Like a Rolling Stone

The other day, I read an article that simultaneously depressed and enraged me.  "Why isn't Wall Street in Jail?" seems to me to be a rare clear indictment of the financial industry.   In a nutshell, what the article says is this:  It is clear that many, many people in the financial world are as criminal as a bank robber, but none of them have been arrested.  Well, almost none, as there's Bernie Madoff, but is he unique? No, he's just the sacrificial lamb whose conviction and media frenzy distracted us from the rest of the criminals out there.  The reason why is clear - Madoff stole from the rich and influential.  But don't take my word for it, read the article, and fume for yourself.  With the distribution of wealth more concentrated among such a small group than it has been since the age of Robber Barons, this should be a matter of serious concern.  The rich are increasingly above the law, corporations are given the same rights of free speech as a regular citizen, and it seems we're becoming less of a real democracy and more of an oligarchy.  Both parties are infected, as we can see from Obama's engagement with corporate interests (read the article), and regulatory corruption in the most vulnerable of places (like the SEC).  Working for almost 5 years in the financial world in the midst of the sub-prime mortgage disaster, I can assure you that it was far, far worse, and more overtly, consciously criminal than anything the major news outlets have reported.

The justification of our wars is also a matter for some concern.  In another piece of excellent investigative reporting, we read that a 3 star general in Afghanistan ordered a psy-ops unit to work on manipulating visiting senators and congressman to steer them towards his own opinions.  This, by the way, is illegal.  The article was written by the same guy whose article cast a rather poor light on General McChrystal talking smack about his civilian leadership (which ultimately got him fired).

Now I have a question for you, gentle readers.  Why the hell are we reading these amazing pieces of journalism, which challenge corruption and abuse among those in power, in a Rock & Roll magazine?  Yes, both the articles I'm talking about here are from Rolling Stone magazine. 

I read a lot of news, and I try to read different sources to try to keep balanced.  Pretty much every day I read the NY Times and the Washington Post.  When there's something interesting happening, I might throw in Al Jazeera (especially lately), and even Fox News (just to see how things are being twisted for the ignorant).  Yet all these media sources (with the notable exception of Al Jazeera), have been rather light on these issues, especially the financial crisis.  They publish sound bites, but there seems to be very little investigation.  It feels like the media has abdicated its role, and for some reason Rolling Stone seems to be one of the rare places that is picking up the slack.  Yes, there are others, but without major, national media shouting the truth about corruption and regulatory negligence (at best), there will be little reaction from the public.  And the result has already happened - the financial criminals have walked.  Hell, most of them are already back on their feet, and likely laughing all the way to the bank.

Daddy, Why do the Demons Howl?

[First, I want to say that what has happened in Egypt over the past few weeks has left me unbelievably moved.  I rarely get as emotional as I have while watching the crowds in Liberation Square, but when I heard Mubarak had finally resigned, I was on the verge of tears.  With the retreat of our own liberties over the past 10 years, the corruption of democracies like Russia's, I finally feel like the world is getting better for once.   The best part, at least to me, is that is shows the power of Ahimsa, or non-violence.  I applaud the restraint of the revolutionaries, and I must admit that after Thursday’s speech by Mubarak I really thought we’d see serious violence in the streets of Cairo yesterday.  Instead, we had fireworks.  Egypt, thank you for restoring my faith in humanity.  My heart is bursting with sympathy and pride for what you've accomplished.  Now without further ado, lets return to your regularly scheduled blog post.]

Yesterday during my Sanskrit lesson, a word came up that stirred up a whole lot of associative thought.  The word is रवणम्, ravaṇam, meaning “sound making”, or “howling”, from the root रु, ru, to howl, cry, shout, or scream.  I immediately connected this to the main villain of the Ramayana, रावण, and Swami was happy to confirm this derivation of the name.

Rāvaṇa, King of the रक्षस Rakṣasa, or “man eating demons” and part of the असुर Asura tribe or race.  Rāvaṇa is depicted in the Ramayana as utterly ruled by his passions, desires, and lower instincts, however he is extremely cunning and disciplined.  He is strong enough of will to have subjugated the Gods and the Worlds so that Viṣṇu must incarnate in the form of Rāma in order to defeat him and restore order to the Universe.  While Rāvaṇa was said to to have undergone countless austerities and vedic pūja (rituals) in order to gain the tremendous power he had, at the beginning of the Ramayana, that is all over and he has become a petty tyrant.  He is called “He who Makes the Universe Scream,” and he torments not only living beings but the elements themselves, all for his egotic pleasure.  He also screams and howls quite a bit himself at every set-back during the story. 

            A quick aside for those of you who are interested in Norse cosmology.  There’s a theory that the Asura are connected to the Aesir, one of the two tribes of the Gods, of which Odin is King.  In the Norse/Germanic tradition, there are two tribes the Aesir and the Vanir.  As it has been explained to me, the more nature-oriented Vanir were likely the gods of the native folk of Germany or Scandinavia, who were invaded by Indo-European tribes.  According to my understanding, there was a war between them, mythologized into a war between the gods, in which the Vanir were victorious.  The tribes exchanged married hostages, and there was a peace, but it seems at some point the Aesir became dominant in the beliefs of the people.  Interestingly, in India, something analagous occurred.  The Indo-Europeans invaded and subjugated the pre-Vedic people of the sub-continent, and they also brought their Gods.  I’m not familiar of there being an early war between the Asura and the native, again nature-oriented Devas (lit. “Shining Ones”), but in terms of who ended up dominant, this time it was the native dieties.  By the time of the Ramayana (roughly 200BCE), the Asura were considered materialistic, egoistic, status-conscious, and full of unseemly passion.  Although there are more noble Asura depicted in the Ramayana, Rāvaṇa becomes the model.  The Asura gods have lost their hold on the popular imagination, and the Rakṣasas take their place. 

            Regardless of the origin of his tribe, the linguistic origin of Rakṣasa is of interest when we think of a much maligned form of Western esotericism, the Goetia.  Looking into its linguisitic origins, Goetia seems to be medieval Latin derived from the Greek word for Sorcery (low magick, as it is sometimes called, as opposed to Theurgy).  However, there is an important tradition which holds its translation to be “howling.”  I haven’t been able to (in my extremely brief search of the internet) find any explanation of this derivation.  Olulo is the only Latin word for howl that I can find, and while it actually sounds much like the some of the 'Barbarous words of Invocation', it bears no relation to the word Goetia.  If anyone has any insight here, I’d love to hear it.  I’m pretty sure I know where I personally picked up the connection of “howling” to the Goetia – that fun-loving fiend, Aleister Crowley. 

