A Pluralistic Response

I found something very interesting about John’s article. First off, it was the best explanation and reasons I’ve ever read concerning Atheism. In fact, I agreed with everything mentioned... except for the rather large point that I do believe in the existence of God.

I am Catholic. At least enough, though I might not be as active in my faith as others would say I have to be, in order to say I am Catholic. Like most people, I only believe what I believe because it’s what I was taught, what I've grown up on. In time it has also become my gut feeling. My gut feeling that this "God" is real.

Now, I do not believe that my God is, in fact, the only and one true "God." It’s impossible to be able to come to that conclusion. John pointed out that really you can’t come to the definite conclusion of a God existing, that it’s all in the feeling. Any concept of faith or religion has been introduced to the world through human beings. Even in the concept of divine inspiration (how the writers of the bible knew what to write), it would be the thoughts of God filtered through the mind of Man. The reason we have so many divisions of the Christian faith is because people get these gut feelings that something isn’t right with the status quo. But any and all of those feelings are human reactions to human events -- morals that might evolve from teachings put into place by others. If there was one "true" religion, everyone would know it because there would be some sort of divine evidence. Everyone would feel the same way about things.

I say I am Catholic, but I don’t apply Catholicism to my concept of got God -- in that the God I believe in may not be the specific God described by the Catholic church. I believe in a creator, an omnipotent being that is not governed by the teachings and writings of the human race. But it is a God that, really, I don’t know anything about.

I have an excerpt from a paper I wrote for my Intro to Liberation Theology class on Michel Foucault’s book, This is Not a Pipe. The book was originally written in French, though not fluent in French I read the English translation. In this particular book, Foucault studies the nuances of the French painter, René Magritte, particularly with regards to Ceci n’est pas une pipe (This is Not a Pipe) and Les Deuz mystéres, and develops his idea of applying the paintings to calligrams (poems where the words are arranged in the shape of the object they are talking about), and social critique into some sort of general idea of what Magritte was actually saying with his paintings. Here is the excerpt:

This way of thinking [that representations of things cannot actually be what they represent] is not limited to objects and the describing words of the object, but also to definitions of words, too. For example, “Theology: this is not the study of God,” or “This is not God.” In order for you to be able to study something, i.e. paleontology, you need the object there, the fossils. Theology therefore cannot teach me God, but rather it tells me more about who is doing the studying than it does about God, the subject. None of the books we read ever tell me what God is, they tell me what one person’s idea of God is. Whatever God is, we can never describe God fully. Words cannot accomplish this because we lack the language. God is a father, but a father is just a symbol to what God is. All symbols fail us in describing the totality of God, they are but a glimpse.

Overall, this book allows us to deconstruct what we “know” about God, or anything in this world, so that we can begin to know the real thing. Every time we try to represent a pipe, the words or drawings of the object is not a pipe, not even close. It only truly represents one aspect of what the pipe really is.

Through this class, I came into the belief in pluralism. Pluralism is a concept that, essentially, whatever belief a person has, is ok for them. It’s an understanding of their religion by being able to deconstruct everything I know about mine, and believe the gut feelings we each have, though different, are both valid. And yes, I can even apply this to the radical Muslim groups that believe killing Americans is the right thing to do. If this is what they were taught, I’m not going to tell them that their gut feeling is wrong, even when it affects my life. It’s illogical to say, “everyone can believe what they believe, but since your belief involves wanting to kill me, you’re wrong.”

Someone once tried to explain religion and God to me by using the "many paths up the one mountain" metaphor -- that there is one mountain with God at the top, and people of all religions and all beliefs travel up this mountain, to the same top, from different paths. But true pluralism isn’t just one mountain. It’s an infinite number of mountains with an infinite number of paths up each one. No mountain is bigger, no mountain is the “right mountain.”

Though I haven’t deconstructed past my gut feeling of an existing God, I can still open myself up to enlightenment because of one thing I’ve been able to admit to myself: I am in no way right in my way of thinking, in terms of being universally right. I know that in some aspects of thinking I could be wrong, and probably am. I’m human, and flawed, and accept that part of my existence.

Note: I know I didn’t include witty metaphors or stories of wheel-chair riding bible-thumpers, or make believe accountants; this article is meant as a response of John's specific argument. I couldn’t really apply so much to politics, because politics is a subject that I don’t know enough on to offer my opinion, and frankly I find myself lost in this upcoming election. But this is the reason why sites like ludicrosity appeal to me so much, because its not simply articles written by someone who’s supposed to "write an article", but rather a sharing of opinions and ideas in whatever form they develop.