I'm not good at making complicated things simple to explain. Rather, I'm much better at making simple things complicated to explain. Perhaps this is why I'm arguably a better poet than a philosopher, or a better philosopher than a poet. As I have so far failed to explain, this post may be somewhat confusing -- but if you could bear with me for a few moments, I promise that it will make sense!
In the Gospels of the Bible, Pontius Pilate asked an eternal question to Jesus: "What is truth?" This is the very question I am confronting today.
A professor of mine once asserted that all philosophical and religious discussions are like the artwork of the sculptor Alexander Calder. I realize you may not be familiar with this artist, so here's an example or two of his work -- which I hope you will examine closely, for within the nature of his art lies a key point about the nature of truth.
To claim that something is true is an action of the human observer, requiring the use of the human mind and the use of communication. In this way, the act of defining truth depends on the person who gives you their own definition of truth. Every truth claim depends on a variety of assumptions and preexisting beliefs. In an Alexander Calder sculpture, each piece in the sculpture is connected to the piece before it - each piece of the artwork is dependent on the other pieces which it rests upon. So, truth is like a sculpture which contains an entire chain of pieces -- with all of the pieces depending on the piece attached to them to maintain their form.
Because the human interpretation of truth depends upon other conditions, it is difficult to state with certainty what is true. This problem may seem obvious, but the problem has quite a few ramifications for ideas in philosophy and religion which may not be so obvious at first.
In the past, when I attended a discussion group with a friend of mine and his pastor, I gained the opportunity to hear their perspectives on Christianity. Both of them are evangelical Christians, and while they don't speak for all evangelical Christians, they do seem to represent some widespread views. When we were discussing the resurrection of Jesus, the pastor kept pressing me as to why I did not accept the truth of Jesus's resurrection.
The truth? I do accept the truth of Jesus's resurrection...in one sense. I accept that the story is relevant, that the story has positive and inspiring qualities, that the story helps people live a better life. I do not believe the account of the resurrection of Jesus is literally true. That I do not literally accept the resurrection story of Jesus bothered my friend's pastor to no small end. The pastor kept trying and trying to goad me to accept the absolute, literal truth of this event, for which I believe there is no definitive evidence.
And then...I start to wonder why I want evidence for the story of the resurrection of Jesus. When I was talking to my girlfriend (who is a more liberal Christian) about my conversations with my evangelical friend, she asked me why I wanted evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. She stumped me.
After talking for far too long (to avoid my consternation), I realized that I didn't really need any evidence for the resurrection of Jesus...in a sense. I told my girlfriend that I asked for evidence of Jesus's resurrection because my friend and his pastor sought to convince me of the "Capital T" Truth of the resurrection. What's the difference between "Capital T" Truth and other truth? "Capital T" Truth is empirical, requires evidence, and is absolute and rational. There are other truths which are symbolic, mystical, and full of mystery...full of, faith.
I'm not against mystery. As Carl Sagan said, when I contemplate that I am a conscious being, living in a Universe so vast and so sparsely populated (as far as we can tell) with beings like us, beings that are self-aware, I feel an ecstasy and a sense of wonder akin to religious feelings. I do not deny these feelings, as so many religious people I know may assume - as I am asked how I can witness the beauty of our world and not believe there is something more there. On the contrary, I do feel that there is something more there, but I don't call that something "God". What tickles me, though, is whether these feelings are really truth? And why should I believe certain feelings and not others?
Why should I follow one religious path or another? Why should I put one label on my feelings of awe and mystery and not another label? On the basis of feeling, most of the world's religions appear roughly indistinguishable to me - not equivalent, but indistinguishable. I'm not naive enough to paper over the vast differences between religious traditions. What bothers me is how I am supposed to know which one is for me, if any of them are for me - and do I trust my feelings enough to leave them in charge of my choice?
My evangelical friends try to tell me that their god is the author of "Capital T" Truth, that his son Jesus died for my sins - and that there is "Capital T" Truth-friendly evidence which can demonstrate this to my satisfaction - or so they claim. Really, to believe their claim I have to first accept the validity of the Gospel writings, and the letters of Paul, and the Old Testament, and...eventually, it just turns out to be another Alexander Calder special. There are so many claims I have to accept before I can accept the last claim I've heard that I can never sufficiently unravel the truth.
