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Thursday, May 17, 2012

God, Religion and All That

Which is more important, that you believe in God or that God believes in you?  Excluding atheists and most agnostics, I believe most people would say that the latter is more important.  I am neither an atheist nor an agnostic, but my concept of God, cultivated through years of, well, OK, I have no special credentials, is reasonably unconventional.  I'll lay it out for you, and you can tell me if it's unconventional or not.

I don't believe in the anthropomorphized God with the six-pack abs on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  I don't believe that God is a third party.  I do believe that God is the massive chaos that is our existence.  Note that I did't say that God created the massive chaos, but rather that God is the massive chaos.  Within that maelstrom of randomness lie possibilities.  Given the random chance that a vast array of possibilities interact at the right random moment, our universe might form.  Further, that haphazard occurrence might set in motion a series of seemingly disconnected stray events that lead to us.  That it took such an huge span of time and a complex evolutionary process speaks to the very randomness of it all.


As I see it, the magnificence of God is that within the swirling maelstrom of existence there are seemingly endless possibilities that, given the right combination of circumstances, could lead to virtually anything.  Of course my concept means that God can't and doesn't answer prayers or "care" about us or, really, anything else.  Thus we come to religion.


For as  long as higher functioning mammals have roamed the earth, they have been curious as to how they got here, why things happen and what can they do to control their destinies.  Early religions developed because they seemed to provide some answers.  Over time, tribal or family or clan leaders used religion as a tool to create civil societies and use the supposed power of deities for a wide variety of social purposes from creating health rules to establishing the dominance of some over others.  The more humans learned, the more complex and sophisticated their religious and societal structures became.


Modern religions are very regimented and organized indeed.  And yet a common refrain of religious leaders and adherents when something happens that seems to be inexplicable within their frameworks, is to say something to the effect of "We cannot know God's mind." Of course, they are right because God doesn't have a mind.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  Because they can.  It's not very soothing to the troubled hearts and minds of those afflicted, but it's true.  Heaven and hell?  Ridiculous.  God has nothing to do with religion.


So let's get to marriage.  Marriage is one of those societal institutions created to provide communal structure.  It have been pretty effective in doing that.  When religion was the pre-eminent vehicle of social organization, mating came under its purview and marriage was the result.  It was done in the context of religion because everything was done in the context of religion.  Civil governments merely recognized the supremacy of the religious order rather than create a parallel system.  It's worked pretty well for a long time, sort of.  The only problem was that in those early and, frankly, not so early societies, women were seen as chattel property of their families and could be bartered or sold into marriage.  Biblical marriage included polygamy and a whole bunch of other seemingly bizarre  arrangements.  Love was just not a factor.


In recent centuries, the concept of romantic love has entered the picture and screwed things up.  Some cultures, and you know who you are, still treat women as chattel.  I can't speak for other countries, but the United States has embraced the notion of romantic love.  In addition, the Constitutional prohibition of government establishment of religion has required the creation of a civil marriage system parallel to the religious system.  That civil alternative grants the right to religious authorities to act as agents of the state performing marriage rights in the religious system.


One of the effects of the civil marriage system has been the facilitation of marriage between partners of different religions.  There's been a lot of consternation over this among religious leaders and devout adherents.  We Jews, being a minority religion, have been slammed pretty hard.


In my salad days, I was dating a really terrific Catholic woman.  She had it all.  But I couldn't bring myself to marry  someone who wasn't Jewish.  She felt the same way, so we broke it off.  Fortunately, I met a terrific Jewish woman who had it all and then some, and we've been married for over thirty years.  My former girlfriend hasn't been so fortunate.  While I haven't actually spoken to her, a common friend has, and she never married.  When it comes to kids, I've found that the desire to have them date within the culture is trumped by getting to know the people they are dating and seeing how happy they make my progeny.  Still, given the fact that I am a secular Jew, entirely non-religious, I find it curious that this carries any weight in my consideration at all.  Turns out, it's not the religion, but the cultural roots, principles and ideals surrounding it that are important.


When it comes to same sex marriages, I have to say I don't care who marries who.  It's none of my business, and it's none of any government's business.  No one is telling any religious institution that it has to perform same sex marriage rituals.  In fact, one of the nice things about having a civil marriage path is that marriage can be religion free.  Those who oppose same sex marriage on religious grounds are intent on imposing their beliefs on others, and that is just un-American.  Of course there is Robin Williams' rationale for supporting same sex marriage.  He famously asked why gay people shouldn't be as miserable as the rest of us.


There is one question raised by a former student of mine on Facebook.  He asked if we should be free to marry whomever we want, what about polygamy?  I'm not talking about compelling twelve year olds to marry, but just in principle, why should we care?  If you are OK with same sex marriage, are you OK with polygamy?

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