Big Questions: Who or What is God?

February 5

Unitarian Universalists of Coastal Georgia (Brunswick)

From 2001 to 2005, I was taking classes at Meadville Lombard Theological Seminary while completing my final years at Georgia Southern

 before retiring and beginning ministry.  

During this time, I would often preach sermons at the UU Fellowship of Statesboro and other area UU churches as well. 

Almost 20 years ago, on February 9, 2003, I shared in Statesboro a sermon entitled, “Can you say GOD?” 

It was a sermon in which I felt called to reclaim some religious language –

and I actually started on those sermons

before I heard that Bill Sinkford shared that plea with UUA. 

Soon after that, I preached the sermon to this congregation – which was then a small group of UUs that met at the Old Post Office at St. Simons.

The congregation had a practice at that time of the speaker answering questions immediately after the sermon. 

So, after I completed the sermon, “Can you say God?”

 I asked if there were any questions. 

Is Rappaport, a humanist curmudgeon of sorts, said:

 “I don’t have a question – but I have a comment.”  I braced myself and said, - “Well, go ahead Is.”  And he responded, “That was a god-damn good sermon.” 

So Is demonstrated that he could say God.  Not exactly what I had in mind, but nonetheless, the word was lifted up.

 

Since that time, our UU congregations have become more tolerant of some

 “God talk” being used by folks who find that meaningful –

and we can even sing the words – if not asked to do so every Sunday. 

As our language has evolved to be more inclusive, our congregations have evolved somewhat as well.

So here I am today in my sermon series on Big Questions asking,

“Who or What is God?”

And I asked the supreme knower of all known, Wikipedia. 

Here is the first part of that response:

In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith.^[1] God is typically conceived as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, as well as having an eternal and necessary existence. God is often thought to be incorporeal, evoking transcendence or immanence. (end quote)

There have been many efforts to PROVE the existence of God – and we had to learn about these proofs in seminary.  I mean some of these dudes had long formulas and charts and graphs with lots of interesting new words for me to learn.  But I saw no proof – just speculation. 

I remain unconvinced that God can be proved. 

Perhaps explained from a particular viewpoint, but not proven.

God is a word – derived from the Old English – which was taken from a German word – and this word when capitalized is used to translate a host of other words that may be in scripture or other writings to describe that ultimate deity that many believed in and still do.  Allah is the Arabic word for this same being. 

And there are many other names.

But all of that does not matter to UUs – I think – as much as how we ourselves might conceive of and use the word.  All words are tools to convey meaning. 

Do we use this word, personally, and if so – what meaning to we attribute to it?

I sent out a survey on Facebook and via constant contact asking you to share from your own perspective the response to the question “Who or What is God?”

As I began revising this sermon to share with this congregation, I had 31 responses.  Four folks said they don’t really think about this or dwell on this. 

And two of you had such traumatic experiences in other church settings with how this word was used against your very being, that you find it triggering. 

I hope that this congregation is a place of healing for you.

Several people used the word LOVE in their response.  God is love.  Several referred to nature or energy. Others – that awareness of connection and awe! Two used the word force or life force.  A couple of you quoted AA’s words of a “faith in a power greater than ourselves.”  One referred to goodness or good works being the exemplification of God.  A couple of you gave more specific definitions tied to your own theology – example Buddhism or Wican.  Here is a lovely quote from one who appears to practice an earth centered spirituality. 

God is a word to which we ascribe our own, individualized meanings. For me, he is the warmth of the sun on my face in the morning. She is every heartbeat and the innate, harmonious connection between all living beings. God is neither person, nor force of nature, but simply the life I recognize in myself, in others, and in the world around us. Sometimes it is helpful to give god a face (or a few!) for personalized comfort, peace, or strength. For me, I choose to see the faces of Cernunnos, Hecate, Selene, Persephone, or Rhiannon when I need a personalized god to speak with. Most days, the sun, the moon, the wind, the ocean, the trees, the birds, rain, the focused breath in my lungs, and the feeling of grass beneath my feet are enough to remember that I am loved, safe, cherished, and wanted. I recognize that the gods I choose to connect with are not what others may choose. As long as our choices bring us closer to each other, promote healing and love rather than harm, and give us peace and strength to endure hardships, then we have made the right choice for ourselves.

