Thursday, July 6, 2017

Mere Depression, Lewis the Agnostic? (commenting on 'A Grief Observed' by C. S. Lewis)

I have respected Clive Staple Lewis for many years now. I had moved to Oxford, UK from Portsmouth because of my fascination with him. The man was remarkable. His presentation of what a Christian is meant to be is what inspires me. I do not wish to adopt his Christianity. I wish to adopt his overall love of language and philosophy and thinking that promoted mental health in people during and after the catastrophe of the Second World War. His Christianity however is not a hindrance in my appreciation of it. If anything I respect that he stuck to his own ideology despite what other people were teaching. There are things to appreciate in his faults.

In A Grief Observed we witness a great reality of the individual’s life: with great happiness there must come immense pain. Where you once love so deeply, that’s where you feel the most empty when it is taken away. And it works the other way as well, if you do not experience isolation you will never be able to fully understand an individual. That is essential to everything we should think and care about. Not the self-promotion and praise of self that our culture has adopted, but the loss of self and a celebration of honesty and authenticity. These are values that we should aspire towards.

And that is where Lewis helps me. He resonates deeply with his readers because he is completely honest with himself. He says: “I dread the moments when the house is empty” (15). He speaks of the “consolations of religion” and comments that there is none to be found (37).

This comes across most clearly when he proclaims: “Where is God? . . . Go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face” (6). Perhaps I possess a bias, but I must say that this statement is what I imagine to be the fulfillment of religion, whatsoever it’s doctrines - a coming to terms with the absurdity of the universe, that there is no answer and that there can not be an answer to the unending questions and subsequent anguish. This is the truthfulness of religion - that in the end not even God cares about you.

The Dilemma of Happiness
As we will see, these are Lewis’ thoughts and conclusions, not mine. He makes surprising statements on Christianity despite being one of the leading Christian apologist in the world: “When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to heel His claims upon you as an interruption . . . go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? . . . You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited?  It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?” (17-8) ”

Where is God in this struggle? It is his absence that leads us to conclude that he may not have even existed. “Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms.inside” (17). Where is God? That is the question. Where is God when people are cast to Hell for doubting his existence, potentially because of predispositioned states of mind caused by God himself (see Romans 3,8.9).

What do we say about the illnesses? A serious question is: what about all this pain? Similarly he makes this point about cancer: “Cancer, and cancer, and cancer. My mother, my father, my wife. I wonder who is next in the queue” (24).

So did Lewis stop believing in God?
I started re-reading this book with the thought in mind that I wanted to discover whether Lewis was actually an agnostic/atheist towards the end of his life. We tend to over-romanticize our heroes, Lewis has especially been guilty of this. But I have officially come to the conclusion that he does not completely identify with my agnosticism, he says: “Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer’ ” (18-9). Then the philosopher asks if this is not a horrible God to believe in. And this is my take on it.

He does come to a very Kierkegaard-like conclusion: God is undiscoverable. His face is hidden. His door is locked. We can not find Him. He, if he so desires, will discover us. But we will not discover Him. I personally can not celebrate such a creator as the Christian God. And why should we? Why is it that people have this inner desire to worship something?  

I would not argue that Lewis felt like this all the time. This seems to be his lowest moment, coming to grips with the death of a loved one, especially a spouse, must be extremely difficult. We see this within the pages, he says “either God is not god or there is no God . . . or in the only life we know He hurts us beyond our worst fears and beyond all we can imagine” (40). So why do you follow this Lord, Lewis?

What is this Reality? - Are we living in a Laboratory?
And when we think about it we agree. This reality we live in is “unbearable” (40). But it is only unbearable if there is something else to compare it to. If there is nothing else supremely beautiful such as Heaven, then why should we be discouraged? Life is consisted of happy moments and sad or painful moments. This is a part of it. We should not be surprised. But if God is the author, how could he let this world become the present reality? “Why did such a reality blossom (or fester) here and there into the terrible phenomenon called consciousness?” (40) This is what he terms  ‘Extreme Calvinism’ (44). He suspects that all of us live in laboratories and compares human beings to rats being tested by scientists (41).

As I was reading through the book this is one of the reasons I wanted to argue Lewis’ agnosticism. We all want our heroes to be on the same ideological path as us. And when I read Lewis say: “When He seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture” (43), I could only imagine him struggling incredibly with his beliefs. It must have been so.

