God as Comfort, Solidarity & Enchantment vs God as ‘The Big Other’

God provides comfort to many people. I believe in the God we can create ourselves as a function of a community of believers who have solidarity with one another, and a celebration of each other, as Žižek has formulated. And this is a form of socially inspired enchantment.

However, in many cases, for many people, God is actually ‘the Big Other’ (Žižek) that people create for themselves as a way to try to deal with not having perfect knowledge, that compensates for this unknown.

Also, belief in God is often an attempt to cope with suffering. God is often a human creation we create out of frustration in not being able to cope with our insecurities. This is a rather hollow solution as belief therein unfortunately yields little comprehensive long-term material solutions to many systemic and political problems, aside from human-made good religious morality in the written texts and oral traditions in the name of God.

When it comes to the nature of a God, let’s play Devil’s advocate for a minute: currently, ‘God’ is more likely to be an evil deity, as the Gnostics believe, than a benevolent force for good, if one takes into consideration the unnecessary and acute suffering of humans and animals. I personally doubt that even the Gnostics have it right, as there is simply no empirical proof of God’s existence.

Instead, God is a priori apprehension outside of the knowledge that is built on observation and scientific investigation/testing: there is no convincing proof of God: we can just believe it a priori, as we create it.

However, in saying this redemption of God, I identify as an atheist; the less suffering we find in the world, the more likely I would be to indulge in belief in a God. I can have transient belief in God at times when it elicits self-esteem and/or positive feelings. But this is emotional and not a rational belief of mine.

I think it’s about time we craft and formulate more nuanced and intelligent understandings, knowledge and discourse regarding ‘God’, as this will assist in intellectual, personal, social and political praxis. After all, social justice is really just about more refined human performance directed by reconciled knowledge. Here I’m alleging that ‘the humane’ and human progression is indeed rational buttressed by our holistic self-interest. The quality of our morality depends and hinges upon our level of enlightenment!