Twisting Exploration

Sheri has asked a question stemming from a post by Koios: What is God? 

If you ask a group of people (of any size) that question, you will probably get more answers than there are people.  Personally, I think that's how it should be.  I believe God exists and is a "being", but is hard to define in our terms after that -- our language is and our perspectives are too limited.  I firmly believe that the different religions, including polytheistic and "godless" religions, all have relationships with God.  So, it's not whether "my God" or "your god" is the "true" God; we all see God from our own perspectives, and we can never, ever see the whole of God from any one perspective.  If you imagined God (just for illustrative purposes) as a big planet (e.g. a globe like the Earth).  One person's perspective from space would see the God-globe as a disc.  A different person, in a different area of space, would see the globe as a disc, as well, but with different details.  A third person standing on the globe, could see much more detail of a more limited area, and see the God-globe as a flat area that goes on endlessly.  A fourth person, standing a light-year away, may not even see the God-globe at all, but can perceive the affects of the God-globe on the other planets and stars.  It's an imperfect metaphor, but you can see my point.  Our perspective and relationship with God is different from each others', but that doesn't mean that one is right and the other is wrong.

For a different answer, I enjoy and will refer to the Judaism 101 (aka JewFAQ) pages. Their answer to the Nature of G-d is (I'll highlight here) is that

G-d exists
G-d is One (not none, not three, and not one of many)
G-d is the Creator of Everything
G-d is Incorporeal
G-d is Neither Male nor Female
G-d is Omnipresent
G-d is Omnipotent
G-d is Omniscient
G-d is Eternal
G-d is both Just and Merciful
G-d is Holy and Perfect
G-d is our Parent and Monarch

This list probably comes better than most to my, admittedly limited, perspective of God.  You will have your own perspective, or course.

If you had one month to live, what five things would you do?
Suggested by Acerebel.

1.  Not go back to work.  Take all my vacation and sick leave and arrange for short-term leave.

2.  Convince my kids' mom to let me take the kids out of school for a month.

3.  Buy a digital video camera.  Over the course of the month, make tapes for the kids to play during big events in their lives -- each birthday, each graduation, engagement, marriage, 1st child, divorce, etc.

4.  Travel with my kids for 3 weeks, by visiting all of our relatives wherever they were in the world, and then visiting my friends that I haven't seen in a long time.  In addition, visit a few Amazing places with them.

5.  Come home and for the final week, throw a living wake party with my friends and family in attendance.  Tell them all how much they meant to me and that I love them.  Oh, and have a beer (preferably Moose Drool).  Go out with a smile on my face.

Koios had an interesting post recently, in which s/he argues that a person's religion is determined by the person's culture:

Religion is a cultural thing - Scholars of Religion

http://religion.groups.vox.com/librar...

Human beings naturally possess different interests and inclinations. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that we have many different religious traditions with different ways of thinking and behaving. But this variety is a way for everyone to be happy. If we only have bread, people who eat rice are left out. With a great variety of food, we are able to satisfy everyone's different needs and tastes. And people eat rice because it grows best where they live, not because it is either way any better or worse than bread.

It's hard not to agree with the fact that the culture with which you grow up significantly influences (if not determines) your religion and your religious and spiritual choices -- most people don't question seriously (or fall back to) the values that they were taught as children.  In fact, can you even separate religion from the over-arching culture?  I don't think so.

Taking that argument one step further, I believe that if you are seriously questioning the religion into which you were born, your cultural and even religious upbringing will guide you towards certain other religions.  For example, there are a number of American Jewish folks out there that don't buy into Judaism, but find they are more "in tune" with Buddhism (see this 1998 PBS interview on Jews and American Buddhism).  However, I doubt you'll find nearly the same number of American Jews converting to Christianity or Islam, due to our [Jews'] historical relationship with Christianity and the American demonization of Islam. 

As a person who grew up in mainstream Protestant denominations (with parents who are quite religious, more so nowadays), I believed in God, but never bought into what I called "the Jesus thing", i.e. Jesus as a personal savior and mediator between me and God.  In young adulthood, I started exploring, eventually finding a wonderful religious "home" in Judaism; and a few years later, I converted.  Did I look at Islam, Buddhism, and other religions?  Yes.  Did they each get an equal level of attention from me?  No.  Looking back, I think I considered Judaism more thoroughly than other religions for a couple of reasons.  First, I grew up believing in a personal entity called God, i.e. God was someone to whom I could pray and communicate, which led me towards the monotheistic religions.  Second, I knew more Jewish folks than other types of non-Christian folks, because of where I lived and where I went to college, so Judaism was first on my list.  Both of these were culture- and geographic-based factors, without which I might never have considered, much less chosen to be part of the Jewish people.

* so much for keeping this blog impersonal.... *

Koios argues that "[r]eligion is a cultural thing: your religious tradition is highly influenced by the culture you are born into. Religious absolutism cannot survive this cultural argument" and that this is "a major reason" why Koios chose atheism over any particular religion.   Personally, I don't believe that a multiplicity of culture-determined or culture-perpetuated religions necessarily negates the existence of God.  The fact that we humans are not perfect, and like to believe that we can absolutely (and exclusively) know the whole "truth" about God, does not mean that there is not a God out there and everywhere.  In fact, [ok, here I go out on a very long limb....] I think that there is value to God in a multiplicity of religions, even religions that preach about truth and absolutes, and even religions that directly contradict and conflict with one another.  Different religious perspectives allow different peoples with different cultures to get closer to God or to different aspects of God.  Some day, religion may be the avenue towards peace instead of the avenue of conflict that it is today.

Enough for now (although I reserve the right to edit and add to this post...).  All comments and perspectives are greatly appreciated, of course.

This is my first blog post in a long time.  I've had other blogs, personal and impersonal, but to be honest, they didn't last too long.  This time, I'm taking out the personal completely (ok, mostly).  But why write a blog in the first place?  Do I want fame and fortune? Nah.  I just want to explore ideas, society, culture, and life.  For me, the process is finding something I'm interested in exploring, writing about it, sharing what I wrote with others, and engaging in some form of dialogue about it.  And repeat.  I don't know what I'm going to write about first, or where my twisting path of exploration is going to go, but here I am put the first foot forward. 

While we're on the subject, here is an interersting column by Stanley Fish; it's a column about writing his column.  Let me know what you think:

Why I Write These Columns - Stanley Fish - Think Again - Opinion - New York Times Blog

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03...

Every once in a while I feel that it might be helpful to readers if I explained what it is I am trying to do in these columns. It is easier to state the negative: For the most part, it is not my purpose in this space to urge positions, or come down on one side or the other of a controversial question. Of course, I do those things occasionally and sometimes inadvertently, but more often than not I am analyzing arguments rather than making them; or, to be more precise, I am making arguments about arguments, especially ones I find incoherent or insufficiently examined.