A Pause for Breath

This blog was once called "diary off a Christian Skeptic" and later re-named to "The Road To Reality". In plain terms, it's about trying to figure out what the Hell is going on -- in general.

The original reference to "Christianity" reflected the fact that none of us starts from scratch. We are born into a specific culture with it's own set of misconceptions, historical myths and mostly unstated assumptions about what is real and what isn't.

 As we move on past singing "Jesus Loves Me" in Sunday School, we gradually become aware that the history of Christianity is the history of genocide, intolerance and endless warfare against "heathens" or "heretics". At root, this bloody tendency is inspired by the claim (unique to "people of the book") that believers are "blessed of God" - preferred in some basic sense to the rest of humanity. Even though this attitude is still prevalent among modern "believers", it is simultaneously denied as the cause of all the problems. Even people skeptical of Christianity tend to think that there must be something that can be salvaged from 2,000 years of Christian progress. After 40 years of serious thought about this topic, I'm not sure. What makes sense to me is "compassion" and "tolerance". Such ideas are not unique to Christianity and not uniquely promoted in the actual "Christian" societies in the modern world.

Paradoxically, it seems that you need to learn a lot about Christianity before you can decided to reject it. In particular, my formal Theological education at Queens University taught me the value and power of mythical thinking -- the actual basis of religion (not the somehow factual belief in the supernatural). This is "inside information" - understood by very few outside of the professional priesthood. People "in the pews' are treated more or less like children who "can't handle the truth". So this set me on a lonely journey to decide it made sense to live the Christian myth.  I got no help in this, since the "pros" don't want to talk about the myth and the "people in the pews" still treat the myth as factual and ask questions like "So do you believe in God or not?". This is like asking if I believe if Santa Claus is really fat.

Of course, my education in mythical thinking helped me to understand that our society is chin-deep in mythology at all times. Religious thinking (which rewards people for believing things against all evidence) penetrates deeply into the way we see the world in general.

Our educational system does us a profound disservice by presenting "knowledge" as a "done deal". A High School graduate may be forgiven for thinking that ...

• The history he's been taught is "factual" and free from cultural bias
• History is "over" -- the present is not a moment in history -- future generations will not see this moment in any way other than the way we see it now
• The Science he has been taught is  a "done deal" and represents a triumph over the ignorance of previous people (most of them safely long-dead)
• "Religion" is either all nonsense or perhaps just our religion is "right" and all the others are wrong. In any case, none of them (including "ours") are worth serious study.
• The modern dogmas (nationalism, sectarianism, exceptionalism) - the causes of modern wars and genocide -- are somehow different in kind from "religions" which mislead ignorant masses of the past 

In fact, looking back, it's hard to find a moment in history where ...

• Prevailing beliefs in religion, politics and Science will eventually be utterly discredited and replaced 
• The most dangerous and destructive ideas are so common that they are unchallenged "axioms" 
• Major discoveries are right around the corner
• Society is dominated by the rich and powerful with various attempted justification but always with the same result: warfare between powerful factions, murder and imprisonment of protesters, impoverishment of the great mass of population 
• The current political system is the best possible. Fundamental challenge to the prevailing system is treason.
• We are perpetually at war with the "bad guys", miraculously always on the "right" side for the "right reasons". 

So the first thing we need to know when figuring out what is going on is to realize that, in some sense, nothing is going on!

But there are a few things that seem genuinely new and significant to me.

• The rise of popular Skepticism. For anyone who wants to learn to think clearly, there is no shortage of leadership, information, training. "Saints" of Skepticism include Carl Sagan and Michael Shermer.  Skepticism represents a serious challenge to a host of ideas that have kept the human race in chains for millenia. The important change is that Skepticism has reached "critical mass" and it's accessible to anyone who wants to think for themselves against the massive efforts to co-opt independent thinking to build zombie armies of various types. In order to pursue a career in "Science", formal training in Skepticism is inescapable, even though a few still capitulate to "faith" for reasons outlined in "Being Wrong".
• Mindfulness: The capture of Buddhist/Taoist/Zen practice by modern Science. This complements Skepticism, allowing the individual to hold all ideas lightly and re-focus on what is actually happening in the moment. It seems simple when you say it, but most people cannot distinguish between reality and what we say or think about reality. The movement also tends to blow away a lot of "baggage" that rode along with the cultures that incubated the practice. Mindfulness is no longer a religion. Although zen practitioners are free to believe whatever they like (beliefs are not taken seriously in Zen), some Zen "masters" are very specific in their advice that religion is incompatible with Zen.

To my way of thinking, Skepticism is the "senior" idea: tempting concepts from everything from Buddhism to String Theory need to be subjected to Skeptical criteria, most notably that incredible claims need to be backed by very strong evidence. The onus is not on me to disprove things like God or reincarnation. It is perfectly sensible to go through life with a minimal set of "beliefs" that are both useful and strongly verified by experience. In any case, my "beliefs" are merely human ideas that approximate reality to varying degrees. They are not what  I am. In my experience, this attitude is strange and incomprehensible to modern "believers" in various forms of religion who,for example, speak of themselves as being Christian, bolting their identity to an idea. Such personal mis-identification forever isolates the believer, preventing exploration of a world of ideas, even the idea of being a Christian!

Such an attitude is important when approaching Mindfulness. Anyone getting into this discipline will also be exposed to the root dogmas from Buddhism.  When I first approached Zazen (Zen meditation) I never got the answer to why a person would devote massive amounts of time and effort to this practice. The original practitioners did it to escape the round of reincarnations -- to annihilate the "self", which (according to the dogma) does not really exist anyway. Modern practitioners are looking for benefit it the here and now, such as relief of stress and perhaps deeper understanding of "life in general". So, to the Skeptical practitioner, the question is: does the practice actually lead to the benefits claimed? Reincarnation is irrelevant - on the "back burner" pending strong evidence like all religious dogma.

It seems to me that together, these two movements represent a genuine and historical change of direction, potentially replacing religion and other types of systemic error that have determined the course of history until now. They also promise to be of personal benefit to those who are "converted" one by one.  "Conversion" is needed, or call it "education". Neither of these disciplines is "natural" - they call for training and life-long commitment. Both Skepticism and Mindfulness are practices, not "beliefs" in a traditional sense - they are ways of interacting with the world: rules of conduct, rules of evidence, ways of avoiding mental clutter. 

One personal note: I refer to my personal "take" on Mindfulness as "Zen". There is more to Zen than Mindfulness, especially a certain aesthetic, creativity and irreverent attitude. It's not for everyone. As with all branches of Buddhism and Taoism, Zen "theory" is a fantastically varied, so, like all Zen practitioners, "my" Zen is uniquely personal, more of an aesthetic approach than anything that could be compared to a Scientific "Theory" and not even internally consistent, let alone consistent with the writings of any particular Zen "master".