What Makes God (gods) Real to Some


Re reading books I read some years ago always surprises me. Either I have forgotten some really good stuff or I read in it in a new and better context than the first time. Such a book is How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others, by anthropologist Tamya Marie Luhrmann. It was published in 2020 and I must have read it back then.

I remember a bit of wisdom I heard on a regular radio program about people and life. It was, "We are what we think about." Perhaps it is accurate to say efforts to avoid harmful behavior is based on this concept. If you are an alcoholic, maybe hanging out with people who drink and talk about how much fun it is is not the easiest road to moving away from it (though this theory is not held by everyone). Treating an eating disorder involves training the mind to think in a different way. 

Author Luhrmann says that most non religious people maintain the religious people believe "God exists." She criticizes her colleagues in anthropology who assert that some privative people who worship ancestors not only "believe" the ancestors are still present but "know" they are present. 

Luhrmann maintains that both devout Christians and native ancestor worshipers consider the invisible being(s) in their lives differently than the things around them that are visible. They consider the banana in front of them differently than they consider the invisible god or ancestor. How are the two different?

At the most abstract level we can first observe no one requires weekly banana mass to believe the banana exists. However, the invisible god requires not only weekly mass but perhaps daily prayers. If the god existed just as the banana exists the mass and prayers would not be necessary. 

The Alcoholic Anonymous model is weekly meetings and having friends that are members. The Pope admonishes the faithful to attend mass and, equally important, confession. At the membership welcome of the last church we joined the preacher implies members take on an obligation to attend at least half the Sundays. All of this constant reinforcement is necessary because even the devout know the invisible being is different than the banana. Doing the activities that hold certain thoughts is the kindling for the fire of the invisible being. 

The author's argument is believers are not different because they "know" or "believe" the invisible exists, they are different because the exercises they undertake to fill their minds with certain thoughts make them different. Perhaps her argument is encouraging in that those who say they "know" the invisible exists actually have doubts. On the other hand, the ability of the faith, or any other group, to fill minds with thoughts and quests that are harmful to the rest of us in not reassuring.   

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