            Of course, Crowley was referring to a specific type of Goetia, the kind depicted in the famous book, the Legemeton, aka, Clavicula Salomonis, aka, the Lesser Key of Solomon the King, aka, the Goetia.  This book is a grimoire, a book which proports to instruct the reader on summoning the 72 spirits which are described inside.   Crowley wrote a phenomenal essay on the subject, “The Initiated Interpretation of Ceremonial Magic”, as an introduction to his 1904 edition of the book.  I’ve always liked this interpretation of the Goetia, which is primarily psychological, even though I recognize that this was very early in Crowley’s career, and that the position he takes is one that he will increasingly abandon (although I’d argue, never completely give up).  The essential argument is that the various props (robes, incense, wands, etc) are all intended to effect the senses in such a way as to bring about certain mental phenomena, namely the Goetia.  Crowley unequivocally writes that “the spirits of the Goetia are portions of the human brain.”  In other words, they represent unconscious forces in the magician who attempts to summon them.  I should note that, should this be the case, it is a potent argument for both the traditional dangers of such an attempt (dredging up the unconscious is never ‘safe’), as well as its traditional benefits.  Psychology tells us plenty about the way “complexes” tie up the psychic energy of a person (Freud’s concept of the Libido).  If we can free this energy up, we would (according to Freud), have more mental energy at our disposal.  Therefore, such Goetic aims as learning “all arts and sciences", "what the Mind is”, or even to cause “Women to love Men, and to bring them together in Love.”  How does that work?  Well, if we work out our issues, we’re much more likely to be happy in love.  The point is that we can make use of the vast area of the mind that is the unconscious, whose forces, according to Carl Jung, always appear to be ‘other’ than the self.  Evocation of a spirit then, is a potential means of dealing with these unruly forces.  It's also, if you are predisposed to psychosis, a recipe for disaster and even schizophrenia.  
            William James, in his phenomenal classic The Varieties of Religious Experience made a wonderful case for arguing for a psychological understanding of mysticism, but in such a way as to not merely reduce mystical experience to fantasy, but showing its direct impact on the real world.  He writes "Yet the unseen region in question is not merely ideal, for it produces effects in this world.  When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our finite personality, for we are turned into new men, and consequences in the way of conduct follow in the natural world upon our regenerative change. But that which produces effects within another reality must be termed a reality itself, so i feel as if we had no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal." (p561)

            Many people have compared the Goetia to the Jinn of Islamic cultures.  Jinn, according to Wikipedia, comes from a Arabic word meaning “hidden”, and that certainly would apply to “other-like” forces of the unconscious.  The Jinn share an additional mythic commonality with the spirits of the Goetia, they are both said to have been trapped or enslaved by the biblical King Solomon in a "vessel of brass". Entering into the legends of the West, the Jinn became the Genie, coming from the Latin, genius, and the "vessel of brass" became the Genie's lamp. The Latin genius was originally considered as an outside force which inspired a person, rather than a quality of a person.  For an excellent talk on this distinction, I refer you to this amazing Ted talk by Elizabeth Gilbert.  I never read Eat, Pray, Love, (and probably never will) but this talk was great.  

            This understanding of Genius as appearing as outside inspiration gives a positive twist on these unconscious forces.  But this notion didn’t originate with the Romans, but with the Greeks.  In Greek, Genius is Daimon or Daemon, which is where we get our word ‘demon’. Socrates famously talks about his Daimon, which seems to have some sort of veto power over his actions, in the Apology.  Similarly, in the Symposium, Eros is declared to not be a god, but a daimon.  In Greece, daimon was a rather neutral, or even positive concept, much like the Jinn.  Both types of hidden forces can appear as good, evil, or indifferent.  In many ways, these spirits were considered to be very human-like, even if usually immortal.  The spirits of the Goetia are usually described similarly by those who have dabbled into that questionable art. 

            There is another ‘species’ of spirits we should consider, if only to contrast – angels.  This word comes from the Greek angelos, or messenger.  Messenger of what?  Of God of course, which was considered to be the highest Good.  We have here the appearance of dualism – the increasing fixation of the Absolute World of God, so important in Neo-Platonism and Christianity.  There are “spirits of the air” (air is almost always esoterically associated with mind) everywhere, and some are worldly, some are messengers from God.  As worldliness became synonymous with ungodliness, impurity, and sin, the worldly spirits transformed from daimons to demons.   There became a division between the “messengers” and those who “howl.”  We can see this play out in the way demons are consistently depicted as dark and animal-like, and angels human-like, and effulgent.  (For more on that, see my previous post).

            While ultimately both can be seen as unconscious energies manifesting as “outside forces”, this distinction can be used to classify these things, perhaps unfairly, into two camps.  In Christianity, we’d see them as Angelic and Infernal, but for our purposes lets call them “worldly” and “transcendent”.  Yoga teaches us (rightly) that the worldly impulse takes us away from peace, from clarity about ourselves and our universe, by stirring up the citta vṛttis, the modifications of the mind.  The citta here is analogous to the Libido of Freud (not in its popular sexual connotation), as the sum total of the energy of the mind.  This energy gets whipped up by the senses, ‘modified’ into thoughts.  The word for modify is vṛtti which also means to revolve.  Swami Vivekananda describes these as ‘whirlwinds’ of the mind.  The ideal yogic state, according to the Yoga Sutras, is when these whirlwinds are completely stilled, so that the true nature of the Self is reflected by the still citta.  Devotional practices towards some ideal is a prescribed method towards this end.  Such messengers as angels may be useful, as they have been in inspiring many saints.  Spirits connected to worldly desires (concentrating the unconscious on such desires), would therefore lead to a rather uncalm mind, a sort of self-made 'hell'.  Maybe even one that howls. It is interesting to note that the method of the Lesser Key of Solomon is to first invoke one's own personal Daimon, (from the invocation "angelos ton Theon", angel of God), with faith in its authority over the 'lesser spirits' of the Goetia.

            Of course the final consideration is personal – do I want a quiet mind, or do I want to satisfy my unceasing worldy desires?  But I think that question may well be a false one.  As Sri Ramakrishna says repeatedly of Brahman, “He has become everything.”  Including the howling mad forces of worldly life.  While conventions like this dualistic ways of judging our deepest unconscious thoughts and impulses (some leading up, some down) may be useful in the gaining of self-control and attaining yogic states, they are just that, conventions.  Ultimately, these ways of looking at the world (or any ways of looking at the world) are illusory, are Maya. I think the truth is larger, grander, and stranger than any duality (including Yoga) can accurately describe.

Egyptian Protests, Fanaticism, & Military Culture

Like many people these days, I'm pretty absorbed in what's happening in Egypt right now.  I've closely followed the news coverage, but I'm not really buying into the commentary, because I think its way too soon to predict what's going to come of all of it.  My knee-jerk reaction is ideologically cosmopolitan - I support the idea of a democratic revolution in Egypt, even if it isn't in the best interests of my country.  My hope is that democratic reform of some kind will bring at least some new freedoms to the Egyptian people, and I've been inspired by the political awakening and sense of community spirit as well as political responsibility that I've seen.  I'd rather have a freer Egypt, even if we lose the country as an ally.  Why?  Because I regard myself as human before American, and there is no excuse to tacitly approve of human torture and repression just because it suits our narrow national interests (and all national interests, being nothing more than extensions of tribal interests, are narrow).  People before politics, in other words. 

