I do not believe God exists. Nor do I believe God doesn't exist. I don't know.
My studies in the Anthropology and Sociology of Religion have introduced me to a wide range of beliefs people have about "God." Some believe God to be an old white man with superpowers and an anger-management problem. I disbelieve in that God. Some believe God has four arms and the head of an elephant. I'm not enrolled in that one either.
I realize that people who believe in some version of God tend to feel strongly about it, firmly believing their image is correct. If they are aware that other people have different ideas about God, they are convinced those people are wrong. Moreover, the reason for their firm beliefs lies with their upbringing. They believe what they were taught.
Now let me acknowledge that not all people are like what I have just described. Some people do not believe God exists. Some believe some kind of God exists, but are flexible as to the specifics. The question of God is part of a larger quandary, however.
The more fundamental question, I think, concerns the distinction between a materialistic and an idealist view of ultimate reality.
The materialists say that everything we see, think, and feel is the result of biochemical processes and accidents, which kind of rules out all but a clumsy God. The idealists hold that everything we observe as "reality" is a figment of our imaginations. While I am more inclined toward the latter of these views, my basic stance is one of not knowing.
As a scientist, I am more inclined toward reaching conclusions based on evidence and logic. Beliefs, based on faith in lieu of evidence and logic, are not something I am comfortable with.
Intimately entangled in all this is the question of what happens when we die. The purely materialistic view pretty much rules out the idea of any kind of afterlife. For many people, this prospect is a troubling one, no doubt lending support to their view regarding God and reality. I would confess this kind of troubled me in the form of disappointments and regrets. Perhaps I wouldn't get to see my grandchildren grow up. Could I be sure I had provided sufficiently for my family? Would I never see a woman become president of the United States? Never again would I taste a pizza, nature's more perfect food.
Then, one day, all that changed.
I still remember it vividly. I was driving my yellow Toyota Corolla and had just taken the East Blithedale exit from the 101 freeway in Northern California and, rather than turning right toward home in Mill Valley, I turned left toward Tiburon.
I must have been thinking about the issue of an afterlife as I made the turn, because just as I was downshifting, it struck me: If there was nothing after death, there was nothing. There would be no disappointments or regrets. It wouldn't even be all blackness, because blackness would be something.
Without making me wish for or believe in that possibility, it lost all its teeth.
------------v------------
Dr. Earl Babbie of Hot Springs Village is the Campbell professor emeritus in behavioral sciences at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.
Editorial on 07/20/2019