Finding One's Own Way

Dave,

As a good scientist, it is not necessary that you also come to terms with "God" in words --- whether or not precise. As a scientist, your acts are devotion enough. It is not necessary that we have quite the same quality of intuition.

Many may consider me not a Christian. Regardless, I have been conditioned to respect Christianity’s parables. Their meanings are not so unlike those of many other spiritual traditions. I often wonder what may account for why the moral foundations of so many spiritual traditions are so similar?

In any event, we only toy about the immeasurable quality of "God"s" goodness and limitations in respect of Nature.

Regarding variations of religion that use "God" to "justify" war, it is the wish of many that religion should be reformed, to become less literal and dogmatic, but more empathetically appreciative of shared arts and purposes.

Regardless, feeding our propensity for violent competition hardly requires religion. Plenty of alternative ploys for stirring our psychological soup and conditioning us to war have been found and exploited, every bit as well as religion.

We will expunge neither religion nor metaphysics in the foreseeable future. However, we may better humanize them.

Many perspectives prefer to assault and expunge religion, and not to see the humanizing or civilizing of religion as such a good thing. For others, "God" is a common reference for meeting and displaying "body language" — hoping to "jaw," not "war."

In respect of "definitions" and semantics, I generally use "God" as a placeholding, backstop word, for referring to that which is ultimate source for empathetic, purposeful, choice making. I think upon all forms of consciousness or sensateness as perspectives of God.

I do not expect to comprehend God. To me, the utility of my reference is merely so others may appreciate it as useful backstop — not for those gaps we may fill, but for those gaps I expect mortals may never reasonably expect to fill. In that relation, my usage is both general and precise.

Even in my usage, people disagree in feelings about the quality of objectivity (of moral empathy and God) in relation to (indifferent) Nature. People also disagree about the quality by which God may appreciate or interact with mortals (and vice versa).

Some scientists view God as: not so great, dimly witted, source of pain and strife, arbitrary, Indifferent. They include those who care, emphatically and Empathetically, about Indifferent nature. ( By some trick, I suppose they are "indifferent about the fact that they care.")

Some among them even see God as "slow." (Although it took me 14 billion years to get here, I hardly noticed the time. You?)

Others appreciate God in somewhat different light.

But, no side "knows." And, no side is able to expunge metaphysics. Rather, varying perspectives arise, apparently in respect of combinations of experience, conditioning, attitude, insight, and intuition, which seem, in the complexity of their relations, beyond precise fathom of mortals.

In any event, Francis Collins says, and I agree, we must each seek our own way, in respect of our own intuitions and insights. Peace be with you.