My Spirituality – What Use Is It?

A comment thread elsewhere took a tangent. I was asked this:

“How does your new found wisdom assist in the betterment of the human condition?”

The “new found wisdom” should be read with a slightly sarcastic tone, I suspect, but I figured it would make an interesting post.

Spirituality

As well as the obvious tribal ‘belonging’ that all identities provide, religion is important because it provides the framework for our spiritual experiences. “Spiritual” is a problematic word, because it is so strongly associated with religion or the supernatural, but there isn’t an obviously better one.

I have had and still have spiritual experiences: I expect you do to. I was taught certain stories for interpreting these: that certain feelings corresponded to the Holy Spirit, certain behaviours were worship, certain events answers to prayer, certain motivations God’s calling, certain propensities temptations, and so on. Because the spiritual experiences are important to us (they are to me, I’m sure to you too), the stories we get told about what those experiences “really are” become critical.

The Spiritual and the Story

Nobody experiences God directly. They have an experience, which they then interpret through the stories they know about God, either specific or general.

When a Sufi is transfixed in worship, they are enthralled to Allah, when a Wican does likewise it is to the Goddess. When a Voodun speaks in tongues it is possession by a Loa, when a Pentecostal, it is the Holy Spirit.

In fact, the kind of story you know guides the kind of experience you have. Many Christians I know cannot speak in tongues, because they don’t have the doctrinal (i.e. story) framework to allow it. Where I did, so I could. And now I understand how it works I still can.

But to most people the story is very strongly linked to the experience. So much so that someone denying your story feels like them denying you even had that experience. If I say “there is no God”, you hear “I think those important and deep experiences you had of God were either faked or delusions”. Which is clearly wrong, and you know it.

Separation and Enlightenment

So we should try, as a species, to unlock the story from the actual experience.

The stories could still be a way to induce the experience. I certainly do that – I can guarantee I’ll have a certain type of spiritual experience at midnight mass this Christmas. I have a different kind of experience when I meditate, or pray, or hug a tree.

But understanding the reality of the connection between the two is very liberating. It means you are free to experience the same transcendence through the ritual and practice of other faiths, or to develop the skills to induce it without any interpretation, if you can.

It gives a new appreciation for the real world, the amazing cosmos we inhabit, the beauty and savagery of other pepole, and the infinite creativity of the human urge to interpret their spirituality in stories and doctrines. And (if you’re interested in the bible and early Christian history like I am) it gives you a new level of appreciation for the bible and Christian doctrine.

Were it widely understood, I do think that would benefit humanity. There are things that would benefit more, of course, but still, I can’t help but see it as a net positive.

A Challenge to Mythicists, Creationists, and others who oppose Academic Hegemony

I’ve been doing a bit more lurking on James McGrath’s blog recently, and even got into a couple of arguments.

I am very convinced that evolution accounts for the diversity of life on earth.

I am persuaded that Jesus was a real historical person.

On James’s blog there are plenty of people who believe strongly that I’m wrong on each account (though, funnily enough, not on both!). And arguing with either group is just an exercise in beating one’s head against a plank of wood. The same arguments, styles of argument, and patterns of discussion come round and round and round. And get nowhere. I recently commented that I thought doing that kind of blog argument

a) had never changed anyone else’s mind
b) had never changed my mind
c) had never failed to end in name-calling

So here’s my challenge. If you want to argue for creationism, say, then find some scientific position that you are convinced by. You might be pretty convinced by the germ theory of disease, say, or atomic theory, or heliocentrism, or a spherical earth.

Then find the forums where the people who disagree hang out. They will be there. There are places where flat-earthers hang out, disproving the scientific consensus. Or places where geocentrists discuss how Galileo was wrong, and so on. Go and convince them of the true science.

If you’re into challenging historical consensus, do the same. If you are a mythicist, try going and convincing holocaust denialists that they are wrong. Go and sample the arguments used against you, and the patterns of debate, and how no matter how often you point out the historical facts, they will be twisted and ignored, and so on.

That’s the challenge. To experience what it is like to challenge the beliefs of folks who are totally convinced that the academic establishment has a huge conspiracy to hide or misrepresent the truth.

