So What?

Self-Deception

Image by AlphachimpStudio via Flickr

It's worth reading the article What a tangled web we weave by Robert Trivers, from last week's New Statesman.  The article intrigued me and didn't end up where I anticipated from its opening paragraphs.

There is an interesting paradox at the heart of the idea that self-deception has evolved.  Leaving aside the question as to whether self-deception is in fact an advantage, let's assume it is,  then why do we believe it is not ethical?  This is part of the problem with a lot of evolutionary theory.  Most of us feel strongly that the desires we are told have some sort of evolutionary advantage are not desirable.  Why do we think that?

Let me summarise how Trivers addresses this question.  This summary is under the heading 'Fighting self-deception', towards the end of the article.

 

1. To the question why, given self-deception can have evolutionary advantages, don't we simply ensure we practice it where it is advantageous, Trivers responds he does not believe in building one's life, relationships or society on lies. 
2. He argues self-deception is morally inferior to deception because it deceives not only the other person but also the deceiver.
3. The consequences of deception intensify over time.  The benefits tend to be more immediate but the cost of ignorance kicks in later.
4. We have been selected to rape, wage war and abuse children (it seems) but we are in fact not obliged to do these things.  Trivers writes: 'As one evolutionist told me, his genes could not care less about him, and he feels the same towards them.'
5. It is possible ,Trivers has found, to compensate for self-deception.  When he loses track of what he is doing, then his attention is distracted by self-deception.  So when he stumbles or drops something, he asks himself what was distracting him at that moment.
6. He goes on to suggest it is possible to correct for your own biasses and meditation, prayer, disclosure of trauma to a friend or through a journal can all help.

At their best religions aim to help people identify self-deception.  It is altogether appalling where we find religion being used to reinforce self-deception.  An example can be found the blog, Exploring our Matrix, where James McGrath explores The real reason some Christians oppose Halloween.

Religion can become a form of escapism, instead of being a means to perceive things as they are, it becomes a collection of fantasies to distract from the world.  At the least a child dressing as Dracula, knows the difference between fantasy and reality.  Would that more adults were able to make the same distinction.

Related articles

• A Worse You Could be Better Off: Robert Trivers' Folly of Fools (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
• Deceit and Self-Deception: Fooling Yourself the Better to Fool Others, By Robert Trivers (independent.co.uk)
• Trivers's book out soon (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
• Deceit and Self-Deception by Robert Trivers - review (guardian.co.uk)
• Deceit and Self-Deception by Robert Trivers - review (guardian.co.uk)
• Evolutionary guru: Don't believe everything you think (newscientist.com)

Projection and Idolatry

Image via Wikipedia

Sorry about the long delay since my last post.  Things have been rather hectic.  I want to pick up some of the threads from my recent posts about Quantum Puppetry.  You will remember, I suggested the effects of super-position, where we see mutually contradictory things at the same time, is illustrated by puppets.  But it is more widespread.  In this post and the next I will explore first the negative side and then the positive.

Let's start with projection.  This is where I project my prejudices onto others.  This is what de Mello is getting at in his story about the rose bush.  When we look at a rose, do we see the rose or our preconceptions, our prejudices, our projections?

If it works for roses, it certainly works for people.  When we allow our prejudices to cloud our judgement, we cannot see people because we already know what they are like.

And of course, there is no greater target for our projections than God.  The word for projection of  our preconceptions onto God, is idolatry.  (I wrote at some length about this a few years ago - this is the first post in a sequence of 24!)  Most faiths try to guard against idolatry because much of the time, followers of religion fall for their idols.  When we know what God is like, we are projecting and making a puppet of God.  How often do we get the sense when cornered by a religious fanatic that they have their hand up their puppet's behind?

So, how can we know anything?  The key is in the puppets.  We have no problem suspending disbelief when we see a puppet.  So, why should the fact that we project our beliefs be so much of a problem?  Two things.  First, we don't need belief in order to live.  The important thing is not whether I believe God exists or does not exist; rather it is the quality of the life I lead (more about this next time).  Second, the key to unlock this is to pay attention to what is there, rather than what I believe to be there.

