Would we still have God if We didn’t die?
dd March 7th, 2007
FAIR WARNING: I’m going to talk about the notion of God in this post. I’m familiar with the “old” adage not to broach politics and religion in the blogosphere, but I’m giving you a heads-up if you want to stop reading now.
This is my main question today:
Would humans have ‘discovered’ (note I did not say invent, which is quite different) God if we were immortal?
Is fear of death and a void after death the main impetus to our connectedness to God?
I think the answer is probably “No” - we may not have discovered God if we did not die. I think the lead story in Sunday’s NY Times magazine provides some substantiation to this postulate:
Fear of death is an undercurrent of belief. The spirits of dead ancestors, ghosts, immortal deities, heaven and hell, the everlasting soul: the notion of spiritual existence after death is at the heart of almost every religion. According to some adaptationists, this is part of religion’s role, to help humans deal with the grim certainty of death. Believing in God and the afterlife, they say, is how we make sense of the brevity of our time on earth, how we give meaning to this brutish and short existence….
Whether or not it is adaptive, belief in the afterlife gains power in two ways: from the intensity with which people wish it to be true and from the confirmation it seems to get from the real world. This brings us back to folkpsychology. We try to make sense of other people partly by imagining what it is like to be them, an adaptive trait that allowed our ancestors to outwit potential enemies. But when we think about being dead, we run into a cognitive wall. How can we possibly think about not thinking? “Try to fill your consciousness with the representation of no-consciousness, and you will see the impossibility of it,” the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno wrote in “Tragic Sense of Life.” “The effort to comprehend it causes the most tormenting dizziness. We cannot conceive of ourselves as not existing.”
SIDEBAR
Recently, our rabbi lamented that (at least among Reform Jews in American), “We do not feel an intimacy with God. Faith is a question for us.”…”We need to rediscover how to connect to God.”
I think that one of the main reasons for this disconnect (of ‘recent’ origin in W. Europe and in the U.S.) is Judaism (at least the Reform branch) has distanced itself and almost ignored the question of death and what happens after death. The Times piece argues that humans are “hard wired” to discover/believe in something we call God. And, one of the main impetuses for that is humans need an answer to death and find it very hard to deal with the possibility of nothing after death.
As I understand it, Judaism for the last 2000 years has had a lot to say about death, afterlife, soul, (even resurrection). But, in the last couple centuries, this discussion was de-emphasized especially in Reform/Conservative movements - not rational enough, maybe?
So, I postulate that until we start re-emphasizing and discussing this incredibly important question (soul, after-life etc.), it’s going to be hard to reconnect with God. I think any other ideas about how to do it are avoiding the essence of the problem.
On a personal level, I don’t think it’s fear of death that inspires my faith; I don’t really think about the state of my eternal soul. Fear of life, maybe, but I’d have to think more on that. I just don’t know how all the wonder in the world could exist without a god.
Immortality might eventually raise the same questions that lead one to a discovery of faith. I admit my fallibilty, indeed, I have fallen. But, outside of reflective moments, I can shrug, and excuse myself with, “I’m only human”. By that, I think I mean that I’m finite, and can’t master everything in the time I’ve got. The failings that really get under one’s skin are the tragic flaws: you know they’re there, you know what they are, but every time you’re placed in that situation you seem to make the same mistakes. (why can’t I ever get the its/it’s thing right?) We’ve got these blind spots about ourselves, and there are other things about which our perception is always limited. Didn’t you just do a post on ways you haven’t changed? Aren’t there some limitations? So, what if you made it into your third, fourth, fifth century and they still hadn’t changed? You’d have to admit that you’re still finite, still “only human”. Then you’d still be left with the problem of searching for a meaning, a purpose beyond your limited self. But, you would have delayed your realization for hundreds of years.
The biggest problems of humanity involve living together, not dying. The dead are careless. Mortality just makes the questions pressing and focusses the drive to answer them. Nothing like a deadline to get you to get serious.
So, you asked; see what you get?
Kristin and Ulysses - thanks so much for your great comments and insights.
Kristin - It may be that fear of death gains in importance as we get older. But, you have certainly offered up another explanation for a belief in God.
Ulysses - What an interesting take on this. You may be right, immortality may postpone but not eliminate the quest for God (perhaps aka a purpose beyond ourselves, search for meaning etc.). I definitely agree that our communal problems are how to live together. But, on an individual level, I think grappling with death is a biggie - the one with the big “dead”line
Well, this is certainly thought-provoking. I remember when I read Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume how difficult immortality proved to be for the main character (think I got the right book). So maybe Ulysses is right in that knowing time is finite prompts one to consider. But then I wondered if our belief in God is learned. What would happen, for example, to people who had no knowledge of anyone else’s belief? Would they invent a superbeing? I’m with Kristin on the belief thing personally. I have believed in God since I first attributed the order in the world to something bigger than humanity. My few brief brushes with potential death when I learn I had cancer didn’t really alter my belief in God in the least. It will be interesting to see how this changes as I get older and older. I really think a belief in God is a comfort to many people who are in difficulty or who are searching for answers to adversity that has been dealt them in life. I’m sure there are many deathbed discoveries of faith, but I don’t think for the most part that thoughts of death are driving our beliefs. How’s that for rambling?