But not just to experience their intransigence. More importantly to experience your own inability to make progress. The way things you say get misunderstood, the your points are treated. The way that you feel utterly unable to cover even the basic information without misrepresentation. And the way you and they so easily end up impugning each other’s intelligence.

I’m not suggesting that these beliefs are equivalent. I’m not suggesting mythicism is just like holocaust denial or flat-earthism. They aren’t. That’s not the point. The point is not the academic approach to the evidence. But how online arguments go. I hope if you take the challenge, you’ll at least be able to to understand why those who argue against you seem so devoid of any good arguments or evidence. And why online discussion is not a good place for constructive debate.

As for me, I can’t think of an academic hegemony I feel strongly is wrong. I’d love to go and sample the other side. But I can’t think of how.

Adopting the Quakers

I’ve been listening to the excellent Yale lecture series on the American Revolution, and the Civil War. The latter is particularly affecting, since I had relatively scant detail on the lives of American slaves prior to abolition.

Slavery was abolished here in the UK in 1833 (though some parts of the British empire suffered from exemptions for some years). The campaign to bring this about (and the slightly earlier act that made the slave trade illegal), was championed by a broad range of social reformers, of whom the majority were Quakers: folks like Joseph Sturge, Sir Thomas Buxton, Elizabeth Pease and Anne Knight. In fact, the political momentum that lead to these breakthroughs can be traced fifty years before to the abolitionist petition of 1783. A petition promoted by 300 prominent Quakers.

In the fifty year battle from that point until abolition, some of the most determined voices against emancipation were the Anglican Bishops of the House of Lords, bolstered by many many conservative Christians from both houses of parliament. From pulpits, and political speeches, the bible was routinely used to justify slave holding, and to claim that the natural state of the black person was not to be free.

When I speak to Christians about that now, however, they trace their faith back to the abolitionists. Slavery was clearly wrong, and it was good true Christians like them who brought it down.

Today there is a new social justice struggle going on in the UK and across the world: the struggle over same-sex marriage.

This week, the Prime Minister publicly supported same-sex marriage (and indicated the government will move towards enacting it into law). A broad chorus of Christian ministers and Christian members of parliament released statements condemning the speech, and the prospective law. Using the bible to justify the current law, and to claim that the natural state of the homosexual person is not to be married.

And against them, on the right side of morality and history, stand the Quakers: unambiguously lobbying for full marriage equality. And as in 1783, the rest of British Christendom is conspicuous in its absence.

I have no doubt which side will win. Any defeats I’m sure will be temporary. And I suspect in 150 years even the most conservative Christian will trace their religious ancestry back to the Quakers of 2011.

The Criteria of Embarrassment

A few weeks ago, Mark Goodacre posted over at the NT Blog on the problem of the Criteria of Embarrassment.

It is interesting, and one thing that came out of the comments was that the criteria is perhaps a little bit of a misnomer. Taken at face vale it is an oxymoron: if an author really is embarrassed about some detail, they’d just omit it.

The point of the criteria of embarrassment is that “embarrassed” sections are those that seem to be written to say why the obvious interpretation of a set of events are wrong. The events, we infer, are common knowledge.

For example, if as a school teacher, a student was late. You said “why were you late?” and she said “I didn’t meant to be late, and I only went into McDonalds to ask the time, but then I had to queue, so it took me a long time.”

What can you infer about the truth? Well I think almost everyone would infer that the student was in McDonalds when they should have been in school. If you are cynical you might decide they went it for a burger, if you believe them, you might believe them. But either way, mentioning McDonalds is conspicuous. Would the student rather you didn’t know she was in McDonalds? Possibly. I think we can probably also infer that she figured it was possible you knew independently, or could find out independently that she was there. So adding that embarrassing concession helps make her story more robust to challenge.

I think of something like that when I think of the criteria of embarrassment. When the justification for something is trying to pull you away from the obvious interpretation.