Oh Yes!

One person quoted me – and I was quoting Forest Church saying God was “That which is greater than us but is in us.”  And one used Paul Tillich’s definition that God is the Ground of being.  None used the words described by Wikipedia for the all supreme being, creator, who is omni – everything.

One sent this poem as a response.

The breath I take fills with air

Yet I cannot see it

Unless the bitter cold of Winter shows it

My love inside I feel must be outwardly shown to manifest

The wind in the fresh green leaves of the trees, the birds that sing, the foam between my toes at the Ocean shore

God is Earth, the creatures the marvels . God is in me .

God is creation of the cycle of life

I do not with my limited eyes see God.

I feel God

That loving warmth is my joy.

 

I like that!  Some say God is a verb.  But perhaps God is a feeling.  In any case, for this poet, it’s inspirational.

 

As a minister, I attempt to use words with others – especially in pastoral care – as tools to inspire and give comfort.  And, as a Unitarian Universalist pastor, that means sometimes using words that I may not use in my own spiritual practices.

 I can translate – and I often ask you to do the same when we are singing, praying, or listening to others.  We are intentionally welcoming - and we should increase our tolerance and use of reverent language if we want to be more welcoming of all who need us in this community.

 

My Professor, David Bumbaugh, at Meadville Lombard was an avowed humanist, but he knew the importance of this.  He writes:

“We have manned the ramparts of reason and are prepared to defend the citadel of the mind.  But in the process . . . we have lost . . . the ability to speak of that which is sacred, holy, of ultimate importance to us, the language which would allow us to enter into critical dialogue with the religious community.”

I have loved Bishop Shelby Spong’s writings since I first read, “Saving the Bible from Fundamentalism.” And I think that his beliefs are not far from mine.  And he does use the word God.  He knows it has different meanings to different people like us heretics.  Here is what he shares about the meaning of God.

 

If the word “God” refers to the experience of recognizing the Source of Life, …then the only way we can worship that which we call God is by living, living fully, and the more fully we live the more that which is ultimate, real and holy is seen in us.

If the word “God” can be identified with the Source of Love that flows through the universe, always enhancing life, for that is what love does, but only coming to self-consciousness in human beings, then the only way we can worship that which we call God is by loving, loving wastefully. Wasteful love never stops to ask whether love is due or deserved, one simply gives it away….

If the word “God” can be understood to refer, not to a being, but to the Ground of Being in which everything that exists is ultimately rooted, but which comes to self-consciousness only in human beings, then the only way we can worship that which we call God is by finding the courage to be all that each of us can be, and then by allowing, indeed encouraging, others to be all that they can be….

True religion is, at its core, nothing more or less than a call to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that we can be. That is finally where life’s meaning is found. All else is background music.”

John Shelby Spong

 

My challenge for you here today is that we be open and that we practice those principles and values of inclusivity that we hold dear.  I know it’s not that simple.  But we can begin to have the conversations that will help us to understand each other and understand what we each hold as sacred.

So whether your beliefs (or non-beliefs) regarding God or the ultimate are based on theism, deism, pantheism, atheism, or agnosticism – whether you identify as a buddhist, Christian, humanist, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Pagan, just plain old Unitarian Universalist, or none of the above or all of the above ----

 

I leave you with this hope -

 

 

May the Spirit of Life fill you,

May the Mother Goddess hold you,

May the Universe enfold you,

May Peace be with you,

May the Light of the World Illuminate you,

May the Truth set you free,

May the Force be with you,

May Love guide you every step of the way,

May the strength of your own mind and body give you courage,

May this Community lift you up,

And on and on and on and on

Including those words familiar to us all,

May God bless you.

