More about religion
filed under: buddhism, religion, weaknesses
26 September 2009
Preface
My good friend Matt recently started a blog, and has been writing very regularly and often. Much more than I do, in fact :) And it’s been great for me, because he often posts things that make me think, or that I disagree with, and I become motivated to reply. That, in turn, forces me to think through my ideas, and to finally publish them online – which was really the original point of this blog, even though I mostly haven’t done that.
One of his recent posts was about humanity, arguing that “…left to its natural state, [it] will break a little bit each day…” and that “…we need to do something proactive each day to alter that trend.” I agree with the latter idea, but disagree with the former, and Matt and I are currently debating the topic in the comments on that post.
As I was drafting one of my replies, I finished making my point, and then just kept typing, because this topic is the perfect lead-in for another topic that I have always wanted to blog about: my views about the value, and the problem, with organized religion. But that topic doesn’t really have anything to do with Matt’s original topic, so I have chosen to post the second half of my comment here on my blog. My hope is that this post can stand on its own, but it will probably help if you go read through the thread on Matt’s blog first.
As always, I welcome comments, so please feel free to reply.
The actual topic
As mentioned in my first comment to Matt’s post, I often think about whether humanity is naturally positive (or not). Those thoughts arise because I regularly encounter situations where someone or something is implying that humans are inherently bad, and need to be fixed, or saved. I reject, and loathe, that idea.
Yes, we all have feelings that lead us to do things that are bad, or that we have been taught are bad. And those feelings must be controlled. I believe that. We are biological creatures, with a sloppy evolutionary history, and we have vestigial feelings and impulses that can be harmful.
But we aren’t going to change our biological natures (except maybe through physical or chemical or biological means) so we just need to learn the best way to live with them. And when a person is faced with a problem or weakness that can’t be changed, then their only (and best!) option is simply to accept the weakness and learn to mitigate it. And as a society, we have learned to mitigate many of our weaknesses: we teach our children good manners, and we have laws and punishments designed to deter crime, and we try to provide for all people so they don’t end up feeling like they have to do bad things, and so on. If you look at history, I think we have gotten much better at mitigating human weaknesses, both as individuals and as a society.
This idea ties directly to religion. I believe that most religions “get” this, and are actually structured to naturally help people do what I described – mitigate their weaknesses, and move on to better things. And in playing that role, I am in favor of religion. The part I don’t like are all the guilty feelings associated with the process. People shouldn’t feel guilty about the way they are; imagine telling a retarded child that they are bad (and should feel guilty) for not being smarter. And yet that is often what religion teaches us – that we are “bad” and that we have to use religion to “be saved.” I disagree. We have “impulses that can lead us to do bad things” and we have to “mitigate those impulses in order to not actually do bad things” – and we don’t have to have religion to do that. As humans, we just are what we are, and debating whether that is right or wrong is pointless.
It’s a subtle difference, but it is one that drives me crazy. I hate the notion that religion has absolute truths, and that people have to have religion in order to become better. It’s misleading. Religion has good advice about how to behave, and people should follow that advice in order to be the best they can be. But religion is a framework that helps us learn to do that, not an end in itself that we have to participate in if we want to be “good.” I really like the framework, and the lessons – I just hate that they are wrapped in dogma that makes it seem like each particular religion is the only one with the right answers, and that you have to join in if you want to be a good person.
It would be much better if we just learned that we have to accept our weaknesses and move on to do more important things like helping others, teaching, building new things, or raising a child. Again, those are things that religions typically teach us, but still shrouded in the notion that we need to be “fixed” either before, during, or after we do those things, and that just pulls us away from the truly valuable lessons.
And now, having thought through all that, I realize why I am so intrigued by Buddhism: because it doesn’t suggest that there is only one source of truth, or that we are naturally bad; it just says “people should always strive to get better, and here are some ways to do so.” That’s exactly what I think a religion should be.
On a related note: my notions of God also tie in fairly well with the Buddhist understanding of Karma, so maybe I really should take Matt’s advice and get up off my butt and learn more about Buddhism :)
Comments
5322 days ago
Amitai Schlair says:
I think it’s generous of you to ascribe such benignity to religion. In practice, sure, one of its effects is to act as a large-scale means of modifying human behavior. Set aside for a moment the particular modifications religions tend to push toward (with which I generally have many carcasses’ worth of bones to pick). Isn’t religion, if I’m even more generous than you’ve been, at best a degenerate case of philosophy?
