Thursday, April 25, 2024
out of order
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
my response to the newest exvangelical book
The book I'm responding to is Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon, an author in my generation. Overall it's both thorough and heartfelt. The thoroughness resulted in more chapters than I would've expected. Each one is devoted to a different topic and does an admirable job at covering it. Rather than speak in generalities, the book contains direct quote after direct quote expressed in actual interviews. (This has the side effect of displaying the value of expert hard-working journalism.) It strikes from many angles, all of which are worthwhile.
At the same time, this book's heartfelt nature stands out. While this is more than a memoir, the author is impressively blunt about her personal background and long journey. Her story rises to the front time and again, and it's always relevant when it does. Yet she also brings in concrete stories from a wide range of people who have different experiences than hers. It's striking how emotional it all is.
After reading these accounts, I find myself surprisingly grateful for the middle-of-the-road evangelicalism I came through. (I'm going to use "evangelicalism" to mean "typical U.S. white evangelical Protestantism".) I wasn't part of theologically-liberal, metaphorical-Bible, Northeast-respectable Christianity. Nor was I part of an ultra-conservative, literal-bible, Southern-country-fried Christianity. My family was in the conservative but somewhat laid-back camp, as paradoxical as that might sound. Hell for the unsaved was there, the distrust of modern culture was there, the belief that real miracles took place in olden days was there. But I wasn't taught in a school with a dubious "Christian" curriculum, or forbidden from the local library, or kept completely isolated from mass media, or attacked by "physical discipline".
I even was permitted to ask honest questions about what I had been taught—although years later I tore apart the standard evasive answers to these questions ("free will *mumble mumble* ", "God's mysterious ways *ahem ahem* "). Furthermore, I'm not part of a minority group that would've resulted in knee-jerk mistreatment by this culture. In a nutshell, my evangelical story was just far less traumatic. This is partially why it took me longer to exit the beliefs, of course. In that way I was privileged by comparison. I remember reading once that the unplugged people in the Matrix movie trilogy tended toward minority groups because they were the ones who were less likely to find the Matrix's reality acceptable...
I had the luxury of not being shocked into moving on from evangelical faith-beliefs. I gradually discarded them based on my own growing awareness and internal realizations. Because of this important difference, I suppose I'm in a closely related but distinct category to most of the people McCammon is fixated on. Several other differences spring from that one. Perhaps the most obvious is that I feel that the word "deconversion" fits me (the reversal of conversion i.e. de-conversion), where the book consistently uses "deconstruction". Along the same lines, I wouldn't particularly mind the label "atheist" or "agnostic", where the book is abundantly clear that exvangelicals, such as the author, are frequently settling down in flavors of Christianity that suit their taste better: flavors with loose and/or progressive-compatible beliefs.
Let me emphasize that I'm not strongly opposed to these flavors. And I'm fine with exvangelicals drawing vaguely defined inspiration or comfort from these sources. They may claim that they derive a few beneficial moral teachings from these, too. I'll roll my eyes a bit but won't complain; I know there are many devotees of many religions throughout history who've preached wisely sometimes. The vital point is that exvangelicals have moved to the driving seat of their brains and lives, rather than following inaccurate ideas. They themselves are filtering out inaccuracies, rather than trusting in religious authorities and texts to do the filtering for them. In fact, my suspicion is that more than a few evangelical church attendees, especially in popular megachurches, quietly take this approach. They attend out of family pressure or a lingering appreciation for the rituals, for instance, but their own stances and behaviors don't align with the church's official standards (and they like it that way).
I can't help thinking that a crucial philosophical difference is at work. "Exvangelicals" in my mold haven't reacted to the evangelical mindset by adopting softer (or "more flexible" if you prefer) definitions of religious "truth". Nor do we start worshipping questions and declare that real answers are impossible. Nor do we replace one set of premodern doctrines with a set of postmodern doctrines. We're much less determined to salvage or adapt the faulty belief system we were raised in. A zealous few pour effort into undermining it and pursuing deconversions—I don't do that myself but I certainly care about stopping its policy ideas from affecting the rest of society. Naturally, the people who actively "de-evangelize" are a small subset of us, similar to the small subset of evangelicals who actively evangelize.
