Finding My Religion

In light of the concerns outlined in my previous essay, I do not see a place for me in any one of today’s major religions. I could only belong to a religion that is based on rational ideas, is all-inclusive and is so lacking in structure that it borders on anarchy.

At the heart of the today’s major religions there are mystical ideas that supposedly defy rational understanding. The inability of believers to grasp these core concepts without the assistance of intermediaries generally leads to the formation of religious hierarchies that often exploit those at the bottom for the selfish purposes of some at the top.

In today’s information rich environment, a religion based on rationality is less likely to form exploitive hierarchies of intermediaries to “the Truth” (though as long as its interpretation of the fundamental truth is incomplete, it would still prone to the formation of potentially divisive schools of thought). To see why this is, note that in non-religious, but rational, academic philosophy there are probably as many schools of thought as there are “great” philosophers. Yet an expert in a given school is not in a position to block a relative neophyte’s path to increased understanding in lieu of some selfish ransom.

Rational systems of thought provide intelligent, motivated seekers with a degree of autonomy in their efforts to realize a deeper level of understanding. This self-sufficiency tends to preclude the formation of exploitable hierarchies of dependency.

Recall that all religions characterize an ultimate state of spirituality and describe a means of reaching it. What distinguishes an all-inclusive religion is that it sees all paths as eventually leading to the same destiny. As a result, instead of promoting a single path to our final spiritual fate, such a religion endorses all paths.

Membership in an all-inclusive religion is based on whether or not an individual is advancing towards the ultimate spiritual state, which the religion insists everyone is. Such a religion ascribes to the precept that since we are all eventually going to reach this state, there is no justifiable motive for abusing and sometimes even killing people based on their belief in how best to get there. Though simple, non-religious compassion compels us to mitigate the negative impact of any inhumane practices that a spiritual path may promote.

An all-inclusive religion does not distinguish believers from non-believers in terms of better and worse. As a result, it decreases the likelihood of the former committing atrocities against the latter in the name of the religion.

Those who do not choose to follow any of an all-inclusive religion’s current prescriptions for spiritual growth are still considered members. They are simply viewed as exploring different paths to the same ultimate destiny. On significant occasions, individuals on such alternate paths uncover the most extraordinary spiritual insights. These ideas are sometimes needed to extricate a religion from the cycle of dogmatic stagnation that typically manifests when divergent voices are not heard. As a result, these irregular members are valued as a crucial factor in the continued advancement of the religion.

At first glance a religion with no hierarchy whatsoever, in which everyone is free to do whatever makes sense to them, seems anarchic. But there is more to such a religion then meets the eye if it follows what has come to be called the open source model. In such a system there is virtually no central governing authority and everyone is free to contribute in whatever way they can; though no one is obliged to do so. The members of such a group are united by a shared vision and enriched lives, not by executive edicts and taxing obligations.

Such a religion would be more accurately characterized as socialistically egalitarian. It is worth noting that socialism is based on a selflessness that is consistent with the core tenets of every worthwhile spiritual perspective. As a result, a religion based on this principle represents a step up from the totalitarian oligarchies that predominate these days.

Ironically, many of us on what we regard as non-religious paths to deeper spirituality are already members of what could be characterized as a religion that is rational (it makes sense to us), inclusive (we accept everyone else’s the right to pursue their own path to our common ultimate destiny) and egalitarian (we do not require intermediaries and so, there is no dependency hierarchy). Such a religion might not be embraced by those who prefer mysticism, exclusivity and/or structure. But for those of us who favor rationality, inclusiveness and freedom, this irreligious religion is less likely to divide, exploit and abuse humanity.

The Problem of Religion

I am an example of what has become a contemporary cliché in that I regard myself as spiritual but not religious. I define religion as a prescribed set of rites, rituals and beliefs that are supposed to provide moral guidelines to their practitioners, while deepening their spirituality. Though I appreciate the idea of religion in the abstract, I am not a big fan of how it is typically practiced today. The primary benefit I see in our major religions is that they sometimes give comfort to worthwhile people who would otherwise feel spiritually lost.

