I like this town. I like the food. I like the people. I like that the biggest mountains are on the east side of town and today they're covered with snow. I like that Santa Fe has some of the best restaurants on the planet and it's less than an hour drive away. I like Route 66 and The Library and The La Posada hotel. I like green chili and this town has some of the best I've ever tasted.
I like it especially today because driving around and doing business in a town other than Denver gives me a chance to clear my head and think about a question that seems to dog me most of my waking moments. (I'm a chronic multi-tasker. I am a sales professional who constantly thinks about religion on the side. I hope my employer doesn't find out.)
The question is: Why do I think about religion so much? Why, after spending most of my life in it, and spending another major portion of my life getting over it and then out of it, does it STILL bother me so much? Why do I get so agitated about it? Why does it drive me completely nuts? Why am I writing about it now, when there's so many other things to write about? My therapist has wondered the same thing. So have some of you, I'm sure.
I think maybe it's because I'm still trying to figure out how to be non-religious in a very, Very, VERY religious world. Religion is EVERYWHERE. It's pervasive. It's, shall we say, omnipresent. Of course in the US, it's mostly Christian. In other places it's mostly Islam or Jewish or Hindu or fill-in-the-blank. In Utah it's mostly Mormon. You name the place, I can find you a religion that dominates the scene, and the culture, and the politics.
I've made a rather surprising realization lately that what irritates me most about religion is not religion per-se. I like cathedrals. I like classical music, most of which religiously inspired. I like looking at Russian Orthodox icons. I like reading liberal Christian theology. I like the history of religious ideas, and customs, and rituals. I like reading about the latest discoveries in Nag Hammadi - the scores of gnostic gospels that have been recently discovered. I like the idea of religion - that all of them were invented to answer mankind's deepest questions about ultimate reality (because these are really important questions). I think as philosophies and even art forms, religions are wonderfully creative things.
I think the problem for me comes in trying to understand why so many people bypass (almost automatically) "religion as idea" and go directly to "religion as truth." Or more accurately, "TRUTH." Why isn't there more critical thinking going on about religion? By the masses, not just philosophers and skeptics? Why aren't there more agnostics and atheists in the world? Why isn't there more doubt? Why is it that few people want to experience the richness and adventure of ambiguity? What's going on with the wiring of most people that leads them to practice the religion of their upbringing or choice as if it were really and actually true? Or TRUE?
I know there are all kinds of sociological and psychological and scientific reasons for this. I personally think it's an evolutionary development and that there's an actual gene that lends itself to belief in the supernatural. But still, it makes me wonder. And it makes me frustrated and sometimes mean and cranky thinking about it.
Because I understand completely that my secular humanism has marginalized me to an extremely outer circle of humanity. I'm so far out of the mainstream on this issue that I'm a planet you can't see. Most people, throughout history, have been religious. I have chosen, instead to be non-religious. And if I'm right about this - and I think I am - I have an awful lot of work to do to live authentically this way. And an even greater task to convince an impossibly large number of people that they're wrong. That's a lot to think about.
Still, it's a beautiful day in Albuquerque.
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7 comments:
It would be impossible to prove others wrong without you first stating that what you believe is right, therefore by default you now have started a religion or belief system of your very own.
A belief system can be stated as a religion but sometimes what we believe is actually the right thing to believe take for example if you jump off a very tall building you hit the ground very very very hard and thusly ending your jumping career. I therefore believe that it is not a very good idea to jump off a very tall building without a parachute or bungee cord or some other means by which to avoid the sudden stop at the end of the jump. This belief would be a true belief would you not say?
I also belief that everyone who is ever born will eventually die. I believe that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I believe that in order for man to live he must inhale oxygen and exhale carbon monoxide. All these beliefs are therefore true beliefs would you not say?
Therefore not all beliefs can be considered faulty or useless.
However, "belief" in gravity isn't really a belief, it's recognition of a scientific fact - much like the earth's rotation and that living things have life spans.
Religion falls into the realm of the unprovable and so my original assertions still have merit.
Born fine the first time said:
"However, "belief" in gravity isn't really a belief, it's recognition of a scientific fact - much like the earth's rotation and that living things have life spans.
Religion falls into the realm of the unprovable and so my original assertions still have merit."
