{"id":478,"date":"2011-06-21T21:15:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T21:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/06\/welcome-to-the-make-up-your-own-god-game.html"},"modified":"2011-06-21T21:15:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T21:15:00","slug":"welcome-to-the-make-up-your-own-god-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/06\/welcome-to-the-make-up-your-own-god-game.html","title":{"rendered":"Welcome To The “Make Up Your Own God Game!”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Before I just declared myself an out and out atheist (having no god) and agnostic (seeing no proof of gods), I used to enjoy playing the Make Up Your Own God Game.<\/p>\n

This is the name that I give to non-fundamentalist, \u201cliberal\u201d attempts to rescue God from the rubbish heap of unclear thinking.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how it works.\u00a0 First, you acknowledge that the supernatural God character of the Torah and other books is not the same God that modern people should believe in.\u00a0 This is always the first move in the game because it\u2019s pretty much the entire reason to play it.<\/p>\n

The next move is trickier.\u00a0 Having discredited the main character of the texts, you still have to go back and claim their current moral relevance.\u00a0 This is achieved by quote-mining scriptures (including many of the later, more humane commentaries).\u00a0 This demonstrates that our ancestors were much more sophistimacated about their God beliefs than we give them credit for.\u00a0 Which is historically dishonest.<\/p>\n

The difficulty level now rises because you next must use the Torah and its commentaries to establish modern moral precepts.\u00a0 It\u2019s a careful balancing act.\u00a0 For every event such as that described in Numbers 31:17-18 (kill the Midianite kids, except the virgin girls with whom you may \u201cpar-tay\u201d), you must come up with really elastic texts that have no relationship to that awful God but speak of wonderful moral precepts.\u00a0 (Even a humanistic rabbi is not above a little quote mining.\u00a0 But note that we do not claim that these texts demonstrate how moral God really is or was.\u00a0 We use them as examples of what HUMANS believed, for better and for worse.\u00a0 Torah and its commentaries are not for us a source of morality; they are a record of humanity\u2019s struggles with morality.)<\/p>\n

The inspiration for this post came from the Huffington Post.\u00a0 Now I know I\u2019m supposed to stay away from the HuffPo religion page, but like a moth I am drawn.\u00a0 This time I was sucked in by Rabbi Geoffrey Mitelman\u2019s discussion of Judaism and science<\/a>.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a snippet that shows him playing the Make Up Your Own God Game most skillfully:<\/p>\n

\u2026[W]hile I can only speak personally here, to me, \u201cGod\u201d isn\u2019t really a noun at all \u2014 it\u2019s a verb.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Really?\u00a0 A verb?\u00a0 Why not an adjective or conjunction?\u00a0 What the hell does this even mean?\u00a0 Let\u2019s try it in a sentence:\u00a0 \u201cI am going to God myself.\u201d\u00a0 Eww.\u00a0 Rabbi Mitelman elaborates:<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why [God is a verb]. The most common name that God gives Godself\u00a0 [sic!] in the Torah is \u201cYHVH,\u201d a name that is sometimes thought to be so holy that no one was allowed to pronounce it. But that\u2019s not exactly right \u2014 it\u2019s not that \u201cYHVH\u201d was not allowed to be pronounced, it\u2019s that it is literally unpronounceable, since it consists of four Hebrew vowels (yod, hay, vav and hay). By the way, that\u2019s also why some people incorrectly call this name \u201cYahweh,\u201d since (as Rabbi Lawrence Kushner once said), if you tried to pronounce a name that was all vowels, you\u2019d risk serious respiratory injury.<\/p>\n

Every word in Hebrew is written (more or less) without vowels.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know exactly how YHVH was pronounced but it was certainly not \u201cunpronounceable\u201d in order that it might yield all kinds of groovy meanings.\u00a0 This is a popular move in the Make Up Your Own God Game, but it fails the test of historical accuracy (I\u2019ll let you research the origins of YHVH on your own).<\/p>\n

But even more importantly, the name YHVH is actually a conflation of all the tenses of the Hebrew verb \u201cto be.\u201d God\u2019s name could be seen as \u201cwas-is-will be,\u201d so God isn\u2019t something you can\u2019t capture or name \u2014 God is only something you can experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, very nice.\u00a0 Also, it\u2019s completely made up.\u00a0 Now Rabbi Mitelman turns to science:<\/p>\n

