Friday, November 12, 2004, 6:14pm
Friday, November 12, 2004, 6:14pm
Standing by the door of this evening train the new conductor seemed too annoyed to interrupt, so I took a chance hoping this really is the Worcester Express and that she’d be making a point of announcing the train before departure.
No such luck.
As late as 6:19pm – 14 minutes outbound – I did hear some conductor clicking the intercom like they do for a sound check. Beyond this there’ve been no on-board announcements.
In the darkness of an early eve those elements of the world that might stimulate my mind’s eye stand remote and lost in spotty street lighting and the failing glow of self-illuminated signage. Into this vacuum I will temporarily violate the crucible of the journal to relate an observation yesterday afternoon during my homeward walk along Pleasant Street. It concerns belief in God and what seems like the three most common positions people can take on this point.
Of course, I am aware of how I’m being deliberately imprecise – since I’ve only met a small fraction of all people who have ever lived and therefore can’t really be speaking for everyone. But with that caveat I’ll relate my notion anyway…
We might believe in God, choose to not believe, or choose to believe that we cannot know if god exists at all. Oddly, there is a similarity of faith at the extremes of all three propositions – a conviction in one case that God is fully present, another that he is fully non-existent, and the other that nothing can be known. In all these ways there is a belief system whether one wishes to admit this or not, and in reality all three are positions of conviction.
What about the opposite of such conviction?
Perception of reality most often takes place along a continuum. If there is conviction – albeit theism, atheism, or agnosticism – there is likely some opposite pole that balances conviction in the other direction. At the conviction end of the continuum it takes as much faith to fully believe in God as it does to fully disbelieve, and it even takes the same level of faith to believe that one cannot know either way for sure. All three mindsets are convinced, so at the other end of the continuum there must be those who have no conviction on the topic at all.
In this way I recognize a continuum based on one’s need for certainty on the topic of God at one end, and the lack of this need at the other end where the whole debate simply doesn’t matter.
At this ‘other end’ is where I find myself these days. Rather than an agnostic – as might seem to be the case – I simply see no point in resolving a point that can never be resolved. In other words, I see little reason to seek a concrete position about God because I sense that no concrete answer is possible and that faith as well as all other bridges to certainty are mere concoctions dealing with uncertainty itself.
I might not care either way if not for how humans burn each other at the stake over belief systems – both literally and figuratively. In these days of anger and fear I sense how the need for certainty is rooted at a far deeper level than mere debate, and at my peril by challenging any belief system I am actually undermining somebody’s need for an answer – any answer.
After my fifteen minute walk I arrived at our front door just in time to drive myself back to South Natick for Arthur’s group – putting an end to the topic for the time being. I realize how I’m leaping over my head into darkness and I’ll need to backtrack a bit before I venture here again.
With only hints of landmarks aboard this still moving train I ride through a truer darkness aboard a more urgent continuum, though as long as I realize when to leave I really don’t need to know anything more for the practical purposes of this commute. I only need what I need right now.
And somehow that notion sounds the same as my notions about God, but I don’t yet know why.
