Empitness.

[mgoforth]

mgoforth: It seems to me like you’re trying to deduce the existence of a first cause from the impossibility of an infinite regression. But, what if you’re just as confident that a first cause doesn’t exist as you are that an infinite regression is impossible?

You’d just suspend belief. You would not deduce a first cause from the impossibility of an infinite regression. So, your reasoning is assuming a decent level of confidence in a first cause.

But, I don’t share this. Not only do I not see how an infinite regression is impossible (and yes, I’m well aware of the objections to them ranging from Zeno’s and the Grim Reaper paradox to Hilbert’s Hotel, etc.), but have excellent reason to think the universe never came into being (even if it had a first state) and that it had no cause.

Please explain how such a thing as an infinite regression is possible.

 

[Bill_7154]

sigh ::stupid Facebook::

A NYC Taxi driver wrote:

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked… ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard
box filled with photos and glassware.

‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her… ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.’

'Oh, you’re such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, ‘Could you drive
through downtown?’

‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly…

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. 'I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued in a soft voice…‘The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired.Let’s go now’.
We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move.
They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

‘How much do I owe you?’ She asked, reaching into her purse.

‘Nothing,’ I said

‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.

‘There are other passengers,’ I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.She held onto me tightly.

‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light… Behind me, a door shut.It was the sound of the closing of a life…

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day,I could hardly talk.What if that woman had gotten an angry driver,or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...82123.130269480330338&type=1&relevant_count=1

Absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for doing that.
God Bless,
Bill

 

[mgoforth]

mgoforth: It seems to me like you’re trying to deduce the existence of a first cause from the impossibility of an infinite regression. But, what if you’re just as confident that a first cause doesn’t exist as you are that an infinite regression is impossible?

You’d just suspend belief. You would not deduce a first cause from the impossibility of an infinite regression. So, your reasoning is assuming a decent level of confidence in a first cause.

But, I don’t share this. Not only do I not see how an infinite regression is impossible (and yes, I’m well aware of the objections to them ranging from Zeno’s and the Grim Reaper paradox to Hilbert’s Hotel, etc.), but have excellent reason to think the universe never came into being (even if it had a first state) and that it had no cause.

Please explain how something can have a first state without being created, or “coming into being”.

 

[atheistgirl]

You ask for evidence to support the Christian position, and when evidence is presented you say “maybe, maybe not”.

Yes, it is maybe, maybe not. Science has not got even close to definitively describing how this universe came to be, way too much speculation at the moment or what’s going to happen in the future. Your claim that is universe only existed once and will only exist once is nothing but an assertion.

It all suggests that you just don’t want to believe for emotional, rather than practical reasons…that you’re desperately trying to avoid going down that road, even when facts and logic do support “it”.

Well, if that’s what it suggests to you, you’re wrong.

I am completely open to any evidence and have been examining tons of it, including doing 40 days of prayer with a genuine open heart and mind.

But when something makes no sense to me, is not credible to me, or is simply so inconclusive to me to be irrelevant at the moment, I have ‘‘emotional’’ reasons for not wanting to believe

Oh well … one minute I’m the Buddha reincarnated, the next I’m an emotional train wreck

Incidently the reason for the OP was it does link into my prayer experience, and I was very interested in hearing the experiences of this ‘‘emptiness’’ of both believers and non believers, as I’ve heard this talked about quite a lot by people of faith.

Sarah x

 

[mgoforth]

Yes, it is maybe, maybe not. Science has not got even close to definitively describing how this universe came to be, way too much speculation at the moment or what’s going to happen in the future. Your claim that is universe only existed once and will only exist once is nothing but an assertion.

Nothing but an assertion supported by scientific facts and scientific theory. My turn to shrug I guess.

Well, if that’s what it suggests to you, you’re wrong.

I am completely open to any evidence and have been examining tons of it, including doing 40 days of prayer with a genuine open heart and mind.

I certainly do hope so.

But when something makes no sense to me, is not credible to me, or is simply so inconclusive to me to be irrelevant at the moment, I have ‘‘emotional’’ reasons for not wanting to believe

All I’m saying is that you dismiss hard and proven facts as “inconclusive” when they don’t support your theory, but embrace other facts like the Carbon-Nitrogen cycle because they allow you to imagine that you’ll be reincarnated over and over forever. (That’s somehow less far-fetched??) How would you characterize such behavior?

