The Rainbow

Thoughts on the nature of God, on beliefs and a rather snazzy allegory that works rather better than I ever expected...

I was brought up a Catholic. I was very devout. For many reasons, I no longer believe in the Catholic message. The phrase "the Gospel truth" has lost all meaning for me. It's now a mantra, made up by people who only wanted to cover their tracks. I have come to the conclusion that the religion we know as Christianity has little to do with the one we call Christ or His message. It is lies and cover ups all bound together in one great self-contradictory book we all know as the Bible. It is manipulative, making us think badly of women, of black people, of Jews, of gays. All hidden under the cover tag-line "love thy neighbour as thyself".

Read the parable of the Good Samaritan again, someday. Who is your neighbour? The one who is nice to you...

All this has left me in rather a spiritual vacuum, though. I've long since come to terms with the above. The existence of God, though, the existence of God is a rather more difficult thing. I've asked myself the question many times over the past four years or so: Do I believe in God?

The answer is, I don't know.

I don't believe in the God I grew up with, the one touted as God by Catholicism. From what I know of other Christian religions, I don't believe in their God either, as He's very much the same thing, inextricably linked by over 1000 years of common history. An omnipotent God would be more intelligent than I am, the one they are selling seems to me as considerably less so.

I believe in the duality of the human race, of the division into male and female, not the same, but complementary. It therefore seems odd to me that we're expected to accept a God which is purely masculine. There's a lack of symmetry, a vacuum, where doubt falls in. God should be sexless - by which I mean an entity which encompasses both male and female traits - or there should be a dual God, God plus Goddess. That'd sort out all those sex-starved and female-fearing patriarchal Christian institutions that have shaped Western society for the past two millenia.

Well, does God exist?

A rainbow doesn't exist. It is an illusion, an image of white light split into many parts. Not only that, but it is caused by raindrops. Each raindrop contributes a little to the strength of the final rainbow, and the shape of the raindrops decides the shape of the final rainbow. Each raindrop has a limited lifetime, but that doesn't matter, because not only are there many other raindrops to take the place of those that hit the ground, but each droplet of water has the chance to fall as rain many times. And although the rainbow is, in a real sense, not really there, in a different sense, it is there, perceptible and real to all those who see.

Now, suppose that *we* are the raindrops - sentient life. God is the rainbow. Formed and shaped by humanity, changing as we change. There, but only because we are there. Untouchable, but beautiful, reflecting all that is good through the raindrops and becoming something more and better than the drops themselves.

What does that metaphor mean? It works so well, doesn't it? Something small, fleeting, transient, can form something greater, longer lasting, and more impressive than itself. But unlike raindrops, we are sentient. We can change the way we project the rainbow, and if enough of us change our shapes by a little, we can change the shape of the rainbow. Witness the difference between the vengeful God of the Old Testament and the Father figure we're taught about today.

But I still don't know what it means. Does God exist? Is the rainbow also sentient? Is it a sentience produced by the combined will of the raindrops, or does it have a will of its own? Does the rainbow also have the ability to shape the raindrops? Perhaps no-one can answer these questions, certainly I cannot, and in the end it comes down to faith.

Do you believe that it is up to God to wipe evil from the world? Do you believe that the rainbow has ultimate control over the raindrops? Or do the raindrops by their collective will change the shape of the rainbow: is it up to us to change the world?

The funny thing is, the important thing to me is not which is true. I see no way we can ever understand the real truth. But the important thing is which belief is more constructive, which will make the world a better place? In the first view, we have no need to act to change the world, because God can and should do it. In the second, we must accept that the name "God" is simply a label for the good and the sentient aspects of ourselves. It will prompt us to take action ourselves, perhaps, but it would also be a great responsibility. And immediately, all the old certainties drain away...Something I wrote in my online journal that I wanted a rather more permanent record of.