The God Question

The other day I was talking philosophy with a friend and the question of God came up. Where does God fit in my vision of how things are? In my typically flip way I said that God was irrelevant. The conversation stopped right there. I'd like to explain what I meant, and I hope my friend will read this and that we can continue talking.

My point is this...

If God created the universe then he/she created it to function according to laws and those laws apply to all of creation. We are not exempt. We should not use God or religion as a justification for trying to live in ways which are contrary to those laws. Religion, at it's core is about how to live with other people. It has been used to justify all kinds of terrible behavior. I haven't found anything in religion that exempts me from the laws of creation.

If God didn't create the universe then it is a self correcting system that tends toward balance. The laws work because they keep the system balanced. Actions that violate the laws tend to be eliminated as the system corrects it's self and returns to a state of balance. Our violating the laws of the system will result in our being eliminated from the system.

Neither one of these options require any intervention from the outside. God may have set up the system or it may have come into existence by random chance, but it is the system we live in, and we must learn to live by its rules.

My quest is to understand those rules and find ways to live in harmony with them. On this quest Gods role, or lack there of, is irrelevant.

Stories that change the world

I have to agree with Jake (see comments on last post) about the power of narrative. We act out of beliefs not because the data point us in a direction. That's why it is so hard to change what is happening in the world. We are so caught up in acting out the story that puts us in the role of the gods that we can't even see it. Joseph Campbell talked a lot about the power of stories in his work on comparative mythology. The movies are a great place to see the story we are living played out. The problem is finding a way to get people to hear a new story. (It's hard to even think of a new story, the one we are living is so pervasive and effective in eliminating any other way of thinking.) I like Daniel Quinn, especially the Story of B, for just that reason. There is nothing new in the science behind what he is saying, but the story sticks in your mind and makes you see things in a little different way. Once you can here 'Mother Culture' whispering in your ear, you can start to see the fallacies in our way of living. We need more people willing to say "NO! I will not live that way." We don't have to fight, we just have to opt to not play.

My kids love to watch Nova, National Geographic, Nature, and the like. I let them because I like them to think, and these programs encourage that. The other day they were watching something about early tool makers, and the story that brought us to this point came screaming out of the TV. "Humans are destine to dominate, shape, and control Nature." It's hard to live by a new story. It's even harder to teach others to do it.

I'd love to here examples of stories that lead to a new way of thinking, a new way of living.