WillSpirit!

A Poem Awakens Me to My Task

The worst part of me says:
I will never be happy lining the pocket of God
unless I am Her only coin.

The best part of me knows:
I am dust on the tabernacle, and that is enough.

I am a drop of rain that fell a million years ago.

I am yesterday’s sunshine.

I am a middle-aged man who hears God whispering on his shoulder
who knows not what God is
but knows well what God is not.

God is not an old man with a white beard and a whip.

or if God is

then God is also a brown baby with a binky

and a girl clutching a candle

and a young man with a hammer

and a woman screaming as a child enters the world
crying tears that rain the promise of God

and God is a tree fallen by lightning

and God is a sapling in loam

and God is a white man fifty-nine minutes into his fifty-first birthday
typing

and God is a person giving that man his first birthday present
by reading these lines.

God is not ego.

Saturday night I spoke at a twelve-step meeting and many people laughed.
Many told me how much my story moved them.
Many looked me in the eyes and we saw each other
as children crying for the help that did not come.

It went to my head.
It felt like warm butter in my heart.

A voice has been whispering to me
“I have much to say
and yours is a mouth I am choosing.”

I know others answer such commands
and God
helps them

but I am afraid
I am unworthy
and I am afraid
it will go to my head
and I am afraid
the voice will go quiet.

I don’t want to be alone again.
I like to listen to that voice
all by myself
just the two of us.

I want to sit under a stone under a tree under a cloud
and listen to those maple sweetened words
as they flow like a lively brook through my heart.

“SPEAK!!!”
Is sometimes all I hear as I clutch my knees and feel so much happiness at last.
“SPEAK!!!”

I don’t want to be conceited, or ignored, or to start running a race again.
I have so much to say.
I believe I have much to give.
I am filled with tears and with smiles and with bloodshed and hugs.

It is my fifty-first birthday and my hair is becoming white.
Who am I to speak up?
And where would I find a soapbox?

I want to be God’s coin.
The most selfish part of me wants to shine alone in a dark, empty pocket.
The best part of me wants to jingle like one of seven billion gold dollars in a bursting sac.

When I lived for ego it all looked so simple.
Living for heart has brought me to this precipice
where I must jump and drop like a suicide victim,
spread my arms on the way down,
and hope God becomes my wings
so I can carry my message across the gorge.

Happy Birthday to me
and you
and God
whatever She is.

After an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting today, when I heard people struggle with the concept of ‘God’ that underpins AA, I realized the time has come for me to insert a series of spiritual posts. I wrote some back when the blog first launched, seven months ago. They did not go over well. Partly, I suspect they were too much based on my personal experiences and beliefs. The minute one tries to verbally portray the broader influences that underly the universe, one gets caught in the trap of particularizing the universal. One can use allegory to allude to the larger ‘truth,’ but attempting to describe it directly is the same as trying to capture wind in a jar.* One can point to situations where something unusual seems to be at play, but the ‘mysterious’ as a noun cannot be encompassed with words.

(*Note: when I included the ‘wind…jar’ cliche in the first draft of this post, I actually thought it was original. Only upon a later reading did I remember the words are part of the common lexicon: not my creation at all. This goes to show the possibility of mistaking a previously heard phrase or concept for one’s own. Also, even if an idea is thought up de novo, there is always the chance that others have already thought of it independently. This is a good time to insert the proviso that I will try to credit ideas that came to me from other sources, if I know them. But the only thing I can absolutely claim as my own is my specific way of writing and organizing these ideas. People have earned doctoral degrees and built careers around the subjects I am tackling; I am a rank amateur. I do not expect to break truly new ground from this starting point. I hope to spin things in a helpful way, and that is all.)

Any attempt to describe spiritual truths with prose is a bit like killing and stuffing a fox, and using it to explain all of biology. First, the fox has died, so the principle of ‘life’ itself can no longer be seen; spirituality is experiential, not something you can pick up secondhand. Second, by choosing a fox rather than a fig tree or a faun,selected aspects of biology (the carnivorous and cunning) get emphasized over countless equally important but vastly different qualities (e.g., photosynthesis, juvenile development, life as prey rather than predator.) ‘God,’ if it exists, must manifest in myriad ways, including many I can’t imagine. Finally, by choosing a single large mammal, one is pinpointing a certain size scale and temporal epoch. Life occurs across an enormous range of size and time scales. In terms of size, one could just as well choose a sugar molecule, a chromosome, a family of foxes, or the whole forest the fox lives in. Life is too expansive and complicated to be captured by a single stuffed fox. And so is ‘God,’ if I use the word to mean something that underlies and permeates everything. This ‘God’ entity would have been present in the big bang, and involved in some way with the evolution of matter, space, time, and life. It would be something that appears random and invisible under most circumstances, and yet connects everything and shapes our lives. If such a thing exists, then we can’t expect to do it justice it with a blog post. Or a bible, for that matter.

So my upcoming ‘spiritual’ riff will shy away from attempts to pin down metaphysical concepts. I will restrict myself to laying down principles that are more or less unarguable. The product, I hope, will open the door for others to recognize that faith, transcendent feelings, and belief in mysterious influences are not closed to those who adhere to modern science. I am convinced one can retain a rational stance, reject dogma and silly portrayals of divine forces, and still enjoy the benefits of faith. Make no mistake, although strict atheists see faith as a childish and outdated tendency without value, it has power to enhance one’s experience of life, offers meaning and purpose, and provides a measure of comfort in this difficult world. Why should it be unavailable to those who value critical thought? Even if science had proven that there is absolutely no basis for belief in forces beyond those we can immediately sense, there might still be reasons to reach for faith. However, nothing in modern empiricism has ruled out the possibility that influences we cannot measure play a role in our world.

