UQD, I started off as an atheist who was convinced that belief in God was irrational, unscientific, and wrongheaded. But surely, past adolescence, it is quite easy to see that the mere scientific discrediting of God is only a small part of the story.
Ruty has said that she regards God as a metaphor, I think. And even David Attenborough this morning on the Today Programme said that it was wrong to regard him as an atheist rather than an agnostic. He was very open to God.
I want more than a metaphor from God. And I think I might be able to find a bit, a little bit more than a metaphor, maybe.
I want the assertion of God to be just a way, a very precious way, of stating the very special status we assign to all of the yearning thoughts that we associate with the dilemma of being a conscious mind in a material universe, seeking meaning, and seeking union with other minds.
It is like the very best painting, or piece of music, or whatever. One that has ben filtered through all the hundreds of years of seeking after meaning, so that it captures universal ideas -- like fairy stories capture the universal anxieties of childhood.
It captures truth, in a beautiful way. Rather than asserting a truth which might be shot down on a scientific model. The scientific model is as relevant to religion as the chemical analysis of paint is to art appreciation.
I'm a tad pissed on the Pale Ale I drank while unpacking my Tesco loot, so perhaps not making sense.