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But how could God have no beginning? I remember lying awake at night, driving myself insane after being introduced by the nuns to the concept of a limitless God. I was in first or second grade at the time, and the nuns had just explained the concept to me. And how could he possibly be without an end? When I looked up at the sky, I thought about how many stars there were, but how could there possibly be a last one? Isn’t it inevitable that there will always be one more? I now know the answer to the second question, but I still don’t know the answer to the first question, despite the passage of time.
The matter was taken up with a favorite nun, Sister Marie Donald, who was in charge of our rhythm band and also served as our basketball coach. “”It’s just something you have to believe, Roger,” she explained. Pray for the gift of faith.” The next morning, I awoke wondering how I could pray for faith to a God whom I could not believe in because I lacked faith in him. As a result, I found myself caught between two opposing viewpoints. It appeared as though these logical puzzles were generated spontaneously within my own mind. They were not associated with my school or my family. Aside from the fact that, of course, God exists, the majority of my neighborhood friends were devout Protestants who were uninterested in theological theories about God.
Aside from the God issue, I wholeheartedly embraced the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and all of its traditions. Every school day at St. Mary’s began with an hour of religion, which was my favorite subject to study. Rather than memorizing entries from the Baltimore Catechism, which was tedious, we were encouraged to engage in theoretical discussions about what constituted a sin, what you needed to do to earn your way into Heaven, and “What would happen if…” This set up a hypothetical situation that brought the unsuspecting Catholic perilously close to the flames of Hell every time these words were spoken.
Looking back, I realize that religion class began the day with theoretical thinking and applied reasoning, which was excellent preparation for the rest of the day. To think that you might commit a sin by mistake and be damned before you could make it to Confession on time is terrifying. What if you had an impure thought while climbing to the summit of Mt. Everest and were unable to descend? Our class was introduced to the concepts of sins of omission and commission, intentional sins, and unintentional sins, which proved to be the most difficult to grasp at first. Consider the following: You’ve committed a sin that you weren’t intending to commit. But, Sister, is it still a sin if you weren’t aware that you were committing it?
Some of my classmates and I would lie on our backs in the front yard, look up at the stars, and wonder aloud whether it would be wrong for a kid to start playing with himself if he didn’t realize what he was getting himself into. We came to the conclusion that he would only do it again if he did it again. A kid once asked me, “But what would happen if you played with yourself?” I remember thinking back to that night. It was our advice to him: “Just don’t do it!” “How did you know anything would happen?” I inquired. We decided that you would only be allowed to find out once, and that would be it.
Every one of my Dominican teachers seemed to be New Deal Democrats, and Franklin D. Roosevelt seemed to have achieved a kind of secular sainthood in their eyes, at least according to my memory. They were, without a doubt, vehemently anti-communist. People in the Soviet Union could be imprisoned simply for attending church, and there was a brave Cardinal Menzenti who was tortured by atheists in Hungary. The Soviet Union was a land to me that never saw the sun, where enslaved Catholic peasants toiled under lowering skies for their godless rulers. This was my mental image of the Soviet Union for many years.
Our theology, on the other hand, was frequently very practical: all men are created equal. What you do to others should mirror what you would like others to do to you. All of the Ten Commandments, with the exception of adultery, which “you children don’t have to be concerned about,” were thoroughly discussed. a reasonable day’s work for a reasonable day’s pay A good government should work to ensure that everyone has a safe place to live, a job, and three nutritious meals per day. Mercy’s cardinal acts are as follows: Ethical behavior is required. The sisters didn’t appear to believe that a woman’s place in the home was particularly important, as their own was certainly not. “Pray for your vocation,” as the saying goes. My mother prayed for my ordination because she wanted me to be a priest. “Every Catholic mother hopes she can give a son to the priesthood,” she said, referring to one mother at St. Patrick’s who had given two, as if she had won the lottery.
