Flirting With the Divine: A Dialogue

Two young adults in their mid-twenties sat at a table in a mildly crowded coffee shop. It wasn't a corporate one, but an independently owned and operated one. Punk-rock and hard rock poured out of speakers that couldn't be seen and permeated the atmosphere. Both sat hunched over the table alternately speaking and listening intently. One was a man with short brown hair drinking a cup of black automatic drip coffee, the other was a young woman with light red hair; she was nursing her latte. They appeared to be friends, yet had recently just met after he overheard a conversation about religion. He was an atheist, but not the type to declare that anyone who believed in god was a fool. They kept their conversation and had become so engrossed in it that the world ceased to exist; it was the two of them and despite the constant attempts by their surroundings to bring them back to their plane, they kept their bubble's structure sound.1

"I'm sorry, but I don't believe that there is necessarily a God. If you look out, there is chaos. War, famine, disease, and natural disasters run amok; while we try to create our existence out of what we have to work with. You say that there is a God, and identify yourself as Christian, but if your God does exist, then what sort of capacity does it work under to dictate all of creation?"2

"I am a Christian, and yes, there are seemingly chaotic matters which disrupt what God has created; you have to look at where all of it comes from though. Chaos is man-made. We are arrogant and believe we can control the world around us. Mankind is constantly trying to dominate everything. The natural disasters are simply reminders to ensure that we understand that we aren't in control. War is also one of these man-made things. Disease is just a fact of life. In genesis, when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they were banished and cursed by god to disease and pain. God had to separate man from the divine, and when he did we were given to our natures."3

"I disagree. Chaos is definitely not man made. It is just the natural order of things. There is a method to the madness involved with existence however. Order is what is man-made. Which is a pity, because when we impose order on that which is random we rob ourselves of the one truly divine trait we do have, creation. I will concede that there are horrible things that are done out of arrogance; war being chief among them, and when you look at history you see that the idea of order, God, has been one of the most rampant and virulent justifications for war. This is despite an express prohibition against murder. But when you take out the man-made things, all that is left is what we wind up creating. We create ideas, objects, tools, bonds, and rationalizations for what we see. Disease is man-made; the idea of it at least is. If we were not conscious of something disrupting out normal bodily functions, we couldn't differentiate between healthy and ill. The story of the tree even points you to that. It is an excellent metaphor to describe the difference between ignorance and the ability to differentiate. We had nothing to cause us any concern, until we became conscious of something that was not what it was before."4

"We had to be given consciousness. How could something so powerful and useful just happen? Creation is a divine power. You can read about it in Genesis. Man was created in God's own image. We were given the ability to create in our imaginations and to transfer that into reality. God is the source of all creation. What do you see when you open your eyes? You see something that God created! Every tree, every child, adult, rock, raindrop is imbued with God's creative touch. We get to witness it. As far as that which we make...I'm not going to say it's all good or all bad, but I will say that each has been inspired by something. What of inspiration? We have to be inspired by something in order to create, don't we? God is what inspires the good we create, and what has been evil and detrimental is definitely inspired by Lucifer. Unfortunately either side can sway us; it would seem to me that the majority are inspired by the latter."5

