Mystery and our need for Certainty.
Mystery and certainty – in face of the former we seek the later. Our curiosity and imagination are stimulated by the unknown. They are the driving forces behind advances in science, maths and technology but despite huge progress many of the mysteries surrounding the human condition remain unexplained. Religion and philosophy step in to fill the voids in our understanding. We seem to need the comfort of words of wisdom, gods and myths in the same way that Linus needs his security blanket in the Peanuts cartoons.
Take these age-old questions:
- Why is there something rather than nothing?
- Was there really a Big Bang? What banged and what came before it?
- How did life begin and is there life elsewhere in the universe?
- Are human beings just highly complicated physics or is there something else, like an eternal soul?
- Do we have free will?
- Is there a God (or perhaps gods) and if so, what is God like?
- Is death the absolute end of us, or is there an existence beyond death?
- Where do the laws of science come from?
- Are moral laws just a human invention or are they built into the universe?
- Do miracles really happen?
- Etc etc
Why do we believe what we believe, and how do we know if we are right?
Here is a summary generated by AI:
The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer delves into the mechanisms behind how we form and maintain beliefs. Here are the core ideas:
- Patternicity: Our brains are wired to find patterns in random data. This tendency helps us make sense of the world but can also lead to false beliefs.
- Agenticity: We often attribute agency to these patterns, believing that intentional agents (like gods, spirits, or conspirators) are behind them.
- Belief Formation: Beliefs are formed first, often based on emotional or intuitive responses, and then rationalized with logic and evidence.
- Confirmation Bias: Once a belief is established, we seek out information that confirms it and ignore or dismiss evidence that contradicts it.
- Cognitive Dissonance: When confronted with conflicting information, we experience discomfort and are motivated to reduce this dissonance, often by reinforcing our existing beliefs.
- Science as a Tool: Shermer advocates for the scientific method as a way to test and validate beliefs, helping us distinguish between true and false patterns.
These ideas illustrate how our brains can both help and hinder our understanding of reality.
Whatever our belief system, religious, humanist, philosophical, political, economic and so on there is a desire to be right and our thinking will be strongly directed by the first five of Shermer’s core ideas. Once beliefs are firmly established it becomes hard to question or overturn them. But the proper position for Homo rationalis is to treat our beliefs with a degree of scepticism, being prepared to modify them in the light of new evidence and our own development, or even abandon them altogether. This is what Shermer means by using science as a tool – see below for more detail on this.
Each major religion believes it has the truth about human existence
Religions claim to have the resolved the mystery of the human condition, but how does a non-religious person seeking spiritual truth decide which religion to embrace? Inquirers will be told by hard-line believers that their choice determines their eternal destiny. If this really is at stake it must be the most important decision of one’s life, yet there is no rational way to make it. Suppose you make the wrong choice, what then?
Every religion has its fundamentalists who are certain they are right and equally certain everyone else is wrong. Fundamentalism not only pits one religion against another in a battle of beliefs but inevitably leads to conflict as one certainty seeks to impose itself over another. English history has many examples with Catholics at war with Protestants, Puritans attacking The King, and Non-conformists imprisoned by the State. Islamic states demand conformity to the Koran and Sharia Law and crack down harshly on dissent. Under Modi, India has moved towards a Hindu-based nationalism that is causing conflict with other faiths and secularists. In the USA, Christian Nationalists who are mainly white evangelical fundamentalists are aiming to impose their Christian values on the whole population because they are certain they are doing the will of God.
This short poem attacks the certainties of belief sytems:
by Yehuda Amichai (Israeli poet)
From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.
The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plough.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined house once stood.
Christians don’t agree with each other and never have.
The Methodist chapels I visited and preached in usually had over the entrance, carved in stone, “Primitive Methodist Chapel” or “Wesleyan Methodist Chapel” because the church established after Wesley’s death split and then split again, mostly reuniting in 1938. Just a tiny example of the doctrinal splits in the Christian church over the centuries. At the very beginning of the Christian faith, recorded in the book of Acts, there is a dispute between the followers of Jesus. Some saw themselves as reformed Jews while others believed the message of Jesus went beyond Judaism. Over the succeeding centuries conflicts between Christians led to wars and the wholesale murder of so-called heretics. Christians have found it impossible to follow one of Jesus main commands, “Love one another as I have loved you” and today there are approximately 45,000 different Christian groups.
The exclusivity of religions always bothered me and the endless divisions within the followers of Jesus bothered me even more. If we can’t love our brother who we have seen how can we love God who we have not seen?
Brothers we are treading where we’ve always trod.
We are all divided, many bodies we,
Very strong on doctrine but weak in charity.
Holy Books
Just as there is no rational way to resolve the claims made by different religions, is also the case with the claims made for holy books. Believers naturally consider their holy book to be a cornerstone of their faith. If the cornerstone is challenged or weakened the whole edifice of belief may come crashing down. This is why biblical fundamentalists defend the book of Genesis so strongly against the theory of evolution. In the USA 30% of the population still reject evolution as the explanation of how human beings emerged on Earth.