Oh well … one minute I’m the Buddha reincarnated, the next I’m an emotional train wreck

You should re-read that post…I said you would be the Buddha if you were truly as free from emptiness as you claimed. You have emptiness like all of us, you’re just not seeing it. I also have a hard time believing the Buddha would have rolled his eyes so much…

 

[atheistgirl]

Nothing but an assertion supported by scientific facts and scientific theory. My turn to shrug I guess.

It’s an ongoing field of investigation and study. Nothing conclusive.

I certainly do hope so.

Your hope is well placed.

All I’m saying is that you dismiss hard and proven facts as “inconclusive” when they don’t support your theory, but embrace other facts like the Carbon-Nitrogen cycle because they allow you to imagine that you’ll be reincarnated over and over forever. (That’s somehow less far-fetched??)

I’m not dismissing anything. I’m saying nothing is conclusive as yet. However, the carbon/nitorgen cycle is a fact.

And it’s a fact I’ll be joining it permanently.

And it’s a fact this particular cycle will end when our sun burns out.

After that, who knows Maybe I get recycled as a bit of space rock on another planet or something, until the universe freezes over, or contracts to a singularity and explodes again or whatever.

How would you characterize such behavior?

Realistic. I’m going with the facts as I have them.

Death - fact.

Carbon/nitrogen cycle where my remains get recycled into the soil and reused for growth and energy - fact.

My soul going on to an eternal afterlife - not a shred of evidence for this.

You should re-read that post…I said you would be the Buddha if you were truly as free from emptiness as you claimed.

I am.

You have emptiness like all of us, you’re just not seeing it.

Like what?

Perhaps what you call emptiness and what I’m refering to as emptiness are different?

I also have a hard time believing the Buddha would have rolled his eyes so much…

Who knows



Sarah x

 

[Perplexity]

mgoforth: I’m not sure what to say about the possibility of actual infinites: we both understand what they are, I just see it as possible whereas you don’t. i.e., I don’t feel the discomfort you do when conceiving of them.

As far as the universe’s coming into being, this is a short article I wrote on why the universe did not come into being, even if it had a first state:

‘If something were to come into being, reality would acquire a new member: something which didn’t previously exist would have come to be’. Does this seem like something our pre-philosophical notion of ‘comes into being’ involves? I believe it does, especially since this pre-philosophical notion is derived from experience and testimony, the objects of which fit the description when viewed from the pre-philosophical perspective.

Our pre-philosophical understanding is important for this argument because that is what we’re analyzing when we try to understand what the phrase ‘comes into being’ means. Usually, these analyses consist in stating the necessary and sufficient conditions that must be met for something to have ‘come into being’.

We might capture the intuitive notion outlined above and formalize it as follows:

I: x comes into being at time t if and only if x exists at t, and the amount of things that exist increase at t as a result of x’s existence at t. (Call this the Increase Condition)

Take a moment to think of various objects that can commonsensically be said to ‘come into being’ such as babies, air planes, toasters, books, planets, t.v.’s or even candy. Our experience is replete with such examples, don’t worry you won’t run out. It seems that when any one of these things ‘comes into being’, a new object is added to reality: the amount of existing things thereby increases.

Supposing that things come into being, the innumerable amount of times this phenomenon occurs is far less surprising if this condition is true than if it’s false.

So, what about the universe? Can it satisfy the increase condition?

Now imagine a translucent ball appearing out of nowhere, coming into being at that instant. A new object has been added to the universe, right? The amount of existing things increased because the ball began to exist at that time. Now suppose the translucent ball was blown up to the size of a country. If it came into being, would the amount of existing things still increase as a result? What if the ball was the size of a planet? A galaxy? The universe? Same result, it seems.

So, we might say the following based on the foregoing:

1. If the universe came into being at time t, then the amount of existing things increased at t as a result of the universe’s existence at t.

Problem is, the universe appears unable to satisfy the Increase Condition.

In order for the amount of existing things to increase as a result of the universe’s existence at a certain point in time, the universe must add to the amount of things that exist. But, it can’t increase this amount if it’s always been included in it.

Suppose at every moment in time there has existed 2 marbles, a red one and a blue one. Could the blue one’s existence at any point in time increase the amount of marbles? No, because the blue marble’s existence wouldn’t add anything to the amount of marbles that wasn’t already there in the first place.

Since regardless of whether the universe is temporally infinite or finite, time itself will not precede the universe, the universe will have existed at each and every point of time before now. Since it shall have always been a member of things that exist, at no point in time could the universe’s existence add anything to the amount of existing things that wasn’t already there.

