I'm interested in religion. I think it's important to try to understand religious worldviews -- philosophically, because they purport to solve conundrums; psychologically, because they so often seem to satisfy a deep human need; and pragmatically, because so many people subscribe to them.
I find discussions of religion thought-provoking and exciting. Sometimes to the point of my friends' nausea. Or their irritation, depending on the friend. Because during those conversations, I tend to criticize modern, monotheistic religion.
But on occasion, the conversation continues until I reveal myself to be not entirely dismissive of modern monotheism. And it is, inevitably, at that point that my friend will sit back and say: Wait...Explain to me what you think. And though I try, I never satisfy myself; so I imagine there is no way my friend could be satisfied.
So. Here. I try to explain my thoughts on religion. Some of them at least. A very few of them, really. But here it is.
I find modern, monotheistic religion to be too unreasonable. I find it to be too unchanging. I find it to be too dogmatic. I find it to be too often intolerant.
I realize I'm painting with enormously broad strokes at the moment. I realize there are modern monotheistic religions that are more and less tolerant, more and less flexible, more and less adaptive, more and less self-critical.
Still, I'm not sure even the best modern monotheism has to offer is enough.
I realize, too, the virtues of many modern monotheistic religions. I acknowledge their positive moral teachings. I acknowledge the good work many people do in the names of their gods and their faiths.
Still, I'm not sure even the aggregate of the good produced is enough.
Enough, of course, to tip the balance away from the bad. And that is not a cheap shot. I'm not only referring to the Crusades, or the asinine hatred of gay people, or the horror of so-called honor killings. Those things were and are terrible.
But I mean to implicate something deeper. Something prior. Worldview. Think: What precipitates these terrible ends?
It is, it seems to me, a question of first principles. But, surprisingly, not so much what they are (because, to an important degree, that reality seems a function of what follows this next semicolon); rather, where we set out to look for them. Where we should look for them.
So. Where? Well. I am unwilling to submit to a single book; a single tradition; a single set of normative statements written millenia ago; the edicts of a single set of ordained anybodies; or the fiats of any one man, no matter how infallible he claims to be. I will not be colonized by the conquistadors of any "one true god."
But if monotheism is imperialism in religion, as has been said, then is polytheism liberation? An open polytheistic system, maybe? Paganism? It seems somewhat appealing. Wicca? Attractive in some respects. Hinduism? Buddhism? They have their moments as well.
Perhaps liberation is pantheism. It seems nice in many ways.
Perhaps an adamant agnosticism -- not doubt incorporated into faith, as is sometimes prescribed for monotheists with desires to be tolerant; but doubt as faith, faith in doubt.
Perhaps simple atheism.
Ultimately, I'm drawn to deontology, but not deities. Not for belief. For guidance, perhaps. But from all of them, every one, everyone's.
Religious teachings, moral philosophy and ethics, psychology and history, politics and friends, sight and conversation, novels and poems and paintings -- these can provide me my first principles. I will do my best to hash them out -- right and wrong, duty and responsibility and justice, interpersonal values. I will do my best to resolve my conflicts. And if occasionally, momentarily, I contradict myself -- then very well. I am large, as it's been said: I contain multitudes.
And for the "why are we here, and what happens when we aren't anymore" questions that seem of such importance to modern monotheists: I suppose I just don't much care about the answers. Or, more accurately, I think the questions are silly.
As I meet more and more people who truly enjoy working with numbers, the idea that there is one fundamental meaning of life seems less and less probable. Why are we here? The answer has to be limitless. If the governing metaphor of first principles is a common foundation, then the meaning of my life is what I build upon that base, and what I want to build but do not. And the meaning of your life is what you choose to build.
Our individual piles of bricks take shape over time. And while each hopefully gains a clarity of design and a desirable uniqueness, it cannot but be true that our edifices are strengthened and enhanced through interconnection.
And finally, then, it is interconnection that makes the second question silly, its answer obvious. What happens when we are no longer here? Other people remember us -- what we did, what we didn't do, what we said, what we never told, and how we made them feel.