What does God deem as ‘good’?
All this bleek cruelty leads him to suggest the following, “Now God has in fact - our worst fear are true - all the characteristics we regard as bad: unreasonableness, vanity, vindictiveness, injustice, cruelty. But all these blacks (as they seem to us) are really whites. It’s only our depravity makes them look black to us” (44).

This is one of the best arguments against God, I’d say. I do not know why Lewis did not notice this counter-statement. I suppose that when you are so invested in a belief-system you come to align everything with reasons for happening, things begin to happen for specific purposes and then it is hard to come back to a mysterious existence. I prefer the latter. I prefer the mysterious existence where God is a reality, but in essence not understandable. How could he be? And this is what Lewis comes to as well.

He concludes that we do not have any reason to “believe that God is . . . ‘good’ ” (42). We question with him, yes what are the reasons for this? What is our evidence for believing in his ‘goodness’? Do we transcribe our feeling of joy or occasional happiness with his character? How do these two correlate? They are not in the same caliber. It is like saying that because I am a good person, God must be good as well. Or because I am a bad person, God must be bad as well. “The word good, applied to Him, becomes meaningless: like abracadabra. We have no motive for obeying Him. Not even fear. It is true we have His threats and promises. But why should we believe them? If cruelty is from His point of view ‘good,’ telling lies may be ‘good’ too. . . . If His ideas of good are so very different from ours, what He calls ‘Heaven’ might well be what we should call Hell, and vice-versa. Finally, if reality at its very root is so meaningless to us - or, putting it the other way round, if we are such total imbeciles - what is the point of trying to think either about God or about anything else? This knot comes undone when you try to pull it tight” (45). Lewis at his best.

This is what comes to the core of my problem with Christianity. There are assumptions about God’s goodness, but as Lewis describes we have nothing to base his goodness and our badness on. What is the point of describing God as good since our idea of good is so very often different from that which is described in the Bible? Our idea of the moral is so often distorted by personal bias, and our experience and situations make us mistakenly believe that ‘holiness’ is the reason for our suffering, when in fact it is our own incapability with acting in accordance with the structured Universe. Sinfulness is not, in the end, only the things that are bad for us. There are many things in the Bible that are deemed as sinful that are not bad for you, such as: sex outside of marriage, getting tattoos, not envying your neighbor’s property, swearing, doing addictive activities. All of these are activities can be done and have no major significant effect on the mind and/or our well-being. But of course that is a statistical claim and does not bear a lot of significance by just proclaiming it.

To come back to Lewis’ thoughts on the paradox of God’s character, Albert Camus comes to the same conclusion as he was discussing the Russian philosopher Chestov. He says: “Chestov discovers the fundamental absurdity of all existence, he does not say: ‘This the absurd,’ but rather: ‘This is God: we must rely on him even if he does not correspond to any of our rational categories.’ So that confusion may not be possible, the Russian philosopher even hints that this God is perhaps full of hatred and hateful, incomprehensible and contradictory; but the more hideous is his face, the more he asserts his power. His greatness is his incoherence. His proof is his inhumanity” (Myth of Sisyphus, 34).

It is incredibly interesting for me that Lewis and Chestov come to the same conclusions. I am leaning in this direction as well and I have seen Kierkegaard do the same, he went so far, similar to Ignatius of Loyola, to sacrifice all of his intellect in order to follow God, and this is what he was famously regarded for, because he believed God to not be understandable. The more you try to understand him the less sense he would make.

The Stoic Lewis
Lewis then proceeds to a sort of stoicism. He reasons that a man needs to accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it (45). Or later he reiterates the same: “It doesn’t really matter where you grip the arms of the dentist’s chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on” (46). Pain is unavoidable no matter how you try to persuade yourself otherwise.

Lewis’ Happy Ending?
As much as I would love to have Lewis on my side philosophically, I need to come to terms that his reality was very distinct from my own. He comes towards this conclusion, towards the end: “And so, perhaps, with God. I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear” (58-9).

This is where my path disconnects from Lewis’. He says that all nonsense questions are unanswerable. I agree. Yes they are unanswerable, but also their premise is non-existent. If we ask, “How many hours are there in a mile?” or “Is yellow square or round?” (examples provided by him), then we need to assume that yellow is an imaginable object. But that is not the case, or that an hour is the same measure as a mile. But we know these to be different. So this is not a helpful example.