For me personally, the potential spiritual benefits of today’s major religions are simply not worth their secular costs. Since I am not a paragon of morality and spirituality, I have needs that the right religion could conceivably address. But my needs in this area are not great enough to force me to endure or worse, contribute to the difficulties that often manifest in and through religions.

As I see it, the problem with today’s religions is that they are generally divisive belief systems that are easily perverted for exploitive and sometimes even more appalling purposes. The divisiveness of religions is based on the manner in which they distinguish true believers from the rest of us. When religions regard infidels and heretics as inherently inferior, the religious capacity for atrocity emerges. This is because once a religion draws the line separating the sacred from the profane (or at best the mundane) between true believers and all others, it implicitly sanctions the former to treat the latter horrifically. Only in a religious context could the oxymoron ‘sanctified atrocity’ make sense.

The exploitive nature of religions manifests when they begin to develop hierarchical organizations. Such structures typically emerge when a religion’s core precepts represent arcana that require mystical interpretation. In such belief systems, the deeper your understanding of the founding principles (as subjectively assessed by other profound believers) the higher you are in its hierarchy. This dynamic generally leads to a perception that advancing your position in the religious hierarchy is synonymous with spiritual growth.

Once this view becomes commonplace in an organization that distinguishes itself from the secular world (in which spiritual growth is objectively demonstrated), the religion has essentially transformed itself from a spiritual vehicle to a political one. This invariably leads to increasing numbers of people of dubious morality and spirituality rising to leadership positions in the religion. Such leadership can, and with distressing regularity does, selfishly exploit its followers under the guise of promoting their spiritual growth.

Be that as it may, I do not subscribe to the cynical belief that religion is the source all human problems in the world. I maintain that it is the perversion of our basic survival instinct into excessive self-centeredness that is the culprit here. I do believe that the nature of religion makes it arguably the greatest mechanism available to us for amplifying the negative impact of our self-centeredness. Ultimately, it is not the existence of religion, but the manner in which it is often structured and practiced that makes it to such a destructive force in our world today.

Levels of Spirituality - Part II

The evolution of the participants in a spiritual tradition goes from Adherent to Prophet to Divinity (though recall that among Abrahamic believers the idea of ascending to Divinity through one’s own efforts is generally considered heresy). The most common path for Adherents to take towards becoming Prophets is through immersion in the logos of their tradition. It is this study that most often leads to the mystical experience that transforms them into Prophets. The path from Prophet to Divinity is much more subjective and thus less well understood. But all such transitions involve the subject relinquishing the perception of uniqueness and ultimately abandoning the subject-object duality. How this is accomplished in the spiritual dynamic varies with the individual Prophet.

These levels of spirituality manifest concentrically with Divinity at the core, surrounded by Prophets who are in turn surrounded by Adherents. Where there are multiple Divinities in a given tradition, each distinguishable instance is simply a different face of the same underlying Transcendence.

Adherents often mistakenly believe that Prophets are responsible for leading them to the Divinity. But Prophets are typically still blazing their own trail to Divinity. And even as a given Prophet’s effort nears completion, the resultant path is only appropriate for that specific individual. In general, the Prophet is merely nurturing Adherents to become Prophets in their own right so that they can find their own paths to Divinity. The Prophets do this by providing the Adherents with the logos and an example to contemplate.

Adherents are bound to their spiritual tradition by the strength of their faith since they have no tangible proof of its validity. Once this proof arrives in the form of a life-changing mystical experience, the Adherent becomes a Prophet who is bound to the tradition by the power of that experience. Divinities cannot leave their spiritual traditions because they are what define the traditions. For a Divinity to abandon its spiritual tradition would be like water abandoning an ocean (where there is no water there can be no ocean).

Though the Divinity cannot leave the spiritual tradition based on it, sometimes the tradition is seen as abandoning the Divinity. It is typically revealed to a Prophet that the tradition has moved away from its source. Sometimes this movement is based on the logos moving away from its foundation to keep up with societal fads and at other times it is the result of provincial aspects of the logos not changing in the face of divinely inspired cultural advancements (distinguishing fads from legitimate advancements is the relevancy challenge of all traditions). In response to this divergence, the Prophet presents a new revelation that represents the spiritual tradition’s path back to the Divinity. Generally only a portion of the original Adherents will choose to follow this new path. This dynamic was the basis of the various spiritual reformations that have occurred through the ages.