Our discarding of the mindset was accomplished by adopting harder (or "more substantiated" if you prefer) definitions of the accuracy of ideas. We re-weighed the accuracy of the ideas we'd followed, and the ideas simply and honestly didn't measure up. "The love of Jesus is bigger than conventional religious concepts have said" isn't equivalent to "Whoa, every religion including mine has consisted of a massive self-perpetuating loop of disinformation". We're "exvangelicals" insofar as we share a past, because we were once part of that evangelical culture as well.
Yet the distinction in where we ended up is illustrated by the statements of some exvangelicals in the book that atheism is nothing more than another "rigid perspective". I'd counter that I might or might not be atheistic; we should proceed as we would with any question, by laying out the practical boundary tests for what counts as atheism and comparing those stark specifics to the details of my beliefs. Words can be annoying, but my mold of exvangelical reacts to that by firming up a word to make it more useful instead of pretending that words don't serve purposes.
Fortunately, philosophical disagreement isn't a barrier to allying with each other on U.S. politics. This book is upfront about the major boost to exvangelicals' numbers by recent political shifts. As evangelicalism's totalitarian (or "Christian nationalist" if you prefer) impulses have risen to the surface, it has driven away the people who've never wanted their religion to be a force of oppression. I appreciated the focus on this phenomenon, which I hadn't noticed. I'd only noticed how blatantly satisfied most evangelicals appeared to be—from the famous leaders at the top all the way down to the high-turnout voters in the pews—with idolizing politicians who promised unmerciful control, and revenge against ideological enemies, and the rollback of cultural advancements.
It makes sense that the sharpening of this knife-edge in the culture would prod people to finally make some hard decisions about what they're willing to be part of. My own exvangelical views had blossomed years before the present era, around the midpoint of Obama's first term. Disillusionment with W.'s terms had played some relatively minor role in the process. I was repulsed by two things. First, evangelicals proved themselves to be unconditionally supportive of multiple drawn-out wars. Second, they were enthusiastic to cast all Muslims, at home and across the world, as not merely the "tolerated believers in false religion" they were before but now as demonic tools. So the ugliness of the politics had already begun to show, but of course there was much more to come. All it took to push the ugliness further were politicians who have no capacity for shame.
Thus the exvangelicals have my earnest sympathies. It's awful what they've had to endure, but I'm glad they've escaped. I'd consider them as being on my side...to the extent that's meaningful for either of us. The deconverted and the deconstructed shall get along just fine. And they'll have very familiar stories to exchange.
Saturday, September 10, 2022
footprints
I've published a lot of entries here about the seismic shift in thinking I went through when I journeyed out of supernatural beliefs. That shift involved confronting a lot of philosophical hairsplitting and arguments—of varying quality. I must admit that some could seem too abstract to matter. But it's still worthwhile to counter the faux-intellectual justifications that people wave around, even as they're committed to their beliefs for different reasons altogether.
Despite what other faults philosophical discussion may have, it's managed to establish one conclusion beyond all doubt: metaphors are fantastic for communicating these ideas. I'll heed this lesson and offer one:
On one glorious mid-morning in summer, the owner of an all-too-costly house on a small hill near the sea decided to take a short walk along the beach. She made her way down by the water. To her surprise she found a set of fresh footprints already there. The trail of footprints started off in the distance from the left and continued to the right as far as the eye could see. She noticed that the footprints were like her own, but she hadn't gone for a walk here for more than a week. This shook her to the core, because she thought of herself as someone who had specifically paid a premium for special access to a secluded private stretch of beach. So...she needed to explain how these footprints could have happened.
The first explanation for the surprise footprints is the one anyone would leap to: another neighborhood resident took their own extended walk earlier in the morning. This explanation is obviously reasonable. But at the same time it might disturb the homeowner in the story, because it challenges her desire for privacy.
Fortunately for her, people could easily come up with far more explanations. For example:
- The laws of physics have changed over time and diverge between places. Different laws of physics were in effect when the footprints were laid down, and these footprints only survived to the present day because of this.