 

 

Big Questions: Why Religion

 

While preparing for this sermon, my mind conjured up an old film I saw in 1980, - The Blue Lagoon.  This film was released on June 20, 1980, by Columbia Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starred Christopher Atkins (who won a golden globe for best new performer) and the beautiful Brooke Shields who receive a raspberry award for her pitiful performance.  I didn’t notice that her acting was bad because the story was so interesting to me.  These two young folks were shipwrecked as children on this South Pacific paradise island along with an old cook who died during their childhood – leaving them to make it on their own.  Among the many other things they did to survive, they invented their own religion.  They knew the word “God” and the girl thought she had found “God” when she found an old altar on the other side of the island (where they had been forbidden by the cook to go).  The boy carried her to this God when she was sick, and they had regular rituals they made up.  Of course, this was all fiction created by the Irish author of the original novel published in 1908.  Fiction – that like much of fiction that seems to “ring true.”  This young couple had a need to draw upon something supernatural – with rituals and more.  And there have been other deserted isle books that have also shown that need for religion – some with very negative consequences.  These authors tended to view the need for religion as something we’ve evolved for survival.

And guess what?  Much of the research we have draws us to a similar conclusion for most folks.  – Not all, but most.  Of course, we are still evolving, aren’t we?  So, all is always in flux – but with the help of folks a lot smarter than me, I’m going to try to respond to the question of “Why folks seem to need religion – (or not).”

In doing this, I’m drawing from several sources which all draw from other sources.  This is not a paper for academic publication, so I’m not going to site these all these sources.  That will just get in our way for a short message like this.  

Now, the simple reason people have given to this question of “Why Religion?” is because God – (known by many names) is real and people believe because they communicate with God and perceive evidence of God’s involvement in the world.  But there are at least 16% of the world – and the number continues to grow – who don’t buy into anything supernatural or “religious.”  And a recent Pew Poll shows that more than 30% of Americans don’t identify with any religion.  So that “Why Question” still looms large for many of us. 

This is not a new question – Why people are religious.  “Karl Marx, for example, called religion the ‘opium of the masses ’. Sigmund Freud felt that god was an illusion and worshippers were reverting to the childhood needs of security and forgiveness.”

A more recent psychological explanation is the idea that our evolution has created a “god-shaped hole” or has given us a metaphorical “god engine” which can drive us to believe in a deity. Essentially this hypothesis is that religion is a by-product of a number of cognitive and social adaptations which have been extremely important in human development.

And there are scientists who believe our brains are hard-wired for religion.  Rather than try to put this in my own words, I’m going to quote directly from René J. Muller’s article in Psychiatric Times titled Neurotheology: Are We Hardwired for God?“ because he’s explained this well in terms that those who are not neurologists or theologians can understand. 

 

Considering that the brain is increasingly being credited with having a role in everything we think, feel, and do, it was probably just a matter of time before it was postulated that religious belief has a neural substrate. The question of how the brain might be "hardwired" for spirituality has captured the interest of many investigators who have established careers in fields as different as neurology, theology, and neuroscience and spawned the new discipline of neurotheology.

Neurotheologians argue that the structure and function of the human brain predispose us to believe in God. They claim that the site of God's biological substrate is the limbic system deep within the brain, which has long been considered to be the biological center for emotion. Rhawn Joseph, a prominent neurotheologian, goes a step further to suggest that the limbic system is dotted with "God neurons" and "God neurotransmitters."²

Among the limbic structures that have been associated with religious belief, the most frequently credited are the hypothalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus. Neurotheologians point to changes in functional MRI scans in these areas as research subjects engage in religious meditation. They reason that if thinking about God changes the way the brain works, there must be some inherent neural imperative to believe in God in the first place. In making this connection, neurotheologians are following the lead of neuroscientists who claim that changes seen in functional brain scans in persons who are happy, depressed, or obsessed demonstrate that these phenomena are brain driven.