If we ask the question, why have you created this world, God? Then our presupposition in this statement is moral more than anything. We count God as a moral creature that needs to hold up to our standard of morality, at least. The question is, if I am more moral than God, why is it that I should aspire to be him? Maybe in the past he has been a valid role model. But now he seems irrelevant and inconsistent. He adds: Probably half the questions we ask - half our great theological and metaphysical problems - are like that” (81-2). I would like to suggest that that is not the case. Our great theological and metaphysical problems need answers. And if they are not answerable by God, the creator of these problems, then how IN ALL OF HEAVEN does he expect of us to blindly follow him? To trust him? How could God expect this if he is real.
I understand that many throughout history have advocated a spiritual agnosticism. We do not need to possess the answers. The argument is, do you have the answers as an atheist? The response is: no, but I do not assume things about the universe that are not associated with it. I ‘believe’ not in metaphysical claims but in materialistic claims about the Universe. Even if these materialistic claims are incompatible with knowing things absolutely, they are assumptions. To emphasize again: they only claim material truth, not metaphysical.

The Meaningful Life for the Christian
And that is where Lewis stops his philosophising. He finds some sort of peace in the end. We see that he comes to the conclusion of the problem of living a great Christian life. That is that of sacrifice living up to the a) loving god part of the commandments and b) loving your neighbor as yourself (82). It is possible to accomplish these without having Joy with him (his deceased wife) and so he decides that that should be his meaning in life.  

He goes through a couple of turns to come to his conclusion. It is interesting how this had unfolded. This is a big reason for me to recommend this work. It could be one of my favorite books by Lewis because of it’s honesty and authenticity. You discover things about Lewis that you wouldn’t from a regular biography. You just need to look deeply and analyze the words he says and the underlying reality beneath them.

Other Substantial Quotes
Here are some more passages that I really enjoyed:
“Reality never repeats. The exact same thing is never taken away and given back” (37).

“When He seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture” (43).

“What reason have we, except our own desperate wishes, to believe that God is, by any standard we can conceive, ‘good’? Doesn’t all the prima facie evidence suggest exactly the opposite? What have we to set against it?” (42).

“And now that I come to think of it, there’s no practical problem before me at all. I know the two great commandments and I’d better get on with them. Indeed, H.’s death has ended the practical problem” (82).

“They say an unhappy man wants distractions - something to take him out of himself” (17).

“It’s easy to see why the lonely become untidy; finally, dirty and disgusting” (17).

“Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand” (37).

“ ‘Because she is in God’s hands.‘ But if so, she was in God’s hands all the time, and I have seen what they did to her here. Do they suddenly become gentler to us the moment we are out of the body? And if so, why? If God’s goodness is inconsistent with hurting us, then either God is not god or there is no God: for in the only life we know He hurts us beyond our worst fears and beyond all we can imagine. If it is consistent with hurting us, then He may hurt us after death as unendurably as before it” (39-40).


“When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’ ” (81)

Montreal, a Place of Solitude

Tuesday
A coffee has been poured for me. Airports represent the business of life. There is too much new information, happening all the time. It’s easy to have some sort of pin-point place for your morality. I do not think that that is what we should aim for. It is the beginning of my trip. My mind has been emptied yesterday as I sat by the lake, listening to the peace that was represented by the waves crashing along the sand.

The flight to Calgary and then Montreal was quick. I am now sitting in a cafe. I have had my lunch, now it’s time to enjoy some tea and baking. It is not good weather but I don’t mind that. I need to meet up with my friends friend. I have a lot of time up until then. I should start doing something beautiful with my time.

I have checked in and been introduced to some of my dorm room-mates. They are from Edmonton and they don’t like BC. I guess there is a rivalry between us. They mentioned the pretentiousness that is commonly found there. The one man wants to move to Montreal when he saves up a little, I forgot to ask where he works.

Wednesday  
I spent the day walking around with my friend and his girlfriend. We sat on a terrace, drank some lovely ale and wine, indulged on some octopus and salad.

Then in the evening I met with Quinn. He is into film and photography. He showed me some of the things he is working on. People you haven’t met are interesting. They are a puzzle that needs assembling and reassembling. The conversations have the potential to go very deep and that is the most cherishing things of all.

Thursday
I have been sitting at this cafe, listening to the classical music and slow jazz that is playing in the background.

Something about Montreal illustrates life well. People all going different directions, not meaning to be rude but coming across that way, anyways. Everyone has a story, each waitress is living life such as you are. It is only a matter of time that all of us stumble on happiness. Is my goal to be living in such an environment? There are so many opportunities it seems. Yet there is also cruelty, not as was expected of course.

