An Atheist's View on the Personal Relationship with God

When I was home over Christmas Break, my family asked me to attend church with them on numerous occasions.  Since I love my family more than I hate this sort of social gathering, I reluctantly agreed to go a few times. I attended both a wedding and the traditional Christmas mass.  With two different settings, I was surprised to find that the messages of both of them were about finding a personal relationship with their almighty god.  It was perplexing to me that this sort of sermon was given at the wedding I attended. Here we are sitting in pews watching two believers become “one” in the eyes of god, yet they are told to separately to find a relationship with him.  This created a sort of paradox in my mind, and then it hit me.  These sorts of events are not truly religious, in the sense that the religious experience should be personal.  Instead, these events are systematical and replace the subjective experience to an objective experience.  How can two individuals become “one”, yet be expected to experience a personal relationship with god differently? Therefore, the religious experience seems to be a farce when shared with others.  This wedding was not about god and his blessing, it was about two people who loved each other very much and were making a promise build on that love.  The wedding was personal, therefore the relationship was personal.  Yet, the personal experience of organized religion seems to have a different view. The churches have systematically bundled up a personal experience and sold it to the masses.

               You can choose to believe in a god or not, that’s your personal choice- therefore- that belief is of your own personal experience.  So why are we building churches and recruiting the masses to harness something the each individual is experiencing to themselves (if they so choose to believe)?  Simple, these sorts of structures are just that, structures.  Man created the bible to systematize a particular god that is apparently all powerful and beyond human comprehension into a book of oversimplified rules and contradictory ideals.  First off, this takes away from a personal experience when guidelines are set in place to even reach the point of personal expression.  If you wanted to talk to me, but you have regulations on how to reach me or even how you can talk to me, is that personal?  The god we view and even think about is the one laid out for us in the bible.  We are at a disadvantage already- because we are experiencing a god that has already been objectified. Once again, the relationship should be subjective, not objective. To believe in the absurd requires faith, but objectify the absurd is just flat out ignorance.    

               Let’s recap; we have a subjective god that has been objectified in a book written by man.  Now let’s take that one step further by systematizing it and create a church with a community around it.  In this setting, priests are able to interpret “the message of god” and spoon feed it to the congregation.  I see a couple of problems with this.  One, the priest is taking a subjective experience and trying to relay it to the masses, therefore objectifying it.  With this being done, there will never be a complete understanding of the nature of what the priest experienced or interpreted. If I told you to visualize yourself playing golf, what do you see? Do you see yourself on the 5^th hole tee box with knickers on?  Even if you visualized my example- you still couldn’t see the setting I have made for myself.  The second problem is that by spoon feeding the congregation the message, you stunt the listeners’ existential look on the subject at hand.  So, either you fill an experience that isn’t the person’s own by preaching it to them, or you hinder the individual who has yet to experience the nature of their relationship to their god. This is why preaching will get the religious nowhere. What makes your relationship to your god special can only be special to you.  Only you feel the way you do. 

               What does this all mean then? How should one go about building a relationship with a personal god?  Well, the experience should be your own.  You can’t relate that experience to others because there will always be a different view of said experience. We both could say the same thing, but visualize it and feel it in a completely different manner. If you believe in a personal god, then that god should be, well, personal!  Preaching and trying to save someone is completely out of the question.  If you do try, then your objectifying what is at heart, an existential experience.   As an Atheist, this is why truly religious people don’t bother me.  Their beliefs are personal and will stay personal.  This is why there is a difference between religion and organized religion. The man preaching is not trying to save you, but trying to relate his experience to you, this will be in vain.  One cannot organize subjective reality, which would make it objective reality.  If god is truly beyond objective reality then to objectify him will only, in a sense, prove his non-existence.  When it’s all said and done- to each his own.        

A Dance In and Out of Events

I was reading Kierkegaard the other day when I came across an interesting passage within the “Rotation Method” about experiences of events and how one should harness them.  It got me thinking, how are we not able to experience and observe events at the same time?  This was interesting to me, in the fact that we all are seemingly experiencing something at this very moment, yet blissfully unaware of the experience or event until we state what we are observing (consciously or out loud) - at that point we become an observer. 

               Events happen all around us, yet we are either within the event or outside of it observing from a far.  We can’t seem to be active within both, once you have decided to be in the experience, then you are committed until the conscience become aware of what it is part of.   An example of this would be a group of individuals chatting at a party.   Everyone could be having a great time, enjoying each other’s company and catching up on current events within each other’s lives.  The members of this group are unaware of the event that they are partaking in, until something or someone disrupts it.  Let’s say you were a part of this group, enjoying yourself with telling jokes and sipping on your favorite beverage- you are in a sense, “sharing the moment”. You are an active participant within this event taking place,  a sort of tacit consent is given throughout the group and judgment is out of the picture (alcohol may of helped us get to this point).   Suddenly, you become self-aware, nothing could have registered this, or maybe you consciously told yourself to remember or cherish this moment.  At this point in time, you have exited yourself from the event taking place and become an active observer.  Your consent is given back to you and you become almost hyperaware of the actions taking place.  The moment is lost until the conscience forgets its observations and you can sink back into the experience.  We see this all the time and we can think of it as a buzz kill of sorts.  Or let’s say that everyone is enjoying the conversation that the group is having, getting into deeper conversation and guards are let down thanks to the groups consent to one another.  Then randomly someone says, “Wow, we are all having a real good time!”  The group becomes aware of its actions and the self-consciousness starts rushing back to each individual.  Self-reflection is pouring through each of their heads of the event that they all partook in.  The mood is lost and might never recover at that point.  One may either leave the setting to allow the conscience to forget its surroundings and continue its pursuit to activate another event, or fight through the tension that has built up in the group until the tacit consent is back on the table.  

               This is why one should loathe the individual that tries to harness the moment by sharing it or trying to capture its essence by trying to get others to cherish it as well.  Moments of reflection should be done afterwards, and should be kept to the individual that experienced it.  I say this, because we all experience the same event in a different way.  To reflect with someone that was there within the event may allow them to hyper analyze the situation and the moment that they enjoyed may then be stripped of its value to the holder.  If one was to evaluate an event from the past and kept to the self, no other point of views can taint the value of it, allowing the experience to still be held within the eyes of the viewer- not a second source. 

               There is one way I can think of for being able to both experience an event and witness it as well.  The use of psychoactive drugs such a THC, psilocybin, and LSD (to name only a few) are keys to opening a gate of experience an event within the event.  This can is partly due to the fact that the brain is processing images longer than normal.  The brain is then able to experience something slightly longer than its sober state and therefore some feels immersed within an event yet somehow feels like a spectator within their own body.  This experience can intensify by dosing and is wonderful when under the right settings.  The power to alter the mind can change than experience, this seems to be self-evident. This, I believe is the only way that one can experience and participate in events simultaneously.  Though this may not be the case, I can’t think of another way without switching from observer to active participant.   

               One is always in the delicate dance between observing and interacting with a particular event.  We cannot experience and partake at the same time; we must shift between one another-unless there is an outside source that can slow the process down for our minds to fully grasp the situation.  Events will come and go, cherish them after the fact.  To try to cherish the moment will only lead to destruction of it, and then all that we hoped to harbor for the moment will be tainted with the conscious trying to make more of it than what it is.