I do not expect anyone to accept this viewpoint without justification. The series of posts to come will outline why I believe science can accommodate the possibility of a mystical aspect to the universe. In fact, some scientific findings point to the conclusion that the world is rife with mystifying influences. If you will keep an open (but still rational) mind, I think the following posts will justify views of creation that move beyond daily reality and open our hearts to depth, significance, and love. In service of full disclosure, it must be admitted that in order to achieve transcendence, we must at some point release our death-grip on rationality. But that does not mean it is necessary to contradict what we know to be true, or accept what common sense says is impossible. It only requires humility, and the understanding that ‘we’ (meaning humanity) can’t figure out everything.

These paragraphs set the stage for a series of posts that will, I hope, fulfill my promise to remove the roadblocks to spirituality set up by dogmatic atheism. Rational thought works. Logic possesses tremendous predictive power. But that does not mean that irrational influences and unsettling paradoxes do not exist. The ultimate nature of reality has not been settled by science. Few people, deep down, want to believe the world is bereft of mystery, or that transcendence is a silly dream. Strict atheists have a hypothesis about the universe, and shape their conclusions on the basis of incomplete evidence, just like the rest of us. I maintain my right to call myself rational, while holding my heart open for something that could be called ‘God,’ for lack of a less tainted word. In the posts that follow, I hope to show the rational soundness of accepting a higher power. Those who value reason, recognize the role of randomness in nature, and keep human tragedy in view can build faith without compromise.

Stepping Onto the Path

After an online friend told me an early draft of what I planned to post today sounded like Greek, it became clear that my goal of opening spirituality to skeptics is a bit grandiose. My skills may not be up to the task. The job might even be undoable. But I made a promise, and I will follow through. I will try to keep things as clear as possible, but as I wrote recently, that’s a challenge for me. Even so, someone needs to do this work, and although my audience is small it seems important that I step in. I will do my best, and hope it helps at least one person.

My goal is to make faith available to those who value clear thinking and open eyes. Spirituality is of questionable value if it requires us to blind ourselves to tragedy and common sense.

Faith Defined: Before we go further, what do I mean by ‘faith?’ If my goal is to make it more available to thinkers, I need to be clear about what is on offer. No one will slog their way through my writing without knowing what benefit they can expect. To me, ‘faith’ means the sense that the universe is a loving place that values me. So I am not simply talking about a vague sense of mystery. Richard Dawkins in ‘The God Delusion’ claims to respect the spirituality of ‘the physicists.’ Much of what he writes takes back even this concession to spiritualism, but I am talking about something more than the elevated awe expressed by Einstein as a proxy for ‘God.’ I recently read an essay by Walter Isaacson about Einstein’s spiritual views. Afterward, I remained unsure of the extent of Einstein’s belief in mystical underpinnings to the universe; my sense was he did not go very far in that direction. I plan to go further. Far enough to help others open their hearts to the kind of faith that makes one feel better about being alive. The sort of belief that convinces one s/he is an important part of something grand and pervasive. In the end, I hope to make others more comfortable with ‘letting go,’ and trusting that deeper influences will keep them on track.

I am not trying to invent a theology. I will not say what ‘God’ is, only that ‘God’ might exist. My goal is to show that science leaves the door open for mysticism. In particular, I aspire to reassure people in 12-step programs who are trying to build a sense of a ‘higher power.’ My hope is to show readers some stepping stones that will get them beyond fear and resistance, until they can open their hearts to mystery. With ‘divine’ assistance, my words will help others surrender to the deep, inspiring currents beneath the storms of day-to-day reality. I’ll admit these flows may simply be the veiled movements of the unconscious mind; but it is also possible that the unconscious extends its roots far into the heart of creation. It is up to you to decide. My goal is to argue against skepticism, and let others find their own versions of spirituality.

***The following paragraph can be skipped without losing the thread of my discussion. It only establishes my qualifications to write about science:
If I make assertions about quantum mechanics and evolution, both of which have to be encompassed by any modern spiritual sensibility, then there needs to be evidence that I understand this material. With a BA in zoology, an MA in biophysics, an MD, and a lifetime of studying life science and evolution, I feel very confident of my knowledge of biology, genetics, and evolution. As for physics, at UC Berkeley I took four years of college level mathematics, and three years of rigorous physics, physical chemistry, and electrical engineering courses. I also completed numerous courses in biophysics during my masters program in that field. I’ve gone on to read a large number of books relating physics to spirituality, and every few years I work my way through a calculus textbook so I don’t forget my math fundamentals. This modest exposure to physics does not compare to a PhD in something like astrophysics, the kind of credential some spiritual scientist-writers (e.g, Bernard Ross) have earned. But my background gives me a solid grasp of the basics, and that is all that’s necessary for my purposes. I don’t plan to rely on arcane and cutting edge theories. The movie ‘What the Bleep Do We Know?‘ enjoyed tremendous success (despite valid criticism of the way it distorts physical findings to support a new age mysticism,) and opened people’s eyes to quantal mysteries, but never ventured beyond what I suspect one learns these days in high school physics. I don’t plan to make claims anywhere near as sweeping as that movie, and I believe my grasp of the material is more than sufficient for my purposes.

My plan is to work through a series of statements that are not too controversial when taken in isolation. Some will be based on physics and/or biology, and others on widespread human experience. Some will be more speculative than the rest, but none will fly in the face of either science or logic. Taken together, even if one rejects a subset, they permit one to have the kind of faith I describe. They allow one to believe there could be mystery, order, omniscience, omnipresence, intervention, and other qualities usually associated with ‘God.’ I want to emphasize that my intent is not to prove that this ‘God’ entity exists, only that it still might. That science has not shut the door on it. That reasonable people can be comforted by a sense that the universe cares.