Where does all of this speculation leave me? It leaves me where I started, asking "what is truth?", just as Pilate must have asked all those years ago. I still do not accept any one religion as my own, because I am fine with my secular morality and secular mystery. If someone wants to convince me to join another religion, they'll have to wait. I have my own feelings and my own mind to sort through first. I'm going to try to discern the truth as well as I can, and if religion seems to hinder that search for truth, then I will proceed without it. I'm not convinced that any religion has the "Capital T" Truth, and if I don't need that kind of truth, then I'm not convinced that I need religion, either. Why put a label on something that belongs to all of us?
I've stuck with one kind of faith or another plenty of times, but I can't say that it's the world's only truth, and I'm not even sure that it's true at all. It's just what I have...or don't have. Faith is like life: it will find a way to thrive even in the darkest, harshest, or most obscure places. You can call it all sorts of things depending on where you find it, but it's really the same thing. Despite all the superficial differences and confusing trappings, truth (based on faith) is the same everywhere - it just appears in a surprising number of ways. It's not relative, either - it's just really complicated and hopelessly messy. There may be greater and lesser truths, more closely or loosely matching your assumptions, even if there's no one "Capital T" Truth - and some assumptions are so monumental and so broad that, in practice, they are almost the same thing as what we would call "objectivity".
As I said at the beginning, I have a knack for making the simple to be hard, and the hard to be simple. For those who are wondering what the most direct point of this may be, I say this: because truth can only be assessed according to your own perspective, it is the duty of every person to investigate what is true. If each individual pursues truth as well as he or she can, we may never have the "Capital T" Truth many of us seek, but we will have more truth than we have ever had before, and that truth will set us free -- as Jesus could have said to Pilate.
Showing posts with label truth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label truth. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Doubt and Atheism as Faith
Comparisons between religion and atheism are typically more a matter of rhetoric than logic and a matter of emotion more than measured analysis. There is not a single assertion about religious or philosophical thought which will not offend someone. While I will do my best in this post to be fair and consistent, I am certain it will inevitably disturb. If that possibility is too much for you, please do not read what follows.
I am continually disappointed that people parade their own knowledge and their own experience as the pinnacle of absolute truth. I am thankfully not alone. There are both religious and non-religious people who agree with me that each person should express his or her own views in humility, taking caution to remember the limited perspective and knowledge of each human being.
People of many creeds and traditions have adopted and cultivated an active sense of doubt. While individuals often disagree on which things they doubt and which things they accept, there is a consensus that each person should doubt all opinions equally and persistently.
Some people who are not religious believe in doubt so strongly that they refuse to claim belief in any faith. Those who would undermine the supremacy of doubt as a value often reply that doubt itself is also a faith, as strong as any religion. This accusation begs the question of what constitutes a faith.
It is difficult to say with any certainty precisely what faith is, which is fitting, given the difficulty in providing any absolute definition of an individual faith, such as Christianity or Islam. I realize it is dangerous to claim that beliefs are a faith before I have discovered what makes something a faith. I must admit I already have assumptions about what makes a belief a faith.
For me, a faith begins as an idea. An idea is some sort of guess about the world, some kind of hunch. A belief is an idea that one accepts strongly, and I view faith as an even stronger form of belief. Doubt is definitely a belief, because it is a pervasive idea with an extremely high number of applications. I disagree, though, that doubt alone is a strong enough belief to be a faith.
When I was in a class called "Contemporary Political Thought" last semester, a friend of mine and I had a very similar argument. He claimed that "if you state that all truth is provisional, you have asserted an absolute truth, so you can't really say that everything is provisional because it self-contradicts". I responded by stating that if the idea that truth is provisional can itself be contradicted by evidence, then it is not an absolute claim. The test of absoluteness is not whether a belief claims that it applies universally, but whether it could be hypothetically overturned by evidence at some point and then no longer apply universally.
I believe that a faith is something that claims to apply universally, but cannot be demonstrated by evidence. A faith is a belief so strong that it cannot be falsified by evidence; it is beyond even contradiction or non-contradiction. No one can challenge it rationally. This distinction is why atheists will turn funny colors and foam at the mouth a little bit if you claim that atheism is a faith. Perhaps a very strong atheism is a faith - I agree that the non-existence of any supernatural or metaphysical presence cannot be falsified by evidence. However, a weaker atheism, which asserts that only as a condition of the lack of evidence for supernatural forces, that one should not accept supernatural forces, does seem entirely different from the concept of a faith, in that its conclusions are not so strong that they could never be challenged by direct evidence.
