[*** First Draft ***]
Do I believe in God?
Well, yes. But not in the popular conception of God as a sentient being, an all-powerful entity, responsible for creating the universe and intimately involved in the affairs of humanity right here on planet Earth. No, I have too much respect for science to accept the anthropomorphic, folk definition of God that has consumed so much religious thinking for millennia. Instead, I accept a more metaphoric definition. The universe is vast. The tiny atom is incredibly complex. The universe must, I fervently believe, have meaning as well as structure, purpose as well as physical laws. But God is ineffable. We can no more understand God than we can understand all the laws of the universe. (Or universes!) We don't know the meaning or purpose of the universe and that, in a nutshell, is my definition of God. God IS the meaning and purpose of the universe.
Can we find God through physics? Science in the days of Newton believed that physics was complete, that there was little else to learn. But that was so wrong! Along came relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory and more. Will the pursuit of physics ultimately come to an end? I doubt it. I doubt it because history tells us that completion of physics is a windmill tilt. We will continue to learn more and more. Yes, indefinitely. And just as we will never uncover all of physics, we will never truly find God. But that does not devalue the pursuit of science, nor does it devalue the pursuit of God, the meaning and purpose of the universe. To the contrary, the more we know about science or God, the more we have to respect and pursue them both. Is science God? No. Science is not concerned with meaning and purpose. Is God science? No, God contains all of science, including its facts, laws, meaning, purpose, and much more that we can not even comprehend.
So what about religion? How can a scientist respect an institution that seems to contradict science, to promote the fantastic, to deny so much of human knowledge? Well, I can't speak for religions other than my own, and in my own I am just a lay person, not religiously qualified even to represent Judaism. But Judaism is based on questions, lifetime study and continuous pursuit of the unattainable knowledge of God. The journey is more important than the destination and behavior in the real world is more important than faith in our God. We call ourselves The People Israel and the name Israel means "struggles with God." In the Bible, our forefather Jacob takes on the name Israel after struggling with an angel of God. Metaphorically, I take this to represent the struggle that a modern, thinking person must endure in pursuit of truth, meaning and purpose. Judaism allows me to accept that a monotheistic, anthropomorphic conception of God is a struggle. Our sage Maimonides wrote "I believe with perfect faith that the Creator ... is the Creator and Guide of everything...," and followed that with even more anthropomorphic faith statements. And most of our (many!) other sages agreed with his Thirteen Principles of Faith. But they also granted individual Jews the right, even the obligation, to question those principles, to struggle with the concept of God, and to make their own peace with the contradictions. I do that.
So if religion (Judaism, anyway) is such a struggle, why bother? Religion is not science. It is not, like science, a satisfying explanation of how the universe works. It is a prescription for how to live our lives. Most scientists will admit that if everyone followed the best prescriptions of one religion or another, that the world would be a much better place. Or at least a more pleasant one. Start with the Ten Commandments that form the foundation of the three great, monotheistic religions. They have no scientific derivation but they are certainly a good start toward a decent life. The atheistic humanist will accept the last six ethical commandments and discard the first four religious ones. But does observing the religious commandments contradict a scientific world view? Not to my way of thinking. These and the hundreds of other purely or largely religious commandments, some of which I observe, some of which I respect from a distance and some which have fallen into obsolescence, represent a system of law and living that works. It has helped us to survive for millennia. I choose not to ascribe their observance to the literal command of an anthropomorphic God. But I am in awe of the system they represent.
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So no, I don't believe in the folk conception of God. But I do believe in God as the sum of all possible knowledge, as an abstraction for the meaning and purpose of the universe. It may not be necessary to observe all the Biblical commandments, and the centuries of interpretations and emendations to them, in order to live a good, fulfilling life. It is not necessary to believe with perfect faith in Maimonides' Thirteen Principles, literally taken. But wouldn't it be nice if everyone lived their lives as if they did believe?
Do you believe in God?