Theist or Atheist

One of my very best friends is an atheist. He is a doctor and a scientist and prides himself in his use of logic when dealing with questions of life and meaning. Last week when our families got together for dinner we got into a discussion of beliefs – one might be tempted to call it a theological discussion. It started with a compliment on something I had written in this blog – it had made him think. And so the conversation was on.
Most of my friend’s questions about religion are wrapped up in an understanding of religion that smacks of pre-Vatican II Catholicism mixed with fundamentalist Sunday school platitudes – and, no, I do not believe in all of that. But if I don’t believe in a robed grandfatherly Michelangelo god, he asked, then who or what is god? Well, I start talking about Tillich’s concept of the ground of being and the in-dwelling force of life which is what I call god. But I cannot point to it I say. So I try to make an analogy: I ask, “Where is the life in one of your patients? Can you point to a place in the body?” How is it that at one moment the patient is alive and the next moment, still and lifeless? What happened? Was it the stress of the operation? Had he touched some life line that flipped the switch? No. Of course not. There is no place that holds life more than the other (though I suppose you could argue for the heart or the brain – but he got my point).
And that is when he pops the real question; “Are you afraid of dying? Because I am terrified of the nothingness.” Behind the question was the whole eschatological orchestration of heaven and hell and afterlife and redemption, and my friend just could not get his logic to go there. I told him that I really did not know if there was anything after death. Perhaps it just ends there for our bodies. But this life force that beats within our hearts, I believed, did continue. No, I did not believe in the resurrection of our bodily physical form – because then I would have to ask which form – my 21 year old or my 36 year old or this failing 62 year old body. My ego might want the youthful one but, I told him that it was my belief that most of the afterlife stories were the fantasies of too many men’s egos desire for special treatment. And I don’t believe in that kind of god – a god that grants favors.
I told him I felt that god was the source of life and that that force ran through all things – but that is was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. You cannot point to god any more than he could point to life. And when our physical bodies die, that life force simply rejoins with the mass of universal energy that is god. He told me I sounded like an atheist (in terms of the actual definition of the word) and I told him he sounded like a believer who was missing words to describe his fears and concerns. I don’t really know, but I do know that we aren’t that far apart, that such discussions don’t scare me, and that each time we have these talks, we both feel closer as friends.