 

Related articles

• Quantum Puppetry (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Puppets and Projections (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Easiest Meditation? Rose or Motorcycle? (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

What Does it Mean to Prove God Exists?

Image via Wikipedia

I wonder whether tacit knowledge might help with the perennial debate about the existence of God?  Although atheists sometimes concede God's existence is not in principle provable, my usual experience, especially online, is a demand for proof.

Crawford, in his book The case for working with your hands, tells the story of his father, who was a physicist, making the claim that it is possible to untie a double knotted shoelace by pulling on one end.  Mathematically this is true, or so Crawford claims.  The point is though in real life, you cannot untie a double knotted shoelace in this way.  The problem is the physical properties of the lace have a bearing on what can be done with it.  Whilst mathematically it might be possible, physically it is impossible because shoelaces are made of something.

So, let us assume I have a proof of God's existence.  How do I know it is in fact a proof?  The rules that determine a scientific proof demand we strip a problem down to its basics, ignoring the realities we encounter when things are apprehended in our lives rather than through our heads.

This claim that only formal proofs are valid, gives away the reality of the radical atheist's position.  It is in essence a requirement for control.  It is not a free encounter with reality but one that is determined by prior ideological constraints.  It is an assertion of imperialism over and against the radical call to freedom.  We are told to sacrifice what we experience as true, to a particular partial understanding of our world.  The point is formal knowledge alone is not sufficient to make a chair or mend a motorbike, lat alone encounter God.

But there is a sense in which radical atheists are right.  if you really want proof of God, you need to do what the scientist does.  Scientific proof requires many hours in the lab, applied to getting experiments to work, in the sense of providing reliable results.  Usually this requires the application of significant technical expertise.  Without this dedication we would have no science whatsoever.

What I find difficult to understand is that anyone who wants proof of God, needs to apply themselves to it, in just the same way as the scientist applies herself in the lab.  It's all very well demanding proof but a little odd to condemn those who claim to be believers as having no proof, when you are unwilling to do what is necessary to find out for yourself.

Related articles

• Tacit Knowledge (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

Working with Your Hands

Image via Wikipedia

I am reading The case for working with your hands: or why office work is bad for us and fixing things feels good by Matthew Crawford.  I'll possibly review it later but here's a passage, from page 91:

Countless times since that day, a more experienced mechanic has pointed out to me something that was right in front of my face, but which I lacked the knowledge to see.  It is an uncanny experience; the raw sensual data reaching my eye before and after are the same, but without the pertinent framework of meaning, the features in question are invisible.  Once they have been pointed out, it seems impossible that I should not have seen them before.

This is a common observation and many people will recognise it.  But it is also something we don't necessarily acknowledge as a matter of course. 

To put it negatively we often fail to pay attention and it is being attentive that is at the core not only of working with our hands but also of spirituality.  Indeed, spirituality is essentially paying attention.  You can have something pointed out to you but someone must have paid attention at some point in order to be able to point it out.  Paying attention is hard work, often the experience of being stuck leads to someone paying attention to some detail after hours of frustration.

Paying attention is at the core of prayer.  When we pray, it is not God who is revealed to us but reality through God.  I think it was Anthony de Mello who said something like, asking God to reveal himself is like asking a knife to cut itself.

Prayer is about encountering reality, as it is, independent of our plans and strategies.  It is not hectoring God about what we need in order to do our thing, but simply being aware of what is there and needing our attention.  Indeed the god who needs to be hectored is no god, just a fantasy.  God is never revealed but always reveals.

In my other blog, Exploring Ecumenism, I have frequently visited the idea of conversation and its power to transform.  The mistake we make in too many religious debates, is to expect the world to be final and perfect.  What we find is a world not of unchanging perfect entities but of many things in relationships, in conversation, imperfect, sometimes free, sometimes imprisoned, extremely complex and always stumbling across new things.  This is what makes the universe the place where we encounter life, because all is in relationship with God.

We are conscious beings and it is through prayer our consciousness becomes disciplined enough to apprehend the genuinely new amongst the pointless frustrations of our fantasies.

