Why do I even care?
People are quite awful. Even at their middling best, they're more than mildly unpleasant. Why do I care what happens to any of them? They're not me, not related to or beloved by me. There are six billion people on this planet, and 99.99998 % of them could take a dirt nap and I wouldn't care or miss them. So why am I so interested in secular humanism? What do I care if the things I think are important don't survive me? Aliens could invade Earth, turn half of the people into slaves, and the other half into barbeque--as long as I wasn't one of them, I don't know that I'd be so upset. Especially if I never have children.
So why do I care?
I know some of it is sheer bloody-mindedness--not wanting "the other guy" to win. But that can't account for all of it, can it? I mean, I'm spiteful, and I like being right more than just about anything. But I'm also lazy, which tends to balance out that spite/ right thing. So it seems spite isn't the motivating factor.
Why do I care? And I do care--some days, more than others. I know the world'll never be exactly the way I think it should be, but I feel as if I have to take a hand in shaping it. Even a small corner of it. Not that I'll get to enjoy the fruits of my labor.
Even enlightened self-interest doesn't explain it. Or does it?
I don't know. I'm tired, and stoned, and sulky, and I have to be awake in five hours.
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."--Jayne Cobb
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Dose of Ramble
Brian Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos . . . I'm so dumb. Working my way through it, but so slowly, and I'm ashamed to say three or four pages put me out like a light, without fail. Granted, I've been ridiculously tired, lately, but. . . .
Back and forth between that, and Beyond Good and Evil. I know, I know, me and my junk-reading habits. Hee, though I did spend a goodly chunk of this day off from work reading what some might term crap. But hey, there was this awesome quote--can't remember by who, Hemingway, maybe--about how writing one story is like facing down a rhino, but writing several stories at once was like playing ping-pong.
In my experience, that's strangely true. And it applies to reading particularly difficult books.
Which reminds me of another awesome quote--I really should start keeping track of who says these things--I used to parrot: if you're in difficulties with a book, put it down, and sneak up on it at an hour when it isn't expecting it.
Something like that. Bettr than that, but you get the jist
Tried reading Richard Feynman, didn't like the way he wrote, which saddens me. He comes highly recommended. Though it's way, way more probably that I'm dumb, than he's an over-hyped writer.
My own writing is coming along slowly. The first original fiction I've written in . . . years, maybe. I've lost the knack of characterizing my own characters. My protagonist is too much the two-dimensional, wronged antihero, my antagonist is a cardboard hero, but a real person underneath, a real fuck up--which is actually the way I planned it. But I still can't tell which way is up, don't know what my motivation is, other than the joy of writing.
Sheesh, that sounded smug.
I'm having doubts about the over-the-top french accent the antagonist is sporting, though it's so in keeping with the character.
Blech, tomorrow, it's back to hell. My cute little nickname for work. If we're still 40-60 calls in the red like we've been for the past week, I may just walk out. I seriously can't do this anymore.
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."--Jayne Cobb
Back and forth between that, and Beyond Good and Evil. I know, I know, me and my junk-reading habits. Hee, though I did spend a goodly chunk of this day off from work reading what some might term crap. But hey, there was this awesome quote--can't remember by who, Hemingway, maybe--about how writing one story is like facing down a rhino, but writing several stories at once was like playing ping-pong.
In my experience, that's strangely true. And it applies to reading particularly difficult books.
Which reminds me of another awesome quote--I really should start keeping track of who says these things--I used to parrot: if you're in difficulties with a book, put it down, and sneak up on it at an hour when it isn't expecting it.
Something like that. Bettr than that, but you get the jist
Tried reading Richard Feynman, didn't like the way he wrote, which saddens me. He comes highly recommended. Though it's way, way more probably that I'm dumb, than he's an over-hyped writer.
My own writing is coming along slowly. The first original fiction I've written in . . . years, maybe. I've lost the knack of characterizing my own characters. My protagonist is too much the two-dimensional, wronged antihero, my antagonist is a cardboard hero, but a real person underneath, a real fuck up--which is actually the way I planned it. But I still can't tell which way is up, don't know what my motivation is, other than the joy of writing.
Sheesh, that sounded smug.
I'm having doubts about the over-the-top french accent the antagonist is sporting, though it's so in keeping with the character.
Blech, tomorrow, it's back to hell. My cute little nickname for work. If we're still 40-60 calls in the red like we've been for the past week, I may just walk out. I seriously can't do this anymore.
