Who God Is
by John Vehon
God cannot be known by people on the earth. His nature and purposes and desires cannot be known. It is by no means certain that he even exists. The different beliefs that people have about God are expressions of the cultures and perspectives that produced them. What each of us believes in particular was generally determined by the consciousness and needs of far-off ancestors. They started saying it then, and we just kept on believing it. We have faith that what we were taught while growing up is true, but that is the only basis for our beliefs.
It is not God's will that we should know him, or think about him at all. If he had such a desire, he would have given us a way to know him that would be consistent with the way we know things in general, through our senses. These are faculties we all share and whose reliability we trust in others. The sky is blue. Fire burns. Pain hurts. These are great truths. We all know them because they are based on the evidence of our shared senses. But we have no common, reliable sense to provide us with information about God - which is exactly why everybody has their own idea about who God is.
Not only is faith, as a way of knowing God, inconsistent with how we know everything else, it is directly at odds with it. There is a psychological and biological necessity to the way we know things in the world, which is deeply ingrained into our nature. We must rely on our senses and the evidence they provide, or be at risk.
We are able to override this need and this way of operating in the world in behalf of our religious faith simply because that is not related to real life. There is generally no reason not to believe what we do, and even if we might have some questions about it, why rock the boat? It could cause trouble both within ourselves and in our relationships with those around us who believe as we do, whereas it is very easy just to say whatever they say, and believe whatever you have always believed. And besides, with the threat of eternal hellfire and damnation if you're wrong, better safe than sorry.
That is all well and good, but one might reasonably wonder whether God would desire, let alone expect and require with eternal ramifications, us to have to know him in a way that would otherwise in real life be very dangerous and totally against our instincts, and which is obviously highly conducive to everybody having their own greatly differing beliefs.
If somebody were to come from somewhere like outer space where they had never heard of God, and now wanted to make a decision on what to believe, and if he was committed to hearing all sides of the story before making a decision - as opposed to just believing whatever the first group that happened to get to him said, which is how it works with us humans - then what would await him? He would be confronted by many people, all making clamorous presentations of their version of "the truth". All the major religions would be there, and then the sub-groups. Here is Christianity, with its numerous denominations, often so distinguished from one another in their minds that only they are fit even to be called Christian. And for those who do not share every little detail of belief with them, they are quite satisfied and happy to let destruction rain down upon them. God is going to do that just for them.
"Confusion is not of the Lord," says the Bible (First Corinthians 14:33). It's like many things the Bible says; it makes good, common sense. But confusion is all there is among those who all say that they and they alone represent the Lord and know what he is all about. And all those people believe what they do for one reason only, which is simply because somebody told them just what to believe, either when they were growing up, or later when somebody new told them something else and they were "born again".
What all this says to me is that religion and religious institutions and doctrines and beliefs and practices are therefore not of the Lord. There is too much confusion and disagreement, not to mention violence and all the many travesties and atrocities that have been perpetrated throughout history in the name of religion. Not that I think that God is only an invention of man, but religion is just that, something we made up, for the purpose of fulfilling purely practical and worldly needs.
The needs that religion meets include, first, to give us relief and comfort and consolation for the troubles and problems of life, and an explanation and justification for them, and it gives life "meaning". Religion gives us the hope that our troubles might someday be overcome - or at least compensated for after death to make it all worth it - and it keeps us going until then. Our religion also provides us with a social network and emotional support system and with general life stability.
Besides these personal benefits for the individual believers of a religion, there are important social and political functions as well. For one thing, people who feel comforted and consoled in their troubles, and like there is an explanation and justification for them, are much less likely to cause problems and instability for the society in which the religion operates, and the political powers that control that society. Many religions advocate that theirs are a "chosen people", which provides social cohesion and a sense of common purpose - as well as a good excuse to conquer and destroy other peoples and societies and cultures.
* * *
It may be thought that with all of this skepticism about religion, I must be an atheist. That is not true. Or, I guess I am an atheist, in the sense that I live my life without God; I do not attempt to conduct a personal relationship with him, as he does not with me; I make no reference to his possible judgements and expectations, which cannot be known, and therefore have no meaning or usefulness. I believe that God has no expectations and he makes no judgements. Or, at least, no judgements that would require the punishment of human souls. But I am not an atheist as that word is usually understood, which is for one who believes that God does not exist.
