God Is Wishful Thinking; Is That Good?
When I was fighting in WW2 in the South Pacific; 1944 & 45, I saw guys praying during our pre-mission briefings, saw the chaplain lead us in prayer, we prayed before we boarded our B-24s, & some prayed while we were under fire; but nothing good came of it. I was one of the prayers, I believed even though some of the ‘prayers’ were killed during the missions. Gradually I stopped praying, & I didn’t get killed or even wounded; the cerebral cortex is not one but several minds, starting with our earliest use of our mind in childhood, the remains of all our younger minds remain alive, but our adult mind integrates our adult thinking; the various younger minds do not always think the same thoughts, or come to the same conclusions; sometimes the parts argue with each other, or discuss a problem & reach a mutual conclusion.
One of the parts of my mind decided not to pray to see what would happen; well, other good guys some with wives & children prayed & got killed or maimed; nothing bad happened to me. But it took a long time for my adult mind to become convinced that prayer is ineffective, god does not answer our prayers; prayer makes the ‘prayer’ feel good, makes her/him feel that one is doing something beneficial, praying to god for advice, life, healing; also all the people who love us & pray for us as we make war feel they are doing something beneficial for us; it relieves their terrible worry that we will get killed or maimed. Yet three of the praying Baptists on our crew were killed, an observant Jew had a nervous breakdown; most of the crew members in our squadron who prayed were not killed or wounded; but many were. I especially remember a very nice guy, a Catholic who joined our crew to replace our maimed tail-gunner; he had a lovely wife, 2 children, a loving family who prayed every day for his safe return; he was killed substituting for a gunner on another crew while bombing the fuel tanks on Borneo.
I read today that about a ‘million’ fetuses a year are aborted in the US despite the millions of people who pray to God that they be saved. Does that say anything about the effectiveness of prayer? Does it say anything about the interest or existence of God? Is there a God; if so, is He opposed to abortion? or does He approve of it? Just wondering.
Prithee, wait, I see no evidence that there has ever been a god or gods, but I had an experience in France validated by a photo, that ‘might’ mean we can live on for a while after death. Much more later in this blog. The photo & article can be viewed on this blog & on Google at: “My Rendez-vous with Joan of Arc.”
Yet I remained a Catholic, though a part of my mind did not believe in God anymore. I stopped going to church, stopped confessing, drank too much, committed fornication & adultery, used illegal mild drugs like hashish, tobacco…I went to college after the war, first to U. of Colorado, then to U. de Grenoble in France…the war had awakened my wanderlust, which was already there in my genes, the war took me to far-away places; wanderlust has had me in its grip ever since I left Chicago to go to war in ‘42; & it has remained there all my 83 years. Fortunately my good wife has the same wanderlust, & we have traveled on all the continents except Antarctica.
Now that I cannot travel because of old age a part of my mind that is 28 wants my body & its organs to wanderlust; but my old body answers, NO! We can still write, talk, walk, think, sing our songs before audiences, but no more flights to Europe, no long drives to San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, L.A., San Diego to sing for the ephemeral pleasures of applause. I fell down twice on concrete last year; tore some skin off my knees & hands; decided I have to slow down & walk very carefully lest I break a hip or knee.When you get to 83, you may feel the same way. If I do all the wanderlusting my young mind yearns for, that will take too much internal strength from my organs, especially heart; & I will die young in a few years.
Now, I awaken, have b’fast, sit in front of my computer-word processor & I write for 2 or 3 hours. Then I go for a walk; we live atop a hill in our own little paid-for house. I can’t play tennis, jog long distances, have sex, but my mind is still peppy in the morning, so my adult mind thinks & writes. My younger minds from elementary school thru hi-school, thru the war, all the years ’til now also participate in my thinking & writing; recently I decided to write an auto-biography; I thought the many adventures of my 83 years would make an interesting story; I wrote several paragraphs, but a younger part of my mind broke in & shouted soundlessly, ‘No, that’s too boring! I want to write our auto-bio as I wish we had lived our life!’
So my whole mind worked together & wrote a very interesting novel part auto-bio, & part fiction; part history & philosophy, much better than if my adult mind had written it.
Mind is what we are! Mind differentiates us from all other animals; yes, many of them, like sheep dogs can learn to think some complicated thoughts & behaviors; but none can think [learn, talk, cogitate, imagine, remember, invent, create] as we do. Mind is what we are! We can live without legs, or arms, vision, hearing, but we cannot be human beings without our human mind. There are many internal organs that are essential to life, but all animals have those kinds of organs; often better than ours [monkeys, wolves, dolphins, etc] Our mind, the many parts of it, is the director of our organs [internal & external]. Often our legs want to go for a walk, or run, swim, play a sport; our legs let our minds know, they report to neurons that know leg needs, & mind directs us to go for a walk. So also for sex, hand activities, and so forth.