As a final caveat, we need to be clear that love does not imply rescue. There could well be all-encompassing adoration and concern for each and every one of us, with little or no protection from danger and folly. I find it difficult to support belief in a ‘God’ that answers detailed prayers, for instance. We may reach some deeper principle when we speak within our hearts, but I see little evidence in today’s world for a personal ‘God’ that steps in and provides more than moral support. There is simply too much suffering and hardship for such a ‘God’ to be likely. Propitious events do occur from time to time, as I will discuss. But they happen rarely and appear to me more like an aligning of circumstances than a deliberate intervention on the part of a personalized deity.

Science and reality do constrain the kind of ‘God’ that might exist. But they do not rule out the possibility of a conscious presence pervading space, time, matter, and biology. That is the thesis I intend to support in posts to follow.

I write about this material because in 2000 my mind opened to the presence of something that felt like ‘God.’ It may have just been a brain spasm, but it felt like revelation. That experience underlies all that I write about spirituality. It has taken a decade to sort out what I learned, but right from the start I felt ‘called’ to speak out about it. In subsequent posts, I will discuss my ‘visions’ a bit, to show the ground from which I started. Doing so will serve the same purpose that listing my education did above; it will show that my writing is informed by direct experience. Along the way I will also outline my personal opinions about ‘God.’ My goal will not be to convince anyone I am correct in my outlook. I only want to give an example of the kind of spiritualism I think science permits, and my life demands.

Whoops. I forgot that many people out there don’t need language to find ‘God.’ They feel its presence in their heart. I just returned from a Friends (Quaker) meeting, where several people reminded me of this basic truth. When in the company of someone who is spiritually centered, you don’t know it because they spin a good argument, you simply feel their love, acceptance, wisdom, and strength: LAWS. Those are qualities to embrace. It humbled me, once again, to realize that my words are only words. They will not bring anyone to ‘God.’ My only hope is that my writing will help others knock down the barriers in their path toward peace.

A person at the meeting opened me to an interesting way to view ‘God.’ She told me someone once likened it to music: perhaps humans elaborate God much like they create melodies. Before people evolved, the potential for music existed, but the music itself did not. Songs and symphonies were beauty the universe contained in its future, but had not yet actualized. Before humans, it may well be that universal consciousness did not exist to the same extent as it does now. In that view, the availability of electrically responsive cells in highly structured matrices (i.e., brains) gave the spirit of the universe the tools it needed to achieve awareness. Before, there was presence. Now that presence may be aware, through us.

It’s just one way of looking at things, and I may be carrying the analogy beyond its original intent. But it strikes me as an interesting viewpoint.

Last night, in bed, I thought that our way of using cognition to understand ‘God’ is a bit like sailing. We are on a boat and feel the strong winds of reason. They seem to blow in only one direction, away from anything mystical. There appears to be only one compass point toward which to travel. However, with skill we can use the sails, keel, ballast, and rudder to make progress toward the source of the wind. We cannot move directly into it, but we can approach it obliquely. Reason can help us attain essential truths in just that way.

On the other hand, the heart can swim in the waters below the level of logical thought. Rather like a dolphin, it can reach the source in a more direct way.

If we use words, we are restricted to analogies. If we use feelings, we can get to ‘God’ without as much fuss. But the ego/rational mind balks at things it doesn’t understand. It tends to dismiss possibilities it either can’t see or can’t explain. I write to gently coax the ‘left brain’ into allowing the ‘right brain’ to do its thing. Perhaps if we persuade the rational mind that spirituality could be more than an illusion, it will allow the nonverbal mind greater freedom. Maybe it will step out of the way, and let us enjoy faith.

I’m going to bullet-point the principles upon which I believe a realistic faith in ‘God’ can be constructed. Future posts will dissect the items one by one, so that they will make sense individually. Then I’ll put the whole list together in a final entry or two.

In a way, I need to apologize for this project. It serves me at least as much as anyone else. My entire being craves faith. My life has spun into directions I never anticipated or wanted. Who’d have ‘thunk’ that I would find myself at age fifty-one with no career? With damage to my body I can barely accept? With a string of psychiatric diagnoses, and perpetual severe mood swings? Life does not make sense to me right now, and I feel very far away from everyone around me, all those people I see working and living normal lives. If only there were some universal spirit that connected me to the rest of the human race. My material connections and my interpersonal contacts do not suffice to make me feel a part of things. I need something like ‘God.’

So the list below runs through my thinking out of necessity. Before working to build a more effective belief system, I had to ask whether the ‘higher power’ Alcoholics Anonymous directs everyone toward stands any chance of being real. Or is it just a comforting fantasy. I have spent too much of my life studying biology and physics to just toss all reason aside and embrace nonsense. Add to that all the suffering in the world. It intrudes in my own life, has devastated my family, wrecked the peace of many of my former patients, and floods the news. If there is a ‘God,’ it has to be one that takes the long view. It evidently sees individual humans as passing creatures who may be miraculous, but who must fend for themselves.

In order to build a belief in a higher power, I have focused on the truths below. It takes a bit of finesse, but with the proper perspective one can use these statements to bolster one’s search for a consciousness that connects us all. One can feel safe that one’s quest for a universal mind is neither deluded nor doomed. At the end of my string of discussions of the elements of my list, I’ll spend some time looking at the constraints science and reality put on this putative consciousness. I’ve already mentioned one: this entity leaves us mostly on our own in our struggle to survive. We may find moral support, but we cannot hope to discover a divine hand that moves hardship and tragedy out of our path.

