I have never been a staunch believer.

Nor am I a confirmed atheist. Instead, I have consistently chosen the path of least resistance, i.e. the firm conviction that it is impossible to know whether God exists or not because both profound belief and atheistic denial are simply matters of faith.

And yet—go figure—I have often felt the presence of something I have come to call God. I feel it while gazing at a gorgeous sunset. Or looking at the face of my newborn child for the very first time. Or contemplating any of the infinity of things that regularly remind me of the astonishing miracle that is life.

All of which has led to a dichotomy between what I think and what I feel. Between, to put it another way, a strictly agnostic intellect and wildly spiritual emotional life. Those two entities, in fact, occupy separate compartments of my soul, allowing me to maintain a stoic rationalism while also experiencing the supreme joys surrounding the mystery of existence. And it is that profound wonder, frankly, that caresses me awake each morning.

Enter society’s fickle sways. They have never pushed powerfully in Israel, where faith and worship have remained fairly stable. In the US where I come from, however, the story is different.

Beginning around 2000, studies show, millions of Americans abandoned their faiths, depleting church and synagogue attendance by 50 percent. Religion, The Brookings Institution proclaimed in 2011, was approaching its “twilight hour.”

Then the pendulum swung back. A recent Pew Research survey found that Americans have stopped fleeing their pews and some are even returning. “Spirituality is not declining,” Penny Edgell, a University of Minnesota sociologist, told the New York Times. “And in fact, it’s high…”

So high that 92 percent now profess adherence to such classic beliefs as the existence of God, a human soul beyond the physical body, a spiritual realm beyond nature, or some kind of afterlife.

Sociologists attribute this change to several factors including the global pandemic of the early 2020s, during which people craved faith-based support, as well as massive immigration from more spiritually oriented cultures and a national “vibe shift” bolstering conservative values.

None of which surprises me at all.

Lately, in fact, I’ve come across some religious arguments appealing to both mind and spirit. One came from a scientist arguing that, given the mathematical improbability of a planet inhabited by ostensibly intelligent beings, the only logical explanation is the involvement of an overseer.

Then, more recently, a Facebook post grabbed my attention. In it, someone describes two babies conversing in their mother’s womb. “Do you believe in life after delivery?” one asks.

“Well, of course,” the other baby says, “there has to be something after delivery.”

“Nonsense,” says the first baby, “what kind of life would that be?”

“I don’t know,” says the second, “but there’ll be more light. Maybe we’ll walk with our legs and eat with our mouths and have senses we can’t even imagine.”

“That’s ridiculous,” the first baby argues. “The umbilical cord gives us all of our scientifically prescribed nutrition, and that’s all we need,”

“But what if it’s just different?” the second baby wonders. “Maybe we won’t need that cord anymore.”

“OK,” says the first baby, “if there’s life after delivery, then why has no one ever come back from there?”

“Well, certainly we’ll meet Mom,” the second baby suggests.

“Mom? You actually believe in Mom? If she exists, then where is she now?”

“Mom is all around us,” the first baby says. “She’s the universe in which we live; without her, this world couldn’t exist.”

“Well, I don’t see her,” his companion insists, “so it’s only logical that she’s not here.”

Ah, but then the first baby brings it all home.

“Sometimes when you’re silent,” he says, “you can perceive her presence. You can hear her laugher, and you can hear her sing.”

It is the echo of those resonances, I believe, that gives life its music.

       (An earlier version of this essay appeared in The Manila Times)

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)