That so many religious people claim that "people of faith" are every bit as capable of doubt as non-religious people is fine. It's a valid claim. By definition, you can only doubt a belief that is falsifiable. I also believe, however, that it is worthy of debate whether a person should believe in something which no possible evidence can disprove. I do not have any problems with this sort of belief on principle, as long as its practitioners acknowledge that it is a belief beyond the bounds of rationality and non-rationality. When people use their religion to make scientific or historical claims, those claims entirely undermine the concept of faith. A religion underpinned by scientific or historical claims should not be recognized as a faith, but as an ideology.
And in practice, religious ideologies often use their untestable claims to support actions which damage and hurt peoples' lives, because the ideology claims absolute superiority for itself and does not act in humility, and does not recognize its own limited knowledge. Very strong atheism is one of these negative ideologies, and also harms people - I already accept this to be true. When people absolutely believe that religion is a negative force in the world, there is much good and positive benefit that is ignored.
It is important to state, however, that atheism and doubt are not necessarily a faith. If you wish to challenge atheism, please challenge it not with insults, but with a response to its claims. Just as it is not fair to insist that religion should be accepted unless it meets the standards of rationality, it is unfair to insist that atheism is necessarily a faith. By definition, it is true that faith is not necessarily about evidence, and that atheism is not necessarily a faith. When challenging an idea, one must first understand what the idea means, and then challenge the meaning of the idea as it is understood by those who accept it. Only once you have responded to the claims of an idea that it actually makes, should you pretend to have made a serious intellectual challenge!
Is there anything directly wrong with faith? Not necessarily. Sometimes, there are questions people have about meaning, about values, about things outside the boundaries of science, which are almost impossible to answer but demand an answer. Occasionally, there are questions which may never have one right answer that can be rationally confirmed. Perhaps some moral and ethical principles are a faith - but perhaps they are not a faith. Perhaps there is rational evidence available to ground our values and ethics. May we never know for sure? Certainly. That's why I'm not certain.
I am continually disappointed that people parade their own knowledge and their own experience as the pinnacle of absolute truth. I am thankfully not alone. There are both religious and non-religious people who agree with me that each person should express his or her own views in humility, taking caution to remember the limited perspective and knowledge of each human being.
People of many creeds and traditions have adopted and cultivated an active sense of doubt. While individuals often disagree on which things they doubt and which things they accept, there is a consensus that each person should doubt all opinions equally and persistently.
Some people who are not religious believe in doubt so strongly that they refuse to claim belief in any faith. Those who would undermine the supremacy of doubt as a value often reply that doubt itself is also a faith, as strong as any religion. This accusation begs the question of what constitutes a faith.
It is difficult to say with any certainty precisely what faith is, which is fitting, given the difficulty in providing any absolute definition of an individual faith, such as Christianity or Islam. I realize it is dangerous to claim that beliefs are a faith before I have discovered what makes something a faith. I must admit I already have assumptions about what makes a belief a faith.
For me, a faith begins as an idea. An idea is some sort of guess about the world, some kind of hunch. A belief is an idea that one accepts strongly, and I view faith as an even stronger form of belief. Doubt is definitely a belief, because it is a pervasive idea with an extremely high number of applications. I disagree, though, that doubt alone is a strong enough belief to be a faith.
When I was in a class called "Contemporary Political Thought" last semester, a friend of mine and I had a very similar argument. He claimed that "if you state that all truth is provisional, you have asserted an absolute truth, so you can't really say that everything is provisional because it self-contradicts". I responded by stating that if the idea that truth is provisional can itself be contradicted by evidence, then it is not an absolute claim. The test of absoluteness is not whether a belief claims that it applies universally, but whether it could be hypothetically overturned by evidence at some point and then no longer apply universally.
I believe that a faith is something that claims to apply universally, but cannot be demonstrated by evidence. A faith is a belief so strong that it cannot be falsified by evidence; it is beyond even contradiction or non-contradiction. No one can challenge it rationally. This distinction is why atheists will turn funny colors and foam at the mouth a little bit if you claim that atheism is a faith. Perhaps a very strong atheism is a faith - I agree that the non-existence of any supernatural or metaphysical presence cannot be falsified by evidence. However, a weaker atheism, which asserts that only as a condition of the lack of evidence for supernatural forces, that one should not accept supernatural forces, does seem entirely different from the concept of a faith, in that its conclusions are not so strong that they could never be challenged by direct evidence.