Despite what the administrators in the typical spiritual bureaucracy (i.e., religion) would have you believe, every cleric is not a Prophet and every member of the laity is not an Adherent. While some Prophets are clerics, others are members of the laity and still others are heretics residing out beyond the periphery of the spiritual orthodoxy. Many clerics are Adherents who were certified by other Adherents in Prophet’s vestments. More than a few clerics are complete charlatans preying on the faith and gullibility of hopeful Adherents.

Most spiritual interpretations indicate that there are occasional eruptions of true Divinity scattered about our world. These Avatars (Descenders), Buddhas (Enlightened Ones), Tirthankars (Ford Makers), Gamur Tzaddiqim (Completely Righteous Ones), Christs (Anointed Ones), Mahdis (Guided Ones), Gurus (Teachers) and Saints (Holy Ones) are believed by some to walk embodied among us and by others to manifest spiritually in a form of the Transcendence to which Prophets and Adherents can relate.

Levels of Spirituality - Part I

I have come to embrace of mild form of spirituality that is consistent with my rationalist leanings yet not inconsistent with our major spiritual traditions. I will explain the specifics of my personal spirituality in a subsequent essay. My purpose here is to describe the shared structural elements of our major spiritual traditions as viewed from the perspective of a rational, open-minded non-participant.

My analysis of our major spiritual perspectives indicates that there are three discrete levels of involvement. These levels of spirituality are defined with respect to the Transcendent entity underlying all of these traditions. The distinct levels of spirituality are:

• Adherent - Believer in Transcendence
• Prophet - Communer with Transcendence
• Divinity - Manifestation of Transcendence

The Adherent represents the minimum level of participation in a given tradition. As such they are the most loosely affiliated participants in a given spiritual practice. This is the level of the majority of those associated with a given spiritual interpretation. The Adherents of different spiritual traditions have accepted as true the revelations of a Prophet of that tradition.

A Prophet speaks for the fundamental Transcendent entity underlying most spiritual interpretations. To do so, the Prophet has to have had some form of communion with this Transcendence. From most spiritual perspectives this communion represents a mystical experience. It is generally the first significant instance of such an experience that transforms an Adherent into a Prophet. In being fundamentally transformed by their spirituality, Prophets have a deeper level of commitment to their interpretation than do Adherents. The relative rarity of true mystical experiences means there are typically fewer Prophets than Adherents in a given spiritual tradition. The mystical experience provides the Prophet with intuitive insight into the nature of Transcendence, in the form of a spiritual revelation. Collectively the revelations of the orthodox Prophets of a given spiritual interpretation represent its logos.

In mystic spirituality the fundamental Transcendent entity is regarded as being beyond comprehension. As such its manifestation as Divinity is what Prophets commune with in order to receive the revelations that form the foundation of the beliefs of Adherents.

Its Divinity represents the accessible core of a spiritual tradition. Only the most exceptional beings in a given spiritual interpretation are found here. In the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) Adherents are taught that the Transcendent descends to manifest as the Divinity (Shekhinah, the Holy Spirit, the Christ, Az-Zahir). Generally in the Abrahamic interpretations only Prophets believe they can ascend to the Unity with Transcendence that manifests as Divinity. Abrahamic Adherents believe they can only aspire to proximity with the Transcendent, a location that represents the realm they call Heaven. This domain corresponds to what is essentially the upper reaches of the Prophetic level.

By contrast, in the Dharmic and Daoic traditions (Hinduism, Daoism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, etc), Adherents are taught that Prophets can ascend to Divinity through spiritual growth. These Far Eastern traditions share the Abrahamic belief that the Transcendent can descend to manifest as Divinity.

