By motomynd
This column’s June 6 survey, “Thor’s Day: How does belief in prayer affect how you regard the here and now?” was most thought-provoking.
That people often live outside the official doctrine of the religion they claim to follow has to me always been the most baffling aspect of “organized” or “official” religions. It is like saying one is “anti-gun” while walking around armed. How someone can drink or use drugs, and say they are a devout member of a religion that is against both, just makes no sense. Ditto for adultery, lying, cheating, stealing, and on and on.
To say “it is because we are all human” and add “but we are all forgiven as long as we believe in...” is a laughable cop-out that denigrates the people and the religion they allegedly follow. Either you believe and act on your belief, or you don’t believe. All else is absurdity. As an example: Being a vegan is part of my moral code; if I slip up once a week or once a month or even once a year and eat meat, am I still a vegan? Of course not. So if someone says they follow a religion that is staunchly against birth control, yet they take “the pill” for 20 years, how are they possibly a member of that religion? That is just as ridiculous as if I ate red meat every day and kept saying I was a vegetarian.
Such hypocrisy and absurdity in formal religion is why many of us are devout in our way, yet completely “non-traditional” in our spirituality. To make excuses for their “fallen” fellow believers, the formally religious often say “what matters is what is in their heart.” Really? So if someone gets drunk and kills some people with his car, or rapes someone, what matters is that he at least thinks he is a good person because he believes in a god that is currently endorsed by society? Why then do we have courts and prisons, if all that matters is what people think, not what they do?
We non-traditional thinkers really do try to understand when others say we are going to hell because we don’t believe in a deity or a son of a deity, no matter our good deeds and strict adherence to our personal moral code. But it is like a black person being lynched trying to understand that those murdering him are still going to heaven because they are white and they believe. Some people save the lives of hundreds of animals, and maybe a few people, and treat everyone as well as they possibly can, and they are going to hell? But someone else, who kills thousands of animals over a lifetime, has some extra-marital affairs, and maybe even rapes and kills a few people, still goes to heaven because he believes? To me that is “religionism” on par with sexism and racism. And it ruins even more lives than they do and kills countless times more people.
All that said, we non-traditionalists do try to find common ground with the traditionalists, just as members of the black communities in the “old South” found a way to co-exist with those who murdered them on a too-regular basis. We look for that linkage between non-traditional and traditional belief, and between religion and science, by trying to find the commonality between the original concept of the power of nature as god, and the modern belief in a humanized concept of god. If one can possibly accept the idea of the sun as a worthy symbol of god, instead of a robed human with long hair, a beard and sandals, then there is a chance at commonality. Both are just symbols of a force none of us can begin to understand, so we non-traditionalists don’t see what there is to argue about or fight over.
If you can’t go that route, then I probably lost you right here. And if you go too “new-agey” with mysticism and energy fields and crystals, you probably lost me right here. So let’s get away from religion and spirituality and digress into a bit of science about, for lack of a better term, “natural communication networks.” My theory is that animals use them and some people do—and more people could, except they forgot how.
An aggressive Yellowstone grizzly has to be shot and killed because it poses a risk to people, and all the other grizzlies within a hundred miles somehow know to back off from people. A tagged and monitored great white shark is killed by an orca (killer whale) off the California coast, and another tagged great white 50 miles away immediately dives 500 feet deep and swims to Hawaii. One day you drive a completely different route to work, and that evening you find there was a horrible wreck at an intersection at about the time you would normally have driven through it. Somehow animals know. Sometimes we somehow know. How?
That gets at the linkage between science and religion, between traditional belief and non-traditional spirituality. There is something in us, and something out there, that people are always trying to analyze and explain, either by science or superstition or religion. And maybe it is not only there now, when we are alive, but continues at some level after we die. Is that the eternity we so worry about? Is tapping into that force, whatever it is, by prayer, or meditation, or by changing your driving route on a whim, the nexus of religion and science, traditional religion and spirituality? Is it all the same except the name?
Some spiritualists believe in accepting it for what it is, learning to use it more effectively if they can, and otherwise avoiding trifling with it. Some religionists insist on attaching a humanized face to it. For lack of a better or more commonly known example, think of the concept of “the force” in the original Star Wars movie. If there is such a force that all people can be a part of universally, is it really worth finding some reason to fight and kill each other over it? You over there go pray, you over there go meditate, and I will live by my moral code and “sixth” sense. Do we really have anything to argue about? Do some of us really go to heaven, and the rest of us to hell?
