God is ....... God is not

Though the idea of God is very ancient, so is the idea of atheism. Both have continued to have enough of a following to maintain healthy populations throughout history. Neither has ever won the day, though both have continually attempted to do so. I suspect neither will ever win the day; for whatever reason, we seem to need both ideas to maintain a healthy balance.

Both the is-God and the is-no-God schools of thought offer valid perspectives in this ongoing evolution of our humanity. We can each follow the path which gives us meaning and let others follow the path which gives them meaning. Both views can be used to raise our humanity to a higher level of experience. Both views can lead us to an understanding of ourselves as mental and spiritual beings.

Both views are also capable of dehumanizing our spirits, engendering horrors of degradation, destroying the mental, physical, and social environments which cradle and nourish us. The ideas nurtured in both frames of reference can be used both to build up our shared humanity and to tear it down.

All of us are evolving together into what our humanity is becoming. Both the theist and the atheist views are a part of that evolving process. Each brings awareness of particular truths of the universe. It is a symbiotic relationship.

The evolution of ideas is much more rapid than the evolution of physiology. We can actually watch it happening in a single human lifetime. But like the evolution of physiology it is driven by coping with harsh environmental conditions. Ideas don't evolve in relation to the physical environment but in relation to the social environment.

But so far the evolutionary process is not moving toward either theism or atheism. Both have been around for thousands of years. The evolutionary process in the realm of ideas seems to favor an ongoing interaction between the two ways of seeing life.

I just enjoy watching the evolutionary process of ideas unfolding and generating our shared humanity.

Religionists say there is a God; atheists assert there is no such being; agnostics say they're not prepared to say whether there is or is not. Generally the religionists and atheists fight it out between them and the agnostics just go about their lives. Neither the religionists nor the atheists has ever or will ever convince or change the other. And I will not have any effect on either of them. So this conversation is for the rest of us.

Truth in advertising requires that I state upfront that I, personally, do believe there is a God. But I don't think that it is necessary for anyone else to believe that. All human views about God/no-god are, in my view, equally legitimate variations on the human experiment in existence.

To those who say that it is logically impossible for something to both exit and not exist, I simply reply that in many areas of life, such as art and love, logic plays no part. Love can be both present and absent at the same time; beauty can be both there and not there in the same object. These paradoxical states impart a more profound wisdom about our essential humanity than does logic. The universe, both in its material and its non-material aspects, is a place of mystery and magnificent bewilderment. I'd like to celebrate that rather than "solve" it.

Also, when I find both sides of conflicting ideas to present reasonable and compelling arguments, I reserve the right to simply presume that there is a possibility that either one may be right, or that both may be right, the connecting conceptual structures simply not being at present evident.

The purpose of this website is not to prove anyone right or wrong, but to present the beauty of the human spirit, of God, and of the universe, in all their many forms and manifestations.