their suppressed and now despised humanity, and the anger and humiliation they feel in being coerced into their beliefs.
But, even then, their solipsism is often so complete that even these arguments have no effect. However, such arguments do tend to resonate powerfully with once-born “soft” theist Protestants and Catholics who still have a firm grasp on their humanity, and it is these people, the silent majority, who need the all the support they can get.
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