Sometimes things just are, with or without human involvement, and most of the trouble seems to stem from people trying to find a way to make it all about people. If a tree falls somewhere deep in the forest, and just a squirrel, a bird, and a deer hear it, and there isn’t a person within miles, it still makes a sound. People have a very hard time accepting that, but they might be a lot better off if they could.
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Copyright © 2013 by motomynd
| Please comment |
Good post Paul ! You brought up a lot of good points to think on.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Dawn! Sorry I have been traveling and unable to reply, but I appreciate that you took time to read, ponder and respond.
DeletePaul, the common ground idea has actually been on my mind, too, of late. Whatever a person believes, or whatever really happens after death (if anything besides bodies to worms or ashes), we're all in the same boat—the boat being Planet Earth and our reality here, whatever it truly is and means from some distant viewpoint. And I like that you include in the "we" other life than human. I certainly do, even though it is abundantly clear that humanity generally does not, but rather, for example, treats animals as objects to be exploited....
ReplyDeleteI would like to know more about objective findings that suggest there might be something like a "natural communication network." Where could I go to read about instances like those you provide as examples—the grizzly being shot and grizzlies in the area going to ground, and the great white shark being killed by an orca and great whites miles away diving deep and swimming away. Might you address this in a future Green 101 column?
The business about hunches (for example, to drive by a different route) is something that I guess everyone can relate to. Trying to figure out what's going on seems to attract everyone—the superstitious, the religious, the scientifically inclined.
Thanks for writing today's column, especially given that you have been extrememly busy lately on other writing assignments—ones, that is, not involving this blog.
Morris, it will take some digging into my mostly disorganized "archive" but I will do my best to find the facts on the grizzly bear and orca/great white shark examples, along with some others of relevance. Anyone who has ever hunted deer can tell you that when the first shot is fired in autumn, deer instantly transform from living statues in open fields to wraiths in dense thickets: that may be the most common and best-known example of a "natural communication network."
DeleteWhat struck me about the replies to your June 6 survey was their earnestness, for lack of a better term. While I may think people need to get over the brainwashing inflicted upon them in Bible school and a lifetime of traditional church attendance, and they may think I need to "get God" instead of nature, neither of us is going to budge. So why not find the common ground where we can intelligently discuss a topic of great mutual interest, even if we do come out it from opposite directions?
Paul, I am very sympathetic to "finding the common ground [with earnest folks who believe way different from the way "people like us" do] where we can intelligently discuss a topic of great mutual interest, even if we do come out it from opposite directions," however much fun and self-aggrandizing I find it from time to time to poke fun at what I consider religious foolishness. I need to watch my own earnestness from time to time....
DeleteMorris, I feel sorry for anyone who needs a crutch to get through life, instead of being able to find the strength within themselves. But people have to do what they have to do to survive. So I am equally hesitant about poking fun at people who lean on a god as I am at poking fun at those who lean on alcohol, drugs, psychiatrists and psychologists, fancy cars and houses and other consumerism, or any other outside support.
DeleteThat said, it does seem possible there is something out there in the great beyond that follows our time here. If so, or if not, and if our eternity is only as long as people remember and talk about what we did while we were here, it still seems a reasonable strategy to build a life that has people saying good things about us after we are gone, and perhaps gives us a bit of a spark to carry forward, if there is a forward.
Paul, your comment responds to my comment below also, in which I ask for suggestions for rendering me better fit to seek common ground....
DeleteI have poked so much fun in my time that I probably need to go through some rituals of atoning for my sins and being cleansed....
Morris, Doesn't it seem ironic to be wondering about atoning for sins, even in jest, in a discussion about a topic that is all theory? To me, the people on either side, who claim fact where there can be none, are the ones who need cleansing.
Delete"Irony" was a word that used to figure prominently in this blog's tagline. The word may not figure there anymore, but irony abounds.
DeleteIt was an ironical way of saying that I probably owe some people an apology for being overly earnest in trashing their beliefs and practices.