• Faith works. Quite possibly, when people pray or ‘turn their lives over’ to a higher power they are really just setting their ego aside. The act of faith (and faith must be active to be effective) allows instinct, intuition, and deep parts of the mind to step into the fray. They are often more competent when it comes to making choices than the narrow, materialistic ego. But I also believe it is possible that these deeper strains of thought reach further, and connect with some kind of universal consciousness. More on that later.
• The experience of God is real. Even if there is nothing on earth besides matter and physical energy, people throughout history have seen, felt, and heard things that convinced them God exists. It is undeniably possible that these are just neurological phenomena, but they do occur. And they change lives. For instance, such ‘visions’ set me on a ten year quest that currently manifests as this series of blog entries that aim to open faith to resistant minds. (Note I am not trying to open minds to faith; that’s up to you.
• Serendipity happens. Anyone that is the slightest bit open to the possibility of significant coincidences knows this. Perhaps at some point I will list some of my own experiences. It would be even better if readers would leave theirs. I’d love to build a page out of the odd alignments of circumstances that so often arise at just the right moment. Of course, there is a pretty good possibility they mean nothing. One can take the stance that there is no spiritual force underlying these events, and they just happen out of pure and unaided chance. But it would be inaccurate to argue they do not occur.
• Consciousness has effects beyond the brain. This truth manifests at truly tiny scales, i.e., in the realm of quantum mechanics. But physical theory implicates conscious observation as having effects on matter/energy. Although the conclusion that this opens a door for mysticism is vehemently debated by materialists, the burden of proof lies with them. The theory itself does nothing to help atheists prove the absence of spiritual influences.
• All things are connected. The experimentally proven principle of ‘entanglement’ shows that particles that were once in close contact with one another continue to behave as if connected under certain circumstances. The influences are exerted instantaneously, and do not depend on transfer of energy. Since the entire universe arose from an entity much smaller than an atomic nucleus, this means everything is connected. Note how this sounds a lot like a basic tenet of many spiritual philosophies.
• Knowledge has limits. On small scales, there are limits to how accurately ‘reality’ can be seen. Beyond a certain precision, what is ‘real’ becomes fuzzy. Uncertainty forms the roots of the universe. Rigid beliefs are misguided, whether it is dogmatic faith or convinced atheism.
• Reality is stranger than we think. As just one example, time behaves strangely when things move fast, and our day-to-day experience of it is deceiving. Only our ego’s arrogance permits belief that we really understand our surroundings. The humble stance is to remain open to mystery.
• Life is a miracle. Some religions stand on miracles. These institutions turn to miracles for legitimacy. If miracles can support faith, then the fact that life exists may suffice. I do not suggest evolution was not driven by random events, nor do I postulate a conscious creator-God. But if we open our hearts to the vast mystery of creation, we are halfway to a spiritual sensibility.

Putting all these together, and also a few minor corollaries, gives me a sense that belief in a universal consciousness is not silly and misguided. It may be mistaken, but there are reasons to hope it is not. I’ll work my way through these reasons as I continue this theme in coming days.

Does anyone need to be told that spiritual faith makes people feel better? One of the arguments of the modern, hard-line atheist is that the religious tendency serves as candy for the weak-hearted. Sweet and enticing, it gives one the illusion of being loved, of having a God in your corner. Who wouldn’t want that? Of course, they also contend religion numbs the mind and undermines civilization. But they always start with the premise that people believe in God because it makes them feel better. If even the atheists argue that faith improves comfort, then there would seem to be little reason for me to address the question.

Not so fast. In deciding to make a case for reasoned belief in mystical currents, I followed a ‘calling’ that said this would be good for the world. Setting the grandiosity of such a viewpoint aside, in order to pursue this project I must be sure that faith is indeed a good thing. If all it did were make people more comfortable, I would question its value. So much evil has been perpetrated in the name of what the culprits label ‘faith,’ that caution must be exercised before sensible people promote it. Perhaps there is more than one kind of religious sensibility.

It is pretty easy to show that a certain kind of faith not only makes people feel better; it makes them into better people. It is not just candy, but nourishment. Most of us have known someone possessed of a true and balanced spiritualism, and who seemed both deeply empathic and profoundly at peace. This is not merely the ‘opiate’ of living in a pretend world of superstitions and superheroes. It is a solid foundation for a meaningful and valuable life. More of us should live from such fertile ground. But what kind of faith leads to these benefits? Is it belief in a God who created the universe in seven days? Being convinced of the reality of ESP? Yes, faith helps build strong lives, but not all faith is equally nutritious. We need to find the kind of faith that improves individuals and societies.

We don’t need to look far to see examples of ‘faith’ that lacks such positive effects. I met a woman not long ago who was ‘born again.’ I am not saying that she is typical of those who undergo this transformation. There are many, I am sure, who get to exactly the place I described in the last paragraph: sympathetic, embracing, and kind. This woman, sadly, did not seem like that at all. She looked happy, to be sure, almost giddy. She was convinced Jesus had entered in her life. She knew beyond doubt that all her sins were forgiven. And here is the key point: she believed that this wonderful deity would also accept all her future sins. As a result, she told me she no longer tried to be good. This attitude made me uncomfortable, so I probed further. “So what you mean is that having Jesus in your life makes it easy to be nice to people, and do good things? You no longer need to try, it just happens naturally?” I asked these questions fearing she would answer exactly as she did: She no longer needed to try to be good because even if she hurt others, she knew she would be forgiven by Jesus. That kind of faith frightens me.

If so, then we who promote belief in divine energies must ensure we are working toward a spirituality that fosters love, acceptance and connection, and not the sort that promotes divisiveness, intolerance, and hate.

Nice work if you can get it. How do we encourage people to have faith, without pushing them into a religious stance that leads to harm? How do we promote belief that helps people understand how closely connected they are to all that surrounds them, and doesn’t give them the sense that ‘God’ believes they are better than those who disagree? How do we keep from doing more harm than good? (I’m imagining here that what I write actually has an effect, and is not just lost in the terabytes of data that flow into the Internet moment by moment.) How can we be sure that it would not be better to encourage blanket cynicism than risk conjuring a hateful and self-righteous belief system?

