The Loss of God and Sense of Regret
In her book, “The Nones Are Alright; A New Generation of Believers, Seekers and Those in Between,” Kaya Oakes sums up nicely the plight of young people who are leaving God and religion behind.
They often do so “with a sense of regret,” she writes. “Instead of becoming confirmed non-believers, they live in a space of permanent questioning.”
She quotes a 27-year old man whom she interviewed about his inability to believe in God.
“I really want to,” he said. “But there’s nothing that certainly states, ‘Yes this is fact,’ so I’m constantly struggling.”
Oakes, author of four books, including “Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church,” was among those who gave up on God and religion before returning to her faith. She teaches writing at the University of California at Berkeley.
More Cerebral Than Emotional
In these blogs I tend to be more cerebral than emotional but I’m sure that most people – no matter how intellectual we may believe we are – make most of our decisions on emotion, or at least a mix of the two. So I’m not sure that providing rational arguments necessarily changes anyone’s mind – including the 27-year-old interviewee.
But in searching for images to illustrate a previous blog post, I came across this poster in Google Images: “I don’t need God to explain the world to me.”
All I can say is, “I don’t, either. Science does that nicely.” And if the young man is searching for God the magician, I believe he’s barking up the wrong tree.
I believe many people who have intellectual doubts about God set up a false dichotomy between belief and scientific evidence. Our education system – which for better or worse ignores the question of God – accustoms us to value only such evidence.t’s true, God is not needed to explain how the universe works, the makeup of matter, the workings of the human genome, the intricacies of the cell, the functions of the human psyche or the complexities of higher mathematics.
The God in whom I believe expects us to use our brains to explore those areas and solve problems, although I acknowledge that in earlier times, God was used to explain what we couldn’t.
But if like me, you need to find meaning in the universe, if you mean to discover something of the hidden world, the world behind the “world,” if you believe there’s a reason for the historical and universal belief in a “higher power,” if you trust the wisdom of generations of believers who preceded you, if you can’t otherwise explain the universal acknowledgement of right and wrong, if you have a feeling “in your gut” that God exists, you are wise to continue your search for God.
True, you may go about your daily business without giving God a thought. You don’t think about breathing or your metabolism, either, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re essential to your life.
It’s easy, of course, to understand the necessity of breathing and metabolism, but God? Honestly, do I need him/her?
I can only speak for myself, but I know that billions of others, living or not, had similar good reasons for believing. God provides meaning; that is, with God as my father/mother – making all other humans my brothers and sisters – I know my place in the universe, that I’m one of billions of his/her creations loved by him/her. My faith helps me see all things more clearly and have confidence that ultimately, all is as it should be. Despite doubt, occasional lack of trust in God and intermittent anxiety, I believe God embraces me and won’t let go.
Plenty of Reasons to Believe
Is this rational? Yes, because though I can’t prove God’s existence through scientific methods, there are plenty of reasons to believe. We know, after all, not only from scientific evidence, but from non-scientific pursuits like music, art, literature, history, nature and relationships.
That doesn’t mean that I have everything figured out. Many of us can relate to Oakes, who writes, “Although I may be a believer, in many ways I’m still figuring out what I believe and why I believe it. That shrugging confusion, and a willingness to admit to it, makes faith less smug and more relatable to those on the outside.”
It’s also more honest. No matter how firm our faith, we are all still people who seek God because that’s what faith means. Believers can never be smug. That would mean that we lack or have lost the awe we should feel about our beliefs, that we have grown so accustomed to them that they now seem ordinary. The reason many people don’t believe, after all, is that so much of our faith is “unbelievable.”
Finally, like the young man Oakes interviewed, we should never stop questioning. It’s an important part of faith.
