Faithfulness to the “Inner Spirit”
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A SEMI-QUAKER TAKE ON GOD/DESS-NESS
I have great difficulty believing in an omniscient, all-caring “God” who attends to everything every single human being does every day throughout their lives.
For one thing, we all see so many bad things happening to good people — bad things that have no discernable explanation. There appears to be no rhyme or reason for the pain inevitably suffered, both by the the victims of the tragedy and by observers. It is always claimed either that “God” did the good stuff, but either we alone are responsible for the bad; or God has God’s reasons, which only God will ever know.
We’re constantly told that God’s purpose for us is inscrutable. Impossible to know. But it’s there. It’s just not our place to know, at least at the moment. Though we hope we may find out eventually, it is suggested that we will not, and advised not to seek the answer.
I am a doubter. Trained in skepticism as far back as infancy. Skepticism in my family was always the starting point in most discussions.
So everything that happens has to make sense to me, one way or another.
There has to be something resembling a discernible explanation for an event we do not explicitly cause ourselves. We are told that believers accept unquestioningly the idea God is perfect: perfectly rational and, of course, perfectly omniscient.
So I guess I sound like an atheist.
I have to admit I have been so at times. But somehow, multiple life experiences have taught me to be skeptical also of atheism, particularly those confidently absolute assertions about God’s utter absence from our world and universe(s).
I’m not skeptical about atheism, however, in the way that evangelical Christians are skeptical about atheism. No, actually, I misspeak here. They are not SKEPTICAL of atheism; they believe without a single doubt that atheism is 100% false. Period. No questioning of that assertion allowed.
