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The Infinite Maybe
The "Infinite Maybe" has been a personal concept for me for many years. Here is a start to explaining what I mean by those words, which might go some way to explaining my personal approach the spirituality and religion.
The Infinite Maybe began as a variation on a phrase my mother used. A term she used for her concept of deity or divinity was the "Infinite IS". For me, the "Infinite Maybe" is a similar term, but reflects my personal uncertainty about concepts of faith.
When I was growing up, my parents ranged from agnostic to atheist with patches of new age hippy. As a result, I was not introduced to the Christian culture that many of my peers were part of. There were very occasional visits to church with cousins or friends. I remember being awed by the idea of God and interested in what it was all about. But those stories are for another post altogether.
Alongside a fascination with spirituality came a keen awareness of the harm that religion can cause. Being told by a kid at school that I "had no real name" because I hadn't been baptised; having friends who were refugees from Ireland's troubles; learning about centuries of conflict between cultures that essentially believe in the same god; mourning with the stolen generations and others harmed by missionary idealism/imperialism/racism and institutionalised violence hidden behind religion. It all seemed pretty toxic to a young, middle-class, Anglo-Aussie heathen girl.
My response to questions about my spirituality has often been that "I don't believe in anything, but I like ideas". I am not strictly an atheist, but I don't believe in God either. I love ideas: concepts, values and where they come from and how they drive behaviour.
I have often found that discussions about morality and values happen in the context of spirituality. So many of these ideas are discussed in terms of metaphor or analogy and many are quite beautiful.
I'm a fan of metaphor. I see religious faith as a kind of commitment to a metaphor. In that context, faith becomes a creative version of the scientific principle of a "working hypothesis". This doesn't mean I consider evolution to be "just a theory"!
I have some sympathy for Isaac Asimov's statement, “As far as I am concerned, if, when everything impossible has been eliminated and what remains is supernatural, then someone is lying.” Although I expect this is often true, I also like to quote Arthur C Clarke, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In a sense, we uncover another "facet of god" each time we learn more about ourselves and our universe. Perhaps one day we'll have something approaching a consensus.
So what do I believe in? For now, I believe in the Infinite Maybe.
The Infinite Maybe began as a variation on a phrase my mother used. A term she used for her concept of deity or divinity was the "Infinite IS". For me, the "Infinite Maybe" is a similar term, but reflects my personal uncertainty about concepts of faith.
When I was growing up, my parents ranged from agnostic to atheist with patches of new age hippy. As a result, I was not introduced to the Christian culture that many of my peers were part of. There were very occasional visits to church with cousins or friends. I remember being awed by the idea of God and interested in what it was all about. But those stories are for another post altogether.
Alongside a fascination with spirituality came a keen awareness of the harm that religion can cause. Being told by a kid at school that I "had no real name" because I hadn't been baptised; having friends who were refugees from Ireland's troubles; learning about centuries of conflict between cultures that essentially believe in the same god; mourning with the stolen generations and others harmed by missionary idealism/imperialism/racism and institutionalised violence hidden behind religion. It all seemed pretty toxic to a young, middle-class, Anglo-Aussie heathen girl.
My response to questions about my spirituality has often been that "I don't believe in anything, but I like ideas". I am not strictly an atheist, but I don't believe in God either. I love ideas: concepts, values and where they come from and how they drive behaviour.
I have often found that discussions about morality and values happen in the context of spirituality. So many of these ideas are discussed in terms of metaphor or analogy and many are quite beautiful.
I'm a fan of metaphor. I see religious faith as a kind of commitment to a metaphor. In that context, faith becomes a creative version of the scientific principle of a "working hypothesis". This doesn't mean I consider evolution to be "just a theory"!
I have some sympathy for Isaac Asimov's statement, “As far as I am concerned, if, when everything impossible has been eliminated and what remains is supernatural, then someone is lying.” Although I expect this is often true, I also like to quote Arthur C Clarke, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In a sense, we uncover another "facet of god" each time we learn more about ourselves and our universe. Perhaps one day we'll have something approaching a consensus.
So what do I believe in? For now, I believe in the Infinite Maybe.
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