I started this series of blog entries to refute the poisonous conclusion that our universe is empty and uncaring. Even though there is danger in religious zealotry, there is just as much to fear from worldviews that lead to selfishness and lack of concern for others. This project was launched because I am convinced that belief in mystery helps people better appreciate life, themselves, and their surroundings. I am not saying that spiritualism is necessary to a satisfying and upright life. Nor, by itself, does belief in a ‘God’ suffice to make one feel adjusted to the world. All I can say is that it helps, and that I’d rather live in a world where many people believed in transcendence than in one where such mystery was embraced by only a few. But we still have to contend with healthy versus unhealthy faith.

Definitions are important in any discussion. In a previous entry I delineated the kind of faith that the universe accommodates after one takes modern scientific understanding into account. That description explained the door I’m trying to open. I am hoping to widen the portal to belief in a benevolent, pervasive, and omniscient consciousness that connects us all. Not coincidentally, this is the kind of belief that fosters human kindness.

There are those who insist there must be more to ‘God’ than this. They don’t feel comforted by anything short of belief in a God that has ‘His’ fingers in the pie, building and changing the universe on the fly. They insist on a God that judges, and punishes those who do wrong. I don’t argue for the existence of a God that designed, constructed, and controls the universe in a deliberate way, because the evidence leans strongly against the existence of such an entity. Furthermore, I think belief in that kind of divinity can lead to shirking of responsibility. If people decide they are controlled by such a power, and owe obedience to it, and if the wrong sort of leader offers to tell them the desires of that deity, there is grave danger.

So I need to make a distinction between faith in a benevolent, encompassing consciousness on the one hand, and a controlling deity on the other. Accepting the possibility of a pervasive presence flowing throughout the cosmos does not require belief in a God who built and manages everything we see. Because of the history of western religion, this is a difficult point for many in our culture to grasp. This is part of the reason why the ‘Intelligent Design‘ movement refuses to die. Too many people think letting go of the concept of a controlling God means acceding to a Godless universe. It does not. There is no a priori reason, for instance, why a universal consciousness could not have evolved right along with matter and life as the universe unfolded. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

For now, I just want to deal once and for all with the concept of a creating and controlling God, so I can set it aside in the remainder of my discussion. In past centuries, and continuing with diminishing force up into the present day, the ‘argument from design’ has been used to ‘prove’ the existence of a divine genius who built the universe. (Since I could not find a truly balanced discussion of this concept, I am going to give to links to essays discussing it from opposite sides. One is from Catholic Education Resource Center and the other from the Skeptics Dictionary.) There have been many other lines of argument, but the question of ‘design’ seems to me to get to the core issue: we see a very complicated cosmos, and an even more complicated biosphere. Does this mean someone must have built everything we see? A deity that could create, molecule by molecule, the overwhelming complexity that surrounds and runs through us, would be a very powerful being. We would do well to honor and obey such a God. We should get Him on our side. He would help us in our battles with sadness, confusion, and hopelessness. He would also help us fight those nasty neighbors who keep throwing trash over the fence.

The eye has been a favorite foil in the argument by design: the eyeball is such a remarkable organ, so intricate and perfectly suited to its task, that some argue it must have been the work of a conscious creator. They claim it could not have arisen by ‘mere chance.’ As a former ophthalmologist, I feel qualified to talk about the eye, and I can state with considerable enthusiasm that the eye is indeed delicate, complex, and marvelous. However, it is not a perfectly designed instrument, and there are many aspects of it that seem a little cockamamie from the standpoint of engineering. Furthermore, working from comparative anatomy and evolutionary genetics, it is now possible to sketch a plausible route by which the eye might have evolved incrementally through random mutation and natural selection. So the eye no longer works to support the ‘argument from design.’ (That has not killed the issue, obviously, or there would not be ongoing battles to keep explanations of natural selection and evolution in science classes.)

My point is that fidelity to facts deals body blows to any kind of creator-controller God. There are other arguments for a deity that has His fingers pushing all the buttons, but they all do poorly when confronted with scientific facts. Darwin threw one of the strongest early punches, and the attacks have been coming in fast and furious ever since.

Not only does such a deity fare poorly against the evidence, but it is also exactly that kind of belief that scares me. First, spritualism based on such concepts separates people from God. People obviously did not make the universe, so if God did, then God must be very different from us. Second, controlling Gods have the kind of power that people crave, and belief in such an entity invites us to seek favoritism in order to avoid punishment, win favors, or just get an edge on our siblings. It is too easy for unscrupulous leaders to manipulate people who believe this way.

So I eschew the controller-creator kind of deity both on evidential and prudential grounds.

The issue is not, however, black and white. There is a more subtle point to be considered, that I will return to later but introduce now. Would a universal consciousness of the sort I argue for have consequence in addition to significance? That is, if there is a spiritual presence surrounding and infusing us, then it is obviously very significant to our opinions about what it means to be a human. But is it at all consequential? Do events unfold any differently because of this interconnecting consciousness? Or is a universe that has such a presence absolutely the same as one without this kind of ‘God,’ from the standpoint of people who don’t care about philosophy? It really comes down to the question of serendipity, a subject dear to Jung and central to most New Age spiritualism. Do all events, including odd ‘coincidences,’ happen purely randomly? Or do influences that we could call ‘spiritual’ sometimes nudge physical circumstances. Perhaps there is no creator/controller-God, but there is a kind of subtle presence that sometimes sends eddies into the stream of otherwise random events. You can see which side I take on this question, but for now it is not central. I hope to discuss it in a dispassionate way further on, and say how I think it could work. I will also need to show how it is not the same thing as a controlling God.

