The birth of natural religion

There are many different religious traditions, and they all hold their beliefs regarding the universe, human creatures, the meaning of life, etc., to be more or less correct.

Many of these religious traditions are quite ancient. Even though they presume to be divinely guided, the recipients of revelation, witnesses of miracles, etc., the only evidence they have is the testimony of others, passed on from generation to generation, and anecdotal stories that seem to support their assumptions. 

What if starting today you choose to set aside the old traditions about deities and spirits, and look at the world with these beliefs bracketed or unassumed? Would the gods or God make an appearance at all? Without your former presuppositions, would you find even a hint of the old gods in the world around you? 

This is a challenge to those who have received their beliefs from others.  What do you see if you use your own eyes?

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.

 

 

On Religious Confidence

Pastor Terry Jones

Photo Credit: Chip Litherland for The New York Times

What Dove Outreach Ministries’ (Pentecostal) Pastor Terry Jones fails to do is quite frankly what a lot of people fail to do: think deeper about the complexity of the social fields in which Muslims live. I say “Muslims” here because obviously we’re dealing specifically with the claims Jones is making about Islam, but it could just as easily apply to any religion or people. When asked for Jones' response to the deaths and injuries sparked in Afghanistan by his plans to burn the Qur’an he said: "We're pointing the finger at the wrong person. I haven't even done anything. I think it reveals ... the violence in Islam” (1). This kind of surface thinking utterly fails to understand the more fundamental social and economic complexities involved. This isn’t the first time Jones has gotten into trouble for his radical behaviour. In 2009 he was expelled from a church in Germany where he had demanded complete obedience from church members, preached a radical form of demonology (not that uncommon in the Pentecostal assemblies I would argue), and resulted in a number of members having to seek out therapy for the psychological damage he caused (2).

What would a Leftist critique of Jones’ statements be? Quite obviously this doesn’t come down to a matter of religion, but economics. I will not comment on the other important aspects of the social field, of which economics is a part, or on the ethnic and political aspects, which are also fundamentally important. I merely want to highlight the irony involved in Jones’ understanding of Islam. The Pentecostal church has always been known as the church of the poor. It is growing like wildfire in the global South, and churches in Africa, Asia, and South America are increasingly sending missionaries to Europe and North America to preach the gospel. What Jones has failed to analyze is the connection between poverty and violence in what he has called “Muslim” violence. In almost every instance of so-called “Muslim” violence, it has in fact been a violence of the oppressed. For example, just today “Islamic” insurgents carried out a suicide attack in Russia’s Caucasus region, killing at least 18 people. Was it politically motivated? Absolutely. What Denis Dyomkin at Reuter’s news agency astutely observes is that “The blast was a new blow to the Kremlin, which is struggling to contain a growing Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus, a strip of impoverished, ethnically mixed provinces along predominantly Orthodox Christian Russia's southern border” (3). Jones’ own politically Rightist orientation reflects the very angst so often found to characterize other right-oriented commentators and their counterparts abroad: the fundamental opposition between rich and poor. Religion is a smokescreen Jones. Properly speaking, Islam is not "of the devil": Poverty and its self-deluded big brother, Capitalism, deserve that distinction.

Enchanting and Disenchanted

In A Secular Age (2007) Charles Taylor speaks of the "disenchantment" of the West. This was/is a process which in a recognizable way started to unfold around the Reformation, prefigured to some degree by other movements/philosophies reaching back in time (the Epicureans, pre-Socratics, etc). The idea is that people once existed in a world/cosmos thoroughly embedded in and pervaded by the "divine," participating in the Eternal Forms (Plato), and that people themselves were also pervaded by spiritual forces and persons. A few examples of this: demon possession or the power of curses, objects containing spiritual forces such as amulets, sacred stones, or even (in the New Testament) clothing: "handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them" (Acts 19:12). This last example might provoke slight unease in some Christians today, but this only proves Taylor's point that we have undergone a thorough process of disenchantment (though not that long ago I viewed an ad on television offering "free" handkerchiefs blessed by an evangelist- in exchange they wanted a free-will "donation". I took them up on the offer, sans donation, and was sent a 3cmx3cm piece of cloth. With some disappointment I realized that not only did I not receive a blessing, it was barely large enough to blow my nose in). Perhaps I wasn't "porous" enough (the term Taylor uses to refer to the self living in this enchanted world, a world where spirits and forces can "penetrate" and fill an individual).

I think he's right that fundamentally our (Western) world is disenchanted. The stars are no longer angelic creatures, or windows into heaven. We no longer burn witches at the stake for supposed hexes and curses. There are always exceptions of course, and the handkerchief example is a case in point. In addition to blessed handkerchiefs one might think of "holy" water and oil, the Eucharist, relics of the saints and of Christ's clothing/cross/cup, and even a belief among some denominations in demon possession and spiritual "warfare" within and without the human life and world events. The instructor of the course in which I'm reading Taylor's text was absolutely right when he said, "For many people it isn't a matter of believing or not believing: these things are simply incomprehensible." Taylor is quick to point out that this reaction was not even a possibility at one time in the West.

Reflecting on the idea of enchantment/disenchantment I wonder what other areas of the Western world may still hold an enchanted view of things. I say "other" here because obviously much of the Church still holds a medieval view of the cosmos/universe, one where spiritual forces still inhabit material wildernesses.. but even here the Church cannot help being influenced by disenchantment. Church bells are no longer set ringing to ward off thunderstorms. With few exceptions, medical science and doctors are consulted about illness before priests or spiritual healers (prayer may be said concurrently with treatment, but of course medical treatment takes priority). I could go on.. but what about non-Christian/religious worlds? One that immediately jumped to mind was the area of brain science. Are there not still scientists/philosophers who hold to an enchanted model of consciousness? This isn't to be opposed to a mechanistic/reductionist view either. There are other organic models (plasticity models for example) that are not reductive in this way, but even here there is always a risk of seeing consciousness as a deep mystery (reminiscent of the Eucharistic Mystery: an unfathomable -presence-) which will never be solved.

As researchers uncover more and more it is inevitable that resistance will increase to their discoveries, or rather, to the implications of these discoveries. We see this in fundamentalist appropriations of the sciences (eg. Creation Science) and the full out battle being waged between Christian apologists and the New Atheists (who for the most part are scientists). I will also mention Islam only briefly here. Islam has proven much more adaptable to scientific discovery than Christianity, but I would still challenge the Islamic notion of "Insha'Allah", for example, with the question "but how is God's will actually made manifest: through what -divine action-?" Or is divine action once again seen as humans-at-work as in a Christian model (we are his hands, his feet, etc)?

With mixed hope and despair I continue to observe the relationship unfold:

The enchanting and the disenchanted.