Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
If You Truly Believed in G-d, What Would You Be Like?
I was watching a video where Dennis Prager interviewed Jordan Peterson.
Peterson said he has difficulty with the question, “Do you believe in G-d?” commenting, in effect, that if you say that you do truly believe, it would mean you were living a transformative life, both for yourself and those around you, and who among us can lay claim to that? I had another thought on this matter, however, which was that a person who truly believed in G-d would never be asked such a question.
We Jews are lucky because, whether we believe or not, we get a ticket into the next world. If we truly mess up, we have to go to Gehinnom (as bad as hell, if not worse), but for a maximum of only one year. While there, we experience a painful dry-cleaning of our souls, so to speak, but afterward enter a sublime world to come. But that world to come, although stress-free, is kind of boring. Our souls up there wait impatiently for the Messiah to come, whereupon they will be brought back to earth and assume a physical form as our bodies are resurrected in the Land of Israel. You see, the action is here, not up there, since the soul’s purpose is to highlight or extract the spiritual spark in everything physical, and to obey G-d’s many commandments, but it can only do so in partnership with a physical body on planet earth.
Still, the question of what it would be like to truly believe in G-d does arouse interest. My faith begins with the people who live in Israel. I see G-d in them. A young family who lives next door includes four children that I do not believe could have grown up the way they did and be who they are anywhere else. How to describe them? High achievers yet humble, sure of themselves yet respectful of others. The seven-year-old boy, especially, has a great future in front of him. Possessed of a regal bearing, the other neighborhood kids his age look up to him and follow his lead. What distinguishes Israelis of any age is their laser-like focus on the matter at hand and extreme honesty; I find these qualities to be divine. Interestingly, the kids in the family next door go to a religious school even though, while the mother is observant, the father is not.
Whenever I visit the central bus station in Jerusalem, I also see G-d — in the soldiers who are milling about, sitting down for coffee and a snack, waiting for a bus. Such joy and love of life, humility, respect, knowing so much yet still full of innocence. Plus, they would sacrifice their lives for me. And, in a sense, the civilized world depends on them.
I am curious if anyone reading this would be willing to answer the question in the title. Of course, if you are already a true believer, you would perhaps be willing to enlighten us as to what your life of true belief is like.
Published in General
St. Augustine was responsible for adopting Roman methods of torture in order to get people to conform to Church tenets.
In 385 A.D. the first executions for heresy were carried out by Emperor Maximus at the request of Spanish Bishops.
Priscillian, the Bishop of Avila, subscribed to Gnostic Christianity. He was charged with witchcraft. He and his fellow Gnostics were tried and tortured.
Heavy stuff indeed.
We would be best to reject the theocratic ideas of St. Augustine.
As with Richard Dawkins, I read his book, “The God Delusion,” and didn’t find it as interesting as other books by people critical of organized religion.
I recommend, “Unfollow: A Journey From Hatred to Hope,” by Megan Phelps-Roper.
Megan Phelps-Roper was raised from birth as a member of the Westboro Baptist Church. At the age of 5 she held signs that said, “God hates fags” at protests against homosexuals.
It’s a page turner.
Also good is “Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible and Why You Don’t Know About Them,” by Dr. Bart Ehrman.
Good stuff.
St. Augustine started out as a defender of religious toleration. Later, however, Augustine got into conflict with Donatists.
Donatists were heretical Christians who believed that Christian clergy must be without fault in order for their sacraments to be effective for their flock.
After Augustine had his conflict with the heretical Donatists, he argued in favor of persecuting heretics arguing that often times heretics were “brought over to the Catholic unity by fear.”
During his interview/appearance with Dennis Prager, Jordan Peterson seems on the brink of tears. He seems to be getting choked up as he discusses Nietzsche’s quote that “There was only one Christian: Jesus.”
It reminds me of Joni Mitchell’s song, “Same Situation,” where she sings
I think believers and non-believers alike often wonder where God has gone when they look into the eyes of a 2 year old child struck with leukemia.
