Still Talking About God

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In my notes I’ve reminded myself to write about the smugglers who I met and unwittingly abetted on the Trans-Siberian RR, about the veritable “Wild West” (in the far east) that is Mongolia, and about how entering Russia from Asia (as opposed to entering from the Europe) made me realize how similar I am to the average Russian. I’ve never really thought Russians and Americans had a lot in common, but when it’s just me, a Mongolian, and a Russian together in a room, somehow the Russian and I are brothers.
According to my notes those are the things I ought to write up, but somehow their moment has passed. I had another theological discussion this morning and it’s on my mind.
Any of you who’ve read this blog with any sort of regularity know that this trip, for me, has been a spiritual journey at least as much as it has been a regular journey. I’ve made a habit of posing the question “do you believe in God?” as often as I get the chance. Answers have varied drastically, and in most cases kicked off some worthwhile dialogue.
I woke up early this morning to blog. I was firing up my laptop in the hostel’s kitchen when three noticeably drunk hostel fellows whom I hadn’t met before came in. They’d been drinking all night. They were pretty sloshed (one fell out of his chair at one point, and another just laid his face on the table and started snoring), but w/o my provocation they started philosophizing. I stopped writing and started listening.
The burly Finish fellow was of the mind that death is all there is. “We may as well die, there’ s nothing besides death anyway.” Some of what he was saying would have fit well in Ecclesiastes, except he never thought to add the “fear God and keep His commandments” bit. He had a black and white picture of things, but it was more black than white. His less profound French companion (the one who wasn’t conked out and drooling on the table) argued that life was better than that because of the it’s “high” moments. “Even if you are sad more than you are happy,” said the Frenchman, “happiness is worth more than sadness so it can overcome your sadness and make life worth living.” He thought that buying a new laptop might be one such “high.”
I wasn’t at all sure I should enter the conversation because it was obvious that our ideas were quite different and would hinge on the discussion of whether or not there is a God. I prayed that I wouldn‘t make a fool of myself and opened my mouth.

I made a case for the existence of a God based on the idea that there is an identifiable moral code within ourselves (more fundamental than those that various religions arrive at) that we feel compelled at least to recognize if not to obey. I’ve not worked extensively with this stuff, but that was the angle I took. If there is such a thing as real, absolute right and wrong then there must be a writer of that code, a “something else,” a God.
Coming up with concrete examples is something C.S. Lewis is a lot better at than me, but I did my best. I tried to make it raw and poignant. “If I sleep with the woman you love (ladies you’ll have to adjust the example accordingly) you‘ll be well convinced that the thing I did was ‘wrong.’” I claimed that outside of any religious structure, and outside of any fabricated moral code that a culture has adopted, it would be WRONG for me to do this thing, and that the fact that you would be eager to smash my skull with a heavy stick means you are recognizing my wrongness.
Drunk as they were the guys were really great to talk to. They even helped me revise my example. They weren’t sure how the feminists would feel about the “ownership” that a man’s right to be angry at another man for taking his woman implies. So we changed question to “what if I kidnap your son and make him my slave?” Did I for sure wrong you then? Is that wrong enough to be described as absolutely wrong? Is it wrong beyond any “wrongness” that some well meaning but polluted moral thinker may have come up with in the process of inventing a religion?
At this point the Atheists made historical conjectures, and I made historical conjectures. We agreed that such behavior would illicit indignation in ourselves and in anybody we’d ever met, but they argued that there was most likely a time and a people in the past who would not have recognized this behavior as wrong. I think there was never such a people.

The guys were pretty staunch on the idea that everything we’ve ever recognized as right or wrong is only right or wrong because it’s come to be called right and wrong by the prevailing culture. I can’t prove otherwise my experience points me in another direction.
They’ve got their experience and I’ve got mine. That’s that. They may have been drunk but they weren’t stupid, and they weren’t lazy or wishful thinkers either. The guy from Finland praised the Christian moral code for what it was. He doesn’t think it’s “truth” but he does think it’s useful.
So what does a Christian disciple look like here? I don’t know if better apologists with better angles than me would be more convincing than I was. I kind of think there are enough words and theories floating around. For me the challenge is to be the real McCoy. If this Christianity stuff is legit people will see it in my life and want it. Integrity and authenticity are two things my generation demands. That’s good as long as I’m legit. Am I? Are you?