Agnosticism, but not as we know it
May. 21st, 2013 01:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sesquipedalityIn recent years, I have discovered that my vestigial sense of (spiritual) faith has atrophied to the point where I can no longer be said to believe in any deity. I have always felt uncomfortable with the terms agnostic and atheist, and have therefore tended, when necessary, to self-describe as humanist. Today I had a conversation in which I kind of straightened out some thoughts I have about religion, and I thought they might be worth sharing.
Many atheists get upset when you say that their position constitutes a religious belief. But I think it has to, because atheism is an act of faith. Let me try to explain. Faith is a firm conviction held without evidential support. The realm of the spiritual is essentially unknowable. Everyone's relationship with the universe or the spiritual is based upon personal assertions about something which is simply outside of the purview of human knowledge. There is no way to prove that the universe is or is not an act of divine will. A belief either way is therefore an act of faith.
The atheist counter to this is to state that the atheist, unlike the religious, is asserting the null hypothesis. If there is no evidence of the divine, then belief in the divine is irrational. The atheist, unlike the spiritual person, embraces rationality. Atheism is not asserting a state of affairs, but demanding proof before accepting the assertions of others. This argument is sometimes explained using Russell's Teapot.
The problem I have with this is that as someone with a background in mathematics and formal logic, I don't actually think that's what's going on at all. I think the null hypothesis is that humanity is incapable of drawing any conclusions at all about the higher order (or lack thereof) of the universe other than through the medium of faith. The teapot analogy fails us because a teapot has properties that are testable physically or scientifically. The existence of the divine is an unprovable statement within the system of reality in a manner analogous to Godel's first incompleteness theorem. It is unknowable, and therefore a statement that God does not exist is just as much a matter of faith as a statement that he does.
So I think by default this makes me an agnostic. Perhaps that's also a position of faith, but I'm not sure it's terribly important whether or not it is. The key thing is that I simply don't have any faith. While this position is more intellectually appealing to me than any other, I have little to nothing invested in it, and certainly no feeling of cosmic certainty that it's the right one.
But the thing that bothers me about agnosticism is that the word carries certain connotations, in particular the idea that an agnostic is still searching for a greater truth - that it's some kind of stop gap. Now I've just said I'm not particularly invested in my own brand of agnosticism. but willingness to change should not in any way be confused with desire to do so. The brutal truth is that I really don't give a flying fuck whether a higher consciousness exists or not, because it makes absolutely no difference to the way I live my life. I have been a catholic, an evangelical Christian and a neo-Pagan at various times, but throughout these phases, my moral code has remained fairly consistently focused on non-maleficence and doing unto others as you would be done by. All the rest is just window dressing as far as I'm concerned.
If God turned up on my doorstep tomorrow and told me I was going to hell unless I followed his rules, I like to think I would honestly say "fine, but that's on you, not on me". I am not a good person, even by my own standards, but since that's true of everyone else to ever live, I can't see how any reasonable deity could blame me for that. And I refuse to enable an unreasonable deity, even at the peril of my immortal soul.
Cavalier words, no doubt, and I suppose that they indicate that I strongly suspect that either no deity exists, or that if they do then they simply have no interest in me whatsoever. That then must be my article of faith, but my "faith" only influences my attitude to my understanding of the universe. I understand the divine to be unknowable, but I believe it to be irrelevant.
Many atheists get upset when you say that their position constitutes a religious belief. But I think it has to, because atheism is an act of faith. Let me try to explain. Faith is a firm conviction held without evidential support. The realm of the spiritual is essentially unknowable. Everyone's relationship with the universe or the spiritual is based upon personal assertions about something which is simply outside of the purview of human knowledge. There is no way to prove that the universe is or is not an act of divine will. A belief either way is therefore an act of faith.
The atheist counter to this is to state that the atheist, unlike the religious, is asserting the null hypothesis. If there is no evidence of the divine, then belief in the divine is irrational. The atheist, unlike the spiritual person, embraces rationality. Atheism is not asserting a state of affairs, but demanding proof before accepting the assertions of others. This argument is sometimes explained using Russell's Teapot.
The problem I have with this is that as someone with a background in mathematics and formal logic, I don't actually think that's what's going on at all. I think the null hypothesis is that humanity is incapable of drawing any conclusions at all about the higher order (or lack thereof) of the universe other than through the medium of faith. The teapot analogy fails us because a teapot has properties that are testable physically or scientifically. The existence of the divine is an unprovable statement within the system of reality in a manner analogous to Godel's first incompleteness theorem. It is unknowable, and therefore a statement that God does not exist is just as much a matter of faith as a statement that he does.
So I think by default this makes me an agnostic. Perhaps that's also a position of faith, but I'm not sure it's terribly important whether or not it is. The key thing is that I simply don't have any faith. While this position is more intellectually appealing to me than any other, I have little to nothing invested in it, and certainly no feeling of cosmic certainty that it's the right one.
But the thing that bothers me about agnosticism is that the word carries certain connotations, in particular the idea that an agnostic is still searching for a greater truth - that it's some kind of stop gap. Now I've just said I'm not particularly invested in my own brand of agnosticism. but willingness to change should not in any way be confused with desire to do so. The brutal truth is that I really don't give a flying fuck whether a higher consciousness exists or not, because it makes absolutely no difference to the way I live my life. I have been a catholic, an evangelical Christian and a neo-Pagan at various times, but throughout these phases, my moral code has remained fairly consistently focused on non-maleficence and doing unto others as you would be done by. All the rest is just window dressing as far as I'm concerned.
If God turned up on my doorstep tomorrow and told me I was going to hell unless I followed his rules, I like to think I would honestly say "fine, but that's on you, not on me". I am not a good person, even by my own standards, but since that's true of everyone else to ever live, I can't see how any reasonable deity could blame me for that. And I refuse to enable an unreasonable deity, even at the peril of my immortal soul.
