Two levels of conversing about God

Blogging has been light lately because, well, thinking has been in overdrive.  So I may start trying to get out some of the many, many thoughts running through my noggin, in short little bursts, and see how they grow.

Here’s one, flowing out of the last post:  “God” isn’t a superstitious proposition. I mean, it can be, but belief in God isn’t, a priori, indicative of a superstitious mindset.

This is one of those cases of two different conversations going on, easily mistaken for each other, in part because there is real overlap. First, there is the the God Hypothesis, which is a philosophical/scientific one — namely, an attempt to explain the origin of the universe/Cosmos as being caused by some intelligence that exists beyond it. As an atheist, of course, I have concluded that I think the idea has significant problems, and thus tentatively reject it. But in and of itself, it isn’t completely preposterous. I just think the other option has more support in what we know about reality at this point.

Superstition is the other conversation. It’s the conversation about religion, and silly beliefs like prayer and miracles and magic and revelation. It goes beyond merely postulating that an intelligence is, or at least might be, responsible for the existence of everything we see — it makes very, very specific claims about the nature of that intelligence and its motivations. It is the preposterous notion that Faith is a means of knowledge, and that miracles and prayer and heaven and hell (and ghosts and goblins and demons and devils and angels and…) are all real things.

Two different levels. I’m firmly against the second one — the superstitious belief, the idea that Faith has any legitimacy. I reject the childish notions of prayer and revelation and miracles and all that nonsense. The first conversation, though, is just deeply interesting — the question of why the Cosmos is here, or even if that’s an intelligible question to ask. If someone happens to side with the God Hypothesis, in the philosophical/scientific sense, well — I think they’re wrong. But I could be the one who is wrong. Mostly, it’s just a fun question to ponder and argue about over coffee or beer.

I think it’s important that, at all times, we realize which conversation we’re actually having. For me, it’s important to remember to, yes, be absolutely firm in my stand against religion, but remember that it is separate from the other discussion about whether some intelligence created the Cosmos.