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."--Jayne Cobb
Sunday, December 28, 2008
A Dose of "Wow!"
Susan Jacoby's "Freethinkers: The History of American Secularism" is simply riveting. I finally started it on Saturday evening--after finishing "Soon I Will Be Invincible", about which I can only say bellisima!--and I'm three quarters done, sadly.
But I'll walk away from it with a thrilling new reading list that includes anything on or by:
Whitman (esp, Leaves of Grass, unexpurgated)
That massive, awesome-looking John Adams biography I was too cheap to buy last month
Emma Goldman
WEB DuBois
EC Stanton
Lucretia Mott
Susan B Anthony
WL Garrison
Robert Ingersoll
Ethan Allen
Frederick Douglass
Eugene Debs
Thomas Huxley
There's just so much about my world--my own country that I didn't even suspect. I'm so humbled by this fact, and as I learn a bit more, every day finds me rather ashamed at having ever called this world I find myself in and the only one I'll ever have boring. Whether I use human or natural history as focal point, there's more than enough in my world to keep me engaged with but a little effort on my own part. Hell, the hardest bit so far, was actually learning how to read, but those efforts are twenty-three years behind me.
(Though anyone'd be right to observe that learning to read, and learning to read critically are two different beasts, and some people die without learning to do the latter. I, hopefully, am taking steps to not be one of them.)
So lately, instead of feeling stupid at the feet of the vast Everest of Things I Don't Know, I've begun thinking, instead, that with such a mountain to climb--which I will likely die before getting higher than the foothills of--the only way my life can be boring, or without happiness, is if I completely disregard the simple, renewable joy of learning and penetrating life's mysteries.
I don't think I've ever in my life been this hungry to know.
Everthing.
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."--Jayne Cobb
But I'll walk away from it with a thrilling new reading list that includes anything on or by:
Whitman (esp, Leaves of Grass, unexpurgated)
That massive, awesome-looking John Adams biography I was too cheap to buy last month
Emma Goldman
WEB DuBois
EC Stanton
Lucretia Mott
Susan B Anthony
WL Garrison
Robert Ingersoll
Ethan Allen
Frederick Douglass
Eugene Debs
Thomas Huxley
There's just so much about my world--my own country that I didn't even suspect. I'm so humbled by this fact, and as I learn a bit more, every day finds me rather ashamed at having ever called this world I find myself in and the only one I'll ever have boring. Whether I use human or natural history as focal point, there's more than enough in my world to keep me engaged with but a little effort on my own part. Hell, the hardest bit so far, was actually learning how to read, but those efforts are twenty-three years behind me.
(Though anyone'd be right to observe that learning to read, and learning to read critically are two different beasts, and some people die without learning to do the latter. I, hopefully, am taking steps to not be one of them.)
So lately, instead of feeling stupid at the feet of the vast Everest of Things I Don't Know, I've begun thinking, instead, that with such a mountain to climb--which I will likely die before getting higher than the foothills of--the only way my life can be boring, or without happiness, is if I completely disregard the simple, renewable joy of learning and penetrating life's mysteries.
I don't think I've ever in my life been this hungry to know.
Everthing.
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."--Jayne Cobb
Thursday, December 25, 2008
'And tell me who is victor....' *
ZOMG, this is a whole heap o' crazy.
However fundie my elementary school was, none of them were like this woman. There aren't even words for this kind of--it's actually beyond insanity. It's willful . . . self-loathing? Self-abnegation? And now it's being projected on an innocent child, and warping her mind.
This is why I'm an antitheist. Though, in the face of people like this . . . I feel like a cricket faced with a glacier. It's so big and seemingly indestructible. Hard and unfeeling, unknowing, causing harm just by existing.
Fuck--I don't even know a word for this kind of crazywrongbadignorant . . . but there's no way to exterminate it completely. It's a disease that will always be with us, in some form or another. Passed down from this wackjob, to her daughter, and her daughter after her. And despite their loathing for even their own children, people like this breed like rabbits. I fear they'll someday constitute a majority that has to be reckoned with. Put down like a horde of rabid dogs. Though if not them, then some other Fundies of some other crackpot religion.
Though, maybe Fundamentalism's not there to be destroyed, but to be fought. Combatted, like any great evil. One thing I agree with the Fundies on, though our definitions of evil differ greatly.