That so many religious people claim that "people of faith" are every bit as capable of doubt as non-religious people is fine. It's a valid claim. By definition, you can only doubt a belief that is falsifiable. I also believe, however, that it is worthy of debate whether a person should believe in something which no possible evidence can disprove. I do not have any problems with this sort of belief on principle, as long as its practitioners acknowledge that it is a belief beyond the bounds of rationality and non-rationality. When people use their religion to make scientific or historical claims, those claims entirely undermine the concept of faith. A religion underpinned by scientific or historical claims should not be recognized as a faith, but as an ideology.
And in practice, religious ideologies often use their untestable claims to support actions which damage and hurt peoples' lives, because the ideology claims absolute superiority for itself and does not act in humility, and does not recognize its own limited knowledge. Very strong atheism is one of these negative ideologies, and also harms people - I already accept this to be true. When people absolutely believe that religion is a negative force in the world, there is much good and positive benefit that is ignored.
It is important to state, however, that atheism and doubt are not necessarily a faith. If you wish to challenge atheism, please challenge it not with insults, but with a response to its claims. Just as it is not fair to insist that religion should be accepted unless it meets the standards of rationality, it is unfair to insist that atheism is necessarily a faith. By definition, it is true that faith is not necessarily about evidence, and that atheism is not necessarily a faith. When challenging an idea, one must first understand what the idea means, and then challenge the meaning of the idea as it is understood by those who accept it. Only once you have responded to the claims of an idea that it actually makes, should you pretend to have made a serious intellectual challenge!
Is there anything directly wrong with faith? Not necessarily. Sometimes, there are questions people have about meaning, about values, about things outside the boundaries of science, which are almost impossible to answer but demand an answer. Occasionally, there are questions which may never have one right answer that can be rationally confirmed. Perhaps some moral and ethical principles are a faith - but perhaps they are not a faith. Perhaps there is rational evidence available to ground our values and ethics. May we never know for sure? Certainly. That's why I'm not certain.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
The Salvation of Mystery
The other day, I finally realized what post-modernism signifies. Post-modernism introduces an ambiguity, an uncertainty, a series of paradoxes into the understanding of everyday language and experience. I have witnessed a profound distaste for this probing and inquisitiveness, and I have directly shared this hesitation.
For a long time, I have viewed forms of post-modernism as empty, meaningless, and unnecessarily skeptical. To ask things like, 'what is the meaning of truth', 'who is the Other', and 'who are the People in "We the People"'? What's the point?
This rogue questioning seems to be a silly exercise - it ignores finding a solution to problems such as violence and poverty in favor of analyzing how we discuss problems such as violence and poverty.
Besides, isn't focusing on the problems themselves enough? The human race does, after all, have a great expertise for solving problems. Humanity has exercised a tremendous capacity for knowledge and discovery. Should I reject or cast doubt upon the workings of science and technology which have brought such monumental greatness and convenience into my life?
I am disturbed by the urgings of post-modernism, but I have realized something: I need this disturbance in my life -- and I have not yet begun to be disturbed enough.
"I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword." - Jesus, Matthew 10:34
Today, societies have unprecedented access to knowledge of the external world around us. From the smallest imaginable wonders reached through nanotechnology to the eerily beautiful images shown from the largest echoes of space by the Hubble Telescope, humanity has a more significant grasp on reality than ever before.
Or so we think...and so we tell ourselves.
I have started to embrace post-modernism because it demands that we re-ask these questions of ourselves. So let me ask you again, not what kind of grasp you have on reality, but what kind of grasp reality has on you?
Said another way: Do you have an internal knowledge of yourself which equals your knowledge of the external world?
"What is truth?" - Pontius Pilate, John 18:38
Many post-modernists have expressed skepticism about the existence of a universal and absolute truth. Many religious people have expressed strong dismay about post-modernism because of this skepticism. Religious figures have reasoned that any skepticism about a universal truth would naturally extend to skepticism about the truth of religion, which is often claimed to be absolute and universal in nature.
I believe this skepticism of skepticism is unwarranted. (Skepticism of skepticism? Isn't that just the kind of unnecessarily complicated phrase a true post-modernist would use? What is it about post-modernism which erodes the use of language? What better evidence that what questions does in fact erode!)
The skepticism (from religious people) of the skepticism (of post-modernists) is not warranted because both religion and post-modernism share some of their most important values and perspectives on the world.
Mystery Enters the World
I'm not a Christian. But I am willing to accept that a fellow named Jesus very likely existed at some point, and could have done many of the things described in the Bible.