Did God give this child leukemia because the child sinned against him? Surely not. Or perhaps God gave this child leukemia due to a sin by one of the child’s parents? What a cruel conclusion.
If there is God, I would think that God simply created the universe and then stood back, no longer intervening in the universe. Otherwise, what is the purpose of allowing all the suffering. Animals devouring animals for calories. People dying of diseases that they do not understand until modern man’s medical science advances and “reveals” the germ theory of disease.
But this Deistic God is much like a pet dragon that a friend tells you he has in his garage.
“You have a pet dragon?” you ask your friend. “Yes,” your friend says.
So, you go to his house and ask him to show you his pet dragon in his garage. But when he allows you into his garage, you see the garage is empty.
“I don’t see a dragon,” you say. Your friend says, “He’s an invisible dragon.”
You respond, “I will put flour all over the floor of your garage so that I can see his footprints.”
Your friend responds, “My pet dragon floats above the ground.”
You say, “I will use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.”
Your friend responds, “My pet dragon is heatless.”
You say, “I will spray paint all over your garage, so I can make the dragon visible.”
Your friend responds, “My pet dragon is incorporeal so the paint will not stick.”
You give up, realizing that your friend has introduced to you a pet dragon that is non-falsifiable. But then you wonder, “What is the difference between my friend’s pet dragon and no dragon at all?”
And so it is with the Deistic God who creates the universe but appears hidden behind the impersonal “laws of nature.”
Only those who do not understand what God is.
So, God is much like the God of Thomas Jefferson? Working no miracles? Not intervening to stop human suffering?
Or God is vengeful, desiring that humans suffer for the Sins of Adam and Eve?
— Epicurus
What makes you think that the Westbozos are in any way associated with a real church? Because of the word “Baptist?” Because of the word “Church?”
You seem to insist that Augustine be perfect in order for his words to have merit, or at least you insist that I think so. Are Ms. Phelps-Roper and Dr. Ehrman without spot or wrinkle or blemish? No income tax fibs or marsupial molestation committed by either of them? Are you now or have you ever been a Donatist?
Why would God want to intervene in a way that makes you learn and grow less. Does the principal of a grade school intervene in every tussle? (Yeah, yeah, nowadays maybe.) Or does he let some things slide so the kids learn how to deal with each other and other people? Would you want all the suffering you have ever experienced taken away? Would you be the same person if you had never suffered? Would you know half the things you do without suffering, and perhaps overcoming? Would you appreciate what others have gone through had you never suffered? Did you ever have a choice whether to suffer or not, and you chose to suffer more because of a higher goal?
While I will always say that it is better to learn from the experience of others, some will only learn at the feet of Pain the Master. We have all sat at his feet at some point in our lives. We have all been stubborn about this or that lesson in life and insisted on learning it the hard way. Some, even, will acknowledge no other master.
And you blame God for giving people opportunities to learn and to grow in spirit in the only ways they will? Earth is not God’s university for souls; it is his grade school.
There is no evil, only semantic confusion.
😁
I don’t insist that Saint Augustine be perfect.
Would you want all the suffering you have ever experienced taken away? Would you be the same person if you had never suffered? Would you know half the things you do without suffering, and perhaps overcoming? Would you appreciate what others have gone through had you never suffered? Did you ever have a choice whether to suffer or not, and you chose to suffer more because of a higher goal?
In some cases, suffering in the here and now is “worth it.” Anyone who has studied hard for an exam or spent hours in a gym understands this.
But in the case of the 2 year old with leukemia, or a mudslide that kills thousands of people in their sleep, it’s hard to see that this suffering is “worth it.”
One could observe the world and think, “Hey, maybe there is no one in charge of this?”
Think how you would react if you saw your dog being eaten by a cougar. You would likely understand that your dog is suffering.
Does your dog learn and grow as a result of being eaten by a cougar? Does this suffering bring him closer to God?
A more realistic understanding is that the suffering of a dog being eaten by a cougar isn’t part of God’s plan to make a dog learn and grow. Suffering is just a feature of the natural world.
