More Thoughts on Religion
This post builds on my view of the human condition presented here.
Is it possible to find yet another reason to turn away from religion, organized or not?
I think my initial, basic reason was the attraction of skepticism, which always seemed to me a necessary frame of mind for a scientist. I don't suppose I have ever been a "real" scientist, but they seemed to me to be the ones on the track of genuine insights about reality. This frame of mind goes all the way back to my earliest memories at about age 5.
More recently, I have despaired about the role of authority in religion. Surrender of one's own common sense and will to an authority seemed to be the core of religion and a special case of many of the problems that beset humanity in general.
After spending a year or so studying psychology, neuroscience and especially neuroanatomy, I have gained some confidence in my understanding of how the brain (and, by extension, humans) work. This lead me to yet another source of discomfort with religion. It's just wrong. This is more than rejections of the fantasies underlying religion (God, heaven and hell, the moral underpinnings of the universe, karma, reincarnation). It's about the nature of the "soul", which is assumed by all religions I know about but rarely explicitly discussed.
A close look at the structure of the human brain does not, of course, discover anything like a "soul" or a connection to a higher realm. What it does discover is a deep connection between humans, human bodies and the world we find ourselves inhabiting. It is therefore sensible to work with a world view that:
The Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity and Islam, place a heavy emphasis on the eternal soul - the idea that we will pack up everything that's important to us and migrate to a better world at death. Of course, this is all made worse by the untenable idea of God, but the core problem is a misconception of who we are. No amount of theological tinkering can fix this.
Buddhism makes a different error. Different schools of Buddhism differ in whether or not they regard the "self" as real. At most, they regard the atman to be "kinda" real.
But the goal of Buddhism seems to be to separate the believer from the world - at least as much as possible. This runs counter to the way the brain is constructed. It's like rigorous training to avoid walking. Buddha himself abandoned his wife and child to sit under a tree for months to find "enlightenment", which, it turns out, basically justified his decision to abandon the world. Interestingly, in the long run, he gave in to his need for human contact by establishing bands of panhandlers who had, like him, abandoned the world except for depending on regular folks to feed them.
It's only by acceptance of authority, generation after generation, that such absurdities can take root. Fundamentally, humans are always perfectly aware of their real nature. They live in a constant state of "double think". Knowing the truth, knowing the dogma and somehow believing both at the same time.
Is it possible to find yet another reason to turn away from religion, organized or not?
I think my initial, basic reason was the attraction of skepticism, which always seemed to me a necessary frame of mind for a scientist. I don't suppose I have ever been a "real" scientist, but they seemed to me to be the ones on the track of genuine insights about reality. This frame of mind goes all the way back to my earliest memories at about age 5.
More recently, I have despaired about the role of authority in religion. Surrender of one's own common sense and will to an authority seemed to be the core of religion and a special case of many of the problems that beset humanity in general.
After spending a year or so studying psychology, neuroscience and especially neuroanatomy, I have gained some confidence in my understanding of how the brain (and, by extension, humans) work. This lead me to yet another source of discomfort with religion. It's just wrong. This is more than rejections of the fantasies underlying religion (God, heaven and hell, the moral underpinnings of the universe, karma, reincarnation). It's about the nature of the "soul", which is assumed by all religions I know about but rarely explicitly discussed.
A close look at the structure of the human brain does not, of course, discover anything like a "soul" or a connection to a higher realm. What it does discover is a deep connection between humans, human bodies and the world we find ourselves inhabiting. It is therefore sensible to work with a world view that:
- Does not look for a "higher reality" but seeks meaning in relationships, the human experience, and the "real world"
- Does not assume an immortal "soul", but assumes a rather ephemeral, ever changing "self" whose reality depends deeply on relationships with other "selves".
The Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity and Islam, place a heavy emphasis on the eternal soul - the idea that we will pack up everything that's important to us and migrate to a better world at death. Of course, this is all made worse by the untenable idea of God, but the core problem is a misconception of who we are. No amount of theological tinkering can fix this.
Buddhism makes a different error. Different schools of Buddhism differ in whether or not they regard the "self" as real. At most, they regard the atman to be "kinda" real.
But the goal of Buddhism seems to be to separate the believer from the world - at least as much as possible. This runs counter to the way the brain is constructed. It's like rigorous training to avoid walking. Buddha himself abandoned his wife and child to sit under a tree for months to find "enlightenment", which, it turns out, basically justified his decision to abandon the world. Interestingly, in the long run, he gave in to his need for human contact by establishing bands of panhandlers who had, like him, abandoned the world except for depending on regular folks to feed them.
It's only by acceptance of authority, generation after generation, that such absurdities can take root. Fundamentally, humans are always perfectly aware of their real nature. They live in a constant state of "double think". Knowing the truth, knowing the dogma and somehow believing both at the same time.
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