Once upon a time we invented religion in an attempt to explain the as-yet-inexplicable, as an outgrowth of our insatiable human curiosity. At the time we didn’t know we were going to accumulate discoveries for thousands of years that would help us explain all kinds of things far better. Now we have the scientific method and an understanding of how much comprehensional gratification there is to be had in exchange for delaying it. So where does religion get off still holding sway over us? Why do we need to stick with such thoroughgoing bullshit in this day and age? (Have you noticed I’ve stopped being generous? :-)
If it’s mainly moral and ethical behavior we’re talking about, that’s simpler. The world would be a better place if more people thought more carefully about what they do. Do you think religion is likely to have that net effect? I don’t.
5322 days ago
Nathan Arthur says:
I think I agree on most points – as applied to me, personally. (Buddhism may be a special case; see below.) But applied to “people” in general, I don’t think everyone thinks the same way, and I think religion can make people more thoughtful.
Three cases come to mind:
1) People who don’t have an understanding of the “comprehensional gratification there is to be had in exchange for delaying it”. There are many such people, and they want answers, and they aren’t going to have the patience to live without them, or to dig them up themselves. Instead, they will look for someone who already seems to have the answers – preferably someone with a powerful reputation – and take their word for it. For such people, religion will always exist, and hopefully the religions to which they pay attention will be largely benign. And for such people, my positivity makes me believe that the people in those religions are probably trying to do good, and mostly probably succeeding. (But in a frustratingly limited fashion, as described in my post.)
2) People who understand that religion isn’t really a source of absolutes, but instead a good framework for living a positive life, though exchange of ideas, building relationships, encouraging positive social encounters, and structuring morality. Those people are also probably getting something positive out of religion, and are probably doing it very thoughtfully. I have known at least four such people, and I have often found myself in philosophical debates that I had a hard time “winning” – and I even changed my mind, occasionally. Those people, at minimum, have found a way to study and learn philosophy in their daily lives, and I occasionally think that their religious practices may be adding something to their lives that is missing from mine.
3) People who were taught a religion from birth, and who believe in a God just a strongly as they believe in their feet, and who have never had a serious reason to try to abandon that belief. For most such people, they simply believe in their religion, without having to justify it, and those beliefs are usually regularly reinforced by their peers and activities. I know, there is an argument for why they are wrong, and that they should take the initiative to examine their belief closely and see if it really is true. But that is seriously hard work, and would seem excessively scary – imagine the social and self-identity ramifications! The triggers for re-evaluating such deeply held beliefs just don’t usually happen.
The net effect is that I believe that religion will always be around, until/unless we replace it with something better… and training in that something, and social situations that reinforce that training… and then we’ll have to wait a dozen generations before all the other religious beliefs are replaced. Huh, that sounds like the birth of a new religion! Hopefully it will be one that’s just focused on studying philosophy, morality, enlightenment, etc., and that doesn’t require absolutes. Huh, that sounds like (my understanding of) Buddhism!
And really, that’s what I want – advanced instruction in philosophy, morality, and enlightenment, from people who have a more advanced understanding of those things than I do. And it would be nice if that instruction was given in groups, with other people who also wanted to learn, and who wanted to discuss and act on their ideas. That sure sounds like religion. It’s just that religion usually comes with absolutes that I don’t agree with, so I have a hard time getting started or staying involved, because I feel like I have to lie to do so.
So I’m pretty hopeful that Buddhism is what I want. But I didn’t discover Buddhism until about a year ago, and I haven’t taken the time to actually try to participate, yet. Of course, now that I’ve talked about it so much on my blog, I probably ought to put my actions where my mouth is, and go learn more. So more on that, later :)
5322 days ago
Amitai Schlair says:
Those people, at minimum, have found a way to study and learn philosophy in their daily lives, and I occasionally think that their religious practices may be adding something to their lives that is missing from mine.
I have a couple friends whose erudition and rationality (for the most part) regularly astound me, yet they’re thoroughly, intentionally Jewish. As religions go, I’ll grant that Judaism is extraordinarily conducive to the intellect. But in talking to them there is always for me a chasm of cognitive dissonance: on the one hand, if they’re so damn smart about everything else, have they chosen to be Jewish because (as usual) they know something I don’t? and on the other hand, if they’re so damn smart about everything else, how can they simultaneously be any kind of religious?