Ilia Delio, who is a member of the Roman Catholic Franciscan Order and holds doctoral degrees in pharmacology and historical theology, gives this account of how neurotheologians conflate theology and neuroscience to make the case for a religious neural substrate. "It is tempting to speculate that there is a 'God module' in the brain and that such a module is located in the area of the limbic system; however, such speculation needs to be made cautiously. What these findings do point to, however, is that spirituality involves the brain. For the first time in human history we are beginning to understand spiritual experience not as something apart from the physical human but rather bound up with human matter, that is, the matter of the brain. Thus, matter and spirit are no longer seen to be opposed but are indeed mutually related, if not one and the same."³

Challenging the idea that religious belief is rooted in any particular brain structure or function, David L. Smith, a Roman Catholic priest and clinical psychologist, asks: "If 'God neurons' or 'God neurotransmitters' actually exist in the brain, are they defective in the agnostic and absent in the atheist?"⁴ Implicitly, Smith is holding the neurotheologians to the same standard that neuroscientists would feel obligated to meet when proposing a connection between specific neurons and neurotransmitters and some behavioral phenomenon: these neurons and neurotransmitters must be shown to exist. No scientist or theologian has come forward to stake a clear-cut claim to "God neurons" and "God neurotransmitters." Smith concludes that neurotheology is "a pseudoscience cloaked in the mantle of Cartesian dualism.”

I also read a medical research article which I won’t quote because it used terminology that I had to look up – but basically this article shared how some scientists were able to show different brain activity between those who may identify with different religions. 

My own conclusions as one who claims no expertise but who has great appreciation for both neurology and theology is that “More study is needed.” 

But whether you can locate it in the brain or not – most of us would agree that we seemed to have evolved this need, and of course evolution – both physical and social – is ongoing.

Most of us understand that we develop attachments as young children.  And these attachments can move beyond humans to inanimate objects. “This ability – known as cognitive decoupling – originates in childhood through pretend play. It is a small leap from being able to imagine the mind of someone we know to imagining an omnipotent, omniscient, human-like mind – especially if we have religious texts which tell of their past actions.” It’s not a major leap to become attached to something we cannot see that can provide us with a feeling of security -  Sort of a God or Jesus or whatever as our adult security blanket.  

In addition to what some may call the psychological benefits of security, etc. provided by religion, “the ritual behaviour seen in collective worship makes us enjoy and want to repeat the experience. Dancing, singing and achieving trance-like states were prominent in many ancestral societies and are still exhibited by some today…. As well as being acts of social unity, …formal rituals also alter brain chemistry. They increase levels of serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin in the brain – chemicals that make us feel good, want to do things again and provide a closeness to others.”

Before I became a minister, I used to go to WomenSpirit every year – sometimes for both the fall and spring events at the Mountain.  One of the practices they had every evening was to go up into what we call “The Treehouse” – which is just a big room on the second floor of one of their buildings that feels like it’s in the trees – and do drumming and dancing.  And whether drumming or dancing, folks – I got high!  Not because we were drinking or taking drugs – we were not.  But doing these rituals together as a group sure did increase those levels of all those feel-good chemicals in our brains.  And, I’ve had that happening sometimes here in this room when we are singing or connecting in some other ritual together.  Like Skinner’s rats, I keep coming back for more!  So, there is an immediate reinforcement for worship and long-term benefits.  Studies have also shown that people who regularly participate in communal worship services are healthier and live longer.

Now as I noted at the beginning of this message, a growing number of folks are not religious.  And there is some interesting research related to this as well. 

Perhaps this best source for this information is the Pew Research Center which periodically surveys around the world routinely and asks: “What is your present religion, if any?” Respondents are given a country-specific list of potential responses (which generally include several major world religions, as well as “atheist,” “agnostic” or “nothing in particular”).

What recent surveys have found is an obvious age gap.  Young adults are more likely to be religiously unaffiliated. This is especially true in North America, where in both the U.S. and Canada younger people are less likely to claim a religious identity. (These findings are in line with the rise of the religious “nones” in the U.S., which is being driven largely by high levels of disaffiliation among young generations.) The gap is also prevalent in Europe – in 22 out of 35 countries – and in Latin America, where it applies in 14 out of 19 countries (including Mexico).

