Religion for agnostics

If I pray to God …

Hold on there, human. That language is archaic. Try this instead.

Let’s say that I find myself alone, the sky is reflecting in the river, and then my thoughts overwhelm me,  Is this language necessarily inappropriate:

“I lift up mine eyes to the Universe from whence I sprang, my conscious awareness sings, I exult in my being.” And then in the next breath, I might breathe these words: “I am humbled to stand here in the presence of an Existence – a Great Mystery - that I do not understand.”

Is it impossible that my thoughts, sparking across synaptic clefts, do not extend outward or inward beyond time and space? Hang the double negative. What does it mean that I express thoughts and feelings at all? Why do I experience wonder?

It is beyond my experience or my human reasoning that there might be more to life than the matter and energy of our natural experience. Science says that those elements are One. And science also says that if we go back to the beginning of time, one explanation of Everything is that there was a Singularity in which All of existence was infinitely compressed and then somehow Space and Time came into being, exploding with almost unimaginable force into everything that we know. And within everything that we know, there still remains so very  much than we cannot know. At least, so much that we do not now know. Perhaps we can possibly know more than we do know and I think that we should embrace that challenge. But we do not even know if it is possible to know everything - even about time and space. And beyond our natural universe, does some Mystery await?

So I have capitalized some letters to make my point. So what? Whether or not we use language that is archaic … No, when we use language at all, we are only really referring to reality. But I believe that there is clearly a vast reality beyond my own being and my small awareness. Just that muddy wreck of a river - my own momentary experience of the Kaw - is largely beyond me. That, to me, is obvious. What words should I use to speak of some other kinds of experience - realities of which I do not know?

I would like not to speak nonsense. That is, I intend to respect human reasoning and to try not to obviously contradict myself. And I should try not to say that I know things when I only speculate or imagine.

‘God’ has become a troublesome word. It seems archaic to refer to the old conception of a Supreme Being – commonly called God - in the face of modern scientific thinking. But ultimate questions of human existence and awareness remain. What human beings can know about space and time has grown in amazing ways. But the unknown remains. And unknown unknowns.

There is one conviction that what we can (in theory) know is all that there is. Some people believe something like that in the overwhelming face of the evidence of how much we do not know or understand. An archaic word such as ‘hubris’ might be used to sometimes describe the character of such people. They are commonly called atheists.

And the folks still clinging to various versions of ‘God’ language are not running short of their own forms of hubris. From my perspective - and that has changed radically over time - much ‘God talk’ is nonsensical. Hubris would be at least more understandable.

Again, I try not myself to speak nonsense when I am trying to make sense. Mostly, I try to speak out of my experience, listening to others as they carefully pass along what they have discovered through processes and thoughts that seem reasonable to me. But I let my imagination run free.

I do not suggest that you try to walk on water unless the temperature has dropped well below freezing for several days. But in the summer, when it is hot, I might just try it. Who knows? I can only get wet. I am not trying to start an Inquisition.

I try to know and be myself, to know and be with other human beings, and to know and experience the world around me. But almost everything in my own experience - if I am paying attention - leads me to Mystery.

I could have just as well expressed myself simply in words such as, ‘I don’t know,’ instead of ‘Mystery,’ but I have a sense of the sacred (that I cannot put satisfactorily into words even for myself) and so I tend to use language that reflects that sense of Mystery.. You should use whatever words you want. And we might disagree over what is nonsense.

So walk to the river with me if you want to. We don’t have to say anything. The sky will be reflected in the river. I think that the sky and the river are as real as we know. But sometimes I wonder what it all means and why I feel the awe that I feel.

Perhaps my words are archaic, but I sometimes worship the Mystery. I embrace the Unknown. I am only human.