Redefining The Divine

Robert V. Thompson, the Chicago Examiner "Spirituality Examiner", is sympathetic to the "New Atheist" movement, specifically the Bus campaign in England. Frankly it is refreshing to have someone who claims to be sympathetic to atheists. But then he throws out the old canard about how he doesn't believe in the God we don't believe in either:

[link] I am grateful for the atheist bus campaign because the world sorely needs a larger and deeper conversation about what we mean when we speak of God. When my atheist friends tell me they don’t believe in God I ask them what they mean by the word 'God'. They usually say they don’t believe in a separate supreme being with a large ego.

Neither do I.

He then goes on to redefine this "god" thing into - well - anything. I mean, literally anything at all:

(Continued after the fold...)

Spiritual author Eckhart Tolle asks, “Have you ever gazed upon the infinity of space on a clear night, awestruck by the absolute stillness and inconceivable vastness of it? Have you listened, truly listened to the sound of a mountain stream in the forest—if so you have put down for a moment your personal baggage of problems or past, and future, as well as your knowledge—to experience these things your total presence is required. But beyond the beauty of external forms, there is more here: something that cannot be named, something ineffable, some deep, inner, holy essence…”

In every moment we dwell on the edge of mystery—and to see it, to touch it, to enter it, requires an openness to a Presence larger than individual human beings.

This Presence is always in us, always living through us and every living thing. This presence connects us. While this presence is transpersonal it is experienced personally. I call this Presence, God. We awaken to the mysterious Presence when the mind is quiet and the heart is open.

This Presence cannot be proven by religious dogma or refuted by a bus marketing campaign.

The God I believe in is the innate impulse in every human being to seek life, love and connection. This impulse is what gives us life, keeps us alive and persuades us to see you in me and me in you. To awaken to this Presence is not to know the one right answer but an openness to seek and to embrace the deeper questions. The God I believe in cannot be grasped by the intellect. I like the way the Trappist Monk Thomas Merton put it, "there is in all things, a hidden wholeness". God is not an idea to be argued or a proposition to be proved but a deeper wholeness that is forever calling us to wake up. .

I agree with the theologian Paul Tillich, God is not a separate supreme being but the very Ground of Being from which all life rises up. God is the very Life of our lives. Or how about this: God is Life Itself, what we choose to do with it is up to us.

So, his solution is to open up the definition of the word "God" so that it can mean - anything?

In his mind "God" can be a white-bearded father figure in the sky, a magical eight-armed goddess, a "Presence", The Force, The Universe, etc., etc., ad infinitum?

C'mon, Robert. How about you stop lying to yourself and admit it - you don't have any idea what is meant by the word "god".

Well, I've got news for him - us atheists don't know either. And you know why? Because every one of you god-believers seems to believe in a different god.

Atheists lack any god-belief. THAT is what makes us atheists. Disbelieving in ONE of your myriad versions and flavors of this "god" character doesn't make someone an atheist. The absence of any god-belief at all does.

You see Robert, I don't want a "deeper conversation" about your imaginary friend. I just want you to leave me alone, and quit insisting that I pay for your wacky religious delusions with my taxes.

Is that too simple for you? Because at it's most basic level, that's why us atheists are speaking up.

We are DONE with being told to sit down, shut up, and then pay for the privilege!