Aphorisms

1

When we start with the question, “Is there a God?” we already presume too much. It’s as if an answer has been given before the question was even asked. On what basis do we ask the question? Where did this idea come from: God? It was offered to us. It didn’t come from ourselves. It was ready-made. Have we not grown weary of believing, without reflection, in the ready-made? 

2

Kant opened his famous essay on the Enlightenment with these words: “Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit” (Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity). He continues: “Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen” (Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another). The religious, on the other hand, think that accepting the ready-made on faith is one of the greatest virtues: “Lean not on your own understanding, but trust in God with all your heart” (Proverbs 3:5). Religion is the antithesis of the Enlightenment i.e. the antithesis of human emergence.

3

The basic starting point of any spiritual investigation is human experience. To be even more clear: the basic starting point is individual experience. Neither my friend’s experience, nor the experience of a man living in the wilderness two thousand years ago teaches me anything about the shape my own experience should take. They are never prescriptive. At best they offer demonstrations of various possibilities. Even here these possibilities are often marked by some previous imposition of religious structure (which is by nature a delimitation).

4

The vast majority of religious adherents never have profound spiritual experiences. They go to mosque, synagogue, church, or temple and rehearse the same ritualistic motions day after day, week after week. This monotonous rehearsal often makes up the greatest part of religious life. The multitude is content to allow the true spiritual experience be the special privilege of the religious founder, the religious genius. They think he or she is exceptional by nature when in fact the religious genius has an exceptional will.