I'll ante up, sort of ....
Let's just say I'm
vaguely theist. I'm inclined to say "Don't ask me to define that."
I'm generally quite reserved with the details on two grounds. First, it's a private relationship. Second, it makes no sense to anybody but me. As long as those two things are clear, we're doing just fine.
But if I were to write it as a story, it would include the sense of purpose found among the dancing farondolae of L'Engle. The goddess herself is an Earth-generated spirit of Life; her divine benefit is that she is clued in toward that sense of purpose. The supreme cause is removed and impersonal; it is the event we call Universe; notions of gods and goddesses can become quite real in the sense that they have a measurable effect on human conduct.
I have mentioned before to
Cris (somewhere, but please, I don't feel like digging that one out; it was a random aside in a strange thread I can't remember) that the goddess is somewhat a personal psychosis; it's the nearest
short explanation I can give that makes any sense to anybody. The essential function of this goddess is to create a sense of center that is A) removed from me, personally; B) considerate of larger issues than individual organisms.
A) As I have lamented of other faiths, notions of redemption or salvation make religious faith an issue of greed. I'll stand on that since such a massive digression is beside our point today. But it's splattered all over a couple of debates in the Christian forum. (I recall that I harped on
Tony1 on this point, but I'm not entirely sure; it's probably in one of those war-torn threads he and I left behind.) To believe in this sense of purpose in the Universe, I have come to know a goddess who makes no personal demands of me in the sense of, well ... my primary experience otherwise is with the God of the Christians. Atheism works, too, but its philosophical center does not quite suit me. (I have, before, asserted that what separates me from atheists is probably a matter of vocabulary, and nobody has been particularly inclined to argue that point, so I suppose there's that.) But this sense of purpose I've recognized relates smoothly with other, more worldly principles--such as Liberty or Community--that I've come to believe in.
B) Something about species. For what reason did we humans, who are fiercely independent and individualist, come together in the convention called society? This does come back to greed, in a way. For instance, Capitalism: it describes a condition, but what happens when it is made a cause? People's greed compels them to enrich themselves at the detriment--not merely the financial expense--of others. At some point, this enrichment becomes detrimental to the capitalist: there is a brilliant Hap Kliban pen-and-ink cartoon entitled
Industrialist, which depicts a decrepit industrialist in dark glasses and a white suit sitting at a table and delicately eating a plate of severed hands with a trident fork. At some point, one's greed becomes so consuming that they create detriments in their own immediate community. Even if you're the toughest crime-boss, your own home turf eventually becomes exceptionally dangerous as a result of the conditions born of avarice. Watch the Drug War in the US, for instance; the sleeping giant is stirring. People are just starting to figure out that the Drug War is about money and that it's responsible for most of the damage it claims to fight. (Note re: money--Most libertarians on this issue fix the beginning of the modern Drug War on the
1937 Marihuana Tax Stamp Act; commercial legislation, US Constitution I.8.iii.)
Okay, so the point actually being, as relates to the Goddess: By remembering my place in the living order, reminded by the fixation of the figurehead in a planetary and not individual scheme, I am more compelled to consider whether my benefit comes as a natural part of the economy sucessfully extracted, or at the direct and calculated detriment of others. The point of the Goddess being of the Spirit of Life is that she thus constantly considers as much of the whole of life as the situation either requires or allows.
So much of redemptive religion seems to fix the figurehead to a Universal scheme while refusing to consider that said figurehead might have a place for humanity in the scheme that is
not the center of Creation's reason. I remember finding it impossible to work past the limits of a God that was All, yet required such individual attention; when I realized that such schemes as redemptive religions put humanity at the center of the Universe's reason for being, I also realized that
this is not necessarily true.
When I belonged to a redemptive religion, I looked to God and saw myself; this was my salvation, this was my peace, this was
my, my, my, mine, mine, double-mine! Or, uh ... something a little like that.
When I look at this little psychosis I've constructed to filter information, I see life. Whether or not one believes in God, life is much better for everyone around you if you stop worrying during this lifetime about salvation and just concentrate on Living.
The sense of purpose is more important to me than the figurehead, and what's nice is that she doesn't mind because that's the point. Therein lies the only personal problem I have with being atheist myself: I actually have a comeback for Camus--
Yeah, mate, but that doesn't change the fact that it's all pointless. Which is odd, in a sense. My birth is actually quite the little accident; you'd think I would find some comfort in the transition from believing that humanity is a slim chance in the Unviverse--essentially an accident--to accepting that given the nature of the Universe, humanity is a statistical necessity. But being a statistical necessity isn't much better than being born of a prostitute, either. Perhaps that's why I feel no necessary kinship to the Christian Father of All, but you'd think that I would have taken some comfort from exploiting one or another atheistic perspectives on the matter. Ooh--maybe that's my little psychosis: mother issues. However, that would probably relate more to the mother I actually have as compared to a shadow of my past, so psychoanalyze all you want.
I take from theism a structure for the sense of purpose I acknowledge. I take from atheism the objective fact that the Universe is not extraneous; however we have arrived at humanity, we most certainly have arrived; we're here, we are not extraneous. I like to note that, since most of the atheists I associated with during my attempt at atheism were the bitter-artist, no-purpose-in-living, eventual heroin user philosophers, there are reasons why I developed the Camusite response I have. See? No system's perfect. Just make sure you don't accept one that claims to be.
Avoid superstion; strip it naked if you can. Life is much easier when you're not afraid. Well, okay ... you just find more important things to be afraid of, but life's like that, you know?
Is this what Michael Stipe meant when he sang,
Oh no, I've said too much ... haven't said enough?
thanx,
Tiassa