There’s an interaction in the new movie Tony where the Anthony Bourdain character tells his chef mentor he doesn’t believe in God, and the mentor replies, “What is that? That’s like saying you don’t believe in air, but you continue to breathe.”
What’s funny to me about this sentiment—which I hear plenty of similar-orbit shit constantly by just going to AA meetings—is that it works on paper, the same way any structure of authority does. (It is not lost on me that very religious conservative Americans will say communism only works on paper but the word of God, as it is written in the Bible, is indelible.) It’s pretty easy to conceptualize of the idea that there could be something that we, as humans, are incapable of truly grasping the all-encompassing nature of out in the universe.
But that isn’t the premise that the movie talks about, and that is so often confused in these theological debates. The idea posited isn’t Can you conceptualize of a god?—the question usually asks Do you believe in God?
There is a fundamental difference between these acts. I can understand the idea of capitalism the same way I can understand the idea of communism, but I will not believe in the former the way I will the latter. With the argument surrounding some kind of higher power, these understandings of ideas against beliefs become more abstracted but the premise remains—what does your individual relationship with reality allow you to feel aligned with at a spiritual level so much that you can have faith in it?
Looking at the world, both in this moment and throughout history, I can’t believe in any sort of god that centers humanity. We are a vile species hell-bent on self-destruction—at either a massive scale through balances of power or individual scale through vice and corruption. I certainly won’t lend my belief to any god that is talked of as representing countries like the United States or Israel. Does a god that created humans to create religion, and all the subsequent death and destruction in its name, exist? Maybe, but I don’t have to—and will not—believe in that.
So often people who adhere to organized religion cherry-pick what to believe in from a religious text and excuse incongruent ideas by the passive dismissal of, “It’s not for us to understand.” This feels like such a catch-all justification for perpetuating destructive behavior or ideas without feeling the need to improve (or, perhaps, the guilt for being associated with it).
Part of it is just being sick of an ongoing genocide and settler-colonial project being justified by ‘God’s promise,’ but it’s mostly how one-dimensional a lot of theological talk feels in general public discourse. Comprehension, imagination and faith are separate concepts that get conflated and then used as justification for the selfish deeds of humanity and it’s just so goddamn stupid.