(As an aside: I really do not want to come across as a New Age aficionado. I think the movement has some valid ideas, but its tendency toward vagueness, its breezy distortion of ecology and quantum mechanics, and its sweeping appropriation of aboriginal religions puts me off. If we are going to promote spiritualism in this contemporary world, I believe it needs to be both accurate and modern. For instance, looking to quantum mechanics is essential, but the poster I’ve seen that says, ‘Quantum Mechanics, the Dream that Stuff Is Made Of’ is only laughable. And it’s fine to mine ancient traditions for inspiration, but trying to use religions that worked for hunter/gatherer societies as a salve for modern cynicism strikes me as misguided.)

To sum up today’s post and all I’ve said to date: I am offering the thesis that there might exist a benevolent universal consciousness that connects us all. For the moment, let’s use the acronym BUCCUA instead of the loaded and manifoldly defined word, ‘God.’ A BUCCUA is distinct from a controller-creator God in that it is both more supportable scientifically, and less susceptible to human misuse. On the other hand, a BUCCUA does not necessarily imply a divine presence that has no consequence in the physical world.

My next post will show how belief in a BUCCUA can be beneficial to individuals and society.

My series of spirituality posts is a work-in-progress. Each entry is essentially a second draft, and even after posting I reserve the right to revise the documents. I know doing so is frowned upon, but I am trying to offer something effective for others who share my desire for faith that does not violate common sense or science. Naturally, as I get comments, or think further, or reread, I see ways to make the text better. Rather than posting a series of versions, or showing my corrections, I will update on the fly. What you read today may change tomorrow. If anyone wants to see an older draft, I will do my best to find it if you ask.

The reason I bring this up now is that late yesterday I ended my post with the acronym BUCCUA—Benign Universal Consciousness that Connects Us All. It came to me in a rush, and I did not spend time thinking of alternatives. This morning I looked up ‘buccua’ in the dictionary. The word is absent, but ‘buccula’ is close, and it refers to a double chin. Not exactly an elevated concept. I kind of like the look and sound of BUCCUA. It echoes the adjective buccal, which refers to mouth, like the ‘mouth of God.’ It sounds a bit like bacchanalia, which is lighthearted and pagan. But it can’t be said to have an attractive pronunciation, and does not quite roll off the tongue. It also reminds me of bocce ball. Maybe that’s not a bad thing, since it conjures up unpredictable collisions and leisure time. But it isn’t exactly lofty.

So this morning I got busy with alternatives. Here are a few:

• Transcendent Universal Mind that Encompasses Everything–TUMEE
• Pervasive and Universal Spirit that Holds You—PUSHY
• Benevolent Integrating Omniscience, Present and Eternal–BIOPE

Would it surprise you that I prefer the last? It brings in ‘bio’ for life, sounds a bit like ‘hope,’ and captures all the elements that I think BUCCUA (oops BIOPE) should possess:

• Benvolent–This is important, because I do not believe this entity to be neutral and dispassionate (or even worse: stern and judgmental,) but instead forms a current of love.
• Integrating–It connects everything and everyone.
• Omniscience–If only because it interweaves all minds and all matter/energy/time, it is both aware, and aware of everything.
• Present–It has presence in the metaphysical sense. It is accessible and with us.
• Eternal–It has always been and will always be. It may evolve along with the universe, but it has roots that anchor it outside the stream of time.

I welcome suggestions, and will continue to think about this. In the end, poor BUCCUA may get axed.

BIOPE goes beyond my initial promise. I said my goal was to show how a universal consciousness might exist within the constraints of what we know to be true and reasonable. By invoking BIOPE, I am not just saying that something might exist, I am beginning to spell out what it is. This skates dangerously close to devising a theology. On the other hand, an entity without the qualities of BIOPE might not be worthy of faith. If it was not benvolent, and just stood by without real concern and love, it would offer scant comfort. If it did not integrate everything, then it would not awaken us to our connection with others. If it were not omniscient, then our hearts could hide from it, and it might fail to motivate us. If it were not present and accessible, we could not get any real benefit from it. And if it were not eternal, then it would lack one of the prime characteristics we expect of a divinity.

There may be qualities I should include that BIOPE fails to capture. And you might argue with one or another of these characteristics. But I think BIOPE pretty well captures the pieces that are both necessary and sufficient if we are to have effective faith.

Which brings me to the question of effectiveness. The first ‘Cornerstone‘ (I may change this to ‘key’ by the way–to highlight that my goal is to open a door, not build a theology) of my program for showing that we can reasonably enjoy faith, was that ‘Faith Works.’ What does this mean?

At the end of the last entry, I said that my next post would “show how belief in [BIOPE] can be beneficial to individuals and society.” Because I woke up worrying about acronyms, I just spent this space proposing a better set of letters, and in the process listed the criteria a ‘God-like’ entity should satisfy. Having given a better picture of what it is we can allow ourselves a leap of faith toward, I am now in a position to show how such a leap helps. But I’ll beg your forbearance, and put that step off until the next entry.

The Fruits of Faith

Maybe this time I will finally get to the first of the keys to faith I listed earlier: Faith Works.

It works in several ways:

• By motivating effective behavior.
• By easing the pain of isolation.
• By providing meaning.

Let’s take these one by one.

Healthy faith motivates effective behavior: On the personal level, faith helps people get past the petty and materialistic priorities of the ego, and make their choices on the basis of deeper stirrings. The way I said it before was, “The act of faith…allows instinct, intuition, and deep parts of the mind to step into the fray. They are often more competent when it comes to making choices…” This, of course, is a prosaic portrayal of faith, and leaves out any benefit that might come from contact with a ‘higher power,’ ‘God,’ or BIOPE. We’ll get to the loftier views of faith before long, but let’s start with the fruits of faith that one might derive even if it happens that no mystical forces actually exist. I’d like to show that contrary to the views of militant atheists, embracing a mystical stance can be beneficial even if it turns out there is no God-like entity at play.

