God, Fantasy and Belief

[Gary Wassner]

Good title, right?

Are we religious people, we fantasy fanatics? What do we believe in? Do we believe in God? Is that what draws us to fantasy? The feeling of transcendence? The spirituality of magic? Of a force that operates above and beyond our human consciousness? Is it really any different conceptually than the traditional systems that dominate our cultures? If we are tantalized by magic, are we just religious bastards? Is magic our God? Or nature? Or some other unnamed power that we pray to?

We may appreciate the fact that much of today's fantasy questions our belief structures. But fantasy itself, as a genre, seems always to presume that there is something greater than us out there. That we anthropomorphize often in our books and find esoteric words and descriptions for this otherness is telling.

So what do we really believe in?

 

[Archren]

My flip answer is that since the magic used in most fantasy novels is just science and technology without all the icky math (often magic always works the same all the time, can be taught and studied. The only difference is that SF treats science as democratic (anyone can learn to use it), while fantasy treats magic as hierarchical and priviledged (only those born with the "talent" can use magic), (apologies for the nested parentheses! )), so really fantasy people are obviously into science, secularism, materialism and feudal hierarchies (but no icky math!).

Do we really have to get into all this again? Weren't 170+ pages of controversy and big words enough?

BTW, I finally got around to reading "Wizard's First Rule" by Terry Goodkind, and thus quickly remembered why I don't usually read epic fantasy. Not really my thing. However, he had an interesting world: magic, souls, an afterlife (underworld, spirits of ancestors, etc.) but no gods of any kind running around. I thought it was an interesting choice to have all this supernatural stuff, but no more-powerful-than-any-human deities running around.

 

[juzzza]

I think we (humans) have a need to understand the nature of things and provide an explanation for any given phenomenon, including existence.

Even if we take a relativist view, that reality belongs to the individual, we still need to understand what the hell we are doing here. It kills us, not to know the answers, which is why even a whacky hypothesis for our existence, say 'we are an experiment, created and placed here by aliens'... is still preferable to not having an answer at all. Maybe that is why history embraced the theory of evolution and before that, the wonderful fantasy series, The Bible, as gospel (no pun intended).

So whilst I have never asked myself why I read fantasy or linked it to my ontology, I guess I just like seeing what people come up with as far as rules go, but then... whilst many authors create worlds and create the rules in these worlds, how many actually even speculate why people are on the earth or the alternate world/universe/reality?

The old 'why are we here?' question is still rarely answered or explored in fantasy. Sure, we get gods and demons and all manner of creatures and magic... but why?

 

[Gary Wassner]

I'm curious though, when you go to sleep at night, in the darkness, in the solitary world of your own thoughts, do you believe that you are truly alone?

I know that I have at least two voices in my head. At least. One is fact based, governed by reason and logic, and one is faith based. They reside simultaneously, though they are mutually exclusive. Go figure? It's that contradiction that I wonder if others share?

Archen, I didn't want to rehash that discussion at all. I am sincerely curious as to what people here think of when they think beyond the physical world. What shapes their gods take. I am trying to understand how we get our minds around these ideas and how we make them accessible. I wasn't looking for a debate.

 

[juzzza]

I don't sleep

But I know what you mean. I think even the most hardened anti-religious relativist, would be delighted if an answer to the big question was presented. And I appreciate you can be a relativist and have faith in God, not disputing that.

If God paid us a visit tomorrow and explained what the hell is going on, the relief would be immense for everyone, not just the believers.

I have faith, sure. But it's not in the Bible and it's not in the Church. I have faith in people, in myself and more importantly... in the belief that we will never know the answer and do you know why? Because there isn't anyone who could ever explain it to us and Science is not going to come up with the answer looking in at ourselves at a DNA level.

Education is the answer for mankind, not religion imho. Education is freedom and the future for our race. If the Church had tried to educate the planet as enthusiastically as they tried to make its populace believe, this place would be a very different landscape... and environment.

 

[Gary Wassner]

I don't sleep either. But I spend lots of time in the dark, in the wee hours of the morning, thinking. And these are the kinds of things that I think about.

But what keeps you going? What helps you to find the right way to do things? You believe in mankind (well you're a father just like me, so I get that totally) but what does that really mean? You want to make the world safe for them? Kill all the bad guys, the bogeymen hiding under the beds? In a relativist world, what distinguishes the good from the bad? When you are up at night (not sleeping) how do you decide what side you are on?