Hunches like prayer are great when they turn in your favor. Take that different job or travel that other street, and get fired or in a wrack...what do you call it then. Maybe bad luck or did you just not understand what God said to you. I still say, 'Sh-- just happens'.
ReplyDeleteEd, I of course have pointed this out in the case of prayers, although I failed to mention it with respect to hunches. However, there's a logical distinction between hunches happening to be wrong on occasion and hunches having no basis at all. That is, if there is some sort of "natural communication network," then it might be possible for the communication to get through successfully sometimes while failing on other occasions, and it might be possible to school oneself in accuracy through appropriate discipline.
DeleteI suppose I'd better own up, too, to the possibility that prayers really are answered on occasion, and I can't simply sweep prayers aside as fantastical using the same objection you seem to be making here.
In other words—at least in the spirit of communitarianism—maybe we'd better be open-minded and respectful of people who pray and follow their hunches? I suspect that you, my friend, might actually have a better track record at that kind of open-mindedness than I have!
The "prayer conundrum" is always of great interest to us non-traditional religious types. Why does prayer seem to work at some times and not at others? Or does it never work and does all depend on random chance? How can we possibly find an answer to that unless we get to ask someone who knows...and aren't we most likely already going to be dead at that point, if there even is such a point?
DeleteThere are countless examples of people praying and being miraculously spared from death during warfare. What makes some of us think of traditional religious folks as all but lunatic fringe, however, is they will cite 1,000 stories about people being saved as proof that prayer works, but will dismiss millions dying as proof it doesn't work. Using WWII as an example: something like 60 million people were killed, are we to assume none of them prayed to their god?
Where the "natural communication network" may prove superior to prayer is it involves not only use of one's "sixth sense" but one's common sense as well. If people don't engage in conflict except in cases of immediate self defense, they are far less likely to need prayer to achieve a miracle of survival. Same for when driving: if people are actively engaging their senses in the task at hand, and therefore at some level communicating with the other drivers around them, they are less likely to find themselves praying for a miracle as they spin toward a guard rail.
We are all in titled to our mistakes. A preacher told me something a long time ago. Some people say they were called to be a Preacher by God, but what God was telling them was they should go plow their field. They would have been much more successful in life, plowing that field. Did you have a hunch I was going to say something like that? (smile)
ReplyDeleteI had a hunch that you would say something clever, wise, or colloquial, or all three, and it wasn't wrong! <smile>
Delete"He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully."
DeleteThat is one of the few biblical passages I ever memorized, from somewhere in Corinthians, I think. I always took it to mean decide what you want, and work at it - and I have always been wary of people who make their choices by using prayer, a coin flip, or any other form of superstition.
Paul, I think it might be helpful to point out that you ASSUMED that the "decision what you want" was YOUR CHOICE. Many religious people seem to assume or want to believe that it's not their choice to make, but THEIR DUTY to try to find out FROM GOD what GOD wants them to do with their lives. I of course don't believe that people can find out any such thing from "God," but that whatever they think they ARE finding out comes from within themselves with some sort-of built-in authoritativeness they have granted the "revelation" by ascribing it to God's proxy, so to speak.
DeleteThe way I see it, you are self-confident and clear-eyed enough to dispense with all the mystical mumbo-jumbo and take responsibility yourself. I don't pretend to fully understand the psychology of those who "take direction from God," but it's pretty obvious that much of it is simply following parental teaching and accepting someone else's belief system as their own. The myriad resulting rationalizations like, "When things don't turn out the way I prayed they would, God had other ideas for me," while they seem absurd to us—and obviously so—must be earnestly believed by them in order to keep their belief system from crumbling to the ground. Their need to keep it standing renders them proof from rational argument.
With such a view of "them" as I have, I'm not sure how successful I can be in finding common ground with them. Any suggestions you (or anyone else following this conversation) can offer are welcome. Do you really think it's possible to find common ground?
Morris, your thoughts about "God's proxy" reminded me of an agonizingly long toast I suffered through when photographing a wedding years ago. My agent booked the client for me, and after I arrived I realized she had to have done so with a gleam in her eye and her sense of humor on fire, for the bride and groom and their parents were all graduates of a prominent, radically to the right, religion-based college. It was a very long day, not unlike one I spent dealing with radical Islamists in Somalia, only in that case I was at least also armed with a gun and not just a camera.