- The footprints are a hoax carried out by a frighteningly competent yet invisible conspiracy. This conspiracy is motivated by a scramble for grant money to investigate footprints. Or perhaps the evil corporations in the conspiracy are hoping to provoke people into paying for beach security or upkeep.
- At the time that Earth was created from out of nothing in the blink of an eye, footprints were also simultaneously created on the beach. Perhaps the footprints were included to test the faith of anyone who'd dare to believe that the Earth wasn't created from out of nothing in the blink of an eye.
- The footprints were miraculously formed by a sea-witch, whose goal is to draw people away from the truth. Or perhaps the sea-witch merely touched the soul of the homeowner so that she was blinded to the truth and thought that she saw footprints (or forgot that she made the footprints herself).
- The footprints were made by a spiritual being (albeit with human-like feet) that made a short visit to our mundane plane of existence. Or perhaps there was a visit from an earthly mystery creature unknown to biologists. Or perhaps a creature from far space traveled a tremendous distance for the sole purpose of taking a stroll on exotic Earth.
The point of comparing the first explanation to the alternatives isn't to necessarily claim that any in the group are flatly impossible. It's to underline that, at least to those who aren't trying to drag in their preexisting assumptions or aims, the alternatives deserve far more skepticism than the first. Could someone work hard to defend their preferred alternative as a valid "theory" just like any other? Could they concoct chains of reasoning that make their preferred alternative seem a bit more plausible for other reasons than the footprints themselves ("presuppositions")?
Well...yes. Regardless, the first explanation continues to be the one that requires the least stretching to fit the plain footsteps that were seen. I came to a similar realization as I changed my perspective about the supernatural beliefs I was raised to follow. All the straightforward observations of reality I learned about were like multiple sets of footprints. Each set was unfabricated and unbiased and pointed in the same direction. Meanwhile the difficult project to integrate these observations into my former beliefs began to seem like outlandish avoidance of the inference that human footprints are usually left by human feet.
I kept returning to the undeniable truth that I wasn't simply arguing with slick philosophies written by combative loudmouths who hated the viewpoint I identified with; I was in some sense strenuously arguing with the direct implications of the objective data. I was twisting my thoughts to steer clear of what mere footprints were "saying".
Furthermore, I had an ingrained queasiness for the theologically-liberal solution of fully adapting supernatural beliefs to fit reality. In my mindset at that time, following it would've involved dropping and/or rewriting significant chunks of my beliefs. I wasn't ready for that...and I couldn't get past having a lingering distaste for it. As I mentioned in past blog entries, I was taught to wholeheartedly follow beliefs that were accurate, not beliefs that were "inspirational". (Let me note that in the present I'm much less opposed to the liberal solution, although I'm still not interested in putting any energy or time into following it myself.)
The opposite strategy, preserving the beliefs and mentally rewriting the facts, also didn't occur to me. As quaint as it might sound now, I didn't assume that I could easily discard the well-supported facts I disliked. Experience since then has shown that all that's needed is to reframe them as lies told by journalists and societal elites...who are the Enemy of the nation. Or I could do the same by reframing them as lies told by people with socioeconomic power who are either consciously or subconsciously enforcing the oppressive status quo of inequality between classes and/or races and/or sexes. The next step after that would have been to latch onto infamous "alternative facts" instead, which come from sources that are careful to amplify only the bits of dodgy information that can be bent to fit the target's imagination.
Nope, I was stuck. I accepted the strange notion that findings can be independent of people and their desires, even to the point of justifying a broad change in their thoughts. Eventually, my thoughts did indeed change. The apt metaphor for this phase is another well-known one for de-conversion: I began to understand that I was looking through the "goggles" of belief. The better I became at cautiously removing the goggles and taking a second look at observed reality, the more I had to confess that those beliefs were distorting instead of magnifying what I saw. Or it might have been worse than that. The goggles had misled me to interpret the footprints as the traces of something that had never really been there at all throughout the various scenes of my life.
Friday, March 25, 2022
evasiveness was an essential ingredient in the message of Lost
- ...faith in the personification of "The Island"? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about faith in the personification of a "Good Force".
