{"id":811,"date":"2010-02-18T22:06:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T22:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2010\/02\/18\/811\/"},"modified":"2010-04-17T15:25:47","modified_gmt":"2010-04-17T20:25:47","slug":"811","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=811","title":{"rendered":"TRANS-FAITH DIALOG ON A WEEKNIGHT"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went to the local Socrates Cafe meeting the other night, for an interesting discussion about God. The topic for the evening, suggested by a young medical school student from the Middle East, was whether God exists. Yes, the young student made it clear that he comes from the Islamic faith tradition. However, the science and high-tech environment of western medicine was giving him some . . . well, perhaps not doubts about God, but some second thoughts anyway. He said that he was reading some books by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins<\/a>, who of course goes totally nuclear against any notion of a transcendent creator and sustainer in the universe. So, the young fellow with the beard had come to the local half-assed western philosophers, to see what they had to say about it. <\/p>\n

This was quite interesting and special. I myself have lived a sheltered life, relative to the Islamic world. I really haven’t known too many Muslims; and the few that I have known weren’t \/ aren’t very up-front about it. They are mostly just average Americans, trying to get by; their religious practice and heritage just happens to be Islam. This young doctor-to-be wasn’t really all that different. However, he certainly did care about God, and was open-minded enough to reach out beyond the counsels of the local mosque or imam to talk about \u201cit\u201d (i.e., the question of God’s existence). <\/p>\n

The group was rather small, only myself, the moderator, the young student, and four other searchers on the path to wisdom (maybe). The discussion got going at about 8pm, and went go for maybe 70 minutes. I stayed quiet for the first half. Interestingly, only one fellow, a former biochemist (not far from Dawkins’ area of expertise) came out strongly against God. He made his case for empiricism and logical positivism, arguing that God is unprovable either way, and therefore irrelevant. Two others were more or less neutral on the topic, but open to the idea that \u201cthere’s more than we know\u201d. The other two had some deep thoughts and reflections on their life experiences and how they related to the idea of God. Both admitted to doubt and dissatisfaction with mainstream religion, but ultimately reflected their openness to God’s existence.<\/p>\n

And then it was my turn. OK, this is a topic that I have invested a lot of thought into over the course of my life. So I was intellectually loaded for bear<\/span>, especially since the glass of wine that I had over dinner was by now wearing off. Since I am an Aspie, to one degree or another, I was going to talk. And talk. AND TALK<\/span>. I told the moderator up front to cut me off if I got too verbose (the moderator was the positivist biochemist). He graciously shook his head, indicating that the floor was mine. <\/p>\n

So away I went, rambling on about emergence and quantum weirdness and David Bohm, ancient patriarchal conceptions of God and Sufi mystics, the problem of pain and the Haiti earthquake, relationships unbounded by the dimension of time and the moon reflecting the true light of the sun. I finally ran out of steam trying to make the point that the QUESTION OF GOD is important in and of itself, both historically and metaphysically, even if God was not provable in the same sense that water can be proven a combination of hydrogen and oxygen. <\/p>\n

By that time, the biochemist moderator was giving me something of a dirty look mixed with a bit of worry; he seemed like a man who had lost control. He followed up on my screed with a comment about how people’s explanations of God say more about themselves than anything real or not about God. I don’t think he was attacking me, but he clearly seemed uncomfortable. The others in the group ranged from mildly bored to slightly embarrassed to be in the presence of a madman (I did get rather animated until I finally tired out). But the young doctor-2B seemed somewhat edified. He stayed awake through my entire performance. A few minutes later, he gave his own, shorter \u201cpersonality dump\u201d; and in it, he repeated one of my opening statements, i.e. \u201cI would like there to be a God\u201d. He seemed a bit confused that none of us had referred to the usual foundations of traditional Abramic faith, i.e. Moses, Jesus and Mohammad. But then he summed up his reflections by saying that he would continue his own search for God. <\/p>\n

So, it was definitely an interesting evening. There I was, in effect urging a Muslim man not to give up on God, arguing to him that even though the scientific wisdom which he was studying often claims to exclude God, it ultimately gives hints and clues as to God’s nature and true being. And there he was, perhaps taking me seriously \u2013 perhaps seeing the point that although we do well to listen to and revere the great prophets of old, we must also dare to walk in their shoes, to seek our own reckoning with God, to not just take their word for it. <\/p>\n

Or really, not just take the word of those who followed the holy ones and maintain stodgy religious institutions built around their memory (along with the perversions that follow when bishops, evangelists, ayatollahs and other religious leaders exploit the political and financial powers they gain over ordinary mortals). I’d bet that the big three of Judaism, Christianity and Islam would do just what Roger Daltry and the Who said in \u201cI’m Free\u201d. I.e., \u201cyou’ve been told many times before, messiahs pointed to the door\u201d. But (unfortunately), no one had the guts to leave the temple . . . <\/p>\n

Well, perhaps my new friend is at least \u201clooking out the door\u201d of the metaphorical mosque. And the atheist biochemist wrapped it up with an observation from Updike’s book \u201cRoger’s Version\u201d<\/a> (NOT Roger Daltry!), i.e. that perhaps God doesn’t WANT to be known for sure by us. Overall, I think that God maintained his or her mystery, but still did pretty well that evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went to the local Socrates Cafe meeting the other night, for an interesting discussion about God. The topic for the evening, suggested by a young medical school student from the Middle East, was whether God exists. Yes, the young student made it clear that he comes from the Islamic faith tradition. However, the science […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1374,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions\/1374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}