Ignorance and superstition must be beaten back. But it's wearying, knowing that the struggle against such evil will be with us for as long as our species continues. That it's a struggle we're all born fighting and will die fighting, on one side or another. War without end, or victor.
Merry Christmas.
*King Henry the Sixth [V, II]. 'Ah, who is nigh? Come to me, friend or foe, / And tell me who is victor...'
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."--Jayne Cobb
However fundie my elementary school was, none of them were like this woman. There aren't even words for this kind of--it's actually beyond insanity. It's willful . . . self-loathing? Self-abnegation? And now it's being projected on an innocent child, and warping her mind.
This is why I'm an antitheist. Though, in the face of people like this . . . I feel like a cricket faced with a glacier. It's so big and seemingly indestructible. Hard and unfeeling, unknowing, causing harm just by existing.
Fuck--I don't even know a word for this kind of crazywrongbadignorant . . . but there's no way to exterminate it completely. It's a disease that will always be with us, in some form or another. Passed down from this wackjob, to her daughter, and her daughter after her. And despite their loathing for even their own children, people like this breed like rabbits. I fear they'll someday constitute a majority that has to be reckoned with. Put down like a horde of rabid dogs. Though if not them, then some other Fundies of some other crackpot religion.
Though, maybe Fundamentalism's not there to be destroyed, but to be fought. Combatted, like any great evil. One thing I agree with the Fundies on, though our definitions of evil differ greatly.
Ignorance and superstition must be beaten back. But it's wearying, knowing that the struggle against such evil will be with us for as long as our species continues. That it's a struggle we're all born fighting and will die fighting, on one side or another. War without end, or victor.
Merry Christmas.
*King Henry the Sixth [V, II]. 'Ah, who is nigh? Come to me, friend or foe, / And tell me who is victor...'
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."--Jayne Cobb
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Bah! Humbug!
Lurking around richarddawkins.net forums and came across this thread:
What if I don't care if "God" existed or not?
To which I replied:
There's a zen koan:
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”
Change "Buddha" to "God" and that sums up my feeling on the matter.
::gathers a hammer and nails::
::leans against the tree to wait::
That right there? Is the reason I can't tell my mother I'm an atheist. Not because I think she'd freak--she'd probably think I was going through a phase that's a direct result of me never getting Confirmed, or whatever the Episcopalian bullshit equivalent is--but because even one simple question would provoke that sort of smackdown response. My atheism wouldn't make it weird to be out to my mother and family (except for my mother, they can all go auto-eroticize themselves, frankly) but my boiling-over-rage at religion period, my strident, aggressive, unapologetic, junkyard-dog mean antitheism would likely alienate her. Maybe not totally, but . . . more than I'd like.
I guess this is the kinda revelation I'll have to sit on till I'm a bit more chill about it. Though in light of the aforementioned antitheism, coming out about my sexuality? Doesn't seem so wearisome and nerve-wracking.
In the meantime? Xmas, tomorrow.
I think I'll start drinking tonight.
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."--Jayne Cobb
What if I don't care if "God" existed or not?
To which I replied:
There's a zen koan:
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”
Change "Buddha" to "God" and that sums up my feeling on the matter.
::gathers a hammer and nails::
::leans against the tree to wait::
That right there? Is the reason I can't tell my mother I'm an atheist. Not because I think she'd freak--she'd probably think I was going through a phase that's a direct result of me never getting Confirmed, or whatever the Episcopalian bullshit equivalent is--but because even one simple question would provoke that sort of smackdown response. My atheism wouldn't make it weird to be out to my mother and family (except for my mother, they can all go auto-eroticize themselves, frankly) but my boiling-over-rage at religion period, my strident, aggressive, unapologetic, junkyard-dog mean antitheism would likely alienate her. Maybe not totally, but . . . more than I'd like.
I guess this is the kinda revelation I'll have to sit on till I'm a bit more chill about it. Though in light of the aforementioned antitheism, coming out about my sexuality? Doesn't seem so wearisome and nerve-wracking.
In the meantime? Xmas, tomorrow.
I think I'll start drinking tonight.
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."--Jayne Cobb
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Two doses in one day?! The devil, you say!
But I couldn't resist. Memes are my achilles heel. I'm powerless against them.
