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Believing in the Same God
February 7, 2010
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Colonel Robert Ingersoll, the famed American infidel of the late 19th century, would travel far and wide to speak about his philosophy, which was “to devote [himself to]...the absolute enfranchisement of the human mind.” He was considered to be the greatest orator of his day and had many admirers, such as socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs [who, by the way, was from Indiana], famed lawyer, Clarence Darrow and the poet Walt Whitman. But, of course, he had his enemies, especially clergymen who felt threatened by Ingersoll’s fiery rhetoric and fierce logic. It is interesting to note, that he made something like $100,000 a year in the later part of the 1800s, an amazing fee for just speaking one’s mind, especially considering that in those days a coal miner made something like $50 a month.
One time as he was traveling to one of his speaking engagements, Ingersoll encountered a railroad conductor who did not recognize him. At one point in their pleasant conversation, the conductor asked Ingersoll what was his occupation. Ingersoll explained that he was a public speaker who spoke about philosophy and religion, to which the conductor asked what was his religion. Ingersoll said, “Why I am an agnostic.” The conductor had never heard of that religion and asked Ingersoll to explain it. Well, the Colonel attempted to do just that but it was obvious that he wasn’t getting through. Finally, the conductor gently tapped him on the arm and said, “That’s all right, my friend. We all believe in the same God, don’t we?” Now, Robert Ingersoll reflects my thinking in his commitment to the free mind and in his concern about the dangers of orthodox religion. But I find that there is something quite touching and meaningful in the conductor’s words here: “We all believe in the same God; don’t we?” He was obviously reaching out to Ingersoll in attempt to say something comforting and humane – something like “We are in the same boat, aren’t we?” For all he knew, Agnosticism could have been a special sect of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoasterism, Jainism or some other religion, which to him was unknown and strange. But that didn’t faze him; instead, he fearlessly asserted that we believe in the same God. We all are brothers and sisters, he seemed to be saying. But is it possible that we all could believe in the same God. Atheists might have a hard time with that idea. And certainly, Pat Robertson would recoil at the notion that some liberal clergywoman or a Muslim might be praying to the same God he is. One time I was lecturing to a class about Unitarian Universalism at a fundamentalist Christian College called Bible Institute of Los Angeles or BIOLA. I thought my task was to speak about the history and principles of our religion, which I did. But after the my presentation, it became clear that these students were not interested in our history but more about what I believed about certain issues such as the nature of Jesus, virgin birth and, most importantly, the existence of God. I said: “First of all, I can not speak for all Unitarian Universalists since we believe that each person has his or her own truth about God and the other important issues of life. We honor and encourage people’s ability to think for themselves. But as for myself, I have some experiences where I felt guided by something that cannot be explained that you might call Divine Purpose or God. But I believe no human being knows God, but rather can only sense the mystery and wonder of some divine presence or purpose. When one claims to know and speak for God, the Eternal, the Absolute, then I say he or she is both foolish and arrogant. To me it is like counting to infinity; it can’t be done.” “Also,” I continued, “I do not believe in a Messiah. For even if I did believe in the physical resurrection of a man – which I don’t – I believe that we are all responsible for our own sins and some man, though he be a gifted spiritual teacher, dying and coming back to life some 2,000 years ago will not change that.” Well, as you can imagine, the students were, how should I say, rather stimulated by my ideas. A number came up to me after my talk to challenge me. One young man seemed especially insistent that I recognize my own arrogance in the claim people cannot know God or that there is no Messiah. “How do you know that I don’t know God?” he demanded with an intent stare of his sharp blue eyes from under his long blond hair. This young man reminded me of another young man I had known who got addicted to drugs in the 60s and 70s and found that drugs destroyed his life. He then found Jesus as his salvation out of the drug life. I thought to myself, perhaps unfairly, that this man may have been one of those who were able to kick the drug habit by replacing it with an equally powerful habit. I could see that he was pretty upset and took pity on him. I then quietly said, “You could be right. Who knows? Perhaps, it is arrogant of me to deny your belief that you know God.” I am pragmatic when it comes to religion. I believe that if your religion makes you kinder than me, than your religion is better than mine. In the case of the young man with the long, blond hair, I thought he needed to believe so that he could make it through the day. I would not want to take away that which made his life tolerable. Plus, in my heart of hearts, I know that I cannot know for certain the issue of whether God exists or not. It is, after all, a belief, not knowledge. What I do know is