"They say there's no such place as Paradise. Even if you search to the ends of the earth, there's nothing there. No matter how far you walk it's always the same road-- it just goes on and on. But in spite of that, why am I so driven to find it? I hear someone's voice, calling to me..."
--Wolf's Rain (anime series)
This week I was somewhat inspired by one of the assigned online readings. It was coming from an atheist perspective and it argued that belief in God is simply a childhood naivete that lasts until a person grows up and learns of science and the laws of nature that mechanically dictate the workings of the world. The paper argued that as children, some adult figure (usually parents) provides for the child's needs, and this leads the child into a constant cycle of believing there is something greater than itself. The child also looks at the world of evil and hopes for something better. The child then imagines for itself an entity called God who is constantly greater to compensate for the evil it sees in the world. But in the author's eyes, creating God in such a manner is merely a form of escapism much like the way Dorothy ran away from her life to the land of Oz.
I posted a quote from an anime series called Wolf's Rain because I think it's relevant to the topic at hand. The quote both starts and ends the show: the main character begins wandering the earth is search of a fabled place called Paradise, but despite his rationality telling him no such place exists, he wonders "why am I so driven to find it?" He spends the entire series searching a degenerating world in search of Paradise. He knows there are legends claiming its existence, but that's not why he searches. "I hear someone's voice... calling to me." He searches even until the literal end of the world. As the earth slowly freezes over, he finds himself the last living being on the planet. Even so, as he lies collapsed and alone he comes back to his original dilemma. "Even if you search to the ends of the earth, there's nothing there. But in spite of that, why am I so driven to find it? I hear someone's voice... calling to me."
I think that indeed, people see desolation in the world, and without a good answer for its existence or a solution to the problems, people have a need to believe in something that will validate such an existence. In other words, people need to hope for a future in which the problems of the present will be resolved in order to justify an existence of suffering in an interim present. If one were to point to God as the source of this hope, the view would be "The world is full of suffering, but one day God is going to put an end to the suffering. So suffering right now is ok because eventually He will eliminate all suffering." (for more of my commentary on the existence of evil see one of my previous blogs)
There was something else I was contemplating about the argument between atheists and theists (or at least Judao-Christians beliefs). It seems to me like a "what came first: the chicken or the egg?" argument. From the Judao-Christian viewpoint, God created humans who in turn hope for a God despite having evidence but no proof (remember that faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evience of things not seen-- see my last blog entry). But in the atheist viewpoint, humanity exists and hopes for something better than its current reality and so creates God to embody and sustain that hope. But much like the chicken and the egg dilemma, it's impossible to say "ok, let's go check to see which one of us is right."
"I hear someone's voice... calling to me." It seems like some people hear the call, some people don't. Some people call it God, others call it a higher reality, others say it simply does not exist. Whatever the case may be, people need an answer for the confusion they experience in the world. People need to hope for something better in order to live.
1 comment:
Hey Michael.
Just wanted to let you know that you didn't really misinterpret anything I said, hahah. It's probably way I worded it. I don't think that God's limited to any certain experience. I think what I was saying was that personally I feel God through many different experiences in my life, or at least I feel Him more powerfully outside of Church. I think that's what I was getting at.
Whether or not God's a projection is another thing. I'm still going through what I believe. I have been for about a year now, hahahah, so this class is definitely helpful. Your blog, your topic of Hope, is a very, very big aspect of how I see God. I've been meaning to reply to this.
A lot depends on one's hope. It is, in a way, an effort to deal with the pain in the world around you. It's also a bit more existential. You hope that you're on this earth for some other reason than to go through the motions only to end up in the grave by the end of it. Of course, that's a simplification. But I know for me, I'd hate for this to be it. Of course, after I die I won't really be able to regret there not being anything else, but while I'm here I'd hope that there's something greater.
I think that sort of ties into my experience thing. Not completely, but... let me try to explain. When you feel something, whatever emotion whether it be great or painful, you sort of want to attribute it to something. If it's an overwhelming feeling of happiness, like my little story, I like to attribute it to God. If it's an overwhelming feeling of sorrow, like someone close to you dying, you sort of hope for something more, whether that be from God or some higher power.
Of course, it all depends on the person. As you said at the end of your paragraph, "Some people call it God, others call it a higher reality, others say it simply does not exist."
I hope I made sense of that.
Post a Comment