Breath of Vanity

"Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity."
What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun?

Angry about Israel?
Disturbed about the plight of a Palestinian?
Do you demand that Obama is evil?
Is Limbaugh pissing you off?

Have you a bed?
Is your belly full?
Does someone cherish you?
Do you yet breathe?

I read a letter from father to son, their children's children's children long ago turned to dust.  An Egyptian father urged his son to make something of his life, to do his duty, to bring honor to his family.

His worry and admonition so familiar, so far away.

Now, except some fragment of his scratching, they are both nameless, mostly forgotten.  Even the worms that ate their bones, dispersed amongst us all.

Photograph by Ryan Mckee

Some claim that if we know the secret symbols etched out on some rock or page, we can have eternal life, live forever in an ecstatic paradise.  All we have to do is believe.

Others claim the whole universe will fade out, in some entropic heat death at the end of time from a hot bright flash of nothing becoming something it will slowly all fade until something means nothing.


Looking up on a clear, starry night at a two dimensional view of a cosmos only grasped on the fringes of awareness, I see billions of galaxies each with billions of stars, long gone, pale photons emitted from some violent eon gone action, pushing upon my eyes.

What am I to them, these stars these photons?
What small significance would I, this little pattern of energy and matter, matter so much to them?

Then a plane passes in my direct view, just overhead, full of Fed Ex's bound for someones expectation of desire.
Boxes of hope.  Boxes of wants. Boxes of some scheme.
Busy expectations of a tomorrows arrival.
A reason to strive and reach and climb and achieve.
Dead trees of cubical enclosures with ink arranged on paper just so to let everyone know they exist.
Meaning created for meanings sake.


At my knee is a rose.  A beautiful pink explosion of life.  At my feet a quiet ant hill, still from its many lives exertions for food to procreate the next colony of being.  Within each ant cells process, divide, grow and pass on, full of molecules and quarks moving in a complex dance.

My grown daughter, far away, yet so close in space, puts down her head on dead birds remains covered by rearranged plant fiber and begins to snore.  I hope she knows peace.  A step son, unseen, unheard for many a year, goes about his day in a land on the other side of this tiny, revolving sphere unaware of my trivial existence.

In this moment I breathe.  I feel the oxygen and nitrogen, born in dead distant stars, rush past the hairs of my nose, giving my little pattern of existence one more brief moment.  I am content to have the token of
it's presence and I too fade to vain sleep.

Clay Dreams Dust

A pot
wanting a potter 
is not a potter 
wanting a pot.

We find self
seeing a pot 
wonder and wish
for a potter.

In the wishing, 
we dream 
feel joy
in clay's moment.

The knowing
assumes correlation
the dream
desires cause.

Our desire
controls mind
experience becomes
the dreaming.

Dreaming wishes
wishes dreaming;
circular thought's
temporal trap.

The pot is
The pot is not
The pot idea itself
A dream of what is

Mistaking dreams
for reality
the dreamer
stays trapped. 

Are We Listening?

The plants and animals
And stars and dirt 
And ocean and air 
And gravity and light 
And charge and spin 
And all the various 
Forms and flows 
Of all matter and energy 
Not yet even sensed 
Existing beyond capability 
To understand remotely
In one tiny little corner 
Of a single blue planet 
Circling an obscure star 
In a galaxy of billions
Shouts loudly. 

To listen
To only a single book 
And then cease hearing 
All the rest of creation 
Is to turn away 
From the awesome.

In God We Vote

In order to be elected to United States Congress, it is still necessary to affiliate oneself with one of the major publicly accepted religions.

Religious composition of the 113th Congress.

Our current crop of Representatives and Senators are still largely Protestant and Catholic with only a small 13% representing all other religions.

A full 97% of elected members self identify within the Judeo-Christian paradigm.

Although specifically ruled out in the U.S. Constitution as a requirement for any appointed or elected office, declaring a faith of some kind is widely known to be a litmus test for elect-ability by individual voters.

In early January of this year The Pew Forum On Religion & Public Life released its latest survey results of congressional members religious identifications.

This years batch, the 113th Congress, had three unique people one each declaring for the first time to be a Buddhist, Hindu and None.

Detail of protestant sects within Congress.

Protestants Highly Divided

Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopal and Methodists still make up the largest group of protestants in both houses.

Many smaller protestant groups such as Adventists, Pentecostals, Quakers, and Christian Scientists have a member or two each compromising the "other" group.  A significant number of Senate and House members refused to define which branch of protestants they belong to and remained "unspecified".