In the Gospels, Jesus vigorously questions the religious authorities of his day. The Pharisees constantly attempt to pin Jesus down on legalities to destroy his credibility.
Jesus denied that the prominent religious figures of his day had a monopoly on universal and absolute truth. He did not come to ease their understanding - he did not come to reassure their prejudices - he did not come to bring peace, but to bring a sword, and he did not come to bring simplicity, but to bring mystery.
Both religion and post-modernism introduce a mystery and an uncertainty into our mundane, everyday world which forces individuals to confront the structure and meaning of their inner-most, firmly-held beliefs and attitudes.
Both religion and post-modernism can lead the pilgrim into a voyage of re-examination, from which emerges a new life full of vitality and hope.
Mystery's Final Ascension
Where is the hope from mystery? Where is the light in this darkness?
The answer is the power of human imagination. Both religion and post-modernism imagine new meanings and new interpretations of life - both envision new alternatives to choose, and actively confront humanity with those choices.
Both religion and post-modernism resurrect what they divide: beneath the multiplicity and diversity of meanings lies a common connection. As words and concepts used to segment and oppose human beings are undermined, a new possibility of existence is realized.
No more Jew and Gentile, no more man and woman...
No more I and Other, no more black and white...
Both post-modernism and religion can free individuals from oppression and encourage them to see beyond the superficial differences which all too often consume humanity, to see new conditions of human life, where all individuals are free to pursue their creative potential as human beings.
Both Jesus Christ and Friedrich Nietzsche can tell you that underneath truth, there is life.
For a long time, I have viewed forms of post-modernism as empty, meaningless, and unnecessarily skeptical. To ask things like, 'what is the meaning of truth', 'who is the Other', and 'who are the People in "We the People"'? What's the point?
This rogue questioning seems to be a silly exercise - it ignores finding a solution to problems such as violence and poverty in favor of analyzing how we discuss problems such as violence and poverty.
Besides, isn't focusing on the problems themselves enough? The human race does, after all, have a great expertise for solving problems. Humanity has exercised a tremendous capacity for knowledge and discovery. Should I reject or cast doubt upon the workings of science and technology which have brought such monumental greatness and convenience into my life?
I am disturbed by the urgings of post-modernism, but I have realized something: I need this disturbance in my life -- and I have not yet begun to be disturbed enough.
"I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword." - Jesus, Matthew 10:34
Today, societies have unprecedented access to knowledge of the external world around us. From the smallest imaginable wonders reached through nanotechnology to the eerily beautiful images shown from the largest echoes of space by the Hubble Telescope, humanity has a more significant grasp on reality than ever before.
Or so we think...and so we tell ourselves.
I have started to embrace post-modernism because it demands that we re-ask these questions of ourselves. So let me ask you again, not what kind of grasp you have on reality, but what kind of grasp reality has on you?
Said another way: Do you have an internal knowledge of yourself which equals your knowledge of the external world?
"What is truth?" - Pontius Pilate, John 18:38
Many post-modernists have expressed skepticism about the existence of a universal and absolute truth. Many religious people have expressed strong dismay about post-modernism because of this skepticism. Religious figures have reasoned that any skepticism about a universal truth would naturally extend to skepticism about the truth of religion, which is often claimed to be absolute and universal in nature.
I believe this skepticism of skepticism is unwarranted. (Skepticism of skepticism? Isn't that just the kind of unnecessarily complicated phrase a true post-modernist would use? What is it about post-modernism which erodes the use of language? What better evidence that what questions does in fact erode!)
The skepticism (from religious people) of the skepticism (of post-modernists) is not warranted because both religion and post-modernism share some of their most important values and perspectives on the world.
Mystery Enters the World
I'm not a Christian. But I am willing to accept that a fellow named Jesus very likely existed at some point, and could have done many of the things described in the Bible.
In the Gospels, Jesus vigorously questions the religious authorities of his day. The Pharisees constantly attempt to pin Jesus down on legalities to destroy his credibility.
Jesus denied that the prominent religious figures of his day had a monopoly on universal and absolute truth. He did not come to ease their understanding - he did not come to reassure their prejudices - he did not come to bring peace, but to bring a sword, and he did not come to bring simplicity, but to bring mystery.
Both religion and post-modernism introduce a mystery and an uncertainty into our mundane, everyday world which forces individuals to confront the structure and meaning of their inner-most, firmly-held beliefs and attitudes.