There is so much beauty here. There is too much to appreciate and too little time. How would you find the effort and time to walk everywhere, see everyone? The people are sweet and all deserve attention and gratitude. If I could I would spend more time here, discovering the language of the French and possibly move to Paris afterwards. There is a lot of history here but it is only a dip into the actual history of the French.

I move from cafe to cafe, there is something new on each street, something undiscovered. As I look around I discover things about myself as well. It is the isolation that I crave, with so many people you can hide away and become invisible, because you are just another face that is gone the next second after noticing it. It is easy to hide away from one’s own struggles and maybe this is why people come to big cities, to become unnoticeable.

I am working on some writing, pondering C. S. Lewis’ depression. Soothing. The sound of plates clashing in the background as they are being collected, laughs even further out behind the counter. Unknown phrases being used. What is it about language that is so essential? Why should we write? I wonder. Maybe it is because of this, this unseen beauty that is unknown but can be known. The thoughts of another person on paper, thoughts you can read and hope to understand. We chase wisdom for the sake of happiness. It is, arguably, the only happiness that is attainable. And it is understandable that we pursue it through words, and then music. Could it be the other way around? Music is a form of therapy, words can be that as well, as we see with A Grief Observed. Lewis needed some sort of therapeutic pondering and so he took to the pen and paper.

It is good to sit and think and process these thoughts on paper. You say things that you did not know you think. It is a form of meditation, even if no one reads it, which in this case should be true, that is where you find yourself most happy. Completely expressive and honest with yourself. Maybe that is wishing for too much. Maybe that is the ultimate virtue.

Friday
There is something you discover about yourself when you challenge yourself socially. But you only challenge yourself socially if you do not have a different acquaintance at the time.

It started pouring just now, pouring rain. And it has stopped after a while.

I keep thinking about her as I am sitting by an open window listening to the heavy rain. Her face is so interesting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful, but it’s fully expressing emotions that seem as if they were mirrored from myself. When I look at her I see what I think, when I say what I think she responds within moments and gives value to my feelings. It’s authentic expressions and this is why I cherish them. If there is no expression then there can not be a response. And if there isn’t a response there can not be a connection. You can overplay it, but that is not what she does. She has mastered the craft perfectly.

So I wonder, is that the ultimate goal of social interaction? Do we aspire to see the best in people so that they can see in our facial expressions that we are truly listening, understanding, and applying the thoughts they have stated? This is true friendship, when you are completely invested, when there is nothing else to gain. That is what I will try to gain.

My bed is comfortable but laying in it for too long is painful. There is too much to see and to know in this city to do that without a sense of guilt. I wonder, is this how Albert Camus felt, or Ernest Hemingway, or Scott Fitzgerald as they were walking through the streets of Paris.

Montreal is best understood when it is raining. I was lucky to see it raining today, to walk the streets in it’s rain. It cleanses the city, makes it easier to associate emotions with it. That is the dream, to sit by a window, with a guitar, coffee, and notepad and to just write down emotions and try to compose music with those emotions. We should do the craft justice and master the talents that we have, attribute skill to them.

Saturday
The driver was helpful. He was discussing the history of the town and significance of various streets. I was told that the people in Montreal are not very friendly. This is not what I have found thus far.

When you are drunk you just want one thing, to get home and for it all to be over. Because it is better to be aware than to have mindless fun. But some can not deal with being aware and so they escape to that numbing feeling. I prefer the first. Life is better with me being able to reflect on it.

Sunday

Montreal was beautiful. Montreal has been good to my soul. Now I come back to that place where I came from and I attempt to transcribe what I have witnessed place to place. Plane to plane. House to house. Bed to bed.

The Atheist Deals With Death (with Mark Manson)

I have recently finished Mark Manson’s wonderful comedic book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck and I just wanted to document some sections that dealt with the problem of death.

Since this blog mainly focuses on the approach to living from an Atheist’s perspective I thought it would be very helpful to post some of these paragraphs on here.

  1. The Acceptance of Death leads to a Fuller Capacity to Live Life
“This acceptance of my death, this understanding of my own fragility, has made everything easier - untangling my addictions, identifying and confronting my own entitlement, accepting responsibility for my own problems - suffering through my fears and uncertainties, accepting my failure and embracing rejections - it has been made lighter by the thought of my own death. The more I peer into the darkness, the brighter life gets, the quieter the world becomes, and the less unconscious resistance I feel to, well, anything” (Mark Manson, 209).

