Perspective from an anxious 2020

[We take a break from our running series of contemplations on the Apostles' Creed, which will be taken up again in due course.  This post is by a different member of our group.]

Not at the end, but in the middle:

The Universe will collapse into another big bang;

    but beforehand

Galaxies will collide;

    but beforehand

The Sun will overheat and expand, swallowing and burning up all its planets and planetary matter;

    but beforehand

The Moon’s orbit will continue to enlarge, causing it to depart the Earth, causing great changes on Earth;

    but beforehand

Tectonic plate activity will have swallowed up Earth's current land mass and will have formed new geological shapes in its crust;

    but beforehand

The supercaldera at Yellowstone Park will have exploded and thrown a dust mantle around the Earth, blocking out all sunlight;

    but beforehand

Life on Earth shall long ago have forgotten humankind and carry on in ways almost alien;

    but beforehand

Several ice ages will have come and gone;

    but beforehand

The human species will have come to an end, probably having made itself and its ecosystem of other life forms extinct;

    but beforehand

My family, and everyone I know, will die after a course lengthened by human knowledge of medicine and food production, having lived lives more or less exploitative of the Earth; our lives profligate, cruel and unthinking, or not so much

None of this can be fixed:  so what’s to worry about?

This worry is partly about whether I am doing it “right”

But there is no greater adult or adult substitute looking over my shoulder to see and judge what I am doing

So it’s tempting to think that I have to be my own judge and jury; except that there’s conscience

And where does conscience come from?

The operational rules of biophysics that confer evolutionary advantage are embodied in human conscience

But where do the operational rules of biophysics come from?

When the universe collapses into another big bang, expansion, subsequent collapse, and continuing process, the operational rules that govern that, where do they come from?

Well:

All there is      is the ground of being.

And everything.  In those terms.  Is all.  Alright.

Religion isn't a provisional truth for scrutiny by a group

This is, as usual for this blog, a personal view, which should not be taken to represent the views in the round of the group of people meeting under the Unitarian banner in Ringwood.

Recently I have been interested to read What Should Citizens Believe?: Exploring the issues of truth, reason & society, by Henry Tam ISBN-13: 978-1548183103 and ISBN-10: 1548183105 published in association with Citizen Network in 2018.

The aim of the book is to share a range of ideas that can help us to test the legitimacy of our beliefs. It was written in the shadow of the hashtag #fakenews and is a very helpful study by this respected academic at Birkbeck College, University of London who is also Director of the Forum of Youth Participation & Democracy, University of Cambridge.

I have also had my interest engaged by the series of programmes currently being screened by the BBC, about a group of people holding a range of different stances on faith, undertaking a pilgrimage to Istabul, along The Sultan’s Trail.

This post brings the two engagements together, and sets them both against direct personal experience.

~~~~~~~~~

Dr Henry Tam brings this to me:

“Objectivity in discourse is only possible if people follow the principle of cooperative enquiry, which demands that … an assertion [be] judged with reference to the extent to which informed participants, deliberating under conditions of thoughtful and un-coerced exchanges, would concur.  Any provisional consensus reached by one group of individuals must in turn be open to possible revisions subject to examinations carried out with input from other groups.  The ultimate strength of any truth claim rests with the likelihood of that claim surviving the critical deliberations of ever-expanding circles of enquirers.”

Many in the Unitarian movement, to which I align myself, might agree that this mode of enquiry is something to be aimed at, though we might also agree that, in practice, little of this cooperative enquiry is being undertaken in our movement at present. 

Nonetheless, the reason there is a Unitarian denomination at all is that certain people among Church congregations throughout the centuries have not accepted dogma, as presented from the pulpit or lectern, without critique and scrutiny against the dictates of conscience.  Secretly or openly, assertions have then been tested in group discourse.  Schisms and re-groupings have then followed; and periodically, successive re-groupings have occurred, in the light of subsequent new discourse and scrutiny.

Whether we consider the present state of the Unitarian movement in UK as burgeoning or diminishing, the movement continues to encompass a healthy degree of the testing of ideas, and tends to reject superstition and modes of ritual that do not in some way focus the minds and hearts of the participants.  Ambitious and optimistic UK Unitarians would hope that our way of being a movement should also aim at rejecting arbitrary hierarchies and exclusionary habits or principles; but few would claim we have attained to that way of being, yet.

So, Unitarians are people who base their lives of spirit and faith in ideas that have been tested with others.  Then the participatory events we engage in, as congregations and groups, aim to make safe spaces for personal worship or spiritual growth, founded on inclusive, common denominators, that have been felt to adhere to broadly acceptable modes.

In short (in rather old-fashioned and very broad-brush language), it might be said that the religion of Unitarians is God-given but passed through the lens of human - and humanist - filters.  It is openly recognised that it is the people who make the Unitarian mode of religion, as experienced in groups, what it is.

So I do understand, and take part in, group critique in the determination of a provisional truth.

~~~~~~~~~

Watching the television programme Pilgrimage: the road to Istanbul, I sat bolt upright when a self-declared atheist pilgrim, in talking to the adherent of a world faith, made reference to “the imaginary people you believe in,” or some wording very similar to that.

