LSP40: Atheism: Blindness to the Question of Scale

The National Post has been very brave in the past few days.

First, it ran a major story on the current religious beliefs of Canadians. The article, called "A God? That's complicated. Canadians hanging on to personal faith as organized religion declines: poll," was published on April 5, 2015 and was based on a new Angus Reid poll.

Second, the Post offered readers a chance to answer the question "Do You Believe in God?" Not only did the Post print a selection of the letters it received, it allowed 966 on-line comments before finally closing the debate.

It was great to see such an enormous spectrum of thought in one place. Comments ranged from extreme atheism to extreme fideism, with everything in between. It was refreshing and encouraging to see an actual debate with thoughtful and cogent offerings from regular Canadians on a topic that matters to many. The Post editors, bucking the current trend of sanitizing and pre-packaging controversial ideas so no one's feelings will be hurt, took the audacious approach of allowing breadth in the debate. I applaud the editors for their courage.*

Something that emerged for me as I reflected on the varied comments was a better understanding of the schism that exists between atheists and theists.

One comment, written by a prolific comment writer named Life's Traveller, really drew my attention and prompted me to reply. In part, this is what he (she?) said:

In terms of religions, I just can't accept anything that my equally (and in many cases, greatly over-achievingly) ignorant fellow humans have to say about this. When we all hear the same, clear and consistent, story, straight from god with no human mediation (prophets, etc.), with ample amounts of irrefutable direct evidence, and explanations, testable under the most rigorous conditions that the brightest among us can devise, then I'll conditionally accept it ... perhaps.

I challenged this line of reasoning a couple of times, then Life Traveller came back with this:

"The God I trust and the God who sustains me every day is the God I see everywhere around me in the world of science" [quoting my previous comment]
Please be specific, and include your reasoning as to why exactly the god that you speak of in personal terms (who you trust and who sustains you), is absolutely necessary for whatever example that you choose to produce as a valid demonstration of the presence/existence/influence of "a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity" (according to Oxford).

It took me all night to figure out why this line of reasoning (a line of reasoning shared by many atheists) is so psychologically and spiritually abusive when aimed at those of us who believe in God.

It's abusive because of the implicit assumption it tries to force on me. (I'm using myself here as an example of a person of faith, but I think other people of faith feel this way, too, in the face of militant atheism). It tries at the very outset to force me to agree to take on the "burden of proof" for someone else who is either too lazy or too narcissistic to accept the responsibility for using his or her own brain in the most balanced, holistic way possible. It tries to force me to put on blinders (as if I can't see God in the world "out there"). It tries to force me to use only human laws and human reasoning (as if I can't see God uses universal laws, not human laws). It tries to force me to agree with the fairy tale imaginings of human minds that worship Materialism (and worship themselves). Then, when I balk at these unfair starting assumptions (because they're not based in scientific reality), I'll be blamed for bringing mouldy bread to the table instead of the pure goblet of "truth." It will all be my fault, according to the atheist. And because it's my fault, I'll deserve to be punished. This will make it okay for the atheist to deride me, deride God, and raise him/herself up on a pedestal of smug superiority.

All the while, he's assuming his interpretations of the laws of physics are "right." He's using his "right to be right" as a foundation, a starting place, and he intends to sit in his comfortable place of "rightness" and feast on the imperfections and inadequacies of humans who believe in God. Sure, it's schadenfreude disguised as the pure goblet of truth, but if the atheist can keep me from noticing that -- if he can keep me thinking it's all my fault that he's so miserable -- then can he enjoy a lasting banquet of guilt, shame, inadequacy, and unworthiness from those of us who buy into his Materialist fairy tale.

But, you know, it's not my fault.

It's not my fault that the atheist has consciously and willingly chosen to believe that the Materialist laws of cause and effect govern everything in the universe. It's not my fault that the atheist has chosen to deny that the laws of physics governing baryonic matter represent only a small fraction of the total number of laws of physics in the universe. (Baryonic matter, which makes up the atoms and molecules we think of as "real" while we're on Planet Earth, represents only about 4 to 5% of the total energy of the known universe.) It's not my fault that the atheist can't -- or won't -- see the complexity and weirdness and relationships that govern quantum interactions.

It's not my responsibility to bring to the atheist's table a "proof" based solely on Materialist laws of cause and effect.

It's especially not my responsibility that the atheist simply can't cope with the questions and complexities that arise from scale.