Injustice

Clearly injustice, but in which direction? Is blue collar crime too harshly punished, or white collar crime too lenient?

h/t Failblog

My New Childrens TV Series: Yiddy Cat

Its the story of a cat with a big nose and a skull cap, who says “Oi vey” a lot and speaks in a Yiddish patois. He’s a money lender by day, but he’s always on hand to help out his friends.

Its going to be huge.

Well I really hope Yiddy Cat would never get made. I hope anyone with an ounce of cultural sensitivity would dump it in the trash before finishing the first script.

So I’m a disappointed with the BBC for screening “Rasta Mouse”. Its a children’s program about a Mouse with brown fur, who wears a Tam, and says “Rasta” a lot. He’s a reggae musician by day, but he’s always on hand to help out his friends.

Rasta is a complex and sophisticated religion, with a complicated relationship with Christianity and Judaism. It has a subtle theological vocabulary, or Iyaric, centred around a tension between the subjective self and the divine. Its adherents are discriminated against in the law of many western countries, including the US and UK, because of their use of Cannabis in devotional contexts.

But most folks know of Rasta only from their crude portrayal in the most primitive racial and behavioural stereotypes, in a way that would be obvious and highly politically incorrect if it were aimed at Muslims, Jews or Buddhists.

I’m most pissed at some of the reactions. Its fine, you know, because Rasta is fair game. Its only a children’s show. Rastafari is small, its adherents are vaguely ridiculous. And, let’s face it, they’re black, and they don’t get invited to Bilderberg meetings. And the best friend of one of the writers is a Rasta. Or at least, he wears red gold and green and smokes pot…

To me this is nothing to do with the validity or otherwise of the religion. I think we could all do with learning more about others’ beliefs. Though I’ve been interested in Rasta for a couple of years, I still know almost nothing. And we can fundamentally disagree with the Rasta concept of God without reducing them to stupid stereotypes. Reducing any group of people to crude stereotypes is insulting. Whether Rastas, Jews, Blacks, or Gays. Peddling that crudity at children is even worse.

Amen Brother

Very touching speech. And I agree with his conclusions. God is the actions and attitudes of connected humanity.

Saying Muslim

I was taught in my theology degree that you don’t say “Muzlim”, but “Musslim”, and its “Islahm” (long ah-sound) rather than “Izlam”. From my meagre Arabic dalliances, I also figure it is “Osama Bin Laden”, but “Ibn Laden” when used on its own.

Any other bits of Islamic naming we massacre?

Reading about the End of the World

Reading various responses to the May 21, 2011 believers is quite amusing.

The most common objection from other Christians goes something like:

“It won’t be May 21, 2011, because Jesus said that nobody knows the day or the hour except the Father. If you think you know, you’re wrong.”

Leaving aside that the believers have worked out an elaborate theology to work around this verse, I do find this kind of proof-texting amusing. Because Jesus “says” this, right after saying that the end will come before “this generation will … pass away”. So clearly he was wrong.

Oh, right, sorry, I forgot that the bible can’t be wrong. If it appears to be wrong, we just have to interpret it differently until we can make it right. So in your interpretation of the passage, Jesus didn’t literally mean that bit, but did literally mean the bit about not knowing; whereas the interpretation where Jesus didn’t literally mean either is wrong. Gotya. Thanks.

I’m Worried about the End of the World

If you haven’t noticed the media, the world is due to end in October, and Judgement Day is just over a week away (May 21, 2011).

Which means, for those folks who believe in the rapture and the validity of the numerology behind that date, May 21, 2011 is checkout day.

I just had a little look around. And it seems that the May 21, 2011 movement (e.g. here) is pretty large, in comparison. Larger than most of these little millenarian groups.

And that makes me nervous. When I read the absolute certainty in the words of doomsday cultists, my mind comes back always to Heaven’s Gate, to The Order of the Solar Temple, and to Jonestown. Its a short step from believing that God will bring the end of the world, to believing God wants you to help him do so.

Whatever it takes to get your indoctrinated loved ones home that day, do it. Even if it means promising a last minute conversion.

Maybe I’m paranoid. But combine an irrational belief in the end of the world with a massive humiliation and undermining of belief, and I think few people would act rationally.