The Audience
The way I see it, there's a spectrum of people, regarding religious belief. We can roughly cut it into three categories:
- Unshakeably devout believers, who will reject contrary ideas at face value.
- Ordinary believers, who try to establish a comfortable balance between prescribed doctrine and everyday life.
- Skeptics, who try to pursue truth, even when it's uncomfortable.
All of these positions have their virtues. For that matter, to call these "rough categories" is an understatement - some of the most fascinating and important periods of people's lives are between these categories, transitioning back and forth across the lines, as we try to make sense of the world around us. This model, like all models, is deliberately oversimplifying a much richer and more complex reality.
But the advantage is that it lets us make certain broad statements, for each category, that will apply to the reader more or less, according to how exactly they fall into one of these categories:
- This site isn't here to convince fundamentalists. That would be a different set of arguments, if there's any arguments that make sense at all, to reach such an audience. So that category will probably respond with either indifference (because it's not about or for you), or anger (contrary opinions are often seen as an attack).
- The ideas I'm presenting here, make the large middle of the spectrum (traditionally the sweet spot) a really uncomfortable place. I'm going to do my best to soften this with a gentle bedside manner, and some humor. That said, these ideas are inherently troubling from a faithful perspective, and there's only so much they can be softened in presentation. I'll do my best!
- For skeptics, this'll mostly be preaching to the choir, but I hope my angle is new and interesting enough to still be worth a casual read.
The Premise
Most people who believe in God, either consciously or subconsciously apply limitations to their idea of God. This helps us cope with tough questions, like why prayer is not answered every time, or why bad things happen to good people. These limitations help us feel better and surer about God, but at a high cost - it turns our idea of God into such an unreliable companion, that there is no practical difference between such a god, and none at all.
I call this limited view, the Null God. Hence the name of this blog.
In my writing here, I want to present (leading) questions like:
- What is the Null God?
- Are you worshipping the Null God?
- If we don't nullify God, what answers are left for tough questions?
The Agenda
I will do my best to never lie to you, and I want to be up-front about my agenda. In case it's not already abundantly obvious, I'm a skeptic, and I hope that when you read this, you'll either come to the same conclusions, or at least respect the methodology behind them (and likewise, have a battle-tested faith you can be proud of, rather than a faith you're embarrassed to have never tried in the fire).
My fear is that some people, becoming uncomfortable with a middle ground, will hide deeper in unquestioned fundamentalism. There's not much I can do about that, except promise you that it's not your only option. And for what it's worth, if you're reading this from the middle ground today, you probably already have good reasons why you don't want to be a fundamentalist. I can also promise you, those reasons won't go away - like any idea, they can be buried, but killing them tends to be impossible.
If you believe truth is worth pursuing at all, then that's a spark I want to fan with my next post. Like a fire, I cannot control or even predict where it will spread, but I believe the individual, honest search for truth is always valid and worthwhile, even - perhaps especially - if it leads you to a different conclusion than mine.
In short, I want you to think - so while I hope you end up agreeing with me, I'm just happy if I get you thinking!