So, what is going on here? How can we celebrate the High Holy Days and atheism on the same Sunday? I imagine some of you are asking yourselves that question. And I’ll try to answer it as best I can.
Theology means literally "God talk," which may not seem too exciting to people who don't believe in God. Some people think that an atheist contemplating theology is like a nudist browsing through the Spiegel catalogue.
Actually, theology is for everyone -- even atheists. God talk, at its best, isn't simply about whether God exists or not, or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. God talk is about how each of us lives our life and experiences the sacred.
One person may experience the world as being overseen by a Supreme and Absolute being. Another person may experience the love of a feminine deity. Another may feel the fiery presence of a savior. And then there are those who simply see sacredness in snowflakes, roses, and setting suns.
Get the point? Theology is for everyone! We are all theologians when we contemplate the nature of the universe and the meaning of life.
Someone once said, "After all, if God had intended himself to be revealed through theology, we would all have been born with doctorates." The problem is not theology as much as it is theologians. Thank heaven that theologians aren’t studying sex or they would make that seem dull too. Theologians, for the most part, have taken the most fascinating, mysterious, awe-inspiring subject in the universe and expressed it in the spirit of a tax manual.
One of the most common questions I'm asked by newcomers to our church is "What does your church believe about God?" I usually respond that historically Unitarian Universalism has stood for belief in the unity of God as opposed to the orthodox Christian formulation of the Trinity. Or, as one jokester put it, "Unitarian Universalists believe in, at most, one God."
I go on to say that our concept of God has changed over the centuries, and that in most of our congregations there are theists, agnostics, mystics, naturalists, and atheists worshiping together and participating in the life of the religious community. It's at this point that people often go into shock.
Those new to our church usually are surprised that those who do not believe in or doubt the existence of God are embraced as fellow spiritual sojourners. But our conviction is that personal religion is defined by "deeds not creeds," by what we do in the world more than what we believe, and how we reach out with compassion to those who suffer.
But we also recognize that it does matter what you believe. In the words of Sophia Fahs, the great Unitarian Universalist religious educator: "Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged. Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies."
In our church we encourage expansive beliefs. We have no dogma or creed that requires a set of beliefs shut off behind walls. Instead we urge each person to build a belief system upon the foundation of their own personal experiences, reason and the wisdom of the ages.
In this six part series I am giving during this year, I will be affirming and celebrating some of the belief systems that many of us follow. They include atheism, agnosticism, mysticism, naturalism, and theism. There will also be two evening programs in which we will discuss these beliefs, the first one being on Thursday, November 16th.
My hope is to challenge you to struggle more intensely with what you believe and why you believe it, as well as to reflect on how you live out your beliefs in your everyday life. And I charge you to see not only the uniqueness of each belief system but the commonality that binds us all together in a diverse and welcoming community. We desperately need in our world today an understanding of the most sacred in life that unifies the people of the world rather than dividing it.
But that understanding is hard to find. We seem to have this deep down hunger for a relationship with something greater than ourselves. But the word God has been stretched and shaped so much throughout history that there are those who must negate that relationship in order to find a more profound one.
The Hopi Indians of southwestern America have a special ceremonial person they call a kachina. A kachina is a person dressed up as a god who runs into the middle of the village, does a wild and exuberant dance, and then suddenly vanishes.
The children are raised to believe that the kachinas are real gods, but at a certain age all the children are gathered together in the middle of the village, and the kachinas come out into the circle and begin again their wild and exuberant dance, only this time they are not wearing their masks or their costumes.
When they come out the children discover that the kachinas are not real gods or spirits, but instead they are their fathers, brothers, and uncles. Often these Hopi children are emotionally and spiritually crushed when they realize that there are no gods in their life.
One Hopi girl looks back over that experience of losing her god with these words: "I cried and cried into my sheep skin that night feeling I had been made a fool of. How could I ever watch the Kachinas dance again. I hated my parents and thought I could never believe the old folks again wondering if Gods had ever danced for the Hopi as they said and if people lived after death. I hated to see the other children fooled and felt mad when they said I was a big girl now and should act like one. I know now it was best and the only way to teach the children but it took me a long time to know that, it took me a long time to know..."
Many of us have had a similar anguishing experience of suddenly having the god we were raised to believe in pulled out from under us.
This certainly doesn't happen to everybody. Numerous people go through life never having any doubts about the existence of a benevolent God. That experience is just as valid and worthy as that of the skeptic. But for those of us who have experienced the death of god, we have had to make a momentous decision.