I get so bored with misrepresentations and false assumptions and narratives about religion.

I can see that, for some people, religion is defined in terms of, “Are you Christian?  Muslim?  Jewish?  Hindu?  Sikh?” but those labels for me are merely cultural backdrops.  Every age of humankind on every continent has had its wisdom teachers, seers, seemingly miraculous characters, mystics, and more recently in relative terms, its own scriptures.  Gaps in knowledge have ever, always, been backfilled in the human imagination by the good old catch all, “It must have been God / the gods.”  Yes there are distinctions to be made between these labels to do with religion and faith, but they all fall in the same category: all these faiths’ ways of looking at things are cultural stage settings.  And that is all.

If religion were football, equivalent labels would do nothing more than say which team a person plays for.  The labels “Yeovil Town FC”, “AFC Bournemouth”, “MUFC”, “my school’s first team” etc convey nothing of the essence of what it is like to play football: what it is to learn the tools and techniques in theory, to keep personally fit, to train as a group together; what it is to feel the pre-match butterflies, to walk out onto the pitch on a rainy day, the tumble of being tackled, the pain of defeat and the joys of victory.

Football is not everyone’s game and not everyone will have developed the wealth of connotations behind the word ”football” that spring instantly to mind for others.  And that’s ok.

Well: religion is not everyone’s game and not everyone will have developed the wealth of connotations behind the word “religion” that spring instantly to mind for others.  And that’s ok too.

But when I heard what I heard on the television programme, what I first noticed was this: whilst it would not normally be considered good manners to casually say to a footballer, “the pointless exercises of competence you take part in, against other teams, every weekend,” the atheist did not instinctively feel it to be bad manners to say “the imaginary people you believe in”.

Dwelling on this for a moment, I then noticed that the words used said even more about the bad-mannered atheist.  The turn of phrase used revealed that the word “religion” had not been unpacked by the atheist, despite the fact that they were due to take part in a programme, a staged commitment, that was deliberately constructed, and planned well in advance, to explore what faith and belief, of all kinds, might be.  I was struck by how disengaged, ill-prepared, or perhaps lazy, the atheist was showing themself to be.

The atheist thought they understood the word “religion” because they already had in mind an idea of what it is, and what the doctrines of some of the world faiths are.  The atheist was treating “religion” as those ideas that Dr Tam was talking about.  I surmised that it was as if the atheist — with a certain amount of justification, I would agree — were speaking from the platform that no ever-expanding circle of enquirers in the 21st century world would be likely, in un-coerced exchanges, to concur that human persons rise from the dead or take night-time journeys in the heavens (whatever they may be) to become special categories of person with the power to intercede or intervene.  That no ever-expanding circle of enquirers would be likely, in un-coerced exchanges, to concur that there are special rituals which guarantee a secure and safe or even happy life.  That no ever-expanding circle of enquirers would be likely, in un-coerced exchanges, to concur that one group of people have got a privileged way of doing things that will stand the test of all time and be borne out in the end (whatever that might be) to have uniquely worked out how life should be lived.

I am putting words into a person’s mouth, of course.  But I do — I get so bored with misrepresentations and false assumptions and narratives that seem to be common currency, about religion.

Religion isn’t about “what it seems logical or plausible or satisfying to believe or support”; nor is it about group concurrence on provisional truth.

Religion is not a matter of reasoning; and it most emphatically is not a matter of choice.

The semantics of the word give it away: it has its roots in Latin, meaning “that which binds”  (cf “ligature”).

Religion is the stuff that ties you.  That ties you together within yourself.  That ties you to your place in the multiverse.

It’s the stuff you can’t evade.

It’s what you find in yourself when something hard, painful or uncomfortable looks you right in the eye without flinching or drawing back, and in a voice that cannot be unheard, demands of you, “Are you telling the truth?”

It’s what you find in yourself when you are hurting, are nearly broken, can’t find the way back and don’t even know how to try; when you are burning up with shame; or when you are shivering and stone cold in loneliness; and something looks you right in the eye without flinching or drawing back, and in a voice of infinite gentleness that cannot be shied away from, says, “You are seen and known; and you are loved.” 

It’s not always seen in such sudden epiphanies; binding and tying can be gentle, subtle, sneaking-up-on-you processes; but the effect is the same: religion is what cannot be evaded and it is not a choice. 

Religion is not about “imaginary friends.”  It’s about what is experienced: what ties, what challenges.  What wrecks complacency and what re-orders confusions.  What steps in as an unimagined, unexpected disruption that cannot be grasped or comprehended, and transforms, despite all frantic attempts to remain in control.

Religion is not about “making life better” or “making more sense of life” or “making me feel a better person”.  It’s about what won’t be denied.  Religion is a demand.  I recognise that it’s a demand that only a minority of people feel; but that’s alright.  Religion isn't about group concurrence on provisional truth.

The human world would not be what it is without religion.  That doesn’t mean everyone has to experience it.  The human world would not be what it is without science, technology, fine art, music, sport, poetry, even the intricacies of civil administration; and no one says that everyone has to experience, or want to be involved with, any or all of those things, either.   Nonetheless, a writer cannot help but write.  A musician cannot help but make music.  A dancer must dance. Those who are struck by religion must obey the call.

