This God delusion thing is infectious and got me thinking, primarily at the level of the concept of ‘delusion’ itself and then more particularly in terms of spiritual connectedness and down to the more ‘micro’ concern of friendship as an extension of this.
Are our relations to ‘a’ deity, even the ‘spiritual connection’ or bonds of faith we form in our friendships all about tangible, ‘proveable’ pay-backs or the more ethereal concept of trust and belief. Personally, I can accept altrusim and spiritual connection as equally important motors of ‘trust relationships’, be it with a supernatural entity or ones nearest-and-dearest, but the concept of a transactional, ‘proveable’ even instrumental relationship would seem to be at best ‘unwholesome’ and at worst repulsive. This is simply a personal perspective.
One wonders if it is ‘sound’ to argue that much of our connection to others as well as any ‘higher’ entity, largely based on acts of faith and belief, are delusional! Surely the connection amongst friends, for example, is not about the proveable, about science, but rather about ‘heart’, the spiritual. That most intangible of things which many of us base much of our existence around. If connectedness or relationships were primarily based upon the premise of evidence, pay-offs or crude transactions then we might well be deluding ourselves about the nature of spirituality.
If one’s friendships were about ‘balancing-the-books’, then would one, should one even venture beyond the solitariness of the self. I know I would sooner be ‘Godless’ and friendless if all of the needs I could not meet for myself arose from a mind-set based on the premise, ‘if I do this, I get that in return’. We all know that some explain faith relations in these terms, ‘the pay-off’, and where the ‘faithful’ are not paid-off, then they may question their faith. However, truly the faithful would seem to be those who see great good fortune in terms of benificence and great bad fortune as a countervailing, yet distinctive aspect of life as we experience it and un-connected to notions of ‘just deserts’ or our share according to the pay-off school of thought!
“Dear God, does one need walking boots in order to ramble, amen”