Clearly, some would take this position to be naive, possibly making us ultimately less safe.  Mubarak held back the Islamicists, one might say.  Yes, but in doing so, he held back his own people.  I personally think that the Religious Right in this country is a greater actual threat to my personal freedom than Al Qaeda, but I would defend their right to push their insane views and Dominionism, even as I might support their opponents and fight them tooth and nail.  Islamicist parties in Egypt are inevitable in a democratic state, but is this a bad thing?  For US strategic interests, no.  For humanity ultimately, I'd say quite possibly yes.  Not because they're right, but because they appear so damned wrong in an open society.  Repress them, and they're at their best, because fanaticism thrives on adversity.  At the same time, we in the West need to take a new approach to the excesses of Islam, and in my opinion Christianity as well. The proper response to events like the ridiculous Danish cartoon crisis seems to me to be solidarity with those who support freedom of speech, and rather than "sensitivity" to the tender eyes and ears of the fanatical, we should encourage shame.  The real enemy is not Islam, Arabs, or Born-Again Christians, but fanatacism, narrow-mindedness, and absolutism in all its forms, be they patriotic and tribal, or religious and moral.  Patriotism is just a nice way of saying Nationalism in the final analysis.  These ideas which assume a single right way, a single righteous path, and specific infallible answers to questions that mankind has struggled with since it crawled out of the ooze, do not enlarge and sublimate our nature, but constrict it into a form that is base, unworthy, and animal.

A lot of ink has been spilled over the possibly negative consequences for Israel as well, and stability in the middle east should definitely be a concern.  However, I think our instinctive reaction to hunger for stability can lead us down unfortunate roads.  Clearly, if we sacrifice freedom for stability, we're making an uneven trade. Are you willing to sacrifice your freedom of speech for a little more safety or social stability?  I'm not, that's for damned sure.  Further, our conceptions of safety are usually sadly misinformed.  You are far less likely to die from a terrorist attach than you are food poisoning in this country, but we're spending tremendous amounts on security, and doing little about the conflict of interest at the FDA. As for Israel, I understand that this is a sensitive topic, but I don't particularly value one country or people over another.  Especially, when that country is only marginally more humane than the dictatorships which surround it.  Back to nationalism, we must consider Zionism, the religion-based movement to reclaim lands bequeathed by God (held by both Christians and Jews), to ultimately be not much different than Pan-Islamism, which seeks to reclaim all lands previously held by the Caliphate (including Israel).  Both assume a god-given right to a political kingdom on Earth, irrespective of the freedom, suffering, wills, or deaths of those they would displace or rule.  There can be no answer to the question as to whether Israel has a "right" to exist, based either on history or religious claims.  What matters only is that it currently exists (and to my mind, has a right to, so long as it is the product of popular will), and what its doing.  The first is not a bad thing, the second is not necessarily a good thing.  But if we're going to judge a nation or a people, it must be with the same standards.  Again, it isn't a religion or a people that is the enemy, it is humanity's own worst instincts, its fanaticism, its brutality, and its narrowness of mind.

I've also been thinking a lot about the role of the military in the recent revolution in Tunisia and the on-going demonstrations in Egypt.  In Tunisia's case, it was the army's refusal to fire on civilians, and its withdrawal from key positions in the capital that led to Ben Ali's flight.  In Egypt, the rank-and-file's support for the protesters seems to be making things difficult for Mubarak.  While the officers are part of the country's Mubarak-tied elite, the general make-up of the army is based on compulsory male service, unlike our all-volunteer military.  It seems to me that if Mubarak is ousted it will be because the army thinks of itself as the people, because in a very real way it is the people. 

This causes me some concern when I think of my own country.  There have been indications that the culture of our armed forces is drifting further and further away from that of civilian culture.  Our army is made of professional soldiers, for whom soldiering is a way of life, and these soldiers universally volunteer.  The people who volunteer tend to be similar, from increasingly narrow sub-cultures.  While on the one hand this creates a dangerous insulation from the effects of war for the vast majority of people who don't serve, there is a more worrisome possibility.  What seems to me to be slowly happening is the emergence of a warrior-caste in this country, and this strikes me as extremely dangerous.  Certain states (Texas, etc) show disproportionately high numbers of soldiers, while more liberal states like Massachusetts are disproportionately low compared to their population. There is increasing ideological unity of militarism and evangelical christianity, as evidenced by increasing harassment of cadets in the Air Force Academy, among other branches.  Perhaps it wouldn't be possible today, but imagine that in 20 years the military is called in to quell protestors in New York, a city which they have been taught is full of Godless liberals and homosexuals.  Do they refuse their President's order to fire on their fellow citizens? 

The only solution to this problem is either a draft or a mandatory service requirement of some kind, something that at this point few would support.  I continually find myself comparing the US to the late Roman Republic. Usually I'm talking about the religious ferment and multiculturalism of Rome here, but today I mean its military. When Gaius Marius reformed the army, making it up primarily of "Head Count" citizens (the poorest citizens) who were enticed by the wages, potential plunder and retirement promises, he took the first step to destroying the Republic.  These soldiers became the professionals, serving for so long (often at least 12 years) that they no longer identified with the common people.  Further, they were dependent on their Politician/Generals for their retirement settlements of land, and in many ways became more loyal to their generals than the Republic.  These were the conditions that allowed Caesar to take his armies across the Rubicon.  Now, while it isn't that bad yet, I wonder if we're heading in a similar direction, although clearly the two situations are far from identical.  With our culture wars deepening, and congress becoming more and more mired and politicized, how long will it be before politicians begin to politicize the military.  It may be argued to have begun already. 

What do you make of all this?  Egypt, the military, etc?  I'd love to hear from my two or three loyal readers.

Not all Atheists are Created Equal

            A while back one of the yogis at my studio suggested I read Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion and, having heard about Dawkins and his fellow “New Atheists” quite a bit, I agreed to give it a try.  I hear about the New Atheists a lot in the news, and I figured that this may be an important (anti-) religious trend to know about.  I really should know better than to get my news from the news. 

