An Atheist Discovers the "God Beyond God"

 

I am Plying for time while I seek to come up with better answers for Dave on his describe the Gospel challenge. I came across this stuff which is tangential to some of the problems of standardized symbols and meaning. It might good to reflect on some of this in thinking about that challenge.
I came across an interesting article by Marlene Winellon the atheist blog "Debunking Christianity. This person is a therapist of some kind. Her profile says that she offers therapy to those traumatized by religion. What I find interesting about this that her statement about the alternative to religious belief that she has found for her own personal world view is none other than Paul Tillich's notion of The ground of being! this is in fact my very understanding of God!

Winell indicates some basic misunderstanding about theology. In her statement she tries to attack religion. Although, this is not meant to be an attack. I can see some value in her attempts to help traumatized ex fundie s move forward in their lives. I do think religion can be very debilitating if it is not done right. Half truth is a very powerful weapon. But in making these theolgoical mistakes Winell is contributing to the half truth. The half truth of which I spoke is that of the fundamentalists, the way they distort the Gospel. Windell says:

Thursday, November 01, 2007

I keep getting asked, So Do You Believe in God?
So do you believe in God?

As a therapist working to help people recover from the damage of religion, I get this frequently. So I’ve decided to make a better effort to reply. To be honest, I don’t like the question because it presumes we know what those words mean. Here are some responses, touching on more or less serious aspects of the topic.

Yes I think I know what the words mean. She further demontrates lack of understanding in the nature of God in terms of necessity and contingency.

1. Which god? Do you mean Zeus, Baal, Athena, Shiva, Allah, Jehovah, or some other? If you mean one of those, then no. I am not a theist. I don’t believe in an individual being that created and now controls the world.

When people say things like this, which ;God, as though they are all so much alike, I see a read flag. It usually means a lack of theological sophistication. The similarity is in the metaphor suggested by ancient concepts of suzerain authority, the big man on a throne,t he ruler the potentate. That's a literary metaphor and that's where the similarity ends. The God of the Bible is totally different from these other little human figures because they are contingent.
They had parents. Zeus was the son of Saturn (Chronos in Greek set up). Athena was the daughter of Zeus and sprang from his head fully grown. Allah is the same God as the God of the Bible the Muslims just think he wants different things. that's not an argument about how he is, except they literaize the metaphor and just make him the real guy in the sky. Of course Jahova is the corrupted name of the God of the Bible. So clearly she doesn't understand the Christian concept of God. Like so many atheists they just take the literal version as the whole thing. This means basically that atheists are fundamentalists. Then she does something staggering. I really can't understand this, she denies that belief itself is an intelligible concept.

2. What is belief? Is it a cognitive conclusion that I have reached basic on logical consideration of evidence? That would assume I have access to all the information, and I do not. Is it an emotional feeling for something beyond myself? Well, my emotions vary, and some days are hopeful, other days are dark. Emotions are a rocky basis for “belief.” Do I make a leap of faith, not knowing anything really, but simply wanting to “believe,” and putting stock in a “scripture” to give it support? This is also difficult because knowing about the origins of “scripture,” I know the complexity; they were not simply dictated. Also, the strength of my blind faith can also vary and I’m not sure how completely I am supposed to convince myself in order to say I “believe.”

Here we see the typical atheist conception of faith; just blind leap into the darkness with no evidence. We really need to talk about this some time. These people have have just got to start looking thing up. The proper source to use would be Westminster Dictionary of Christian theology. You would not use a refrigeration manuel to define automotive standards or weighs and measures for agriculture, so you would not use a popular dictionary to understand theology. You would use the dictionary made by theologians to explain the way theologians use their specialized terms. See my recent blog piece on Faith is not belief without reason.
After questioning the concept of belief as a coherent concept she then speaks of what passes for belief, and for God, in her world view.