The Death of Santa Claus

My 12 year old daughter just confided in me that it is becoming increasingly difficult for her to continue to believe in Santa Claus. That she sees the existence of Santa Claus as still worth considering is a testament to the sophistication of her perception of his (its) nature. I explained to her at a relatively early age that Santa Claus is the name that many European-influenced cultures give to a seasonal spirit of selfless giving.

My idea of spirit is a bit more precise than the prehistoric concept of independent, non-material, sentient manifestations that are capable of influencing the world around us. I regard spirit as the connection among a collection of minds that inclines them to act in unison. Spirits do not exist without component minds any more than minds exist without component neurons. Sports fanaticism, market forces, patriotism, racism and religious zeal are examples of spiritual manifestations.

In this context I explained to my daughter that Santa Claus is simply a spirit that inclines people to be more loving, kind and giving between Thanksgiving and New Years. Santa Claus is an intentional spirit, specifically created by people to bring out the best in them at this time of year. Every mind that contributes to and thus acts out of this spirit is an avatar of Santa Claus. The fat, bearded guy in the red suit is merely how people who cannot imagine such manifestations without bodies choose to picture that spirit.

Over the last few years my daughter has noticed a strong sense of obligation underlying many people’s efforts to give at this time of year. But isn’t Santa about giving freely out of love for others? There must be a different spirit underlying such compulsory giving. The fact that selfless giving is never coerced means that this other spirit must be in competition with Santa Claus. Since these days most people seem to be doing forced giving during the holiday season, Santa must be losing. I guess I should explain to her that, “Yes Akilah, there is a Santa Claus, but he is being killed and eaten by the Spirit of Commerce”.

The Evolution of Wisdom

In the beginning there was Wisdom.
This primitive Wisdom came in two forms, Temporal and Spiritual.
Our Temporal Wisdom told us how to survive.
Our Spiritual Wisdom told us how to grow.

As we contemplated and meditated upon our Spiritual Wisdom it deepened beyond the intuitive grasp of most of us.
As a result, our Spiritual Wisdom came to be seen as Revelatory Knowledge.
When it was written down this Revelatory Knowledge lost much of its depth and complexity as it came to be the scriptural basis of Religion.

As we generalized and extended our Temporal Wisdom in the context of the world around us, we began to accumulate Empirical Knowledge.
This rationally generated, Empirical Knowledge of the world is the essence of Philosophy.
A falsifiable portion of Philosophy subsequently emerged as what we call Science.

The incredible success of Science in explaining our world led to our nearly universal infatuation with rationality.
But rationality has been largely divorced from Spirituality in the context presented by both Science and Religion.
As such, in the domain defined by Science and Religion no rational growth path is evident since in this perspective rationality constrains our capacity to grow spiritually.
However, in the context of our Revelatory and Empirical Knowledge there is no inherent contradiction between rationality and spiritual growth.

God Talk VII - Religion

Copyright© 2007 K Harris

Spirituality is our focus on that which we perceive to be the most significant thing in existence. Religion is a prescription of rites, rituals and beliefs that define and shape our relationship to that entity.

Spirituality tends to represent a personal point of view while religion generally reflects a group perspective. Spirituality is relatively harmless until it becomes a religion. While there is no denying that the various religions have done much good in human history, they have also proven to be among the most divisive forces imaginable.

The trouble is typically not with the religions themselves but with their adherents. The problematic believers tend to interpret their religious doctrine in the context of their preexisting xenophobia and preconceived notions of intolerance. In doing so, they reshape the religion to reflect themselves.

One cannot help but wonder how the ultimate object of virtually all religions would feel about what is being done under the guise of worshiping it.

