408: Do You Believe in God? Does God Exist? The Spiritual Dimension in TEAM-CBT

Special Announcement #1

The Legendary Summer Intensive

Starts on Thursday of this week!

Featuring Drs. David Burns and Jill Levitt

August 8 - 11, 2024

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This workshop is a training program which will be limited to therapists and mental health professionals and graduate students in a mental health field  Apologies, but therapists have complained when non-therapists have attended our continuing education training programs. This is partly because of the intimate nature of the small group exercises and the personal work the therapists may do during the workshop. Certified coaches and counselors are welcome to attend.

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Today's Podcast #408--

Does God exist?

We started today’s podcast with a beautiful testimonial and a shout out for the intensive from August 8 to 11, 2024 at the South San Francisco Intensive in person or virtually if you prefer. To learn more, contact www.CBTintensive.com. Act fast because the intensive is on Thursday of this week when today’s podcast will be published.

Today, we tackle another popular and intensely debated philosophical / religious puzzle: Does God exist? People have very heated views, one way or the other. I (David) will start with a brief explanation of a Wittgenstein answer to this question, and then for the most part, we will focus instead on the question of how we all incorporate spirituality into TEAM-CBT.

Wittgenstein emphasized that philosophical problem exist when we debate about the meanings of words or terms that are vague, or poorly defined. Traditionally, we think there are three positions one could take:

1. Theism: You believe that God exists.
2. Atheism: You do not believe in God.
3. Agnosticism: You say that you do no know whether or not God exists.

My own thinking, which is strongly influenced by Wittgenstein, would be that I don’t understand any of those three stances because I have no idea what you mean by your use of the word, “God.” What is it, exactly, that I’m supposed to believe in, or not believe in?

To me, the question, “Do you believe in God,” is nonsensical, so I simply do not deal with it. All of the three positions listed above are based on the idea that the word, “God,” has some kind of clear meaning that we can all agree upon. But it clearly does not.

You might define “God” as the “creator of the universe.” Well, there is certainly something magical and mysterious about the existence and creation of the universe (assuming it did begin with some kind of “big bang.”) Some questions might include “Where did all the energy come from all of a sudden?” Or “Are there many universes?”

These are valid questions, and physicists are pursuing the answers, which is very exciting and fantastic. But they are generally not invoking the concept of a “God,” although some undoubtedly would say that they do “believe in Gad.”

Regardless, I cheer them on and find every new discovery about the nature of the universe, and how the universe works, endlessly fascinating!

For today, we will ask a much simpler question of whether and how we include some kind of spiritual dimension into our work as shrinks. This is a topic that is equally exciting, and definitely meaningful.

Rhonda got us started by explain that she sees the belief in God as a matter of faith, and is not something that can be tested empirically, which is certainly true. She says she does believe in God, or some “higher power,” but does not believe in a God who “rules over things.”

She was raised in the Jewish religion, and says that many Jews believe that God exists in everyone . This sounds a little like Hinduism, which traces back at least 2500 years ago, and possibly as early as 5000 years ago. I believe that the Hindus believe that God exists in everything.

The practical impact of the belief that God exists in all of us, is that we will treat each other with love and respect, since we are all an expression of God. She also said that we can “create God among us as a community.”

Matt said that he was raised a