4. If I must use the concept at all, I would equate it with the “nature of being.” This is close to “ground of being,” a phrase coined by John Robinson many years ago in Honest to God. For me it involves a perception of existence grounded in the profound science of modern physics. Most ordinary people do not know much about this. Yet, we now know from findings in both relativity theory and quantum physics, that the universe is much more strange and incredible than we ever realized. It calls for massive humility because there are things no one understands, yet we now have good reason to question all of our basic assumptions about “reality.” The difference is bigger than finding out the world is not flat. We have evidence for questioning our ideas about matter, linear time, cause and effect, and more. String theorists agree there are eleven dimensions. Yet the general population operates all day every day assuming things that are completely out of date. The knowledge has not reached the masses. This is akin to having everyone act as if the earth is still flat. The issues are intensely profound, with implications for everything we do. The big words for me are “mystery” and “possibility.” Feelings are humility, awe, and excitement. There is no religious description of “god” that matches the grandeur of the universe as it is – elusive, ever-changing, impossibly mind-boggling. And this includes us. We are part of the fabric; there is no separation. If this is believing in god, then by all means, a hundred times YES! But I’m still not drawn to the language.

First of all, John Robinson did not coin the term "Being itself." It is found as far back as the intertestamental translating of Exodus by the Rabbis who produced the LXX. In Exodus 3, 11-21 they translate the phrase often rendered "I am that i am" in English bibles, as "I am the being." Since the definite article (ego o' ami) carries a sense of quality when used in this way, "I am being " or I am being itself is the best translation. By the way John 1:1 should be translated "the word was deity" not "the word was the God." The concept is picked up by John of Damascus in the eighth century AD. Robinson got it from Tillich, it is also used by Ware in The Orthodox church to describe Eastern Orthodox beliefs about God, and John MacQuerry uses it extensively.
Secondly her tak about knowing beyond langauge is just coming out of Christian mysticism. People are seeking God like it or not. She is a believe in Gdo even though she doesn't know God, ust as Paul said of the Athenians in Acts 17: 11-21.
She quotes a couple of notables to back up her view:

A couple of quotes that I find consistent with this:

“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant’? Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.”`
-Carl Sagan

The actual fact is that atheists have stunted their spiritual growth. they tend not to understand Christian views at the higher level of sophistication. Of course its hardly their fault. liberal theology gets almost no air play, one never sees clearly references to it and even on PBS they give it short shrift. There are concepts by Christian thinkers which dwarf anything short of Einstein Process theology certainly is as sophisticated s anything Sagan ever thought about. Greater scientists than him have been Christians, even in the modern age.

“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
-Albert Einstein

He was wrong about the uncertantainty princple too.
We need to be careful that in our attempts to move beyond the traumatizing aspects of our lives that we don't miss the valuable things. I was traumatized by my fundamentalist environment as a child. I think it caused no end of problems for me. I think the "sucky" parts of my personality can be traced to that era of my life. I and my brother used to stand up in church and lead singing, or help. we really weren't we were jut waving our arms, people thought it was cute and encouraged us. They would go "good job leading sining today." One day I thought "I think I'll preach the sermon today." I stood up, faced the guy sitting right behind me, (I was about five or four) looked him in the eye and shouted "You are going to hell!" He was horrified and didn't know what to thin.. I will never forget the look on that guy's face. As "luck" or "fate" or god whatever would have it, he was a visitor so he didn't know about the two little twins leading sining and how everyone encouraged us. What's interesting about that is that acting out my idea of what a sermon was I immediately went right ot the condemnation and threats of hell. Now no preacher had actually done that in our church. How did I know to do it? I probably saw something on tv, but it fit the mentality of the church.
My point is I can understand the problem with religion. I have more air curling stories than that that I could tell. One thumbnail example, I once dreamed that I was at one of the old churches we went to when I was in high school int he dream it was a center of satan worship. In another dream of the same era the little religious private school I attended in eighth and ninth grades was ran by a secret cult of vampires where sucking the kids blood. That might give an idea of ho these places affected me. Yet, I found healing when I found Jesus. My solution to the bad religious experince was to have good religious experiences.

Not only does Winell throw the babby out she watns to kill the whole concept of God.