There are people who say outright that there is no God. That is as valid and possible as any other metaphysical idea, in that it cannot be disproved. But to me it doesn't make much sense. It assumes point-blank that all the harmonious complexity in the universe and on the earth sprang up from nothing and then proceeded from there completely by haphazard chance. That's the way it had to be if God didn't do it. Not just one, but millions of coordinated accidents would have been required for this to happen.
Over the past couple of hundred years of conscious, intelligently-directed technological evolution, we human beings have produced very sophisticated computers and other technology. Yet with all the engineering skill we have developed, nothing we have done could begin to compare to the wonderful design and function of the machinery of life and of everything in the universe. And it all "just happened"? Maybe it did after all, but still, you have to make every bit as much of a "leap of faith" to believe it as the most ardent believer in God makes.
Something else that would make it difficult for me to believe that there is no God is what I would consider the problem of matter, which is the substance of the universe. Experience tells me that if you have empty space that has no matter in it, matter cannot come to exist in that space unless it is put there. Matter cannot spontaneously generate from empty space, not one particle of an atom. And I don't know how else it could have been put there if not by God.
It may be difficult for me to conceive how even God could exist without having been put in his domain, but that is a metaphysical question, as is the question of how he could have created physical matter from within his non-physical being. Metaphysical things are unknowable to me in general, so I can accept easily enough that the logistics of God's existence and his ability to create is beyond my possible comprehension. But physical reality is knowable to me, and I know that nothing in the space of the physical universe can come from nothing without some help. That's science.
I assume for the purpose of this discussion that God does exist. The evidence to me best supports that he does and that he is directly responsible for the creation of the universe and all it contains.
Speaking of science, another issue that is often tied to the existence of God is the question of evolution. My feeling about that is, first, it does seem to me quite possible that God could have worked through evolution. On the other hand, something I don't understand and have never heard addressed is, if man did evolve from lower primates over the past 3 million years or so, why do we not have, I believe, so much as one complete skeleton of any of the middle stages between man and ape, and yet of dinosaurs, which died out 65 million years ago, there are full skeletons all over the place? Rather, in describing earlier stages of man, "scientists" have to rely on things like a jawbone they found, from which they, I guess, deduce a skeleton that it might have been attached to. It just seems to me that if man evolved from lower animals, that there would be an abundant fossil record of the progression.
* * *
If, as I said earlier, we cannot know for sure who God is and what he wants and why we are here, and if, as I said, it is not his intention that we should even think about him - and it could even be considered impertinent to do so - then why am I writing about him now? The reason is purely as a matter of curiosity and interest. While it is evident that there can be no definitive understanding of God, I nevertheless accept that if he does in fact exist, then like all things that exist, he must have some characteristics and attributes - whether he wants and will allow me to know them or not. Likewise, God must have desires and wishes for mankind, and there must be a reason for our being here. Even if we cannot know for sure what any of his attributes, desires, and reasons might be, they still must be there if God exists and if he is our creator.
The question is, then, in the absence of any direct evidence or revelations about God, is there any other way to know him? Specifically, is there a way to know God that would be in keeping with the same way we know things in the world, using the same faculties that he gave us for acquiring earthly knowledge?
Put another way, I would like to know if there is any way to conceive of God in which he and his doings, simply, would make sense. Because the God that has been presented throughout history by his assorted self-appointed representatives does not make sense to me. Whereas, I believe, if we were able to know everything there is to know about God, then it would all make perfectly good sense, even to our limited human intelligence.
Of course, you may well ask, what makes sense? Who am I to say if something does or does not make sense? Who gets to decide what is allowable as evidence and how to interpret it when determining whether something "makes sense"? Your skepticism is well-taken. So I will qualify myself: In considering the matters that I am addressing here, if it makes sense to me and my particular consciousness, then I'm happy. If you disagree, no problem. This is not a religion I am foisting upon you, and you can be assured that I will not be relegating you to Hell or any other punishment, via my religion, if what I say does not make sense to you.
Now I will relate my "modus operandi" in making my examination of who God is, or who I think he could be, based on the evidence I perceive. I will start at the bottom and work up. The first thing that has to be considered with God is simply whether he exists, which I've done. That is just to have a basis for a discussion. I haven't proven anything, but I have established how I am conducting this inquiry. That is, I reviewed the evidence, compared that to my overall experience, made what seemed to be logical deductions, referred to whatever assumptions I was making, such as about science, and concluded that the possibility that God does not exist is really quite fantastic.