Cadged from two different places--so it's like Jeebus is commanding me to post it!--but originated here. I copy and paste for your snickering enjoyment:
And the scale:
Seventeen. Huh. Makes me a "New Atheist". Sounds about right, lol. And hey--now I definitely have a purpose in life. Making PZ Myers my padawan :)
In other news. . . .
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."--Jayne Cobb
Cadged from two different places--so it's like Jeebus is commanding me to post it!--but originated here. I copy and paste for your snickering enjoyment:
How serious do you take your atheism?
Let’s find out.
Copy and paste the list below on your own site, boldfacing the things you’ve done. (Feel free to add your own elaboration and commentary to each item!)
- Participated in the Blasphemy Challenge.
- Met at least one of the “Four Horsemen” (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris) in person.
- Created an atheist blog.
- Used the Flying Spaghetti Monster in a religious debate with someone.
- Gotten offended when someone called you an agnostic.
- Been unable to watch Growing Pains reruns because of Kirk Cameron.
- Own more Bibles than most Christians you know.
- Have at least one Bible with your personal annotations regarding contradictions, disturbing parts, etc.
- Have come out as an atheist to your family.
- Attended a campus or off-campus atheist gathering.
- Are a member of an organized atheist/Humanist/etc. organization.
- Had a Humanist wedding ceremony.
- Donated money to an atheist organization.
- Have a bookshelf dedicated solely to Richard Dawkins.
- Lost the friendship of someone you know because of your non-theism.
- Tried to argue or have a discussion with someone who stopped you on the street to proselytize.
- Had to hide your atheist beliefs on a first date because you didn’t want to scare him/her away.
- Own a stockpile of atheist paraphernalia (bumper stickers, buttons, shirts, etc).
- Attended a protest that involved religion.
- Attended an atheist conference.
- Subscribe to Pat Condell’s YouTube channel.
- Started an atheist group in your area or school.
- Successfully “de-converted” someone to atheism.
- Have already made plans to donate your body to science after you die.
- Told someone you’re an atheist only because you wanted to see the person’s reaction.
- Had to think twice before screaming “Oh God!” during sex. Or you said something else in its place.
- Lost a job because of your atheism.
- Formed a bond with someone specifically because of your mutual atheism (meeting this person at a local gathering or conference doesn’t count).
- Have crossed “In God We Trust” off of — or put a pro-church-state-separation stamp on — dollar bills.
- Refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
- Said “Gesundheit!” (or nothing at all) after someone sneezed because you didn’t want to say “Bless you!”
- Have ever chosen not to clasp your hands together out of fear someone might think you’re praying.
- Have turned on Christian TV because you needed something entertaining to watch.
- Are a 2nd or 3rd (or more) generation atheist.
- Have “atheism” listed on your Facebook or dating profile — and not a euphemistic variant.
- Attended an atheist’s funeral (i.e. a non-religious service).
- Subscribe to an freethought magazine (e.g. Free Inquiry, Skeptic)
- Have been interviewed by a reporter because of your atheism.
- Written a letter-to-the-editor about an issue related to your non-belief in God.
- Gave a friend or acquaintance a New Atheist book as a gift.
- Wear pro-atheist clothing in public.
- Have invited Mormons/Jehovah’s Witnesses into your house specifically because you wanted to argue with them.
- Have been physically threatened (or beaten up) because you didn’t believe in God.
- Receive Google Alerts on “atheism” (or variants).
- Received fewer Christmas presents than expected because people assumed you didn’t celebrate it.
- Visited The Creation Museum or saw Ben Stein’s Expelled just so you could keep tabs on the “enemy.”
- Refuse to tell anyone what your “sign” is… because it doesn’t matter at all.
- Are on a mailing list for a Christian organization just so you can see what they’re up to…
- Have kept your eyes open while you watched others around you pray.
- Avoid even Unitarian churches because they’re too close to religion for you.
And the scale:
0-10: Impressive, but not too far from agnosticism.
11-20: You are, literally, a “New Atheist.” But you now have something to strive for! Go for the full 50!
21-30: You are an atheist, but babies aren’t running away from you. Yet.
31-40: You are the 5th Horseman! Congratulations!
41-50: PZ Myers will now be taking lessons from you.
Seventeen. Huh. Makes me a "New Atheist". Sounds about right, lol. And hey--now I definitely have a purpose in life. Making PZ Myers my padawan :)
In other news. . . .