            Two weeks ago, I went to the hulking edifice that we call the Mahopac Library to check it out.  I must say that the Mahopac Library is easily the best thing about living in Mahopac.  It’s phenomenal!  A large selection of actual books, plus many new-fangled contraptions like computers, books on tape, videos, and lots of classrooms for special events (including yoga for Seniors), all housed in a cyclopean fortress of poor architectural taste.  I imagine that it was designed by the same guy that designed the wasteful absurdity that is our local volunteer fire station.  For a conservative small town that seems to hate taxes, they love to waste money. But I degress…Despite the awesomeness of the local library, The God Delusion had vanished mysteriously from the shelves, so I grabbed God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, another big name and big title by one of the so-called New Atheists.  I figured, hey, one book by these guys should be the same as another, right?  Glancing a several apparently similar books, the tables of contents seemed to roughly be the same:

Chapter 1:  Why there’s no such thing as God

Chapter 2:  Why people who believe in God are stupid.

Chapter 3:  Religions are really, really bad.  Like, AIDS bad. 

Chapter 4:  Conclusion:  There’s no such thing as god.

            So I took home God is Not Great, read it very quick, quickly decided to take some notes so that I could do to its infantile arguments what an ancient priest of Odin might do to a Christian.  I also ordered a copy of The God Delusion from another library in the Mid-Hudson Valley library system, just to be safe.  About a week later I got my robo-call from the library telling me it had arrived.  By that point, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to read anything else by the New Atheists, but I picked it up anyway.  I must say I was pleasantly surprised.  There are definitely some things about both books that warrant their being grouped together under the same ‘movement’, but I was struck far more by their differences.  Comparing Hitchens’ book to Dawkins’ book was like comparing conservatives Rush Limbaugh to David Brooks (of the NY Times), Jack Chick to St. Augustine, or a Jerry Springer episode to a TED Talk . 

            While at the library, I also picked up The Dawkins Delusion by Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath, a theologian who teaches at Oxford with Dawkins, and his diversely educated wife (Neuroscience, Experimental Psychology & Christian Theology).  This is a direct rebuttal by some believers to the points raised in The God Delusion, so I figured it might help me break things down. 

            Below, you’ll find my reviews of all three books.  If you don’t want to read about them in  more detail, I’ll sum it up for you:

1)      God is Not Great is well-written, but as intellectually bankrupt as a tabloid.  Don’t bother.

2)      The God Delusion is well-written, fascinating, educational, but flawed in important ways.  Regardless, I recommend it.

3)      The Dawkins Delusion is not as entertaining as the others, but it’s still fascinating, and emphasizes many of the problems in Dawkins thinking, as well as puts his ideas into a much needed context.  That said, it is about as flawed as Dawkins book, maybe moreso.  I recommend it only if you read Dawkins and think he’s the atheist version of a Messiah.

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. 

The new atheists really like science.  They’re pretty much all about it.  I can totally get behind that – reasoned arguments, evidence, skepticism, maybe with some Bunson Burners and Tesla Coils thrown in for dramatic effect.  And who doesn’t like Bunson Burners or Tesla Coils, I ask?  I imagined that in their books these ‘New Atheists’ would be all about the use of reasoned arguments, appealing to my mind rather than the ‘gut’.  Sadly this is not the case with Hitchens.  I suppose I should have expected it.  He’s a journalist after all. 

            Hitchens’ argument against religion is essentially this:  Religious people do really, really bad things, and want to more bad things, plus only dumb rednecks believe in God anymore, therefore be an atheist.  Rather than convince you, he points out the rather well known dumb things people do in the name of religion, as well as the dumb things that appear in the bible and Koran, trying his damnest to provoke the disgust reaction.  He appeals straight to the gut, the emotions, and lets that overwhelm the critical mind rather than make reasoned arguments.  This is demagoguery, nothing more, nothing less.  To give this the veneer or reasonableness he also sets up religion as a straw man, defining it only by the most pathological cases, and using this as an argument against it.  This is ultimately the same argument as saying “Stalin was an atheist and a really bad man.  Ergo, all atheists are really bad men.  Wow, what a good reason to believe in God.” All of Hitchens’ arguments are essentially along these lines.  They prove about as effective as a creationist who argues “You expect me to believe I evolved from a monkey?  That’s just dumb.” 

            In summary, if you’re an atheist, this is a good book to get you fired up about being an atheist and at the idiocy of any other point of view.  If you’re a believer, you may find the book irritating, but it is so clearly full of biased, distorted logic and incomplete facts that you probably won’t waste your time being offended and just wonder how anyone takes him seriously.  The subtitle “How Religion Poisons Everything” is an absolute statement, admitting no exceptions, and that is exactly how the whole book reads.  Big provocative statements – very little to back it up.

            I want to add one more thing before I go on to Dawkins’ book.  In The God Delusion, Dawkins notes that he, as a policy, never debates Creationists, and prefers not to debate at all.  Google “Hitchens Debate” and you’ll see that Hitchens seems always happy to go a round with anyone.  Why?  Because verbal debates are ultimately won by bullying, and nothing actually comes of them.  They make good sound-bites for the news cycle, and help people reinforce views they already have.  It’s not hard to see why Hitchens likes the format.  He’s a gifted communicator with nothing much to communicate.  As he can’t brow-beat you as effectively in a book, God is Not Great falls consistently flat.

The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. 

Unlike Hitchens, Dawkins is actually a scientist, specifically an Evolutionary Biologist.  This scientific training comes through very clearly, and the parts of the book I most enjoyed are the parts when his talent for explaining science to the layman (which I certainly am) really shines through.  Dawkins is slightly less polemical than Hitchens, one might be tempted to say less certain, but this is clearly not true.  Dawkins is pretty damned sure there’s no God and that religion is a dangerous fraud, but he seems to recognize the possibility that he could be wrong.  He gives you a little space to breathe, and really seems to hope you make up your own mind, although he clearly has definite ideas about there being only one possible conclusion based on the evidence he presents.  The book just comes across as more intellectually honest than Dawkins, and because he attempts to reason rather than emotionally manipulate, the book is far more convincing.  In fact, I don’t hesitate to say that I really enjoyed it.

            Dawkins wisely begins by identifying exactly what he’s trying to refute in religion (something Hitchens cannot be troubled to do) – a supernatural God, ie, a God which is outside of nature, and unbound by its laws.  A Creator God, yes, but one who is also around after the fact to answer prayers and meddle with his creation.  He then spends the rest of the book taking this notion apart pretty effectively, especially any areas that overlap with what science has discovered.  Creationism is easily banished by the Evolutionary Biologist, but then again, I don’t know many people who take Creationism seriously. 

            He also goes into the other sciences, where he is a bit less sure of himself (which The Dawkins Delusion takes him to task for), and tries to do the same thing he did to Creationism.  He presents interesting data, but he shows his bias in his interpretation of the data.  Although not specific to the individual points raised in The God Delusion, McGrath illustrates this tendency in Dawkins extremely well, using a quote from another of Dawkins’ books.  Here’s an excerpt from The Dawkins Delusion:

[Dawkins in another book, The Selfish Gene]:

[Genes] Swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.  They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence.

