Once again over at my Unitarian Universalist minister’s chat the subject of godtalk has overwhelmed the board.
It is interesting. I freely admit.
Two decades ago a UU minister who used the word God in the pulpit could be in trouble with the congregation. A decade ago I casually mentioned in the pulpit my own nontheism and found myself visited by elders who were worried that people might misunderstand what I meant… Today you can find ministers who think hard atheism has no place in our movement.
And outsiders are completely baffled that a religious tradition even has this conversation…
While I usually describe myself as a nontheist, as part of the Buddhist subset of the contemporary Unitarian Universalist project I’m in a somewhat different category than classic western atheists. Like many other Buddhists I find the question of whether a creator exists not directly on target for the real issues at hand: human suffering, how it comes to be, and what to do about it. And like many other liberal Buddhists, while I am conscious of the social component of that question (and am eternally grateful to various thinkers, but particularly to Ken Jones for a deep Buddhist reflection on that social component), my thinking tends to go in a, broadly speaking, psychological direction. I find paying attention to the mind, and in particular to my mind, a very important thing to do…
And, quite simply, questions of creator or sustainer or even destroyer are just not all that important in the face of what is important.
So, call me agnostic on this subject, in the contemporary use of don’t know and don’t particularly care…
Although I have to admit my agnosticism leans pretty strongly toward atheism. That is I find nothing particularly compelling in the arguments for a deity with anything even vaguely resembling a human-like consciousness.
But, as I’ve said rather often before, nonetheless, I also recognize fellow travelers in the great mystics of the theistic religions. Not just fellow travelers, but teachers and guides.
And, also, as a placeholder for the collapse of all ideas, and our naked presence to what is, I find God a pretty good word.
The problem for me in my UU life is that as I hear the arguments, it all too often has more to do with who is in charge, who gets to say who is inside the club and who is outside.
I don’t find this particularly helpful on the quest for meaning, for healing, for justice, for love.
Instead of wandering around arguing God or no God, I would counsel people to sit down, shut up and pay attention.
What we need will be found…
And there will be all sorts of appropriate names…
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