These considerations allow us to say:

1. But, the amount of existing things did not increase at t as a result of the universe’s existence at t.

Propositions (1)-(2) logically entail (3):

3: Therefore, the universe did not come into being at t.

For convenience and in conclusion we can restate the foregoing modus tollens:

1. If the universe came into being at time t, then the amount of existing things increased at t as a result of the universe’s existence at t.
2. But, the amount of existing things didn’t increase at t as a result of the universe’s existence at t.
3. Therefore, the universe didn’t come into being at time t.

For those interested in a costs and benefits analysis of the argument, I’d like to note that one could endorse (3) and could accept Big Bang Cosmology, and even that actual infinites are impossible. All these would show is that the universe had a ‘first’ state, but not whether we should understand this beginning like the point on a number line or the temporal start of an event.

 

[mgoforth]

Like what?

Perhaps what you call emptiness and what I’m refering to as emptiness are different?

I would define emptiness as lacking something that you feel should be there. What is your definition?

By my definition the frustration you expressed earlier when talking about people constantly questioning your morality is a form of emptiness. You feel that people should accept you for who you are rather than try to make you fit inside their mold, and obviously it bothers you. I’m sure you don’t expect everyone to actually be accepting…but still something inside of you says that the way they’re behaving is wrong, or that there is a better way they could be behaving. That would be the lack of something good - tolerance - and a small example of emptiness. After all, evil is just the absence of something good that’s supposed to be there.

I don’t think emptiness has to mean suicidal thoughts or anything like that (but it can). But if you feel frustration, you feel a dislike for emptiness. The opposite of this emptiness which causes frustration is God, who is perfect fullness and fulfillment.

 

[mgoforth]

mgoforth: I’m not sure what to say about the possibility of actual infinites: we both understand what they are, I just see it as possible whereas you don’t. i.e., I don’t feel the discomfort you do when conceiving of them.

Ok, that’s fine. When you said this earlier…

Not only do I not see how an infinite regression is impossible (and yes, I’m well aware of the objections to them ranging from Zeno’s and the Grim Reaper paradox to Hilbert’s Hotel, etc.)

…I just thought you might have a counter-argument to those paradoxes or something.

‘If something were to come into being, reality would acquire a new member: something which didn’t previously exist would have come to be’. Does this seem like something our pre-philosophical notion of ‘comes into being’ involves? I believe it does, especially since this pre-philosophical notion is derived from experience and testimony, the objects of which fit the description when viewed from the pre-philosophical perspective.

We might capture the intuitive notion outlined above and formalize it as follows:

I: x comes into being at time t if and only if x exists at t, and the amount of things that exist increase at t as a result of x’s existence at t. (Call this the Increase Condition)

Take a moment to think of various objects that can commonsensically be said to ‘come into being’ such as babies, air planes, toasters, books, planets, t.v.’s or even candy. Our experience is replete with such examples, don’t worry you won’t run out. It seems that when any one of these things ‘comes into being’, a new object is added to reality: the amount of existing things thereby increases.

Except that those things don’t come into being. They just change form. What was a piece of sheet metal becomes a toaster, but no new matter was created. So you’re talking about forms, not actual existence vs non-existence. If a toaster suddenly materialized in the vacuum of space, where there was previously only a handful of hydrogen atoms floating around…that would be true creation.

You’d have to explain the “pre-philosophical” part to me though…I’m not following.

Supposing that things come into being, the innumerable amount of times this phenomenon occurs is far less surprising if this condition is true than if it’s false.

So, what about the universe? Can it satisfy the increase condition?

Now imagine a translucent ball appearing out of nowhere, coming into being at that instant. A new object has been added to the universe, right? The amount of existing things increased because the ball began to exist at that time. Now suppose the translucent ball was blown up to the size of a country. If it came into being, would the amount of existing things still increase as a result? What if the ball was the size of a planet? A galaxy? The universe? Same result, it seems.

So, we might say the following based on the foregoing:

1. If the universe came into being at time t, then the amount of existing things increased at t as a result of the universe’s existence at t.

Problem is, the universe appears unable to satisfy the Increase Condition.

In order for the amount of existing things to increase as a result of the universe’s existence at a certain point in time, the universe must add to the amount of things that exist. But, it can’t increase this amount if it’s always been included in it.

Suppose at every moment in time there has existed 2 marbles, a red one and a blue one. Could the blue one’s existence at any point in time increase the amount of marbles? No, because the blue marble’s existence wouldn’t add anything to the amount of marbles that wasn’t already there in the first place.