To which I reply. Actually your logic is slightly flawed again. One can believe that it is a very bad idea to jump off a very tall building because the end result will not be advantageous to one's health without knowing anything about science. One can observe causes and effects of actions and then form beliefs based upon those observations apart from anything scientific or religious. Those observations will be just that observations. It is this exact argument atheists use to attempt to explain away a "god being" by saying because you can not scientifically prove a god exists therefore he must not.
However my original comment is still valid. People form BELIEF systems around many life observations whether they are based on a 'religion' or just life experience. For example it does not take too long for the average person to LEARN that placing ones hands into a fire will cause you to get burned. Therefore anyone who has ever witnessed this event or had themselves burned will BELIEVE it is not a good idea to put your hands into a fire NO MATTER what scientific or religious dogma would say to the contrary. The only way their belief system would change if they had experiential experience to the contrary meaning they could place their hands into a fire and not get burnt.
Just because we believe in things does not mean they are true or untrue it just means it is what we believe. If you believe there is no God no amount of PROOF will satisfy you with the possible exception of a PERSONAL encounter with this said God.
I believe in God because I have had a personal encounter with God and therefore no amount of scientific or philosophical discourse is going to persuade me to disbelieve what I have witnessed.
The same is true to any belief system, if a young lady believes she is fat every time she looks in the mirror no amount of persuasion is going to change her belief system until something changes her personal thoughts about her own appearance. Therefore it could be said her beliefs are not valid because they can not be proved scientifically, in other words the scale does not lie, but to the young lady who believes she is fat the facts do not matter.
The only way to come to the "belief" that walking off a tall building is bad for you is to either a) try it yourself and see what happens (actually, I would try a watermelon first) or b) observe that when something falls from a building it falls to the ground, usually at a high rate of speed and breaks into pieces. In the end, the "belief" is the result of direct observation. And, to go a step further, belief moves to actual knowledge. You "know" for a fact that falling from a building could be harmful or fatal. In the absence observable facts about gravity you could just as well believe that when you walk off a tall building you might float, rise higher or maybe even disappear altogether. Any of those beliefs could be acceptable conclusions.
I think you're confusing belief and knowledge. The two are separate and do not intersect - ever.
Which makes your illustration of the thin girl who believes she's fat prove my point. She possesses an observable fact - "I am thin and the scale says so" - but an unbending "belief" that she is, indeed, fat. She has a fact and a belief and the two are mutually exclusive.
"I think you're confusing belief and knowledge. The two are separate and do not intersect - ever."
I do not agree with your statement however I am enjoying this conversation and would like it if you could expound upon this a bit more. I believe that you can have a BELIEF apart from knowledge and your knowledge can be tainted by your belief system. By holding to a belief you can form facts to support your belief thus manipulating knowledge as an example if I were to presuppose (believe) that most African American men under 30 are prone to violence I could then find evidence or facts to support my belief, (percentage of prison population who are African American Males under 30. Because my BELIEF is that most African American Males are prone to violence I would therefore seek out only evidence to support that belief system. Therefore the KNOWLEDGE obtained or observed would be tainted by my initial belief or supposition no?
"Belief that forms facts" reminds me of my dear but stupid creationist sister who insists that Yahweh created the world in six literal twenty-four hour days and that the world is little more than 5000 years old.
Her "creationist facts" are completely fabricated to support her beliefs. Obviously, that doesn't make it right and it certainly isn't science.
So, like your African-American illustration, "knowledge" can certainly be tainted by belief. My sister, and all creationists everywhere, prove that every single day.
By the way, where did you access my article and blog? Just curious.
My entire blog can be accessed at
www.bornfinethefirsttime.blogspot.com
I invite you to read and respond to more of my entries.
The six literal days of creation can not be proved nor disproved, therefore believing that it is possible to have created the world in six days may not be so crazy. Heck I believe in one day a very large portion of the earth could be destroyed by forces of nature, therefore because there are forces powerful enough to destroy perhaps there is a force or forces powerful enough to create as well.
I believe even man given six days and nuclear weapons could do a very good job of destroying most life on this planet and the atomic bomb pales in power to the force of a volcanic eruption or major earth quake.
I got access to this article through your submission to my blog cranival at blogcarnival.com
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