I don’t really believe in an afterlife as in “after this one.” I think we just change form and keep on keeping on. I’m more afraid of the pain that is likely to precede or accompany death than I am of not being conscious or being conscious that I’m no longer here. Lately I’ve been reading a blog relating to faith and belief and it’s made me re-question just what I think about the notion of God and the reason for our being earthlings. It’s all very interesting in a debatable sort of way, like sharpening one’s mind against a grinding wheel. When I think that 6 trillion subatomic particles pass through every square inch of me every second at nearly the speed of light, I know that any notion I might have of a “greater power” must fall far short of what that power really is.
And that both scares and exhilarates me!
Barbara - the Times piece argues in many ways that we are wired to believe in a super-being. And, that fear of the unknown after death helps to complete the wiring. I think that it’s a big part of the reason people embrace religion.
Pauline - It sounds like you don’t believe that death is the “end”, since you think we’ll “change form and keep on keeping on”. That would fit a loose definition for me of afterlife. I.e. there is something and our death is not the end. And, I totally agree that God/greater power is really unknowable to us. All we have left is metaphors so we can try to grasp some understanding, which always falls short.
Hi David,
This is an excellent post and thought provoking piece…..I believe I am, in part, with Kristin on this one…. my faith conversion did not come about because of my fear of death. God actually chased me down, til I was stuck in a corner…….and it was as though I said, “OK I give up - you’re in charge here”….or I kept on running. I was just plain tired. And being broken like that opened me up to an incredible relationship and restoration and love. So my faith comes from my ‘experience’ of God and His love for me. I guess it helps that I have visions and dreams (which could actually be, in part, just part of my bipolar psychosis….) And I have that connectedness to something greater. I, too, am in awe at the intricate work of His hand in all that I see around me - His glorious creation!
I am remembering a paper I once had to write in a philosophy class defending whether God existed or not. You could choose either position. I chose to defend his existence - simply based upon the argument that I have the FREE WILL to choose to believe. Is it Shakespeare who wrote: “Death, where is thy sting?” I suppose death has no sting…..only to those who are left behind to mourn. Me….I’m looking forward to heaven.
David I sure do like you- what great topics you find. I have become far too ambiguous concerning this topic, but thats the best i can do right now…there just does not seem to be enough data to support any conclusion…but i also thinj that in every life we are compelled to arrive at a conclusion where this is concerned…i have actinvely sought God for a number of years and have not found what he has for me… I am entirely convinced now, that if we find each other it will come from somewhere outside my field of vision… the most profound thing I have heard in a number of years was under the Phosphorescent glow of a Camp lite cleaning fish with a very old man who told me that
“Life is a bitch”
I gave the required response
‘And then you die”
He set down his knife and looked me in the eye and said
‘And you are dead for a long F’n time”
This struck me as being very sad, but qiite likely the truth of the matter.
I am seeking data to the contrary.
Great post.
RDG — I’m so glad you left this comment. I love the metaphor of God chasing you down. And, I must admit, I “come” to God in other ways than thinking about death. Partly I get there via the rationalist approach - there just has to be a creator. But, partly, as you and Kristin have pointed out, by observing the grandeur of the world. But, a big part of me is hoping we’re all correct because I must admit that thinking of nothingness after death is very scary. And, I do think that that specific fear has a lot to do with religiosity today and back when religions as we know them began (at least the Abrahamic ones)
Steve — I sure hope there’s something more, but you are sure right - not much hard evidence to call upon.
I can see that fear of death is a factor that holds us to a belief in a God to lead us into some beautiful afterlife, but I think that perhaps most people would search for pure leadership of some greater power to simply show us how to live. Every religion has their own version of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. My own personal interpretation of the bible is not to take every word as the literal truth and that it could possibly be just parables meant to show us how to live with a spiritually kind attitude towards others. I guess if we were immortal, it would shift much of our faith which is now based on living a certain way to get into heaven. Some people might not think it matters how we live then.
As usual, I’m on the fence and can see both sides!
This debate, god and immortality is ultimately one we’ll never know.
To me the rationalist approach suggesting ‘there has got to be a creator’ is a nonsense. All rationality can tell us is that we don’t know the fundamental things, like ‘why are we here?’ or ‘what happens next?’.