I do want to address the questions related to who God is as far as possible in light of the evidence in the world. However, I am going to make some assumptions about the nature of God that will help provide a foundation for this highly theoretical discussion. The basis that I will accept for them is that they are ideas that I think are common to all monotheistic religions.
First, everybody seems to agree that God is an infinite being. He is all-encompassing, all-powerful, all-knowing, all everything. That's what being infinite is all about.
Another common idea is that we are made in God's image. This might be helpful in trying to understand God. We can see things about ourselves by looking at our image in the mirror, so maybe we can learn about God by examining his image, which is ourselves.
I assume - though it's nobody's doctrine - that God is not dumb. He would not do dumb things. If he does something, there is a good reason.
Related to his basic intelligence, I make assumptions about the character of God. He is good, kind, merciful, understanding and wise, responsible, imminently moral. Basically, God is everything a good father should be. That is how we think of him, as our Father.
Something that cannot be avoided is that there is actually plenty of room for doubt about the benevolence of God. There is just so much pain and suffering in the world, and it must have his approval or it wouldn't happen. And frankly, it's a policy and an acceptance that I don't agree with. I'm willing to hear God out on it, once he's ready to tell it, but it better be good. Yes, I do hold God accountable - as any responsible being would expect to be held.
Despite this very reasonable question concerning the benevolence of God, I nevertheless assume for the purpose of this discussion that he is basically and ultimately good and wants only the best for us, and that any contradictions I perceive are due to my limited human understanding.
Okay then, anyway, now I am ready to move along here.
* * *
God is an infinite being. All things are within infinity, therefore all things are in God. Nothing could possibly exist outside of him. God would not be God if anything could exist apart from him, because then he would have limits; he would end where the something else begins. This means that Hell cannot exist, because that is a place and a state of being that, by definition, is separate from God.
But what about evil? Since everything is in God, if there is evil in the universe - which it seems there is, but I'm not sure about that; but there are at least very evil things that happen, there's no question about that - then it too must be within him. It must be an intrinsic part of him, necessary for him even to exist. If something is, it is necessary, I assume. And if there is conflict in the universe between good and evil, it is not between God and Satan, but it too must be entirely within God. Here is an instance of the significance of our being made in God's image - the conflict between good and evil that is in us, individually and as a species, is a reflection of what must be in God.
People think Christianity is a monotheistic religion, with one God, but that is not true. There are two gods in Christianity: God, and the Devil. You may say that God created Satan, so he's not a god. But that is just a theoretical distinction. In terms of Satan's power and influence on the earth - his ability to make our lives miserable - he is apparently even more powerful than God; things just so readily go his way. Unending vigilance is required to protect ourselves against him, yet it is never enough. Evil is everywhere - pain, violence, deprivation, unfairness. Good doesn't stand a chance.
Besides the great power the Devil enjoys in his influence in the world, he is also God's equal in that he gets fully as much of our attention as God does. True, we don't worship him, per se, but we might as well for all the energy we devote to him, thinking about him, fearing and rebuking him. Maybe we hate him, but Satan is a Christian god, that's all there is to it.
But let's say that Satan is not a god; he's just a rebellious angel - albeit a very powerful one (it makes me wonder what would he have done with all that power if he had not rebelled?). To the extent that this inferior creature is allowed by God to exert his evil influence, he is an agent performing God's will.
Indeed, the Devil doesn't deserve the bad rap he gets. He is just an innocent victim, created by God with full knowledge that he would rebel - God knows everything. And if God created Satan knowing he would rebel, then that rebellion was inevitable. The Devil, if he existed, could only be God's helpless pawn. Plus Satan himself must deal with the misery that would come from being eternally banished from his creator, with the hurt of a rejected child; even a bad child doesn't want to be rejected by his parents. Maybe it is this pain and sense of loss that causes the Devil to perform his evil deeds. Heck, I feel sorry for the guy.
Possibly you are now thinking "free will". But there is no free will. We are born into a world without our permission (apparently) and formed by heredity and environmental circumstances we had no control over, so that even the great achievers in life cannot claim anything as to what made them the kind of person they are, with the desire and ability to achieve, in comparison to those who do not have that desire and ability.
