20/12/2012 - Atheism and stuff...

The problem with the religion vs atheism thing is it feels like you can't escape being categorised in a debate where the polarities of both sides may have nothing to do with what you might feel about the world.

As Alan Watts points out it feels a little like...

Either give us no God or else a God with a definate character and clear moral will and precise standards who will not be pushed around, a God with biblical quality.

Religion seems to be a spectrum where the poles are diametrically opposed. At one end it's more defined as spirituality and can be a psychological breaking down of concepts and dogma to allow you to subjectively and directly find connection, unity and rejoice in life - on earth. At the other it's psychologically building up concepts, dogma and fundamentalism that can take you away from connection with this life and leave you with a projected illusion of it all coming good (or bad) in an after life. The first being the whole point and the second missing the point so entirely it's amazing and can be the source of great conflict. It does offer a lot of people comfort, security and a community social structure though so it's valuable.

The first is characterised more by the Eastern religions - Hinduism, and Buddhism (though it could be argued that isn't a religion). The second by Islam and Christianity. Despite these tendancies any religion can have fundamental dogmatic elements, Buddhism included, the same as they all contain at there very core a message of in this life time peace, unity and interconnection, however misconstrued.

A good example of the general difference though at a more obvious level is that in Buddhism you are told that if you see the Buddha on the spiritual path, kill him. Your concept of the Buddha stands in the way of a realisation your are the Buddha. With Jesus it's the opposite. He is God's only son and stands apart and he has to be treated with great reverence at all times. You can see that Buddhism is more like a means toward an end for some kind of personal transformation, realising your own 'Buddha nature' or in Christian language 'God'. You could call it many thing, nature, wholeness, emptiness, brahman, spirit, or whatever you choose. It's just a description of the unity and essence of things, and is yet mysterious and undefinable. You don't have to call it anything, it can be a kind of nothingness if you want. It doesn't need to be religious. At it's bare minimum is just the 'isness' of things of which we are all part and indeed as it's essence is a felt connection trying to label it creates a thought barrier.

It's just that with Jesus he potentially holds you back because you are told he is the only son of God, when really we all are, if that's your definition of things. Realising Buddha nature in Christianity may be heresy. That's all Jesus did and look what happened to him! (though as a side note people suggest that the Jesus story is a metaphor for personal spiritual rebirth and isn't literal.) But Jesus has been permitted by the forces that be and the gradual shaping of the religion to be the only real deal and acts as a gate between people and 'God'. This kind of reverence though is a religious method in itself. Through the act of worshipping something outside of yourself when it's positive it can be humbling enough to make you realise you are connected with it, you are less lost in your own 'ego' (When it's negative it becomes part of your ego and pushes you further away). Realising you are 'God' in a real sense isn't like some kind of meglomaniac thing, that's the opposite. That's when you say YOU are God. Rather than God is you, and all things. It's more a humble realisation that your own character is transcended by the wholeness of things.

There is a general difference though that in Western thought and religions there is a feeling of time linearity. Beginnings and ends. That is why people have so much of a problem with how things began. This is a point that many Christians can't get their head around. It all must have began at some point and at that point something must have created it. Assumptions go very deep. Remove the need for a beginning and half the debate about everything vanishes and anyhow this timeless quality is one of the facets of God.

In the east it's more circular...they don't seem to have so much of a problem with the beginning of things. Just the same as you can't define the start of a circle they are quite happy with universes cycling in and out of existence forever with no beginning.

But anyhow It's clear that if you can see this spectrum then religion cannot be defined as one thing. It isn't all dogma based fundamentalism and nonsense as some athiests would have you believe. Some of them don't get the real value of a kind of living psychological type religion, just in the same way some religious people don't get it.

I'm not advocating by the way that to try to feel more connected to life you need to follow a religious path. Just that this is the point of some religious paths and they can't be cast off with everything else.