And although many people claim to have seen god, and know the truth, unless each of us sees god, we will never all believe.
Throughout history, ardent believers in god have suffered war and butchery, flood, pestilence, famine and earthquakes.
They have died in their churches and sanctuaries with prayers on their lips.
They have died at the points of swords, with their killers wearing god’s insignia.
Now to me, all that is potent evidence for the non-existence of god.
Or at least, that if God exists, he either is not omnipotent, or quite simply doesn’t care about us, the ants he crushes underfoot.
Steve’s old man, who said “And you are dead for a long F’n time” got it almost right.
But i think you’re dead
end of your story. gone. Forever.
no afterlife.
no judgement, no resurrection.
gone.
If we believe in an afterlife, do we believe it for the creatures around us? If not, why not?
What makes us more special than a fish?
or a bacterium?
If there is a god, then to me, god is a name we give to our need to co-operate, our need to care for others, our need to love.
God is in us all, not outside, in the vast universe, in which humanity is an infinitely small improbability.
Just to clarify….
I’ve been in extremis a few times.
Close to death. Afraid. Calling on God to intervene.
I’m alive. Many years later.
So. Was it God? or medical science?
Obviously I don’t know.
No deep booming voice saying I’ve been saved to fulfil some greater purpose.
So i figure.
If there is a God, it’s okay with him for me to not believe.
I mean, if you’re the all-powerful omnipresent one, some littlle speck denying your existence is hardly going to mar your day.
David, alias Soubriquet.
David - Thanks for your really thoughtful and thought-provoking post. Perhaps, rationalist was not the right word. Although, aren’t you trying to reason the non existence of God by looking at all the awful things that he has let us do to ourselves. Guess this all leads to what do we mean by God, free will etc. Does your belief in nothingness after death scare you? I’m not arguing there is an after-life, just curious.
Soubry’s comment appears, to me at least, less rational thinking and more a bit of chaos theory. No God of mine ever promises me heaven on earth. And why, in this case, drag through a bunch of theological proving? You either choose to believe or you don’t. Pretty simple actually, this free will business. If you deny the existence of the magnificence of the creator in His glorious creation, and choose, instead, to focus on the malovence of sin-filled humanity, then in my opinion (which is really nothing) you choose to focus on the trees and deny the existence of the forest.
I did not put that very well.
I’m not, as you suggest, meaning to use man’s nastiness as proof of a non god.
Simply that I see no evidence for the existence of God.
Belief in nothingness after death, no, that does not scare me particularly, though I’d rather not be dead.
You mention all the things we do to ourselves. But what about the things such as hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, droughts, and so on which appear to be built into our world?
As for Red Dirt Girl, free will? how free are we?
It’s not a question of believing in a magnificent creator, or, by denying him, being said to believe in the ‘malevolence of sin-filled humanity’,
Rather simpler, I simply say
“I see no evidence pointing to the existence of God”.
There’s no chain of circumstance to attach any other beliefs, in the metaphor of trees and forests.
I can believe in trees, forests, a wealth of wonders.
But nowhere do I see any evidence that there has to be some super-entity who orchestrated it.
I realise, faith denies proof/proof denies faith.
So. This free will thing. Go ahead, believe in God.
Me, I have free will too? I see no reason to believe in god.
I guess that there is a difference between religion and spirituality. and the factual eveidence of history. And you can be a spiritual person without actively practising religion by going to church and believing in every literal translation, black and white.
Sometimes all of this requires blind faith, without witnessing concrete miracles here on earth. Of course, it is comforting to believe in life after death; this lessens our fear of dying.
Some people only need to look at all the beauty in the world and then see the evidence of The Creator. On the flipside, a more negative view, others see tall the evil as meaning the absence of a God. Of course, you can combine evolution theory with The Creation Story and reason that a higher being orchestrated that.
I think we are all part of a master plan, a huge tapestry in which a Creator has woven all the good and bad together in a purposeful way. There is no evidence of this, it’s my blind/spiritual faith, perhaps pure conjecture which just reflects my general world view and attitude.
I have heard it said that the wars, famines, disasters, etc. are part of His plan in order for others to learn from them valuable lessons….perhaps to be humble, thankful…?? The suffering then, brings them closer to God and for Christians, allows them to feel the same suffering that Jesus did.
For me, even if new evidence (re: James Cameron and tomb of Jesus) matters not. If it were true, it would still remain that historically, He was a very good man, a messenger to show us a good example of how we should live with a spiritually kind attitude towards all.
OK, let me repeat that… Are you trying to reach my sure move A joke for you peoples! Why are cowboy hats turned up at the sides? So three cowboys can ride in a pickup truck.