(Durant review continued) Because we live, supposedly, in an enlightened age (the September 11th events in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania may suggest otherwise), we are free to examine our beliefs prior to invoking the assumption of validity (where such assumption is renamed "faith" by religious traditions). What is the best way to approach this? By beginning your inquiries by not assuming at the offset that a religious text is true (or infallible, inerrant, or divinely inspired) simply because the text itself claims to be true (or infallible, inerrant, or divinely inspired), you enforce a neutrality neither predetermined nor indoctrinated by religious assumption, tradition, or cultural prejudice. An assumption of truth (or infallibility, inerrancy, divine inspiration) at the offset will twist and distort every examination and argument following to fit and prove the assumption. If you know the Bible is the Word of God only because you can quote from it to prove it the Word of God, or quote prophecies from it to prove prophecies are fulfilled, or quote supernatural events to prove the supernatural, or quote third-person witnesses from it to prove witnesses existed, everything you're quoting is based on the assumption that what you're quoting is valid and true. The Muslim can assume the same thing about the Koran, the Latter-day Saint about the Book of Mormon, the Hindu about the Upanishads, etc. The ability to quote does not automatically herald truth. What is quoted must stand up to concentrated scrutiny, to reason, the mechanics of the real world, the historical perspective and influences of the time, etc, and without supernatural assumptions going in. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Simply quoting the source to prove the source is an assumption bordering on a distinct and perverse pathology. It is not enough to simply parrot what you believe by way of creed or article of faith or to merely recite without comprehension the often error-prone English translation of long disused languages. Each religion is but a small piece in a very large and intricate puzzle, and the fundamentalists, in refusing to look at the other pieces, even unaware that many other pieces exist, miss out on celebrating the larger diorama that comes with hard work and diligence and industry and exploratory knowledge. And yet it is these very fundamentalists who believe they know god's will, god's plan, and god's design for mankind simply by assuming the validity of their one piece of the puzzle while refusing to acknowledge all the other pieces scattered about the table. Still, when it comes to religion, ideology, or claims of the paranormal, a great many people will happily avoid making any serious inquiries or exploring critical evidence in order to entertain beliefs that are wholly unfounded, misguided, or outright impossible. They can readily tell you who and what they believe, they just can't tell you how or why, the implication being that the object of belief has become more important than the motive impelling belief, a compulsion that somehow overrides one's sincere obligation to confirm claims beyond surreptitious sidestepping or the disregard of physical reality. While people may be loathe in admitting that their beliefs are motivated, it is only because the physiological and psychological kinetics of the belief process go unrecognized or are deliberately neglected. This is certainly understandable, given human nature. Harboring a belief is easy. It's effortless. It requires no exertion and urges no proof. Simple acknowledgment is all it takes and you're free to believe any outrageous thing you'd like. Truth seeking, as I've said before, is a different beast entirely. Seeking truth is hard work. It takes time. It takes energy. It takes a lifelong commitment. And above all else, it runs the risk of dismantling cherished beliefs while demanding a keen and piercing mindful honesty. Unless you're willing to be honest with yourself and admit your own biases and prejudices, hopes and wishes, phobias and fears, assumptions, preconceptions, ignorance and inexperience, you are not seeking truth but only ways to continue serving and preserving your own insulated belief system. To a truth-seeker this simply will not do, having conceded striving and suffering after truth a more irresistible vocation then working to perpetuate those creature comforts awarded by untested belief. For the sake of truth, the seeker is willing to sacrifice it all, even those placating promises of eternal life, and embrace the undying fires of hell. If God exists and condemns critical thinking and rational inquiry as immoral and ungodly, then the truth-seeker has no other recourse than to find a haven in hell, if not a heaven. Andrew Benson's book is a great introduction to begin research in this field, but be forewarned. There are so many paths that will open up due to this research that you will find yourself looking down ten thousand other avenues of inquiry. Are you prepared to do the work, begin the journey, take that first step? It all matters on how dedicated you are in discovering truth as to merely fortifying your subjective beliefs.
