God: How involved is He?

I don’t think God is very involved in our lives. I consider him the watch maker that sets up the rules of the game, from a structural perspective, and then he lets it run. His structure creates a certain balance.

It’s set up so generally, good triumphs over evil. But I don’t believe he even gets involved when the balance between Good and Evil is way on the Evil side.

Take the Holocaust for example, He let those evil Nazi’s murder millions upon millions of people and didn’t intervene. Same with Stalin, who I hear actually murdered more people than the Nazi’s. Doesn’t this suggest he doesn’t intervene very much if evil on this scale is allowed to run rampant?

I believe he only gets involved when the “salt of the earth” are diminished to the point the world population or area of the world has no good “legs” anymore. As in the Book of Mormon with Moroni. Even then, He let the evil ones kill off everyone (including themselves), or reduces the world to stubble, and then starts over. As God said, it’s the salt of the earth that preserves the earth, but doesn’t necessarily influence the Heavens to strengthen the balance unilaterally. Normally, this shift comes from MAJOR sacrifice by the salt of the earth and isn’t just handed over either.

I want to argue that God is heavily involved in my life, but I guess I don’t believe it. I wish I did, as it is comforting. So when I hear people going on about how God helped them find their car keys or their wallet, I’m usually very skeptical. They seem superstitious to me.

That’s a bit pessimistic, but it really is the way I see it.

I believe the best way to indirectly latch onto the goodness of God is to figure out how the watch works — and then behave in ways that give me the advantage due to following the right principles. And there are ways of learning the principles, often by faith in acting on what you think the correct principles are, watching the results, refining your philosophy, etcetera.

And even then, the success of certain principles depends partly on the interaction of those principles and a person’s personality, personna and life circumstances.

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If I can draw an analogy about the watchmaker concept. Notice how God achieves balance among species. For example, rabbits are not predators — they are easy pickings for carnivores. God mitigates their fuzzy, cuddly, non-violent characteristics with the ability to mass produce quickly and the ability to run fast. This preserves a balance that allows them to survive in spite of their relative inability to defend themselves. But even then, He allows certain invasive species to dominate and wipe-out other species in certain areas too. So, he tolerates deviance from the original plan.

Also, look at the ratio between human males and females. It’s a pattern that in societies where there are more men than women, violence erupts — men fight over the women and it gets violent. Most areas have slightly more women than men to keep this in balance. For some reason, women don’t seem to resort to the same kind of violence that men do when there is a man shortage. Somehow our genetics tend to produce more women than men, naturally. I see this as an example of the watchmaker concept in general. I hope this doesn’t create a gender bias argument — I am drawing on facts such as what happened at Pitcairn Island when the mutineers from The Bounty (a British ship charged with transporting breadfruit from Tahiti to Jamaica) left Tahiti without sufficient women to keep everything in balance. The men killed each other to the point the only person left was one mutineer, and a ton of children and perhaps a few wives when the colony was finally discovered.

Check CIA world facts and see how close the ratio of men to women is — I noticed in most societies there are more women than men too. Watchmaking in action…

I think God set up this world so that most of the time, the forces of good out-do the forces of evil. But when it gets out of balance, he lets it get WAY out of balance on a large scale, with no intervention for particular individuals on a large scale. And then, when it gets intolerable, he gets rid of the wicked and starts fresh again.

I have given more thought over the years to these types of questions as well…

My answer comes down to how much do I (or we) need to believe I (we) see the influence of God? Not whether I am “enough” of any type of characteristic (or “not enough” of a litany of characteristics) – but what does my (our our) perception need to see and what is the need this is fulfilling?

At times we are very insecure about things (both individually and as a people for a variety of exterior and interior reasons) – that is being human. So we need to see the hand of God, we need a concept of God that reassures us and defines us. To me, that why the concept of the a “covenant people” is so appealing – we need to believe that we are unique, cherished, and validated enough as a people. Having a pattern or a pardigm handed to you can be helpful – especially through the developing years. More importantly, having a community is essential to raising and nourishing humans. Joining the church kept my parents from becoming alcoholics as their ancestors had been, and gave them a better foundation for raising all 9 of us kids.

Part of the faith transition for me has been learning to accept that God (if God is around and doing stuff) trusts me enough to be hands off – to not intervene. It has sucked sometimes – sitting in a room where everyone else is convinced that God is being actively involved while I am thinking, “Umm No, we have no direct guidance to say that God is involved in this case”. The loneliness of being the person assuming God is not involved while hoping that God might actually exist and/or be involved in any way hurts – it feels like a gut punch to the spiritual stomach combined with a lingering spiritual burning sensation. However, there is no going back to the way I used to believe – so might as well go forward with much grace, humor, and empathy as possible – it’s gonna be a dozy of a trip.

Some really great answers so far.

About 10 years ago my daughter was stillborn. I was dismayed to learn that there is no clear LDS doctrine saying that she will be resurrected and that we will raise her in the millennium and that she will be sealed to us in the eternities. I get to decide for myself – based solely on my own preference – how I want this to work out in the afterlife. I get to create the doctrine – at least as far as myself and my daughter are concerned. This was a very foreign concept for me as I was used to thinking and having answers to what “WE” believe.