Since regardless of whether the universe is temporally infinite or finite, time itself will not precede the universe, the universe will have existed at each and every point of time before now. Since it shall have always been a member of things that exist, at no point in time could the universe’s existence add anything to the amount of existing things that wasn’t already there.

And what about time itself? It is a dimension like space and it exists. Where did it come from? What caused its existence?

These considerations allow us to say:

1. But, the amount of existing things did not increase at t as a result of the universe’s existence at t.

Propositions (1)-(2) logically entail (3):

3: Therefore, the universe did not come into being at t.

For convenience and in conclusion we can restate the foregoing modus tollens:

1. If the universe came into being at time t, then the amount of existing things increased at t as a result of the universe’s existence at t.

1. But, the amount of existing things didn’t increase at t as a result of the universe’s existence at t.

1. Therefore, the universe didn’t come into being at time t.

For those interested in a costs and benefits analysis of the argument, I’d like to note that one could endorse (3) and could accept Big Bang Cosmology, and even that actual infinites are impossible. All these would show is that the universe had a ‘first’ state, but not whether we should understand this beginning like the point on a number line or the temporal start of an event.

You’re using time as the measuring stick of existence, by saying that something had to come into being at time t to qualify as being created. But time itself is a created thing, it’s not the substance of existence. Why did time begin at all? Why not nothing and complete non-existence?

 

[beehumble]

To tell you the truth, I’m the rare example of someone who felt more “full” when I wasn’t a believer. I just never feel saved like others seem to feel.

Just do your best to be ‘good’ (love God and neighbor, follow the Commandments) and attend the Sacraments often, especially confession and the Eucharist. If you do those, then just trust in Jesus to save you. He will. Don’t focus on your repeated failings, just do these things and have a long vision that looks forward to eternity. How’s the prayer at Mass go -
“Lord, look not on our sins but on the faith of your people?”

(Not even the saints were confident of their salvation. And many years ago I heard Father Groeschel (now retired) say he was afraid to meet God for his judgment because of his failings. Most all feel this way - so work on following His commandments and His sacraments, and then trust in Him.)

God bless you.

 

[atheistgirl]

By my definition the frustration you expressed earlier when talking about people constantly questioning your morality is a form of emptiness.

I don’t view this as any kind of emptiness. There is nothing missing in my life, just because the attitude in a few posts might frustrate me, or I’m now late because of the dumb traffic and get frustrated with that.

That’s all part of being fully alive, and fully human, and fully engaged in the reality around you.

It’s all part of the ‘‘fullness’’ of the human experience, rather than indicative of something ‘‘missing’’.

You feel that people should accept you for who you are rather than try to make you fit inside their mold, and obviously it bothers you.

Again, I think ‘‘bother’’ might not be accurate. It doesn’t actually bother me, at all, if someone doesn’t accept me for who I am. It really doesn’t. I mean that in the sense of worrying about it, losing sleep over it, investing time and energy and mental and physical effort to remedy it. I’m happy to explain myself again and again if necessary, when asked (with frustration at times sure) but if someone doesn’t accept me for who I am hey, whatever. I can think of a few people no matter what they did, I wouldn’t thank anyone for forcing me to sit at a table with them, and some of them even belong to this forum

(and I’m sure they feel the same way about me )

But if you feel frustration, you feel a dislike for emptiness.

I actually think it might be quite unhealthy to never feel frustrated, annoyed, if not angry - these emotions have important roles to play in the fullness of our lives. In fact, while the dangers of not dealing with these emotions are well known, more and more studies show just how important they are for us - here’s one that researched decision making processes and found people who got angry made better decisions, because they were able to cut through the bull and focused on the key points for assessment.

So no, I don’t think feeling frustration is in any way shows an ‘‘emptiness’’ for something better that should be there. I think it’s a vital and essential part of living, is an important emotion, and is rather part of the ‘‘fullness’’ of being human.

The opposite of this emptiness which causes frustration is God, who is perfect fullness and fulfillment.

But where there’s no emptiness, what does this God fill?

Sarah x

 

[Perplexity]

Except that those things don’t come into being. They just change form. What was a piece of sheet metal becomes a toaster, but no new matter was created. So you’re talking about forms, not actual existence vs non-existence. If a toaster suddenly materialized in the vacuum of space, where there was previously only a handful of hydrogen atoms floating around…that would be true creation.