A little meta-humor: http://www.xkcd.com/c54.html http://www.xkcd.com/c167.html http://www.xkcd.com/c13.html
Many have dismissed Richard Dawkins as "just another fundamentalist." He gives a nice response to that here: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/203/story_20334.html The entire article is worth reading, but this excerpt stands out. I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything like that. It is all too easy to confuse fundamentalism with passion. I may well appear passionate when I defend evolution against a fundamentalist creationist, but this is not because of a rival fundamentalism of my own. It is because the evidence for evolution is overwhelmingly strong and I am passionately distressed that my opponent canât see it--or, more usually, refuses to look at it because it contradicts his holy book. My passion is increased when I think about how much the poor fundamentalists, and those whom they influence, are missing. The truths of evolution, along with many other scientific truths, are so engrossingly fascinating and beautiful; how truly tragic to die having missed out on all that! Of course that makes me passionate. How could it not? But my belief in evolution is not fundamentalism, and it is not faith, because I know what it would take to change my mind, and I would gladly do so if the necessary evidence were forthcoming. It does happen. I have previously told the story of a respected elder statesman of the Zoology Department at Oxford when I was an undergraduate. For years he had passionately believed, and taught, that the Golgi Apparatus (a microscopic feature of the interior of cells) was not real: an artifact, an illusion. Every Monday afternoon it was the custom for the whole department to listen to a research talk by a visiting lecturer. One Monday, the visitor was an American cell biologist who presented completely convincing evidence that the Golgi Apparatus was real. At the end of the lecture, the old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said--with passion--"My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years." We clapped our hands red. No fundamentalist would ever say that. In practice, not all scientists would. But all scientists pay lip service to it as an ideal--unlike, say, politicians who would probably condemn it as flip-flopping. The memory of the incident I have described still brings a lump to my throat.
Does it? One could argue that hardness is beautiful. If mother nature weren't such a bitch, evolution could never have done its work. Without suffering, beauty would never have formed -- nor sentient life to experience it. One could also argue that cosmic uncertainty is merciful. If the overwhelming message is one of no defined purpose, that means you get to come up with your own purpose. You get to find meaning, to create meaning, in whatever you want. How merciful that self-defined purpose is available to all sentient creatures. No geographical, material or cultural restrictions to get in the way. And better still, there is no compelling metaphysical reason to take this life seriously at all... unless you want to. Life can be a great quest, a total lark, or something trivial to be endured for a short whiff of time. It is up to you... and your responsibility to make the most fulfilling choice. Or not. Whatever you wish. Ironic, that. The unknowable cold hard universe is, ultimately, more beautiful and merciful than any of the Gods man invented. Cultural memes spread by a process of Lamarckian, rather than Darwinian, evolution. We continue to figure things out, and better answers continue to take hold in generational time. This too is beautiful -- and merciful.
I was never "the Christ" as though you are not. All are emergent god-men. Like popcorn popping, not all the kernels emerge at the same time, or in exactly the same form. All kernels have the potential to pop. More kernels pop when the heat is turned up. Some refuse to pop. These are the one's that would make me "special"...at the expense of their own emerging, and those who listen to them. It's just a game that some want to perpetuate longer than other's...the game of separation and differences. In the end, we are all One bag of popcorn...so to speak. Whenever one kernel pops, it means the rest of the kernels are getting ready to end their own game of being "just" a kernel. Ludicrous arguments are excellent means to perpetuate games of smallness. If there was a diabolical being out there creating religious myths, such a being would focus on the "specialness" of a few in order to keep the common man down. Another approach to the same result is to focus on the specialness of "none", in order to keep the common man down. These are all just ways to have experiences. When you are "weary" of such experiences, come to me without the prejudices that perpetuate such experiences. I will tell you about the specialness of ALL. When an enlightened master shows up on the planet, it is simply that God has given up playing the game of the separate self through that body-mind. That is all. An enlightened mind realizes that there is only God. And that in that freedom, it is free to show up as the body-mind in whatever way it wants, while the body-mind lasts. Jesus, a Christ
can't contradict to anything you say ... but does THAT take hundreds of pages? i am afraid someone is using this thread to do some self therapy on the one hand and some missionary exercise on the other ... if you ask me, that mix is not too interesting or inspiring.
Speaking of missionary exercises -- this was quite amusing: http://my.break.com/media/view.aspx?ContentID=185806