Lent: Day Seventeen--Even if God Doesn't Exist, God IS Real

Every once in a while I run across an atheist who decides he is going to show my the error of my ways and the level of my delusion. A rational, educated, intelligent person cannot believe in God, so if someone like me does, then I must misguided or delusional. So one of the first things atheist in this situation do to me (and this has happened enough that I suggest there’s a handbook somewhere) is to greet my declaration that I believe in God with derisive laughter and the words, “Do you believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy too?”

I think I’m supposed to be embarrassed or transfer my energy to explaining the difference, to which they just make me look sillier and sillier explaining how God is real but Santa is not, even though I believed in Santa at one point. But I am not embarrassed by the question, neither do I shrink from it, nor do I try to explain a difference between God and the Tooth Fairy. I simply say “Yes, I do believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy because I have evidence they exist.”

The atheist then roars with laughter and wants to know my evidence. My evidence is simple, experiential, and was clearly repeatable (as all good experiments are). When I was a child, and I lost a tooth, and I put it under the pillow, I awoke and found a quarter in place of the tooth. When I was a child, I went to bed on Christmas Eve, and when I awoke in the morning, presents were under the tree. Therefore, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy both exist. I was told what would happen, I tried it, it happened exactly as I was told. I went from tooth to quarter; I went from no presents under a tree to presents under a tree. Proof.

This is the point in the discussion where the atheist stops laughing and examines me with suspicion. Am I a bigger idiot than he had at first believed? Am I setting him up for something? Am I not taking him or his questions or his “enlightened” perspective seriously? But sooner or later, the atheist has to take the next step"he can’t help it, his desire to demonstrate his superior intellect cannot remain quiet. So he invariably corrects me. “That wasn’t Santa Claus, that was your parents. Your parents put presents under the tree. Santa Claus doesn’t exist.”

“It may have been my parents, but why were they doing it? And why were they doing it that night? I was told that Santa would bring me presents on Christmas Eve. Presents arrived on Christmas Eve. I was told Santa would bring presents; presents arrived. If it turns out that my parents were the ones who brought the presents, then it doesn’t mean that Santa doesn’t exist, it means that my parents are Santa. The same is true for the Tooth Fairy. My parents were the Tooth Fairy"the Tooth Fairy exists.”

“But they don’t exist! These are people tricking you into believing something that isn’t true!”

“Santa DOES exist! Santa exists as the “spirit” that inspired and directed my parents’ actions. I’ll agree that Santa may not exist as a corporeal being who literally slid down my chimney"we didn’t have a chimney. But Santa did exist as spirit, who inspired my parents to behave as Santa, and to do it anonymously, humbly, for years. Santa exists, the details about Santa just turned out to be wrong, or a tad misleading.”

Two things"first, most atheists I meet are not combative or need to prove me wrong. Most atheists I know are cool with me being religious, just as I am cool with them being atheists. If we don’t try to convert each other, we’re both fine. But I do encounter a bunch of atheists with a chip on their shoulder or with something to prove"and for some reason, they feel they have to prove it to me. Second, I’m not sure what any of this has to do with humility other than I’m willing to admit I could be wrong, but that I don’t care if I’m wrong.

I don’t care if I’m wrong about God because if I am wrong, I’ll never know. I’ll just cease to exist. So I never have to live with my mistake. If the atheist is wrong, he’s going to know it, and know it forever. I don’t mean that he’ll be punished forever. I think for those type of atheists who need to prove me wrong all the time, just knowing they’re wrong about something will feel enough like hell that they won’t actually have to go there.

But here’s the deal. Even though I believe in a being that we call God who has a personality and interacts with living things and so on, I’m willing to admit that I only believe that for two reasons: 1) it’s how I was raised and is a part of who I am, and 2) it makes me happy (for the most part) to believe it. I’m willing to admit that God may be just a story I tell myself to make life bearable, or to provide meaning for random events. Then again, even if God does exist, it doesn’t mean that the God I live with and understand isn’t merely the God I’ve invented for myself"I can worship an idea of God that isn’t God, even though God exists.

But I think that even if God doesn’t exist, God still does exist, just as Santa and the Tooth Fairy exist. It is a sort of corporate spirit that unites us all and inspires us toward certain behaviors and values that we as humans believe are important, even if we fail to live up to those values and behaviors on an individual basis. God IS the Spirit of the Law that inspires us to strive to live out the letter of the Law.

In Sociology there is the concept of “Ideal Culture”"the culture that doesn’t exist, but that is presented as a goal or model for what is desired to exist. The American cultural ideas of Equality under the Law regardless of income, class, race, religion is part of our Ideal Culture. There is no Equality under the Law in reality"rich people get away with crimes they commit; poor people are punished for crimes they did not commit, but since they cannot afford a good lawyer, are found guilty. The belief that “All men (and women) are created equal” is part of our Ideal Culture because we don’t have to look very hard to see that we don’t really believe that. At the time those words were written thousands of people were slaves. So Ideal Culture is what we are not, but what we aspire to become.

And I’m willing to accept that God may be an existential, or theological equivalent of an Ideal Culture. God is the personification of those things we want to become"love, justice, mercy, compassionate, self-giving, etc., not just on a personal level, but on the level of society. So God could simply be our collective understanding of who we as individuals aspire to be, knowing that we are moving toward a goal we never reach. If that’s all it is, I’m cool with that. I’m cool with it because it means all of us are God in that we get to be God for someone who needs God, just my parents were Santa and the Tooth Fairy.

People who are new to recovery from alcohol often have a resentment against religion and the idea of God"mostly, I think, because well-meaning people spent all their time telling those alcoholics that they were bad and going to hell, not knowing they weren’t bad people trying to get good, but sick people who need to get well. Many of these newly-recovered individuals use the group as their higher power"a group of people who can stay sober, which the newly-recovered person cannot do on his own. So he sticks with the group, and let’s the group offer suggestions. God may be the group"the collective wisdom of societies throughout history, and if we want to be wise, we accept that wisdom when we are told it.

Now I’m sure some people are wondering why I’m telling people not to believe in God. I’m not. I believe in God"not merely the existence of God, but the character of God. Because faith isn’t existence, it’s character. Satan believes God exists, but apparently cannot trust God’s character and rebelled. I trust both God’s existence and character. But even if God doesn’t exist, I still believe in God, not because I am delusional, but because God is real"just as Santa is real"whether God exists or not.

Whether God created humanity, or if humanity created God, God is real! God is a “Spirit,” a force, an ideal, that pushes us beyond who we are as individuals and inspires us to be more than the sum of our parts. I guess this is easier for me since I’m not just kissing up to God because I’m afraid of not living forever. If I live forever"Great! If I don’t"who’s gonna know? Certainly not me, I will have ceased to exist!

So I guess the humility part is that if I only believe in God because I want to live forever in heaven, I’m selfish, and I don’t believe in God"I believe in the deification of my own ego. If I only believe in God because I want to go to heaven, then I am still selfish and I don’t believe in God, I still only believe in the deification of my ego. If I believe in God because I’m afraid of going to hell, then I am not only selfish, but also a coward, and I don’t’ believe in God, I believe in the preservation of my ego.

If I can believe in God"not just God’s existence, but in God’s character"and accept that I may get nothing out of it in return"no eternal life, no heaven, no blessing, no prayers answered, NOTHING, then and only then can I ever claim to love God, because is not a means to a desired end (heaven, life, blessing), but God IS the end. If I love God because God will reward me with heaven, I love heaven and God is the means to the that end.

Love is when we stop treating people and God as a means to an end, but as the end itself.

And I have no idea what any of that was about. I hope the person who needed to read this read it.

Peace