5. Dispensing with the “god” word, it makes a little more sense for me to address “spirituality,” although this word has often meant a focus on other-worldly things. I prefer to describe spirituality as a way of living which is here-and-now. These are attributes rather than a definition. They involve feelings and perceptions and experiences which depend on openness. This openness can be chosen and developed. Rather than escaping into a different realm, I think of spirituality in terms of how we live our lives – the choices, the consciousness, the texture of daily life. There are several aspects of this:

I don't totally disagree there. But the interesting thing is she wants to do away with the term "God" and yet her alternative to it is the more sophisticated concept of God that is less known, but no less Christian. The idea that the reality of God is beyond words and must be explored experimentally is hardly new in Christian thought, ti is the stuff of which Christian mysticism is made. The idea that the reality of God is something beyond our cultural constructs of God is explored by Tillich in his book The Courage to Be, in the chapter "The God beyond God." I highly recomend it.

Atheist show thier problems in Reading Comprehension

Both on carm and comments to this blog have illustrated the problem atheist have with understanding simple statements. Its' so clear what Armstong is saying one can always tell what atheist want to believe is being said becuase it varies so widely with what is said. They all start out saying "she does not say that big in the sky is not possible." they say "she doesn't say she believes anything" they want so badly to believe she's an atheist because they think she's offering more bolster for the little brain washing. I guess she must be an atheist favorite and they can convince themselves of anything. They think she is against religion because they interpret your statements against literalism in religion as meaning she's against all religion.

She is not brash enough to say "I believe this..." what she does say makes it absolutely clear that:

(1) She blames the belief in big man in sky for ruining the ability of modern religious thought to proceed in a sophistacted fashion and understand science.

(2) She makes it quite clear that she considers belief in big man in sky to be stupid literalism. >Literalism is always the stumpier option.


let's look at the quote:

Despite our scientific and technological brilliance, our understanding of God is often remarkably undeveloped—even primitive.

Up front we are told that religious thinking lags behind scientific thinking. But this is not because scinece is true and religion is false. that's probably what atheists want to see in it but it's not true as will become plain in a minute. I'm sure atheists read that to mean all religious thinking is stupid and primate and to as good as science. That is clearly not what she's saying. It's so obvious there's no way a thinking person could read it this way unless they were so longing to have her agree with the atheist prattle.

In the past, many of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers understood that what we call "God" is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence, whose existence cannot be proved but is only intuited by means of spiritual exercises and a compassionate lifestyle that enable us to cultivate new capacities of mind and heart.

this is a description of mystical theology and the God beyond God concept, which will be made even more clear in a moment. Now I supposes probably most atheists read this phrase and says "that says religion is fiction it's made up stuff and not true. Anyone who thinks that's her meaning is an idiot and can't read. Contrast this with what she said before, which view will see as the "screw up" or the one "lagging behind" that she mentions in the fist section? Well it is not this one, so it obviously has to be the big sky the sky since these the only two that she talks about.

But by the end of the 17th century, instead of looking through the symbol to "the God beyond God," Christians were transforming it into hard fact.

This is the beginning of the section where he will lay the blame on the shoulders of literalistic scientific thinking theists and not on the God beyond God concept. In this phrase she says they were transforming the expansive mystical theology into a literalistic (she calls "hard fact") way of thinking. that this is negative become clear immediately.

Sir Isaac Newton had claimed that his cosmic system proved beyond doubt the existence of an intelligent, omniscient and omnipotent creator, who was obviously "very well skilled in Mechanicks and Geometry." Enthralled by the prospect of such cast-iron certainty, churchmen started to develop a scientifically-based theology that eventually made Newton's Mechanick and, later, William Paley's Intelligent Designer essential to Western Christianity.

Odds are she would not think Paley was great, so in linking his thinking to that of Newton she's obviously lambasting Newton for trying to make religion scientific. She's saying that the Newtonian are ones who made it literalistic. The scientific thinking is degrading the expansive God beyond God sophistication and bringing it down to a literalistic level of big man in the sky. Why does she talk about the Mechanic? What's the difference in big man on throne and big mechanic in the sky? the big mechanic in the sky is just a slightly more educated version of big man in sky. That it leads to Paley is a bad thing for her as I don't think she is a creationist or the argument form design type.

But the Great Mechanick was little more than an idol, the kind of human projection that theology, at its best, was supposed to avoid.

this proves it! She links the big mechanic in the sky with the big man in the sky and that's bad because it's just a projection and calling it an "idol" definitely condemns it. But I'm sure that atheists read that and thought she's saying all belief in god is like that. In reality it's perfectly obvious that she's distinguishing between big man in sky and God beyond God. Atheists see this as referring to all religion no doubt. Clearly she is distinguishing.