When we install air conditioning and central heating in our homes, we are attempting to overcome nature. Whether God exists or not, God did not give us air conditioning to make it easier for us to get a good night’s sleep on a hot summer night. Human beings had to take the imperfect world and try to reduce suffering within it.
You can say that God fits into this picture somewhere. Or you could say that God simply jumpstarted the universe and took no further interest in it. Or you could say that God doesn’t exist at all, that the jumpstart of the universe was some unknown natural phenomenon that scientists have not yet discovered.
Many in the world believe in reincarnation. If each life is equivalent to a part in a school play, one’s role may be a brief walk-on. That doesn’t mean the part is not important to the character development of those other souls one interacts with. If a child lives for two years and dies of leukemia, does the child touch anyone? Does the child bring sunshine into lives? Would the parents say, “This life was not worth living?” Many of these parents think it was worth it to have that child, even for only two years. The fact that you do not understand the meaning of a particular life does not mean it had no meaning. It just means you are ignorant of the truth. (And here, ignorant is meant as lacking knowledge of the facts in this case, not as an insult.)
As for the mudslide, everyone dies of something. (Or many somethings, if one does hold with reincarnation.) Why is one death better or worse than another? Would you prefer to die at 70 in your sleep in a mudslide? Or would you prefer to die at 100 with your mental faculties strong, but your body having become a prison for the last ten years? I’d take the mudslide over a camp fever during a siege in Bloody Ireland any day. Mass events like that may also mean that the group of people who lived there had come in for a purpose, to work together on a particular set of lessons or soul growth, and they had graduated to the next grade.
I’m going to add to this. There is a character named Willie Mitchell Banks in Michael Henry’s series of books. His mother had a saying to the effect of, “You never know what’s cooking in another person’s pot.” Even if we think we know why a person lived, what lessons they were learning, we probably don’t really know. Maybe we think we know what we’re learning and what we were put here to learn. That is a probably not, too. In your life review, you’ll know a lot more.
You could also say that it’s turtles all the way down. You are where you are. You asked how something could be. I gave explanations. You don’t have to accept them, yet. You’ll grow into them in some lifetime.
I agree that once one factors in either reincarnation or eternal bliss in heaven after life on earth, then lots of suffering can be written off as pre-game training for the real event.
An evangelical Christian I knew while I was in college told me that the Holocaust as a trial for what the Jews did to Jesus and for rejecting Jesus.
With God all suffering can be rationalized and even thought of as a good thing.
Megan Phelps-Roper wrote in her book, “Unfollow: Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church” that her family carried signs saying, “Thank God for September 11” because if some event happened, God must have wanted the event to happen and God can’t be wrong.
But, as I mentioned in my previous comment, another explanation is that there is no God in charge of the universe and quite a lot of suffering has no purpose whatsoever. We can decide, as the inventor of the air conditioner and the inventor of the small pox vaccine did, to reduce suffering as much as possible.
Or we can decide that to vaccinate ourselves against diseases is to interfere with the learning and growth we can enjoy if we contract small pox.
This is why, while I do think we can learn and grow in response to some kinds of suffering, many kinds of suffering are pointless and/or excessive.
That’s why I am glad I live in the modern world, where man has housebroken nature to a large extent.
I agree.
As I mentioned, Megan Phelps-Roper used to subscribe to the explanation that when an American soldier was killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, this was God punishing the United States of America for tolerating homosexuality and host of other sinful behavior.
When they learned of a famine in Africa, they would rejoice, believing that God was punishing mankind in a way similar to the way God punished mankind with a flood.
One guy I knew in college said that the Holocaust happened as a “lesson” to the Jews for rejecting Jesus.
That’s certainly one way of looking at it. It isn’t my way of looking at it.
Here is Megan Phelps-Roper explaining how an Orthodox Jew persuaded her to reject her family’s interpretation of Christianity.
It’s a hopeful sign when a women is willing to accept being rejected by her Mother and Father and 6 of her siblings and most of her extended family by rejecting a faith she learned as a child.