Certainly free will is not a biblical concept. That can be plainly seen in the book of Romans, Chapter 9: "[God said] to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and compassion on whom I have compassion.' So it depends not on man's will, but upon God's mercy.... He has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills." That sounds pretty cut and dry to me. And it's probably safe to say that as it goes with man, so it goes with angels.
The above quote and the related text in Chapter 9 of Romans was what first caused me to realize that I could not in good faith be a Christian.
* * *
We, as believers in God, want to do his will. What might that be? It's like everything else with him - you can't be sure. Therefore, it can be surmised, God has no will in the sense that you better do it or you're in trouble; he would not be so unreasonable and unjust as to require something when it cannot be clearly established as to what that even is. I do think he has preferences and hopes and wishes for us, but that is all.
What gets my attention most often with God's will is not what it is, but what it is not. That's because I so often hear people say they know just what God wants - and it's usually so dumb. But then, it's so readily accepted. This doesn't just irritate me on principle. A society's beliefs directly influence the whole psychology and sociology of the society. And because those beliefs are not based on or oriented towards reality, their influence can be distracting at best, and very harmful and destructive at worst. That does disturb me, and I regret it.
The relationship between a society's religious beliefs and the overall behavior within the society is not the subject of this report, but I do want to respond to some of the beliefs themselves. I'll speak of Christianity, since that is the predominant religion of my own country and society and culture.
For Christianity, the ultimate objective of God's will is for us to be "saved". But saved from what? As we now realize, since God is infinite, Hell cannot exist. That means that there is no place to be banished to or saved from. Salvation is a moot point.
By the way, Christians often have the idea that it is not actually God who condemns people to Hell; it's "justice" - as if that is something that exists above and beyond God, and his hands are tied by it. Forget it. Nothing ties the hands of almighty God. No values or requirements exist apart from him.
As a concept, salvation has some problems. First, I'll just review the whole Christian program:
We were all born as sinners into the world. We're bad. And God, being infinitely good and pure, cannot condone the evil and sin that is in us. So salvation is needed, to make us worthy to be received by him. Technically, the way it works is God allows an innocent life to be sacrificed to him, in exchange for and to compensate him for our sinful, evil nature. That is justice. In the old days, before Jesus, we sacrificed sheep. But one problem with that was there is only so much value that God can allow for a sheep to pay for the great evil that is in us. His wrath can be detained for only so long. But then, God, in his infinite mercy, gave his son to permanently appease his requirement for bloody sacrifice. Then, finally, if you believe all this, you get to go to Heaven. But if you don't believe, then justice demands that you pay the price - the eternal torment of Hell.
The evidence does not support this view of God. Let's return to the proposition that we are made in God's image - which makes us the evidence. One thing we are is parents to our children. And then God is our Father. So we can look at our own imperfect nature and perceptions and behavior as parents and get a good idea of the ideal parent that God must be, with all the strength and wisdom and sensitivity that is often beyond our human capabilities.
But as imperfect as we are, most of us would not say to our children, I brought you into this world, so you must be exactly what I want you to be, see exactly as I want you to see, and do exactly what I want you to do - and be singing my praises all the while. And if you do not obey me, you will be unmercifully punished, and I will disown you and you will have only my scorn and wrath forever.
An earthly parent with such an attitude would not be well thought of, or at least not in our society. Yet we accept that this is God's attitude towards his children, with all the many different kinds of people that we are - that he made us to be.
What if you were deciding whether to have children? You know there is a very high probability that they will suffer terribly in life, and that their suffering would far out-weigh any possible good that could come of it. Most of us would not have children under those circumstances.
What about God? Would he, as a loving and responsible being - the ideal of those virtues - create his children knowing that most of them - "as the sands of the sea", to use the biblical metaphor - will experience not a mere lifetime, but an eternity of tortuous pain and suffering? No, he would not.
I have one more question for parents. Would you leave your children alone with a loaded gun in easy reach, taking no greater care and precaution than to warn them not to shoot it? No. Yet we accept that God left Adam and Eve alone with a loaded gun in the garden of Eden. Only it was dressed up as a nice shiny red apple. Their only protection was God's admonition not to eat the apple, or there would be consequences. But they were only innocent children, with no possible concept of "consequences". Of course there was also the babysitter, the serpent. He's saying, go ahead, eat. Surely all of God's creations must be good and trustworthy, Adam and Eve might well have thought.