- ...the source and meaning of various visions that characters have? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about the source and meaning of various visions that religious followers have.
- ...why numbers are bad luck or significant in some other way? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about why numbers matter in numerology.
- ...how or why people are healed—or not—by their faith? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about how or why religious followers are healed—or not—by faith.
- ...the connections between paranormal "scientific" occurrences and the island faith? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about the connections between paranormal "scientific" occurrences and religious followers' notions about the supernatural.
- ...the connections between popular religions and the island faith? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about the connections between popular religions, which would be part of explaining how it's logically possible for all the popular religions to be equally accurate.
- ...the unseen actions of the competing supernatural figures on the island? So that it could imitate the evasiveness of religious followers about the unseen actions taken by their competing supernatural figures.
- ...the details in the plans and goals of those figures, as well as how those plans and goals directed events? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about the details in the plans and goals of religious followers' supernatural figures, as well as how those figures' plans and goals direct real-world events.
- ...the definition of a good or bad person in the eye of the island? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about how to definitively sort people into good or bad according to religious followers.
- ...whether any one character is lying or simply incorrect about island secrets at any moment? So that it could imitate the evasiveness about whether someone is sincere and knowledgeable about what they say about supernatural things.
- ...the so-called rules about what people (and human-shaped beings with uncanny powers) are allowed to do? So that it could imitate the evasiveness of religious followers about exact behavioral rules, which they debate amongst themselves endlessly.
- ...abnormal abilities or mental links that some people have? So that it could imitate the evasiveness regarding the abnormal abilities or mental links that some religious followers claim to have, such as clairvoyance and divine guidance, etc.
- ...the ancient past of the island's inhabitants who left behind exotic ruins and other structures? So that it could imitate the evasiveness of religious followers about admitting that ancient societies' "false religions" were every bit as vibrant as current religions.
Tuesday, March 08, 2022
mission inadvisable
It's an excellent idea to step back from time to time and approach a belief as a total outsider would. Otherwise, there's a strong tendency to slip into thinking a belief is reasonable merely due to comfort and familiarity. "Common sense" is often no more than a label for "the culture I grew up in". Unexamined assumptions invade and settle into someone like plant roots tunneling into cracks in rocks.
In the religious environment I emerged from, one of these assumptions was the mission to evangelize. Every follower had this mission, at least theoretically. Followers were expected to try their hardest to turn more people into followers. And this mission was for everyone's benefit: newly turned followers received transformed lives and afterlives, but they were also useful additions to the existing group of followers too. The whole concept seemed like a quite natural consequence of being a follower.
Yet now, after both literally and figuratively removing myself from that setting, I can look at this mission with fresh eyes. Through my present viewpoint, it appears...just...poorly thought-out. Its reliance on religious followers is so very inadvisable. If one doesn't assume upfront that it's their mission, then there's a truckload of superior alternative strategies for gathering new followers.
To be more specific: after granting the point that it's necessary for people to be followers before a god may show mercy to them, then using existing followers is an awful option for that god to take. It has vast powers and it would (supposedly) be overjoyed to have more followers to show mercy to. What could it be doing instead to lure more people into following?
- Distributing some more recent holy writings would be a good start. The current set has become overshadowed by insolvable controversies over the intended modern meaning of numerous sections. At the same time, debates have arisen over what to do with the sections that "appear" to suffer from the incorrect perspectives and barbaric social mores that were in effect at the time of writing. For that matter, the simple project of translating the writings into other languages has had its own share of controversies. Publishing an updated edition of the existing set of holy writings, and clearing up which writings in the set probably shouldn't have been included in the first place, would be good at a minimum.
- A god could speak out more frequently to prospective followers and even to self-admitted enemies. "Speak" refers to expressing audible words to multiple people at once, rather than popping up in hazily-remembered dreams or nonverbal impulses to attend a service. Although some wouldn't welcome the message, a lot of them would probably relish hearing from the one actual god—the experience would give them a solid reason to believe rather than keep them in undecided, half-hearted suspense.
