Perception is Reality
November 8, 2008 by TJM Admin
A friend of mine recently caught up with me on Facebook and decided to drop me an email.
Hope you guys are doing well! I have to say, I don’t really like the symbol you have as your photo – Just for the record, there would be no atheism if there was no God…
Also, i would think you would believe in God after the miracle of having a child!
The symbol that this person is referring to is the Theosophy symbol with its moto, “There Is No Religion Higher Than Truth.” I love the line, “Just for the record, there would be no atheism if there was no God.” No, there would be no atheism if there was no theism (which, ironically, would make everyone an atheist). Whether or not God exists has nothing to do with mans’ belief or disbelief. Secondly, the natural ability to procreate also has no bearing on belief in a supernatural being. Try using that argument on someone that is unable to have children.
I do not believe that I was that harsh in my response.
That is not a symbol of atheism. That is a symbol of Theosophy. I realize that you may not have ever seen the symbol. One of the main themes within theosophy is the acknowledgment of how much individual religions have in common with one another. If you look at the seal closely, you will see symbols that represent all of the main religions. The idea is that, while every religion has diverse ideas about the nature of God, the pursuit of truth is paramount. Basically, we should all look beyond the differences of our beliefs to find that which makes us similar. God is one thing, religion is another. We can have one without the other, which would be far less divisive. The world would be a much more enlightened and united place if we could have our beliefs in God (whichever you choose to believe in) without the divisiveness of religion.
This was a friend, mind you, so I did not wish to be perceived as the “militant evangelical atheist.” The response was as follows:
I was actually responding to your religion status – but that’s interesting about the symbol. I agree that you can have God without religion, which is what I choose as a Christian. It’s very sad what religion has done to hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of lives, I think a lot of people loose sight of God when they focus on religion.
She agrees that you can have God without religion….which is what she chooses as a Christian. Notice that she does not skip a beat in her original statement. To her, Christianity is not a religion but, rather, the embodiment of her perceptions of God. I love irony.
At least you made an attempt to explain your views without malice.
Was her response unexpected? I wonder if it’s because beliefs become as big a part of one’s identity as their resemblance to their parents and they can’t think about things from an alternative perspective. Can’t separate ideas from their ideology. The concept of God will always be tied to Christ for this person, yeah? But at least she admits that commitment to religion isn’t a problem-solver and that tends to do more harm than good.
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TJM Admin reply on November 9th, 2008 1:57 pm:
Absolutely true. I was just in love with the irony of the statement. Thanks for the comment!
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Well, couldn’t she be Christian without being religious? I mean, all it requires is that she believes Jesus was the living incarnation of God. She wouldn’t have to accept the whole Bible as a package deal.
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Bill G reply on February 28th, 2009 7:25 pm:
“Atheism” is a religion, whereas neutral Agnosticism is the lack of a theosophy. Which one are you?
We have the “Right to Life” movement, and then there’s the “Freedom of Choice” movement. Both groups are MOVEMENTS, and both working diligently toward the elimination of the other. Regardless of what a member in either group would say, both are “movements” and one merely the antitheses of the other.
Whether looking at a coin from the front or back, it is still a coin…even though one side is distinctly opposed to the other.
We have the Theists and then we have the A-theists, each working to eliminate the other. One builds elaborate churches, the other would like to see them all converted to school buildings or super markets. The two sides are two sides of the same coin…if one is called a “religion,” then the other has to be an “anti-religion (…but a religion, none the less).” Anti-matter and matter are, after all, both aspects of matter.
I enjoy your site and your style of writing and your thought processes, but I just wanted to make sure we call a spade and spade when appropriate, and not declare so naively that we “hate religion.” I might perhaps suggest something more along the lines of the phrase: “[I am intolerant of, and have a disdain for, religious ignorance,” or maybe even: “I hate religious ignorance.”
I think the world and our plight within it would be far better served if people would stop anthropomorphizing the intelligence that is the universe. Of course there’s a “God,” if the term can be applied logically and scientifically to something that can be proven to exist and that is a power to which we are all subject and from whcih we are created, and to which we return and are always a part of (e.g., electricity, gravity, physics, mathematics, geothrmal and epeirogenic phenomenae, etc. In otherwords…Universal order).
Bill G
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(Bill G, I assume you weren’t actually meaning to reply to me?)
Anyway, I stumbled across this a second time, and read through it a second time, and saw it a different way this time. Before, I had seen her POV, and this time I see yours more clearly than hers.
You are meaning something like: we should all just be a lot more flexible about the idea of “god” and whatever “god” can mean, which would make it a lot easier to think, as well as get along with everyone, right? Instead of holding ideas sacred, even ones as broad and simple as “Jesus is definitely the son of God”, etc, which becomes a reason to needlessly argue and disagree.
Yes, your philosophy is very nice. I would not mind theism at all, I think, if it were much more casual like that, and peoples’ minds were free to wander.
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