God in the Waves

[Hagoth]

I'm reading Mike McHargue's book Finding God in the Waves.

Here's a summary and a few observations:

McHargue was a highly engaged Evangelical Southern Baptist who had the misfortune of loving science almost as much as he loved his church experience. The unexpected consequence was that he reached a tipping point in which science won and he had a cataclysmic faith crisis that left him in the atheist camp for a couple of years. But he didn't like being an atheist, he had loved his church experience and having God as a close friend. Long story short, he had a powerful spiritual experience one night on a beach that made him feel God's love again and gave him permission to pursue an understanding of God and scripture that was significantly different from his previous indoctrination.

McHargue's re-conversion still left him with the science problem. He ended up believing in a very different kind of God, more like Einstein's and Spinoza's God, except that he talks to this God like an old friend. He feels like he has a brain with one Christian hemisphere and one atheist hemisphere. He acknowledges that God might be an evolutionary/cultural construct but he believes it's one that makes people happier, so he advocates going with it even if you don't believe, to the degree that he urges you to pretend you believe in God, praying or meditating with that intent so that a "God object" can take form in your neural networks. I think what Mike is missing here is that other people in his position may not be able to, or have any desire to manufacture a God in their brain. He compares it to the Velveteen Rabbit coming to life because of the love of a child. I'm not sure that's a healthy reality for everyone.

As wacky as all of this sounds (plenty of eye rolling on my part) McHargue is pretty open about the problems with religion and he presents some good science in a very approachable way, both for and against religious claims. For instance, research on prayer has shown that praying for sick people has absolutely no effect on their recovery, UNLESS they know that a lot of people are praying for them, in which case the effect is actually detrimental to their recovery because it adds additional stress and performance anxiety.

I would recommend this book for two reasons. First, anyone who has experienced a faith crisis will really connect with a lot of things McHargue says, particularly regarding relationships with fellow fundamentalists. Second, he does a really good job of explaining the brain science behind faith, spiritual experiences, the measurable neurological differences in the brains of people who believe in a loving God vs. a vengeful God, and the concrete benefits of prayer/meditation (he says there's no difference).

Have you read this book or are you familiar with Mike's story? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

[Reuben]

Sounds like a vicar I know. Great guy. Came on a bit strong with the God talk last time we had coffee. But I would love it if my family could switch over to his congregation.

I can't create a god for myself to worship. In the back of my mind, I would always be aware that I totally made it up.

I get some mileage imagining my brain split into two parts, though: the rider (me) and the elephant (what I used to call God, Satan, or intuition, depending on what it was doing). That old elephant is very smart but needs conscious guidance. Sometimes I ask it questions and it tells me things I hadn't realized (consciously). Sometimes I imagine patting it on the neck to calm it down. I have a much better relationship with it than I ever had with God, and I find it suits me better.

[Newme]

I haven’t read it, but it sounds interesting.

Something you wrote reminded me... Carl Jung suggested that belief in an afterlife is psychologically hygienic - like trusting in the house you live in to not collapse makes living well more possible than if fear of the alternative gripped you.

[moksha]

I like the idea of the universe having a loving and beneficent higher power. It feels comforting.

When people are hurting, religious ideas can provide solace. When religious people act in concert they can be helpful to one another with altruistic actions. Such actions are praiseworthy and should be encouraged.

Sometimes religion can be abusive and harmful. Give me a God armed with nothing more powerful than a Jell-O whip.

[Hagoth]

I like the idea of the universe having a loving and beneficent higher power. It feels comforting.

When people are hurting, religious ideas can provide solace. When religious people act in concert they can be helpful to one another with altruistic actions. Such actions are praiseworthy and should be encouraged.

Sometimes religion can be abusive and harmful. Give me a God armed with nothing more powerful than a Jell-O whip.

The kingdom of heaven is within you! Or so I've been told.

[Palerider]

Saw this heading at a quick glance and thought it said:

"God is into wives."

Oh great, more plural marriage stuff...

That's what happens when you get old....

[MalcolmVillager]

I really like Mike and his podcasts. I listened to the book on audible. I enjoyed it and at times yearn for a similar testimony of God. It is wishful thinking. Mormons call that hope/faith. The only evidences we seem to really have of God seem to be confirmation bias at best.

That said, I still live in a very Mormon and Christian world so having some sense of possible god is interesting to me, even though my brain doesnt buy it.

I get the feels at times. Maybe there is something there. Pantheism is the closest I can come to right now. I think Richard Dawkins said something about how it is just atheism with false hope or rebranding or something like that.

Either way, if there is a God, I just dont think it is anything all knowing, powerful, or present. If it is, it certainly doesnt choose to be for humanity today. So effectively God is silent, missing, not powerful, not intervening, etc... so may as well not exist. By the time the theist limit God with all the benevolence yet allowing free will, justice/mercy balancing, etc... I just dont see how it is God anymore.

[Hagoth]

I get the feels at times. Maybe there is something there. Pantheism is the closest I can come to right now. I think Richard Dawkins said something about how it is just atheism with false hope or rebranding or something like that.

Either way, if there is a God, I just dont think it is anything all knowing, powerful, or present. If it is, it certainly doesnt choose to be for humanity today. So effectively God is silent, missing, not powerful, not intervening, etc... so may as well not exist. By the time the theist limit God with all the benevolence yet allowing free will, justice/mercy balancing, etc... I just dont see how it is God anymore.

I think Pantheism is a good option. That's pretty much where I am. Not that there is a Cosmic Supervisor pulling the levers and pushing the buttons, but that the reality of nature might be greater than the sum of the parts. I know I have said this many times, but I think it's just as wonderful to imagine a universe that organizes itself in a way that produces self-contemplative minds an as to imagine a universe that is the intentional product of a single architect. The theist pushback, of course, is that Pantheism doesn't have a heaven. I totally get where Dawkins is coming from but he might consider that pantheism is Atheism-Plus; the rejection of specific god(s) but an open-mindedness that there is something more than we can know. Certainty is the thing that I dislike most about religion, so I why should I demand certainty from myself about not-religion?

[Corsair]

Saw this heading at a quick glance and thought it said:

"God is into wives."

Oh great, more plural marriage stuff...

That's what happens when you get old....

You're not old, you just will not put up with the baloney that gets served weekly in Gospel Doctrine class. If you were a faithful Mormon before 1890 you would totally believe that God is into wives.