Oh Truth, where for art thou Truth?
I have searched nigh and far for you without avail.
And so I have made a decree: You do not exist!
You are nothing but an illusion, an elaborate fantasy.
One has said, “Truth is here, come my way!”
While another exclaimed, “Do not believe that liar!”
I looked and listened; I searched and searched.
It was not for want of trying that I came to my conclusion.
A light came on one day when I encountered a very wise man,
Who said to me,
“Are you in search of wisdom?”
I answered,
“I have been seeking for wisdom all of my life.”
“Well,” he said, “you will never find it.”
“What?”, I exclaimed, “How can this be?”
“Words, concepts, ideas are meaningless. The truth for one is fiction for another.”
“Surely,” I asked in dismay, “there is one all-pervasive Truth?”
“Bullshit!”
Reeling from such an answer, I was stunned. The wise man smiled and said,
“Can the concepts in your mind be your guiding light?
Has anyone given you sufficient knowledge to be at peace and ease?
All knowledge is bullshit. We speak bullshit. Every single word.
Do you want to know the road to wisdom?”
Eagerly, I answered, “Yes, I do!”
“Embrace the bullshit. Know that what one says is meaningless. Take not one seriously.
Enjoy your life, knowing that everything you learn is bullshit.
What is real is already real to you, and will increasingly become more real.
Stay true to the unfolding of each moment,
and relish the bullshit.
There is wisdom found.”
Well…..not quite, I just wanted to be a little dramatic. I feel it is appropriate, given a recent storm of comments, to properly wrap-up this blog with an appropriate book-end. To that end, let’s go on a recap.
I began this blog in 2006 after the startling insight that the Christian Bible just may be a mixture of myth and reality, given that at the time of writing phenomena was explained in the terminology of myth. I realized that if hell is not a real place, my faith is completely undermined, like a house built on poor foundations. As I read and explored the ramifications of this new understanding, I journaled my insights which can be found in the archive here.
To say that my insight was an eye-opener is a massive understatement. Christianity framed the way I viewed the world, and suddenly whole vistas of thought flooded in. Beyond Black and White was born out of the understanding that all moralistic thought is subjective, the world is rich with the colour of differing views and perspectives that do not fit into black-and-white categories.
After moving through the variety of perspectives, and wrestling with letting go of Christianity, I finally am able to say that I am no longer a Christian. I no longer believe in God. Yet I do not call myself an atheist, for I see that as almost as limiting as calling myself a Christian. I prefer rather to let go of belief systems and open myself to the depth and breadth of life as best as I possibly can.
Spirituality still fascinates me. There are still too many mysteries and too many wonders to life which science cannot begin to explain, yet no religious system can adequately address them either. Instead, these are left to the realm beyond thought, beyond mind, beyond understanding, beyond explanation. My spirituality consists of leaving all this in the empty space of pure awareness and being.
And I won’t be making a religion of that any time soon.
Consider this quote from an essay contained in The HarperCollins Study Bible, entitled Israelite Religion by Ronald Hendel:
Early biblical texts seem to acknowledge that gods of other nations exist (see Deut 32.8). The nations each have their own god, but Yahweh is Israel’s god. This seems to be the earliest sense of the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20.3). Yahweh is Israel’s high god, who delivered his people from slavery and oppression, and he is entitled to Israel’s exclusive worship and loyalty. Other national gods exist, but Yahweh is Israel’s god and is the greatest god. This type of worship is sometimes called monolotry (the worship of one god without denying the existence of others) or henotheism (belief in one god without denying the existence of others). A more thoroughgoing monotheism, which denies the existence of other gods, is the product of the prophetic and Deuteronomistic critique that developed during the eighth through the sixth centuries BCE.
Here is Deuteronomy 32:8 (NRSV):
When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods.
Christians will obviously interpret this differently, and their Bibles likely contain a different translation of the above verse. Just goes to show you how different a picture you can construct of history and religion when not confined within the boundaries of faith.
In the spirit of this blog, I cannot let this universal season go by without some kind of commentary. Therefore, I shall comment on the perversity of the doctrine of hell.
Just who thought up the distasteful, sadistic and immoral idea of hell? We know from history that it was not a feature of the Old Testament or Hebrew scriptures – the word sometimes translated into English as hell, sheol, did not refer to an underworld, but rather referred simply to the grave – implying that an afterlife did not enter the imagination of the early Jews. The idea of a conscious afterlife of torment predates the New Testament, being featured in a number of different sources. In other words, it was a ‘pagan’ idea that became known to first century Jews, and gradually morphed into a doctrine after the death of Christ.
