Breaking the Spell<\/em>, Daniel Dennett admits the good of religion:<\/p>\n\u201cThe daily actions of religious people have accomplished uncounted good deeds throughout history, alleviating suffering, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick. Religions have brought the comfort of belonging and companionship to many who would otherwise have passed through this life all alone \u2026 They have not just provided first aid \u2026 for people in difficulties; they have provided the means for changing the world in ways that remove those difficulties \u2026 There is much for religion lovers to be proud of in their traditions, and much for all of us to be grateful for.\u201d<\/p>\n
So if even the Four Horsemen of Atheism admit that religion is real and good, why do they say such terrible things about it? Here\u2019s Dawkins again:<\/p>\n
\u201cI prefer not to call myself religious because \u2026 for the vast majority of people, \u2018religion\u2019 implies \u2018supernatural\u2019 \u2026 The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs, and rabbis, and of ordinary language.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because some religious people insist on believing things that are demonstrably false, the New Atheists would discredit all religion. Because some people do horrible things in the name of religion and in the name of God, the New Atheists want nothing to do with any of it. Never mind the religious communities such as this Fellowship that bring belonging to millions, never mind the comfort that religion brings to those who are suffering, never mind the inspiration religion brings to our still-evolving quest for justice and equality for all, never mind all the good that has come about because of religious belief and practice throughout history. <\/p>\n
The New Atheists want to throw the baby of religion out with the dirty bathwater of fundamentalism. They are right about much, but in this matter they are wrong, wrong, wrong.<\/p>\n
The origins of religion aren\u2019t in creeds and dogmas<\/strong><\/p>\nBiologists call our species homo sapiens<\/em> \u2013 \u201cknowing man.\u201d But others have proposed a different name: homo religiosus<\/em> \u2013 \u201creligious man.\u201d There is merit in this idea \u2013 we have been religious at least as long as we\u2019ve been human. The oldest human artifacts are grave goods \u2013 material objects buried with the dead. For a primitive society to bury a bowl, a tool, or even jewelry with the dead was a great sacrifice \u2013 they wouldn\u2019t have done it if there wasn\u2019t some very deep meaning behind it.<\/p>\nOur earliest ancestors left no written records, and we must take care in the assumptions we make about them. Still, based on the physical evidence, on modern observations of isolated tribal cultures, and from our own religious experiences, it is reasonable to propose that religion grew out of experiences of wonder and awe in Nature: the rising and setting sun, the waxing and waning moon, the changing of the tides and the changing of the seasons. Religion grew out of the miracle of birth, and out of the uniquely human condition of being aware that we\u2019re alive but knowing that some day we will die. Attempts to explain the world, to anthropomorphosize it and to manipulate it came later. We have learned much, and we can explain much about the natural world through the rigors of science and the scientific method. But in many ways we\u2019re still in the same place our barely-human ancestors were millions of years ago: aware we are alive, knowing some day we will die.<\/p>\n
It is this awareness of the brevity of life that gives rise to our highest ideals. Once we secure food, clothing, and shelter, how can we best spend our limited years in this world? How can we lay foundations that our descendants can build upon? What are our obligations to our fellow humans and to the other creatures who share our world? Religion arose out of the contemplation of these questions, questions that are as relevant today as they were thousands of years ago.<\/p>\n
I grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist church. They taught the Bible was the literal and inerrant Word of God, and they also taught that after John finished writing the Book of Revelation, that was it \u2013 God had said all he was going to say. We UUs like to say \u201crevelation is not sealed.\u201d Those experiences of wonder and awe still happen today. Go stand at the seashore or on a mountaintop, watch the rising Sun or look up at the full Moon. Watch a flower open or a child take her first steps. Knowing the science behind these phenomena doesn\u2019t make them any less beautiful, any less meaningful or any less mysterious.<\/p>\n
If you let yourself simply experience Life as the Buddhists teach, noting experiences as they come without attempting to judge them or explain them or classify them, you may find you have a capacity for wonder and awe every bit as great as your ancestors who first walked the plains of Africa. <\/p>\n
But I must warn you \u2013 this is a dangerous thing to try. Because once you have a religious experience, you have to do something with it. You can ignore it, rationalize it, explain it away\u2026 but it can also change your beliefs, your priorities, and your whole approach to life.<\/p>\n
What are you going to do with your religious experiences?<\/p>\n
How did we get from there to here?<\/strong><\/p>\nSo if religion began with the experience of wonder and awe, how did we get here? Religious experience leads to religious belief, as people attempt to understand their experiences, to decide what they mean, and to fit them into their ideas about the world and how it works. Belief leads to religious practice, as we attempt to re-create the experiences, or make them real in the material world, or both. Eventually religious institutions emerge, doctrines and creeds are developed. Each step takes us further and further away from the Source, and presents opportunities for both honest mistakes and dishonest manipulations.<\/p>\n