DeleteAnyway, it came time for the groom's father to give his toast, and he turned it into a 45-minute testimonial about the power of God. The gist of it was that over the past two years the man had almost died of heart disease that required multiple surgeries, cancer, some other organ failure, and had left the hospital only that morning to be able to attend the wedding. He closed his speech with the words "all I have to say, is God is great." While other people were in tears and chanting "hallelujah, hallelujah" all I could think was that it sounded like that if God was actually involved, his plan was for this guy to have been dead a long time ago, and the only miracles keeping him alive were those provided by modern medicine.
Paul, What an imp your agent was!
DeleteI've been thinking about my statement that you ASSUMED the choice was yours. I think that's okay, IF the word is taken in the sense that you just did "what was natural"—no artificial indoctrination having been imposed on you. I mean, I doubt that you went through any sort of thought process to decide whether to make the choice yourself or consult someone else about it.
On the other hand, haven't you spoken of a grandmother who greatly influenced you? Perhaps the "natural" was to follow a model of behavior that you admired.
This consideration of the causes for our doing things the way we do reminds me of a wonderful, but long, passage in Chapter 10 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in which Mr. Bingley's motivations for doing one thing or the other are meticulously analyzed in graceful drawing-room prose. It's somehow comforting to me to think of Miss Austen's having concerns similar to mine—or of myself's having concerns similar to hers?
Morris, imp is a very polite word one might use for that agent. She seemed to view her whole life as performance art and you never knew what skit you might be trapped in when around her. If she developed a dislike for a bride, which she often did, she would say things like "please tell me you are marrying him for his money" or "your first marriage must have gone very badly." Her style was better suited to political events. In 2002 we were working a very high-end reception at the Corcoran Gallery in DC and a junior legislator was overly persistent in trying to chat her up. After a few polite brushoffs she finally crossed her arms and said "look, when you have 20 grand and a yacht where we can spend a week, come back and talk to me." To his credit he didn't even flinch, just gave her a big smile. I would not be surprised to learn they ultimately spent much time together on a boat.
DeleteAs for personal influences on religious and spiritual matters, don't we all generally have several inputs on all sides of the equation, but don't we ultimately have to make our own choice? In my case the most influential people have been the grandmother you mentioned, an aunt and uncle I have written about, two sisters who are devout Lutherans, a first wife who is a beyond devout Brethren, a couple of atheists, and a one-time best friend who made his living selling weapons around the world and personally killing more people than I care to think about. Out of that sampling, much study, and much, much, much thinking, came my own credo. I would not want to blame any one person.
Yes, in some sense, we do "ultimately have to make our own choice," or think it's us who are making it.
DeleteI am impressed by your ability to name so many influential individuals—or, rather, impressed that you have so many whose inputs you thoughtfully reviewed and incorporated into your decision-making. I may actually have as many, but I don't credit myself with "thoughtfully" taking all of their views into account. My own life trajectory strikes me from this late perspective as having been more intuitive or "flowing" somehow—"flowing" not necessarily in a commendable sense, but more in the sense of "going with the flow."
Maybe I'm being more thoughtful now. I hope so.
Deciding if we are making decisions ourselves, or influenced by a higher power, or are merely slaves to our DNA, is a question that could take over your blog. And we would still never have an answer.
DeleteBeing able to go with the flow is commendable, but if you spend most of your life traveling, as I have, you tend to return from each trip and ask yourself "do I really want to do that again?" And from that comes the question of why or why not, and your long-term game plan, and so on. It is a forced awareness.
Some people are at the right place at the right time, while others are at the wrong place at the wrong time. They are both hard workers and good planers. But fate, luck, or something, changed their path in life.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I got shot, people would say how lucky I was or God must have plans for you. Luck would have been the bullet missing me, and if God or anyone else has a plan for me---send me an e-mail. Don't need to be shot to get my attention.
Your point reminds me of the people praising God because they were pulled alive from the flattened debris left by the Oklahoma City tornado a couple of weeks ago. If God was on the job and all powerful, wouldn't it have been easier and made for much better PR to have just steered the tornado safely around the city? God may, or may not, have more power in the hereafter, but that is why I still pay more attention to the power of nature in the here and now.
ReplyDeleteThat's how I felt about, also.
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