I used to be an altar boy. Even in the dead of winter, I commuted to church on my bicycle to assist at the early morning mass on Sundays. Parents were completely unconcerned about a grade school student riding his bike all over town back then. One morning early in my service, I became disoriented and failed to notice that the water and wine were no longer in their proper places. I was nine or ten years old at the time. We returned to the sacristy and I sobbed, and Father McGinn comforted me, saying that God knew I had done my best and that he appreciated my efforts. If a priest did that today, he would be arrested, but no priest or nun ever treated me with anything other than love and care during my entire life.
I was no longer tossing and turning at night, worrying about God and infinity. I realized they couldn’t possibly have any answers. It came a point in my life when the reality of God was no longer present in my thoughts. I adhered to the fundamental Church teachings because I believed they were correct, not because I felt God commanded me to do so. I still live by them today, at least in my mind and in the way I interpret them. Principles must be followed rather than rules and regulations. For example, while I am pro-choice on the issue of abortion, my personal preference would be to have nothing to do with an abortion, especially one involving a child of my own. I believe in the concept of free will, and I believe that I have no right to dictate what anyone else should do. Popes come and go, and John XXIII has been the only one for whom I have felt a strong affectionate attachment. Their dictums don’t strike me as having much of an element of surprise in them. They have been at the forefront of a holding action for millennia.
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Catholicism shaped me into a humanist before I even knew what the term meant. In response to those who decry “secular humanism,” I’d like to inquire as to whether humanism in and of itself is acceptable to them. Over the course of my high school years, my belief in the existence of a deity grew less and less. This was something I kept to myself. It was something I never brought up with my parents. In any case, my father was a non-practicing Lutheran until he was converted on his deathbed, which I found to be rather disappointing. I’m confident that he agreed to it out of concern for my mother.
Is it time for me to start referring to myself as an agnostic or an atheist? No, and I still don’t believe it. I try to avoid doing so because I don’t want to create a category for people to apply to work for me in. I would not want my beliefs to be reduced to a single word. Chaz, who has a strong religious conviction, leaves me to my own beliefs. “But you’re aware that you’re either one or the other,” she says. “I’ve never told you that before,” I admit. You are, she says, “maybe not in so many words, but you are.”
However, I continue to believe that I am not. Despite the fact that readers have freely informed me that I am an atheist, an agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist—which I am—during the endless discussions on several threads of this blog about evolution, intelligent design, God, and the afterlife, I have never stated that I am an atheist, an agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist—which I am. That doesn’t follow from the fact that I don’t believe God exists, nor does it follow from the fact that God exists. It also doesn’t imply that I don’t know something, which implies that I could know something.
Allow me to rule out any God who has personally communicated with anyone or given instructions to men right away. I am certain that some men believe they have received a divine message from God. According to what I have read, Moses did not descend from the mountain with any tablets that he did not bring with him. I believe that mankind as a whole has an insatiable desire to believe in higher powers and to have an existence that is not limited to the physical duration of the human body. However, these requirements are merely hopes, and believing in them does not make them true. I believe that mankind has a strong desire to congregate in churches, whether physically or socially.
I’ve sat in churches all over the world for long stretches of time. I don’t sit in them to pray, but rather to gently nudge my thoughts toward wonder and awe as they pass by. I am conscious of the generations who have come before me. Tradition provides a sense of security. On Christmas Eve, I attended a midnight mass at the village church in Tring, in the Chilterns, and I felt an unexplainable sense of elevation. Evensong is my favorite service of the day. I agree with Annie Dilliard when she says that when she is in an unfamiliar area, she seeks out the church of the oldest established religion she can find because it has the most experience in not being struck by lightning. I think this is a great strategy.