If you don’t experience religion, don’t expect to stand on common ground with those who do:  because, for those who experience religion, no proof is necessary; for those who do not experience religion, no proof is possible.

Our language shows how we think and project our imaginings

When we speak as atheists so You do not emerge in language at all; when we name You using the nonsense syllable ‘Tao’; when, like the Buddha, we decline to name You:

then we remember there can be no meaningful way of referring to You.

When we name You ‘Shiva’:

then we remember You are the Transformer, the Restorer, the Reconciler, the Destroyer of all illusion, the Shocker.

When we name You ‘The Holy One-in-Three and Three-in-One’:

then we remember You are transcendent beyond all being; immanent in all being, all beingness and all knowledge of beingness; and innate relatedness, the invitation to mutuality intrinsic to and inherent in the multi/universe.

When we name You ‘Atman’ or ‘The Christ’:

then we remember You are the Redemption within; the Logos; the ensouled God; the perfect archetype or design we are built upon; the Divine as humanity.

When we name You ‘Allah’:

then we remember You are un-encompassible, impossible for us to describe or comprehend.

When we name You ‘God’:

then we remember that for as long as there have been people, and for as long as people remain, there have been and will be people agreeing with Moses, when he says, ‘God goes before you and will be with you; God will never leave you nor forsake you.’

The 3 July lecture looking at atheism and Christianity

getting ready for the lecture

We enjoyed presenting a lecture for the people of Ringwood and district on 3 July.  It was given with the support of the Montgomery Trust, a charity which provides speakers of national repute on topics relating to Christianity.  Our speaker for the evening was Michael Poole, author of a number of different books dealing with his research area of the interplay between science and religion, and who is Visiting Research Fellow in Science and Religion at King’s College, London.

 

Michael made reference to what is sometimes known as “New Atheism”, explaining that he had had academic correspondence and meetings with Prof Richard Dawkins.  He was saddened by the fact that the language employed in the media and in books by certain commentators has become more strident and pejorative than in past times; otherwise he argued that there is nothing new about the arguments for atheism that are proving so popular with the public today.

 

What he then spent his talk doing, was trying to get us thinking more exactly about what we understood to be the relationship between atheism and a religious view.

 

Michael introduced a number of definitions and logical arguments to show us how we mix up ideas and categories of thought.  He showed that there are usually many different narratives about why any circumstance should be the way it is, and these different narratives do not trump, invalidate or generate conflict between each other.  For instance, it can be explained why a light is on in a room in two ways: (a) because someone wanted it to be on and (b) because the electrons in the electrical supply are flowing through the light bulb.  Similarly, two friends run across each other in the street – it turns out that one person was seeking to make the meeting happen, whilst the other had no thought of it but is always there at that time during the week.  One experienced it as random, but is only able to say this through ignorance of the hidden motive of the other.

 

Science and religion are different narratives about how the world works and it is a mistake to think that one has to be explained in terms of the other.  Michael particularly rejected the model of “God in the gaps”, in which people imagine that contemporary science can only describe the universe so far and then everything that science has not so far described can be put down to God.  He argued that, instead, to sort out what is in the gaps people have to become better scientists – rather than turn God into a leftover bit of the scientific model.

 

He suggested that the words “faith” and “belief” are identical in meaning and they both mean “non-evidenced trust”, that is to say a trust you have of, or in, something despite having no evidence on which to base your trust.  Talking about evidence, Michael showed us that jurisprudence can be used as a useful model for belief.  In court cases, evidence can either be direct, such as the eye-witness accounts, or indirect, where inferences can be drawn from scientific measurements.  In jurisprudence also there is the idea of the “weight” of evidence, where we accept the idea that an accumulation of small pieces of evidence can build up to provide substantial evidence on which we convict.  Science also operates like this.  Yet people are very willing to reject a religious view of life, built upon direct experience or revelation, or indirect evidence from others, and supported by a great body of personal experience over many centuries.

 

In amongst much more that Michael spoke about, we heard that there are problems with some very commonly accepted comments heard today.  “There is no absolute truth” – if this statement is deemed false then it may be ignored, whereas if deemed to be true then it destroys itself (because it says that 'the truth needed for it to be said' does not exist).  Michael also showed that changes in language cause us problems.  “Truth” used to mean a correspondence between a thing and a statement about a thing – something we understand better when we hear phrases similar to “she was being true to herself.”  However, in current usage, “truth” often is used as a synonym for the word “acceptable”.  So: “what is true for you is not true for me” would be more accurately phrased as “what is acceptable to you is not acceptable to me.” Similarly, “to prove something” used to mean “to test or probe something,” whereas now we tend to use it where we might better say “to place this matter beyond any possible doubt.”

 

There was a lively questions session after the talk and of course no overall agreement was found between participants.  But it was agreed that the evening had been enjoyable and stimulating and worth the effort of coming along to.  We look forward to perhaps putting on a similar style of event in Ringwood next year.