Death is not what the religious would want us to believe. We hear this all the time, if you die tomorrow, might as well pillage and destroy today. But that is not what makes human beings happy. What makes humans happy is helping and building, not harming and destroying - this is how we build societies and families and a legacy, ultimately. This leads to the 2nd point:

     2.    Death is Inevitable, Why Terrorize Life While we Have it?
Bukowski once wrote, “We’re all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by life’s trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing” (208).

     3.    Legacy is the Most Important Facet in Life
“Confronting the reality of our own mortality is important because it obliterates all the crappy, fragile, superficial values in life. While most people whittle their days chasing another buck, or a little bit more fame and attention, or a little bit more assurance that they’re right or loved, death confronts all of us with a far more painful and important question: What is your legacy?” (205).

All of these lead us to understand why we should study philosophy. You can achieve a sense of eternity if you are capable to express yourself through information and embody immortality. We are a collections of neural frameworks that respond to reflexes and imagine consciousness for themselves. Although consciousness is also a very difficult concept in and of itself, hence we will not be discussing it here. But this is also the postmodern belief. Language is an eternal if put on a source that can not be eradicated. And in a digital era, information is difficult to delete, hence we all achieve a form of immortality.

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

The Harmony of the World: The Pythagoreans

THE HARMONY OF THE WORLD: THE PYTHAGOREANS

INTRODUCTION

Let me start off with an introduction to this chapter. Philosophy is a life endeavour of understanding the world. And I believe that it is crucial to understand the underlying reality and history behind today’s world in order to comprehend today’s philosophical situation. Because of this I have chosen to understand the origins of philosophy in this case: Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism.

It also must be noted that this article is basically just a recollection or summary of Anthony Gottlieb’s very helpful book, The Dream of Reason.

RUSSELL AND HIS FASCINATION WITH PYTHAGORAS
Pythagoreans are the followers of Pythagoras. One of his big time fans was a man that I have already mentioned in past blogs: Bertrand Russell. “According to [Bertrand Russell], philosophy is worth studying ‘above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good’ ” (30). This as we will see is an idea based in Pythagoreanism.

As Russell pointed out himself, he was also a passionate Pythagorean in some respects. He said that intellectually Pythagoras was perhaps “one of the most important men that ever lived” (23). Russell argued on this issue elaborating on his statement that Pythagoras was the most influential thinker. He said it “rests on the idea that Pythagoras alone was responsible for the impact of mathematics on other areas of thought” (40).

Pythagoras you may ask is a distinct personality and different from what this blog is meant to be about: discussing the validity of religions and philosophy. Russell would however argue the contrary. Consider this statement: “Without Pythagoras, wrote Russell, ‘theologians would not have sought logical proofs of God and immortality’ ” (41). This statement alone would be enough to give this chapter a reason to be discussed on this blog. It remains a question of why Russell believes this, I will provide a brief contemplation on this in my summary at the end of this article.

PYTHAGORAS AND HIS FOLLOWERS, PYTHAGOREANS
The interesting part about Pythagoras is that we know very little about him. Nothing that Pythagoras has ever said or written has survived, or as Gottlieb says, “at least, not with his name on it” (23). There have been sixth-century poems ascribed to the mythical singer Orpheus that may in actuality be by him (23).

Interestingly enough, Pythagoras had one of the most discussed diets in antiquity. This had much to do with his point of view on the world. He made a point of ”abstaining from beans” and wouldn’t let him beat his dog because he thought that the howls of the dog was the “voice of a departed friend” (25).

He was born around 570 BC and died 70 years later, which made him a contemporary of Anaximenes. Pythagoras was banished. With this there came a purge of his followers. Pythagoreans however flourished again and spread through Italy, mainly the southern part. By the start of the fifth century BC there was another, worse, purge of Pythagoreans. Many of them are reported to have scattered and departed Italy for Greece. Actually, interestingly enough, by the fourth century BC practically all of the Pythagorean societies had left Italy (their native land) and died out everywhere else.

Their ideas continued to grow, however, mainly because of Plato who was close friends with a Pythagorean, Archytas of Tarentum (25-6). It is reported that he was likely to have been one of the inspirations for Plato’s ‘philosopher-kings’ idea. Similarly Aristotle wrote that Plato’s philosophy ‘in most respects followed the Pythagoreans’ (26).

Pythagoras also believed in reincarnation and he was interested in numbers, but everything else is most likely just speculation (26).