Science, too, is very much about process. Science at its best is about testing hypotheses, setting up experiments and exploring ideas. And if new data or new evidence arises, scientific knowledge changes. Science can\u2019t be tied down to old theories \u2014 it is dynamic and ever-changing.<\/p>\n

Just like our experience of God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, no, NO!\u00a0 Science does not work like the experience of God.\u00a0 With science there are data.\u00a0 What are the data for the experience of God?\u00a0 Our feelings?\u00a0 If I believe with all my heart that my destiny is informed by a stellar constellation, how is that any different than an \u201cexperience\u201d of God?\u00a0 And by the way, the only \u201cnew data or new evidence\u201d that arise to make the God experience \u201cdynamic and ever-changing\u201d are those data and evidence that come from science!\u00a0 That\u2019s why you\u2019re playing the Make Up Your Own God Game in the first place!\u00a0 Science and observations of the real world made the old God irrelevant to you.<\/p>\n

The Make Up Your Own God Game always ends with a sermonic take-away that has absolutely nothing to do with any God, much less the God you just made up:<\/p>\n

Science is about creating hypotheses and testing data against these theories. Judaism is about how we act to improve this world, here and now. And these processes can easily go hand in hand.<\/p>\n

What on earth does any of this have to do with God?\u00a0 Is acting to improve this world an example of the verb \u201cto God\u201d?\u00a0 If so, it\u2019s a needless verb because plenty of people work to improve the world without any reference to gods, Jewish or otherwise. \u00a0And many, many, many others work to screw up the world in the name of their version of God.<\/p>\n

So yes, if science and religion are seen to be competing sources of truth and authority, they will always be in conflict \u2014 especially if religion is \u201cblind acceptance and complete certainty about silly, superstitious fantasies.\u201d But if instead religion is about helping people create a deeper sense of meaning and a stronger sense of their values, then I truly believe that science and religion can be brought together to improve ourselves, our society and our world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How does Rabbi Mitelman\u2019s God do all of this?\u00a0 If he\u2019s going to tell me that it\u2019s by inspiring our better selves or something like that, well what modern ethical person needs a god to do that?\u00a0 Especially if we\u2019re also supposed to worship it and mine its ancient stories for pseudo-modern moral lessons that we could more easily derive from our own reason.\u00a0 (So, no, the Torah doesn\u2019t teach that all people are equal because we are all \u201ccreated in the image of God.\u201d\u00a0 Liberal rabbis pretend that the Torah teaches it because they believe in equality.\u00a0 The Torah uses up gobs of ink to teach that people are very much unequal.\u00a0 Evolutionary theory demonstrates our equality without regard to ancient narratives.)<\/p>\n

Of course, Rabbi Mitelman is not talking to non-theists like me.\u00a0 He\u2019s talking to people who associate those \u201csilly, superstitious fantasies\u201d with him and his beliefs.\u00a0 He\u2019s trying to salvage an ancient concept and make it relevant in the 21st century.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t want them mistaking his fancy re-invention of God with anything that the vast majority of religious (\u201csilly\u201d and \u201csuperstitious\u201d) people still believe in.\u00a0 That\u2019s how you play the Make Up Your Own God Game.<\/p>\n

Here are a few questions for Rabbi Mitelman:\u00a0 Does he believe God (the one he made up) wants us to circumcise our infant boys?\u00a0 Does he believe that this God has an opinion on whom a Jew should marry?\u00a0\u00a0Does this God forgive us for our transgressions and if so, how? \u00a0Does he believe that this God has any independent power to bring salvation?\u00a0 Does this God do anything besides functioning as a new grammatical part of speech?\u00a0 If not, why bother?<\/p>\n

If you think the betterment of the world is up to humans, then just call yourself a humanist already and stop worrying about how to God it all up.<\/p>\n

Hey look at that!\u00a0 I used it as a verb!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I just declared myself an out and out atheist (having no god) and agnostic (seeing no proof of gods), I used to enjoy playing the Make Up Your Own God Game. 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