On the purpose of miracles
Sep. 21st, 2007 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexI am a confirmed (sometimes militant) agnostic. I don't know what's out there. I don't know whether there's a God, goddess, G-d, Allah, divine spirit, you name it. I lack faith and find no credible evidence in the modern world that would support any sort of self-consistent belief system without that key element. All the preacher-men in their oh-so-sure ways fail to move me.
At the same time I refuse to take the final step into atheism. I greatly admire many of the scientists and thinkers who take the viewpoint that since we can't demonstrate either the presence of - or a logical requirement for - a god-entity then we're required to postulate such an entity doesn't exist. I don't believe in unicorns, fey, Osiris, or Santa Claus, but the monotheistic abstract god is sui generis to me and not easily classed with the category "mythical entities."
At this time of year, and particularly with the recent sharing of shivah services I find myself thinking about such things and sometimes odd thoughts occur to me. This is one of those.
If we trust ancient texts then miracles occurred in the past, which do not occur today. Sorry, Catholics, I'm going to rule out the supposed miracles performed by modern saints. I'm not trying to diss any particular religion - it's just become obvious how much of modern sainthood is a political process, not anything else.
This raises the logical question: why? Why would miracles happen back then but not now? Obviously if G-d existed and if He so wished He could write "BELIEVE!" in great flaming letters on the face of the moon so that it would be indisputably visible to all. Done and done, end of discussion. But would it be a good thing to end that discussion? What if miracles really DID occur back then and their purpose was to awaken a curious inquisitive spirit? What if miracles and stories of miracles were a form of instruction - a challenge to ancient minds to open up a quest for knowledge and understanding?
Think of it this way: you drop an object you are holding. It falls. One explanation is that it falls because the gods wanted it to fall. Done and done - there's really nothing more to it. Then one day a miracle occurs and it doesn't fall. This miracle causes you to wonder - why don't things float ALL the time? And eventually it sets you on a path towards an understanding that there are indeed hidden things in the world, but they're a governing set of rules. One of them is gravity and now we understand more about why things fall when we let them go, but along the way we've gotten an entire body of knowledge and possibilities we didn't have before. If you don't have the idea of gravity you can't think about zero-g or antigravity. Each such thought lets you spin off dozens more.
A person who believes that the gods are responsible for cause-and-effect everyday ordinary observations isn't open to the notion that there may be more. There just is what the gods will there to be. But miracles - things that stand out as so clearly different you must take notice of them. What thoughts could those lead to in a mind that existed in a limited, pre-scientific mode?
And, like a child who grows past the need for elementary lessons, have we as an evolving species grown past the need for miracles? I like to think so.
At the same time I refuse to take the final step into atheism. I greatly admire many of the scientists and thinkers who take the viewpoint that since we can't demonstrate either the presence of - or a logical requirement for - a god-entity then we're required to postulate such an entity doesn't exist. I don't believe in unicorns, fey, Osiris, or Santa Claus, but the monotheistic abstract god is sui generis to me and not easily classed with the category "mythical entities."
At this time of year, and particularly with the recent sharing of shivah services I find myself thinking about such things and sometimes odd thoughts occur to me. This is one of those.
If we trust ancient texts then miracles occurred in the past, which do not occur today. Sorry, Catholics, I'm going to rule out the supposed miracles performed by modern saints. I'm not trying to diss any particular religion - it's just become obvious how much of modern sainthood is a political process, not anything else.
This raises the logical question: why? Why would miracles happen back then but not now? Obviously if G-d existed and if He so wished He could write "BELIEVE!" in great flaming letters on the face of the moon so that it would be indisputably visible to all. Done and done, end of discussion. But would it be a good thing to end that discussion? What if miracles really DID occur back then and their purpose was to awaken a curious inquisitive spirit? What if miracles and stories of miracles were a form of instruction - a challenge to ancient minds to open up a quest for knowledge and understanding?
Think of it this way: you drop an object you are holding. It falls. One explanation is that it falls because the gods wanted it to fall. Done and done - there's really nothing more to it. Then one day a miracle occurs and it doesn't fall. This miracle causes you to wonder - why don't things float ALL the time? And eventually it sets you on a path towards an understanding that there are indeed hidden things in the world, but they're a governing set of rules. One of them is gravity and now we understand more about why things fall when we let them go, but along the way we've gotten an entire body of knowledge and possibilities we didn't have before. If you don't have the idea of gravity you can't think about zero-g or antigravity. Each such thought lets you spin off dozens more.
A person who believes that the gods are responsible for cause-and-effect everyday ordinary observations isn't open to the notion that there may be more. There just is what the gods will there to be. But miracles - things that stand out as so clearly different you must take notice of them. What thoughts could those lead to in a mind that existed in a limited, pre-scientific mode?
And, like a child who grows past the need for elementary lessons, have we as an evolving species grown past the need for miracles? I like to think so.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-23 01:31 pm (UTC)It's very easy to shove something aside and say "it's how G-d wants it" or "G-d will see to it." I don't do that with everything, but there's only so much I can do in this world, and it's much better for my mental health to let go of a grudge thinking, "G-d will give them their due." Bad things happen to people all the time, so eventually something will happen and I can point to it and feel like that's "proof". I know it's not, but it reinforces that I can let something go.
I think it's important to understand the world, and I think there are a lot of bad scientists out there, that "prove" things the way I just did. Folks thought they were being scientific when they sacrificed offerings to G-d or to the gods.
But pretty much I do it in order to put things out of my mind. Especially when I'm in a low time, a la "why do bad things happen to good people?" But also in good times, because I want to be thankful, and it's easier to be grateful specifically to an entity than just be grateful in general. Things like luck and coincidence are easier swallowed if it's personified. Miracles like babies and love and nature and fire and water are somehow easier to comprehend if you put one or multiple entities behind it all, with some motivation or another.
So, yeah, to explain the unexplainable so I can rest easy at night. That's a poor excuse not to be curious about the world and study it, as creationists do. But for me, I that concept pervades my spirituality.