- It could carry out undeniable, inexplicable acts of goodness in the world. What route to popularity could be more endearing? What could possibly be easier for announcing that it cares for people? Of course the good acts will need to be claimed so nobody blames any other gods that they have ideas about.
- A less showy but still deeply appreciated gesture would be for it to communicate its staggering knowledge to a wide variety of domains. At this point in human history, people who have expertise in domains other than theology have somehow gotten the strong impression that neither this god nor any other is involved in any way in their domains. Some have stated that their expertise indicates that no god of any real relevance can exist at all. It should resolve such conflicts and patiently go into detail about at what point their expertise went astray. Its sharing of knowledge would also have the side effect of immediately advancing society as a whole; who knows what inventive people could manage to do with the new knowledge.
- Most obviously, it could dispatch evangelizing beings who are far better suited than fallible finite followers. It created everything from scratch, so creating such beings would be no obstacle. They could have abilities to teleport, project loudly enough to reach entire crowds, shrug off dangers of all kinds, execute the occasional miracle, know every language, memorize the entire set of holy writings. Furthermore, they could complete the mission without the weight of a long history of self-righteousness and hypocrisy, which followers need to try to deflect in order to get in the door. Some people won't have a conversation on the topic until they get a sincere answer to the question, "Why has a good god been represented on Earth by people like that?"
Wednesday, February 09, 2022
the mystery con
Sometimes the urge rises to simply call something what it really is. Mystery is a con. Arguably the more impressive trick isn't to convince otherwise-shrewd people to believe in "truths" that lack confirmation (wishful thinking does most of that work); it's to convince them that the lack of confirmation is thrilling and sophisticated and broad-minded. Rather than honestly saying "I can't do a good job of thoroughly showing why you should accept my statements about the supernatural domain", the strategy of the mystery con is to say "My statements are far too amazing and otherworldly to be confirmed the way you would confirm any other far-fetched statement." The more that the speaker leaves to the listener's imagination, the more that the listener's own brain can complete the rest of the picture in whatever way they happen to prefer.
And it's doubly effective because, like any excellent con, it tugs on feelings in the listener. First, it emphasizes the speaker's special access to knowledge and the feeling of authority that comes with that: "Because I won't tell you how I know, you have no choice but to trust me as your primary source of information." Second, it stirs the inborn fascination that people have for the unknown. By nature the unknown is more interesting than the known. Through the glamour of mystery, the refusal to be upfront about a statement's base of evidence appears less like sly cheating and instead like suggesting that there are wonders out there—on the other side of the the limits of credibility, that is.
Third, it provides the invigorating experience of novelty and escape, because the statements of everyday life don't give off the same stink of mystery. It's nowhere to be found in the mundane statements that come up in the process of getting real tasks done or observing real characteristics of real things. The bluff that "Yes, there's more to the universe and it's very exciting!" can only be kept up if the speaker never quite answers reasonable questions about why anyone should be firmly convinced of their claims.
Fourth, the mystery con boosts the pride of the listener. One would expect a feeling of embarrassment about believing in statements with inadequate support; no one wants to be the fool. Yet a statement that's been whitewashed with the color of intriguing mystery works in the opposite way. The listener is enabled to boast that they themselves are extra-special, or that their beliefs have extra-special layers, because they are chained to extra-special mystery statements—statements that go over the heads of dull normal people who merely use time-tested and well-established means to sniff out deception. (To be forthright and say the emperor has no clothes is to show that you aren't an extra-special multilayered person, of course.)
On the other hand, the lesson to be drawn from the mystery con isn't that uncertainty is repulsive. The attitude to take shouldn't be excessive in either direction. It shouldn't be reverent in the manner that the mystery con encourages, but neither should it reflect distaste. Being clear-eyed about uncertainty comes from admitting the undeniable limitations of the data and methods used to gather knowledge. Uncertainty just is. Idolizing the mystery of not-knowing is off the mark, but idolizing absolute certainty is too.
Furthermore, this difference in attitude contributes to an important difference in the approach to counter uncertainty. If someone isn't ruled by their craving for certainty, then they're far less tempted to do what countless humans have done ever since they mastered language: make something up to fill the gaps in knowledge and use the word "mystery" to bat away questions about their inventions. Both 1) to place flimsy statements in the gaps and 2) to take such statements at face value have been common practices for literal millennia.
