Do You Believe In God?

Do you believe in God? I like this question also, and it´s a good sign that this question gets raised in places. Do I believe in God, and does it matter?

My start in Unitarian Universalism and spiritual philosophy with the Chinese Tao have come a long way, thanks to many influences including especially Buddhist psychology, the 12 step groups for relationships like Al-Anon, Christian Science, not-for-profit ecosocial justice activism like Greenpeace and food co-ops, and my masters using psychosocial Social Constructionism. I´ve been able to use my education to deconstruct "science" and economics from their "Master of the Universe" illusions back to human empirical philosophy, linking it to the other branches including Religious Studies. Thus, contemplative experience and scientific study can supplement the need to value spiritual practice, a person´s inner life, psychological growth, God´s transcendence, and community life that can inspire and support. Below is the reflection that led me to this summary....

I had oriented myself thanks to a friend´s casual question in high school, my dad´s books including Huston Smith´s classic, and a local Unitarian Universalist congregation. I recall Smith describing the Chinese Tao as "a creative continuum that is always accessible." To my atheist humanist upbringing and in my moderately privileged circumstances, that shifted the scientific mechanicist/materialist view I/we was/were getting in school enough that I remember saying, "If there´s a God, that´s it for me!" Yet, UUism defined nice and clear then in 1981 their support of individual spiritual paths. The process of personal learning and growth was laid out for me.

The question of "inner spiritual reality" certainly prevailed in me, as scientific materialism prevailed in the external world of people and objects. Therapeutic psychology and creativity offered slight variations. In neurophysiological studies in college, I noticed that some groups of scientists assumed cognitive control of emotions, while evidence indicated emotional initiatives. Right and left brain dynamics also seemed relevant. Harry Harlow´s baby monkey studies, as well, among others.

I recently heard P Clayton of Claremont Theology describe a mental illness of brain damage that has people satisfied with sensing God and engaging in quiet activity. He also is acquainted with an old prof of mine from college Bio Anthro. He left the subject of spiritual reality uncomfortably in that vein.

Then came psychosomatic healing. After college, a year in Africa, and starting to work in NYC Soc Svc, Louise Hay´s You Can Heal Your Life was brought to my attention thanks to a Haitian colleague, as were the 12 step groups thanks to a recovering colleague. Consultants also introduced us to emotional awareness counseling, and Milton Erickson MD. Intrigued, I got a book on Erickson, and discovered a modern creative and communicative genius, whose work took hypnotherapy and lifestyle wisdom with amazing results.

That, and martial arts self-defense training, holistic arts classes like Buddhist psychology and shamanism, improv and regular acting all deepened my sense of personal growth and possibility. My ecosocial justice activism also guided me in volunteering for Earth Day 1990 and more.

I was also doing some songwriting with percussion, and my Soc Svc workplace literally self-destructed because of corruption causing conflict. I began to write.

All this involved my psychological level of experience, until a flashback of childhood mistreatment took place. Besides that, a small collection of visions took place that appear related to extended psychological knowledge of my father´s circumstances, another two with experience of possible reincarnation significance.

Yet, my life just continued with standard demands. I found Christian Science at its Reading Rooms that structured my basic sense at that point of "divine guidance" and Higher Power restoration" with God´s Divine Love and Mind, and more, and testimonies of healing and other blessings.

As I pursued my masters at mid-life, researching pro-ecosocial enterprise mostly based on modest European innovations, but spread internationally. Thanks to both Christian Science´s ambitions to refer to early Christian and OT healing, and UUism´s own Christian history, I began to question secularism in University-based democratic and activist Civil Society type of society. I traced it first to Thomas of Aquinas and Francis of Assisi, in Jesus´ legacy, perhaps Anti-Slavery efforts as well already.

After all that, I moved abroad to marry and start a family in a non-English speaking, developing post-colonial nation where my Dad was from in Brazil. That experience was rough and tumble, but fried my hamburger of a self a little less raw, Because I had a transition from fear of economic abandonment to increased trust, despite a lack of standard abundance in a low income simple lifestyle with a wife and kids in a post-colonial land. And then I bumped heads with the anti-theists.

In addressing their ideological objections for evidence and definitions, I have thought further through the meaning of spiritual practice in prayer and meditation, etc as relational to and with God. The scope of the Jewish prophetic heritage of Jesus has become clear in its fairly involuntary character, that shifted with Jesus teaching about God as parental, emphasizing love foundationally, and the need to "seek" and "pray." And even Jesus´ perspective beyond words of "God´s will," that people needed to "go and learn," and that people would "lay hands on the sick," and do "greater things" as "God teaches, and those who listen and learn would arrive in me (Jesus)." John 6.

And then WL Craig. Aristotle´s First Cause (that he rejected) and the thinking of Anselm, Aquinas, and DesCartes, and Islamic scholarship gain a modern form in Craig´s Kalam Cosmological Argument. God as Creator of the Big Bang hypothesis and (quantum) Higgs field conditions. God as identifiable in Jesus´ Resurrection, and the powerful textual implications of the NT. Psychosomatic healing, and Transpersonal factors and qualities had been a major guide for me. Testimonies of healing in Christian Science had already given me a view of God´s Transcendental reality as healing and beneficial through Jesus´ legacy. Medical attestations like Marlene Klepees healing from cerebral palsy brain damage through a prayer-vision-new church sequence recorded at the Mayo Clinic exceeded the basic materialistic biological and psychological mechanisms and processes. Unfortunately, televangelists like Joel Osteen are able to access the wonders of transpersonal healing without being faced directly with Jesus´ concerns about "Manna," which modernize as socioeconomic injustice and sustainability. The paths I see to creating the psychosocial conditions to address that require contributing to the efforts already in that direction, whether Equal Exchange organic and Fair Trade food co-op Corp´s Interfaith Network or the Evangelical Environmental Network, and more.

My start in Unitarian Universalism and spiritual philosophy with the Chinese Tao have come a long way, thanks to Buddhist psychology, the 12 step groups for relationships like Al-Anon, Christian Science, and my masters using psychosocial Social Constructionism. I´ve been able to use my education to deconstruct "science" from its "Master of the Universe" illusions back to human empirical philosophy, linking it to the other branches including Religious Studies. Thus, contemplative experience and scientific study can supplement the need to value spiritual practice, psychological growth, and God´s transcendence that can inspire and support.