"Creation is a purely human endeavor. What we see, most of the time we certainly did not create physically. I will concede that there is definitely a good chance that something did kick off the process by creating the universe. If that was the case, it would seem that when it was created it was created in such a manner that a God were no longer necessary. Everything was created in such a way that it would be able to take a course that it can take. That's for celestial objects at the least. As far as life on Earth, it's certainly hard to say that things went the way they were "supposed" to. Things happened the way they happened, and didn't happen the way they didn't. They could have conceivably happened differently if circumstances dictated it. Here's what I mean: look at the world around you. Each one of these things you mentioned that are imbued with God's touch must be identified in order to be understood. Every name, every adjective, every qualifier must be created in order for it to exist as it does to us. There is rain, and then there is not-rain. If we were not here to notice it, to feel it, to name and describe it, it would just be what it is. Just another natural phenomenon that isn't; we have to witness it for the phenomenon to exist. We have to go beyond simply water in order to create the idea of rain. Now, I cannot accept your idea of good and evil. Both are just man-made notions to seperate what we believe to be right and what we believe to be wrong. How do we differentiate between the two? First, one must identify a particular action as being good. Typically it seems that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Murder is wrong, not to mention quite rude. But when is killing not murder? It is wrong for a man to kill another man, but it is okay for the state to kill the man who killed the man. The lines between good and evil are blurred constantly. The closest thing there could ever be to "good" is to act without malice and with love. Evil would then be any act done with malice and without love. I do feel that Christ, if he existed certainly lived to be the ultimate example of how we ought to live. He brought in forgiveness, an act of love. He demonstrated what forgiveness was, he defined it with everything he said and did. He turned it into a phenomenon to be witnessed, and therefore to deduce what really makes forgiveness...forgiveness. He was a living example of allowing things to be what and as they are. There is an incredible power when you do that. Some of the documented things he did were possibly greatly exaggerated. After all, like you said, we all must be inspired by something. He was very inspirational. Plus, as man, we are throne to create, and it would be easy to create a divine man when he did have a certain command of the divine. Isn't it possible that man actually created God in his own image, because we couldn't understand the concept of creation? Think about it: man sees all these things that he did not make. They all had to come from somewhere right? Rather than look at them as being there, and man giving them meaning, use, and observing them as they were; it is possible that they just looked for something else to define it. To be inspired is a truly divine, transcendental event. We see something, and give it meaning to us. We have taken a lump of mineral, and now it is a rock! We have taken a tree, and we make it a plank of wood, which later becomes a part of a house. We take everything we see, and create it by imbuing it with meaning and purpose. It would have seemed logical that something had to do that with us; because let's face it, it is very difficult to give purpose and meaning to another person. If there was a God, it could give each person meaning, just as it gives us our meaning and purpose. The flaw is that we DO give everything its meaning and purpose that is in our life, and we are certainly in our own lives, without us we wouldn't be able to live them. Plus, if we have consciousness, which you attribute to God, it is because we are first living. The consciousness would only come after we could question our own existence. Because if you ask the question, "Do I exist?” there are two possible answers. There is yes; because if it was not so you would not be able to live. There is no; because there is no way of knowing for sure that we are nothing than the dream of someone or something. If we are modeled after a God, it would have to be able to differentiate. The only way to differentiate is through the binary of "positivistic" or yes, and "negativistic" or no. In order to have that, there must be some divine consciousness within that God to create "A" and "Not-A". In order for that to happen, the God would have to exist outside of itself as not-being it (as questioning if it does exist) and then creating everything else that is not it. What this means is that it would have to be it in-itself first and foremost. It would then have to question the very nature of its being. In doing so, there is it, and then not-it. It exists outside of itself in order to define it. Then from that point, it turns around and defines everything else. But where it reaches out to, there is no "it" There is no God in that space. That is the nature of the binary. As a result, God would have to not exist as itself at the same time as being itself, just as we do."6

"You have a flaw of your own. Who's to say that we are not just in God's consciousness? Besides, God would have to be able to be every contradiction to Himself in order to exist. He is God, the most supreme and pure Being. You describe inspiration only half-way though. I know in your transcendence spiel, you were trying to at least graze by it. God would be the source of inspiration though by your testament. In our attempt to be like God, to transcend to what we are not, to become it are we not being inspired to do so?"7