We see here a powerful and influential interpretation of a basic scientific concept.  But are these strongly interpretative statements themselves actually scientific?

            To appreciate the issue, consider the following rewriting of this paragraph by the celebrated Oxford physiologist and systems biologist Denis Noble.  What is proven empirical fact is retained; what is interpretative has been changed, this time offering a somewhat different reading of things.

[Genes] are trapped in huge colonies, locked inside highly intelligent beings, moulded by the outside world, communicating with it by complex processes, through which, blindly, as if by magic, function emerges.  They are in you and me; we are the system that allows their code to be read; and their preservation is totally dependent on the joy that we experience in reproducing ourselves.  We are the ultimate rationale for their existence.

            There’s a lot of this kind of thing in Dawkins’ work, and it’s hard to detect unless you’re paying close attention.  McGrath is good at bringing it out. 

            There are also the polemical parts of Dawkins’ book that are only slightly less annoying than Hitchens as they’re less vitriolic by a few degrees.  What makes both of these guys ‘New Atheists’ is the fact that they’re charging into the mainstream with this stuff with all the subtlety of Sarah Palin in a china shop.  They’re culture warriors, disturbed by the radical excesses and distortions of certain religious groups and doctrines, as well as the “enabling” of religious moderates and political correctness.  They’re polarized, and polarizing, and they seem only really able to see their own points of view.  Dawkins sees thing so completely through the warfare model, he calls fellow scientists who are not atheists the “Neville Chamberlain” school of science.  He is even quoted as saying that he prefers “an honest fundamentalist” to those who try to reconcile religion with science.  It certainly makes sense that he would – a caricature is much easier to defeat than a complex issue.  

            I should mention that I’m not an atheist, although I’m finding that I have more sympathy with that viewpoint than with that of most religious folk.  I agree with these New Atheists that anyone who takes ANY book as literal, perfect, eternal and changeless truth for all (or even some) people at all times, is not substantially different from any other form of lunatic.  These people scare me, and I hope they scare you too.  However, I don’t think most believers are like that.  There’s a huge range and variety to belief, even within a single religion, not to mention the countless believers who have liberated themselves from traditional religions entirely.  The real weakness of Dawkins’ book is a superficial understanding of both religious doctrine and religious experience.  Essentially, he doesn’t know much about the religions themselves, and really doesn’t seem to understand how it impacts in most people’s lives.  He just doesn’t seem to be built that way. I’ve been thinking a lot about why that is, but now’s not the time to go too deeply into it.  In a nutshell, it seems to me that some people just have a spiritual drive, and some do not.  I think of it like a talent (at least in regards to mysticism), you have it or you don’t.  Maybe it’s not much different than artistic ability (and who knows, it may be related), or skill in mathematics and science.  As not everyone can appreciate art on the same level, not everyone can appreciate religion.  Similarly, not everyone can create art, just as not everyone can create a religion (have direct experiences of God, etc).  Similarly, I’m not cut out to be an evolutionary biologist.  I think Dawkins is wired to see things a particular way (and it shows when he tries to apply Darwinism to physics), and therefore there is a major blindspot is his views, as do the rest of us.  He simply cannot appreciate that religion can be valuable, or sane.  I’ll save my thoughts on the value of spirituality for another time.  I’m going to have to assume you share my views for now.

            We can divide the main thrust of the argument of the New Atheists into two, and I’d like to very briefly touch on each.  The first is that science has disproven much of the claims about the physical and mental world made by traditional religions and holy books.  I would basically agree with this idea, but I would also point out that people do not hold religious beliefs the way scientists hold theories.  Most (I hope) religious folks don’t really take things that literally.  Regular people are ruled by common sense primarily, at least in my experience.  They may believe in God, but most haven’t read the bible, let alone believe that they were created wholesale from a lump of clay.  Similarly, most people are not exactly on the cutting edge of science either.  Many people straight up don’t care about what religion or science says, other than what is necessary to fulfill their professional or personal goals.  I’d venture that its really about fitting in, rather than weighing evidence.  As for those who refute science, I believe the New Atheists are correct that mere respect for that position should not be the default position for a healthy society.  Perhaps such ridicule as is heaped by the New Atheists isn’t the way to go either (as it just makes people dig in their heels),  but I don’t have a counter-proposal to give.

            The second argument is that religions do not make people better, but worse.  Dawkins and Hitchens both have extensive (and distorted) chapters attempting to debunk claims that religion makes people more moral.  In one of Hitchens’ few insightful statements he writes “…religion has been an enormous multiplier of tribal suspicion and hatred...” (p36) and I can’t help but agree.  However, I’d say the same thing about international soccer.  The problem, as it seems to me, is not religions exactly, but the tribal, exclusionary, and absolutist tendencies in mankind.  The problem is that we are instinctive animals, evolved as Dawkins says to “survive in a world – I shall use the name Middle World – where the objects that mattered to our survival were neither very large nor very small; a world where things either stood still or moved slowly compared with the speed of light…” and a world where other humans were often the main threat.  The struggle is to step out of this limited perspective, as science has so often been able to do, and Dawkins and Hitchens both view religion as the main obstacle to this.  Certainly it can be, and I’ve argued that religion is inherently conservative for this reason.  However, just about any man-made institution can do the same.  Just look at Hitchens book, which is just as polarizing as ANY religion.  Both try to explain away Stalin’s atheism as an aberration, just like Christians would say of Hitler or the Inquisition.  But the problem seems to me not religion, but our own inborn stupidity and our nature as upright primates.  Religions are made of people, not doctrines, and people are very often dumb, arrogant, unthinking, bigoted, and irrational.  Religious beliefs can help some people become “better” and can be used by others to justify whatever their ape-like brains want.  Science can help us become “better”,  more secure, more egalitarian, more healthy, but it can also can be used (as it has been) to justify eugenics programs and social Darwinism, which are clear distortions of science, just as fundamentalism can be viewed as a distortion. 

            In summary, I think Dawkins’ book is insightful, sharp, and informative about certain areas, but greatly weakened by the author’s limited experience of religious life and doctrine.  Much of his argument against organized religion was convincing (to me), but he was largely preaching to the choir there.  But on the whole, I found it rather good, and I’d recommend it to any independent thinker.  If you’re already an atheist, I’d definitely pair it with the next book I’m going to review rather than take it at face value.  If you’re a believer you won’t need the latter, but I even more strongly recommend reading the book to challenge yourself.

            One last note – the last chapter in The God Delusion reminded me strangely of Robert Anton Wilson.  I mean this in the best possible way, and I’m curious to see if anyone agrees with me.

The Dawkins Delusion?  Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine by Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath.