One of the best arguments for the efficacy of faith is Alcoholics Anonymous. Founded during the Great Depresssion, AA is a ‘spiritual program of recovery,’ according to its own literature. One of its founders, the revered Bill W., broke free from the stranglehold of alcoholism after an awe-inspiring spiritual experience. Here is one description he gave of it:

The place seemed to light up, blinding white. I knew only ecstasy and seemed on a mountain. A great wind blew, enveloping and penetrating me. To me, it was not of air but of Spirit. Blazing, there came the tremendous thought, “you are a free man.” Then the ecstasy subsided. Still on the bed, I now found myself in a new world of consciousness which was suffused by a Presence. One with the Universe, a great peace came over me. (N.Y. Med. Soc©. Alcsm., April 28,1958

In its fundamentals, this episode sounds a lot like something I went through in 2000, which I’ve described briefly in my About section. I’ll be coming back to this kind of experience in later posts. For Bill W., the lightning bolt of spiritual ecstasy changed both his relationship with intoxication, and his future. He learned that he could parlay his newfound faith into sobriety, provided he ‘carried the message to other alcoholics.’ He and others devised a series of ‘steps’ one can take to break free of dependence on alcohol, which addicts of all sorts have subsequently found useful. By finding a spiritual basis for living, Bill W. found a remedy for an affliction that had destroyed his life many times over, and also found a way to convey that cure to millions. In his case, at least, faith proved quite effective.

By the way, the 12 Steps have often been criticized, perhaps most cogently and extensively by Charlotte Davis Kasl in the book ‘Many Roads, One Journey, Moving Beyond the 12 Steps‘ (the link to Amazon is for the reader’s convenience; I derive no revenue from purchases.) The critiques possess a lot of validity, in that some of the ‘Steps’ skirt close to encouraging self-condemnation. This can be a real problem for people who came from abusive childhoods, among others.

However, regardless of that criticism, the 12 steps have benefitted countless men and women, in large part by helping those who suffer from substance abuse find spiritual faith. The sense of hopelessness, terror, and guilt get replaced by trust in a ‘higher power.’ The person ‘in recovery’ turns to this higher power for support and inner strength, rather than turning to intoxication for relief. With the underlying angst relieved, and within the context of a support group, the person in 12-step recovery can escape the daily demoralization of addiction. As someone with a history of substance problems, I can attest to the tremendous improvement in life that follows. Every day, new people enter AA and enjoy these benefits. Whether or not there actually is a transcendent higher power, relaxing into the belief that one exists helps addicts get well. This is established fact.

Say what you will about the childishness of religious sentiment; if belief in ‘God’ can help an addict to freedom, it’s worth it. Better to be a little ungrounded and unrealistic than to spend one’s life in an endless and futile pursuit of chemically-induced sunshine in the brain. Better to reach a hand out to something that only might exist, than watch helplessly as love, social standing, friendship, and financial security drain out of your life.

From PostSecret

Throughout history, numerous saints, prophets, and ordinary people have found similar benefits. Faith changes lives. For whatever reason, religious belief and the emotional currents it stirs motivate people to act in ways more consistent with their own welfare, and the well-being of those around them. Faith motivates effective behavior.

I realize my posts often run far too long. The next step as I develop this series will be to explore in more depth why faith has these helpful effects. We will consider the benefits first psychologically, i.e., from the stance that no divine force is actually ‘out there,’ and then from the perspective that a BIOPE actually exists to assist us. In order to provide the material in bite-sized chunks, I’ll put that off until next time.

DECIDING ON FAITH

This post will discuss why faith leads to more effective choices in life.

You’ll recall that we’re taking on the first of what I initially called ‘cornerstones,’ but then changed to ‘keys.’ They are facts that I believe can be established with no violence to science or common sense. Some are even demanded by both. If one is so inclined, these keys lead one to a place where belief in a divine presence becomes possible. They do not create faith, they just remove the sorts of blockages that keep rational people from enjoying the benefits of belief. They open a door, but it is up to us to walk through.

I did not like ‘cornerstones’ because the term hazarded suggesting my aim is to build a theology. To attempt that would be silly. I can’t tell anyone what ‘God’ is, because I don’t and can’t know. BIOPE, my clumsy acronym, serves as a list of qualities that a spiritual entity probably should possess to warrant our embracing it as a guiding force. They also happen to be qualities I believe science and common sense allow. But they should not be construed as a description of ‘God.’

It’s like saying, ‘I want to know if whales might exist. For the purposes of making that determination, I will define a whale as a mammal that lives its entire life in water, and most of its time beneath the surface. Because of this definition, I know that what I’m considering must be able to hold its breath for long periods, bear live young underwater, and nurse its offspring with milk while submerged. My goal is to decide if such a creature could exist, using known facts about mammals, the properties of air and water, etc. At this time, I can’t know its exact size, shape, markings, color, location, speed, how it breathes, how deep it dives, or much else.’

The keys are truths that one can use to see how a divine presence might exist. They do not prove the existence of anything like a BIOPE, they just allow you to believe in one if you wish. They also allow one to formulate a couple of testable predictions that should hold true if the hypothetical BIOPE is real. These have been tested in other contexts, and provide (weak) evidentiary support for divine forces. But the keys themselves are only permissive. They say a BIOPE might exist, but do not prove it. We can compare them to the facts one might use to prove the possibility of whales: mammals have the ability to close off their air passage and hold their breath; fur and/or fat would permit maintenance of body temperature even in cold water; there is nothing in the birthing process that would be prevented by submersion, provided the baby whale could be brought to the surface promptly, and so on. With enough of these, one can be pretty sure that whales are not impossible, but that does not prove their existence. The ‘keys‘ for the BIOPE function in exactly this way.

The first on the list of keys is ‘Faith Works.’ Last time I started describing the ways that faith works, and I listed three that immediately come to mind:

• By motivating effective behavior.
• By easing the pain of isolation.
• By providing meaning.