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak."--Jayne Cobb
Dose of Cogitatin'
Been down with a cold the past two days, and by "down", I mean forced to do all the usual shit I do, only hacking and wheezing-like, while glaring at people who wisely move away from me.
(Fuck you, lady at Shoprite with the over plastic-surguried face. If you coughed, your lips'd probably fly right off and hit me in the eye.)
But I've been thinking.
Atheism: lacking belief in any gods.
Antitheism: active opposition to religion.
Now that I've gotten over the sudden shock of realizing "I may very well be an atheist", and the fact that there's no bright-shiny afterlife where I'll spend eternity getting hugs from my Gramma--now that I've kinda mellowed, I'm starting to realize some other things about myself.
I've been a raging antitheist since I was ten, or so.
I don't know how deeply rooted my belief in the sky fairy was. Ten was the age I really started to think, and actively break commandments--not all of them, I'd have been a shit adulterer . . . but I was a smashing murderer--waiting to be struck down. Every time I wasn't, I'm sure my belief became less internal, and more cosmetic. A sort of fail-safe "just-in-case".
Just in case there really was some big asshole sitting on a cloud and judging me. Some killer of babies and smiter of women that found me unworthy.
I still believed, I think, but I hated god. The Judeo-Xtian one. The others . . . I knew very little about (though I'd grow, and maintain an inordinant fondness for the Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita). But I've hated that god since I was old enough to understand what it stood for, what atrocities it committed and commissioned. I can remember being seven, and giving god the finger. And being more afraid of my mother catching me, than of god striking me down.
But that carried on to this very day. I've almost always hated religion. Like a very active burning hatred, that you only reserve for people that shoot your Pa, or ex-girlfriends that you can't seem to fall out of love with.
I hate what religion does to people, especially what it's done to me. Attending a fundamentalist Xtian elementary school made the Catholic junior high and high schools seem like a cake-walk. At least no one hit me, there. Though after six years of that crap at my elementary school and a freakish growth spurt, I was large enough to hit back and make it felt.
This hatred of religion--and by extension any god it feeds--is one of the strongest things I've ever felt, and certainly one of the purest. There's no arguing with it or reasoning against it, it just is. It's damn near perfect. It's a part of every atom of me. It's in my RNA.
If I could, I would obliterate every religion on Earth--even those wishy-washy, candyass pagan ones that I used to try to sell my brain to, in desperation to believe in something--though more would certainly spring up to replace it. Though erasing religion from the world is no real substitute for erasing it from my own heart and mind.
I'll never get back the clean slate I was born with.
So, I've been an anti-theist for as long as I can remember, and for almost all that time, I was also miserably theistic. Very self-defeating. Now that I'm embracing atheism--it's a very day-by-day choice, one that needs contant re-affirming, constant deciding, constant exploring--the antitheism doesn't burn as much. It feels . . . more right. Like there're parts of me that are finally at peace with each other.
If I'm a wobbly six on the atheist scale, I'd say I'm a Christopher Hitchens on the antitheistic scale, and have been for most of my life. I'm not as smart, well-traveled, or well-versed, but I've got that passion, and I believe it'll only get stronger and more potent with age and experience.
Is there a god in the sense of any of the Earth religions I've come across? I doubt it. It's certainly possible. A zebra that juggles live hand-grenades is also possible. But it's highly, highly improbable. But still more probable than a god. I've seen both zebras and live hand-grenades with my own eyes. The only thing in question is one's ability to juggle the other, not whether either exists.
There are some that consider the Big Bang "god", but that strikes me as silly. An event, no matter how important, is simply an event. That's all. Size and importance make it neither conscious nor intelligent.
"God is love"? Ugh, even sillier. God is hate, god is ennui, god is schaden fraude, god is the giggles, god is that empty-light feeling you get after taking a massive shit.
"God is each and every person, thing, atom, force in the universe". . . ? If one is willing to give over the idea of god being in any way conscious, intelligent, or solicitous of our comfort or happiness.
(And I must admit, if there has to be a god, I'd prefer it was one that didn't watch me in the shower.)
Still, any "god" begs the question "well, then what created it, and what created the event/thing that created that, and the event/thing that created that?"
It's a mind trap. One I doubt humanity will ever be equipped to answer. Rather, we'll have to answer every other question in the universe, know every other secret before we know that one with any certainty. And I suspect the ultimate answer will be very simple, and very disappointing.