 

[Hereford Eye]

I love that question: why are we here and what do we hope to gain? Was first introduced to it as part of a management seminar on how to attend meetings.
I'm on Juzzza's side if he constitutes a side. I will go with people and avoid religion wherever possible. Cannot find the heart to believe in a religion whilst believing in powers greater than humanity is no trick at all. St. Augustine's five proofs of the existence of god still work for me. What doesn't work for me is what the monotheistic religions did and are doing with the answer.

Why isn't this treated in fantasy? That was one your questions, right? If a writer posits a society with laws and social structure, gods running about, but no religion, e.g., Eddings, has that writer not treated the subject? Does he give a why? He talks to an eternal struggle between good and evil and humanity's role in same. That, for me, is fantasy that attempts to deal with the issue. Did he have all the answers? Hell, no! No one does.

H.G. Wells addressed the problem as well in The Time Machine which is more sf than fantasy until the last page but he did it in the manner Juzzza advocates in his post. He left it up to the people, in this case his readers. What 10 books would you take back to the future? Would the bible be one? Or the Koran? Dr. Spock on child rearing? Plato's Republic? What would you take to build a society of which you could be proud? How about John Austin's The Province of Jurisprudence Determined? At least you would be able to distinguish between moral and legal precepts while maintaining the indepence of both.

I propose that any group of people will organize themselves along some kind of ethical and moral lines. It is essential to communal living. If we hypothesize a social organization in a fantasy story, then are we not continuing the human condition in fictional form? Whatever we say about that society tells us why they are there. Is there any doubt the role of the races in LotR? And does that not lead us to a moral position with respect to Middle Earth, both the one Tolien intended and the one we came away with?

How do you write a story and not expose your beliefs?

 

[Gary Wassner]

Yes, I agree so much. These questions are most definitely treated in fantasy whether intentionally or not. But they are the same questions that religion attempts to answer, for better or for worse, in its own more organized fashion.

Great question, Hereford: what books would you bring back to the future with you? Great question. Would we need dogma at all? I can't think of any but those that would help me to ask more questions, help me to think. I don't need instructions on faith. Faith isn't something that should be taught or can be taught. Rules can be, methods can be, medecine and science can be. Faith? It shouldn't be. It seems silly to talk about teaching it. That's why I asked in the beginning if people could clarify what they personally, in their private moments, think when they think about these things. What shape does your God take? We all have gods afterall.

 

[juzzza]

But what keeps you going? What helps you to find the right way to do things? You believe in mankind (well you're a father just like me, so I get that totally) but what does that really mean? You want to make the world safe for them? Kill all the bad guys, the bogeymen hiding under the beds? In a relativist world, what distinguishes the good from the bad? When you are up at night (not sleeping) how do you decide what side you are on?

I don't want to make the world safe for them, I just want to keep them safe. I think there is a difference. It won't be me that changes the world but it might be my Son or Grandson (or daughter, sorry Georgia!)

That's the great thing about being a relativist, only my hyperreality matters lol, so my perspetive of right and wrong is quite correct, Gary! How many bad guys do you have to kill before you become one yourself?

I'm on my side and now, my children's side. With a sense of right and wrong and respect, that I will try and pass on to my kids... along with my temper and love of music!

I simply don't ask myself the questions, I 'do' rather than 'question' although I recognize that underlying desire to understand why?

 

[Hereford Eye]

I keep coming back to the interconnectedness of everything. Wrap it all up into one big ball and you have the creative force. God or goddess, I don't know that it matters except that I will always refer to the creative force as the goddess because it annoys so many monotheists when I do.
How do you picture such a god? A singularity works as well as any other image. What's a singularity look like? A black hole, of course, which has not much image save for a lack of light like a blind spot in your vision. To overcome that detail, the symbol for inifinity works for me.

 

[Gary Wassner]

I think of it as if my skin was not something that separated me from the rest of the world (universe) as it makes me feel that it is. I think of us all as permeable, constantly being touched and constantly touching. And in being permeable, I think of the distinctions of individuality and ego disappearing most of the time and being resurrected when consciousness comes into play, but then for other purposes. I can put my arms around a tree trunk or dip my hands into a stream and not feel so separate.

 

[Boll Weevil]

Gods and faith are more absorbed than taught. The Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists all have geographic locales. Arguing bizarrely that each one is probably wrong; this is without any form of atheisim thrown in.

Localized beliefs (the peculiar concoctions of individuals) are it seems to me a comfort blanket, a smorgasbord of religous, new age, ideas sucked up and collected until one feels sufficently happy.

It is the conflict of what do we know to be true (very little with complete absolutism it turns out) and what do we WANT to be true. And we want the big daddy/mommy/thingy in the sky and life after death very very badly indeed, no matter how improbable it is.