Why Christmas is early this year

It's not even Advent and they're already playing carols in the shops.  (Advent may I remind you is the name given to the fast before Christmas.  It starts next Sunday and between then and Christmas we're not supposed to go to parties.)  Usually, the carols start in the shops during Advent; Advent hymns (there are many and much better than most carols) are generally unknown to the public, intent upon a month of feasting (followed by 12 days of more feasting) (followed by fasting in January - sometimes ...).

Last year I wrote during Advent about the idolatry at the heart of Christmas imagery and this link will take you to the first of these posts.  However, the explanation for this year's early start may be quite different ...

First, however, some pictures (all taken this afternoon) from Sheffield Peace Gardens (there's also a stage on Barkers Pool and a Grotto (for our national god) at the top of Fargate.

and some skaters with penguins ...

... and the shops, which opened this last weekend ...

... and also on Tudor Square ...

So, why do we have to put up with all this?  In this week's 'New Statesman', David Blanchflower quotes (on page 19) from Julia Evans of the National Federation of Builders:

Despite official figures showing an impressive industry growth, the industry's own figures point to a fall in output, falling prices and fewer enquiries.  This all points to a depressing Christmas for the industry.

It is no coincidence that we turn to our national religion with renewed vigour, during an economic crisis.  We're going to have weeks of this because they're all afraid their profits are going to be depressing this year.  They know the cuts to services mean there's less money in the economy, even if the government doesn't.

Conversations with Atheists: A Fundamental Problem

Image via Wikipedia

It should come as no surprise, when theists and atheists enter conversation, there is mutual incomprehension.  I view the world from a theistic perspective.  It would make little sense to call myself a theist if I did not.  The first problem I encounter in conversation with atheists is their expectation I will respond to questions the way they want me to.  This led me into certain difficulties.

The main difficulty I encountered in my recent conversation, was projection.  These atheists appeared to have a particular image of God.  This was projected onto me and other Christians, theists and religious people.  This atheist God is violent, favours the powerful and deludes people.  In short, the opposite of my own experience.

When I pointed this out, I was told to stop messing about.  They're atheists remember.  They have no image of God by definition.  As the conversation progressed it felt as if we swopped places.  I was arguing all images of God are false.  They were trying to show me my view of God was flawed on the grounds that if all images of God are false, it is impossible to say anything of God.  (It didn't stop them!)

I have written at some length about idolatry and projection is an excellent example of its power.  Most religious mystics are true atheists.  They reject all images of God. 

Take for example, the use of the word 'probably'.  I pointed out this doesn't sound very atheistic.  Apparently, the idea is that in the atheist universe God could in theory be proved.  So, it is scientifically accurate to put probably on the front of the sentence, 'God does not exist'.  What this shows of course is a massive mistake of logical typing.  It assumes that God is something that can be proven through scientific methodology.  This places God in a place that makes God an idol.

Now consider the content of their image.  What we have is a group of people who cannot imagine a God who loves people.  This negative image is the only image they have.  Thank goodness they don't believe in it.

Up to a point it is good they claim not to but I think we need to take care here.  What they are doing is projecting their false God onto religious people, much as George W Bush projected his demons onto Muslims.  This is dangerous because I suspect some atheists believe religious people are evil, because of their perceived god of religious people.

Paradoxically, therefore our problem is not their atheism but their theism.  To be a proper atheist,  requires the same spiritual preparation as it would to speak of God from a theistic perspective.  This is why Christians can find common cause with Buddhists, for example, despite their atheism.  Their atheism has more in common with our theism than it has with modern atheism.

I will explore this in more depth later.

Related articles

• Atheists and Christians Should Be Friends (godlessgirl.com)

Rocking the Foundations of Authority

I found an article by Slavoj Zizek in the New Statesman, dated 5 April 2010 (I'm somewhat behind in my reading).  Incidentally this is the annual God issue; according to the editor, sales always increase for the God issue.  Make of that what you will!