All religious myths, doctrines, and structures were developed by and for a particular group of people living in a particular place and time. Change any of those and the religion may no longer work as it was originally intended. Most people are very utilitarian about their religion: if the religion of their parents isn\u2019t meaningful and helpful, they\u2019ll try something else \u2013 a process many of us are familiar with.<\/p>\n
But for some people, the attraction of religion is its stability and predictability \u2013 they want the \u201cold time religion\u201d whether it fits the world they actually live in or not.<\/p>\n
The roots of fundamentalism<\/strong><\/p>\nThere are limits to what we know, and early religion was OK with that. Plato compared humanity to prisoners chained to the wall of a cave, unable to see the opening and the world outside. They could only see the shadows cast on the back wall. They knew there was a bigger world outside the cave, but they could only perceive it indirectly. St. Paul wrote about knowing in part, and seeing through a glass, darkly. Our religious predecessors understood the difference between logos<\/em> (what we know in our heads) and mythos<\/em> (what we feel in our hearts).<\/p>\nBut about 500 years ago, something changed. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment expanded the realm of logos<\/em>. Real science began to replace speculation and superstition and we started to learn that the universe was much bigger and much older than we had imagined. We didn\u2019t have to believe these things \u2013 we could know them. Enlightenment thinking changed our expectations \u2013 we began to expect that we should be able to know everything. And by extension, if we couldn\u2019t objectively know something, then it couldn\u2019t be real.<\/p>\nFor some, this meant the end of religion. For others, this was the beginning of fundamentalism. Karen Armstrong says that all fundamentalist religions \u201care initially defensive movements rooted in a profound fear of annihilation, which causes them to develop a paranoid vision of the \u2018enemy\u2019 \u2026 In their anxiety and fear, fundamentalists often distort the tradition they are trying to defend.\u201d If the only truth is literal truth, then either your holy book and your creed are literally true or they\u2019re worthless. Faced with that difficult though unnecessary choice, some choose to insist that humans were created 6000 years ago in our present form and that God attaches supreme importance to the gender of those we love, despite all evidence to the contrary.<\/p>\n
Religious scholar Huston Smith puts it this way: \u201cModernity was metaphysically sloppy. Ravished by science\u2019s accomplishments, it elevated the scientific method to \u2018our sacral mode of knowing,\u2019 and because that mode registers nothing that is without a material component, immaterial realities at first dropped from view and then were denied existence.\u201d <\/p>\n
This was a mistake \u2013 science or faith is a false choice we need not and should not make. We need both and there is room for both. Science tells us \u201cwhat\u201d and \u201chow.\u201d Faith tells us \u201cwhy\u201d and what it means to us as humans seeking to live a meaningful life.<\/p>\n
Where do we go from here? Religion on three levels<\/strong><\/p>\nSo where do we go from here? Our UU sources call on us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science. This we must do. But our sources also warn us against idolatries of the mind. Rational thought has done wonders for our species. But rational thought alone cannot make us whole and human. <\/p>\n
Huston Smith tells a possibly apocryphal story of a mid-20th century missionary who was having trouble convincing an isolated South American tribe to convert to Christianity. Then one day a child became ill. The village shaman couldn\u2019t heal the child, but the missionary happened to have some antibiotics with her. She gave the medicine to the child, who quickly recovered. The tribe was convinced the god of the missionary must be stronger than the gods of their ancestors and became Christians. Smith sees this as a mistake. He says: \u201cthere seems to be no reason why we cannot accept her medicine gratefully while continuing to honor the great orienting myths that our ancestors have handed down to us and that give meaning and motivation to our lives.\u201d <\/p>\n
In other words, we can live by logos<\/em> and by mythos<\/em>, by science and religion, by fact and by faith. We need not \u2013 and should not \u2013 choose one over the other. Each has its own value, its own place in our lives.<\/p>\nThe early Christian teacher Origen taught three levels of religion: the mythical, the ethical, and the mystical. He thought each was superior to the one before it. I say all are valid, depending on your needs, and a successful religious movement needs all three.<\/p>\n
As the Morning Reading dramatically reminds us, we need myths \u2013 we need stories to live by. Our religious traditions are full of them, and we UUs are good at grabbing stories from where ever we can find them. <\/p>\n
Evolutionary evangelist Michael Dowd calls evolution \u201cThe Great Story.\u201d I feel pretty confident he would disagree with Stephen Dunn: evolution can be a heroic story. The Big Bang, the formation of stars and planets, the emergence of life, and the development of that life from single-celled organisms to the diversity and complexity we see today. None of this had to happen, but it did \u2013 that\u2019s something to celebrate! And the really good news is that evolution didn\u2019t suddenly stop when our own species emerged. We\u2019re still growing and changing and evolving. Just as the biological process of evolution moves the species forward physically, learning and growth moves us individuals forward both intellectually and spiritually. <\/p>\n
There are other stories we can live by. What about the story that says we should love our neighbors as ourselves, that we should practice radical inclusion, that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, and that if someone offends us we should forgive them not once or twice but 490 times. The story of Jesus is too important and too powerful to abandon it to those who would twist it to fit their own fear-driven views of the world.<\/p>\n