Who is the guilty party here. Obviously the parent, God. Yet again, we accept not only that Adam and Eve committed sin, but that their guilt and evil has passed down to all of us. Indeed, we can never be truly absolved of it - not even those who are "saved". Even they must struggle all their lives to maintain and justify the "grace" that was granted to them. But their doctrine is, and they know in their hearts - at least those who seriously take their religion to heart - that they can never be worthy and truly deserving of absolution.
* * *
That's Christianity. It's dumb. It's barbaric. It's a wolf in sheep's clothing. I've examined some of its fundamental concepts just to show who God is not, and what his will is not. But who is he then? What is he doing? Doesn't he want something from us?
God's relationship to us and his purpose for us can be inferred from the evidence. He created us, but that is the extent of his direct involvement with us. He does not interact with or intervene in our affairs. He does not answer prayer; whatever will be will be, regardless of our entreaties to God. There are no miracles, no virgin births, no resurrections. There are no "acts of God". God has no expectation of us - not even for good and moral behavior. He does not punish or reward.
This is how I see God's relationship to us - which is pretty much the same view as the 18th century philosophers of the European Enlightenment: First, God established life and all the principles that govern it. Those include internal principles like heredity, and external principles like the physical laws. Within this framework, and in the context of each person's particular environment and circumstances, are infinite combinations of factors that make each individual what he or she is. These factors are distributed randomly. We take what we get and live our lives. And God watches us, and experiences what we experience, in as much as we are inextricably part of and within him. That's all. Basically, we are a means that enables God to explore and develop and become himself. He does not judge what he sees; he only takes note of all that is in him. Indeed, maybe a limitation of God is that the only way he can know himself is through the life that is lived in him by people and other beings, on Earth and possibly on other planets.
Not that thinking about flying saucers and extra-terrestrials is any more meaningful than thinking about God. Sure, there could be intelligent life all over the universe. The only problem is, when the closet place that could possibly have life on it is, I believe, millions of light years away, there is just no possible way they could ever get here or we could get there. A million light years means that if an object could actually travel at the speed of light, which I understand would not be possible, it would take a million years to get there. Definitely if you could find a way to travel that far, there would be no phoning home about it. Anybody who was there when you left would be long gone. On the other hand, if some civilization had undertaken to travel such a vast distance, I think it's safe to say that it would not be for the purpose of playing light games in the sky. The whole world would know about it in a very visible way.
Back to God, people think that he wants us to lead a godly life that is full of praising and worshipping him. But God doesn't care about such things. Why should he? He knows he is at the center of everything. He does not need us to affirm that, and would not create us for that purpose. He is not some infantile dictator whose sense of security and power depends on the blind, unquestioning adoration and obedience of his subjects. God wants us to lead earthly lives. That is why he put us on the earth. He wants us to develop the capabilities and potential he gave us - because he expands in proportion as we do. He wants our values, our meaning, everything to come from within ourselves, in terms of ourselves, in the present, on the earth. There will be plenty of time for God after we die. Until then, "leave the dead to bury their dead" (Matthew 8:22).
We are made in the image of God. That means that just as growth and development and becoming are intrinsic, necessary, basically unavoidable aspects of our being, so must it be with God. And we are the means by which he accomplishes and realizes that.
* * *
There are reasons why we believe in God. It is to fulfill real needs that we have: We need meaning for our lives. We need hope. We need to have a basis for morality. But how effectively does religion address these needs? We've looked at Christianity. Where is the meaning in that? Where is the hope? The morality?
Why does meaning have to be defined in terms of something that is beyond our reality, anyway? To me, it seems meaningful enough just exploring the big wide world and having love and helping people and trying to develop myself and accomplish things - just trying to make as much of myself as I possibly can. Isn't that enough?
Now hope, that is kind of difficult. It's not like meaning, which is fairly straight-forward as a concept and as a need. For one thing, the meaning that we look to God for can be replaced easily enough with an earthly alternative. Besides that, really, our need for meaning is mostly just on principle anyway. If you're worried about it, that is probably secondary to more immediate concerns, such as the pain and misery of your earthly life, or maybe just plain boredom.
Hope is something else entirely. We don't just want it on principle. Hope may be all we have in the world. It is a deep, primary need that may be essential just for survival.