"Yes, we are inspired to transcend to that which we are not, because we lack it. We lack it and therefore want to have it in order to complete us. What inspires us is the fact that we do not have it, and feel we need it, so we create it by either taking it, finding it, building it, using art to express it, ponder over how we can achieve it, or mull over how we already have it in some shape way or form. We are inspired by God, because we do not have God, and want to achieve God. We are inspired to do the right thing because we have not done it, and determined it needs to be done. We are inspired by Lucifer because we do not have Lucifer, and want to achieve Lucifer. We do "evil" things because, like Lucifer, we felt that we are entitled to what we do not have. This breeds contempt, hatred, jealousy and violent means to achieve our end that we do not deserve but feel we do. We only deserve what we have. The only way to deserve it is to go after it because we are not it, or do not have it yet. Here we have both the fall of man and the creation of what we traditionally call evil. The fall of man was not discovering it could possibly not be what it is, and then becoming something else through transcendence. The fall of man was assuming it deserved to be what it is not, and then made itself what it is not by denying both what it is, and others' natural rights and freedom to be what they are."8

"You still haven't disproved God. What about forgiveness? You mentioned that Christ essentially defined forgiveness as if it were some sort of object. How would you define forgiveness then?"9

"In his last breaths Christ said 'Father forgive them, for they know not what they do'. This could not be any closer to a 'The Truth'. Everyone knows what they are doing, that much is certain. However, they only know what they are doing as it pertains to them. If I am digging a hole to mine for something, I know that I am doing it. However, I am not very likely to know exactly how it will effect someone else. How could I? I am not them. I am me, and I am not not-me, which they are. When I am digging the mine, I could very well be doing everything in my world to ensure that I am not effecting anyone else in a negative way. However, I have no idea how it could effect someone. Even if I am malicious when I do it, I have no idea how it will actually effect someone. Forgiveness is allowing someone to be as they are. In giving someone the capacity to do that, and I believe we have the word "give" in the word forgive for a reason; we are doing it both for them and for me. For if I do not give them the space and permission to be them; I am doomed to place myself in their existence and being in order to change them. When we don't forgive we are holding a grudge against them until they are no longer what they are to us. We don't have the power to live their life and change them, nor do we have the power to change them in the way that we want them from the outside. We are doomed to always be ourselves being-them in order to change them to our expectation. All we can do is allow them to be as they are in order to see them in a different perspective. For example, if someone steals from me, I can call them a thief as opposed to someone who has stolen from me. As a thief, they are always a thief, because it is what they are. If they are only someone who has stolen from me, I can understand that the act may happen again and safeguard against it, while still acknowledging that they are just someone. They are a person to me. That is it."10

"Okay, I understand what you are saying, but how can you still say for certain that there is no God? You said it yourself, if there is a God; it would have to exist outside of itself as not-being- God. For all you know, God questioning His own being could actually be the source of the creation of the universe. You have also said that we contain our own contradiction in that we have a consciousness which questions our being; meaning that we do not exist to ourselves every bit as much as we do. Outside of ourselves or as you put it; consciousness is everything that is a part of us...that is not a part of us. It is all being or beings that are not us, but are part of our existence nonetheless. If God created man in His own image, then everything would be as it is right now, and we would be here. We are here. There must be a God!"11

"Also, if there is no God, there would be beings that are outside of us, but are a part of our existence. Without God everything is as it is, we would still be here. If man created God in his own image then all of existence would still be as it is. We are here, everything is as it is. There is no God. In the end, it doesn't matter if there is a God or not. As long as you believe in something or in some way for everything to be possible; everything still exists because if it didn't, it wouldn't. All of the mysteries are still mysteries. As long as we forgive we can be free to be ourselves; we can be ourselves and live our lives. Either way, we still are touched with the divine. It's just a matter of perspective as to where it comes from, and in the end the only thing that matters is that we are here to experience it."12

"Very well put..."13

"You made very excellent points, but it appears we have a stalemate."14

A brief silence fell over the two. They both sat still, their only movements were slowly stirring their coffees in anxiety. Suddenly aware that their next move, their every move is completely free. No matter what, they were free to do as they would. They broke the silence, saying the same thing at once.15

"I would really like to talk to you again, what was your name?"16

The End