It happened. I don’t know when or quite how, but it definitely – yep – it happened.
I’m a deist.
To some extent, I don’t think there was any particular cause-effect chain that lead me to this conclusion, nor was there any particular logical progression in my thoughts. I take that back… there were several lines of congruent thinking that converged at this near singularity in my conscious experience of this world.
The first line of thinking is one of scale. There is no correlation in the possibilities of that which exists between the parts and the whole. If all you knew was molecules, you would not grasp the possibilities that lie by the combination of said molecules (solar systems, brains, delicious words on a computer screen that evoke qualia in minds that read them). If all you knew was neurons, you would not grasp the possibilities that lie by the combination of neurons. Could anyone grasp the possibility of consciousness by studying a neuron? Now, for a moment, imagine that consciousness is nothing compared to a possible effect we have not yet even imagined. This line of thinking has opened my mind to the realization that possible existing entities is probably, for all practical purposes, endless and incomprehensible.
The second line of thinking is somewhat pragmatic. If belief in a deity resolves the gaps in ones understanding and thus brings a greater sense of peace, then by all practical means a man should resign himself to this belief. I used to hold this erroneous assumption that understanding the truth would always bring greater peace. But then I realized that this was actually wrong and based on theistic assumptions. My assumption was that if a God exists, He is truth and He does not want us to accept a lie and acceptance of a lie will somehow bring a lack of peace because that which I hold to be true in my mind and that which I experience in reality will be in conflict. However, this somewhat took into account a theistic view of God in which God wants or does not want us to do or be something and somehow brings about a lack of peace as a result. However, I’ve come to realize that believing things that may not be true can be healthy. Consider hope for a moment. It may very well be true that there is no hope in a given situation. However, hope is extremely pragmatic for by its very existence it may bring about the needed energy and time to produce the effect it seeks.
The third line of thinking is closely related to the last but psychologically based. According to studies scientists have done, people who are unrealistically optimistic tend to be less depressed. After all, when you think about it, optimism is unrealistic. However, a man who spends his life a complete slave to Murphey’s Law (“that which can go wrong will go wrong at the very worst moment”) will never accomplish anything. Realistic outlooks may be objective, but they can be crippling. By attempting to be realistic a person may lose the imagination to consider alternatives and thus, quite frankly, be unrealistic. The andromeda galaxy may very well one day destroy this beloved planet of ours. So what? If all men focused on this and just accepted it, their imaginations could stagnate before conceiving a very real possibility of saving our beloved mankind from this fate. Optimism is healthy, even when it is not necessarily true.
The fourth line of thinking is one, more or less, of my own. It is this growing realization that nothingness was never possible. There is the classic philosophical question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” I’ve come to realize this is a very stupid question that comes from a mental illusion. The question assumes that our something could not have come from nothing. Ok, fine, even the scientists who think that our universe came from nothing describe it by saying it was a result of a quantum fluctuation – so their nothingness isn’t very empty after all! Anyway, the question seems to assert this dilemma that nothing was at some point a very real possibility and something caused something to exist. But when you think about it, our mind is just trying to find the something that somehow brought about something instead of nothing. The mental trick, of course, is that if you ever found the answer to the question, it would only beg the question again as to how that something that brought about something instead of nothing existed instead of nothing: ad nauseum. It’s genuinely a stupid, short-sighted question. It’s even stupider when you realize that answering it with “God” only begs the question “why was there God instead of nothing?” Basically, I think the entire question is flawed, which is why no one has ever found an answer.
The smarter question is “why are things the way they are and not different?” The question is subtly asking the causes that brought about the current effects. With a question like this, we can learn something and by learning we can change the future. Not only is it a more intelligent question, but it is pragmatic.
The fifth line of thinking is logical. I’ve come to realize that my lack of belief in any type of deity seems somewhat to come from a fallacy of composition. We cannot study the parts and conclude that the whole is no greater than their combination. We can certainly figure out the pieces that make up everything we know (quarks, quarks, and energy) but that will never mean that all is no greater than that. We cannot conclude that a diety, if It exists, is quarks, quarks, and energy. It would also be fallacious to conclude that a deity is somehow related in scale to quarks or universes. To say a deity is bigger or smaller is ridiculous, other than to conjure up images of transcendence.