God Talk - Religion

• Just so you know I do not need your protection. My omnipotence means that if something were such an affront to me that I wanted it to be dead it would die the instant my desire manifested. As such, people claiming to kill in my name are simply trying to justify their pre-existing murderous tendencies.
• How would you feel about being characterized as a psychopathic bigot who is murderously intolerant of diversity? So why do so many of you seem to think I enjoy it? All genders, ethnicities and sexual orientations are fine by me; those who insist otherwise simply do not get me.
• Human delusions of superiority are hilarious, until someone gets hurt. Everything that you believe that emphasizes your uniqueness, or that of those around you, is fundamentally false.
• It is not a coincidence that the spiritual traditions that insist that your separation from me is absolute are also the ones that believe most fervently in the power of their Adversary. Such self-hatred merely gets in their way.
• Which is the true religion? The one that leads you to me.
• Since all paths ultimately lead to me my one commandment is that you do not needlessly block another’s route to me.
• It is your uniqueness that determines which religion, if any, is the true one. Your path to me is shaped by what you are. The length of your path to me reflects how tightly you are clinging to your uniqueness.
• I eventually answer all prayers that are accompanied by the sacrifice of a portion of your infatuation with your uniqueness. Of course, it could be argued that relinquishing some of your self-infatuation provides the answer your prayers by bringing you closer to me.
• I do not need your adoration, but when offering it undermines your infatuation with your uniqueness, it can only help you.
• Prayers that call attention to your uniqueness are mere posturing.
• Blessed are those who are consumed by neither self-infatuation nor self-hatred. They are on the most direct path to me.

God Talk IV: Creation

Copyright© 2007 K Harris

Our ancestors’ reactions to the extraordinary complexity, random brutality and transcendent beauty of our universe triggered the generation of all of our scientific, philosophical and spiritual frameworks.

Science is essentially the empirical study of why our universe looks and acts the way it does. As such, its primal boundary is the origin of the universe. The domain beyond this boundary is the realm of philosophy and spirituality. Philosophy is a discipline of rational causality that is not necessarily empirical. Spirituality describes a causal system that is not necessarily rational.

Since our reaction to the universe led to the creation of all three of these disciplines, questions relating to how the universe came to be and what is our relationship to it are important in science, philosophy and spirituality. But the diversity of these disciplines tends to produce a divergence in their answers to these questions. Fortunately there is a being whose perspective represents the point of convergence of the various answers provided by these disciplines. Here is what it would have to say on the subject.

God Talk - Creation

• Why did I create the universe? Your universe has always existed in the primal existential continuum that is my essence. It is your uniqueness that carves its distinct shape out of that continuum. Your uniqueness shapes the continuum of all possibilities by hiding those that do not contribute to the sequence of events that ends with your reading this sentence.
• In reality nothing is created. Everything always exists but thanks to your uniqueness certain things are hidden so that others can be distinguished. Things do not actually manifest, they are simply revealed by your uniqueness.
  
• Your uniqueness does not merely shape what you see around you; it also shapes every phenomenon that contributes in any distinguishable way to what you see around you. In other words, your uniqueness shapes the entire mental, biotic, temporal and conceptual history of your universe from its origin to the present.
• Creation is a Cosmic Rorschach Test in which everything you see is a reflection of what you limit yourself to being. These self-imposed limits represent your uniqueness. Since I have no uniqueness, I have no limits and so there is nothing surrounding me.
• The "creation" of your universe is not a solo effort; you collaborate in it with all of the conscious observers that you see around you whose perceptions are generally consistent with yours.
• Is there intelligent life on other planets? There is if their manifestation is consistent with your uniqueness.
• Evolution or Intelligent Design? It was your uniqueness, not your (or my) intelligence that designed this universe in which evolution obviously occurs.
• Since the universe as you know it is a reflection of your uniqueness, if you change your uniqueness you can change the entire universe.
• If you think this world is a mess, remember you shaped it to be this way and so it is up to you to fix it. I have no doubts whatsoever about your ability to do this.

God Talk II: Being God

Copyright© 2007 K Harris

In the strictest sense of the term, I do believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, though that does not necessarily make me a theist. When you think about it, everyone should be able to buy into the idea that there is something that is greater than everything else in each of our value systems. This is analogous to observing that there must be a location on this planet that is farthest from you. For every distinct earthling this location is slightly different, but there is one for each of us.

The Supreme Being is simply the top of the hierarchy by which you judge importance. Just because this entity is not the God of scriptures does not make it any less supreme in your world view.

