Not Always a Good Idea....
Mar. 21st, 2011 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aearwen2I see on FaceBook that it is Atheist Awareness Week, an attempt to show people that those who eschew religion are (1) more numerous; and (2) less demonic than otherwise stereotyped. I then read an interesting post in LJ about it here.
I don't often discuss this kind of thing openly, but for those who are interested...
I'm always torn when one group decides to go out of its way to wear its beliefs or tenets on their sleeve for a day, a week, a month, or always. In many ways, I believe that such things, instead of inspiring an "Oh, I didn't know he/she/you believed that way," tend to inspire an Us vs. Them mentality. And, with only rare exceptions, the Us is always portrayed as somehow "better" than the Them.
Frankly, as a veteran of over a decade of active participation in interfaith discussions/debates, I have found that the label claimed by a person isn't half as important as the approach each person takes to their particular religion/spirituality/beliefs. I have seen Secular Humanists (atheists) be just as obnoxiously narrow-minded as an ultra-Orthodox Chassidic Jew or an ultra-Fundamentalist Christian. It is the Black vs. White approach (I'm right, therefore you must be wrong) to that kind of belief system that makes these folks so difficult to hold a reasonable discussion with, not the belief system itself.
By the same token, I have had interesting and very thought-provoking discussions with Muslims, Pagans, atheists, Christians and Jews who are less threatened by the idea that someone believes differently than they do. Again, it is the approach to one's own beliefs that opens doors to dialogue. One need not agree with the other to be able to learn from them.
Personally, I am agnostic in my spirituality, and I identify myself as a Buddhist when I'm obliged to specify an "ism". How I got where I am today is/was my path, and I neither require anybody else to walk precisely in my footsteps nor begrudge them a desire to see different scenery along the way. If I have "faith" in anything, it is that all of these forms - even the ones that are the least tolerant of alternate views - lead ultimately to the same goal. And providing that belief and/or approach seems to be working to make that person a better human being, who am I to argue for or against that view's validity?
However, I might offer a story that sheds some light on just why those of differing beliefs might all be sharing the same Truth. It's an old Buddhist parable entitled "The Blind Men and the Elephant".
Four blind men were allowed to examine an elephant and then questioned later on how they understood that elephant's nature. The first, who had touched the elephant's leg, said, "Elephants are like trees, thick and rough and sturdy."
The second, who had touched the elephant's ear, said, "No, no! Elephants are like leaves, thin and soft and floppy."
The third, who had touched the elephant's trunk, said, "No, no! You're both wrong! Elephants are like snakes, slender and winding and long."
The last, who had touched the elephant's tail, said, "You're all wrong. Elephants are like brooms, long and narrow with bristles at the end."
All were right, and yet all were wrong. All paid attention only to the little bit of the whole they were able to sense, without fully understanding the idea that there was more to the elephant. And so the argument began.
I submit atheists would be like the blind man standing outside the elephant's cage: "There is no such thing, as I can touch nothing." Even his view has some merit, and for the same reasons.
So, while I'm "good to be without God" in the sense God is understood by the world's revealed religions, I also allow that the Universe - or Whatever Might Be Out There - is far vaster, more complex, and infinitely more incomprehensible than I as a mere mortal can fathom. If there is Something Greater out there, it certainly doesn't need my belief in it or worship of it to sustain it; if it's not there then belief or worship, or the lack of belief or worship, will not change that truth.
I feel it's much more satisfying and spiritually beneficial to watch how others find their inspiration, listen to the lessons that speak to them and see what such lessons might say to me.
Everybody else's mileage may vary.
I don't often discuss this kind of thing openly, but for those who are interested...
I'm always torn when one group decides to go out of its way to wear its beliefs or tenets on their sleeve for a day, a week, a month, or always. In many ways, I believe that such things, instead of inspiring an "Oh, I didn't know he/she/you believed that way," tend to inspire an Us vs. Them mentality. And, with only rare exceptions, the Us is always portrayed as somehow "better" than the Them.
Frankly, as a veteran of over a decade of active participation in interfaith discussions/debates, I have found that the label claimed by a person isn't half as important as the approach each person takes to their particular religion/spirituality/beliefs. I have seen Secular Humanists (atheists) be just as obnoxiously narrow-minded as an ultra-Orthodox Chassidic Jew or an ultra-Fundamentalist Christian. It is the Black vs. White approach (I'm right, therefore you must be wrong) to that kind of belief system that makes these folks so difficult to hold a reasonable discussion with, not the belief system itself.
By the same token, I have had interesting and very thought-provoking discussions with Muslims, Pagans, atheists, Christians and Jews who are less threatened by the idea that someone believes differently than they do. Again, it is the approach to one's own beliefs that opens doors to dialogue. One need not agree with the other to be able to learn from them.
Personally, I am agnostic in my spirituality, and I identify myself as a Buddhist when I'm obliged to specify an "ism". How I got where I am today is/was my path, and I neither require anybody else to walk precisely in my footsteps nor begrudge them a desire to see different scenery along the way. If I have "faith" in anything, it is that all of these forms - even the ones that are the least tolerant of alternate views - lead ultimately to the same goal. And providing that belief and/or approach seems to be working to make that person a better human being, who am I to argue for or against that view's validity?
However, I might offer a story that sheds some light on just why those of differing beliefs might all be sharing the same Truth. It's an old Buddhist parable entitled "The Blind Men and the Elephant".
Four blind men were allowed to examine an elephant and then questioned later on how they understood that elephant's nature. The first, who had touched the elephant's leg, said, "Elephants are like trees, thick and rough and sturdy."
The second, who had touched the elephant's ear, said, "No, no! Elephants are like leaves, thin and soft and floppy."
The third, who had touched the elephant's trunk, said, "No, no! You're both wrong! Elephants are like snakes, slender and winding and long."
The last, who had touched the elephant's tail, said, "You're all wrong. Elephants are like brooms, long and narrow with bristles at the end."
All were right, and yet all were wrong. All paid attention only to the little bit of the whole they were able to sense, without fully understanding the idea that there was more to the elephant. And so the argument began.
I submit atheists would be like the blind man standing outside the elephant's cage: "There is no such thing, as I can touch nothing." Even his view has some merit, and for the same reasons.
So, while I'm "good to be without God" in the sense God is understood by the world's revealed religions, I also allow that the Universe - or Whatever Might Be Out There - is far vaster, more complex, and infinitely more incomprehensible than I as a mere mortal can fathom. If there is Something Greater out there, it certainly doesn't need my belief in it or worship of it to sustain it; if it's not there then belief or worship, or the lack of belief or worship, will not change that truth.
I feel it's much more satisfying and spiritually beneficial to watch how others find their inspiration, listen to the lessons that speak to them and see what such lessons might say to me.
Everybody else's mileage may vary.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-21 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-22 07:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-22 09:40 am (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-23 11:32 pm (UTC)I agree completely that it's the approach one takes to their spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof) that makes all the difference.
In general, people who are secure in their beliefs tend to be tolerant of different beliefs. Whenever I encounter a person who passionately (in a loud, rude way) insists their way is right and only way (including aethists), I wonder who they're trying to convince; me or themselves? Given that none of them have ever changed my mind, I'm inclined to think it's the latter.
The one thing I do resent is twisting or ignoring history to prove one point of view or another. To claim that religion has killed more people through history than wars based on greed or tribalism or politics or chest-thumping stupidity, especially after the excesses of the twentieth century, just boggles my mind.