In light of our historical awareness, it seems that the Bible does not contain one God, but many. We may as well go back to ancient Greece and pick a name for each unique deity, for they certainly seem to be diverse! For the sake of this discussion I’ll focus on the assumption of one God, who obviously does not really like his creation, for most people end up in endless torment. To even conceive of such barbaric behaviour brings us back in time to when it was fashionable to watch people being tortured for all manner of stupid reasons. To think that people died very cruel deaths for saying or thinking things contrary to common belief! Yet this is exactly what is demanded as the basis for avoiding the tortures of hell.
This Easter we mustn’t forget that much of the seasonal reflection of Christ’s death and resurrection rests on this absurd and pathetic idea, that Jesus died to save people from hell. In reflection, I stagger to think that I actually believed and promoted this doctrine! The twisted notion that I inherited a curse from my forefathers, for whom I must be sorry, is unbelievably unjust and immoral. I think something inside must have always questioned Paul’s reasoning in Romans 1, and no matter how many theological mind-bending answers I encountered, I was not satisfied.
So when I am told by the priest in the newspaper that I should “remember the reason for the season,” I’m caused to reflect on the fact that I spent many years of my life believing a brutal lie. Hell is the pillar of religious guilt which enslaves many in a cage of mythological ideas about reality. I let it go, and I wish to God everyone else would do the same!
A middle-class mother of three proclaims enthusiastically,
“I know that God is real, because he is at work in my life. He has worked wonders in guiding me to find a great job, in helping me mother my children, and being a good wife. He speaks to me constantly, through his Word and his Spirit. I do not know how I could not believe, given how very real he is to me.”
Now, imagine a widower in the slums of Calcutta. She has been forced into prostitution so that her starving children might have something to eat. Her days are spent in miserable conditions, and she despises every minute of her ‘occupation’. Could this woman express sentiments like that of the prior woman?
If God is real, why is he real only to this middle-class woman?
It seems that Ted Haggard was seriously humbled by the scandal which caused him to come down from his lofty heights to go through tremendous pain, which I would not wish on anyone. This follows on nicely from my last post on authenticity, as Haggard suggests that he is completely owning his gay tendencies, which he had previously attributed to the devil. While I would have wished that he might have ’seen the light’ in regard to his beliefs, I marvel now at how the process has changed him.
I’m going to go out on a limb with this post and get rather personal. I’m beginning to see where I try to present a facade that is not exactly congruent with reality. I have always had problems with self-acceptance. Throughout my teenage years and into my 20’s, I had great difficulty discussing my faith with others. I immediately presumed that being a Christian put me in a class of scorn. In hindsight, now that I am no longer a Christian, I have observed that one’s faith does not tend to lead to derision, unless it is forcefully imposed on others. In retrospect, I had developed a cognitive strategy of defense against imagined attackers (who had previously not been imagined in the form of bullies) – to avoid the facts about my life situation as much as possible.
This strategy lead to creating a rather mundane life for me, for instead of being actively involved in social activities, I would hide behind my self-constructed defenses. I never did learn how to do anything else. Yet at many times I have attempted to move beyond my circumstances, since I just find them completely unsatisfying. I get so far, and then compare the achievements and experiences of others to my own, and cringe. Back with the defenses, with the facade, shrinking back to my hole.
The only way I can see to escape this behaviour is through authenticity. That is, to see the facts of my situation clearly – I am a person with needs, like every other person. I need to be wanted, to be loved, to be appreciated, to be respected, to be connected to others. I need to take pleasure in life. There is nothing good or bad about these needs, they are just how our minds are programmed to function. Life achievements and experiences are merely individuating details, the things that make each of us different. If people have these details and I do not, all that does is demarcate our differences. I do have things that make me particularly unique, but at the end of the day the core needs bind me with humanity. I can choose to take pride, or be disgusted with my own individual traits, yet either choice is unnecessary in the long run. A rich life is made up in the fulfillment of the basic needs rather than the amassing of details.
The understanding that everyone has the same basic needs undermines my defensive strategy, for I can then appreciate that beyond the details are yearnings and desires similar to my own. I can then accept my own personal details, knowing that I have these needs in common with others. Our needs rather than our details come together for mutual benefit. What about the details that I do not like but cannot change? That is another thing I have in common with others, imperfection. There are two great things to be celebrated in humanity, namely diversity and commonality. Life would be so very boring without them.
I feel the need to chronicle some major shifts in thinking that have really only occurred in the last few weeks, resulting in recent blog posts, a return to contributing to the de-conversion.com blog, and a move away from spiritual seeking.
