"Although we generally live within the limits imposed by our ordinary uses of attention . . . most of us know, however dimly, that extraordinary experiences are possible. The problem with religion is that it blends this truth so thoroughly with the venom of unreason. Take Christianity as an example: it is not enough that Jesus was a man who transformed himself to such a degree that the Sermon on the Mount could be his heart's confession. He also had to be the Son of God, born of a virgin, and destined to return to earth trailing clouds of glory. The effect of such dogma is to place the example of Jesus forever out of reach. His teaching ceases to be a set of empirical claims about the linkage between ethics and spiritual insight and instead becomes a gratuitous, and rather gruesome, fairy tale. According to the dogma of Christianity, becoming just like Jesus is impossible. One can only enumerate one's sins, believe the unbelievable, and await the end of the world."
Sam Harris, The End of Faith
I recently finished reading "The End of Faith," by Sam Harris. Few books have that effect, that real gut-punching effect, where you just sit back at the end and say, wow. Harris gives an honest and upfront analysis of the disparities between logical reason and many of the world's religious dogmas, and the threats organized religion has historically and currently posed to society. I'll admit, I was skeptical at first. Sometimes I'm disappointed to find books like this to be somewhat pretentious, and a often far fetched. Not the case.
I shared the above quote because it was one of my favorite from the book. What if we could just accept at face value that Jesus was a man with life-changing ideas of how to treat one another; with compassion, love, and acceptance? Is it truly necessary that we suspend our perceptions of reality to blindly accept impossible aspects? What if instead of suspending logical thought and knowledge of known facts, we could suspend our willingness to accept age old myths as pure "fact"? How would that transform society? How would that transform our world?
Just some food for thought. I realize it isn't for everyone, but if you are interested you can buy the book on Amazon, here. Sam Harris also has some other pretty interesting books and lectures about the moral landscape and free will. He already has a book scheduled to release this September called Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, that I'm very anxious to read. You can read more about him and his books on his blog, here.
Disclaimer: If you feel inclined to discuss these ideas, by all means do! I'm always up for a good discussion. But please, no hateful "this is blasphemy" comments, as it really only perpetuates the point. Thanks, friends.
When is your book coming out? I would read it!!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I think this is a super brave post. I respect you so much for reading books and considering viewpoints that aren't as common around these parts. Haha. I think Christianity (and undoubtedly most other major religions) have been incredibly distorted. We have a tendency to try and make God more like ourselves because we think it justifies our behavior. For example, that loving-your-enemy stuff? That's HARD. And when we fail, we have a hard time dealing with our failure. (If you have never read anything about cognitive dissonance, I highly suggest the book "Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me" By Aronson and Tavris--holy interesting. It will change the way you see most everything!)
ReplyDeleteFor me personally, the supernatural/"impossible" aspects are essential to my faith. From my perspective, if that component isn't there, then God doesn't exist, because His existence in itself is kinda supernatural. So, then, atheism. (I have lots of friends who are atheists and they are awesome people--some of my favorite people on the planet. I have nothing against atheists, because every one I know comes by it honestly, and it's not an easy thing to be--especially in the Bible belt of a fairly religious country. I respect people so much more for really searching themselves and doing research to find out what they really believe than for just believing something because their parents do or because they were just raised that way. BUT, atheism is just not for me--and I come by my beliefs just as honestly.) And if God can't do the impossible--do things that defy reason and logic as we know it--then is He really God? A God that I can wrap my mind around wouldn't really be a God worth worshipping; if He can't do those supernatural, impossible things, then He's really no different or better than I am....so why would I worship Him?
I understand if/that people belief that Jesus is just a dude with good ideas about how to treat people; I just don't think that that statement can be called a spiritual belief. I think Einstein was just a dude with good ideas about physics and the way the world works, but that's not a spiritual belief--it's just an observation or a (in this case, very widely held) opinion. I think for me, it always goes back to that supernatural aspect; if faith doesn't have that, it's really just an opinion.
This has become a super long novel. Basically I think you can have spirituality without religion, but that you can't have spirituality without faith in something greater, supernatural, or a little bit impossible. :)
This was super thought-provoking and I'm so glad you posted it. It took me a few days to reply because I was trying to figure out exactly what I thought about it! Way to take up a giant chunk of my brain space, Allicyn! ;)
Thank you so much for your wonderful comment! I really loved reading it, and appreciate your honesty about how you really felt about it. Since posting, I've run across some disagreement. However, I absolutely love having conversations about it, simply because they're happening. These are conversations we need to be having, especially in this day and age where religion (and not necessarily in ideal form) dictates a great part of society and our politics - ugh. My biggest purpose in this post was to spark that conversation, because I think it's one that many people, religious or not, refuse to have.
DeleteOn atheism - I hate that word. I sincerely do, because it is attached to this connotation that implies that I, or anyone else for that matter, am deficient in some way as a human being because I reject an idea of an other-worldly creator. Which really bums me out, because I, like you, know many "atheists" who are very thoughtful and intelligent people. End rant on atheism. Anyways. I am not an atheist. I absolutely acknowledge a spiritual and supernatural aspect to my existence. I recognize that I didn't just end up on this planet by chance, and something/some being, does indeed exist.
However - I don't know what exactly that "being" is. And I'm perfectly content in admitting that! I am fascinated by people and how through their personal experiences they create that being in their lives. I truly think it is amazing that everyone experiences spirituality in a different and very personal way. I've done a lot of reading involving different belief systems of the world, particularly eastern religious thought. Which is very, very different than our western thought. Living in midwest America, Christianity is basically the default setting. But this conversation would be very different if it were happening on the other side of the world. At that point "faith" would take on an entirely new meaning. And while I could go on forever about how we have so deeply isolated ourselves from new ideas about faith that we would even consider, it is not a new point to bring up that there are many stories, much like that of Jesus, and they all say very different things.
I agree with you in a sense, that one cannot have spirituality without faith in something supernatural or a little bit impossible. I really do. However, I believe knowledge of those things far surpasses the limits of my human mind, and are much greater ideas than I could ever conceive. Therefor, when it comes to the Bible (a book written thousands of years ago by mere men, that was changed and edited by kings and popes for political gain) I just can't willingly suspend my senses of reality enough to believe that Jesus was the literal son of God born a virgin, Moses spoke to our creator through a bush that was on fire, and Lazarus was for real raised from the dead. Its the same reason I do not believe that the Buddha was enlightened after almost 50 days of fasting (holy hungry), or that Muhammed spoke to angels. I do believe supernatural occurrences are possible, but I am very content that they are so brilliant that they are beyond my comprehension, or anyone's for that matter enough to write it in a book.
I know that faith in the Bible and such supernatural occurrences is a very important and motivating factor in many peoples lives. I by no means condemn that, at all! It just isn't what's right for me and my life.
Oh glory. Now I have also written another. I probably could have made a whole separate blog post about this, but I'm glad that I really got it all out on here. But in short, I do believe there is something out there. Maybe it's a God. And if it is, I think he'll be pleased that I really used the brain he created me with. :)