It isn't possible to talk about God without always bearing in mind the question of scale. God the Mother and God the Father are very, very big. They're also very, very smart. To ask anyone to describe God using only their own personal experiences and their own personal scientific knowledge is not fair, not justifiable, and not even a tiny bit humble. Each one of us can provide only a small piece of the overall portrait of God. Each small piece is important and valid, but no one piece (and no one person) can provide everything we hope to know. 

For those of us living as human beings on Planet Earth, we can't begin to get a sense of who God is unless we're willing to approach the question of God with scale in mind.

 

In April 2024, a total solar eclipse was visible from Nova Scotia, Canada. Although I safely watched the eclipse through my approved glasses, I used the camera on my phone to photograph some of the interesting light effects. If you look closely, you'll see the camera captured a large, bubble-shaped reflection (superimposed over the trees) with a tiny "moon-bitten crescent sun" hovering in the middle of the bubble. That's a reflection of what the eclipse looked like at the time I snapped the photo. Photo credit JAT 2024.

To get a true snapshot of who God really is, we'd have to take a poll of all living creatures -- both past and present -- on Planet Earth and then collate all our individual experiences and insights into a vast meta-study. It wouldn't be sufficient to poll only human beings. Human beings represent a small portion of God's children on Planet Earth, and human experiences are necessarily narrow in scope compared to the whole picture of God's relationship with Creation. Humans don't have all the answers.

Humans who want to know God and be in relationship with God have to get over their own human self-importance. They have to accept with humbleness and courage that about 95% of the laws of physics governing their lives are not straightforward and not predictable and not within their complete and utter control. (Have you met any atheists who aren't controlling Type A perfectionists? I haven't.)

You're only human, and the fact that you get to play with even 4–5% of the laws of physics while you're here is really quite something (when you think of the whole scale of Creation, that is).

But don't be thinkin' God is required to squeeze into that small little packet of baryonic reality (like the Genie in Aladdin's Lamp) so you can be spared the challenge of "thinking bigger." If you want to know God, you're going to have to get outside your comfort zone and you're going to have to accept that what you find out there won't be designed from a neat and tidy human point of view. 

As the X-files used to say, "The proof is out there."

Or maybe, more properly, in there -- where quantum reality lies.

God bless.

 

 

* Addendum September 11, 2026: Sadly, I fear this kind of courage would be lacking in today's polarized political climate. Along these lines, the current editorial trends of the National Post no longer align with my own centrist beliefs.

LSP9: The Cosmic Web of non-Materialism

Those who reject the idea of a loving, personal God because of the "irrational beliefs" of religion are often shocked to learn that all major world religions in the world today are founded on Materialist science.

Materialism is a belief system about the world -- a major root system -- that throws all its eggs into one basket: the Law of Cause and Effect. In the Materialist world view (whether it's the belief system of a classical physicist, such as Isaac Newton, or the belief system of a Christian theologian, such as Thomas Aquinas) the universe is understood to be built upon a series of unbreakable laws. Break one of these carefully documented laws and the consequences will be swift and harsh.

The philosophy of Karma, which underlies Buddhism and much of Hinduism, is a pure Materialist belief system. Within Christianity and Judaism, the belief in Covenant -- reliance on any sort of "revealed" contract between God and human beings -- is also a pure Materialist belief system.  You can dress up these Cause and Effect beliefs all you want (with Christian grace being a particularly successful form of tree decoration), but, in the end, what you have in all these cases is a philosophy that starts with the assumption that God is stupid.

God is not stupid. And God is not just a bunch of semi-conglomerated universal laws floating around as a big cloud of nothingness, waiting desperately for you -- frail human being that you are -- to figure out how to escape the Materialist laws of Planet Earth and return to your true place as a  . . . as a . . . no-self who is pure Mind. Or pure Truth. Or pure something, anyway, except for the one thing everyone agrees you won't be allowed to be once you're reunited with the Absolute Reality -- which is yourself.

Because you (and I say this facetiously, of course), you, who are a child of God, could not possibly be good enough for God. Because God is so stupid that God only brings inferior, corrupt souls into existence who must struggle and suffer and sin and err and be full of repentance and humility and worship before at last seeing that they themselves are "pure nothing" and only God "IS." So enjoy your suffering while you're here on Planet Earth, because at least you're "you" while you're here! Don't expect to be "you" once you're outta here, 'cause that's a belief system for the weak and stupid who haven't achieved enlightenment!