One of the things that I have started to think about is that religions are partly conceptual models. They form a lens with which to interpret the world. They also form supports and coping mechanisms for the vicissitudes of life. (They also usually come with a church community)

“It is not the function of religion to answer all the questions about God’s moral government of the universe, but to give one courage, through faith, to go on in the face of questions he never finds the answer to in his present status.” TPC: Harold B. Lee 223

My experience has helped me to feel more comfortable making tweeks or changes to my personal religious conceptual model. For starters, I believe that our deceased daughter will be with us as a family (even without any temple records or priesthood sealing power). So what happens if one of my other children leave the church in adulthood. I claim the authority to believe that they too will be with us as a family in the afterlife. I reserve the right to believe things that are comforting and helpful for trying to get through this life.

This can be in contrast to things that my broader religious organization teaches that I find not comforting and not helpful (example Polygamy or LGBTQ issues). I reserve the right to disbelieve those things. I also contrast this with some things that are taught at church to motivate me to do something specific that I find not particularly helpful. Often, teachings in this category appear to exist to help further church goals and priorities and may or may not be helpful to me individually. Sometimes, blanket promises are given for my compliance and obedience in furthering said church goal or priority. I also reserve the right to disbelieve these promises.

Before I get too far afield – let me try to answer your specific questions.

What i really was talking about back then was the belief that God knows each of us even better than ourselves. Thats at leaste part of it. I loved that idea. Maybe i still do too.

Sounds great. I teach my 13 year old daughter that the gift of the holy ghost may push her to move in a particular direction. If she has a strong interest or passion for something – maybe that is the HG helping her to fulfill her life mission and purpose. I figure that if my daughter can take courage from this idea to help pursue her dreams then it has been helpful.

The belief that God knows what will happen in the future was a big belief i believed in too.

Jeremiah 29:11 New International Version (NIV) 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” This scripture indicates that God has good things ahead for each of us. I believe this teaching to be a good and positive thing that I wish to hold onto in my home and family.

i felt broken and maybe wanted to believe that God felt differently than i did about being broken.

There are scriptures to support the view that a) we are all broken and b) that we were created for a purpose and that we are exactly as God intended us to be. Both of these teachings are good and useful for specific times and places.

I felt ive needed God in my life. I felt i turned to Him instead of alcohal and drugs

Life can be really hard. Alcohol and drugs can be a short term and ultimately unhelpful coping mechanism. In many ways religion can offer some better, more long term, and more stable coping mechanisms.

So my point is how much is God really in my life?

How involved do you want God to be in your life? Your life experiences will create some limitations but in general I believe you can make a determined effort to believe in God’s hand in all things if that is what will work best for you.

Does he really know me that well?

I believe that it is helpful to believe that He does.

Was He really protecting me from alcohal and drugs?

In a manner of speaking. God gave you a religious belief and church community with strict substance abuse standards. This religion worked well for you and helped you to grow free from the entanglements of addictions. This gave you something to belong to and a purpose.

Why didnt he protect my siblings?

You can make the case that He did. He gave your brother the strength to stop smoking and gave your sister the courage to quit drugs. Maybe God is helping each of us to make positive decisions in our life that are good and healthy for us and are helpful for those around us. Maybe your brother and sister do not want to believe in God. That is ok. You can believe that God is supporting and rooting for their success. Your belief is not dependent upon their belief.

Was it because they didnt go to church so He didnt feel they were worth it. I dont want to beleve that.

I also do not want to believe that. That belief does not sound helpful to me. Some people at church might say things that sound something like this. This is because they have built up their worthiness before God using bricks of obedience. They also feel that this wall of obedience keeps out many of the bad things of the world. Therefore they reason that their worth is tied to their actions and deserves a reward. They may feel safe and protected inside that wall. They may look at others that have not lived the same lifestyle and have had difficulty and feel reassured about their own status before God. This is human nature but it is not the only way to look at things. Maybe God measures the worth of each individual child to be equal – and equally worthy of all of his love and support.

If we have some limited control in the religious conceptual models that we believe, I would encourage each of us to make thoughtful, purposeful, and healthy modifications to those conceptual models. If those models exist in order to give us hope, courage, meaning, purpose, love, and compassion in our mortal journeys then let us modify these models to make them more effective for us as individuals.

A big part of my journey to StayLDS is to have my own beliefs that are different in some ways from the more orthodox beliefs being taught at church but still engage positively with my LDS church community.

Thank you every one for your time to respond to my post. I really appreciate it.

Internally, we choose what to attribute to God in our lives and what we don’t.

I agree. However, I also feel that to say that it is all a choice is an oversimplification. I believe that there are many factors that determine our predilection to believe certain things. One big factor is past experience. Some people would find it very difficult to believe in an interventionist God because of past experience. They can not simply choose to believe.

In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world. A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance, by making changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance.

I believe this theory well explains what I am talking about. People that believe in God are highly motivated (even at a subconsious level) to interpret the world in a way that validates their belief in God. Likewise, people that do not believe in God are highly motivated (even at a subconsious level) to interpret the world in a way that validates their disbelief in God.

My advice is to not fight it. I would claim and build upon whatever belief system or assumptive world makes the most sense to you. This, to me, is about trusting yourself and feeling comfortable in your own skin.

However, that does not mean that we do not have choices along the way. To the degree that we have choices, we should endevour to make those choices of health, meaning, belonging, compassion, and kindness.