Examining Paradigms

The internet is filled with bickering, and semantic wars. The angry theists hate angry atheists, and angry atheists hate the angry theists. Some agnostics try to step above the fray and they proclaim that both sides are overly confident. Deists try to re-frame God to be more palatable and believable, while still rejecting the big-man-in-the-sky that interjects with human happenings, and the pantheists want to make love on beds of moss.

The problem is that religious belief or lack thereof is way to complex to slap on a label and call it described, so then we create the group that tries to split hairs. They come up with terms like agnostic-atheist, agnostic-theist, and on and on and on. It gets tiring, but I understand the sentiment of those who come up with fancier and fancier Greek terms to try and describe their religious or areligious outlook. People want to be understood. They want to scream to the world, “Hey! I have really thought about this shit and this is the most valid conclusion.”

My own personal journey has brought brought me through times of teenage rebellion, intense born-again fervor, Mormon orthodoxy, progressive Mormonism, and atheism. For all intents and purposes, I am an atheist. I do not have a belief in a sentient being that involves himself/itself/herself in human affairs; but does atheism do my world view justice? I do not think so; and its not because my atheistic world view is any superior to others’ worldview, but its because all world views are much more rich than a simple term can communicate. By calling someone an atheist, agnostic, theist or deist, I am doing them a disservice in that I am simplifying their life experience.

So who am I? I am secularist. I believe that public policy should be based on secular reasoning and testable hypotheses. I am an atheist. I am not anti-theist or anti-religious. In fact, I look back on my days as a devout believer, and I think that religion benefited me greatly during portions of my life. I also look back on my days of religiosity and cringe in embarrassment about certain things that I said, did and did not do. I have no beef with religion per se, as long as they do not push purely religious ideals into public policy! The problem is that many religiously minded people do push their religiosity onto others. They try to limit science in the school system, and they try to justify bigotry in legislation. Unlike some, I do not take the stance of Dawkins and say that religious upbringing is child abuse. The problem that I have with Dawkins, is that I am not sure if he has ever really experienced the viscosity and beauty of religion. Is religion ugly? Sometimes. Is religion beautiful? Sometimes. Lets try to reduce the ugly portions and treasure the beautiful portions. Even though I no longer find religious involvement useful to me, I still can appreciate the beauty in ritual, parable, service, and the idea of the unknown. Much of my family is still very religious, and I find no need to stress these relationships with my atheism. In order to participate with family, I often find myself re-framing the definition of God in order to make my participation in certain familial settings more comfortable. When I do this, I re-frame God as a symbol of the universal whole, not as a sentient being, but as an immense complexity that exceeds all of our current understanding and invokes awe within us. This may be a cop-out, and some atheists may scoff at what they see as a lack of back bone. However, I find no reason to abolish religion itself. I only see a need to keep it out of public policy, and when religion collides with public policy, I am vocal about it with anyone that I dialogue with. Also, it should be noted that I have been through enough paradigm shifts that I am anticipating that my current world view will shift and metamorphose as my life continues. I do not think that I will ever believe in God again, but I am confident that my philosophy will be very different in twenty years. If it is not different, that probably means that I am not opening my eyes to the world around me.

Let’s stop bickering. Let’s stop seeing religious belief as silly and stupid, and let’s start trying to understand the complexity of one another. There is a huge spectrum of belief and disbelief, and let’s try to appreciate that. I think that there are battles that need to be fought when it comes to the collision of religious belief and public policy, but let’s fight those battles intelligently and try to open doors of communication.

Here is a letter expressing my feelings about Joseph Smith. I used my online name that I use on an online forum.

Joseph Smith,

To you, my friend and fellow human, I raise my glass. I salute your charisma, your capability to ponder the complexity of the eternities and your ability to inspire and give purpose.

I salute you as an equal to Muhammad, Siddhārtha Gautama, Zarathustra and Jesus Christ. I salute you as a martyr! I do not agree with your theology, but I recognize your fervor and accept the possibility that many of your transcendental experiences may have been real, to you.

You are a founder of religions, a provoker of thought and an instigator of piety. Many respect you, many hate you, and many venerate you. I myself ponder your perplexity and purpose, but I do not judge you.

Rest in peace my fellow wanderer of this puzzling reality.