I’m pretty sure I have no use for religion in my life. The existence of these guys in my life keeps me wondering from time to time, which is healthy, but I’ll be real surprised if it ever leads to me changing my mind.
Merely by living and paying attention to how you’re doing it, I’d argue you’re studying the most important philosophy there is. What do you feel you’re missing?
And really, that’s what I want – advanced instruction in philosophy, morality, and enlightenment, from people who have a more advanced understanding of those things than I do.
This sounds dangerous. How do you judge someone else’s mastery? Particularly from a position of ignorance, if that is in fact your position (which it most definitely isn’t, IMO), but even from a position of surpassingly profound knowledge? You’re reasonably and deservedly able to decide to trust your judgment in other areas of life; why not in these areas too? You’re Nathan Arthur, dammit. So read, think, and if you feel like it, discuss with people who are likely to have useful insights. There’s nothing religious about that process. Why should there be?
5320 days ago
Tera Arthur says:
Yeah! You’re Nathan Arthur dammit!
Sorry, but I just LOVED that quote.
To me, the bottom line is that this life is a journey. Some believe it is a journey to the next life, some that it is just a journey to the end..
Which view you choose to take will make little difference in the end. We will all either cease to exist in any form OR we will all take the next step on this journey.
If this life is all there is (or not), would that change what life you’d choose to live? If so, isn’t that a rather shallow motivation?
Most religions have some “no man comes to the father but by me” type dogma. I can’t buy that all of the good people who happen to be one religion or another will some how be condemned to everlasting hell because they didn’t find or adopt the appropriate religion.
Religion has always been man’s attempt to explain the unexplainable. As “reasonably intelligent” individuals, can’t we agree that man will never have all the answers. Isn’t the mystery part of the charm?
So if there is no one right answer, all you’re really looking for is someone who can guide, challenge and celebrate the individual you choose to become.
So, in my view of your world – - you’re right! If you want to explore this more, you just need to find an incredibly intelligent person who has educated themselves in all kinds of religion/philosophy who doesn’t profess to have the answers . . . just the questions. The answers have to be the ones you choose for yourself.
If you choose to believe in a God (or many) and you choose to believe that man was created in his/her/their image, then isn’t that the only answer? To create your own answers. To choose to be “god-like” by creating the “religion” or philosophy that is right for you?
If you choose NOT to believe in God in any form then isn’t the exploration an important part of enjoying whatever journey there is?
It is my belief that you won’t find many answers, but many, many more questions.
If I’m wrong, I’d love to hear about it!
5318 days ago
mattmc3 says:
I think you’ll find it a difficult endeavor to study any religion or philosophy if you’re averse to sticky things like truth and absolutes. There are plenty who try, of course. Those cartoonish examples of philosophy professors from TV sitcoms not withstanding.
It’s a windy path to start with human behavior and your perception of reality and try to weave your way backwards through the charged language and the mess that “religion” has become to get to an understanding of what you’re really after. See, you seem to have started by examining some of the proposed answers without actualizing (or at least voicing in this particular post) some of the underlying questions that all belief systems try to address.
Is there a God?
Were we created, or is our existence explained only by nature?
If we were created, is our creator intelligent? Intentional? Comprehendable? Holy? Active in creation?
Are we to have any responsibility to, or relationship with our creator?
Does life have meaning?
Is this life all there is?
Should the answers to these questions have an impact on how we live and relate to one another?
And there are thousands more just like those, and the reason to ask them is a quest for either truth or insanity. You say “I hate the notion that religion has absolute truths”. I hate to break it to you but truth and enlightenment are the fundamental purspose of religion and philosophy. Though admittedly many have strayed from those roots. Of course these questions and their answers will be deeply nuanced, but that doesn’t change the fact that they do in fact have right and wrong answers. There either is a God, or there isn’t. There is a spirtual side to us that goes beyond the natural, or there isn’t. God is like us and knowable, or isn’t. Truth exists whether everone believes it or no one does. It is transcendent. The truth is that the Earth is round(ish) no matter how many people used to believe it was flat(ish). If you are purposely not looking for truth and merely a belief system, then I have to wonder what the point of your endeavor is?