Megan used to protest against Jews carrying a sign that said, “Your Rabbi is a whore.” Now she is friends with that same Rabbi.
There are certainly religious groups that think that way.
But you’ll note that even those with lives filled with air conditioning and cell phones and all the modern conveniences find ways to suffer. They find mental anguish, even in the lap of prosperity. That is because we have a need to grow. We have a need for challenges. If we don’t have them, one pathology is that we make them up and create dramas.
In the Biosphere 2 project, they found that the trees within the environment were breaking under their own weight. They had not been stressed enough in the artificial environment, and as such, had formed no stress wood. So, they had to put giant fans into Biosphere 2 to create wind to strengthen the trees. People are similar. They will fall apart if not exposed to stress of various forms.
Epicurus. Anti-Platonist. An empiricist. He believed that what caused pleasure was “good” and what caused pain was “evil.” Hmm … bit of a sticky wicket when one is determining a moral course if other people are involved, seeing as how their pleasure and pain cannot be measured except by their communicating it. So children who cannot yet speak and foreigners who do not speak the language can have no moral value whatsoever. Well, that will come in handy during war and regarding abortion, so there’s that. It makes being good not only easy, but a whole lot of fun! Pretty easy to follow even if one is somewhat depraved.
I’m sure there was more nuance than that, but I’m skeptical that the holes I can see would be papered over by nuance. I needs a little something.
Importuning ‘possums.
Must Epicurus be without spot or wrinkle or blemish? :)
No more so than Augustine, or Luther.
I agree. However, while I have seen many Lutheran Churches in my community (Indianapolis), I have not seen many religious groups with Epicurus’s name on them.
So, to the extent that Martin Luther’s Jew bashing has had an influence on the Christianity that followed in Luther’s wake, you and I probably both agree that this was bad.
If we find “issues” with Epicurus’s views, we should reject them. It just seems that Luther’s impact on 21st century views of Jews is stronger than any malevolent influence Epicurus has had. My sense is that most people haven’t heard of Epicurus and aren’t aware of his ideas.
What Epicurus an advocate of religious tolerance or even tolerance towards those with differing ideas? I don’t know.
But I think Epicurus’s skepticism regarding God’s existence is helpful in a world where people are willing to kill in the name of their God.
Also, one wonders to what extent Hitler was influenced by Luther, even though Hitler was raised Catholic.
Luther did not invent antisemitism. Indeed, he seems to have believed that they would be “won over” by his message. That didn’t happen, and some combination of his disappointment, his irascible nature, and old age probably influenced him. In addition, he was, as we all are, a product of his time and place. That doesn’t excuse it; it is and was inexcusable. It does partly explain it.
He tried to take over the church. He was not particularly successful, though he did throw dissenters into concentration camps and cowed others with the credible threat.
The Epicureans caught on briefly with some of the Romans (who were suckers for most anything Greek) but fell victim to the Stoicists (more in line with early Roman prejudices). What little that was left didn’t survive contact with the early Christian church.
Then why do you even bother quoting Him? Why are you even bothering to bring Him up?
This is so silly, it’s really third grade stuff. If good God exists and there is an after life, then you don’t know the whole story of our lives. You have a limited view of the entire situation. So to go back to your two year old with Leukemia example, if there is a heaven as Judeo-Christianity proclaims, then that child will be in a better place. What looks to your limited view is actually an incorrect moral assessment of God. When you expand that view in a context of an eternity of heaven, those two years or so of suffering will be no more than a stubbed toe’s worth of pain and suffering. All that by Epicurus does not apply to Christianity.
OK, I’ve watched half the video and now I understand where the OP question is coming from. Overall I think it’s not that profound a question. People know that cigarette smoking is bad for them, and yet they smoke. I know that eating as much as I do is not good for me, but I still enjoy a good hamburger. Just because I know that God exists doesn’t mean that I have the will to be the perfect Christian. Human frailty is a reality for all of us.
So to back to your question, yes I am what I am, despite my fully knowing that God exists.