I find it amusing that for many (though arguably not most) theists their Supreme Being is not the God of their scriptures. For a significant number of people who profess to believe in God, their actions indicate that their Supreme Being must be fame, wealth, power or some combination thereof.

If you truly believe that all beings are equal, then your Supreme Being is simply the totality of all beings. If you extend this characterization to the continuum of all possible beings and define this entity as being perfectly self-similar to the fact that it exists, then you have my personal perception of the Supreme Being.

Yes, even atheists believe that something is supreme. Ironically, many atheists reserve their ultimate veneration for the same fame, wealth and power that many theists revere. Arguably for most atheists the Supreme Being is either the entire universe or some ultimate state to which all conscious beings aspire. In this context, regardless of whether you are atheist or theist, how spiritual you are reflects how much of your life you spend in prayer to, contemplation of or communion with your Supreme Being.

Simply regarding an entity as supreme, is to accord it the most basic form of worship. As such, it is generally not belief in and worship of a Supreme Being that distinguishes atheists and theists. The primary difference between them is the theist’s tendency to engage in anthropopatheia (assigning human traits to God). This means that the fewer traits your Supreme Being shares with humans (e.g., will, desire, wrath, etc.) the more of an atheist you are.

Having introduced my Supreme Being in the previous post, this discourse will focus on being God.

God Talk - Being God

• Where did I come from? Nowhere, I have always been and never in a different form. Being existential manifestations time and space reside within me, so I am not bound by causality, it is bound by me. I am everything that can possibly be, existing indistinguishably in a timeless “now”. As such, there is nothing that I am not already. I am what I have always been and always will be.
• What do I do with all of eternity at my disposal? I share in your growth experiences. I perceive your perceptions as you change the terrifying into the ordinary into the transcendent.
• Do I intervene in human affairs? Continuously, but never in a way that you could prove it was me and not you.
• Why is that? Because nothing ever happens because of me and not you.
• If you do all of the heavy lifting, why do you need me? In the context of my fundamental nature you are actually asking “Why does Existence exist?” From your perspective the answer is because without me you are impossible. My existence is the Fundamental Tautology.

An Open Letter to Dr. Francis S. Collins and Dr. Richard Dawkins

Dear Dr. Collins and Dr. Dawkins,

I have just finished reading your books ‘The God Delusion’ and ‘The Language of God’. I want to thank the two of you for an enriching experience that I would definitely recommend for all open-minded seekers. There is a synergy between your books that made the combination of them even more compelling than the individual texts. While your books do not perfectly complement each other, there is enough yin in the one and yang in the other to make for a stimulating and ultimately enjoyable reading experience.

Be that as it may, I have gripes with certain phrasings each of you chose to use regularly in your books. Dr. Dawkins, I found your references to ‘races’ of humans bothersome since you, more than most, should know that races are merely sociological constructs created to focus xenophobia and justify oppression and thus have no place in a discussion based largely on evolutionary biology. As for you Dr. Collins, your continuous references to God as ‘He’ was irksome since a man of your background cannot believe that God has a penis, testes, a y-chromosome or distinctly male personality traits. As a member of our contemporary culture you do not have to be constrained by such an out-dated convention.

I chose to start with ‘The God Delusion’ because I believe that in general, rationality should be our first resort and faith our last. In this context Dr. Dawkins, I should point out that your insistence that science will ultimately be able to answer our currently unanswerable questions marks you as a man of faith, though your faith is based on deductive reasoning. But since history merely informs the future, it does not guarantee it, in the end your faith may not be justified.

As for your book Dr. Dawkins, with all due respect I found your perspective to be elitist. For instance, when you describe your transcendent awe of the wonders of the world around us, this is a leading scientist speaking. In general, the vanguard of the neo-atheist movement represents a collection of seemingly intelligent individuals who are evidently capable of seeing transcendent beauty in the empirical world. But what about the majority people who simply cannot see the world in these terms? Are they supposed take the word of the intellectual elite that there is more to life than doing unfulfilling work to scrape out a minimal living in a corrupt a world; or worse be told that there is not? If so, how would this be different from the elitism that allows religious clerics to tell the laity what to believe? The capacity of corrupt individuals among the “spiritual elite” to interpret the transcendent for the “common folk” is the basis of most of the ills of religion that you cite in your book. Replacing a spiritual elite with an intellectual one would not necessarily represent an improvement, given the corruptible nature of even the smartest humans. Ultimately, it is demonstrable wisdom that should characterize our leaders.