There's another way of looking at the universe, of course -- one that's much less depressing.

Let's start, for argument's sake, with the theory that God is really smart (in addition to being really loving). Let's start with the theory that God is probably operating at a speed of thought, love, and action that's on the same scale as Planck's Constant, which is rounded off at h=6.626 X 10-34 J.s (a very, very tiny number). And let's assume that God has also probably noticed that, hmmmm, ohhhh, that non-locality (instantaneous communication between two paired particles) is an operative, verifiable force in the universe. And that God realizes only 4 to 5% of the energy in the universe is the stuff we can easily see and touch and measure (i.e. "baryonic matter").  And that God was probably working within the "cosmic web" of dark matter reported this month long, long before we even noticed it was there. 

Is it too much to ask that we trust in the theory of a God who is much, much smarter than we are? Is it too much to believe that a God who lives in a non-Materialist universe probably operates according to non-Materialist principles of science?

As the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus reminds us, it's never a good idea to think you're smarter than God. "Daedalus and Icarus" by Anthony van Dyck, from around 1620, is on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

 

 

 

The lives we live as human beings on Planet Earth are only one small part of a very big picture. Let's start with the truth about non-Materialism as one part of the root system for the Tree of Peace we want to grow while we're here. Let's allow the science -- the very vastness of the science -- to show us more about who God really is.

It's in knowing more about who God really is that we grow closer to God. It doesn't matter to God that we can't understand all the science. God knows we have human limitations!  All that matters is that we give God some credit for their incredible brilliance and that we trust they know what they're doing!

Thanks be to our very smart and loving God!


For Further Reflection:

It can be a real struggle for us to let go of our human ideas about justice and punishment and revenge. But learning to see justice through a non-Materialist lens is an important pathway for learning more about God.

We often don't realize how much time we devote to questions of justice. But if you think about the issues that preoccupy you -- and upset you -- you'll see they frequently relate not just to morality but to justice. We wrestle with it constantly. We fill our newspapers and our religious sermons and our websites and our storybooks and our dinnertime conversations with debates about justice. When we believe the legal system has failed us, we turn ourselves into saviours and warriors of justice. When we believe God has failed us, we turn to other systems of belief, such as atheism or scientism or non-theistic philosophies, to justify our actions and reactions.

The authors of the sacred texts that guide all major world religions have always known this, so at the core of all religions you'll find a body of doctrines that speak authoritatively about justice -- how to decide what's right and what's wrong, how to punish the perpetrators of injustice. While these doctrines often look good on paper, it can often be much harder in real life to navigate the complexities of justice.

The Eastern theory of Karma, a theory which has attracted much interest in the West since philosophers reintroduced it here in the late 19th century, has taken the messy guesswork out of justice by preaching a Materialist doctrine of universal cause and effect. Such a doctrine satisfies the all-too-human desire to see people get their just deserts, if not now then in a future lifetime, when they no longer have access to any of the memories of the harm they created. What could be more delicious than knowing your greatest enemy will one day be punished and won't even know exactly why?

The Materialist model of cause-and-effect justice endorsed by countless human beings bears no resemblance to the understanding of justice held by God or God's angels.

If you asked your angels how they would describe justice, they would reply that justice is a process of learning how to use your own free will wisely (i.e. with love and forgiveness) and learning how to fix (or at least help fix) the mistakes you made before you learned how to use your own free will wisely. In other words, angelic justice is akin to what we humans call "personal responsibility."

In the case of someone like Dr. Alexander, who didn't ask to have a near death experience but was swept into one anyway, his angels would have conferred with God the Mother and God the Father about his life choices. Together they would have decided to show him he hadn't been using his free will wisely and could do better.

The last part -- "and could do better" -- is very important. To an angel, a person who's not trying to be his or her best self, who's not using his or her soul talents in the wisest way possible, who's not listening to his or her own soul, is perpetrating an injustice. So it's time for a learning experience, a chance for this person to take greater personal responsibility for his or her own choices.

But each person is unique. Each person has unique strengths and absences-of-strengths, so the definition of what you can do as a human (i.e. what you can take personal responsibility for) and what you can't do as a human (i.e. what you can't take personal responsibility for) is unique to you. This is what sets Divine justice apart from Materialist justice. Divine justice is based on who you really are as a soul.

Your angels will never ask you to do something you can't actually do. It may feel at times as if they've given you more than you can handle, but that's only because they have more faith in you than you do.