Both religion and post-modernism can lead the pilgrim into a voyage of re-examination, from which emerges a new life full of vitality and hope.
Mystery's Final Ascension
Where is the hope from mystery? Where is the light in this darkness?
The answer is the power of human imagination. Both religion and post-modernism imagine new meanings and new interpretations of life - both envision new alternatives to choose, and actively confront humanity with those choices.
Both religion and post-modernism resurrect what they divide: beneath the multiplicity and diversity of meanings lies a common connection. As words and concepts used to segment and oppose human beings are undermined, a new possibility of existence is realized.
No more Jew and Gentile, no more man and woman...
No more I and Other, no more black and white...
Both post-modernism and religion can free individuals from oppression and encourage them to see beyond the superficial differences which all too often consume humanity, to see new conditions of human life, where all individuals are free to pursue their creative potential as human beings.
Both Jesus Christ and Friedrich Nietzsche can tell you that underneath truth, there is life.
Friday, February 4, 2011
My Doubt, My Threat, My Appetite
The band Jimmy Eat World wrote a song that I'm in love with: "My Best Theory", from their album "Invented". A brief snippet of the song goes:
"My doubt seems fine/
My true desire/
My threat/
My appetite"
Outstanding lyrics.
Doubt is many things. It is my annihilation. It is my preservation.
Doubt erodes, a steady stream of questioning which removes the face of well-worn notions, and it sculpts a new impression in old surfaces.
Doubt in its own nature embodies the biggest and most substantial conflict we know of: the chasm between permanence and stability, and change and chaos.
Every human being is a product of change. We originate as embryos, progressing through many stages, until a fully-grown adult form is realized. Each facet of our physical body is in flux: a multitude of cells appear and die each day within our body. Each facet of our consciousness and personality changes, too: throughout our interactions with other humans, we are molded and crafted in accordance with our fellow human beings. Their being is ours.
We depend on change to sustain us. If the seeds for our crops remain seeds, then we die. If the water which feeds many of our reservoirs remains snow or ice, then we die. If the rain which waters the crops remains water vapor in the sky, then we die.
Is it really true that we look for things to stay the same? We are surely blind to the immense changes which surround us in their exquisite insignificance.
We owe everything we have to change, but we seek to ground our lives in eternal truths. To doubt these truths, to chip away at them, is a betrayal of the truths towards which we aim. Our lives are bigger than this trivial nonsense. "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter", such great religious authorities as Yoda from Star Wars inform us.
Yet what exactly are we considering when we ponder these eternal truths? Our messages and teachings come to us from specific historical eras, and specific cultural contexts. Is it really appropriate to allow the message of Jesus, for example, to remain stale for two thousand years, when he castigated the religious leaders of his day for allowing the laws to become stale within their own hearts?
We humans express our knowledge and our truth through what we actively partake. We partake the body and the blood of truth, when we speak its voice for our times, when we allow our own doubts to refine and distill our beliefs and our values.
Doubt threatens to undo everything, but doubt also allows us to remember everything. Doubt allows us to exercise our faith, to propel ourselves upward, to participate again in the sacred enterprise - we are captivated by it and refreshed by it. We remember. We remember both why we believe now, and why we believed in the first place.
Certainty cannot exist without doubt, nor without change: for if we do not doubt, if we do not risk the possibility of change, then we forget why we are certain in the first place. When we forget to doubt, then we lose ourselves entirely. Our own desire for certainty enables change to erase ourselves: we become clean on the outside, but rotten within. Oh, you hypocrites, you brood of vipers...
"My doubt seems fine/
My true desire/
My threat/
My appetite"
Outstanding lyrics.
Doubt is many things. It is my annihilation. It is my preservation.
Doubt erodes, a steady stream of questioning which removes the face of well-worn notions, and it sculpts a new impression in old surfaces.
Doubt in its own nature embodies the biggest and most substantial conflict we know of: the chasm between permanence and stability, and change and chaos.
Every human being is a product of change. We originate as embryos, progressing through many stages, until a fully-grown adult form is realized. Each facet of our physical body is in flux: a multitude of cells appear and die each day within our body. Each facet of our consciousness and personality changes, too: throughout our interactions with other humans, we are molded and crafted in accordance with our fellow human beings. Their being is ours.
We depend on change to sustain us. If the seeds for our crops remain seeds, then we die. If the water which feeds many of our reservoirs remains snow or ice, then we die. If the rain which waters the crops remains water vapor in the sky, then we die.
