(atheistic, more or less) ruminations on the nature of the gods and what is really important

I’m a big fan of agnosticism as a spiritual path.

But when pushed about the deity question, I generally admit to being a nontheist, which is, I guess, a sort of kinder and gentler atheist.

While many of my friends are touched by some version of the argument from design, I personally am inclined to see that as a classic bit of projection. As Xenophanes’ wryly observed a very long time ago, “If cattle and horses and lions had hands… (they) would depict the gods’ shapes and make their bodies of such a sort as the form they themselves have.”

I am in awe of the universe as I encounter it, but I see no human-like mind involved.

Perhaps, actually, even the opposite, the whole thing in all its glory and horror is rather larger than can be encompassed by a “mind” of any sort.

It all becomes

Lo, I am death, the destroyer of worlds…

And so back to that only don’t know thing.

Back to presence as the real deal.

Now, I’m not angry at anyone about this, which is what I often encounter among my friends who prefer to own the label atheist. They have a beef, and often I find it compelling. And it is one of the weirder things in our time and place where atheists are among the least trusted or liked category right up there with politicians and child molesters. Get knocked around consistently for stating what is kind of obvious and you can get mean…

But I deal in god language. Like the dealer in a card game, I just throw those cards out and see what magic happens.

Not out of lack of care or concern, you understand.

I think the language of god or gods and souls (something I get a bit more heated about, as I consider the belief there is some “I” thing that isn’t connected to the body, but rather rides it like a passenger in a bus is, to mix a metaphor, an endless well of misery. But that for another time…) and spirit all have potential and power, and I use the terms freely in my capacity as a Unitarian Universalist minister, and even occasionally in my capacity as a spiritual director in the Zen tradition…

And so…

Lo, I am death, the destroyer of worlds…

And a call back to that only don’t know thing.

Back to presence as the real deal.

And, that said, I admit there are times I’d kind of like to have a deity around…

I’ve often opined how I wish there were a god to hold to account. I have a long complaint list.

A very long list.

Nearer to the top for me than powdered coffee creamer is the human back.

Lousy bit of design, if you ask me.

(Although one so-called friend once observed that I didn’t really understand. She said there wasn’t anything wrong with the design of my back, its just that the warranty had expired. As I said, so-called friend…)

Of course if we start getting going on what’s wrong with the universe, or just or little corner of it, and had a deity to blame,

well that complaint department would have one heck of a long line.

Or, would involve a deity we might better off not poke.

Remember

Lo, I am death, the destroyer of worlds…

And so, back to that only don’t know thing.

And so, back to presence as the real deal…