one of my employees (medicaid) was talking today about her experience taking a philosophy class to fulfill a GE. on the first day of class, they were discussing reasons people give for not believing in god. someone brought up the argument that if he existed, he wouldn't let bad things happen to us, which led someone to comment that he doesn't have power to do anything he wants. "for example," the guy said, "he can't make a triangle a square."
this girl said she was so taken aback. she acknowledged that philosophy majors like to play devil's advocate and question everything, but she felt like it was crossing a line. she said it bothered her so much that if something like it came up again, she was going to raise her hand and tell them to stop. she wondered how they could say it when the scriptures "literally say" that god is "all powerful."
i thought this was fascinating. i feel very strongly that there are very set laws in the universe. call them laws of nature or of science or whatever. i believe god follows them just as all of us do. there are laws, processes, and organization to the matter of the universe and i believe gods become gods when they have a perfect knowledge of those laws and are perfectly obedient to them. i believe that this is why they have "all power." i think it's interesting that religion and science have been at odds for so long, in human terms. in my mind, science is, in a way, perfect religion. i think they are both governed by obedience. in religion, we become like god as we are obedient to the commandments of our heavenly parents. (not temporary, relative, cultural commandments, mind you, but a combination of the broad law of love, generosity, acceptance, and the specific ordinances and covenants god has prearranged. which starts to look a lot like a worship in mind of a great universal goodness seen more in eastern religions.) in science, all matter follows the laws of nature. the elements are perfectly obedient, and we are not. this brings up complicated questions, like what about when jesus commanded the sea to be calm? i think we talk about the elements obeying godly command because we do see that power as all powerful, but i think in reality they just abide by the same laws, speak the same languages, have a mutual respect and power, the way electrons automatically know how to interact. or perhaps there is a principle of human spirit ruling over the non-animated elements, a more advanced, "spiritual" meaning of "stewardship over the earth." yes, godliness is submitting to and obeying these laws, but they give gods power, rather than take it away. (isn't that an lds thought anyway? that obedience frees us from being powerless?) heavenly father has also told us that there are things he himself can't do (for example, "change", or he wouldn't be a god, or take away someone's agency, or he wouldn't be a god), so the idea of his all powerfulness is inherently complicated.
i digress.
one of my other employees then shared how they were talking in her psychology class about hedonism and similar concepts. she said she had never thought about doing good for others in order to return to god as making that original good act inherently selfish. she said she began thinking of the most fundamental thing she could: why do i love god? she said she thought of many different reasons, but they were all centered around her: "because he loves me." "because of all he does for me." etc. they talked at a little length about different reasons for why they love god.
again, fascinating, and my first reaction was that selfishness isn't always bad. i know that goes against a slew of modern general conference talks, and i know it says in the scriptures to lose our lives to find them. i also do believe that selfishness is at the root of all sin (which makes sin much simpler in my mind but also disqualifies a lot of acts that orthodox lds people would see as sinful as not actually so) but also that the human, and especially lds version, of sin is culturally imperfect (i haven't studied enough to say if it's scripturally sound). i think it is ok that are on an inherently selfish internal quest to find out what god is, what our relationship is, and what that means to us. (this search, obviously, is not so simple as the traditionally packaged and bowed lds answer.) we are told that exaltation is a family matter achieved with sealings, but that salvation is specifically individual. it is an inherently selfish journey of selflessness.
i also thought a lot about where love for god--or for anything--comes from. my first thought was that it's culturally learned, because christians are taught that god loves us and we love him too. however, i thought more about agnostics or more specifically people who have never heard of god. if someone was raised without any indication or idea of god (if this is psychologically possible), would they yearn to know god (assuming god exists)? i feel like, yes. this is kind of impossible because everyone on earth has heard of some kind of god; however, there are stories of people who don't believe in religion or have chosen not to be religious but still feel like something's missing. i think the easiest answer for this, in lds terms, is the light of christ. there is still some kind of spiritual experience that we don't understand, that comes from time to time when we're listening. i think, ultimately, that love comes from the spirit or is the spirit, which we always have access to as humans (and probably as intelligences, too). when parents have a child, they (usually) love it instantly and without reason. psychological studies have shown that there is a literal, chemical reaction that happens (or should happen, at least within the mother) when a baby is born (although these chemicals are blocked by some of the drugs hospitals use on childbearing women........but this is a whole 'nother post), but, as per above, isn't science just religion? i think we will find that the spiritual is the scientific and that we love god because there is a permanent, eternal relationship and intensely spiritual (and yes, even "scientific", which is easy to argue when our relationship with our biological parents is scientific) connection there.
i didn't tell them any of this, even though they vaguely, indirectly, kind of asked when the second girl said "so if either of you think of an answer"... because, seriously, who would just say this shit? me (and not me), i'm weird like that.
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