I once heard an Iman debating with a Christian priest and a Rabbi, saying because the Koran was a single book given by an angel to Muhammad in the 7th Century it supersedes any revelation claimed by Jews or Christians and so the Koran must be the final authoritative “Word of God”. From his perspective and that of Islam there can be no argument.
The Bible
When I was much younger, I tried and failed to make the bible, verse by verse The Word of God, even to the extent of questioning evolution but had to give up this pointless struggle. Much later I disagreed with the elders in my church over this issue. The dispute opened my eyes to the fact that what Christians believe is not first and foremost God or Jesus but the Bible. The Bible is the ultimate authority on which all else stands, whether Christian doctrine, church governance or Christian mission. The Bible, together with a a doctrinal statement is the source of unity within a denominational group and the cause of disunity between the groups. In the end it comes down to the interpretation of the biblical text and interpretation is human not divine. The Bible is seen by some as a God-inspired jigsaw where every God-spoken verse must fit but human beings with human minds decide how the Bible is understood and interpreted. Ultimately, authority rests not even with the Bible but with the mind of the person who reads it, giving it the status he/she decides to give it. It all comes back to The Believing Brain.
“The Word of God”, view of the Bible, and the futile quest for certainty create fault lines that divide Christians from one another; the place of women in the church for example. The Roman Catholic church does not allow women priests and even forbids its priests to marry. It took years for the Church of England to accept women as priests and then more years to ordain them bishops. You may argue this is not central to the Christian faith and is just a distraction, but it’s a distraction that clouds the teaching of the central figure of the faith, Jesus himself, a man who went counter to the misogyny of his times in his dealings with women.
I now see the Bible as containing the Word of God rather than being the Word of God. Rather like a violin concerto in which the solo violin can be heard, either mingled with the orchestra or in sublime purity. If you listen with ears that are open to this music, this voice, it may be heard in many places, not just the Bible. Except, I still have a problem with the G-word itself.
The G-word & Model Dependent Realism
The term "model-dependent realism" was coined by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their 2010 book, The Grand Design. Models use things we can see and understand to help us picture things we cannot see like atoms, or don’t understand like light. Atoms at school are pictured crudely as miniature solar systems. Light is pictured both as a particle or a wave since neither model is adequate by itself. But these models are only approximations to an unknowable reality. Fortunately in the physical world equations can describe the behaviour of atoms and light where models fail.
But what about the spiritual world? What about G? I don’t like the G-word because there is no suitable model and there are certainly no equations. Who is G? What is G like? Does G answer prayer? What does G do to you when you die? These questions will bring a multitude of different answers depending on who you ask.
Assuming G exists, he/she/it is someone(something?) we cannot see and who(which) is completely beyond our understanding. He/she/it is a mystery, so to think about G at all we have no choice but to use models based on ourselves. Words like Creator, Judge, Ruler, Lord and so on are used but with attributes stretched to superhuman level like omnipotent and omniscient. In the OT we find expressions like Jehovah-Jireh (God the provider), Jehovah-Rapha (God the healer) and Jehovah-Nisi (God the banner or victorious) to flesh out the meaning of Jehovah. Islam has 99 attributes of Allah to help pin down the mystery that is Allah. Jesus at least gave a much simpler, down to earth model, God as Father.
This World is Not Conclusion
Has humanity actually deceived itself? Is there nothing there to model in the first place? Many would say yes; there is no god of any description. Personally, I cannot adopt this absolutist position and instead find myself in tune with Emily Dickinson in her poem, This World is Not Conclusion
A species stands beyond
Invisible as music
But positive as sound
It beckons and it baffles
Philosophy don’t know
And through a riddle at the last
Sagacity must go
To guess it puzzles scholars
To gain it men have borne
Contempt of generations
And crucifixion shown
Faith slips and laughs and rallies
Blushes if any see
Plucks at a twig of evidence
And asks a vane the way
Much gesture from the pulpit
Strong Hallelujahs roll
Narcotics cannot still the tooth
That nibbles at the soul
G is Love
In the Bible, in I John 4:7-8, we read: “Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” The word “love” here is the translation of the Gk. “agape” which means unselfish, sacrificial love. This is the love that Paul describes so memorably in 1 Cor:13.
In the past I expected G to be visible in the world as he clearly seemed to be in Jesus’ ministry. This visibility I conceived to be G showing himself in power with healings, miracles, and revival sweeping through a community as the power of the Holy Spirit was made manifest. I was absorbed by historical revivals in Wales and the Hebrides, and modern revivals in Toronto and Pensacola. A friend offered to pay for me to go to Pensacola, but I refused the offer because I wanted to see revival in my hometown. Yet no amount of prayer, worship, preaching or fasting brought it about - “We piped for you, but you did not dance”. We were like the priests of Baal in the OT who danced round the offering on the altar but could not set it ablaze. If G really is G, why is he not seen to be G? Surely if G has any existence, then he/she must be present in the world and in every part of it, not just among Christians or any other exclusive group. I eventually realised instead of looking for a G of power I should be looking for a G of agape love, and when I did, G was visible everywhere. Every day across the whole Earth people of all religions and none, lay down their lives for one another in selfless love. The Parable of The Good Samaritan is lived out across the world every hour of every day, and the God who is Love is revealed.