"Plastic, asshole!"
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak." --Jayne Cobb, "Firefly"
(Fuck you, lady at Shoprite with the over plastic-surguried face. If you coughed, your lips'd probably fly right off and hit me in the eye.)
But I've been thinking.
Atheism: lacking belief in any gods.
Antitheism: active opposition to religion.
Now that I've gotten over the sudden shock of realizing "I may very well be an atheist", and the fact that there's no bright-shiny afterlife where I'll spend eternity getting hugs from my Gramma--now that I've kinda mellowed, I'm starting to realize some other things about myself.
I've been a raging antitheist since I was ten, or so.
I don't know how deeply rooted my belief in the sky fairy was. Ten was the age I really started to think, and actively break commandments--not all of them, I'd have been a shit adulterer . . . but I was a smashing murderer--waiting to be struck down. Every time I wasn't, I'm sure my belief became less internal, and more cosmetic. A sort of fail-safe "just-in-case".
Just in case there really was some big asshole sitting on a cloud and judging me. Some killer of babies and smiter of women that found me unworthy.
I still believed, I think, but I hated god. The Judeo-Xtian one. The others . . . I knew very little about (though I'd grow, and maintain an inordinant fondness for the Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita). But I've hated that god since I was old enough to understand what it stood for, what atrocities it committed and commissioned. I can remember being seven, and giving god the finger. And being more afraid of my mother catching me, than of god striking me down.
But that carried on to this very day. I've almost always hated religion. Like a very active burning hatred, that you only reserve for people that shoot your Pa, or ex-girlfriends that you can't seem to fall out of love with.
I hate what religion does to people, especially what it's done to me. Attending a fundamentalist Xtian elementary school made the Catholic junior high and high schools seem like a cake-walk. At least no one hit me, there. Though after six years of that crap at my elementary school and a freakish growth spurt, I was large enough to hit back and make it felt.
This hatred of religion--and by extension any god it feeds--is one of the strongest things I've ever felt, and certainly one of the purest. There's no arguing with it or reasoning against it, it just is. It's damn near perfect. It's a part of every atom of me. It's in my RNA.
If I could, I would obliterate every religion on Earth--even those wishy-washy, candyass pagan ones that I used to try to sell my brain to, in desperation to believe in something--though more would certainly spring up to replace it. Though erasing religion from the world is no real substitute for erasing it from my own heart and mind.
I'll never get back the clean slate I was born with.
So, I've been an anti-theist for as long as I can remember, and for almost all that time, I was also miserably theistic. Very self-defeating. Now that I'm embracing atheism--it's a very day-by-day choice, one that needs contant re-affirming, constant deciding, constant exploring--the antitheism doesn't burn as much. It feels . . . more right. Like there're parts of me that are finally at peace with each other.
If I'm a wobbly six on the atheist scale, I'd say I'm a Christopher Hitchens on the antitheistic scale, and have been for most of my life. I'm not as smart, well-traveled, or well-versed, but I've got that passion, and I believe it'll only get stronger and more potent with age and experience.
Is there a god in the sense of any of the Earth religions I've come across? I doubt it. It's certainly possible. A zebra that juggles live hand-grenades is also possible. But it's highly, highly improbable. But still more probable than a god. I've seen both zebras and live hand-grenades with my own eyes. The only thing in question is one's ability to juggle the other, not whether either exists.
There are some that consider the Big Bang "god", but that strikes me as silly. An event, no matter how important, is simply an event. That's all. Size and importance make it neither conscious nor intelligent.
"God is love"? Ugh, even sillier. God is hate, god is ennui, god is schaden fraude, god is the giggles, god is that empty-light feeling you get after taking a massive shit.
"God is each and every person, thing, atom, force in the universe". . . ? If one is willing to give over the idea of god being in any way conscious, intelligent, or solicitous of our comfort or happiness.
(And I must admit, if there has to be a god, I'd prefer it was one that didn't watch me in the shower.)
Still, any "god" begs the question "well, then what created it, and what created the event/thing that created that, and the event/thing that created that?"
It's a mind trap. One I doubt humanity will ever be equipped to answer. Rather, we'll have to answer every other question in the universe, know every other secret before we know that one with any certainty. And I suspect the ultimate answer will be very simple, and very disappointing.
"Plastic, asshole!"
"If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak." --Jayne Cobb, "Firefly"
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