There are basically two choices at this crucial juncture in our lives. First, there is the choice to fill that void left by the death of god with another belief system. We don't have to believe in an anthropomorphic deity to believe in God. We can choose to believe in the god of process theology or the ground of all being or the Great Mystery itself.
You might be interested to know that some modern day theists actually sound a lot like atheist. For instance, Paul Tillich, the great Protestant theologian of the 20th century, scorns what he called "monarchic monotheism" and the theology of the "cosmic policeman." He wrote that "traditional theism has made God a heavenly, completely perfect person who resides above the world and mankind. Against such a highest person the protest of atheism is correct."
How do you like that? The most articulate 20th century Protestant theologian says that the protest of atheism is correct in killing the anthropomorphic god, that it is a superficial and outmoded god that needs to be eliminated. The catch for Tillich is that he goes on to say that we need to fill the void that our childhood god has left by envisioning God as the ground of all being. I’ll tell you more about that when we tackle theism.
But there is another choice we can make. The other choice is that we can say: "There is no god!" There's no god whatsoever, and there is no need for the concept. That is the response of the atheist. Literally that's what atheism means: without God. And that's what the atheist proclaims: I can live without God very well thank you. I don't need that concept in my life. I do not need God to live a meaningful and moral life.
The atheists have certainly gotten a lot of bad press. Being a small minority in our world, they have been condemned repeatedly as heretics. And they’ve been the brunt of a lot of bad jokes as well, such as this one: “I once wanted to become an atheist but I gave up . . .they have no holidays.” And then there is this one: “To YOU I'm an atheist. To God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.”
Fulton Sheen put it a little more delicately by describing the atheist as "... a person who has no invisible means of support." It's true; the atheist says what's here is here. God is an illusion that humanity has been tricked into believing, not much different than Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
The major objection of the atheist is that God just doesn't make sense. In the words of the infamous atheist Clarence Darrow: "In spite of all the yearnings of humanity, no one can produce a single fact or reason to support the belief in God and in personal immortality." Once, someone asked Bertrand Russell: "Lord Russell, what will you say when you die and are brought face to face with your Maker?" He replied without hesitation: "God," I shall say, "God, why did you make the evidence for your existence so insufficient?"
And it's true: the evidence for God's existence is scant at best. If we rely on the revelations of science and modern thought, then the concept of god cannot be taken seriously. Believers say that faith rather than reason is what we must use to find God. The atheist revolts against such a denigration of reason and would agree with H.L. Mencken when he wrote: "Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable."
What's real, says the atheist, is what we can see and hear and touch. There is nothing else beyond what we sense. There is no supernatural world beyond this world, and there is not even anything in the natural world that can validly be described as God.
The atheist goes on to say that god was created by humanity to make us dependent upon that concept and upon the institution of the church, priesthood and state. God is a crutch that keeps us from taking responsibility for our own lives. In the words of Bertrand Russell:
"I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting... Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own."Then there are atheists who see theism as downright destructive. John Collier exclaimed, "I've steered clear of God. He was an incredible sadist." George Orwell talked about "...the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him."
One of the most convincing arguments against the existence of God is the Holocaust. While there were some survivors who clung even closer to God, there were others who understandably lost their faith in the existence of God while at the same time accusing God of abandoning his people.
Elie Wiesel, the novelist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, gives one of his characters this ambivalent characteristic. In “The Gates of the Forest,” Gregor, a survivor of the Holocaust confronts an Hasidic rabbi with this question: “After what has happened to us, how can you believe in God?” The rabbi replies, “How can you NOT believe in God after what has happened?” Then Gregor goes on to tell the rabbi a story:
“In a concentration camp, one evening after work, a rabbi called together three of his colleagues and convoked a special court. Standing with his head high before them, he spoke as follows: ?I intend to convict God of murder, for he is destroying his people and the Law he gave them from Mount Sinai. I have irrefutable proof in my hands. Judge without fear or sorrow or prejudice. Whatever you have to lose has long since been taken away.’ The trial proceeded in due legal form, with witnesses for both sides and pleas and deliberations. The unanimous verdict: ?Guilty.’”As we celebrate the High Holy Days, we need to also pay tribute to the Jews who affirm atheism as their response to the Holocaust.
When you look at what people have done in the name of God throughout history, it's amazing that anyone can still believe in a deity. Millions of people have been maimed, tortured, and butchered in the name of God. For the atheist the concept of God encourages this madness and murder in the human race, and if we can rid ourselves of this mythology the world would be a more peaceful place.
There is a mistaken myth that atheists are immoral, but in truth they may have the highest morals of all religions. Atheists attempt to be ethical not because they are threatened by hell and damnation and not because they are promised eternal bliss, but simply because they believe it is the right thing to do.