            I’m going to be extremely quick here, as this is a very short book (118 pages).  This is an attempt by some smart believers to tear down Dawkins’ arguments.  It definitely pokes some holes and shows where Dawkins’ reasoning is weak, but it has some flaws of its own.  The main flaw is the defensiveness of its tone.  It kinda feels like the Dawkins hurt the McGraths’ feelings.  They do a good job of reining it in, but its still there, like a smell that just won’t go away. 

            I think this book is a must read by anyone who was convinced by The God Delusion, because it might weaken such premature certainty.  It’s also excellent for someone like me who wanted to take the New Atheists seriously, but critically.  For believers, it might make you feel better about your faith, but it’s just not necessary.  After all, if you’re a believer, we both know you probably weren’t convinced by Dawkins anyway. 

Religious Knowledge: Part III (The Revenge)

Continued from Part II...

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali lists three acceptable forms of knowledge: direct experience, logical inference (based on the experience), or testimony from a trusted source.  To me, this is a sound epistemology.  The order in which the three sources of knowledge are listed goes from the most reliable to the least.  We trust our own experiences first, then what we can deduce or induce from them, and lastly, the accounts of others.  In the last is traditionally included scriptural sources.  In most religions, this important order is turned on its head:  the most important knowledge is that which exists in the scriptures, then what is inferred from them, then individual experience.  Absurd!  But the Sutras are essentially a mystic text, full of methods to bring about religious experiences for one’s self.  Therefore experience is considered primary. 

            The above thoughts are leading me to conclude that we must take the heights of religious speculation, presented as infallible dogma which we call scripture, with a sizable chunk of salt.  I believe that scripture still has value,  but most of its value is in its description of religious or mystic experience itself.  The interpretations of these experiences must be carefully weighed, preferably in light of our own experience.  Nothing should be taken as canon, as absolute, or infallible.  We may also find value in scripture when it contains actual mystic techniques used to obtain religious experience.  Here tradition is useful, as it is more likely that a method be tried and true than the metaphysic based on it. Based on these ideas, we may refine our list of religion’s claims of knowledge to a much shorter list, and each item should be kept distinct:

1)      Descriptions of the experiences of the founder.

2)      His interpretations of his experience (which includes the cultural information which informs it).  This may include the actions of the founder, for instance, giving to the poor, as these are the result of conclusions reached by his own primary experience.  Ie. if one experiences God as love, and one then reasons that one should therefore love one’s neighbor, charity should be considered an interpretation, rather than a religious experience in its own right.

3)      Others’ interpretations of his experience. 

4)      Recorded methods of attaining direct experience.

If scripture or tradition does not contain the above, we must either discard it or generously consider it to be either a purely cultural artifact (like literature) or a philosophy as open to criticism as Descartes or Plato. 

            Perhaps someone out there is asking themselves “but what about faith?”  It would be a bit much to tackle this exhaustively here, but I think its important to address in connection to the above.  St. Paul famously defined faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb 11:1).   But this clearly won’t satisfy any but the most credulous mind.  I may hope for Santa Claus, but that hope cannot in any way be characterized by evidence of his existence.  Similarly, the faith of billions is not evidence.  The experience of billions would be, however, if it could be reliably replicated by others.  But we can also say we have faith in something known and real – we might have faith in ourselves.  This is confidence in the face of the unknown.  Walking into an unknown situation, faith in one’s self is helpful, especially when based on evidence.  Faith in this sense means “believing something likely, though it is presently unknown or uncertain, based on our prior experience.”  We might immediately notice the similarity of this idea of faith to our idea of an “educated guess”, or inductive reasoning, and ultimately we can’t do without it.  Faith in our methods is certainly crucial in investigating anything (faith in the scientific method is necessary to really pursue science), but I must reiterate that faith is not evidence.  Faith is a temporary measure that bridges the gap between the known and unknown, at least until the unknown becomes the known.  This only happens through experience, and therefore I must conclude that religious faith can never be a source of knowledge, and that religious experience is the only real form of religious knowledge.

            The next step, and I think it is an important one, is to separate the actual content of experience from the theologies that spring from them.  For instance, we can separate the idea of God from the experience of God.  Perhaps I have an experience of something which appears to me to be eternal, or to be full of being, knowledge and bliss.  When I come down from my altered state of consciousness, I then ask myself “what the hell was that?”  I might well suppose it to be God, especially if I’ve heard about the supposed characteristics of God from others.  If we belong to a particular religious tradition, it’s likely I would then relate my experience to scripture and tradition.  Such adherence to a tradition may well even color the experience itself, so that this experience (which we might tentatively call God) takes on certain characteristics during or after the fact, becoming Shiva, or Jesus, or God the Father.  The fact that few believers have experiences that contradict their own scriptures, but may contradict those of other faiths makes me suppose that the conclusions reached by others (inherited metaphysics) may limit, or even shape the experiences of those who hold their beliefs as dogma.  In order to get at the actual, objective thing that is experienced as ‘God’ or whatever you choose to call it, we have to first separate the experience itself from whatever is layered upon it, especially a restrictive pie-in-the-sky metaphysic.  In order to do this, we must cultivate a new methodology to generate religious experience that is not dependant on metaphysics. Such a methodology would have some rather serious implications.  For one, morality that is based upon scripture and induction, for instance the Christian notion that morality is based on divine commandment and law, would be rejected insomuch as it claims to be absolute.  This would not necessarily lessen the beneficial implications of such ideas as “thou shalt not kill”, but such ideas cannot necessarily rest on the idea of divinity.  Any such behavioral prescriptions would be suspect so far as they claim to be based on the idea of “what God wants.”  Unless, of course, you heard God command such yourself. 

            But that just raises more questions.  Even direct religious experience is full of traps and pitfalls.  The modern neo-pagans are a great example of people working in the mystic tradition to achieve knowledge of deity.  But they too quickly can make themselves silly, as when High Priest #1 has a vision of Apollo that tells him to build a replica of the oracle of Delphi in his basement and that he shall be placed in charge of the millions who are about to return to the ancient religion of Greece.  It gets worse when High Priest #2 has his own vision of Apollo that tells him that High Priest #1 is a fraud and that he should build his own oracle in the shed behind his mom’s house.  Assuming that both individuals are truthful in their claims, the content of their religious knowledge differs.  What is a High Priest to do? 

            Reconstructist Pagans (probably the more intellectual of the bunch), who are trying to literally reconstruct the extinct religion of their choice or ancestry, have come up with an interesting solution to this problem.  They regard “the lore” as paramount, including primary sources from the period in question (for instance, Hesiod, Homer, Plutarch, etc, among the Greek reconstructionists), and treat matters of personal revelation as ‘Unsubstantiated Personal Gnosis,’ usually shortened to ‘UPG.’  This is treated as suspect, until it is ‘verified’ by others, or it becomes too emotionally convincing to stay objective about.   Of course, this treatment creates the same problems as religious metaphysics of the mainstream religions – personal experience is subordinated to some kind of scriptural canon.  This problem is often exacerbated in reconstructionism in that the religion in question went extinct at some point, and often much of the textural context has been lost to history.  In a group like the Norse Reconstructionists, there is a terrible lack of primary sources, and what remains to work with often enough comes down through descriptions of the pagans by Christian monks, who were clearly not impartial.  The tradition, wary of ‘UPG’, and having little to base their reconstruction on, may well feel rather incomplete (as is anything in the process of being reconstructed.)  This is not to say the endeavor is not worthwhile, but its difficulties must be addressed honestly.

