God Vs. Nature

The most exciting thing about spirituality these days is the debate about the existence of God. Actually it's not much of a debate. It's a pretty binary condition. Either you believe there is a God, or you don't. (Or you're undecided, but it's not like there is a third alternative between the two.) The beautiful thing about the discussion is the emergence over the last year or so of some very high-profile, well-written pro-atheist tracts, such as Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and Christopher Hitchens' "God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."

I should say here, in the interests of disclosure, that I find myself in what might seem a peculiar position given that I am a practitioner and teacher of Yoga. I do not believe in an over-arching consciousness that creates and/or directs the material world, though I do believe in deeper structures of subjectivity, consciousness and connection, not unlike the stance of Buddhism. From my perspective, it always cracks me up that those who state the case for god and religion find it impossible to believe that an atheist can have any kind of moral code, or that their inner life is somehow crippled.

This recent interview in Salon.com (thanks to the very excellent Souljerky for the link) is a lot more benign and balanced than most, but theologian John Haught puts forward the idea that hope is not justifiable in a world devoid of god. Here is Haught's response to the interviewer's question "But why can't you have hope if you don't believe in God?"

You can have hope. But the question is, can you justify the hope? I don't have any objection to the idea that atheists can be good and morally upright people. But we need a worldview that is capable of justifying the confidence that we place in our minds, in truth, in goodness, in beauty. I argue that an atheistic worldview is not capable of justifying that confidence. Some sort of theological framework can justify our trust in meaning, in goodness, in reason.

From a yogic point of view, I would suggest that the worldview he envisions is nothing more than a fluctuation of consciousness that, held onto too tightly, might prevent one from seeing what is actually there. Anyway, I am neither a theologian nor a professional philosopher. Here and here, also from Salon.com, are two interviews with Richard Dawkins from two and a half years ago to offer the other side's perspective.

And here is a very entertaining skeptic's perspective from performer Tim Minchin:



Related Posts:
Richard Dawkins: "The Root of All Evil"
Teaching Them To Accept The Snake