Why doesn’t something come into being when it changes form? Doesn’t a new object come to exist, which previously didn’t? i.e., toasters (the specific combination of form and matter) haven’t always existed, but they do now.

You’d have to explain the “pre-philosophical” part to me though…I’m not following.

Pre-philosophy just means the ideas and reasoning we use before we critically reflect on them. It’s also often called ‘common sense’.

And what about time itself? It is a dimension like space and it exists. Where did it come from? What caused its existence?

Well, I don’t think time could have come from anything. Otherwise, it would have to increase the amount of things that exist, and it couldn’t have done that. So, I think the temporal dimension has just always existed.

You’re using time as the measuring stick of existence, by saying that something had to come into being at time t to qualify as being created. But time itself is a created thing, it’s not the substance of existence. Why did time begin at all? Why not nothing and complete non-existence?

I think the initial state had to exist, out of necessity. I don’t admit that it was possible for nothing to have existed.

 

[Neithan]

Prompted in part by another posters thread here, and in part by my lifelong continuous reflection on my life to date, what is this feeling of emptiness, or void, that only God can fill, for believers?

Just curious: Are you baptized?

 

[atheistgirl]

Just curious: Are you baptized?

No.

Sarah x

 

[Neithan]

No.

Sarah x

So maybe you have no feeling of emptiness because that “space” hasn’t been created in your soul? I’m speculating

 

[atheistgirl]

So maybe you have no feeling of emptiness because that “space” hasn’t been created in your soul? I’m speculating

Maybe

That wouldn’t explain adults who convert to Christianity who’ve never been baptized though would it? They must be feeling something is missing in their lives to get baptized in the first place?

Sarah x

 

[Neithan]

Maybe

That wouldn’t explain adults who convert to Christianity who’ve never been baptized though would it? They must be feeling something is missing in their lives to get baptized in the first place?

Sarah x

Well I guess the Holy Spirit moves them in a way He hasn’t for you. Who knows? It’s a mystery. Faith is a gift.

I think St. Thomas would argue that a soul who has never possessed God cannot feel empty without Him unless moved to feel a lack of Grace (so there would need to be a supernatural experience).

Anyway, the emptiness would make more sense in someone, a Catholic for example, who abandoned the faith.

 

[daisybee]

BTW, atheistgirl, on this topic allow me to recommend that you read CS Lewis “Surprised by Joy”. It’s the best answer I can think of to your question, and a delightful and thoroughly honest read to boot - not at all preachy or dry.

I would also recommend Life in a Jewish Family, by the intellectual Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta). She eventually converted to Catholicism, and later died in Auschwitz. The advantage to reading a work such as this one is that the development of a person’s perspective can be traced over an entire lifetime, as well as the way in which the person handled trials, disappointments, emptiness, etc.

Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle also addresses the difficulties of trials, but she discusses it in a symbolic way.

He Is My Heaven: The Life of Elizabeth Of The Trinity reveals the perspective of a woman who did not necessarily experience emptiness, but maintained joy through health problems.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Hey, Sarah!

I read about the “40 days of prayer experiment” that some atheists are undertaking on Leah Libresco’s blog on the Patheos site.

(Do you ever read her, by the way? She’s a Yalie who used to run an atheist blog, then converted to Roman Catholicism this year (causing a lot of media attention), and now runs a Catholic blog. She says that one of the factors that led her to conversion was the difficulty she found in grounding a sense of ethics solely based upon a materialist worldview. I note from one of your signatures at the bottom of your post that this is an interest of yours, (and it was one of the issues that ultimately led to my turn to faith from agnosticism). You might find her blog interesting, and even if you don’t agree with her viewpoint, she’s a very witty and intelligent young woman and is always worth reading: patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/.)

May I ask (without getting too personal)…how do you pray? I don’t know if there was any discussion of this among the atheists who are undertaking this project. Do you ask for things (material or spiritual)? Ask God to influence an event? Ask for a sign? Ask for enlightenment? Ask for forgiveness? Ask for protection or help for others? Pray for the souls of the dead? Do you recite prayers like the Lord’s Prayer or the Hail Mary (I wouldn’t expect an atheist to recite the Apostle’s Creed), or do you just try to carry on a conversation with God? How would someone who does not believe in God go about such a project?

