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Do You Believe in God?
by David Arthur Walters
Juvenile delinquent that I am, as I mature I tend to feel the core of existence prior to the organization of fear into love and hate, prior to all those formal organizations or definitions of what Absolute Being is. I have more sympathy with human beings because I am more aware of the human predicament within myself.
For instance, I once resented the question, "Do you believe in God?" I believed it was a confrontation, an aggressive attempt to violate my personal privacy. Behind that question I intuited a dozen assumptions or presuppositions of the confronter; and I believed he asked the question to either find someone who agreed with him, or to feel superior to someone who did not. The question always brought to my mind the busybodies who asked whether Thomas Jefferson believed in God or not: the motive of many who begged askance was to condemn him and his works if the answer were "No."
Jefferson was a proponent of tolerance, and tolerance is synonymous with atheism for those who believe their god is the only god. Furthermore, regardless of Jefferson's positive comments about faith, there was the fact of his relation to such notorious atheists as Destut de Tracy, the creator of the new science of Ideology, a science Jefferson was careful to include in the curriculum of his great university; in those days "ideology" meant the study of ideas in order to find the truth underlying vague concepts, and not the propagandic spouting of certain sets of inherently ambiguous ideas.
Jefferson gave the definitive answer to the question, "Do you believe in God?" by asking his questioners to answer their own question after examining his deeds and works.
As for me, I am more tolerant of the question now because it dawned on me that some people who ask it do so because they are confused and afraid, are seeking some outside verification for their set of beliefs, or perhaps want a framework and a purpose for life they presently do not actually have despite their fervent professions of faiths. It is true: misery does loves company, for there is much comfort in company and great suffering in war. The highest belief, then, would secure all men from the violence of their particular differences; hence would not the best belief hold true for the entire world? Is not the essence of religion belief in the highest power over the differences of the world? in what is best for all men? And how would we know what that belief was unless we spoke of it, unless we communicated about our Ultimate Subject?
Be that as it may, regardless of what one believes or does not believe, it is only fair to inquire into the source of belief and disbelief, and of faith and perfidy. Furthermore, since there are untold millions of believers in one religion or another, it behooves us to diligently make those inquiries if we have any affection for the human race; and, if that race regresses and progresses, we should do so as frequently as possible. In any event, humans have had "faith" for thousands of years; it is not going to go away, so we should keep abreast of it if we want to keep up with ourselves as a society. Let us ask our questions, then, as if nothing is settled once and for all, for surely there is something more to be learned about the ultimate questions; if not, life would be intolerable.
For instance, if one disapproves of religion, what is really being objected to? What or who (not whom) is the Subject of religion? I think one will learn more of the problematic Subject of subjects within the subjects rather than in the objects without, objects people are fighting over in their search for "God" as the universal Object. But the Subject cannot be objectively limited. The Subject is no "thing", no materialistic matter, no matter how abstractly conceived, say, as a simple "idea" or complex "concept." And neither are individual subjects mere objects. Yet this leaves us with a terrible practical problem: what good is an ineffable god if nothing can be communicated about that god? Those who are familiar with the real meaning of my unswerving faith in Nothing know some of my answers to that question; it would require an eternity for me to give them all here, so allow me to continue with our objective inquiry.
To conduct an "objective" investigation, even the atheist must suspend judgement and make a fair and impartial inquiry. If, because he can sense no god without or can find no rational and empirical evidence that a god or gods exist, and therefore he simply dismisses religion, I think he is making a grave error; he is not really abandoning gods per se, but the people who need them for the time being. If he objects to ignorance and its ill effects, that is another matter. If he refuses to embark on the current Crusade in order to run infidels through with a sword, that is something else again. But there is no good and sufficient reason for social human beings to avoid the fundamental social question, of our separation, and therewith abandon the search for subjective redemption of our diremption (violent separation) in favor of objective redemption in materialism and consumption. I speak not only of so-called "atheistic" gross materialism here, but of the god-as-object religions that are merely veils for materialistic orientation; the orientation of "capitalism" and "consumerism" , the hoarding and distribution of worshipped Power, expressed as a protest against spiritual authority, namely, "God", the ineffable Subject of subjects.
There is a big market today for the dissemination of resentment, especially so in regards to religion; the best aspects of which are, unfortunately, written off because of the worst deeds of the religious. We hope to find saints in office; we are shocked to find evil in the best of men; therefore we spurn authority altogether, and throw out the baby with the bath water. And then we might engage ourselves in politics; but alas, since wherever good can be found some evil is also present in stark contrast, the political leaders are more corrupt than the religious ones; but of course they are, for religion is the worship of Power and politics is its distribution, where the nature of ethical relativity and the mistakes made by men and women are all to obvious. Well, then, if we are thinkers, we might then occupy ourselves with writing absurd anarchical political tracts and limit our deeds to destruction.
Yes, because of the bad apples discovered and the modern self-disgust and cynicism derived from the suppression and repression of the Subject and therefore all subjects, it is easy to dismiss religion and politics offhand: it is easy to call all religious people a bunch of cowards, phonies and bigots; it is easy to call politicians liars and crooks; it is easy to denounce and condemn authority altogether and throw away the hard-earned lessons of thousands of years. Yet others who recognize the value of history will do things the hard way, and keep asking questions, especially the ultimate questions such as, Who am I? Why do I exist? What should I therefore do? What powers do I have to do it? Since no man stands as a man without mankind, he will take care to examine the answers given by others interested in those questions; he will therefore encounter religious answers and the idea of god. And what or who is that?