Is it really true that we look for things to stay the same? We are surely blind to the immense changes which surround us in their exquisite insignificance.
We owe everything we have to change, but we seek to ground our lives in eternal truths. To doubt these truths, to chip away at them, is a betrayal of the truths towards which we aim. Our lives are bigger than this trivial nonsense. "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter", such great religious authorities as Yoda from Star Wars inform us.
Yet what exactly are we considering when we ponder these eternal truths? Our messages and teachings come to us from specific historical eras, and specific cultural contexts. Is it really appropriate to allow the message of Jesus, for example, to remain stale for two thousand years, when he castigated the religious leaders of his day for allowing the laws to become stale within their own hearts?
We humans express our knowledge and our truth through what we actively partake. We partake the body and the blood of truth, when we speak its voice for our times, when we allow our own doubts to refine and distill our beliefs and our values.
Doubt threatens to undo everything, but doubt also allows us to remember everything. Doubt allows us to exercise our faith, to propel ourselves upward, to participate again in the sacred enterprise - we are captivated by it and refreshed by it. We remember. We remember both why we believe now, and why we believed in the first place.
Certainty cannot exist without doubt, nor without change: for if we do not doubt, if we do not risk the possibility of change, then we forget why we are certain in the first place. When we forget to doubt, then we lose ourselves entirely. Our own desire for certainty enables change to erase ourselves: we become clean on the outside, but rotten within. Oh, you hypocrites, you brood of vipers...
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Religion and Social Consciousness
I'm participating in a book study of Kevin Roose's book "The Unlikely Disciple". So far, I have only read the first two chapters, so there is no need for any spoiler alerts. However, if you've read the book before, please don't tell me what happens! I want to keep a fresh perspective.
During discussion in our study group today, I heard two rather broad, very compelling questions which I would like to discuss further on this blog.
1. Agnostic college student Kevin Roose transfers from east-coast, secular Brown University to Jerry Falwell's evangelical proving grounds at Liberty University for a semester to discover a greater understanding of evangelical Christianity. However, to fit in without giving himself away as an outsider, Kevin adopts a double persona as a fellow evangelical Christian. Is this double life justified?
I believe Roose had no other choice but to adopt the character of an evangelical Christian if he really wanted to obtain an insider's understanding. Was this choice a duplicitous one, a charade, a fraud? Maybe, to some extent - but I accept that his choice was no more a lie than the choices most people make every day. Why are any of us Christian, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic, liberal, libertarian, conservative, socialist, etc? Can we honestly embrace our own ideas as superior without honestly trying to understand all of the other alternatives which surround us?
Most individuals adopt convenient labels and narratives to use in their everyday lives with less thought than Roose puts into his pseudo-identity. How we do know that we are not defrauding ourselves? How do we know that when call ourselves something, that we are being true to ourselves, and whether we can really accept what we claim to be true?
Further, I think the only good way to understand someone else's ideas or values is to understand their experiences - or, even better, share some of their experiences. It really is futile to ponder someone's arguments or points without understanding why and how the person arrived at that place. Roose is doing the best he can to genuinely understand evangelicalism - he walks in their path and sees with their own eyes, instead of merely tracing their footsteps and following the breadcrumbs left in their wake, as so many other people content themselves to do and believe that they have a good understanding when they most assuredly do not.
2. Do you believe that Roose's beliefs will change during his time at Liberty University? Will he convert to evangelical Christianity, or even modify some of his beliefs to those of his peers? Why or why not?
To me, after reading just the first two chapters of "The Unlikely Disciple", it's inevitable that Roose will change many of his ideas as a result of spending a semester at Liberty.
But why should he change? Doesn't he already have many of his own well-established ideas, honed over the course of his entire life thus far?
Perhaps.
However, there is a key observation I must make to establish why I believe change is inevitable for Kevin Roose: that consciousness is a social product, evolving constantly with changes in one's environment and interpersonal interaction.
I'm currently enrolled in a philosophy course called "Persons and Selves". The last two weeks we've been discussing at various points how an individual's consciousness is shaped by a person's relationships with other people - that a person who is isolated eventually will begin to lose his or her personality, and that individuals gain much of their consciousness and sense of personhood as a reflection of the acknowledgement which they receive from other people.
I predict that by immersing himself in an environment dominated by evangelical Christianity, that Roose will experience a changing consciousness as he is recognized by other Liberty students for his actions as an evangelical, and that over time, he will slowly feel more and more attuned to those forms of recognition, so that his beliefs will shift in a way which accords with his social environment.