Megachurches with jovial millionaire pastors are not something I am interested in. I believe that what takes place in them is socio-political in nature, rather than spiritual. I believe that the Prosperity Gospel is attempting to pass through the eye of the needle in order to be accepted. My patience is running out for churches that evangelize in a zealous manner. I have no desire to be instructed on what I must do in order to be saved. Vertical prayer, directed upward toward heaven, is preferable to horizontal prayer, which is directed sideways toward me in my opinion. I believe that a worthy church should grow by attracting people rather than by promoting itself. Zealotry has always made me uncomfortable; even as a child, I was wary of those who claimed to be “more Catholic than the Pope,” as some people put it. If we want to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we must treat their religious beliefs with the same reverence that we accord to our own.
Despite my best efforts, I’m still perplexed as to how something could exist without a beginning and without an end. From a scientific standpoint, it has recently captured my attention. Despite the fact that I do not know everything, I approach issues in terms of what I do and can know. Science is not a “secular” endeavor. It is a process of open and honest examination.
A Question Of Faith Quiz
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Take, for example, infinity. We know there must be an infinite number of numbers because how could there be a Last Number if there isn’t an infinite number of numbers? However, the more intriguing puzzle is how did a First Number come to be, and why do so many mammals other than humans know how to count, at least in part. I don’t believe that the universe is important. Counting is a mental exercise, and mathematics is useful to the extent that it aids in the description and understanding of the universe, as well as the ability to function effectively within it. It is not the existence of a Last Number that is important, but rather its impossibility.
I’m aware that there can’t be a Last Star because we know the universe is curved, as we’ve established. At least, that’s what the mathematicians have to say about it. Although I am unable to form the concept of a curved universe in my mind, I believe I understand what they are attempting to say. I also can’t think of one, three, five, or a zillion additional dimensions. I also have no understanding of the Theory of Relativity. When I was growing up, I was told that Einstein was the only person who was intelligent enough to understand his own Theory. Now, a plethora of people do, but I suspect that only a small number of them have a literal understanding of what it means. What they understand, I believe, is the mathematical proofs that they have provided. If I’m wrong, it gives me reason to be optimistic.
The idea that the universe could continue to expand indefinitely and then die is something I can imagine. To think that all of its matter would vanish from the face of the earth is beyond comprehension. There was a time when it seemed reasonable to believe that the universe expands and contracts indefinitely, with one Big Bang collapsing into another, as was once believed. Nevertheless, what caused the first Big Bang, according to both models of the universe? Or was there a first Big Bang in the same way that there was a first Last Number?
Was there a First Causer, if there was a First Cause, in this case? Or did the Big Bangs just happen to happen when they did? Is it possible to refer to the First Causer as “God”? We have complete freedom to name it whatever we want. I’m sure I’ll be able to name it after myself. It makes no difference what it is called, because we would be naming something that exists outside of all categories of thought and must therefore be unknowable and irrelevant to knowledge in order to do so. As a result, it is a fruitless endeavor.
It is now being discussed in quantum theory about instantaneous connections between two entangled quantum objects, such as electrons. It has been observed in laboratory experiments, and scientists believe they have conclusively demonstrated that this phenomenon does take place. They aren’t talking about traveling at speeds greater than the speed of light. It has absolutely nothing to do with speed. The entangled objects are able to communicate instantaneously even though they are separated by a great distance. If that is the case, distance becomes meaningless. Light years are meaningless in this context. There is no such thing as empty space.
In a way, the entangled objects aren’t even communicating with one another. There is no difference between the two. At the “quantum level,” and I don’t know what that means and cannot visualize it, everything that there is may be actually or theoretically linked. All is one. Sun, moon, stars, rain, you, me, everything. All one. If this is so, then Buddhism must have been a quantum theory all along. No, I am not a Buddhist. I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am still awake at night, asking how? I am more content with the question than I would be with an answer.
All art is based on Strange Attractors generated by Chaoscope, a Windows program downloadable here. No, I don’t believe they’re pictures of God. I believe they can’t be described in words, which pleases me. All of the art can be enlarged by clicking.
About the quiz
The Big Bang as a fractal:
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Renderings of Strange Attractors;
An unexpected pattern:
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