Cavalier words, no doubt, and I suppose that they indicate that I strongly suspect that either no deity exists, or that if they do then they simply have no interest in me whatsoever. That then must be my article of faith, but my "faith" only influences my attitude to my understanding of the universe. I understand the divine to be unknowable, but I believe it to be irrelevant.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-21 01:19 am (UTC)I'd probably call myself an agnostic, too, but for different reasons. I don't think faith is important, as neither do you I think, but I think spiritual practice is important, and I get a little frustrated with atheists who are definitely protestant christian atheists concentrating around the ideas of a (lack of) faith and (lack of) personal salvation, or whatever as evidence for their denial of belief. Also, their choice of zero-point never seems to be well justified (as it isn't in the active-act/passive-forebearance debates around assisted death, and the philosophical "train signalman" though experiments).
The existence or otherwise of gods seems largely incidental in religious practice for me (which gives me a hard time engaging with mainstream [or most other kinds of] christianity or other Abrahamic religions unless very mysticalised), neither does any kind of coherence, tradition, nor internal consistency of metaphysics. I do get frustrated with a lot of new-age nonsense, I think because I can't find a way that it matches what I feel.
Over the years I've taken an interest in Feri and even some of the late Victorian Golden Dawn influenced stuff [the latter is full of silliness and the whiff of patchouli, but most religion is]. Both of these I have found immensely powerful, but their communities almost universally unhinged (I believe "swivel-eyed loons" is the term de jour). I've taken an increasing interest in Buddhism over the years, and that kind of coexists with essentially Feri practice and some Golden Dawn and O.T.O. exercises. But I'm as likely to put atheist down in a form or discussion because it's often the option that most closely matches all that in treatment and consequence. Interestingly, Buddhism and Feri make very cantankerous bedfellows, but you know, we're people, full of flaws and tectonics, and I seem to sit on that plate boundary. I've never really been able to take Wicca all that seriously for myself (though I realise that folk do get a lot out of it) -- it's alarmingly heterosexual and 1950s-caravan-holiday for me.
I think the divine is knowable but in all essential aspects incommunicable. I don't know whether it assembles into some consensus reality or not. How could I?
no subject
Date: 2013-05-21 01:34 am (UTC)I'm not sure I entirely understand where you're coming from, and I think I'd need to read up on those traditions in order to get it (I know a little about the Golden Dawn, but it struck me mostly as mystical woo and I haven't looked into it in any serious way). What I would say thought is that I find mindfulness meditation to be an incredibly powerful tool, while I don't ascribe any religious significance to it whatsoever, I do wonder whether this would fall within your definition of spiritual practice. It does have its roots in Buddhism, but can be usefully practiced entirely detached from those roots.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-22 01:36 am (UTC)First, atheists in christian countries seem to define atheism in terms of a lack of certain beliefs or faith or conviction. This is far from the only way to formulate religiousness. A major other way is in terms of those who undertake a set of religious practises, without much regard to belief. I think the closest could be seen as a creative (or destructive) act with value per se and in rem.
Second, religion and atheism alike seem obsessed these days with casting religion as a kind of personal salvation: all the stories are in terms of a kind of drama that's being played out within different aspects of a personality within each person. If there is a true divinity (is there?) then it seems that this might lead to certain practise (or belief) even if it had no personal aspect at all (You might acknowledge the divinity of the sun, for example, without the belief that the sun is aware of you, or will shine more on you than your neighbour as a result, or that it is in battle with the moon, or that it has the characteristics of a person or animal or living thing). In fact, if you worship the divine because it will benefit you, you're not acting with whatever the religious equivalent of Jus ad bellum is, and you need to be very careful. Sometimes this plays out as if religion represents a kind of geriatric lifeboat, sometimes as a kind of self-torture or self-support, but the religious debate on all sides is all very my, myself, and I, which is bloody irritating.
Third, I find arguments about Occam's razor very hard to accept because I don't know how you establish, is this metaphysical world where all bets are off, at what level "empty" is. With a particular axiomatic notion of a devoid world, an atheist's ledger of entities could be full of all kinds of necessary explanations to describe what another peson would call "nothing".
Would Occam have preferred a donut with a hole in it, or one without? In terms of unnecessary multiplication of pastry, he'd have preferred the former; of description and specification he'd have preferred the latter. S.'s hell is very like the hole in a donut, as it has a lot of characteristics of absence as a hole does and it's not clear to me whether conjouring hell or diminishing it takes more work.
Feri has among the most beautiful creation myths I have encountered. Incredibly disturbing, too, but so is creation. It has a lot of powerful exercises (powerful in the sense that everyday Grounding and Centreing rituals are powerful, not in the sense of melting zinc with lasers shining from your eyes sense). The iron and pearl pentacles (essentially balancing exercises and meditations) which much of US-influenced neopaganism uses are originally from Feri, and it has seven watchtowers (rather than N, S, E, W) in a centred octohedral arrangement, which brings up interrelationships I've not seen elsewhere. In all, it's the most richly creative tradition I've encountered, by a long way, and is dripping with beauty. I don't think ritual is particularly important, particularly metaphysical ritual, but this seems to be the one for me right now. The GD stuff is mainly historical. Some of the earliest useful exercises I encountered were GD, so things like the Middle Pillar, etc, still have a special place despite the woo bringing me out in hives.
I've been increasingly attracted to Zen over the years, particularly for its lack of doctrine, and Koan meditations, for example, give you a really strong sense of the constructedness reality (mainly of duals and zeroes).
None of this really amounts to anything of consequence, though it's incredibly important to me.
-- d