As Alan Watts would point out the very two sidedness of such debates like atheism vs religion actually points toward a kind of unity where the complementary opposites link up. The 2 sides need each other. Would 'intelligent design to God's plan' mean anything if you didn't have the concept of an 'unintelligent meaningless mechanic process, without a plan', and vice versa. They are complementary ideas. Just like you can't have up without down, left without right and light without dark (paraphrasing Alan Watts) you can't have the idea of intelligence without the idea of unintelligence. They are fuel for each others fire.

Ultimately life itself is sensual...it's colours and patterns and sensations and beating hearts...it makes no difference to what it is whether you say it's intelligent and planned or mechanical and random. You can have theories be them atheistic or religious, but the closest you can get is by stop deciding what it is or isn't and just see it as it is.

The kind of spiritual religion i am talking about here is a type of self negating religion. Once you get the point, you can get off the boat. If you get a sense of unity that's so all-inclusive there is no need to be tied to any one religion. You can be all religions or no religions. This is the true point of religion, seeing things as one. To make you see through it all. Taking you to a living reality where the distinctions don't matter anymore. If you felt that in the first place the entire trip is unneccessary. It just a helper if life becomes a struggle to reorientate yourself. It is entirely unneccessary should you not feel the inclination or need to find greater connection, or already feel connected. It's only neccessary if there is a problem and even then there are many paths that wouldn't be classed as religious.

This type of religion isn't anti-scientific just as science is quite harmonious with this type of religion. It isn't dogmatically claiming anything. All the word God means here is a sense of unity, that things are ok as they are...and a feeling that needs not be pushed onto people.

Indeed science is now looking for unified fields of energy - the 'Higgs Boson' and already has found that matter can act as waves as well as particles, suggesting some kind of sea of of interconnection. I really don't know much about science but it seems it is moving from an idea that the universe is made of lots of tiny seperate bits to an idea of an interconnected field. It certainly isn't opposed to religion, just parts of it.

But even if you do meet a particularly prickly athiest who is hellbent on disproving any kind sense of 'God' whatsover, no matter how openly defined it's important to remember that a kind of unitive subjectivity is inately disproveable and it does't make much sense anyway.

The scientific proveable method much enphasised by athiests (which is of course very valuable) is like looking outward as from the vantage point of a subject to the objects and trying to find the truth or facts of things within those objects. Like the subject is contained within an arena of objects.

With psychological religious/spiritual ideas is more the inverse with an enphasis on subjective experience and the things contained with in. The results are a known subjective reconognition - self confirming. In terms of proof of whatever you may be feeling, whatever that means, the personal recongnition is it. Its subjective nature obviously cannot be verified in a objective test. Like there is a gap of logic - an inside out/outside in type thing. This is maybe why you can't get much agreement between prickly objective types and vague gooey subjective types. (Prickles vs Goo is one of Alan Watt's concepts.) It's like the gap between art and science. One being subjective and sensual the other based on objective knowledge of hard facts.

Im really not sure how it works or if i am in anyway accurate and maybe they lead to the same place somehow. There is this metaphysical side to science and religion where they start to enter each others philosophical territory, just with different methodologies. Science is looking for the 'God' Particle. It's just that there's a big difference between finding an interconnection factually and giving it a name, and feeling an interconnection as part of yourself.

On the whole though science and religion have different aims and both fill a role. It's important to find out about things, and is good for mankind (arguibly) to have to wonders of the developments of science, just as it's important to try and find a connection with life at a personal spiritual level. It seems complementary in that science creates a meaning vacuum - This vacuum gets filled in by religion and sets people off on spiritual quests where if they are fruitful connection becomes the meaning. Scientific methodology is of course very valuable in it's own territory. It's just that some atheists force it on people and may not see the full picture themselves. Insisting on provable scientific methodology becomes a hurdle in some areas because it objectifies things and takes you away from you. Of course though the scientific methodology dispels the objectified dogma and fundamentalism of much conventional religion and is understandably enphasised in the debate against such irrationalites.