Amitai takes an obvious position in his answer to the first question. Restated, he’s saying that the truth is that we are the product of nature, and that nothing exists outside of that box. There is no God. The universe is only what we can touch, taste, smell, see and hear. He’s not the least bit mealy-mouthed about his position. Tara takes the same question, but admits she doesn’t know the answer. She even goes so far as to say that the true answers are unknowable. At least one of them is wrong. Amatai says he knows a truth that Tara says is unknowable.
I’m not sure how much more I can really offer via a simple blog comment, but I can tell you that personally my life is changed dramatically from what it was through my faith. I looked for happiness in all the pleasures of this world, but the void wasn’t easily filled. It was a slow and painful process turning from a “me”-centered worldview. But I can look back and see that I was like a kid eating chocolate every day. It seems like a good idea at the time. Now, I am daily being challenged, changed and grown. I’m aspiring to be what I was created to be. I’m not who I was, and that’s true and true again every day. I wish nothing less than the same for you.
5317 days ago
Amitai Schlair says:
Those are good questions. My philosophical inquiries in this vein, however, short-circuited many years ago at “Is there a God?” I didn’t — and don’t — see a reasonable method of answering the question one way or another, even if there were some reasonable definition of the term in common parlance. Under normal circumstances that would make it precisely the sort of question I’d find terribly interesting to think about, for as long as it takes. But in this case I became rapidly convinced it didn’t matter, because I’d already become convinced that I come fully equipped with all the tools I need to become the best I can be, up to and including figuring out what that means in a complex world.
Figuring out what my best means, and determining how best to enact it, is of unquestionable practical importance — to me, through the prism of my life and the lives with which mine intersects, there can be nothing more practical or more important — and plenty complicated enough to fill a lifetime’s actions and introspections. Time and effort spent trying to nail down what “god” ought to mean, if anything, and whether there is one or a whole team of them, is time and effort directed away from my most pressing task.
I specifically don’t contend that there is a god or gods or none, or that other people shouldn’t wonder about such things. I wouldn’t even say I don’t care, although it usually works out to appear that way. But if I live as rightly as I possibly can, and it turns out there is a powerful, active god or set of gods who will judge me based on my conduct on Earth, I’ll proudly stand on it. And if there isn’t, I’ll be damn glad on my deathbed that I wisely spent what little time I had.
5317 days ago
Amitai Schlair says:
For everyone involved, but particularly for Matt, here’s a swell little video about the nature of belief (via another friend’s blog) with which I’m in full agreement.
Matt, I’m sure you’ve heard all the arguments in this video before, whether from other sources or from your own thinking. Ignoring the bits about how religious people shouldn’t browbeat others into agreement (thankfully you don’t seem to be among the target audience), how do you respond to these arguments? Do they matter to you, or are they beside the point? If they matter, how do you put them to rest? If they don’t matter, why not?
Also, how do you square the kind of thinking your profession (for instance) requires with the kind of thinking your religious beliefs seem to require? I understand how people who rarely take the trouble to think logically can manage to hold illogical beliefs, but I’ve never been able to understand how people who use logic most of the time can volitionally avoid it some of the time — let alone at particularly important times! At least, that’s what it looks like to me when people I’d otherwise deem smart choose to believe things I’d deem silly. Am I wrong to assume that you must think very differently depending on whether you’re at work or at church?
5315 days ago
Nathan Arthur says:
Ah! Too much at once! Clearly I should try to reply immediately after each comment. So I’ll take each person’s comment in turn, and try to be faster in the future.
Amitai
It’s not so much that I’m missing anything. It’s more that I feel like I could be progressing faster, if I had help. I expect (hope) that others can suggest questions, or areas of study, that will lead me more quickly down my self-introspective path.
I would judge someone’s mastery the same way I judge a college professor’s mastery: by giving them benefit of the doubt, and then seeing what I learn from them. If I don’t learn anything, I won’t continue to waste my time. If they obviously have no real-world experience with their subject, I won’t put much trust in what they say until I test it myself.
I do trust my judgment in this area; I just would like to have some help, to speed things up.
The process does not have to be religious; it’s just that it is mostly religions that take the time to teach about these subjects, so that is mostly where I have looked.
