That black cat. Part 3

That black cat

Part 3: Deceitful – say what you mean

But this relies on the cat being there, and we are still confronting the punch line of the anecdote that “the cat isn’t even there”. So, is this an accurate illustration? Of course, the honest answer is: “We don’t know!”. Some people say they’ve found the cat – but they can never show you the cat (the room is dark, and we are blind, remember). Some people say they searched and never found any cat. But did they search hard enough and long enough? Were they just unlucky, and they and the cat kept missing each other in the dark? I think we need to judge that the illustration is not apt for the search for God.

Religious believers can sometimes be annoying when they keep using language as though God is the equivalent of a cat – something that can ultimately be picked up and held and cuddled – when really, when pressed, they admit that they have redefined “God” to mean something quite different – something like, “God is the feeling of love that I get when I consider how good it is to be alive”. Not that this is an unprofound way to define what we mean by God, and, in a moment, we will consider the precious validity of such a view, but it is deeply dishonest to tell people to keep looking for a cat, when they have themselves decided there is no cat, as cats are usually understood, but have not admitted that they mean something quite different when they refer to a “cat”.