Albert Schweitzer claimed that "A person is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as well as that of his fellow human beings, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help." That is the ethical system of the atheist, one that is built upon a respect for life rather than a god.
The atheist says there is a great advantage to being without God. When all the myths of God and the supernatural are torn away, human beings are blessed with a terrible freedom and a terrible responsibility to make ourselves into a moral and honorable people and to make this world into a heaven on earth.
Too often there is a tendency for individuals and society to rely on a deity to resolve their problems. There is a prevalent belief that justice will come about through the power of prayer, and if it doesn't, then at least we have heaven to look forward to in the hereafter.
The existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre, wrote that "God does not exist and we have to face the consequences of this..." The consequences are that each individual is responsible for finding meaning in our own life, for creating and living by an ethical system, and for making peace and justice in this world. We can't rely on any deity to do that for us; we must do it for ourselves.
Human beings have the freedom and responsibility to live life as deeply and lovingly as possible. When we face with courage the reality that this life is all we have, that there is no god, no afterlife, then we open our eyes all the wider to the beauty around us, we open our hearts all the wider to the joy and pain within us, and we open our arms all the wider to those we care for and love.
James Kavanaugh stated it poetically with these words:
"Perhaps I have no God--what does it matter?
I have beauty and joy and transcending loneliness.
I have the beginning of love--as beautiful as it is feeble--as free as it is human...
I stand in the Heavens and on earth, I feel the breeze in my hair,
I can drink to the North Star...
And I can know my own gentleness as well, my wonder, my nobility.
I sense the call of creation...
I can lust and love, eat and drink, sleep and rise,
But my easy God is gone--and in God's stead the mystery of loneliness and love."
Yes, the atheist is a religious person with no invisible means of support – but lots of visible support. We welcome the atheist into our church and into our hearts.
I BELIEVE by Martin King: An Atheist’s Point of View
The small ruby everyone wants has fallen out on the road.
Some think it is east of us, others west of us.
Some say, “among primitive earth rocks,” others, “in the deep waters.”
Kabir’s instinct told him it was inside, and what it was worth,
And he wrapped it up carefully in his heart cloth.
From the earliest age that I can remember, I have not believed in the existence of a god. My parents believed in one, and they sincerely tried to inculcate their belief. It didn’t take. What did take was my father’s attitude of rational skepticism, which for some reason he suspended for religious questions.
As to why I am an atheist, it is for the same reason that any person believes as they do. It suits me. It comforts me. It is consistent with my view of the human condition. There is a common notion that people arrive at religious belief through rationality and logic. It seems to me that the reverse occurs. People adopt a belief because it gives satisfaction or fulfils a personal need. Then they seek a logic that reinforces their choice.
So far as logic is concerned, it is as impossible to prove the non-existence of a deity as it is to prove the existence of one---quite aside from the multiplicity of gods that includes everything from a personal guardian in the sky to an amorphous power pervading the universe. I grant that a desire for such beliefs arises in many people. It has not arisen in me.
I find it bracing to confront the universe, and my mortality, without leaning on divine support. I am energized by the conviction that this life is the only one I shall have. I love this happy accident we call Earth, and enjoy hugely the humor, perverse twists and ironies of human existence. As Kabir’s poem suggests, I found the small ruby everyone wants to be within me.
In these things I am certain that I reflect the sentiments of many of you. In that light, we would have to admit that whether I believe or disbelieve in God is really of minor consequence.
GOD-TALK SURVEY
Please check below the viewpoint which comes closest to your own.
ATHEISM
( ) CASUAL ATHEISM: The concept of God is unimportant to me.
( ) STRICT ATHEISM: I believe there is no God of any kind.
AGNOSTICISM
( ) CASUAL AGNOSTICISM: I am undecided about whether God exists.
( ) STRICT AGNOSTICISM: I believe we cannot know, and will never know, whether God exists or not.
NATURALISM
( ) PANTHEISM: I believe that nature is the source of revelation and religion and that God and Nature are one.
( ) PAGANISM: I affirm the Goddess as a metaphor for my earth-centered spirituality.
THEISM
( ) SUPERNATURAL THEISM: I believe in a personal and supernatural God who participates in my life and history.
( ) PROCESS THEISM: God is interdependent with the world and developing with it.
MYSTICISM
( ) THEISTIC MYSTICISM: I believe that our purpose in life is to be at one with God, letting divinity shine through us in our deeds.
( ) NATURAL MYSTICISM: I believe that we may directly experience spiritual truths and a unity with the universe without a supernatural being.
OTHER
-Amen and shalom!