            The real question, and one I don’t have anything resembling an adequate answer to, is how can we judge primary religious knowledge ('UPG')?  By what standards can we critique such experiences?  My intuition tells me that Carl Jung may have been one of the few who tackled this area, but that’s a whole different can of worms. 

            Clearly this is a bigger job than any one blogger can take on.  If you’ve actually read this far, I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

Religious Knowledge: Part II

Continued from Part I...

In classical philosophy the discipline of metaphysics was a very popular way to try to understand the universe and our place in it.  Literally meaning “after physics,” the word comes from the untitled section of Aristotle’s work that follows the section entitled “physics,” hence ‘metaphysics’.  Metaphysics, as the word is used in philosophy, refers to an attempt to formulate a comprehensive, all-inclusive theory of reality, defining and describing its nature.  Prior to the development of the scientific method, this included “natural philosophy” (the old name for science) as a sub-section.  The primary method for creating a ‘metaphysic’ is inductive reasoning – drawing general conclusions about the world from a finite amount of experiences.  Wikipedia gives us a great example of an inductive reasoning:  Every life form we know of depends on water to live (an observation.)  Therefore, every life form depends on water to live (an inductive conclusion).  Clearly the second is not necessarily true based on the observation, although based on what we know, we might assume that this will hold true, even on other planets.  But that’s an assumption, not a fact.  We can call induction, and thereby metaphysics itself, nothing more than an ‘educated guess’. 

            The problem with induction, and metaphysics as a whole, is that it relies on pure reason to take a stab in the dark about unobserved phenomena.  If we accept a particular metaphysic and its inductive reasoning, we tend to limit our thinking.  For instance, if we reason that, based on observed life (life on earth) needing water to live, all life, including that on other planets, needs water to live, then we think of potential life in a limited (although reasonable) way.  When looking for life on other planets, we look for water first.  That may or may not work out for us, but if life forms exist somewhere out there that do not require water, we are less likely to find them. 

            We use induction constantly.  We assume that because gravity has held true for all of known history, it will continue tomorrow, although there’s actually no certainty of that (no empirical observation).  We assume that, based on the fact that we are alive today, we will be alive tomorrow, although there’s clearly no guarantee.  Metaphysicians of the past have used induction to ‘prove’ the existence of God (Spinoza), a Platonic world of ideas, and the division of nature into mind and matter (Descartes), but thanks to the advent of empiricism and the scientific method, modern philosophy regards their conclusions as suspect.

            Turning back to religion, we find that their founders had certain religious experiences that we can equate with observation in science.  A certain uncommon thing (something different than average day-to-day experience) was experienced by a person, and this person tried to make sense of it.  In other words, the religious founder had an uncommon experience which impacted his current understanding of the world in one way or another, and in order to create a new worldview incorporating the new information, created a sort of metaphysical theory by inductive reasoning.  I know, I’m being extremely vague and general, but only because I want to include all major religions.  Each founder reacted differently, may have experienced differently, and certainly induced different conclusions.  Lets use the Rishis as an example:  Consciously searching after truth beyond the appearance of the world (based on what they heard from others), they used various methods (yoga, hallucinogens, etc) to bring about certain experiences.  They described these experiences as Indra, Brahman, Shiva, etc.  From this basis, they induced a metaphysical corpus which includes everything from moral law, social law, physical theories, even medical theories.  As each of these seers described things in different ways, their accounts were later organized by others into 4 Vedas, which were then connected to later commentaries and inductive speculation (the Upanishads), integrated with fictional epics (Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita), and refined by a commentarial tradition into Vedanta (meaning literally “The end, or conclusions, of the Vedas”).  Over thousands of years we come to a rich body of religious and cultural information we call Hinduism. 

            While we may look at this rich tradition and admire its complexity and beauty, we cannot ignore the problems.  The inductive reasoning that postulated that different types of people should follow laws appropriate to their role in society (dharma) became crystallized into the unfortunate caste system of the India.  Further, the deep cultural respect for tradition discouraged any attempt to look beyond what is in the scriptures (like only looking for life on water-rich planets), creating a setting in which thousands of years of guess-work based on limited spiritual experience defines one’s world view.  Intellectual life for a long time in India included logical debates which were less about reality or truth than about the clever ability to manipulate the massive scriptural corpus to prove one’s point.  My guess is based upon your guess, like a castle on a cloud. 

            The same certainly holds true for Christianity.  After the initial spate of religious experience among Christ and the Disciples, quite a few Gospels turned up around the ancient world.  Eventually the four we know became canon, around the time of St. Augustine (4^th century).  Many Gospels were rejected to make room for those four, most because they were either suspect in authenticity, or they conflicted with the metaphysics of those with the most influence.  The “Church Doctors” then put together their metaphysics based on the canon (and really, the New Testament doesn’t give us a lot of actual information about the world), and this became the Christian tradition.  The dogmas of a church are really just metaphysics, but regarded as infallible by tradition. Heresy is really just when one person’s inductive reasoning conflicts with the standard metaphysic.

            For this reason, empiricists tend to regard metaphysics and religion both as a waste of time, even calling religious or metaphysical statements “meaningless”.  David Hume wrote of classical metaphysics:

“When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles [Hume’s empirical principals], what havoc must we make?  If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?  No.  Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?  No.  Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing by sophistry and illusion.” – Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 

When we also consider the difficulties of knowledge and perception, we become even more skeptical that such grandiose conclusions, such as offered by metaphysicians and theologians, can ever attain to real knowledge.  Consider further the fact that if the speculations of metaphysically inclined ‘natural philosophers’ could be so wrong in their conclusions about the physical world that everyone can touch and see without any special effort, then what is the likelihood of any metaphysic being accurate in describing the nature of what is not seen by all?  I’d say it’s not bloody likely. 

