My God Goal, Revisited

I've written about how it is an important goal of mine to know whether or not there is a God.  As I've been tackling this goal, I've had some significant thoughts about it.  They are the following:

An important idea to keep in mind during any significant undertaking is to focus on the type of tasks that will yield the most "return on investment," or ROI.  In the case of investigating God's existence, there are certain tasks and pieces of knowledge that could yield a higher ROI than others.  What, though, is a high ROI in the context of the question of whether or not God exists?  Well, knowing beyond reasonable doubt whether or not God exists!  That's about it... huh.

So What?

That realization got me thinking.  So what if there's a God?  What does that mean for me? For my life?  Maybe nothing.  Maybe everything!  It depends on whether or not we can know anything else about God apart from whether or not He exists.  If we cannot know anything about God apart from His existence, then perhaps this would mean nothing, or very little, to me.  If we can know things about God apart from His existence, then perhaps this would mean everything, or a lot, to me.

Just Believe

Therefore, perhaps I should approach the question of whether or not we can know anything about God apart from His existence in a Pascalian manner, meaning perhaps I should, for a while, believe that God exists, and proceed to try to figure out whether or not we can know anything else about Him.  For example, perhaps I should thoroughly examine the claims about the God in the Bible in order to know whether or not they can tell me anything about God.  Or, perhaps I should thoroughly examine the claims of Intelligent Design proponents in order to know whether or not they can tell me anything about God.

Thus, the answers to those types of questions could potentially have a very high ROI.  For example, if I find that some, or all, of the claims about God in the Bible are true, then I could potentially join and follow a certain religion.  On the other hand, if I find the opposite, then perhaps I would not join a religion, but rather spend my time pursuing my other goals.

If I end up finding out that I can't know anything meaningful about God apart from His existence, then it wouldn't matter to me so much that He existed.  Surely, it would be a nice thing to know, and it could influence my thinking in some areas, but, in general, I don't think it would matter much.  At least, relative to how much it matters to me now, it wouldn't matter much to me.

Re-Focus

So, I think I need to refocus.  I need to redirect my energies.  I should quit focusing so much on whether or not God exists, and shift my focus to whether or not I can know anything else about God apart from His existence.

I'll probably start (rather, continue) analyzing the Bible and praying.  I might start fasting, too.  In any case, I need to re-write my current goals so that I have an updated, written version.

Perhaps in my next post...