Answering comments = easy posting
Nov 24, 2006 Judaism, Spirituality
awrungsponge asked:
I wonder if you know a God beyond religion? Or do you see religion as only a human phenomenon? I am guessing that you do believe in a Universal Great Spirit God (terminology?) but see that as somewhat separate from religion. Do you think it is up to an individual (our children) to find that Spirit in their own journey, or do you think that Spirit will seek to know us/them?
I found a way to include a higher power in my life when I was about eighteen because I was dating an alcoholic and started to go to AA. My alcoholic boyfriend was (probably still is) an atheist and his higher power was a bottle cap. This bottle cap represented the love other people had for him and that he believed would help him not to reach for that drink if he would “let go and let god.”
This experience was the first time in my (raised cynically agnostic) life that I began to think about god and about spirituality in a way that might successfully apply to me. If he could find God (as he understood him/her/it) in a bottle cap, then maybe my ideas about God (white man, long beard, angry expression) could stretch a little.
When I met Brett he was drinking and so it was back to 12-stepping for both of us. He tentatively shared with me how important his Christianity was to him (he is intensely private about his beliefs so I can’t elaborate) and I started wondering if I could be a Christian. Answer: No. I find the idea that we need to be saved offensive (to me personally — it’s central to my husband’s faith); it was too big an obstacle for me to ever get around. But I still felt the presence of God in my life and I wanted to find a structure to explore him/her/it.
What I’ve told Noah is that religion is humanity’s way to try to understand God and so no person’s religion is “right.” We all experience God differently — if we seek to experience him/her/it. We chose to raise him (and Madison) as Jewish for all the reasons I’ve explained before and also importantly because both Brett and I like the emphasis on questioning. Religion is supposed to serve us in our relationship with and understanding of God. Me, it seems like I came with a built-in bias for Judaism (my rabbi tells me that all the souls of all the Jews — including the converts — were there for the giving of the Torah and so if you buy that, I was Jewish before I knew it). I believe Judaism is more right and true than any other religion — that’s why I’m a Jew. But I think God is bigger than religion and just because I think Judaism is more right and true doesn’t mean that anyone else is less right or true.
I do think it’s up to my kids to figure God out for themselves. My brother is an atheist and I have no truck with that; that’s how he experiences God (as an absence? as a non-issue? whatever — it’s his truth). Likewise, my kids may end up atheists. I don’t know if God seeks us or if we seek him/her/it. I have told Noah that Judaism is a good place to start but that he will need to open up his heart to discover his own truth; I have no idea what God might be whispering to him or if he will hear it or if God is whispering at all.
Brett gets hung up on the big questions. It bothers him that he doesn’t how salvation can be true but not one-size-fits-all (he doesn’t believe I am going to hell, for example). Me, I just don’t worry about it all that much. I’m ok with not knowing because I think God is beyond our comprehension. I don’t worry about or think about the details except as they apply to how I’m supposed to operate in the world.
You know, I was thinking about this last night. Judaism is a good fit for me for a lot of reasons but one is that it’s the most mindf*cking religion I’ve found. Look at this page from the Talmud. The Talmud is rabbinical commentary on the scriptures. Ok, did you click to that page? Go click it and then come back. All of those different colors there midway down the page are different commentaries. The rabbis discuss and debate across centuries — we’re still doing it today.
You know what you get when you put two rabbis in a room? Three opinions.
More Talmudic fun here!
November 24th, 2006 at 11:32 pm
Dawn, I usually don’t do this, but it’s “athEist”. The Greek word for God is “theos”, and an a-theist is thus someone “against God”. I changed my name so your comment moderation filter catches it, don’t publish, it’s simply for your information because I thought you’d want to know.
November 25th, 2006 at 1:46 am
Dawn,
I am glad you are teaching Noah not to think his truth is the absolute truth. If only more people taught that kind of humility to their children, we might have a more peaceful world.
Jessica,
I just want to clear something up so that nobody will be misled by your comment.
The prefix “a-” does not mean “against”. Atheists are not “against god”. How can you be against something that doesn’t exist? Just as I am not against zeus, I am not against god. An atheist is one who either believes there is no god, or one who lacks beliefs in any god.
For a definition of atheists:
http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/what-is-an-atheist-faq.htm
November 25th, 2006 at 3:37 am
You’ve really taken on quite the subject for blogging in the last week — you’re a brave and thoughtful woman.
November 25th, 2006 at 3:43 am
Ghengis Kahn believed in the Eternal Blue Sky and, when he wasn’t conquering, invited all religions into his court. Other than the slaughtering people bit, I quite like the Great Kahn.
November 25th, 2006 at 5:22 am
To MomSquared - you’re quite correct, “against” is a slopply translation. I simply didn’t know how to put it better. Thanks for making that clearer!
November 25th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
“I’m ok with not knowing because I think God is beyond our comprehension.”
Exactly my point of view. Although I respect the rights of those who feel this way, I don’t understand the need to prove one’s faith empirically.
November 26th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
i think this is the closest i’ve read in a while to verbalizing my own beliefs - so thank you.
and in terms of the talmud - the commentaries on the page itself isn’t the half of it. there are books and books written as commentaries on the commentaries…and it just keeps going. sometimes i wish it would all just be more simple - but i know i wouldn’t be as interested if it was.