Agape love is the way I have come to understand the G-word. It is the refuge where I have made my home. Instead of trying to imagine an incomprehensible, unknowable and unseen G, I think instead of unselfish, sacrificial love. Also, as John says, in giving this love and seeking to live unselfish lives, we become children of G. I also understand G. as Jesus taught, the Father who welcomes home his erring children.
The Good News of The Kingdom of Agape Love
The apostle Paul found himself pulled in two directions, “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” There were two opposing forces in his life which we all recognise. Jesus called these forces the Kingdom of the World and The Kingdom of God.
Our physical self is the product of evolution, the survival of the fittest, and is governed by the laws and equations of science. Survival is built into our genes so inevitably we think constantly about ourselves and our need for warmth, food, shelter, rest and self-gratification. This is what I understand as the Kingdom of the World. Love in this me-first world is expressed in the sexual desire that has evolved to procreate the next generation and our “love” of money, power and things which are the systems we have created for our survival. Yet me-first is not all we are, another kingdom is at work within us, an altruistic force that puts the needs of others before our own. This I see as The Kingdom of God (or Heaven), or the Kingdom of Agape Love.
Matthew records the start of Jesus’ ministry in these words:
“Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. I believe this is essence of the gospel (good news) that Jesus preached.
The Kingdom of Heaven (God in Luke) runs counter to our ego-centric, selfish, evolution-born selves. Where scientific laws and maths equations rule the Kingdom of the World, agape love, repentance and forgiveness are the laws that rule in the Kingdom of God. Jesus was faced with the conflict between these two kingdoms in the wilderness before the start of his ministry. In the “Blessed …” sayings listed in Mat. Ch 5, Jesus spelled out those who are blessed by God: the poor, the pure in heart, the merciful, the peacemakers, those hungry for righteousness and so on, and later in the Sheep & Goats parable he teaches that the division of humanity after death is based on agape love, not on whether you believe Jesus bought your salvation by his death on the cross.
In The Sermon on The Mount (Mt: 5-7) Jesus sets out the values of the Kingdom of Heaven but sets an impossible standard that no one can achieve. “You must be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect”, he said. Then he finishes with the challenge to build the house of our lives on the rock of the Kingdom of Heaven not simply by hearing his words but by living them out. Our inevitable failure to live the Agape life means we constantly need forgiveness. Jesus taught that forgiveness has a price, not the price of his death on the cross but the price of our forgiveness of others. The prayer he taught his disciples includes, “Forgive us our trespasses as (in the same way) we forgive those who trespass against us”. The “Lord’s Prayer” is entirely about praying for this Kingdom of Love to come ever more completely into our lives, as we are faced with the constant challenge to choose between the values of the two kingdoms.
I think it tragic that the church has completely lost sight of this good news that Jesus preached. Why for example have churches set up food banks but not marched and campaigned and shouted from the roof tops about the iniquity of the 6th richest country in the world needing them? We have created a society where the gods of money and power rule – the survival of the richest. So much for Jesus’ warnings about camels and needles, or rich men building bigger barns.
Jesus’ way of sacrificial love is a narrow way, few find it and few live it. The writer G K Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”
In Conclusion
Though I am no longer a traditional Christian believer I remain a faltering disciple of Jesus and believe in his Gospel of The Kingdom of agape Love.
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Using Scientific reasoning to examine beliefs
From The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer
- The Null hypothesis: assume something is not true until proven otherwise.
- Burden of proof: lies with those making a positive claim not with those who do not believe the claim. E.g. UFOs exist – show me an alien, or alien spacecraft. E.g. There is a God – give me unquestionable evidence.
- Science of convergence: lots of lines of evidence from different science disciplines converge on the same conclusion. The Theory of Evolution rest on data from many fields - geology, palaeontology, botany, zoology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and physiology, genetics, etc. If someone wishes to challenge the evidence, they must overturn every piece from every field by giving alternative explanations for each one.
- The Comparative Method: this is a way of looking at history and asking why did this happen and not that? E.g why was America colonised by Europeans and not the other way round? Why is North Korea much poorer than South Korea? Explanations for these must rest on many lines of hard evidence not just simple ideas such as race superiority or ideology.
- Positive Evidence: the principle of positive evidence states you must have positive evidence in favour of your theory and not just negative evidence against rival theories. Creationists cannot assert the lack of a scientific theory for how life began means the theory of evolution is wrong and that God is the only explanation.
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