The list is not meant to be exhaustive; it would not be hard to come up with a long column of benefits that arise from faith. My list simply organizes those rewards into three large groups for the sake of discussion. The last post started off with the first item on the list: spiritual faith helps people run their lives in a way that benefits all. I used Alcoholics Anonymous as an example. In AA, the alcoholic is encouraged to seek a relationship with a ‘higher power.’ The first three of the famous twelve steps deal with accepting and acceding to the ‘care of God.’ Countless AA members attest that following these guidelines has helped them make choices that were good for the course of their own lives, and for the well-being of others. It can hardly be argued that ceasing the abuse of alcohol represents a good decision by an alcoholic. Further, the decision to forgo intoxication brings emotional relief to those who care about hir (him or her.) Even more, the spiritual awakening that AA promotes goes hand-in-hand with “[helping] other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.” Better choices abound after one embraces this ‘spiritual program of recovery.’

What is it about faith that helps baffled and frustrated alcoholics, who sometimes come into AA on the brink of bankruptcy or death, turn everything around? How is it that after trying all manner of solutions to the problem, including ‘controlled drinking,’ periods of abstinence, and promises to everyone in sight, the alcoholic who enters AA and ‘works the steps,’ can go on to stay sober for decades? Lives get rebuilt. Relationships healed. Careers reestablished. It does not work for everyone, of course, but it works for many. After 22 years in AA (I do not claim that many years of continuous sobriety, only that much exposure,) I agree with this statement from the AA ‘big book:’ “rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.” The person who goes to meetings, works hard to develop a ‘spiritual program,’ and helps others, typically stays sober.

The centrality of spirituality to Alcoholics Anonymous is no accident. To a large extent, sobriety depends on developing faith that the universe cares and will help one survive. With that assurance, there is less fear, less self-hatred, and less materialistic obsession. One becomes calmer and more accepting. Obviously, feeling that there is something very big and powerful that loves you goes a long way toward helping one settle down. I will come back to the importance of feeling loved in a moment. But the idea that the universe wants us to thrive, and helps us, is both radical and lifesaving. And it underlies much of the improved decision-making that follows.

This kind of thinking can promote nuttiness. I’ve been in more than one AA meeting where someone claimed that ‘God’ helped them find a parking space. Belief in ‘God’ might lead to such benefits, but I doubt it. What it does do, however, is allow one to quit trying to figure everything out. The rational thought process works overtime in many of us, calculating odds, deciding amongst options, and predicting the future. Once you believe there is a ‘higher power’ assuming some of the burden, you don’t have to think so strenuously. You can relax, pray, meditate, and wait for guidance. Many good decisions come from this process.

Does there need to be an actual ‘power’ out there for this to work? ‘Trust your intuition.’ ‘What does your heart tell you?’ ‘Make a gut decision.’ We use these phrases often because letting go of strict logic and listening to the deeper, nonverbal songs of the mind leads to choices that work better. If you decide who to marry solely on the basis of money, looks, and profession, you may end up in a big house with your picture in the paper, the envy of your friends. Those are the qualities the logical, egoistic self craves. Your ego will thank you. But there is no reason to expect you will be spending your life with someone you adore. The decisions that end up ‘feeling’ the best, are often the ones that linear thought scorns. It could be that the act of believing in a ‘higher power,’ the act of faith, allows the ego to take a little break, and brings the preferences of the unconscious mind to the fore. Whatever works. If it requires belief in a ‘God’ that is nothing more than instinct in order for instinct to get its say, then why not?

One could just listen to the heart and leave the whole ‘God’ thing out of it, right? Not really. There are so many subterranean influences in the human mind, that just listening to the ‘gut’ can be hazardous. Freud would trot out the ‘id’ at this point. How do you avoid being driven by hormonal influences that have little to do with your best interest, and much more to do with biology’s imperative to pass genes on to a succeeding generation. Do gonads care if your marriage and reputation get ruined? Not in the slightest. All they want is to make babies. Does your complex system of hormones controlling appetite care about heart disease? No. It just wants you to be in good shape to procreate. God, or even just the idea of it, serves to keep us on track, and listening to the more elevated influences. The ones that promote health, love, and society. The concept of ‘God’ that westerners understand is not necessary. We don’t need a concept of a controlling, awesome creator. We just need guidance. Buddhist monks manage just fine to live upright lives without such a God-concept. (Buddhism will need to be addressed in a future post, since it is highly relevant to my task. For now, I’ll point out that Buddhists have an expansive concept of mind, including the belief that mind transcends body and passes from one sentient being to the next free of any material vessel to carry it. This is an interesting perspective that goes beyond the minimal criteria of BIOPE.)

No doubt one can meditate with sincerity and solemnity, and do one’s best to pick out the most elevated chords in the brain’s symphony. I am sure the convinced atheists have their methods for bypassing the ego’s base grasping, and making choices from better places. But a spiritual sense of ‘higher power’ works well as a shortcut for those who want guidance, and don’t mind believing in something mystical. For some reason, the mere belief that a transcendent consciousness is listening helps drown out the hormonal din, and guides us to our better principles. One can think of a few reasons why this might be. Perhaps it causes resonance in those buried infantile memories of wanting to please our parents. Perhaps it causes the third rail of guilt to amp up. Could it also be because there actually is a universal consciousness that helps us winnow the body’s appetites from the mind’s priorities? It could. Might it be the case that a BIOPE runs between and through us, and by listening as it vibrates our thoughts and feelings we find guidance? I think it might.

Whether or not a BIOPE is involved, sincere faith brings people to good places. We don’t need the example of AA to teach us this. Long before the twelve steps, people knew that from time to time a struggling person has gotten in touch with something mystical, or at least mysterious, and been led to a better path. They found their souls nutrition, the fruits of faith.