As for me, I do have my preliminary findings, my tentative answers, yet only my death will finally answer my questioning; and my questioning will never end in any object no matter how vast it may be. The Highest Power will always be more powerful than me, no matter what my share in it. In my opinion, he who believes otherwise is a god spelled backwards who has forgotten how to grovel a little when good order demands it.
Since I believe religion is an attempt to provide an organized answer to the most basic of all questions, when I listen to the various answers, I now listen more sympathetically for the human being speaking, for what is within. That I can work with. Then I can address the presuppositions separating us, or simply keep my peace and accept the separation, just as I accept the fact of separation of bodies in time and space and enjoy the great diversity in the universe. Whatever for, except for fear and hate, should I shout down or ridicule a man for wanting some little plot of ground to stand on and cultivate in the spiritual world as well as in the physical world? Should I scoff at him and say, "Your god is man-made? a delusion?" I think not, for the "man", etymologically "he who measures out thought", is not the object; he "is" the subject. The ultimate reality is within, not without.
The very idea of the god within makes some religious people uncomfortable and understandably so, for they want a god they can communicate ABOUT; a god they can CLING to; a god they IDENTIFY with and thus have their own identity; a god that is the goal or purpose of their life-map; a FRAMEWORK or abstract heaven they can SHARE in; or, at the very least, an ANALOGY or a MODEL to live by. Still, as I have elaborated elsewhere, I believe we are already communed in accord with our native faith; if only we knew it, we would have a much higher regard for ourselves and each other. Instead we quarrel over vanities.
We do not contend merely over sense-objects, but also over those objects of thought we call ideas. Many of our conflicts are abstract or sublimated versions of real down-to-earth struggles, virtual versions violent wars. Much if not most of our criticism of each other, of our moralizing and such, is actually deeply rooted in resentment, with all the fear, anger, hate and such that implies; the bones of contention themselves are ambiguous, subject to opposing interpretations: alas, we often forget our swords cut two ways. However, we can usually laugh and shrug off our petty grievances, or forgive the quotidian slights and petty insults, especially if we can count to ten and remember how primitively we are behaving when the occasion calls for higher processes, for the Highest Power.
We must remember that arguments over seemingly trivial abstract issues can result in concrete violence. Given the right conditions, open warfare can break out amongst the nicest people, and they might wind up even relishing the abominations--I have known men who enjoyed war. Everyone wants a meaning or purpose in life, something to live and die for; for what is a life unless one is willing to risk his life for it? Universals--gods, idols and ideals--are of such great service to our organizations that we wind up killing each other over them! But how absurd! Destructiveness and violence for its own sake or because of ignorance is the crucial problem, the greatest evil.
That is why it is useful, when considering the universal Subject of subjects, to examine the views of thinkers who get right to the crux of violence. When getting to the root of violence, we must examine religions and gods whatever our faith or lack of it might be. One of the primary functions of primitive religion was the regulation of murder, that it be directed at enemies to keep the peace within. And "Thou shalt not do no murder" had little positive effect without a Supreme Uncommanded Commander and his agents on Earth to carry out his will. Thus God must be loved (and feared) before all.
Tragically, people will create enemies when they run out of them, just as the modern capitalist has to create consumers to keep up production and grow the economy. Let the King's Peace spread throughout the land; yet soon enough the Peace falls to pieces and the killing proceeds, perchance in the name of the same object-god. The problem is not out there in some thing or in some object-god; it is within, where the god actually is.
Again, to understand what religions and gods are to our fellows, in hopes that we may find some understanding by which we may prevent violence and reform the hateful attitudes that lead to it, we should take advantage of thinkers who have already given the subject a great deal of thought. For instance, take up Leo Tolstoy's essay 'The Kingdom of God Is Within You.' When reading religious authors, we need not worry about which god they speak of or whether that god exists; for, if we do, we will be missing the point entirely. And the same can be said of reading secular authors; they have their gods too, although carefully concealed.
As for Tolstoy, I do not say his position is theoretically correct or practicable: in fact, I believe his extreme position is foolish, yet I find it attractive. I recommend his 'The Kingdom of God is Within You', but who will actually bother to read it given all the distractions without? Not those who think non-violence is impossible given original sin and the need for the application of force under the law to protect good people from violence; but they should read it twice. People are afraid to study something that might question their orientation or pull the rug out from under them. Reading the extreme opposite with judgement suspended might threaten their framework; it will certainly reinforce it if they are ignorant enough. Still the extreme position Tolstoy gleaned from the New Testament and the adovocates of the law of love should be carefully considered given the ineffectiveness of positive law to prevent and rehabilitate.
I close here remembering what an old friend of mine, Howie Rodgers, a nice Jewish boy from the Upper West Side, would do when people started arguing over religion: he would start singing, "My god is better than your god, my god is better than your god, my god is better than your god, because my god is better than your god."
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