First published on Facebook January 5 2012.
I am a non-believer who has no real problem with religion as long as it is not forced on others or used as the justification for ignorance, oppression, or discrimination against the non-believer.
Still, there’s this. Just because I do not personally accept “The Holy Book says so,” or “There’s no other explanation for creation” as valid arguments for the existence of God, doesn’t mean I fail to concede some points in the opposite direction. For the sake of argument, are there any arguments in favor of believing in a deity?
I’ve come up with seven. I find that almost all of them hinge on the definition of that most nebulous term, “God.”
1) God has been described as “everything that is.” I’m not willing to posit a bearded old white man or even a disembodied consciousness as God, but it would be foolish to dispute the existence of “everything;” hence, by that limited definition, God exists.
2) God has also been described as the sum total of physical laws in the universe. Physical laws exist. Again, it may not be your mythology, but by that limited definition, God exists.
3) God has also been described as a force beyond our comprehension. I may not believe that He sat on his mountaintop and dictated Deuteronomy, but I do understand that there are forces beyond our comprehension. Hence, by that limited definition, God exists.
4) God has also been described as something that is worshipped. We may not believe that the worship is warranted, but it would be foolish to declare that it doesn’t take place. You worship a cat, you worship money, you worship an old white man, then those things are your gods, even when they’re mere fables. I can’t say that nobody worships God. Hence, by that limited definition, God exists.
5) Before the belief in God in as an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being, ancient societies defined gods as powerful entities with powers we could barely fathom. See the Greeks, the Romans, and so on. The pantheon they talked about was powerful and contentious, but by the usual modern definition of God they were merely a bunch of cranks who sat around playing tricks on one another. If you buy the premise that there is likely such a thing as extraterrestrial life, somewhere, you must also buy that much of it is likely more advanced than us, perhaps even tremendously more advanced than us. Following Clarke’s dictum that a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and that specific limited definition, Gods exist.
6) God has finally been described as the one force that can cause miracles. So now it becomes an issue of defining “miracle.” The word has been used to define events that range from outright impossibilities to mere fortuitous strokes of good luck that defy chance. The word has also been used to label everyday happy events like the birth of babies and unlikely happy events like survival, unhurt, from terrible car wrecks. It has finally been vused to events that had to happen, including the victory of one hockey team over another, an odd definition of miracle when everybody knew, entering the game, that one of the two competitors had to win and that the outcome was merely a matter of differing odds. Still, while we may not necessarily believe that a bearded figure sitting on a throne made any personal decisions affecting any of these occasions – or even, as in the case of the hockey team, that even if he did exist he might not particularly consider the result his personal business — it would nevertheless be foolish to argue that the birth of babies, unlikely happy outcomes, and the victory of last-place hockey teams are phenomena unknown to us. If we must use the word “miracle” in relation to these events and define God as that which causes them – even if that means God amounts to just the sum total of contributing circumstances – then, by that precise limited definition, God exists.
7) Stephen Hawking has survived to reach age seventy. Thank you, God.
Comment By: Barb Padgett
August 9th, 2015 at 8:19 pm
Interesting perspective. It seems to me, though, that each of those points, with the possible exception of the first, could be summarized by “human intellect is too limited to comprehend it, therefore a deity must be involved”.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
August 9th, 2015 at 8:19 pm
Not at all. They all translate as, “This existing vague definition of God fits existing circumstances.”
Comment By: Russell Britt
August 9th, 2015 at 11:22 pm
I like #7 the best.
Comment By: janisha
August 11th, 2015 at 3:20 pm
I decided you don’t have to post my previous or this response. Could you please remove it? Thanks anyway.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
August 11th, 2015 at 4:06 pm
By poster request, a reply has been removed.
Comment By: L.J. Bothell
January 4th, 2018 at 2:18 pm
Excellent!
I tend to loosely use the phrase GOD as Great Open Dynamics of the universe, as I experience and very vaguely comprehend it. As a no n-religious person, I simply recognize that there is “more” than me, “more” than I and our species can yet comprehend and maybe even form clear questions about. Good enough for me. :0)
Comment By: David Vineyard
March 14th, 2018 at 7:17 pm
The sad emoji is for Hawking’s passing, not the article.
Comment By: Josh Olson
March 15th, 2018 at 2:17 am
Comment By: Marny
August 14th, 2019 at 4:52 am
I like believing that there is someone to whom I can pray and thank for all the gifts and miracles in and of my life.
I like believing that there is a place where I will be going to be with my mom, brother, and beloved husband.
And, if G-d does not exist, then I know I’ll be going where all others are … even if to nothingness or some form of electricity.
I can’t prove there is a G-d any more than people can prove to me there isn’t.
My stuff gets me through the live moments – and worrying about the dead moments seem futile for my existence now.