The West Has Two Gods

An example of western religious symbolism, where God #2 exists outside of you, somewhere up in the heavens. 
(Contrast this with most eastern religions, where God is everywhere, including inside us.)

Recently, out of the blue, my wife asked me: "Do you believe in God?"

"It depends on which God you're talking about", I responded.

"In the Western world, there are two completely different definitions of God, although few are aware of this fact, and people conflate the two all the time".  I went on to explain this at a high level: 

1) The "First Cause" God: "How can a universe spontaneously appear out of nothing?  Something must have created it."  No thinking person can deny this conclusion.  Whether it was created by a sentient being, nuclear waste from a neighboring universe, or the screw that holds your eyeglasses together - WHATEVER it was - that first cause is usually called "God".  

2) The "Santa Claus" God: the idea that somewhere up in heaven there's a bearded man in a white robe sitting on a throne, looking down and taking notes, listening to prayers and exercising divine intervention where appropriate.  You ask God for things just like you ask Santa Claus for toys.  Unlike the First Cause God (which can be considered intuitively obvious), there is no evidence whatsoever that this Santa Claus God exists.   It's a concept which evolved to keep people hopeful and on their best behavior with a promise of justice in a universe which outwardly appears to be uncaring and indifferent.  

This explains quite a bit.  It explains how a crib death can happen under the watchful eye of a truthful judge.  It explains how Hitler could go unchecked by divine intervention.  God #1 invented the universe, the laws of physics, and the law of the jungle, and then that was it.  Answered prayers can more easily be explained by people assigning meaning to randomness.  (Note to the faithful: keep reading!)

This does not mean that religion is worthless!  Any religion should be approached with the attitude of "Don't ask whether God (definition #2) exists or not.  Assume it's all true.  Then ask yourself, "How will my life improve if I paid attention to my religion's teachings?    Is forgiveness a useful tool for living a peaceful life?  Is introspection (i.e., prayer) a valuable practice?  How about the concept of letting go?  Is a daily expression of appreciation for what you have a good habit? Is it better to live like Mother Teresa or Adolph Hitler?  Gluttony or temperance?  Love or hate?  How much better would life be if everyone shared the same values of kindness and character?"

The human mind is inherently irrational, which is why religion evolved thousands of years before science.  And during those thousand-years head start, the smartest people in the world worked on the narrative so that it's all internally consistent:  If God created everything, did he create Satan (evil) as well?  Why were we created with so many inherent flaws?  (7 deadly sins, plus a few others).  If we were created in God's image, does that mean that God is equally flawed?  Can God create a rock that is so heavy that he can't lift it?  (If so, then God is not all powerful.  If not, then God is not all powerful.  There!)  Why would God back down when Moses argued with him about killing everyone in Canaan?  Is revenge morally justifiable?  Why bother creating life at all?

And it turns out that the best way to communicate wisdom and answer these timeless questions is via mythology.  The Torah (from which the Bible and Quran are derived) is nothing but stories whose wisdom can only be extracted by studying them.  They're understandable on one level by children and on another, deeper level by adults after a lifetime of decryption.  Mythology (and, let's face it, confirmation bias) shapes how you perceive the world.  That's how our brains work.

Perhaps the most basic example of this principle is the children's book "The Little Engine That Could", a myth that plants the seeds in a child's brain that they can overcome any obstacle if only they "think they can".

And here's where Joseph Campbell comes in.  Joseph Campbell is that rare person who has studied (and, it seems, memorized) all mythologies from across the globe and across time.  He noted that all origin stories have the same basic "Hero's Journey" story arc, be it Moses, Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammad, or Luke Skywalker.  (George Lucas was a fan of Campbell. :-) )  He understood and explained religious symbolism and how this understanding can lead to a better, more spiritual life.  For example, here's how he explained the symbolism of the garden of Eden, which is the only interpretation I've ever read that makes sense: 

"God’s idea, in this story, was to get Adam and Eve out of that Garden. What was it about the Garden? It was a place of oneness, of unity, of no divisions in the nature of people or things. When you eat the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, however, you know about pairs of opposites, which include not only good and evil, light and dark, right and wrong, but male and female, and God and Man as well. 

This story yields its meaning only to a psychological interpretation. If you explain it as an historical event that occurred at some distant time back there, it seems ridiculous. There was no Garden of Eden as a concrete place. To believe so is to misunderstand and misconstrue the metaphoric language of religion. 

What is that tree of immortal life? Even after examining in depth the rabbinical discussions of the two trees in the Garden, it remains something of an enigma. Look closely and you may see, as I do, that they are the same tree. You are in the Garden and the tree is the way out. The way out is through learning of good and evil, a process that is symbolically expressed by eating the fruit of that tree. It is as if you are walking from a room where all is one into a room where, as you pass the threshold, all is suddenly two. Look back at the gate of the Garden where stand the two cherubim with the flaming sword between them, and you are out, in exile from the place where all was one. 

The Garden is a metaphor for the following: our minds, and our thinking in terms of pairs of opposites—man and woman, good and evil—are as holy as that of a god. 

That is what the story of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden is all about. It is not about an historical incident but about a psychological, spiritual experience, a metaphor for what is happening to us right now."  (*)

He also laments that most practitioners of modern religion have forgotten that it's all mythology, and spend inordinate amounts of time trying to prove that it's all true rather than helping people understand the symbolism and its meaning.  "Of course a virgin birth is possible!  If God could create the universe, why couldn't he have done that?" 

I'm sure this blog post has angered quite a few people who were raised on the concept of the Santa Claus God.  That's OK; religous ideas have gone on for a milenia and they're certainly not going to stop with a blog post.  

=== 

* Campbell, Joseph. Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) . 

P.S. - Oh, yeah, this blog post has little to do with photography.  I do this from time to time to time (to time).

Clearly he thinks he's talking to God #2