My Thoughts On Other People's Gods

A reader wanted me to share my thoughts on the subject of deities'n'such. So I'm going to reprint something I wrote a few years ago with some bonus footage.

When I was young and they packed me off to school
and taught me how not to play the game,
I didn't mind if they groomed me for success,
or if they said that I was a fool.
So I left there in the morning
with their God tucked underneath my arm
their half-assed smiles and the book of rules.
So I asked this God a question
and by way of firm reply,
He said: "I'm not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays".

After having spent some time in a Catholic church over the weekend and recently finishing a book concerning a bishop, the subject of religion has been on my mind as of late. (I am slowly beginning to feel in need of ablution.) I recall kneeling in front of the pew operating a video camera while the ceremony played onwards. Behind me were the bride's parents. I could hear them very clearly - every "amen", every "Lord..." They knew exactly what to do and when. Of course they did. They were devout Catholics.

Half of my mother's side of the family are Roman Catholic and the other half Eastern Orthodox. It is from this side that I get my Polish and Ruthenian blood. The differences amongst the various family members are slight. The Orthodox folk celebrate Easter on a different day and seem to burn more frankincense at funerals than Chinese folks eat rice. I'll grant you that there are theological differences between the 2 religions but there doesn't seem to be any problems with that half of my clan. From my father's side I am descended from English and German bloodlines. Knowing only a couple of people on that half, I can only say that my impression is that Lutheranism/Protestantism does not seem to run deeply or at all, in fact.

I was raised Catholic the first few years of my life. Of course I was. Although my father is not, he had to sign papers pledging not to interfere with my mother's pursuit of doing such. Funny how the Church trusts the signatures of heathen whom they believe doomed to hell. Morality meets tartarology. In an odd twist, I went to a Lutheran pre-school. I still have some of the pro-Jesus things they had me make at that program. I don't recall ever having had any real feelings towards the Judeo-Christian god. From what I recall, I was always doing things because I was told to do so, it was what my mother wanted. Shortly after that experience, I decided that church and Christianity were not for me - it was boring and incomprehensible. And so I underwent an apostasy. (Well, as much of an apostasy as a 4-year old can undergo.)

I remember as a boy looking for something in our basement with my mother. Somehow the topic of religion came up and I asked her to which religion my father subscribed. She told me that he was an atheist and explained what that meant. I don't recall it having an immediate impact but when I became old enough to be cognizant of religion, its meaning and relation to myself, I labeled myself as such.

The concept of salvation held appeal but its links to reality were tenuous at best and a cruce salus was utterly ludicrous to my growing mind. I don't think I ever became anti-Christian in the same way that Carly Simon is anti-James Taylor but there were times when certain Christians irritated me greatly: the tall, imposing and very male anti-abortion activist who made sexual advances towards me, those who refused to talk about religion with me because I did not share their faith, and those who condemned me to hell with all the fire and brimstone of Jonathon Edwards. But people like these were the exceptions and, as a rule, I got along fine with people of all religious persuasions. They secure in their dogma, I secure in mine, or lack thereof.

Words get written. Words get twisted.
Old meanings move in the drift of time.
Lift the flickering torches. See gentle shadows change
the features of the faces cut in unmoving stone.
Bad mouth on a prayer day, hope no-one's listening.
Roots down in the wet clay, branches glistening

While talking with the priest last weekend, he described something very interesting. After I asked him if he had ever performed a Latin mass, he went on to describe them a bit. The difference which I found interesting was one that I had previously heard Joseph Campbell relate. In a Latin mass, the priest and the congregation all face the altar, looking upwards and pray together. Every mortal was in alignment, in unity. The current masses involve the priest facing the congregation, talking down to them from the altar. A minor difference to you, perhaps, but from my point of view, it is a significant change. The latter type of liturgy emphasizes the priest more, he is the center of attention in certain respects. Whereas in the Latin mass, every human being in the church focues their attention towards the crucifix, a group of iconodules reaching out for their god, priest included. Seems a more profound, more meaningful ceremony to me but I'll leave Catholics to worship as they please.

Christianity has a long history. Having evolved from Judaism, its genesis can be traced. It was created and originally propogated by a certain group of people at a certain moment in human history. The creation of its dogma was contingent upon these factors (and others). It arose from a particular cultural and human melieu. As it spread, it changed in certain ways. But throughout history Christians have retained some of the flavoring of their progenitors. In an earlier entry, I quoted a passage which made an analogy to illustrate the various religions of the world. Various groups of people living in different climes seek to scale a mountain to reach its point. Each group has a certain set of rules dictated by their environment as to the best manner of living and scaling the peak. A people who live in a desert would naturally have differing sets of practices to survive in their surroundings and to climb the face of the mountain they are nearest than a people who live in a more arctic climate.

