SKEPTIC'S
ARGUMENT: "By looking at human
behavior as objectively as I can, from an anthropological
perspective, all paths lead me to support the
hypothesis that God is the combination of projection
and transference of a given culture's (and individual's)
ideals and ideal relationships onto an unseen
(yet psychically, very real) entity. Borrowing
from
analytic psychology, what I believe happens
is the creation (or greater potentiation) of
a complex, charged emotional contents with attendant
thoughts and images, continually reinforced
through normal operant techniques through institutions
such as churches and their various rituals.
"My latest
thinking on the topic of God is that it's hard
to look at the
DNA sequence for a particular trait (speaking
as a software engineer), and not say, 'You know,
that looks a lot like machine code! And that,
in turn, presupposes
a programmer, a Creator!' At the same time,
this is far removed from the idea of a personal,
loving, Christian God who cares about us individually
and will somehow rescue us from extermination
at death.
"Don't
get me wrong: I very much hope that there is
a loving God, but in light of what I know of
neuroscience, it seems unlikely. It seems much
more likely that we are the miraculous products
of natural selection. I also believe that religion
is very much man-made, and that if God does
exist, he appears to be utterly and absolutely
silent, having nothing to do with humankind,
other than in man's dreams, hopes, and fantasies
(though these are products of man's minds).
I don't say any of this to be disrespectful,
and I'm painfully aware of how emotional an
issue religion is, but I say it in the spirit
of honest exploration."
KEVIN WILLIAMS, B.SC.:
"Testimonies from those having near-death experiences
probably support much, if not all, of what you
are saying. Man certainly did create religion
and the idea of god(s); and the idea of a "Master
DNA programmer God" does seem much more like
an impersonal concept compared to the Christian
notion of a wrathful/loving God.
"The
only realistic answer to the question, 'What
is God?,' is that 'God' is only an idea representing
whatever people want it to mean. Many Christians
believe God is a divine Father. Hindus believe
God (Brahman) to be life manifesting itself
everywhere with no exceptions. Cave men may
have believed God to be the sun. To tribal cults,
God may be a stone statue. Certainly, people
throughout history believed things that seem
utterly ridiculous to our enlightened minds
today. 'God,' as a concept, has so many different
meanings to so many different people throughout
history that it is really useless to talk about
the idea of a God until empirical evidence for
such a Supreme Being or Consciousness can be
discovered.
"However,
NDE experiencers have much to say about their
encounter with
a light so vast and personal that words
are inadequate to describe it. A consensus among
NDErs seems to be that this light represents
all knowledge, all consciousness and all creation
which is so pervasive and yet so subtle, it
borders on pantheism - minus any impersonal
aspect. In quantifying the nature of his light,
I have read many NDE testimonies where experiencers
use descriptive words such as Love, Life, Light,
the All, the Source, the Force, the Oneness,
Divine Consciousness, the Master-Vibration,
etc. But according to many of these same experiencers,
even these descriptions are woefully inadequate.
One experiencer preferred to describe this light
as 'the Light that Loves.' Another experiencer,
Chuck Griswold, stated in the NDE documentary
entitled
Shadows, 'Life is love is God. If you add
anymore to this definition then you are not
making it any better.'
"When
NDE experiencers say that life itself is 'God,'
they usually mean everything is a part of this
light or 'God' or simply that everything is
'God.' Given all these definitions, we might
as well claim that all of reality is this 'God'
- nothing excluded. For this reason, we should
probably just assign the term 'God' to the toy
box - because of all the 'baggage' associated
with it and simply say there is no 'Grand Old
Man' sitting on a Throne ruling everything.
It is possible that there is only one Ultimate
Reality incorporating everything and this may
be what people throughout the ages have been
worshipping as 'divinity.'"
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