What I Believe

This is a continuation of three previous posts: What is God? The Mormon Version, Seeds of Doubt, and The Roles of Faith and Science.

This all started out with someone on another forum asking what we believe now that we've left Mormonism. I posted a short answer which but as I started to post it here I realized that it really didn't make a lot of sense without some context about my original beliefs and how they have evolved to reach the point where I am now.

If you believe in an omnipotent, interventionist God then you open a whole can of worms and God becomes very capricious, helping the unworthy while letting the worthy suffer. If he does intervene it is in a manner so inexplicable to me as to be useless to explain either good or evil. I don't see any magic recipe like that promised by Mormonism where we can bind God to bless us if we keep his laws. I just see too many instances where it doesn't work out. Either that or you are reduced to calling bad things trials when they happen to good people and punishment when they happen to bad people. It's not a terribly useful world view especially when no one is totally good or bad because there is no way to disprove it and it provides no predictive power.

It has always made more sense for me to believe that God set things in motion and then lets them play out according to natural laws. He created the laws and then we are stuck living with the consequences and the best we can do is to act in a way to make the world as good of a place as possible. If we want it better then we have to put in the effort. So I guess I've never put much stock in a interventionist God.

Now, I guess I mostly consider myself an atheist. If God exists I don't believe we can prove it because I don't think he interferes. And I frankly don't find magical thinking terribly useful in my personal life. To me God is the mysteries. He's the source of the universe. He defined the laws. He's order. He's the creative force.

To me Satan is the destroyer. He's the source of disorder. He's the perfect foil for God.

And I think we have the seeds of both natures in each of us. At our best we can create and organize and bring great beauty into the world. At our worst we are capable of incredible cruelty and destruction and ugliness. As Jesus said, "You are all gods."

But in the end, both are just a way to say, "I don't know." When I can't explain it and it looks like it simply can't be explained, I guess that is where God and Satan reside in my belief system. They are symbols for causes that are beyond my understanding.

I really don't pray, but I find myself hoping that ultimately good will prevail or at least will balance out evil. I find myself reaching out and trying to tap into the godly aspect of my nature and battling the evil part.

Rather than define myself as what I am not, a believer in God, I prefer to define myself as what I am, a believer in reason and evidence, a rationalist or an enlightened man.

How's that for an ambiguous answer? I'm truly not sure if any of that made any sense but it's my first attempt to express ideas that have been bouncing around in my head since I left the church.

It makes more sense for me to believe that God set things in motion and then lets them play out according to natural laws. He created the laws and then we are stuck living with the consequences and the best we can do is to act in a way to make the world as good of a place as possible. If we want it better then we have to put in the effort.

So, I guess I mostly consider myself an atheist. If God exists I don't believe we can prove it because I don't think he interferes. To me God is the mysteries. He's the source of the universe. He defined the laws. He's order. He's the creative force.

To me Satan is the destroyer. He's the source of disorder. He's the perfect foil for God.

And I think we have the seeds of both natures in each of us. At our best we can create and organize and bring great beauty into the world. At our worst we are capable of incredible cruelty and destruction and ugliness. As Jesus said, "You are all gods."

But in the end, both are just a way to say, "I don't know." When I can't explain it and it looks like it simply can't be explained, I guess that is where God and Satan reside in my belief system. They are symbols for causes that are beyond my understanding.

I really don't pray, but I find myself hoping that ultimately good will prevail or at least will balance out evil. I find myself reaching out and trying to tap into the godly aspect of my nature and battling the evil part.

Rather than define myself as what I am not, a believer in God, I prefer to define myself as what I am, a believer in reason and evidence, a rationalist or an enlightened man.

How's that for an ambiguous answer? I'm truly not sure if any of that made any sense but it's my first attempt to express ideas that have been bouncing around in my head since I left the church.