Well, I started writing about the non-existence of gods; & of an experience that ‘might’ attest or affirm that our minds can live after death, for a significant time; but not forever. In 1948, after WW2, I got a powerful wanderlust, I was going to Colorado U., but I started yearning to go to university somewhere in Europe. Why Europe? Because I am a Euro-American; though I am a ‘Freethinker’ my language, ideas, philosophy, religion, way-of-life originated in Europe. I had taken a course in French, from a woman professor who loved France, & transmitted that fascination to me. There were four countries that used francais, part of Switzerland, part of Belgium, part of Luxembourg, & France. I got information about french-language universities, several in Switzerland were interesting, but why not go for the original home of francais. I had two years left on my G.I. Bill-of-Rights so I decided to go to the University of Grenoble. Being somewhat south, I thought it would be warmer than Paris; I was mistaken; it was at the foot of the western Alps; France was in a post-war depression, & the Communist coal miners were on strike. Grenoble is a prosperous city now, with lots of hot water, warm hotel rooms, warm houses; but then it was cold. I lived in La Villa Therese, a good old room with sink, toilette, douche, good bed, 3 good French meals a day, except Sunday; all for about $40 a month. The dollar was ruler of the monies of the world; I had$75 - $85 a month from the G.I. Bill, & about $5000 in a Chicago bank; money I couldn’t spend during the war; as a 1st Lt. lead navigator I was paid $350 per month; all expenses paid, including operations, death, & burial! Normal pay for a high-school grad was $75/mo.
In Grenoble I met many young university students, all were survivors of the war, many Jews, communists, socialists, atheists, deists, no believers. We went to the Cafe Anglais many evenings, talked about life, war, survival, religion, rebuilding Europe, rebuilding families, I was still a New Deal Democrat, part-time Catholic, very different from them, they had suffered through WW2 in Europe, lost many members of their families, some lost all; I didn’t suffer much in the South Pacific…flew 45 bombing missions, almost killed 3 times, but our American families weren’t killed, like millions of Jewish & European families; after bombing missions we returned to a comfortable tent camp, ate dehydrated vegetables-fruits-milk-eggs, Spam, corned beef, coffee, sometimes beer & whiskey; no vitamin-mineral pills, yet we were energetic & healthy; we never went hungry; guys were killed, but we believed they were going to Heaven; the Europeans abovementioned were ‘freethinkers’ the most intelligent & kindest young people I had ever met; slowly their arguments against religion affected my thinking.
Christmas eve, midnight, 1948; we were sitting in ‘our’ cafe ; about 15 of us. One of the atheists suddenly shouted, ‘Let’s all go to midnight mass at the Cathedral!’ ‘Yeah!’ a chorus of approval. They got up, put on coats & hats, rushed out into the cold, snowy night. I demurred, ‘You can’t go to mass, none of you are Christians!
‘That doesn’t matter, we just want to be with our friends, the workers, come on Roy.’ I followed them glumly, we got to the huge wooden doors, forced our way in to the packed Cathedral, redolent with the smells of wet wool, tobacco, wine, body-odor, spices, garlic, good smells. I turned away, said to myself, ‘I don’t believe in religion anymore.’ 59 years I have not deviated from that; though I understand why billions of people believe in religions; ’tis the promise that religions make that if we believe in them we will have life-after-death! Life everlasting! How long is everlasting or forever? Trillions times trillions of years. Is that possible?
What would we do during all that time, forever? I had a wonderful woman friend, a professional, modern dancer who took me & my money into her very pleasant apartment; there she taught me how to do good sex, not kinky, just natural satisfying sex. I had enough money foor us to take short trips by train to Cannes & Nice on the Med Sea. Could Heaven be better than that?
I remembered when I was a 4th grader I asked our loving nun-teacher what we would do in Heaven forever, “Oh, Roy, don’t worry your little mind about that, God has that all figured out, Heaven will be much better than life on Earth.’ ‘Ooooooh! sighed the whole class in relief.’
Just recentl, our 6/yr/young granddaughter asked my wife, a wonderful atheist, ‘Gramma. what happens to us after we die?’ Gramma answered, “Why we go to Heaven where we’ll be very happy with our relatives & friends.” ‘Oooooh!’ she sighed in happy relief.