my thoughts and experiences. I can safely say that that young man and I have had very different experiences and notions about life. The 19th Century English Unitarian minister, James Martineau once said that God is Divine Mind. I can relate to that. The mind is limitless compared to reality and the resources of this earth. Studying math brings out a sense of a limitless divinity for me. Math often comes out of intuition and inspiration rather than reason. [I know that is hard for some of you who call yourselves “math phobic” to believe that.] Take the notion of “2”, for example. “2” is an abstraction; it only exists the minds of human beings. There are no two of anything in nature. Even if I could do the impossible and find two objects exactly the same, atomically, they would still be in different places and times. And when we connect “twoness” to a measurement like a meter, say, that is another abstraction arbitrarily created by the human mind. And yet, the idea of math works, indeed, it had created inexhaustible wonder. Another example of the limitlessness of the mind comes from radio comedian Stan Freiburg. He pointed to the advantages of radio over television in that one can find in radio infinite playground in which to create lovely, scary, and often bizarre images. He gives an example of draining the Atlantic Ocean by making a draining sound effect [glug, glug, glug] and then fills it full of whipped cream [whooosh]. The infinite possibilities of the mind prove for me the existence of divinity, if we could only see. I don’t know what to make of the concept of God, to tell you the truth. Once, as a teenager, a concept of God came to me that was similar to one that St. Thomas Aquinas posited. I thought then that existence is something and that it had to come from something, not from nothing. Thus, there needed to be something from which we were creator. Thus, there needed to be a creator. Aquinas argued that there must be a necessary and efficient cause that everyone understands is God, because otherwise there would be just infinite chain of being, all links being intermediary. We might explain a given happening by referring to its cause, but then we could explain that cause as an effect of another cause, etc. It would be endless and the explanation would be incomplete until we get to first cause, which is God. Aquinas also pointed to the existence of goodness in the world and to the idea that all things have a goal or purpose in life, including inanimate objects, which must be seen as proof of God’s existence. All this is interesting, intriguing, but it certainly is not the stuff of spiritual devotion and frankly I have come to believe that is not really all that important. When I was attending Starr King School for the Ministry many years ago, I was challenged to examine my devotion, or lack of it, by a friend and fellow seminarian. His name was Doug Cunningham who is now a Methodist minister. Doug was one person I thought might represent the ideal of a religious leader. If there were ever a Jesus alive today here on earth, Doug would be he. He showed both compassion for the downtrodden and an outrage at injustice in the world. But more than that, he was a terribly kind fellow who made me feel comfortable with myself, at times in my life, when few could. There are two incidents that helped me to see Doug as someone special. The first concerned a protest march against the University of California in Berkeley because of their research and development of nuclear weapons, which, by the way, is still a serious problem. I marched with, among others, Jesuit priest, Dan Berrigan and Daniel Ellsberg, co-author of The Pentagon Papers. But when the time came for those to put themselves in harm’s way and be arrested, only a few did so. I discovered that Doug was among those few. I was surprised. I did not even know he was in our march. Up until that time, I thought of Doug as just being a nice guy, a compassionate counselor, a good friend. But now, I saw him as a man of courage. The other incident came some months later, about a month or two before we were to graduate from seminary. Doug liked seeking out the homeless people in Berkeley. He would invite me on his excursions. I remember that we took a homeless man to a restaurant for a meal and conversation. We had a great conversation as the homeless talked about Greek mythology and how it can apply to our understanding of our lives today. He was like another incarnation of Joseph Campbell. He was a man of intelligence and wisdom, far more than most of the political pundits and religious hucksters we see on television today. By the way, I have learned from a policeman that some of the homeless in Berkeley choose to be homeless, that many were college educated and have rejected the trappings and values of modern society. But what truly amazed me about this incident is that Doug decided to take the man to his little dormitory room to give them shelter and to feed and care for him. In time, the president of Doug’s school, the Pacific School of Religion, called him into his office to explain that what he was doing was against school policy. Doug argued that being a Christian meant caring for the downtrodden but to no avail. And Doug then made a decision that I doubt any of us here would make. He decided to move out of his dorm room and become a homeless man himself. Now, admittedly, it was in late spring, and for only a month, and this was Berkeley after all, not Glacier Park in Montana. But still, I know of very few people who would do such a thing freely, including myself. One time, I was talking to Doug about my life and related the