13 Years Ago Today: All in or All out

By Moristotle

[Originally published on September 9, 2007.]

I have talked approvingly of what I understood to be Søren Kierkegaard’s view, on the question of belief in God, that it was nobler (as well as more accurate) to hang with one hand from one ledge of the narrow chasm of religious belief and with the other hand from the opposite ledge than to transfer either hand to join the other on the same ledge. Hanging precariously from both ledges symbolized doubt. Kierkegaard thought doubt nobler because it consigned the doubter to the perpetual angst of his uncertainty whether to believe or not to believe, since, as a matter of accuracy, the person could not be objectively sure which belief was right.

Ten Years Ago Today: All in or all out

By Moristotle

[Originally published on September 9, 2007, not a word different, same image as then, but with an author’s note at the very end.]

I have talked approvingly of what I understood to be Kierkegaard’s view, on the question of belief in God, that it was nobler (as well as more accurate) to hang with one hand from one ledge of the narrow chasm of religious belief and with the other hand from the opposite ledge than to transfer either hand to join the other on the same ledge. Hanging precariously from both ledges symbolized doubt. Kierkegaard thought doubt nobler because it consigned the doubter to the perpetual angst of his uncertainty whether to believe or not to believe, since, as a matter of accuracy, the person could not be objectively sure which belief was right.

All in or All out

I have talked approvingly of what I understood to be Kierkegaard's view, on the question of belief in God, that it was nobler (as well as truer) to hang with one hand from one ledge of the narrow chasm of religious belief and with the other hand from the opposite ledge than to transfer either hand to join the other on the same ledge. Hanging precariously from both ledges symbolized doubt. Kierkegaard thought doubt nobler because it consigned the doubter to the perpetual angst of his uncertainty whether to believe or not to believe, since, as a matter of truth, the person could not be objectively sure which belief was right.

But I've now given up nobility. I've shifted the hand that was clinging to belief over to the other ledge and am now hanging with both hands from un- or non- or disbelief, and I feel ever so much better. And those who have done just the opposite—and cling to belief with both hands—feel better too, I assume.

I suppose that being either all in or all out of anything is more comfortable. A juror who just can't make up her mind whether the man accused of murder is guilty or not will be in agony over it. If deliberations go overnight, she might not be able to sleep. I used to agonize over whether or not to approve of the death penalty. I feel better now that I've come down unshakably against it. In general, humans find relief and feel better after they stop roiling and make up their minds!

On "the religious question" (which is essentially whether God exists and can be approached through some form of worship or prayer), believers who cling to their belief with both hands usually try to fortify their position by applying to a particular "holy scripture" which they accept as containing "the revealed Word of God." This could be The Torah, The New Testament, The Qur'an, The Book of Mormon, or whatever. A belief in a particular divine revelation, it seems to me, works this way in "fortifying" their fundamental belief: if the scripture in question is true, then of course God is...this or that, for The Book says so. But note the "if" regarding the scripture. No one can know objectively whether it's the "Word of God" or not. A noble doubter will cling to the two opposed ledges on that question.

I said that believers in God "try to fortify" their belief through application to a holy scripture. "Try" because of course such application is no real help at all. They still have to face Kierkegaard's question. The leap of faith has to be taken on the question whether there really was a revelation or not...

...just as the disbeliever takes his leap of faith that religion is false, that God (in the personal sense) does not exist, that Jesus was not the Son of God, that Muhammad was not a Messenger of God, that Joseph Smith's golden plates were an elaborate hoax motivated by greed and venality, that the various similarities of religious belief and practice around the world show, not that God has revealed Himself to peoples everywhere, but that evolved man tends to project the same gods everywhere, that most of those beliefs and practices flatter neither the assumed gods nor the actual men, and so on.

And, to be honest (which I hope I always am), I admit that I make an application myself to try to fortify my nonbelief. My application is to rationality, or common sense. Thomas Paine, Bertrand Russell, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens seem to me to make a very great deal more sense (in their books The Age of Reason, Why I Am Not a Christian, The End of Faith, and God Is Not Great, respectively) than the "holy books" I'm familiar with. It seems ever so much more reasonable to me that religion is a childish fantasy than that it is a serious adult vision. But some of the things said in scripture are nevertheless apt:

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. [The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, 13:11]

I do have at least one remaining question. It has to do with the distinction between religion and spirituality. As a noble doubter, I felt that I could "be spiritual" even though I found it ridiculous to try to "be religious." The question is: Now that I've opted for being all out when it comes to religion, is spirituality still an option for me, and what does that mean?

Babel

No, this isn't about Alejandro González Iñárritu's 2006 film. I haven't even seen it yet, but it's on my list.

Rather, this is à propos the one thing Freud knew for certain, which got me to thinking eight days ago about the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis, Chapter 11). I know that the surface story told there is that God "confused the people's language" and "scattered them abroad over the face of the earth." But whoever wrote the story was more likely promoting a myth to explain why there were, in fact, so many different languages.

What struck me about the myth of the Tower of Babel is that it could be a symbol not only for man's tendency to believe what he wishes to believe, but also for the rich mix of contrary wishes (or, in Freud's words, "judgments of value") that there in fact are on the face of the earth.

The very multiplicity of languages seems to reflect this diversity of values. In terms of the major religions (and speaking roughly, as a blogger does in his blabble, or blog babble), Hebrew is the language of Judaism, Greek and Latin (and the descending European languages) of Christianity, and Arabic of Islam—each intent on believing what it wishes to believe. The Christian believes Jesus was the Χριστός (the Messiah). The Jew believes he was no Christ. The Muslim believes that Jesus, far from even being the Son of God, was neither divine nor a Messiah but just another Messenger (and not even the last one, which honor is the Prophet Muhammad's).

And yet...and yet. "The world's just mad enough to have been made"...by a Creator who did, in some sense, scatter a diversity of wishes-to-believe and values over the face of the earth. Maybe the diversity is even something to celebrate rather than to try to homogenize for the sake of globalization, or spreading democracy, or enforcing religious fundamentalism—to celebrate, but to celebrate while continuing to look for overarching common wishes and values encompassing our diverging ones and enabling us, as a wise young woman put it to me, to "agree [amicably] to disagree."

Celebration may be an individual's choice and prerogative, but societies and cultures seem indisposed to celebrate. They seem to be swept up in the inertia of those global forces that threaten to engulf and destroy us.