“However, the pattern is not as pronounced in other parts of the world. In the Middle East-North Africa region and sub-Saharan Africa, where most people identify as either Muslim or Christian, there are no countries where young people are less affiliated. In fact, the only two countries out of a combined 30 in these regions with an affiliation gap are Chad and Ghana, where young adults are more likely than their elders to claim a religious affiliation – making these nations the only exceptions to the prevailing pattern around the world.”  There is some speculation that the amount of violence and conflict in these countries may contribute to the increased levels of religiosity among the young adults – who may be more likely affected by this violence. 

So again – perhaps when the security blanket is needed, people seek it out regardless of age or geography.  The countries with the increasing numbers of folks who do not identify with a religion or countries where folks may at least not feel that their survival is in doubt. 

This question about religion is especially intriguing to me because of my own religious history – beginning as a southern Baptist who was “born again” at 9 years old and ending up here as a Unitarian Universalist minister and one who finds no meaning personally in the supernatural but seeks meaning in the natural world.  My friends and family have had some difficulties accepting my path, and that’s understandable.  Some of you may face similar situations.  Here’s how I responded to one family member who could just not believe that I did not believe as she did. 

I shared with her that the Bible that both of us knew well shared that we were all given different gifts.  And that it seems that she was blessed with the gift of faith in the unseen – in that which had been taught to her from her early life.  And it seems to me that this gift helped her to have a wonderful life and I respected and admired that.  But that I did not receive that gift.  Instead, I received the gift of a questioning mind.  And that gift had led me to a life of pondering and inquiry that opened many doors for me.  So that, too, was a good gift.  And I hoped she could be happy that I had received a gift that was good for me, just as I was glad her gift was good for her. 

Some have asked why I identify as a religious naturalist and not an Atheist.  Well – in reality – perhaps they are kin.  But the word Atheist shares what you are not.  And it’s true that I’m not a theist.  But it doesn’t share what I am.  I AM a religious person.  Religion means RE – connecting.  And I do need to connect to that which I find as meaningful, good, -- I can even use the words sacred and divine.  So I am thrilled that among the world’s religions is one that allows me to do just that – and that is Unitarian Universalism. 

I can’t answer the question of why people need religion.  But I can share why I need something like Unitarian Universalism and people like you.  I need to be accepted as I am.  I need to be able to work with others to make the world a better place.  I need worship – songs, rituals, messages that will stir me and inspire me to be my best self.  I need others.  I do not need a creator – an omniscient, omnipresent being; but folks – I do need you.  I do need this faith tradition or something like it.  Maybe there are folks who don’t need it – and that’s fine.  But we need to be here for folks like me and you.

Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams called congregations like our Free Churches.  His words – shared as a responsive reading in our hymnal describe the kind of religion that I need.  I invite you to join me as I close this message in sharing this reading responsively.  I’ll read the plain Jane words and you read those in italics.

 

Responsive Reading (2/2): #591 "I Call that Church Free" by James Luther Adams

 

I call that church free which enters into covenant with the ultimate source of existence,

That sustaining and transforming power not made with human hands.

It binds together families and generations, protecting against the idolatry of any human claim to absolute truth or authority.

This covenant is the charter and responsibility and joy of worship in the face of death as well as life.

I call that church free which brings individuals into a caring, trusting fellowship,

That protects and nourishes their integrity and spiritual freedom; that yearns to belong to the church universal;

It is open to insight and conscience from every source; it bursts through rigid tradition, giving rise to new and living language, to new and broader fellowship.

It is a pilgrim church, a servant church, on an adventure of the spirit.

The goal is the prophethood and priesthood of all believers, the one for the liberty of prophesying, the other for the ministry of healing.

It aims to find unity in diversity under the promptings of the spirit "that bloweth where it listeth . . . and maketh all things new."