Tera
Agreed on all points :) Thank you.
Matt
My goal isn’t really to study religion or philosophy. I don’t assume that someone has “the answers” and that I just need to learn them. My goal is to learn more about myself and the world around me, and to learn how to be a better person. I am comfortable having unanswered questions, and I am comfortable ignoring questions that are unanswerable, or that don’t help me become a better person. I have, in fact, answered most of your suggested questions for myself already; I am seeking new questions, and new ways of looking at those questions. From your examples:
Is there a God? Yes, but it is not yet conscious. See my blog post for details. (And to add to that post: my belief in such a god arises mostly out of my observation of unexplainable patterns in life, and is mostly just a token that helps me work with slippery subjects, and explain my ideas to others.)
Were we created, or is our existence explained only by nature? Probably neither, but essentially unanswerable.
If we were created, is our creator intelligent? Intentional? Comprehendable? Holy? Active in creation? N/A based on previous answer, but if we were created, then I think the answers are yes, probably, probably, no, and maybe, respectively.
Are we to have any responsibility to, or relationship with our creator? N/A again, but “no” to the “responsibility to” part and “if we want one” to the relationship part, if there was a creator.
Does life have meaning? Outside of our own experiences, no. If yes, that would imply something outside of life that gave it meaning, which I don’t believe in.
Is this life all there is? I assume it is safe to rephrase this as “is our current biological consciousness the limit of our conscious experience?” If so, my vote is “yes” but I think it’s up for grabs. I think that if we are going to live beyond our deaths, consciously, we’ll have to devise the means ourselves. I think that there are semi-conscious ways that we live beyond our deaths (i.e. in memories, or children).
Should the answers to these questions have an impact on how we live and relate to one another? The word “should” here implies some sort of intention, which would require an outside party (a “designer”) which I don’t believe in. Still, though, these questions do have an impact on my life and how I relate to others.
I am fairly well personally settled on my God-centric beliefs; my desire is to learn more about life and myself.
Agreed, but the approaches are very different (between religion and philosophy). Religion professes to already have the answers, and just wants to teach them. Philosophy is simply the search for the answers, and generally does not offer “truth” in an absolute way.
I’m not sure I agree that truth exists; I don’t have evidence that the universe is not sometimes random, and I think you have lots of evidence that God can make his own rules. Truth (in an absolute sense) seems very likely unknowable, under either system of beliefs.
I’m also not really looking for a belief system, although a personal belief system naturally arises from any study. I am looking to be a better (e.g. useful, productive, loving, long-lasting, etc.) person, and this is a particular area of study that I feel could use a boost from outside help.
This is my goal, to learn to be happy, and to do so more efficiently :) I just don’t believe that I have to have an absolute God to learn how to be happy. I have already learned that my happiness comes mostly through my relationships with others, then secondarily through my positive work, then tertiarily through things I do for myself. I have learned that deep happiness doesn’t come through a focus on myself. I believe that there are more “secrets to happiness” and that I will naturally learn those secrets through introspection and thoughtfulness; I would just also like to have some guideposts, and I don’t want those guideposts to come with restrictions saying what I have to believe before I use them. Now maybe I am like a child, believing that the cars should just get out of my way, when in reality that’s silly. But I don’t really have any reason to believe that to be the case.
Amitai again
I agree with your conclusion, but I took that time anyway. So much of humanity believes in a God, so it seemed irrational to dismiss such overwhelming belief without deeper study. I think I was wise to do so; that study led me to deep conversations, new insights, and eventually to a set of answers that I feel have opened up new ideas for me.
Wow! That’s a great video. Thank you.
Ok, I’m going to do something I know I shouldn’t do, and say that Matt’s answer (in past discussions with me) has been “faith.” And that it has been a personal answer, and that even the video avoids taking umbrage with personal faith-based answers/ideas.
I have found that Matt’s experience with faith is similar to mine: our logically unproven beliefs have helped us understand/explain the world in ways that help us act better, and that provide a self-consistent sheaf of rules that consistently lead us in the right direction. We have different beliefs, but they usually lead us in the same direction. That’s been a life-long thing with us: we reach the same conclusion, but in aggravatingly (to both of us) different ways.