What I'm driving at is that I find certain things in Christianity objectionable because of they belong to a people of another time and place with whom I am unable to relate. Much of the behavioral doctrine and the eschatological elements. There is a distinctly misogynous tone to much of it that I find repugnant. Can I see the utility of Christianity if I try to place myself in the time and place from which it arose? Yes. Does it still hold things for a person in this country at this moment in history? Sure it does. Treating your fellow human beings with dignity is a message that will never go out of style. But, honestly, it doesn't speak to me. Christianity and its trappings don't resonate within me.

Ask the green man where he comes from, ask the cup that fills with red.
Ask the old grey standing stones that show the sun its way to bed.
Question all as to their ways, and learn the secrets that they hold.
Walk the lines of nature's palm crossed with silver and with gold.

When that priest asked me of what religion I was, I responded, "Kantian, neo-pagan humanist". As labels go, it's probably pretty fair. (I have in an earlier entry written about this particular transmigration and the circumstances surrounding it.) Since I do not believe in a being or deity outside of this realm, "humanist" seems a good term (with a little existentialism thrown in for good measure). Notice that it is also listed lastly. The first 2 words are adjectives that modify "humanist". It is the central value of my view, my spirituality. How odd to put humanity at the core of spirituality, eh? Kant. If you've never read Kant, you've saved yourself a lot of headache and pain. It is very dense reading. By "dense" I don't mean packing an entire wardrobe in small suitcase. We're talking neutron star matter here. (To give you an idea of how dense matter from a neutron star is: At that density, you could pack every person on earth into a space the size of a sugar cube.) Luckily, there is a cottage industry of people who write nothing but books about what Kant wrote. But let me quote his most well-known contribution to ethics, the Categorical Imperative, well, 1 of the 3 formulations: "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, always as an end and never as a means only." Go read some Kant.

If Kant and humanism are more philosophical than theological, then "neo-pagan" ventures into the hitherto unexplored metaphysical side of me. What struck me about it was that it was very open, very free-form. There seemed to be little hierarchy. It is also very accepting. And it was not proselytizing! The imagery, the iconography resonated within me. Pictures of the Green Man, nature and the Sun. Women were given a very predominant role as well. Instead of being second class humans, eternally blamed for the Eve and the apple bit, I found a way that viewed them as, at the very least, equals. Something about viewing women as life-givers and not bringers-of-sin struck me. How do you describe it when something just clicks in your mind and your heart? It is ineffable.

I don't claim to be religious. But I do consider myself to be spiritual. In the classic post-modern tradition, I have co-opted ideas of all sorts. I accept that human beings arose on this plant through an absolutely incredible process called evolution. Stephen Jay Gould and Roger Dawkins have yet to hash out the details but I am not descended from Adam & Eve. Where did the universe come from? I don’t know. But I accept the best answer science can give us at this point which goes back to a few milliseconds (or more) from the instant of the Big Bang. Having created a godless world for myself doesn’t absolve me from being a good individual. And I try to be a moral agent of some good repute. There is much to learn but I am contented with my feeling that my blend of science, philosophy and my own corrupted brand of theosophy is a good way to start.

Having said all that over 3 years ago, I can say that a bit has changed. I am still a devout atheist with all of those neo-pagan and Kantian overtones. But I do view religion differently.

I think a lot of atheists tend to think of religion as a form of mass mental-negligence and that, if adherents were to just render their beliefs unto logic and rationality, they'd see the error of their ways. Still another popular view is of religion as "the opiate of the people". Personally, I don't subscribe to either of these ideas. The potency of religion lies in it being completely divorced from logic and has powers that go beyond that of a salve. Having never been religious, I have no idea what's it like to believe that there's this old white man with a beard up in the firmament blue overseeing wars, errant breasts, and the slaughtering of innocents. But, after having read Pascal Boyer's Religion Explained, I feel that he has come up with the most satisfactory reason for the existence of religion, namely, it's a vestigal bit of human psychology. He does a good job giving a necessarily brief explanation of how various parts of human consciousness work and proceeds to differentiate ideas which are "religious" and those that are not. Boyer's explanation sheds light on religion generally and the general elements of religion. The devil is in the details and those will be exposed eventually.