LSP7: God, Science, and Miracles

I'm pretty tired of reading in my theology texts that nobody can possibly know God so there's no point trying.

What these theologians and philosophers really mean is that nobody they know has successfully met with God by following the spiritual steps dictated by theologians of the past. They assume two things here: (1) the spiritual steps themselves are correct and (2) God can't be known directly by us no matter how hard we try. Too bad, so sad.

From the viewpoint of the scientific method, this approach (this methodology, if you will) falls well short of tenable. If the steps aren't working, then challenge them! Don't just stand there like a blubbering idiot and say you've followed all the steps but they're not working because you're flawed and full of sin. Challenge the steps themselves! Go back and examine the whole procedure with the keen, objective eye of a scientist whose experiment has failed again and again because he's overlooked a flaw in his starting assumptions. Don't assume your starting assumptions are right!

"Astronomy" by Luca Giordano, painted in the mid or late 17th century, not long after Galileo Galilei clashed with the Roman Catholic church about how we should understand the solar system. Galileo, building on the research of earlier scientists, dared to challenge the church's starting assumptions and paid a price for trusting that God is smarter about the laws of physics than any human being. This painting is on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

I can say this now with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but I still remember how hard it was to challenge lifelong assumptions. I have great empathy for anyone trying to do this. I know how painful it can be!  Nonetheless, it has to be done whether you're taking the "hard way" or the "easy way" on the Spiral Path that slowly wends its way towards full relationship with God. Your wanting to challenge old assumptions is a necessary beginning.

Being in relationship with God isn't as difficult as you've been led to believe. Basically, it's the same as being in a full, healthy, mature relationship with anybody who's important to you--your parents, your children, your best friends (though NOT your lover). To have a mature relationship with anyone (a relationship founded on mutual understanding, love, respect, and trust) you first have to be willing to know who the other person is. Who the other person really is. Not the myth of the other person. Or the lies told about him/her. Just the honest truth about who the other person is--his/her talents, strengths, absences of strength, sense of purpose, sense of humour, past history, sources of grief, and sources of infinite joy.

To truly know another person--including God the Mother and God the Father (who are two different people)--you can't simply make stuff up. You can't invent myths and lies about them to suit yourself. You have to listen to them. You have to quietly and respectfully listen to who they really are, to what they're saying directly to you.

Western Christian orthodoxy has tried to co-opt this idea by reverently talking about God's continuing self-revelation, but they've insisted on putting a huge wall around God, and have allowed through only a tiny trickle of truth about who God really is.

One thing I can tell you about God the Mother and God the Father is that both of them love science.  Just love it. They're both big-time science geeks.

Now, I'm not saying they only "do science" and nothing else, because this wouldn't be true. (They're both polymaths, in fact, with talents in every field you can imagine). But if you really want to get to know our blessed, beloved Mother and Father, you have to allow science and faith to be on the same page at the same time. You can't reject science as a valid path to knowing God.

This means you also can't reject the validity of non-Materialism, which is the study of science as it really is, not the study of science as you've been taught.

This is a complicated way of saying that you can be a highly educated person who loves science and still have a scientific basis to believe in miracles.

Really.


For Further Reflection:

How do you get to know someone you've never seen with your own eyes or heard with your own ears? Our first reaction is to say it's impossible. We can't do it. We shouldn't even waste our time trying.

But one of the best parts of being human is our constant need to reach out to know more about people we've never met but whose lives have shaped our own.

We do this every time we pick up a book. Chances are we've never met the author, never seen the author with our own eyes, never heard the author's actual voice. Yet, by the time we finish the book, we have a strong sense of who the author is as a person: his or her interests, talents, quirks, assumptions, prejudices, burning passions, and so on.

We do this every time we walk through a museum or an art gallery or a building with historical roots. We experience the creations of people we've never met, and through their creations we come to know something about their hearts and minds.

We do this every time we softly rock our newborn infants to sleep with gentle cooing and sweet lullabies. We feel the deep power of love, and for the first time we understand something unexpected about our own parents, and their parents before them. We realize that all the words we used before this perfect moment fell short because love isn't words. It's relationships.

Everything around you--everything you learn as a human being on Planet Earth--holds within it multiple layers of observation and communication and memory about who God is and how the universe unfolded. The more you pay attention to the world around you--the more you open your Heart to the feelings that move in earth and sky and water--the more you'll come to know the authors and artists and scientists and parents who are our extraordinary Mother and Father.