            While most empiricists call for rejecting religion as a whole on these grounds, this seems to me a bit hasty.  As top-heavy as religious doctrine becomes, it is still based on human experience.  People have spiritual experiences all the time, to varying degrees of intensity, and I myself have had quite a few.  As skeptical as I am about most theology, I cannot doubt what I have experienced, just as you don’t doubt that the earth exists under your feet.  We also cannot doubt that unlike a perception of political rights, the scientific method, or written language, religion is a truly universal cultural phenomena.  Religious experience, in its primary sense, is universal to humanity, in the same way as spoken language, an upright walk, and music exist wherever there is man.  For a modern atheist to proclaim that there is no God is bad inductive reasoning.  He makes a negative observation: “I have never experienced God” and by inductive reasoning concludes “there is no God.”  By that same logic we might go from “I have never seen Transformers 2” and therefore “Transformers 2 doesn’t exist.”  As much as I wish that were the case, just because I lack experience of it, does not make it not exist.  Mr. Atheist might then say “but Dave, you can read reviews of Transformers 2, hear about it from others, and even go rent it yourself and watch it.  You can verify its existence, but you can’t do that with God.”  To which I must respond that there are no shortage of churches out there who profess God’s existence, you can hear about him from people who’ll even come knock on your door to chat, and according to the mystics (like the yogis), you can even train yourself to eventually experience God.  While that might take years, it also takes quite a bit of training to personally verify most scientific claims.  Most atheists, secure in their own inductive reasoning, are unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to even attempt having a religious experience.  We might liken this to the fact that, despite the efforts of those who might insist on its existence, I’m unwilling to sacrifice my time, intelligence or sanity to verify the existence of Transformers 2 by actually watching it.  

Cont. in Part III

Religious Knowledge: Part I

I’ve been thinking a lot about religious knowledge this week, and I wanted to try to organize my thoughts here.  The exercise was helpful, but boy did it take forever.  Due to its length (and it could have been much longer), I’ve separated this into three parts to make it easier to digest.  The thoughts herein are rather raw, so I would love to hear from anyone who reads this.  Please, comment away, and let me know if my reasoning is sound.

            Before we proceed, we have to first figure out what I’m talking about when I say ‘religious knowledge.’  What I don’t mean is knowledge about religion; facts like knowing the 10 commandments or which religions trace their lineage back to the biblical Abraham.  These facts may or may not be important historically or socially, but they are clearly not required for participation in religion.  What I mean by religious knowledge is the special knowledge professed by adherents of a particular religion.  A Christian might claim to “know” that Christ is the Lord, or that the Bible is the literal word of God.  A Buddhist may claim that the nature of life is suffering, but there is a way to salvation from it.  All religions, in one form or another, claim to possess special knowledge, and in an effort towards building an understanding of these claims, as well as a means to analyze them, these claims need to be given a close look. 

            To critique religious knowledge is an unpopular pastime.  If a physicist creates a new theory, dozens of other experts in that field attempt to reproduce the experiments that gave rise to the theory, and then follow the methodology and logic of the original physicist to see if the new theory holds water.  Trying to do the same thing with religion is often frowned upon, or is considered impossible.  People will inevitably say “people have the right to believe as they like,” or “how can you judge another culture’s ways?” By this logic, burning children as witches as is done even today in Africa, or throwing acid on the face of a woman refusing to wear a Burqa is perfectly fine and reasonable.  After all, these are cultures other than ours and we would be cultural imperialists to foist our ways upon others.  We need to be able to ask ourselves “what is the function of religion, and do x, y, and z practices serve this role or hinder it?”  It is clear, at least to me, that for the betterment of humanity, we need to be free to call people out on their barbarism when religion serves to degrade us rather than upraise us. (For more on this, check out Sam Harris' excellent Ted Talk).

            Some people say that critiquing religion is completely different than a hard science like physics, and we can never verify religious claims at all.  Religious criticism, at best, becomes roughly as objective as a food critic.  To this idea, I have to say “bullshit.”  If religions claim knowledge, this knowledge had to come from somewhere, and in all cases, this knowledge came through the medium of human beings, just like us.  I’ll get into this more in a bit. First, let’s look at what types of things religions claim.  Let me know if I missed anything:

1)      Religions make claims about reality.  This is the area of the most overlap with science, as well as the most conflict.  Religions usually have something to say about the world around us, perhaps its origin through a creation story, how it will end, even what it might be ‘made’ from (its substance).  This is also where God (when he appears) usually comes into the mix, either as a creator, the metaphysical foundation of material existence, etc. 

2)      Religions make claims about morality.  Usually based on their claims about reality, religions claim to tell us what is right and wrong behavior, how to live our lives, what a good life entails, and how to engage with our fellow beings and environment.

3)      Religions make claims about our value and place in the world (Our “life myth”).  This would tell us what our place in the world is, the relationship between humanity and the animal kingdom, as well as each other. 

4)      Religions make claims about the “problem” of life, as well as a means for overcoming it.  Every religion identifies a problem that should be addressed:  sin for Christianity, forgetfulness of God in Islam, desire and suffering in Buddhism, ignorance in Hinduism, and so on.  Each touches upon a rather important and near-universal feeling that something isn’t right with the world, that the world is not as it “aught” to be, or at least that we are not as we aught to be.  After all, if we were just hunky-dory from the start, why would religion be so prevalent and popular?  I think this last, in combination with moral guidance, sense of place, and certainty of the nature of the world provides the major psychological force of religious ‘needs’. 

5)      Religion creates community and is a vehicle for non-religious information.  This can be cultural (as in the connection of art to the Church), or practical (networking).  But this is not really a form of religious knowledge, so we’ll ignore it for now.

            Assuming that all religious knowledge falls into one of the above, we must ask for the source of this knowledge.   Ask the Christians and they will point to the Bible, ask the Muslims and they’ll point to the Koran, ask the Hindus and they’ll point to the Vedas.  Ask them where these various books came from and the answer is the same – God.  But clearly none of them imagine God sitting down somewhere, pen in hand, to write these books, and then plopping them onto some prophet’s lap saying “here’s some eternal truth for you, go forth and make 4 billion photocopies.”  No, tradition has Moses writing down the Pentateuch, the Evangalists writing down the Gospels, Mohammed writing down the Koran, and the Rishis (Seers or Sages) writing down the Vedas.

            Essentially, all religious knowledge originates with human beings who had certain experiences, told others, and perhaps wrote them down.  Swami Vivekananda puts this perfectly in his book Raja Yoga:

            “…if you go to the fountainhead of Christianity, you will find that it is based upon experience.  Christ said he saw God; the disciples said they felt God; and so forth.  Similarly, in Buddhism, it is Buddha’s experience.  He experienced certain truths, saw them, came in contact with them, and preached them to the world. …Thus it is clear that all the religions of the world have been built upon that one universal and adamantine foundation of all our knowledge – direct experience.”

            Of course, this is the same exact foundation as found in the empiricism of the physical sciences.  Theories come from what is observed, or experienced.  The difference is in the method, but also in the terms and the way the terms are understood.  In empiricism, experience leads to theories, which are by nature tentative, and open to change; and in religion, experience leads to doctrine, dogma, and tradition, which is canonical, and not open to change.

Cont. in Part II.