So, just what are we dealing with here?

I am not one for religious debate.  Of all the religious debates I’ve seen (mostly on political forums and YouTube comment sections), I have found them to be fruitless at best and downright obstructive at worst.  Now, does this mean I don’t believe people should speak their minds and exchange ideas?  Of course not.  (If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have started this blog!)  However, never in my life has religious debate actually appealed to me.  After I started observing them, I began to see why, and I think anyone who’s sat through or read enough of the mumbo jumbo understands where I’m coming from.

That said, it would be dishonest of me to say that exposing myself to different perspectives on God hasn’t helped me evolve intellectually and spiritually.  I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember.  Today I am eighteen years old, and I cannot recall a single time that I have wavered my faith.  Years ago, however, my understanding (or lack thereof) of God was radically different from the way it is today.  You see, like many other theists, I used to imagine God as not much more than a man in the sky with a long white beard watching us, making sure we’re on our best behavior, listening to prayers, hanging out with his buddies in Heaven, and all that other stuff.  But I never really got in touch with that faith until I sought to learn more about it.

Over time, I’ve come to conclude that God’s nature has not yet fully been embraced by anyone – even those who claim to have a special relationship or knowledge of Him.  I saw that, for generations, God has been reduced to a mere symbol Whose very nature is understandable within the confines of human knowledge – knowledge that is attributed only to our experiences as members of the universe and followers of its laws.  Such is a reflection of the human psyche.  Of course, few theists are willing to acknowledge that this God goes beyond human conception, which has since the beginning of mankind consisted of the thoughts and writings of mortals.  Thus, we have collectively failed to grasp God (or at least, the concept of God), yet so many of us pat ourselves on the back and claim to not only know God, but to know His desires and His will down to the bare bones.

Now, as any debater knows, two cannot engage in a meaningful discussion unless key terms are defined.  That is what makes modern religious debate so directionless, so fruitless.

Paul Tillich pointed out that it is difficult to speak of God these days because people immediately ask you if a God exists.  We have reduced God to a scientific hypothesis and turned God into the ultimate explanation of the universe.  We have turned God into just another member of the cosmos – that bearded man in the sky, Who goes about His days as we do ours.  We do not engage with God imaginatively, engage with Him ritually, and allow Him to affect us in the same way we want to affect Him.

Why, I ask, can Christians not identify with God in the similar manner as Hindus do?  Why do we imagine God as a distant reality rather than the center of the spiritual life principle of the universe?  Why can God not exist outside the circle of our understanding?  If you think we already do and say that these questions need not be asked, I ask you to pay extra attention to the language that has defined our world’s dilemma with God.

I realize now, that theists and atheists alike have turned religion into a system for providing answers that lay within the reach of human reason.  The task of religion, as author and former nun Karen Armstrong once wrote, “was to help us live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there were no easy explanations and problems that we could not solve: morality, pain, grief, despair, and outrage at the injustice and cruelty of life.”  She gives us the example of cancer: science can diagnose and cure it, but it cannot, in the same way religion does, assuage the terror, disappointment, and sorrow that comes with having it, nor can it help us to die well.

So what is it I’m I getting at?  Religion can work and it can be beneficial to our world, but only if approached with the right mind and the right intentions.  It cannot succeed if it is wrong, idolatrous, or self-indulgent.  Yet rather than making it work,  the fundamentalists have used religion as a substitute for logos, which is intended to provide us with solid answers.  Such is why atheism became a viable proposition, as scientific findings have been used to render “God” redundant and, in doing so, reduce Him to pure nothingness.  This simply would not have happened had theists not justified their beliefs with scientific proof.

As theists, we must instead focus on living life ambitiously.  Live generously, large-heartedly, and open-minded.  Give your life the significance it desires.  Integrate with your daily lives and the moments of rapture and insights that come to you in your dreams.  Engage yourself with the natural order that’s been given to us, and if understanding God starts looking like a fool’s errand to you, try understanding His creation instead.  It’s the second best thing we’ve got, isn’t it?