Ironically Dr. Collins, in ‘The Language of God’, the story of your return to the faithful gives credence to one of Dr. Dawkins major problems with religion: the wrongness of indoctrinating children. Your personal narrative shows us that an intelligent, compassionate individual needed to escape his early indoctrination and experience life as a rational adult in order to gain a balanced appreciation of the perspective of the faithful. Imagine what would happen to a less intelligent or less compassionate individual in your situation. On second thought, you don’t have to imagine since we have seen it play out in the intolerant, hateful behavior of believers down through the ages. Religion tells children that embracing a particular faith makes you better than all non-believers, regardless of how deeply spiritual, intellectually brilliant or extraordinarily wise they are. This will generally undermine their incentive to improve anything about themselves except the fervor of their faith. Few people escape this trap of self-limitation with their faith intact.

Dr. Collins, in your ‘Exhortation to Scientists’ you miss one of the critical reasons why many scientists are not inclined to accept religion: it is not self-correcting. Scientific knowledge has improved through the millennia while, by virtue of its sacred nature, the basis of religious knowledge remains largely static from the time it was first revealed. To invite someone who is a part of a rational system of dynamic progress to (re)consider adopting what from their perspective is a primitive, stagnant world view, because it is not as backwards as they think and might make them feel better about the world, is a dubious request. On the flip side of the coin Dr. Dawkins, your asking theists, deists and many agnostics to abandon their efforts to connect to the transcendent because a few evil people claimed to share their beliefs or because you can’t see how it could not be a waste of time, is asking a great deal as well.

Both of your books indicate that there are critical problems on each side of this debate. Dr. Collins, your protests to the contrary notwithstanding, religious faith is often an irrational state of mind. For the sake of this discussion let us go the simple definition that faith is belief in a premise that you cannot prove. Faith seems rational when the underlying assertion on which it is based resonates with the believer. For instance, most mathematicians had faith that Euclid’s Parallel Postulate was true because it made an intuitive sense to them (and still does in flat space). Faith becomes irrational where its premises do not make intuitive sense to the observer (e.g. "Three persons in one God"). Most people who reject a given faith do so because some of its underlying principles are inconsistent with their world view. Believing an irrational assertion because it makes you feel better about your place in the world is not the noble undertaking that many of the faithful take it to be. The age, size and complexity of the major systems of faith make it likely that most believers are accepting things that seem irrational to them (e.g. God is omniscient, omnipotent and yet can be swayed by prayer). It is the irrational (“ineffable”) concepts underlying faiths that leave its adherents vulnerable to being exploited by unscrupulous snake oil salespeople masquerading as clerics.

As for you Dr. Dawkins, while the typical atheist is only expected to believe things that make sense to them, what makes them atheists is that true transcendence does not seem sensible to them. But irrespective of its evolutionary origin, you cannot deny that many humans seem to have an innate desire to experience the transcendent. Insisting that pursuing this desire is a bad thing because evil has been done by others on this path (or again because you can’t see that it could possibly succeed) has the definite feel of a baby-bathwater scenario. The pursuit of the transcendent is no more inherently evil than the search for scientific knowledge. To try to stigmatize the former represents a level of intolerance worthy of a fundamentalist. In doing so you demonstrate that we do not need religion to be xenophobic.

To many of us, the available transcendent belief systems have unacceptably irrational components while our current rational frameworks do not encompass the transcendent, which arguably the majority of us ache to experience. So what is to be done about this situation? The “What to do?” part is actually rather obvious: rationally explain the transcendent. The fact that it has yet to be demonstrably achieved in human history indicates that the “How to do it?” part is proving to be a bit more challenging. But it is what must be done if humans are to survive our current dubious moral/ethical state.

Respectfully,

Rational Answers