By contrast, the two corrective practices of 1) obtaining knowledge through painstaking work and 2) demanding that speakers go into detail about the work they did to get their knowledge, weren't all that common...and to an appalling extent aren't nearly common enough in the present day either. The purpose of the mystery con is to distract listeners from relying on these corrective practices and to give the older practices more credit than was ever deserved.
Thursday, October 21, 2021
socialized truth
That said, I wouldn't recommend beliefs that never shift at all. These could also be signs of an unreasonable group loyalty that controls someone's thinking. Some groups' cultures have foundational precepts, especially if a group is supposedly defined by commitment to such things. Even to ponder the limits or flaws of these precepts is forbidden. Doing that is viewed as a loathsome betrayal of the group. In countless times and places, people's own innermost thoughts have been effectively corralled by their desire to not be seen as a "traitor". Although it's been said that the one freedom that cannot be violated is the freedom of innermost thoughts, the tyranny of socialized truth does so all the time—and with the consent of people who can't be bothered to think for themselves.
Sunday, September 05, 2021
seeing the love
Discussion about the love of some particular religion's god—or the absence of such—generally centers on the problems of evil and suffering. Why would a miracle-working and generous god permit so much evil and suffering in the past and present, including a lot that serves seemingly no purpose? It's an excellent question. And it's inspired many interesting (attempted) justifications.
It's also not the topic of this blog entry. Highly committed religious followers raise other questions when they continually insist through sermon and song that their god is loving, because many would say that they aren't merely repeating a piece of foundational doctrine. They'd say (testify) that their god is always loving in terms of what it does day by day in their very lives. It's active now. Its love continues past the long-ago actions it took according to stories passed down through tradition.
But when they list examples, they fail to sway listeners who don't have the same loyalty to the underlying beliefs. The examples might be minor, coincidental, and possible to explain without invoking supernatural intervention. If this is pointed out to them, they may respond, "Love isn't something that can be slid under a microscope. To believe in love sometimes requires faith and trust. Faith allows you to see a beneficial occurrence for what it really means, which is a loving act of my god. I cannot prove that my god is filled with overflowing love, but why do you say this is strange? I also cannot prove beyond all doubt that the people who are dearest to me feel love in their hearts. Faith is an essential part of the picture."
I'm pretty sure that for them, their response feels well-considered and even somehow natural. However, this is yet another illustration of the way that discarding supernatural beliefs reverses one's outlook. Seen from my current perspective, it's almost nonsensical. It verges on insulting to the people who actually are loving to me. How does it take faith to believe in the love of people who have done so many good things for me, directly and in plain view? When they've been a comforting presence in bad times, not through a cryptic email but through sitting nearby and patiently listening, or through assisting with getting food and performing other tasks? When they've laughed at my jokes and tried to cheer me up when I'm sad? When they've offered the insights they learned from their mistakes, to prevent me from making the same ones? When they gladly spend time with me, not only on big occasions but on a casual whim?
To repeat something I've written before in other contexts, the main point isn't that love is defined by what someone gets out of it. The point is whether or not a concept displays a strong if not undeniable link to the detectable differences it makes in reality. It's not an ambiguous "sign" of something that demands a skewed viewpoint to comprehend it. ("One of my life-long friends has invited me to a cookout. What could it possibly mean?") It might not be visible to the eye but it will certainly be easily traceable, like someone making a payment on the recipient's account. Picking up the pattern is like connecting numbered dots, not like stretching threads between tacks on a big board. It's possible for there to be someone who expertly manipulates various things, sight unseen, in order to eventually produce a loving outcome. This possibility requires a huge mental leap, though.