 

[KatG]

Well, I'm an atheist. Which I guess doesn't really fit the fantasy mold. Nor allows me to really contribute to the conversation.

And as an atheist, I say, quit saying "God" when you mean gods. The capital "G" is the Judeo-Christian god and it's very disrespectful to the Wiccans.

I don't think there's a lot of connection between modern fantasy and religion. In fact, the opposite may be true, in that many Christians and Muslims find fantasy fiction to be a problematic thing that mocks or undermines their faiths. I do think fantasy authors and fantasy readers are interested in big life questions and issues of morality and power, and since religions attempt to deal with these things too, they are an integral part of fantasy story-telling. Also, religious myths provide the basis for some of our most powerful story ideas, and so these questions do get recycled in modern stories. We deal with societies in our stories -- endlessly constructing new ones in much pre-industrial fantasy and dissecting current ones in contemporary fantasy, and if you deal with societies, you have to deal with the subject of religion, or lack thereof. But I don't think the religious flock to fantasy. In fact, given that most fantasy fiction out there is category fantasy, available chiefly in only a few English-speaking countries, I doubt the majority of the religious think about fantasy much at all.

For me, personally, our sun is a speck of sand on the endless beach of the universe, and I'm okay with that. I have good friends who are Christian, Jewish and non-denominational agnostic. I have acquaintances who are Muslim and neo-pagan. I know people who believe in ghosts, reincarnation, and alternative medicines. And I'm okay with that too. I would appreciate it if they'd quit trying to stick it into my kid's school, though.

 

[Radthorne]

Well, I'm an atheist. Which I guess doesn't really fit the fantasy mold.

Which is why you test out as Captain John Sheridan.

(Of course, he sort of became a god, if I recall, at the end. Which must also say something about you.)

 

[Gary Wassner]

"I don't think there's a lot of connection between modern fantasy and religion."

Well, you see, that's where I find what you are saying fundamentally wrong. I think all efforts at transcendental understandings are inherently similar, in much more than a generic sense. And though you may be an atheist, I wonder then even more how you reconcile your moral choices when you contemplate making them?

I too like to think that I am at least an agnostic. None of this God or gods stuff makes any logical sense to me. But as I said before, I am a rather schizophrenic agnostic. I am not looking for a reason to believe. But two voices talk to me at night.

 

[Hereford Eye]

Why is it you believe god must be involved in moral choices? My accepting that there is a creative force at work does not imply interference by or expactations from that creative force on how life is to progress.
Let me propose again that any group of people living together will establish rules of conduct for their behavior. It an essential part of communal living. Those rules become moral choices in the sense of morality as the rightness of wrongness of an action.
The Golden Rule makes practical, ecological, and economic sense. As such it can be and has been adopted by every society that has recorded its values. From such a simple statement, a vast ethos and morality can be and has been established. As I wrote in a blog the other day, it is also the basis for defining what is evil in the world. And it requires no action or even the existence of a god. An atheist can adopt the principle and ultimately live what some religions describe as a saintly life.

 

[Gary Wassner]

Simply because otherwise all moral choices would ultimately be arbitrary, and half of our vocabulary would be incomprehensible. Why not kill? Would it be only a matter of consequences? Of getting caught? If it becomes more practical for your society to kill, would you do it? If a race was undesirable, if the genes were 'dangerous', would you be willing to eliminate it?

I don't know that the golden rule really does make sense for everyone. Ask the Palestinians or the suicide bombers in Iraq.

 

[Hereford Eye]

Was Immanuel Kant arbitrary? How about Socrates? Did they not manage to define to morality without recourse to a god?

 

[Gary Wassner]

You think the categorical imperative really works? It doesn't for me.

 

[KatG]

What I meant was, I don't think most modern fantasy writers are writing fantasy out of a sense of religion, or wanting chiefly to explore religious issues. Obviously, that's not always the case, but the bulk of category fantasy is not particularly Christian, Muslim, or etcetera. There is Christian fantasy, which is put out by Christian publishers and very popular there.

As far as I'm concerned, moral choices are arbitary. I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say, Gary, so I can't really address it.

They say we may be hardwired in the brain for religion, complete with physical sensations that relate to it. Then again, they've found that those who don't receive any real religious training as children tend not to be religious in adult life, and that is the case with me. My mother and sister are not Christians, they don't believe in Jesus, but they believe in a creator and so go ahead and celebrate Christmas. My husband's family is Jewish and observant. I have friends who work in the Epsicopalian ministery. And these are not at all the same beliefs. I don't know that you can lump them all together in regards to morality or anything else.