Zizek's article is called Soul of the Party.  He aims to show how Paul (shown preaching in Athens from a cartoon by Raphael in the Sistine Chapel, and used to illustrate the article) used religion to rock the foundations of society.  I have referred to some of the new takes on Radical Paul, particularly the works of John Dominic Crossan and Timothy Ashworth.  Zizek is a communist and so in the eyes of some he cannot be a real Christian.  I addressed this in a recent post. I intend to read his book The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?

Here are a few quotes from the article.  I hope Zizek won't mind me quoting him, he phrases things so well and it would be a pity to lose what he says.

Fyodor Dostoevsky was aware of how God gives us freedom and responsibility - he is not a benevolent master steering us to safety, but one who reminds us that we are wholly unto ourselves.

We are freed in Christ to become more truly ourselves.  Too often the churches insist on moral rectitude, close to the law that Paul argues has been superseded.   Our faith should free us to become perfect, it does not force us into a mould determined by the authorities (religious or secular). Of course, they are threatened by this and so the Christian is anything but steered to safety.

... a God who wholly "became man" ... and who not only "doesn't exist" but also himself knows this, accepting his erasure, entirely passing over into the love that binds members of the Holy Ghost ...

I suppose the atheists will object to this; obviously it is a logical contradiction.  To me it is a re-statement of the incarnation - we cannot know God, except through Jesus.  There is a sense in which God does not exist because God cannot be known to us except through Jesus.  What can a God who does not exist do but send his Son?

For this reason Christianity is anti-wisdom: wisdom tells us that our efforts are in vain, that everything ends in chaos, while Christianity madly insists on the impossible.  ...  This is why Paul said, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise" ...  We should take the term "wisdom" literally here: it is wisdom (in the sense of "realistic" acceptance of the way things are) that Paul is challenging, not knowledge as such.

I think this touches the root problem with atheism.  It is close to the truth, as it rejects false images of God.  But it ends up saying that what is given is all there is.  For many people this is unacceptable - it is the argument of the Lord of the Manor and the wealthy in all times and cultures.  We cannot change things?  Oh, yes?  When Christians buy into the way things are, in effect we are atheists.

"For struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against leaders, against authorities, against the world rulers ... of this darkness, against the spiritual wickedness in the heavens" (Ephesians 6:12) Or translated into todays language: "Our struggle is not against concrete, corrupted individuals, but against those in power in general, against their authority, against the global order and the ideological mystification that sustains it".

I'm sure this is right.  It is our faith in human institutions, including the church, which undermines faith.  This is why violence is not appropriate for Christians, violence identifies the wrong enemies.

On Religious Authority

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, reviewed Philip Pullman's new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ  in The Guardian Review, 3 April 2010.  I have mentioned this new book before  but still not read it!  Here are a couple of quotes from the review:

Pullman's Jesus is scathing about "smartarse priests" who talk about God's absence really being his presence.  Well, yes: Christians use this kind of language.  But not to let themselves off lightly; they're arguing that you only get anywhere near the truth when all the easy things to say about God are dismantled - so that your image of God is no longer just a big projection of your self-centred wish-fulfillment fantasies.

They (Francis of Assisi, Bonhoeffer, Romero) have seen through the surface froth of religion and heard the voice Pullman himself obviously finds so compelling.  That should make us pause before deciding that the New Testament is quite as successful in sanitising an uncomfortable history through religiously convenient truth as Pullman implies.  It is aware of its own temptations.  It trains its readers in self-questioning.

The late Ed Kessler, lecturing about parables at the Urban Theology Unit , captured the point of the parable of the Wheat and the Tares in unforgettable fashion.  He formed his fingers into a gun and pointed at his own temple.  He said, 'I'm going to shoot the tares.'

You remember the story of the landowner, who finds tares are growing with his wheat?  His servants ask whether they should pull up the tares.  As any fool knows, this would pull up the wheat too. 

It seems, as I read atheist critiques of Christianity, they are enthusiastic tare removers.  I agree with 99% of what they're saying and yet ... and yet I'm always left with the feeling they have missed the point.

Of course we should question what religious people say.  The world is full of people who want power and try to get it through claiming a hotline to God.  But if you consistently deny the existence of all gods (as atheists do and the first Christians did), what are you left with?