Party Affiliation Important

When comparing Democrats and Republicans religious affiliation, there is a startling difference in their composition.

Republicans proclaim themselves to be over two-thirds Protestant while many more Democrats identify as Jewish or Catholic.  Further those who do not identify as one of the large Judeo-Christian denominations fall almost exclusively in the Democratic party.


Long Term Trends

Using historical data from similar Congressional surveys, a long term trend away from Protestant faiths toward Catholic and Jewish adherents is small and slow, but clear.

The presidential election of 1961 was when the United States elected its first non-Protestant President in the Catholic John F. Kennedy.  Mitt Romney also may be a bell-weather for the small rise of the Mormon faith in U.S. public life, although their impact is still small in comparison to other major faiths.

For a detailed break-down on the religious affiliation of each member of Congress, The Pew Forum as a PDF file available for download  here.

Why God? (Part 3)

This is the last in a three part series considering the question "Why believe in God?" The earlier entries examined why we might want to consider thinking about God's existence and discussed both sides of the arguments for God's existence from the viewpoints of design and being. Here we will analyze the basics of the ideas behind the thesis of God from cause and from morality.   Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Both of these ideas about the existence of God have two counter arguments. This is what the logic of debate has discovered and not an attempt to bias the description of those arguments. Some cases are more complex than others and take longer to explain. Please do not let word count sway your mind, rather the ideas that are contained within the words.

Once more to be clear, I do not hope to change your mind, rather to help clarify why it is we believe what we believe.

From Cause

The first cause.

Pro: Everything that exists has a cause. Since causes can not go on infinitely backward, there must have been a first cause. 

The first cause is God. 

If there is a beginning, it must have begun from something, and that something is what we call God.

Creating oneself.

Con 1: Who created God? Does God require a God that created God? If God is never created then he must be infinite. If there is an infinite, then we do not need God. This argument does allow for an infinite God, but only if we are a part of him and therefore a part of God. It leads however to the paradox that if the universe is infinite, then the universe must be God. 

 This proof can only work if God is the universe and humans, snakes, trees and rocks are a part of the universe and therefore each a part of God.

Complicated, inter-connected causes.

Con 2: There are no single causes. Everything has always existed.  Everything exists all together at once. Many things must happen in order for a something to happen.

 The billiard ball only goes into the pocket if there is a billiard table, pockets, a player, a cue stick, and some action is performed. All of these are only partial list of the things necessary for the ball to go into the pocket.

Cause is an illusion of the human mind thinking it is separate from the universe. Actually human beings are a part of the universe and made of part of it that appear separate because of the configuration of our parts.

Since there is no single cause, there is no single God.

Permitted immorality?

From Morality

Pro: If there is no God, then everything is permissible. Some things are not permitted, they are immoral. 

That morality exists proves God must too. 

Morals are descriptions of what we ought to do. Morals are about commands we should follow. Commands can not exist with out a God. 

Morals come from God.

Cats eat birds too.

Con 1: It is a fact that cats eat mice. There are lots of cats that eat mice and they eat them whenever hunger or desire drives them to. There is no moral basis for cats to eat mice, they just do it because that is what cats are. 

Just because things are the way they are does not require a God. Things could be the way they are because they happened at random (see argument Con 2 for From Cause above). 

The cat's action of “eat to live” is description of what it ought to do. It is the command the cat follows. This command can exist with out the need for a God.

Lesser of two evils?

Con 2: Sometimes morality requires choice between two evils or two goods. Since not all choices are absolute no command really fits the definition of absolute morality. 

Some things work better than others sometimes but not all the time. Sometimes you have to kill other people to live. Sometimes its' wrong to kill people. 

Every command has a flaw to be found. There is no absolute morality, and therefore no absolute need for a God. Commands are morally ambivalent and require no God.

There you have the four basic arguments for and against God's existence. There are many dozens of sub-arguments extending from these basic four. I encourage you find them and read on if you would like to know more.

Wikipedia has a good overview.

For those who believe you can find more arguments supporting your position here.

A good summary of arguments from the disbelievers can be found here.

I will not pretend to be an authority, rather a questioner who explores. This is merely what I have found so far. The journey of understanding will continue long after me. Oh that I could stand on the shoulders of taller giants and know more.

Why God? (Part 1) - Why God? (Part 2)

Why God? (Part 2)

In the previous post, we outlined the reasons we might want to question the existence of God.  The post discussed arguments from authority and then listed four fundamental methods for God's existence: from design, from being, from cause, from morality.  Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

This post will explore the arguments from design and from being.

