Gospel & Universe ⏯ Systems
Systems of Operation
Neither New Atheist Nor Evangelical - [In progress]
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Neither New Atheist Nor Evangelical
Agnostics lie between two certainties. On the one end, there are the New Atheists, who see it as their job to deconstruct religion, to show that it’s false, that it’s so unprovable that it’s pretty much useless, and that it can also be very dangerous. Agnostics agree that religious zealotry can be dangerous — from the psychological abuse of ‘de-programming’ to witch hunts, jihads, and crusades — but it can also be beautiful and it certainly isn’t false or useless. On the other side, evangelists tell us that we can’t live a deep life — and we won’t get to live an afterlife — if we don’t believe in their definition of God. Agnostics argue that we can in fact lead a deeply enriched secular life, and that in any case we don’t need to agree with their definition of God.
Agnostics believe that we can experiment with any version we like, and we shouldn’t be compelled or coerced into any one way of believing. Agnostics also argue that doubt doesn’t disqualify us from exploring or experiencing the highest religious benefit: if God exists, and God is just and benevolent, then doubters will be happy to find out all about it after they die. If God is unjust and malicious, then the doubter will in the afterlife have the same struggle as the believer who who once believed in justice and mercy. In any case there’s very little chance that a just and benevolent God would require that believers maintain a sense of superiority, let alone a duty to disdain, hate, threat, or wage holy war against those who doubt or those who believe differently.
The agnostic doesn’t follow the New Atheist nor the evangelical, but rather concedes the undeniable in science and explores the possible in religion. Agnostic criticism of exclusivity in religion — and its consequent downgrading of other religions — comes from the same position as its criticism of a scientific or material view that downgrades religion. This criticism is against closing doors, proclaiming superiority, and fighting the other side, not against the liberating ideas and the phenomenological experiences that materialism and spirituality offer. In this sense, agnostics operate in an eclectic way: they take what seems of value from each side, leaving out the exclusivity and superiority which may be part of some people’s view of materialism and religion yet which agnostics see as neither crucial nor helpful.
While agnostics reject religious superiority and disdain, they understand that it’s difficult for some religious people to be ecumenical, let alone open to other religions. In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell talks to Bill Moyers about this difficulty. Comparing religions to the software of a computer, he says that one gets most from a religion if one sticks to one program. The following discussion helps to sort out one of the main problems I’ve been looking at in this chapter and in ♒️ The Currents of Sumer: the disdain monotheists often express about polytheism:
MOYERS: Machines help us to fulfill the idea that we want the world to be made in our image, and we want it to be what we think it ought to be.
CAMPBELL: Yes. But then there comes a time when the machine begins to dictate to you. For example, I have bought this wonderful machine—a computer. Now I am rather an authority on gods, so I identified the machine—it seems to me to be an Old Testament god with a lot of rules and no mercy. […] I have had a revelation from my computer about mythology. You buy a certain software, and there is a whole set of signals that lead to the achievement of your aim. If you begin fooling around with signals that belong to another system of software, they just won’t work. Similarly, in mythology—if you have a mythology in which the metaphor for the mystery is the father, you are going to have a different set of signals from what you would have if the metaphor for the wisdom and mystery of the world were the mother. And they are two perfectly good metaphors. Neither one is a fact. These are metaphors. It is as though the universe were my father. It is as though the universe were my mother. Jesus says, “No one gets to the father but by me.” The father that he was talking about was the biblical father. It might be that you can get to the father only by way of Jesus. On the other hand, suppose you are going by way of the mother. There you might prefer Kali, and the hymns to the goddess, and so forth. That is simply another way to get to the mystery of your life. You must understand that each religion is a kind of software that has its own set of signals and will work. If a person is really involved in a religion and really building his life on it, he better stay with the software that he has got. But a chap like myself, who likes to play with the software—well, I can run around, but I probably will never have an experience comparable to that of a saint.
Campbell operates similarly to an agnostic by seeing doctrine not in terms of fundamental difference, but in terms of different aims and different paths, which are nevertheless both basically spiritual (one might even say essentially essentialist). Campbell also makes his point more universal by using the neutral word mystery to describe the core of monotheism or polytheism, rather than the word of God, salvation, union with nature, etc.
Perhaps most effective is that Campbell uses two analogies, which both work in an agnostic way. In the first of these, he see the psyche as a computer: it’s a mechanical, physical thing, yet it can accommodate within it vastly different modes of believing, depending on the different program of religion. The depth of the difference appears all-important, since you use the computer differently and it gives different results depending on the different program. Yet underneath it all we are the same bodies which have circuits of thinking and feeling which need something more than these bodies, something deeply integrated which turns these circuits into, or points these circuits toward, something else, something that isn’t merely a physical thing, but a more abstract and refined way of connecting with the universe. Campbell’s extended metaphor, or conceit, is an ingenious one, and goes a long way in making us see how we may have similar needs, deep down in our bodies, and yet these needs seem to manifest themselves in completely different ways from the very first sensory activity that we engage in: in this case the touch of a key which initiates a certain software program. Although Walt Whitman lived a hundred years before computers, Campbell’s analogy gives a whole new array of possibilities to his famous line, “Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity” […].
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[In progress]
plat·form| ˈplatˌfôrm | noun
a raised floor or stage used by public speakers or performers
a raised structure along the side of a railroad track
a raised structure standing in the sea
a raised structure or orbiting satellite from which rockets or missiles may be launched
a standard for the hardware of a computer system, determining what kinds of software it can run
the declared policy of a political party or group
an opportunity to voice one's views or initiate action
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