Or what about the story that says God is as much female as male, that honors our ancestors and their beliefs and practices, and that teaches we\u2019re all a part of the natural world. We grew out of the Earth, and so the Earth is our Mother \u2013 not a collection of resources to be exploited for convenience and greed. The Gulf Oil Spill stands as a clear reminder that everything is connected in a great web of life and existence, and what we do to one part of the web we do to ourselves.<\/p>\n
The second part of religion is ethics, something we UUs do a pretty good job with. Instead of just being concepts we think about intellectually, ethics can be stories and songs and poetry, speaking to our hearts and souls as well as to our heads. The work of Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt strongly indicates that most of us make our moral decisions instinctively and then rationalize some principle to justify our gut feeling. If that\u2019s true, it virtually demands that we present our ethics and our values in a religious and mythical context, so our intuitive responses grow into alignment with our highest values.<\/p>\n
The third form of religion is mysticism, the direct experience of the Divine we can find in the silence of meditation and in the shouts of ecstacy. Mysticism isn\u2019t just for cloistered monks and nuns \u2013 it can be practiced by anyone. It\u2019s hard work and it doesn\u2019t look nearly as attractive as the pseudo-Christian Prosperity Gospel or the New Age \u201cthink and grow rich\u201d movement. But for those who realize we cannot know God but we can experience God, there is no substitute.<\/p>\n
Karen Armstrong points out that \u201creligion is a practical discipline, and its insights are not derived from abstract speculation but from spiritual exercises and a dedicated lifestyle. Without such practice, it is impossible to understand the truth of its doctrines.\u201d If you would experience God, practice your faith. <\/p>\n
Spiritual Practice<\/strong><\/p>\nSo what are these spiritual exercises and dedicated lifestyles that make possible a direct experience of God? They aren\u2019t complicated \u2013 people have been doing them for thousands of years. But they aren\u2019t easy, either. True religion, true spirituality, is about relationships: relationships with the Divine, with our families, with our neighbors in the Christian sense of the word. It\u2019s about our relationship with the natural world and everything in it. Relationships are simple, but they aren\u2019t easy. They require work. <\/p>\n
Our spiritual work takes many forms. There\u2019s meditation: quieting the mind and listening. Prayer: speaking our gratitude and the desires of our hearts. Physical exercise: part of spiritual practice is to develop balance and wholeness, and your body needs practice as much as your mind. Writing and reflection: by recording our thoughts and feelings and activities, we can go back and see what was helpful and what wasn\u2019t. And sometimes, you don\u2019t appreciate how far you\u2019ve come till you stop and look back at where you used to be.<\/p>\n
It took many years of practice for Siddhartha to become the Buddha. I\u2019m not expecting to get there any faster than he did. But every journey begins with a single step, a single prayer, a single moment of quiet contemplation. <\/p>\n
What is God?<\/strong><\/p>\nIf you\u2019ve been paying attention \u2013 and you have been paying attention, haven\u2019t you? \u2013 you may have noticed that I\u2019ve made a case for religion, for myths, for ethics, for mysticism, and for spiritual practice. But I haven\u2019t said much about God. Karen Armstrong says that for most of us, \u201cthe symbol of God is no longer working. Instead of pointing beyond itself to an ineffable reality, the humanly conceived construct that we call \u2018God\u2019 has become the end of the story.\u201d Our wider culture has confused the map with the territory and the symbol with reality.<\/p>\n
While \u201cGod\u201d has no concrete definition, we need a working hypothesis, and the best one I\u2019ve found comes from Huston Smith. He says: \u201cThe reality that excites and fulfills the soul\u2019s longing is God by whatsoever name. Because the human mind cannot come within light-years of comprehending God\u2019s nature, we do well to \u2026 think of God as a direction rather than an object. That direction is always toward the best that we can conceive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\nThe New Atheists are right to challenge religious beliefs that are at odds with facts and religious practices that are harmful and manipulative. But they are wrong to dismiss all religion as something we should outgrow. Humans have always been religious creatures, and while our beliefs and practices have changed and will continue to change, our religious impulse will never die.<\/p>\n
We will not find answers to all the Big Questions of Life, not in our experiences and certainly not in anyone\u2019s creeds, doctrines, or sacred texts. Some of these questions are not just beyond our knowledge, they\u2019re beyond our capacity to know. And that\u2019s OK \u2013 we don\u2019t have to know everything in order to live lives that are meaningful and helpful and happy. <\/p>\n
The members of this religious community have many beliefs, but we share the common goal of being present and open to the wonders and joys that Life presents to us, and we will keep moving toward the best that we can conceive, doing our best to make it real right here right now.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by John BeckettDenton Unitarian Universalist FellowshipAugust 15, 2010 Introduction \u2013 the dilemma of the New Atheists We Unitarian Universalists like to say \u201cwe don\u2019t have to think alike to love alike.\u201d Nowhere is our commitment to that ideal more challenged than in the question of God. Is there a God, a Goddess, many goddesses and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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