Unfortunately, hope is very complicated, difficult business. It is a subject that by itself would merit a substantial consideration, which is not in keeping with my present purposes. There are many aspects of hope, which may sometimes be contradictory. It is very important, and I hate to leave it alone, but it's going to have to wait. I'll just say I do think it is an addressable question.
As for morality, the world is full of moral precepts and legislation and enforcers. But how much morality is there? The core of morality is just basic sensitivity and understanding and respect between people, which are not abundant in the world.
On the other hand, if you lead or try to lead a moral life - if you don't lie and cheat and steal and kill - is it because of the Ten Commandments? I think, rather, that we were all born with a natural tendency and desire to be good and moral and to have basic respect towards others. We become immoral to the extent that our natural goodness gets overwhelmed and twisted around in the many ways that it is possible for that to happen.
It is because of the other-worldly basis for our morality that we have such limited success with it. It is not real to people. We need a moral system based purely in terms of the earth. Again, I think that would be quite possible.
* * *
With my decidedly bad opinion about Christianity, there is a question of who was Jesus then, just a fabrication? I doubt that. Most fiction and legends have a basis in fact, and it seems likely that there was a guy named Jesus, and that he went around addressing himself to people in a very charismatic manner. Maybe he really even believed all those wild and crazy things we say about him.
But then again, maybe not. We have one picture of Jesus, and that is from the Bible. But how reliable is that as a historical source? The New Testament wasn't even written until 60 years after Jesus died. It's unlikely that the authors of the Gospels, the books that tell the story of Jesus, ever saw Jesus even when they were children. Really, there are a lot of problems with the story of Jesus as history. With all this, it does not seem impossible to me that the real Jesus could have been completely distorted and lost as his story was told and re-told over many years, before it was finally written down by people who obviously had a large personal stake in the project.
Something I feel is that if I were Jesus and I had come to Earth as the savior of mankind, and I expected people to believe in me and in my message, and I attached eternal implications to whether they did or did not believe, one measure I absolutely would have taken in the 30 years before I burst upon the public scene is I would have found a way to learn how to read and write. Then I could provide my own written record to make clear for myself exactly who I was and what I expected.
Put another way, if I myself wanted people to know and understand me, and especially those who were not there to see and hear me in person, there is no way I would rely on anybody else to try to explain me. I would make sure there was no way of mistaking me by producing my own permanent record. That Jesus did not do that causes me to think that perhaps he did not place such significance in his words and his being as was assigned to him later by others.
Just hypothetically - speculating along the line that maybe Jesus was greatly misunderstood; giving him the benefit of the doubt - I have another idea about what his real message might have been. Actually, this has to do with my own view of things, but I think there is at least some reason to consider that maybe Jesus had similar ideas. Somebody once asked Jesus, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?" Jesus answered that you should "become like little children, [or] you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven. (Matthew 18: 1-4). As recorded, this was a discussion about how to get to Heaven, but my idea is that maybe he was not entirely understood, and what he was really talking about was our lives on the earth.
What did Jesus find so admirable about children, anyway? Was it just that you can tell them anything and they will believe it? I guess that would be the Christian interpretation, but I think Jesus would have been deeper than that. I'll tell you what I like about children. It is because they go to the world with an open heart, wanting to see - wanting to be - everything, accepting everything and everybody on their own terms. That is because of the basic respect that just about all children have; that is how they are humble. They are honest and spontaneous. They are resolutely happy to the greatest possible degree that their lives will allow, no matter how difficult. They are dreamers.
These are qualities we all, as former children, once had. But people grow up and are confronted by the world, and it is easy to lose all those wonderful qualities we had. And to the extent that we lose those qualities, we experience unhappiness and conflict within ourselves and in relation to others.
My idea is that maybe when Jesus said we should be like children, that is exactly what he meant. That we should apply ourselves to holding on to and retrieving the child that is in all of us. Whether that was in fact what Jesus had on his mind, maybe not, but it's what I think.
One group of people who are often better able than most of us to become like children is old people. This can sometimes happen, in part, as they realize how much of life is not as important and dramatic and disturbing as they had once imagined, to distract them from the true essence of life.
* * *
Another reason why we believe in God is so we will have some place to go when we die. We are afraid of dying, and our belief is a buffer against that. Our thoughts about the hereafter are also related to the matter of hope: If we can't get what we need in this life, there is always the next one. For most people, that means Heaven, where we will live forever without worry or care. Good Housekeeping magazine says 84 percent of Americans do believe in Heaven.