God had been essential to Newtonian physics but it was not long before other scientists were able to dispense with the God-hypothesis and, finally, Darwin showed that there could be no proof for God's existence. This would not have been a disaster had not Christians become so dependent upon their scientific religion that they had lost the older habits of thought and were left without other resource.

now they read this and to them it says "all region is stupid and all we need to science." they see her say others after Newton dispensed with God and they think she's saying "we can all dispense with God of any concept." But we already know that she sees the big scientist in the sky thing of Newton as a come down from the ancient notion of God beyond God and being itself. Since that's a come down the other alternative has to be better. So she is not saying all ideas about God can be dispensed with, that's obvious that she's not saying that.

Symbolism was essential to premodern religion, because it was only possible to speak about the ultimate reality—God, Tao, Brahman or Nirvana—analogically, since it lay beyond the reach of words. Jews and Christians both developed audaciously innovative and figurative methods of reading the Bible, and every statement of the Quran is called an ayah ("parable"). St Augustine (354-430), a major authority for both Catholics and Protestants, insisted that if a biblical text contradicted reputable science, it must be interpreted allegorically. This remained standard practice in the West until the 17th century, when in an effort to emulate the exact scientific method, Christians began to read scripture with a literalness that is without parallel in religious history.

How many atheists read this and think she's describing a process of making things up and she thinks that's stupid and she blames all religion for doing that? I would wager that almost atheists read it that way. Obviously, she's describing a good process, the choice that she thinks is better than the guy in the sky, the one that has been degraded. We already estabilshed that. she clearly says there's a come down and Newton brought us down form a better way to think about God and here shes' describing what that is.

Most cultures believed that there were two recognized ways of arriving at truth. The Greeks called them mythos and logos. Both were essential and neither was superior to the other; they were not in conflict but complementary, each with its own sphere of competence. Logos ("reason") was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled us to function effectively in the world and had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality. But it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life's struggle. For that people turned to mythos, stories that made no pretensions to historical accuracy but should rather be seen as an early form of psychology; if translated into ritual or ethical action, a good myth showed you how to cope with mortality, discover an inner source of strength, and endure pain and sorrow with serenity.

So atheists read this and say "surely she wouldn't accept myth as a valid way to think. myth is fiction it's a lie so she wouldn't like that, that's unscientific." But that's exactly what she likes. Clearly there's a type of postmodernism in her thinking that is anti-chronocentric. In other words she doesn't see ancient world people are being stupid and everything they did was wrong. She believes there is timeless truth and people of all ages discover it. Notice that she's saying good things about it. "a good myth helped you cope with morality." That's not a criticism it's a good thing.

In the ancient world, a cosmology was not regarded as factual but was primarily therapeutic; it was recited when people needed an infusion of that mysterious power that had—somehow—brought something out of primal nothingness: at a sickbed, a coronation or during a political crisis. Some cosmologies taught people how to unlock their own creativity, others made them aware of the struggle required to maintain social and political order. The Genesis creation hymn, written during the Israelites' exile in Babylonia in the 6th century BC, was a gentle polemic against Babylonian religion. Its vision of an ordered universe where everything had its place was probably consoling to a displaced people, though—as we can see in the Bible—some of the exiles preferred a more aggressive cosmology.

Here she clearly identifies herself with a kind of new agie postmdoern thinking, the sort of Campbell and Elaide thing. That's a good reason to think she supports the God beyond God idea. She doesn't say "I think this..." but the intelligent person can gather what a person supports from what they say even if they are explicit about it. Atheists can't do this for obvious reasons. But those of us who learn reading comprehension can do so.

She doesn't say "I believe in Being itself" but she even uses the phrase "God beyond God" (Tillich) and does she say about it? She says that it's better, it has good threatening uses, it can perk you up and transform your life, it was degraded and religion was made more literalistic and less able to cope by trying to make it scientific and that Newton just had a big guy in the sky. Newton's guy in the sky was a bit mechanic but he was still a guy in the sky. So clearly she prefers the other approach.

Maybe she doesn't actual believe that God is being itself, but she clearly understands the concept, doesn't think it's stupid, and supports it over the literalism of the guy in the sky.