When I began making those first, very tentative and very unsure efforts at a return to a belief in God, it occurred to me at some point that I would probably have to start praying - something I hadn’t done (except for some very rare atheist-in-a-foxhole-type exceptions, as when my child had an emergency, or my parachute once failed to open) in decades. It’s odd to say it now, but I almost dreaded doing it, for fear of feeling - well, silly, or possibly psychotic. It seemed VERY alien and foreign to me, as I had not prayed as an adult before.

When I began the practice of prayer, it was almost in the nature of a thought-experiment, which sounds a little like what you are undertaking. I had, based on a series of events that had seemed very random, advanced to a point where belief in a God seemed more reasonable than disbelief. A couple of very personal events happened that led me to believe that such a God is beneficent and can intervene to help us, and had the effect of completely reframing everything I believed - or did not believe - to date. But the idea that God could have a personal interest, or would want to enter into a sort of conversation, through prayer, with me seemed, at the time, more than a little ridiculous. I remembered that my last “prayer” to God as an adolescent had seemed more like an angry diatribe against Him, or my conception of Him. (Which, I think, He still probably prefers to silence - something I learned as a parent.) But I felt, based on a very timid and emerging faith, that prayer was necessary, and so began nightly prayer, not without some spiritual grumbling.

I was not surprised to find that I did not hear a voice in my head immediately responding to me, which confirmed me in my belief that I was neither a prophet nor a paranoid schizophrenic, but I continued in my practice nightly before going to sleep. Several interesting things happened as a result.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

As a very minor personal issue, it was interesting that a lifelong problem with insomnia abruptly ceased. A nightly ritual of talking to God about what my concerns were, what I need help with, what I was thankful for, and what I regretted - provided a closure to the day that I found comforting. There was an enormous feeling of relief - possibly psychological, possibly spiritual, maybe both - from laying a daily burden down before what seemed to me at first merely a philosophical conception of God. The ritual of a summation of the day, and confessing what I have done and what I need to do, ultimately gave me the benefit of complete rest and untroubled sleep.

I recall thinking at the time that, even if those first few glimmerings of faith should fade away, and if I should return to the agnosticism that had been my default worldview for decades, that it would still be immensely satisfying to me to continue a practice of prayer, even if I fell from a belief in God. I found that there is something very useful to us to enter into a conversation with a presence that knows our innermost thoughts and desires, and can see past our personal evasions and justifications, and that holds us to a moral standard, even if such a Being could be, as I felt at first, merely a psychological construct.

More importantly, I began to feel a feeling that I can only describe as companionship, that there was someone at the other end of the phone call. God began to seem less a psychological construct than a person, and one that was Himself a person, and had taken on the flesh and blood of one of us, and understood us - and me, for better and mostly worse - all the better for that. And so I began to learn more about the person God incarnated as, and to talk to Him more often, and I think at a deeper level.

I know that if one talks to anything long enough - a bannister post, a painting, my car engine - it can begin to acquire personal attributes in one’s mind. To talk to someone who has full knowledge of us, and all things - seems altogether different. Certainly my experience of it was. I’ve always been a person that talks to babies, or even cats or dogs if there is no one else around to talk to, and when we talk to something that is alive, and has feelings, there is a sense that is quite different than the experience of talking to a psychological construct. There is the sense of another mind with which we are in communion, despite a gulf of nature or being or degree between us. I felt, and feel, the experience of God in such a fashion.

That general faith I began to feel - extended to a God who is our creator, who knows all things, who loves us, and became one of us, and demanded certain things of us - ultimately led me to a specific faith, and is why I’m Catholic. I made a conscious decision to move beyond the difficulties I had always felt about belief in a God - how can I be sure? - to a more (I think) adult view of faith. Faith is trust. It’s extending trust, based on the things we do know - towards the things we can’t, based on love. I extend faith to many people in my life, based on my trust that they have my best interests at heart. Faith in God is like that, too - there is enough evidence I have been given through my experiences in life that I take the final step of extending my belief in Him, and trying, in my imperfect way, to follow Him. I think that’s what faith is.

I’m probably not explaining myself too well, but I guess I’m simply suggesting that you might find the process of prayer is in itself is a good thing, whether you believe in God or not, or perhaps if you only have the occasional odd stirring of something like a belief in the possibility of something else going on in the universe - the deep sense of wonder when you first looked at the face of your child, or the face of your husband when you realized he loved you, or the feeling of looking up into a night-time sky full of stars. Perhaps setting an arbitrary length of time - even a holy number like 40 - to do it, then quitting, may not allow the full value of the practice to emerge, anymore than saying you will only go to the gym for 40 days. Just something to think about.

Mike