story of how my father drove from my hometown in Chillicothe, Ohio to near my apartment in Columbus and there he took his life. I was left to deal with the situation, talking to the police, calling relatives, etc. Doug listened intensely to my story and finally asked me, “Harold, how did this experience of your father’s suicide affect your relationship to God? Were you angry with God?” Well, that stopped me. I thought about it for some time. I really liked and respected Doug and his comments had a special significance for me. But in the end, I realized that I had no concept of God to be angry with. So I decided to go look for God and began by taking a course – about atheism taught by a Jesuit priest named Michael Buckley. I had to interview with Michael to get into the course. That went well and he accepted me. After the first class and after reading some of the material, I realized that I was not going to find God in this way. Reading piles of books and articles both pro and con about Atheism merely added to the confusion. I knew that if I were to believe in God, it would come only from my own experience. I found out later that Michael had interviewed Doug for the Atheism course and rejected him. I thought to myself, what if Jesus came back to life. Would he too be rejected from taking this course? And so I dropped the course. Proving the existence or non-existence of God was not my need. Finding some peace of mind and kindness in the world was. It was not Doug’s belief in God that was important to me, it was his kindness and courage that moved me, that made me want to be more like him. Sigmund Freud theorized that religions were created because of human beings’ basic insecurity. We are faced with many dangers, trials and tribulations and thus we seek to find that behind the hostility of the real world a benevolent intention. I would put a different emphasis on that notion by saying that our religion is not only a response to our insecurity; it comes out of our insecurity. It is because of our vulnerability that we find meaning and significance in our lives. I have seen so often people who have been confronted with difficulty and tragedy, such as, loss of a loved one, a job, or health and it is then that they find something truly meaningful in their lives. If I were forced to create a label for my religion, I would say my religion is humility. The word comes from the Latin word “humus” which means earth and gives us the word “human.” Thus, we are “earth beings” or “earth walkers.” Thus, one with humility is one who is grounded, aware of his or her limitations as well as ability to do marvelous things. In my experience, divinity happens when we “earth walkers” can acknowledge our humility and our vulnerability. Barry Stevens, in the book, Person to Person: The Problem of Being Human which she wrote with Carl Rogers among others, tells a story about the time when she lived in Honolulu, Hawaii shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She tells how people felt so afraid because they were vulnerable to another attack and destruction. Now, I ask, how would you do you think and feel in such a situation? What would you do? Take a moment to imagine yourself in this time, in Hawaii, after the bombing when you thought you very well would be destroyed with your neighbors. Barry Stevens describes her experience this way: Everywhere I went, the people – Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, Portuguese, haole (white people) – seemed to be walking around with halos over their heads that they did know were there. “Wouldn’t you like this?” (as though to say, “I have too much”) “Isn’t there something that I can do for you?” The gentle asking, truly meant, but at the same time without insistence.She then tells a story of being in a Japanese grocery store where she and the owner, Mr. Yoshimoto, have a pleasant talk with other patrons of the store, mostly Japanese. There is much laughter but one of the Japanese does not laugh and everyone understands that the man’s son who was called to Pearl Harbor. They knew what he was thinking. His son may have been shot by American soldiers who did not recognize him as American citizen, only Japanese. Barry Stevens said then, “...what this man felt about his son was felt and known by all of us. It can’t be described. But how would you feel? That was our knowing, as we stood unmoving in the utter silence. Even my six-year-old son was still.” That silence was the sign of something I might call Divine Purpose, a creation of a community. Certainly, people were afraid. Barry Stevens said she hated the war, that she might like to be in an igloo in Alaska, if only she were away from war. “And yet,” she said, “at the same time, there was all this living for which I had always longed – the beautiful feeling of people everywhere, the sharing, the knowing, the responsiveness, the free willingness and non-possessiveness of things and other people.” That feeling and that sense of community would change, of course. The sad thing was that once the threat was removed, people began to pretend that they were not afraid and reverted back to what may be called normal nasty human behavior: selfish, greedy and unfeeling.
But for a moment, those vulnerable people had a touch of divinity because of their vulnerability and because of their authentic response to it. It is moments like these when people can be honest about their fears and respond to the best that is in them that I might think there is something to this divinity stuff. At such moments, I just might believe that we all could believe in the same God. |
| Sermon Copyright © 2010 Harold W. Beu |