The sixth line of thinking is one of definition. The natural / supernatural distinction is taxing. If a deity exists then it is natural.
The seventh line of thinking is somewhat obtuse – even to me – I confess. It is this realization that my experience of this world is incomprehensibly balanced and beautiful. Beauty itself is, of course, in the eye of the beholder and as such is not a sign of anything. If beauty is evidence for a benevolent God, then ugliness is evidence for a malevolent God. But the balance itself tells me something… it tells me that harmony is intrinsically a principle of our universe. Even the balance between suffering and joy is, in a way, revealing.
If there is no deity, I am sure the universe is not offended by my acceptance that there is one. If there is a deity, I am sure It is not offended by my misunderstanding It. If this deity is only in my mind, I accept it on pragmatic grounds, solely for the sake of the experience.
I accept the infinite possibility of the infinitely incomprehensible transcendence and therefore accept what men have dubbed God.
So, in a sense, I accept the deity of Thomas Edison, Einstein, and Jefferson and respect and revere it for what it is. Can anything be added or taken away from It by mere human misunderstanding?
- Josh
Sherlock. Very nice.
-Watson
Namaste Joshua!
If you haven’t already done so, you may want to bone up on Taoism. Methinks you may find that sort of “deity” close to what you’re thinking of.
While I’m not shopping for a deity, if I was, the Tao would best suit me.
I was thinking about deism recently, along some similar lines but not in that much detail. It makes sense to me in line with this part:
“he second line of thinking is somewhat pragmatic. If belief in a deity resolves the gaps in ones understanding and thus brings a greater sense of peace, then by all practical means a man should resign himself to this belief. I used to hold this erroneous assumption that understanding the truth would always bring greater peace.”
And interesting what you wrote about the way you were looking at it in a theistic way. It seems like the deistic view is easier to consider when you have removed the thought process from the “right or wrong” paradigm where you feel it is essential to come to the right answer, or that someone requires you to come to the right answer. Maybe that is not so much a theistic way of thinking as it is a fundamentalist one?
If I understand you properly, then yes that is a fundamentalist line of thinking.
I think that, in an almost paradoxical way, the fundamental error of fundamentalism is to start with the contradictory assumptions that we can understand despite our limited comprehension and immediately follow it with the assertion that we must understand properly or we are somehow deceived and, bizarrely, liable to be judged for being deceived. What??
This all seems to extend from a really bad understanding of human nature. It is okay to be wrong!
The utter contradiction between “humans are creatures with limited understanding!” and “you will go to hell if you don’t understand!” is, to be frank, rank stupidity. It’s about as stupid as spanking a child for not getting his math. And when I say stupid, I mean stupid.
As far as the right or wrong paradigm comes in, I think I’ve become quite comfortable with the recognition that no matter how hard I try, I will be wrong. And that is the only conclusion when you start with the assumption that our understanding is limited. If our understanding is limited, our comprehension is. If our comprehension is limited, our conclusions will be wrong to a degree. Though some conclusions will be more false than others. End of story.
Truth be told, I see understanding as a continuum now, not binary.
All food is, by definition, edible – although some food is more edible than others.
Every man is wrong, just some are more wrong than others.
The goal is to produce the finest food. If there is a deity or – at the very least – a mental capacity to mull over the existence of a deity, the goal is to produce the finest understanding. This despite the fact that at the end of the day a belief in a deity is probably akin to eating a meal. Let’s just make sure it is a healthy meal.
I like where you are going with all that Josh and I think we are on the same page in a lot of ways. I have been so overwhelmed realizing the errors of fundamentalism this past year and to the extent that I put up with them for so long, first as a participant and then later willfully ignoring what I saw in other in the church I was intimately part of.
Much harder for me than rejecting fundamentalism has been learning to look at religion without seeing it as what the fundamentalists try to present it as. Because their view is farcical I have a harder time taking religion seriously. Part of my rejecting Christianity has had to include understanding the other aspects of it, other than fundamentalism. Not that that makes me more inclined to accept it, but more able to ponder things the way you do in this post and your last comment in particular.
Rambling, and on a small display and not the time to sort through the details, but wanted to get a couple little thoughts out there.