Atheists claim nothing.  They need to take a long hard look at what they mean by nothing.  I suspect nothing is their god.

And what do Christians who reject all gods find?  How do you speak of something where if you speak of it, you misrepresent it?  For it to be real, we have to deny the reality of the nothing we find ...

29 Proofs for the Existence of God

I found 29 proofs for the existence of God on a website  devoted to debates between Christians and atheists.  (I'm not sure how long this link will last for but in the event of its demise, I think this post will still make sense.)  I love this sort of thing.  All 29 were worthy and of course profoundly tedious.  Taken together,  apparently they might provide weight of evidence in favour of theism.  Do try to keep awake.

The atheists had a field day; at long last they had a formal statement of the case for theism.  So, they systematically demolished every argument.  For which the atheists have my most profound gratitude.

History is full of nutters who think they have the final conclusive proof of their particular take on divinity.  Theists need atheists to rein in their excesses and ensure Christians never have any conclusive proof for the existence of God.

The one proof that has any weight for me is the proof from religious experience.  Here it is:

1.   Many people of different eras and of widely different
  cultures claim to have had an experience of the "divine."
2.   It is inconceivable that so many people could have been so
  utterly wrong about the nature and content of their own
   experience.
3.   Therefore, there exists a "divine" reality which many people
   of different eras and of widely different cultures have
   experienced.

Inevitably this formal proof firmly grasps the wrong end of the stick.  It is tempting to appeal to the combined might of 2 billion plus believers.  But this is not the point.  The Christian faith is not based upon the dictatorship of a majority (or a minority for that matter).

My story is of a journey with God and as a preacher, a teller of stories and a writer; perhaps something of God's presence in my life will mean something to others.  The experience that matters first, is our relationship with God.  How it makes sense, in the light of the central stories, turns my story into our story. 

We are not philosophers producing final proofs but weavers of stories that make sense.  Our witness is to that moment when everything slots into place and the sceptic, who believes there is nothing new under the sun, suddenly captures a glimpse of the reality behind all the old stuff.

The churches can forget theirs is a living faith.  But each of us, as we struggle with the stories that have been handed down to us, can catch a glimpse of something real.  This something real cannot be proved, if it could it would become just another thing we have to see through or around to capture a glimpse of the something real that always eludes us.

There's nothing magic or supernatural about any of this, just love.

Lent 32: Frank Viola

The practices of the first-century church were the natural and spontaneous expressions of the divine life that indwelt the early Christians.  And those practices were solidly grounded in the timeless teachings and principles of the New Testament.  By contrast, a great number of the practices in many contemporary churches are in conflict with those biblical principles and teachings.  When we dig deeper, we are compelled to ask: Where did the practices of the contemporary church come from?  The answer is disturbing: Most of them were borrowed from pagan culture.  Such a statement short-circuits the minds of many Christians when they hear it.  But it is unmovable, historical fact, as this book will demonstrate.  (From: Pagan Christianity?  page xix)

This paragraph illustrates the frustrations I have with this book; its uncritical view of the early church and implied rejection of most of Christian history.  However, its importance should not be underestimated.  Many Christians are questioning the practices of contemporary churches, concluding their origins are in imperial Rome.  Would that this book were called 'Imperial Christianity?'.  It is hard to deny the relationship between Christianity and imperialism has had a long and complex history.  Nevertheless, I would want to respond to Viola's book with a number of detailed questions; I am not convinced it is entirely reliable.  It is worth reading Viola alongside In Search of Paul by John Dominic Crossan .  I am attending the 2010 Hugh Price Hughes lectures  at Hinde Street Methodist Church.  The two lecturers, Morna Hooker and Frances Young, are planning a book on this topic in the autumn.  It will cover the issues in Viola's book with a more scholarly approach, identifying the complex nature of these arguments. 

Religion has always been used by imperialists, like Constantine, to control the lives and beliefs of the people.  The first church was a political movement against political control of the religious order of the day.  As it became more successful the imperialists bought into it.  To what extent are we aware of how our faith is formed not by the spirit but by an imperialist mindset?