Unfortunately, there is a flipside to perceptible loving acts. Unloving acts by someone who loves you can be just as perceptible. And the category of unloving includes both cruelty and indifference. Would it be more understandable to say that it does require faith to believe in an individual's love regardless of their cruel and/or indifferent acts? It's true that real people are a mix of characteristics with varying moods and motivations. There's no question unloving acts make it harder to believe in their love. It's also harder to trust that they'll act in a loving manner again in the future.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't stoop to using the word "faith" for it. Because reality is complicated, there are a lot of factors and moving parts. That's why conclusions often aren't perfect in every circumstance. A cause that's very strong can still be subject to competing causes, at least from time to time. The result is that the full set of evidence is likely to be mixed. Statistical analysis comes into play. Genuine strong love might be reflected in committing loving acts "significantly more" than acts of cruelty and indifference. I wouldn't say that it's faith to infer love from a heap of obviously loving acts despite a few unloving acts. It's more like noticing that two fair dice have a sum of 5 more frequently than a sum of 12.
To properly apply this analogy to the influence of an omniscient and omnipotent actor, it shouldn't be necessary to point out that a complete view implies tallying up a mountain of facts about reality's ups and downs. Unlike a person, an omniscient actor has countless more opportunities to act in ways that are loving, indifferent, and cruel. Of course, I'd maintain that the far greatest amount of hypothetical "acts" are in the category of inaction. If there were something that wasn't acting, then indifference would be the explanation that isn't strained. Perhaps it's true, with a focus that's narrowed and aimed, someone can sometimes feel that "someone up there is watching out for me". I'd say that when someone uses a focus that isn't so narrowed and aimed, this feeling is outweighed by the sheer number of times that it isn't applicable. And I'm not referring to the large important evils and sufferings that are usually brought up in the philosophical Problem of evil and suffering; I'm merely referring to an individual's own experience.
One additional defensive analogy between personal love and the love of a god deserves some attention. It goes like: "I think your view of love is superficial. Part of maturity is recognizing that love has well-defined boundaries. Love can actually hamper someone when it doesn't allow them to make decisions, face consequences, and learn. The loved person also can't reach their full potential if love doesn't allow them to face and defeat challenges without immediate help. Boundaries establish that people believe in each other's capabilities and that they're entitled to a realm of independence or non-interference (autonomy). In the same way, my god is obligated to hold back from taking action a lot of the time. Its superior love goes hand in hand with its wise boundaries."
As analogies go, it's not that bad. Yet it seems to me that it doesn't quite work for another reason that's commonly associated with a mature concept of love: open communication. Boundaries that aren't openly communicated are misleading. Nobody knows for sure where they stand and how to correctly interpret each other's acts. If someone distinctly says they're not doing something loving because it would violate boundaries, then I agree that it's a reasonable course to take. If someone simply doesn't act, and they don't express clearly that it's because of boundaries, then I disagree. If it's for the purpose of teaching a memorable "lesson", then specific communication matters so that the right lesson is learned (i.e. not the lesson that the teacher is undependable). A god that honors valid boundaries without communicating the meaning behind its refusals to act is a god that's, once again, suspiciously reminiscent of an indifferent god rather than a loving god with boundaries.
Furthermore, the huge range of possible actions for such a god remains a problem. If the analogy of love that honors boundaries is implicitly parent-like—noting but setting aside the psychoanalytic comparison of gods to parental figures—then this analogy has another failure: parents have sensible limits on how far they will extend the decision to not act. The god that would be compatible with what we experience would be a god of archaic brutality. Would we say that it's a loving balance of help and boundaries when the loved individual's choices are allowed to result in, for instance, losing a leg or a hand? Would we say that it's a loving balance when their choices are allowed to result in diabetes or cancer? Would we say that it's a loving balance when their choices are the right ones but those choices give someone else the opportunity to exploit them? Would we say that any kind of boundary or lesson explains why someone's house is ripped apart by a natural disaster? (Supposed divine judgments on subjectively "sinful regions" notwithstanding...)
Forget about a love that can't even be seen without taking a leap of faith, projecting hidden influences onto commonplace events, and ignoring numerous counterexamples. Give me a love between people, concretely demonstrated and unmistakable, any day. I understand why the most admirable followers of supernatural beliefs comment that their beliefs are communicated most effectively by being their god's hands and feet on Earth. I'm not convinced of its existence, but if I were then "its" most convincing acts of love on an ongoing daily basis would be the acts of people who care.