Each proof will be stated from the “Pro” case and the “Con” case. The Pro case will discuss the basic idea behind the argument. The Con case will describe why some find the case for God's existence to not hold up. Some cases are more complex than others and take longer to explain. Please do not let word count sway your mind, rather consider the ideas that are contained within the words.

Again, I do not hope to change your mind, rather to help us clarify why it is we believe what we believe.

Clocks un-cared for rust.

From Design

Pro: A clock is complex. A clock has an intricate mechanism. It could not be a result of mere chance, therefore it must be designed. 

The designer of all things must be God. Everything fits together so perfectly to create us and all that is. 

That we exists and that the universe exists shows God must also exist.

Randomly possible dice.

Con: That things can be random suggests things are not designed. Rolling a half dozen dice can have more than 46000 different outcomes. The dice landed one way or another at random. Because there is randomness no designer is required to have any particular result of our dice roll.

The universe is based on randomness at the quantum level. The universe may be very large, with many 'dice' in it, but the way it came out was random. While our existence is improbable, it is not impossible without a God. We are only lucky that it came out the way that it did. Given how big the universe is, it actually becomes probable that we would be here now. God is not required to have the universe be the way it is if the universe is all randomness.

From Being

God is perfect.

Pro: This thought is based on the idea that God is the perfect being. If God lacked existence he would not be perfect.

God is perfect so he must exist. The mere idea that we can imagine God and his perfection, means he must exist and be perfect. That we can imagine perfection at all requires there be a perfect being. 

This argument is based on reason alone. It needs no facts to prove it. 

Thoughts of purity, infinity, of absolute morality make them real. If these thoughts are real, then they must be God.

Alice in Wonderland.

Con: We can imagine things that are not real. Alice in Wonderland is not real. The idea of Alice is real, but she is not. Thus some do not think God is real just because we imagine him.

Can we not imagine something greater than God? 

Does God have a God? 

Did God create himself ? 

Did we create the idea of God?

The next post will explain the ideas behind cause and morality for proofs of the existence of God.

Why God? (Part 1) - Why God? (Part 3)

Why God? (Part 1)

Many of us believe in God. We are taught by our parents and culture that there is a supreme being who is the cause, designer, maker, and moral force for all of us. Rarely do we stop to consider on what basis we believe this is so.  Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

To ask the question “Why do we believe in God?” and many will answer from the power of authority “Because the good book told us to.” We may use other authorities like “God told us.” or “my Sunday school teacher said so”.

As a child, my dad said “Take out the garbage.”

"Take out the Garbage!"

Being curious by nature I innocently asked “Why?”

“Because I said so.” was his initial answer.

Being unsatisfied with an argument based purely on the power of his authority, I pressed on “But why do you say so?”

The intent never was to challenge his parental prerogative, rather to come to understand. Eventually he helped me realize that living in garbage was not good for my health, so taking the garbage away was a small effort in order to help myself. Knowing why we do something helps us to be motivated to do it better.

We grow up taking arguments from authority for granted.

Is the argument from authority sufficient for a mature, thinking person? Can we really stop with the use of authority as our basis for the belief in God?

 If a person in authority has made an error, then accepting their word is not enough. If a person in authority can not explain their reasons, then perhaps they are not an authority at all.

 By not exploring further, we may too make an error.

To me a part of faith is trying to understand why I believe what I do. Wisdom can grow from questioning one's self. A deeper understanding and appreciation of my faith merits its further consideration.

Ignorance, although it can be blissful, is never a virtue. With such an important question, we are called to do better, know more, to test ourselves and become stronger.

Getting closer to heaven.

I do not hope to change your mind, rather to help clarify why it is we believe what we believe. Many people may believe that one can not even ask the question about the existence of God. That the very question itself should not be argued. You may be one of those people. If so, you probably do not want to read further.

If you do not wish to challenge your belief and wish to only consider “because you were told so”, stop now. Read no more. If, however, you wish to understand yourself and your belief better, go forward, read on with an open mind.

There appear to be four basic arguments for the existence of God, from design, from being, from cause, and from morality. There have been many attempts to prove and refute these basic approaches.

These attempts have engaged more people that we can know. Their arguments for and against often vary with their culture and wisdom.

In the next two posts, I will try to summarize each of these arguments for the existence of God in simple modern terms, giving briefly an outline of the arguments for and against. May they test your faith and move you forward renewed.

Why God? (Part 2) - Why God? (Part 3)