After deferring the first year of my psychology degree last year (a decision made largely from the perspective of depression), I decided to return this year. Just in the first week of lectures my continued open-mindedness to the belief in God and supernatural phenomena came under serious question. Only a week prior to this, I had attended a meditation course that taught a variety of New-Agey practices and theories. I had anticipated attending this course for many months, and then afterwards I felt quite disillusioned. The more I considered the course in light of my increasing scientific awareness, the more suspicious I became of its authenticity.
Even prior to the course, I had attended a counselling session that affected me profoundly, in that my attachment to self-help books was made clear to be a pathology rather than beneficial to wellbeing. I rearranged my library, got rid of some of my self-help materials, and began to focus on things other than trying to fix my problems. Spirituality was still under the radar, and still appeared to be something that I would hold of interest. And then, the more lectures I attended, and the more sections of textbooks I read, the more reason prevailed over my interests.
Emotionally, having such sudden paradigm shifts is very challenging. On the one hand, there is a relief that chasing one particular direction is no longer necessary. On the other, there is a sense of loss, a sudden grief that something held dear has passed away. Even today a book I’d read almost to the end was filed away in my library, not to be accessed again for a long time, due to its speculative psychoanalysis.
The one thing that is most important about my new-found scientific perspective is simplicity. Instead of moving through a multitude of speculations regarding why I feel this way or that, why I experience particular emotions, or the revelance of spiritual experiences, I can rest simply and profoundly on experiences that are proven to be true. Many bright sparks have gone before me to shine the way in just about every area of importance. Even where the light is still dim, there is just enough light to see far enough ahead to forge new discoveries. On my paradigm-shifting journey, I do not go alone; I stand in a great company of other courageous souls.
I have just been reading a textbook explanation of critical thinking, which describes two primary skills:
Looking for alternative explanations for findings and events
Looking for contrary evidence
A great video for understanding how this applies to faith is this debate between Sam Harris, author of End of Faith, and Hugh Hewitt, a radio host. Harris represents the rational view, and Hewitt the irrational view. I say this because it is Harris who applies the above two skills consistently in his reasoning, whereas Hewitt consistently points back to the Bible as the source of truth that, he believes, cannot be denied. Unfortunately this debate is too short for Harris to question this irrational belief, however in defending his views he appears as the one who has thought long and hard through the issues raised.
The faith position leaves no room for alternative explanations. The Bible is the revealed Word of God. There is no contrary evidence for anything it presents, as it carries the authority of the Creator of the universe. What it says is absolutely final. Such a position as this leaves no room for critical thinking, and Harris is quite right to consider this ideology to be dangerous. One thing that really stands out to me in this debate, and which seems to be common in religious circles, is Hewitt’s comment about being a ‘law professor’. In other words, because he is an academician of high standing, he can legitimize his irrational views. The appeal to authority is all too common (and goes back to the ancient Greeks), and fortunately good scientists actually apply the rules of critical thinking to bring creditability to their theories, being quite willing to be wrong.
Again, we come back to the notion of Beyond Black and White, that complex issues can rarely be reduced to right and wrong polarities, and as such must be carefully weighted and argued.
I was having a conversation with a friend today, and one thing has struck me from it – that most Christians cannot see beyond the limited faith perspective enough to question what they read and hear. Their belief in their particular view of God limits their vision so much that any challenge to the perspective is met with a sharp defense. My friend mentioned that she has many Christian friends who she cannot share her own beliefs with for fear that it will destroy their faith.
That’s the challenge – do you share what you feel is liberating, or allow others to continue in delusion so that they may avoid the inevitable pain that can follow discovery of superstitious belief? There has got to be a middle ground. Unfortunately, I went through a very dark time to arrive at what I understand at this point in time, and I do not wish such an experience on anyone. Pain is a normal experience, at least the grief of loss, but should not be any more uncomfortable as a child realizing that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are fantasy. In both cases, there is an expanded awareness and understanding of the world. This could be well described as ‘growing pains’.
A middle ground which would have softened the blow for me would have been to have friends that either had gone through the journey themselves, or were at least open-minded enough to be able to guide my confused and troubled mind into clarity and peace. If I were to try to bring someone to a more expanded awareness or shift in consciousness, I would do so gently rather than with any force. Dawkins or Harris really will not do at this stage. I think there is a big lack in quality resources to facilitate this process. Brian Mclaren was responsible for my initial shift, but beyond him the only vestige of support was in liberal Christianity, which offered very little that I could confidently grasp.
Walking away from the security of a church where community, warmth, and joy are regularly experienced is unquestionable for most. It was relatively easy for me given that I experienced none of these things. What I long to see is community that is both open-minded and open-hearted. Such is rare, and such is beautiful.