Sincerely,

Shadow of Doubt

This post will be a bit stream of consciousness, but who cares, eh?  I finished reading “Timothy Leary” which is now the definitive biography of the once Harvard professor turned self proclaimed acid prophet.  It was a good read.  The book really drove home for me just how much we all crave transcendence.  I feel like that was partly what I was craving during substance experimentation during my teen years and during my religious zealotry during my late teens to twenties.  The problem that I have found with all “transcendent” experiences is that all you are left with is the experience.  The experience is poignant, exquisite and very convincing, but it seems like its use is not very explainable.

Arthur Koestler said the following about one of his trips with Leary: “There’s no wisdom there.  I solved the secret of the universe last night, but this morning I forgot what it was.  There is no quick and easy path to wisdom.  Sweat and toil are the price of knowledge.”

Koestler’s thoughts on his hallucinogenic experience summarize my feelings on psychedelics as well.

However, I feel like the ambiguity of transcendental experience can be applied to religion as well.  I had a very earthshaking “spiritual awakening” in my teens.  The experience was potent, lucid, and pretty damn emotional, yet I am not sure what knowledge I gained from it.  I remember a friend asking me one time, “and what did you learn from that?”  I was left a little confused because even though I had the experience, the experience could not be articulated well.  Any conclusions that I drew from that experience were largely driven by my religious upbringing and not necessarily from the experience itself.

What am I saying?  I am not sure, but I guess I am saying that many of us yearn for transcendence, but that the transcendence, although it feels good, may not really mean anything.  How’s that for cynicism?

Our current involvement in the Middle East has brought Islamic ideology into the spot light. As westerners we have a difficult time relating to many of their practices. Some of their practices are outright inhumane and in direct conflict with our ideals.

As westerners we appall actions taken by Muslim hardliners. For example, honor killings are an absolute outrage to our ideology. For those of you who are unfamiliar with honor killings, it is when a member of a family “dishonors” her/his family, and the family takes it upon themselves to kill that family member.

This practice is absolutely despicable! People are being killed for pre-marital sex, marrying outside their culture, and converting to a different religion.

But Wait! The majority of the United States accepts the Old Testament as the word of God almighty? This very book that is accepted by a large amount of religious westerners prescribes death by stoning to those who commit adultery and even those who break the Sabbath.

In order to eliminate this glaring hypocrisy, I call for all westerners to either discard their religious belief in the Old Testament or to completely embrace these honor killings as a valid practice. I sincerely hope that common decency, logic and conscience prevent anyone from choosing the latter and that they choose to abandon belief in the Old Testament.

I have heard two arguments that attempt reconcile a belief in the Old Testament and the condemnation for those practicing Old-Testament-like punishments in modern days. I find both arguments to be petty and self serving.

1) The first argument is that because our current social norm does not permit killing for sexual infractions or blasphemy, it is not right and should not be done.

This argument is WEAK! I do not think that right and wrong are governed by social norms. Social norms should be modified to fit rationally based ethics, not the other way around. Furthermore, if there really was an almighty being that directed her/his people, he/she/it would be useless if they were bound by social norms.

2) The other argument I have heard is, “Well, Old Testament laws were commanded by God (making them right) and Islam is not directed by God (making them wrong).”

This is even more absurd than the first argument. Islam has just as legitimate (or illegitimate) claims on divine guidance as Christendom and Judaism. Their convictions run just as deep, and in many cases deeper.

I urge all Christians and Jews to throw the Old Testament out. Mosaic laws are not humane, just, nor are they rational. If you do not throw the Old Testament out, the only other option is to fully embrace Islamic extremism in all of its horror.

**Caveat: I realize that many Muslims do not support these honor killings, and that they are not explicitly condoned in the Qur’an. However, these are unarguably born from Islamic roots and death is still the prescribed punishment for blasphemy in the Pakistani, and Saudi Arabian legal systems, as well as many other nations of Islam.**

This blog will be dedicated to discussing a variety of religious, political, and social issues.  It is imperative that we scrutinize ours, and others, paradigms.  Our now global and diverse society does not allow us to live the “unexamined life.” We must deal with contrasting and often colliding paradigms in an unbiased way.

On a religious standpoint, I invite all to know and understand their religious foundations.  It is not enough to take other people’s word for it.  In the following video I recommend four books that will give you a solid understanding about the complex, messy, and not straightforward foundation of Mormonism.

This blog and organization will be an ongoing project, and I hope that it will be fruitful.  If you have more specific question feel free to post a comment.  In the future I will have an email that you can contact me at.

**Caveat: In the video, I mistakenly attribute the second Michael Quinn book to “Daniel Quinn.” I apologize for the confusion. His first initial “D.” throws me off from time to time.**