There is some irony in our belief in eternal life, which was suggested by the writer, Anatole France (from a quote in the newspaper): "We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we long for another that will be eternal." We want eternal life, but what are we going to do with it? That is something we don't concern ourselves with much. Have you ever really thought about eternity? It's a very long time. I cannot easily conceive of a period of time lasting as little as a billion years. But how about a billion billion? Yet even that is a mere drop in the great sea of eternity. For every billion billion years you live, there is another trillion trillion periods just like it. We're going to live that long. We want to. Right?
As to what activities might be pursued in Heaven, it appears that it will consist largely of glorifying God and singing his praises. Concerning that, I feel pretty satisfied that I will not be eligible. And it occurs to me that even Christians themselves might start having second thoughts after an eon or two with the God that they have invented and defined.
Regardless of the particular dispensation of Heaven - even if it would mean doing nothing but all my favorite fun things forever - I still don't have a very good feeling about it. For one thing, I'm not convinced that anything could be so wonderful that it would retain its charm for eternity. Besides that, Heaven just seems by definition frivolous and wasteful. It's like there is nothing constructive left to do - if there ever was anything "constructive" apart from what served the objective of salvation. Whereas, as suggested earlier, judging from God's creation, including us, he seems to have a very strong interest in productivity and development and resource-utilization.
It does appear that two great resources are in danger of being lost, if things go according to our plan, with Heaven and all that. On one hand, there is the vast potential within each person that can never be realized, due to the logistical limitations of our existence. We have capabilities that we never get the opportunity to develop, which we may never even become aware of. We pass many people in our lives - maybe just for an instant, but we touch them and are touched by them. With each one of them, in the mixing of our personal world and reality with theirs, we could have perhaps another whole life, with a whole new set of possibilities, but we have to forget it. God himself has to forget it, with all those other possibilities within himself that will never be realized in particular human lives. I have also often thought of the many different worlds I occupy in my dreams at night as so much potential that is lost.
On the other hand, here is another unlimited resource, eternity. With all the potential we have, with all the lives each of us could possibly live based on different circumstances and opportunities, different decisions, different people - based on anything we could possibly imagine or dream of or wish for - how much of all that would there be adequate time within eternity for it to come to pass? Of course, all of it.
I think that if I were God, given his sensitivities and objectives as I understand them, I would find a way to use the one resource of eternity for the on-going development of the other resource of unused human potential. That is infinite God's own potential we are talking about, and I think it would be hard for him to ignore as he is sitting there in that infinite and eternal place where he resides, and to say that whatever happened in that one little spot of each person's life is the end of the story.
To conclude this discussion, which is conceived by me as the outline for a future book, here is a speculative view of reality: Throughout the world and universe, between everybody and everything, are infinite connections waiting to be made, needing only wire to make the connections. Eternity is the wire. And all connections will be made.
Another idea that people have about the hereafter, besides the belief that you live one life on the earth and then go to Heaven or Hell, is reincarnation. They think we used to be Napoleon or somebody, or maybe a cow. I don't believe any of that, but I do have a modified idea of reincarnation, offered in the spirit of fantasy that has characterized this whole investigation.
They say the universe began with a Big Bang, and it has been expanding ever since (of course what we call the "universe" could be just one of billions of Big Bangs that could have happened at many different points at the same time in infinite space). Then, they say, maybe someday gravity will finally catch up with the expanding universe, and it will all collapse back in on itself and return to whatever it was that banged in the first place. What I am thinking is maybe there have been many Big Bangs over countless billions of years - as opposed to the 12 or 13 billion years since our universe is said to have begun. Each one is a throw of the dice. It bangs out, sucks back in, then does it again. (The backward motion, according to the official theory, is "The Big Crunch", but I call it "The Big Suck" - it's a joke). And each time we get a life to live, where we are the same basic person, but there are endless variations on the theme which each one of us is. In that way, we live out all the different lives - good and bad, happy and unhappy - that we have only the potential for in this life in the current episode of time. All those lives must be lived, so God can know and become himself.
I must say, though, eternity seems to me mostly like just a great big eternal responsibility. That's fine for God, since I guess he can't avoid it. But as for me, I'm thinking maybe just let me go ahead on to sleep when I die and have an eternity of nice, peaceful nothing.
Copyright 1997 by John Vehon