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February 20, 2005
Beliefs
While gathering papers for the 2004 tax declaration, I came across a Christmas card Mom found in Grandma Tuenge's stuff. The card was from me, saying that I had prayed, asked Jesus back into my life and wanted to do God's will. I wrote about being "entrenched in my own mess."
What the perceived mess was then, I cannot recall. From a distance it looks like I was inside the punch line of a Zen practical joke or a Kafka parable. I'm still working to dig my way out of the trench.
My belief in God never seems to give in to anything, even the belief that I've had for the last few years that I'd be better off eliminating beliefs, looking instead for evidence and plausible explanations. It won't even give in to the incapacity to explain what I mean by believing in God. Maybe the belief came from my family, early enough that I cannot remember any time before it. Maybe it came from God.
Richard Dawkins suggests God is a long-lived idea, particularly fit to survive in the world of ideas. He cites God in his explanations of memes, which like genes replicate. Memes reproduce from one human mind to another. His explanation holds up fine as long as you stick to the argument and don't try to get an understanding of what's underneath. In mathematics you're fine as long as you stick to the relationships and don't try to understand what 1 or 0 "really is."
Maybe that's what I should focus on, what God "really is." That ought to stretch my mind. Perhaps it would work like Matt claims running hard works, where eventually your body gets better at going faster so it won't have to work as hard.
Posted by Mark at February 20, 2005 03:46 PM