The consciousness of a human being is not a static product. You are not who you were as a young child or as an adolescent. You're not who you were a year ago, or a week ago. You're not even who you were yesterday.
I'm not on the record as someone who is very religious. But maybe there is a possibility that there is some kind of divine force in or behind our Universe. I believe that if there is a sort of animating force, akin to what is understood widely as God, that this God-like force most likely is a Process, which works through other things in the world.
Look around us: everything is in flux, and nothing is ever the same. Heck, that's what it says in Ecclesiastes (and on classic rock stations, if you like The Byrds). There is a season...for everything under the Sun, for agnosticism at Brown, for who knows what at Liberty, for hoping the Jets win so you can laugh at the New England Patriots, to ruing the day one said that because the Jets have just demolished one's favorite football team in the playoffs...
During discussion in our study group today, I heard two rather broad, very compelling questions which I would like to discuss further on this blog.
1. Agnostic college student Kevin Roose transfers from east-coast, secular Brown University to Jerry Falwell's evangelical proving grounds at Liberty University for a semester to discover a greater understanding of evangelical Christianity. However, to fit in without giving himself away as an outsider, Kevin adopts a double persona as a fellow evangelical Christian. Is this double life justified?
I believe Roose had no other choice but to adopt the character of an evangelical Christian if he really wanted to obtain an insider's understanding. Was this choice a duplicitous one, a charade, a fraud? Maybe, to some extent - but I accept that his choice was no more a lie than the choices most people make every day. Why are any of us Christian, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic, liberal, libertarian, conservative, socialist, etc? Can we honestly embrace our own ideas as superior without honestly trying to understand all of the other alternatives which surround us?
Most individuals adopt convenient labels and narratives to use in their everyday lives with less thought than Roose puts into his pseudo-identity. How we do know that we are not defrauding ourselves? How do we know that when call ourselves something, that we are being true to ourselves, and whether we can really accept what we claim to be true?
Further, I think the only good way to understand someone else's ideas or values is to understand their experiences - or, even better, share some of their experiences. It really is futile to ponder someone's arguments or points without understanding why and how the person arrived at that place. Roose is doing the best he can to genuinely understand evangelicalism - he walks in their path and sees with their own eyes, instead of merely tracing their footsteps and following the breadcrumbs left in their wake, as so many other people content themselves to do and believe that they have a good understanding when they most assuredly do not.
2. Do you believe that Roose's beliefs will change during his time at Liberty University? Will he convert to evangelical Christianity, or even modify some of his beliefs to those of his peers? Why or why not?
To me, after reading just the first two chapters of "The Unlikely Disciple", it's inevitable that Roose will change many of his ideas as a result of spending a semester at Liberty.
But why should he change? Doesn't he already have many of his own well-established ideas, honed over the course of his entire life thus far?
Perhaps.
However, there is a key observation I must make to establish why I believe change is inevitable for Kevin Roose: that consciousness is a social product, evolving constantly with changes in one's environment and interpersonal interaction.
I'm currently enrolled in a philosophy course called "Persons and Selves". The last two weeks we've been discussing at various points how an individual's consciousness is shaped by a person's relationships with other people - that a person who is isolated eventually will begin to lose his or her personality, and that individuals gain much of their consciousness and sense of personhood as a reflection of the acknowledgement which they receive from other people.
I predict that by immersing himself in an environment dominated by evangelical Christianity, that Roose will experience a changing consciousness as he is recognized by other Liberty students for his actions as an evangelical, and that over time, he will slowly feel more and more attuned to those forms of recognition, so that his beliefs will shift in a way which accords with his social environment.
The consciousness of a human being is not a static product. You are not who you were as a young child or as an adolescent. You're not who you were a year ago, or a week ago. You're not even who you were yesterday.
I'm not on the record as someone who is very religious. But maybe there is a possibility that there is some kind of divine force in or behind our Universe. I believe that if there is a sort of animating force, akin to what is understood widely as God, that this God-like force most likely is a Process, which works through other things in the world.
Look around us: everything is in flux, and nothing is ever the same. Heck, that's what it says in Ecclesiastes (and on classic rock stations, if you like The Byrds). There is a season...for everything under the Sun, for agnosticism at Brown, for who knows what at Liberty, for hoping the Jets win so you can laugh at the New England Patriots, to ruing the day one said that because the Jets have just demolished one's favorite football team in the playoffs...
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