On God

2011-02-07T23:35:00.000-08:00

People often ask me if I believe in God. That's a hard question to answer; after all, what do they mean by "God"? Typically, they mean the God that they have heard about, read about, been preached to about, in this case the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, as seen through a 21st Century, secularized lens. So do I believe in that God? I believe in the reality of that God as a cultural-historical product which is real, to varying degrees, for the people who subscribe to that belief. Does that God, or concept of God have any reality outside of the collective belief in it? None whatsoever.

On the other hand, what is God, if not reality, if not truth in the sense of what actually is, outside of our perceptions and conceptions of what is happening around us, what the universe consists of. Therefore, couldn't one interpret the question "do you believe in God?" as "do you believe in reality?". If so, then, who wouldn't believe in God, since who doesn't believe in a consistent reality? Is it even possible not to believe in hte existence of a consistent, objective reality. Wouldn't disbelief in such be a recipe for insanity? Furthermore, why shouldn't objective reality be defined as God? Isn't God - even the Judeo-Christian version of God - usually referred to as the alpha and the omega of all existence, encompassing everything that has ever been created or ever will be created? Wouldn't this be inclusive of everything in our reality?

If we accept this definition, does anybody not believe in God?
As such, it seems self-