I do agree, though – my logical mind simply can’t find a way around saying “I don’t know” most of the time, and I find it frustrating to see people with answers that I believe are unknowable. I share your curiosity about how Matt can reconcile a largely logical profession with a largely illogical (or perhaps “a-logical”) faith, but I think my interst arises more from an interest in learning more, rather than from frustration with his ideas.
5312 days ago
mattmc3 says:
Amatai – I watched the video you linked to. All jokes about putting-God-in-a-box aside, the flaw in the logic in the video is the assumption that whatever is in the box is powerless to communicate with those outside it. Extending the poor analogy introduced by the video, if Schrödinger’s box was heard meowing, you’d be reasonably assured that not only did the box contain a cat, but that cat was very much alive. A primary tenant of Christianity is that God is living and active in His creation, not quiet in a box.
Nathan – you said “I share your curiosity about how Matt can reconcile a largely logical profession with a largely illogical (or perhaps “a-logical”) faith”. You are correct that in my profession, I use logic every day and am well versed in it. Since we’re talking about computers… in all my interactions with bits and bytes I’ve noticed something. Never once have I encountered a computer program that came about by accident. Data with structure and order is always the product of design. Truly random bits on a hard drive will never equate to anything meaningful or complicated.
Now, the human genome contains 3164.7 million chemical nucleotide bases. That’s quite a bit of structured data to make a very complex machine called a human. It seems to me infinitely more illogical to believe that that all came about via randomness. Believing that would take blind faith.
5312 days ago
Amitai Schlair says:
Are you contending my position is illogical in some respect or respects? If so, I would appreciate knowing which mistakes I’m making.
Is it that the existence of god or gods, which I don’t see how to determine one way or the other and at any rate doesn’t seem important, can in fact be determined and/or is important? If so, how and why? If there’s one living, active god and you’re sure of it and you’re sure it matters, how do you know? How can I know? If this god is meowing, why haven’t I been able to detect it already on my own?
Why do you choose Christianity and not Judaism or Zoroastrianism or Baha’i or some sort of animism or a set of beliefs you’re the first to identify and someday might be named after you? Is Christianity objectively more sensible? Why does it seem so unlikely that, in a universe gigantic in both space and time, somewhere somewhen could come into existence, as a result of a short self-selecting feedback loop, machines such as ourselves? What’s so implausible about that, such that the idea of a designer for our incredibly imperfect minds and bodies is less implausible?
Do you think I’m sticking my head in the sand when it comes to the tough stuff, the things that truly matter? If I’m unable to arrive at the same beliefs you have, will my life be unfulfilling? Will my afterlife be full of suffering? Might I even be having an unfulfilling, suffering-filled life right now? Why? How do you know? How can I know?
I have a zillion such questions, but for now I’ll stop here and see if you feel like replying and if so, whether I hear anything that prods me to think in a new way.
5312 days ago
Amitai Schlair says:
Nathan wrote:
Neat that you’ve worked out the priorities for yourself. For me, as we’ve discussed before, it’s a combination of two kinds of thought-work that keeps me bubbly and sane: solving real problems for real people, plus head-in-the-clouds creativity. Too much of one makes me itch for the other. College mostly did the trick, alternating software summers with academic autumns and springs. Now that I’m returning to careerland, I’m hopeful that my two kinds of work (the paying kind and the composing kind) will be able to sustainably strike that balance.
I don’t know if there’s a hierarchy to these needs of mine. I suppose if money were no object and I could only have one or the other, I’d choose to solve problems for people, stuffing as much extraneous creativity into the process as I could get away with. But I’m quite certain I’d quickly experience the same void in my life that led me to Columbia and music. Maybe that means I should deliberately stay away from composing and the piano and see what creative outlet I’m drawn to next. Fiction, perhaps? Half joking, of course, but only half half joking. ;-)
5312 days ago
Nathan Arthur says:
Amitai wrote:
Ah crap, those also are important to my happiness. In fact, much of the reason I didn’t like my pure-management job was because it didn’t really contain either of those two things. I was aware of those two needs in my life, but didn’t think of them when I wrote my initial comment. Now I’ll have to step back and rearrange my ideas – because I can’t easily figure out how to get all five to fit together :)
5281 days ago
Marilyn Arthur says:
Shouldn’t religion be about encouraging people to ask the questions rather than providing the answers?
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