So we question with regard to philosophy, what is it that Pythagoras established? Pythagoras ‘practised inquiry beyond all other men’ (Heraclitus, c.540-c.480 BC). This comprised mathematics, the study of numbers, geometry, astronomy and most interestingly, music. As Gottlieb remarked, “each revealed some aspect of the principles of order in the universe”; furthermore, the Pythagoreans thought that nature should be studied just for the “sake of disinterested knowledge and not for any practical reward” (28).

For the Pythagoreans an understanding of the universe and it’s beauty was thought to bring with it a participation with that beauty, “In short, some of the grandeur of the universe rubbed off on the man who studied it” (29).

So we question with Gottlieb, what would it be that the philosopher would want to fix his attention on? This is where it gets mystical. For Pythagoreans it was the “heavenly bodies” (30). As they “wheel[ed] in their orderly and harmonious paths through the sky” (30). Furthermore, studying nature in this manner would “purify [the] soul” (37). They put particular care into studying astronomy, mathematics, and music - as was already mentioned.

PYTHAGOREANS AND MUSIC, ASTRONOMY, AND THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE

This will be my last point, Pythagoreans have not only contributed to philosophy, mathematics, and astrology. He also contributed to our concept of music, or strictly speaking harmonics (37). They revealed a connection between ration and the pleasant-sounding harmonic intervals, as was noted by Gottlieb (37).

We can also assume that the Pythagoreans started the theory that the earth is displaced from the centre of things: “Copernicus says that it was the consideration of just this ancient system which gave him the courage to explore the then-unorthodox hypothesis that the earth moves around the sun rather than sitting in the centre of the universe (which is what everyone believed in the Middle Ages)” (39).

SUMMARY

Pythagoreans saw a connection between nature and reason. Because there was order in the universe there must be order in morality. Because of this we can also see the connection that Russell was making with God and immortality. Pythagoras was one of the first intellectuals that ever began to seek a connection between the outside world with the inner spiritual side of the soul. As is now the common practice with most Christian denominations, apologetics is a major part of most discourse in intellectual circles. We owe this to the growing sense that God is not outside of nature (as in Deism) but a continuation of nature, or a participator in nature - a personal creator.


We should come back to the Pythagorean philosophy. I want to agree with the statement that nature and reason should be studied just for the “sake of disinterested knowledge and not for any practical reward” (28). Our pursuit should not be money or fame or luxuries, but just for a capability to comprehend the state of the world - this in and of itself is a form of pleasure.

Monday, May 22, 2017

Christianity and Women, Pondering With Bertrand Russell

This is my second part of responses I have towards the collection of essays from Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not a Christian. It was titled, My Problem with Bertrand Russell and Faith-based Religion.

“To this day conventional Christians think an adulterer more wicked than a politician who takes bribes” (p.33)


Russell comes to one of my biggest issues with Christianity. Let me give you an example. I have recently read a small book on Lying by Sam Harris, it deals with some of the psychological and moral problems with telling lies and what it does to the human psyche. Before that I read A Very Short Introduction to Derrida and A Very Short Introduction to Globalization, both parts of the Oxford collection of books that describe difficult issues in very concise books. Now if I was a Christian - I know - that I would not have read these books. This could be very personal. But it is no coincidence that NONE - and I repeat NONE - of my Christian friends have read Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell, Peter Atkins etc. etc., we could go on and on. Why is this? I can think of one elder from my former church that was reading The God Delusion, but I can't remember if he finished it or if he was reading it with an open mind. I do remember that it was more meant to ridicule the book, which is somewhat understandable if we are defensive about our beliefs. But we shouldn't be. Especially not in a purely faith-based religion where grace is the primary power that saves. What is the point in being frustrated with Atheists if it is God that made them that way: "Does not the potter have the right to make out the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?" (Romans 9:21).


As a Christian I would spend more time thinking about the implications of the Fruits of the Spirit. How do I want them to be more embedded within my life? I would not think about Globalization, or Climate Change, or making a vegan diet a more crucial part of my lifestyle. Why? Because I focus on more ridiculous things, such as prayer. When I can actually be reading on how to be an effective friend, or how to be the best employee possible or best member of society to benefit all people. My primary focus is not the salvation of souls - because there is no such thing - but as Peter Singer has defended, my primary focus is on global poverty and how to end it, for example; how to produce less waste, etc. This is the end game. This is the meaning of life for an atheist. It is not self-indulgence, because evolutionarily we were not evolved to be individualistic creatures, we were evolved to live within communities.


That is what Russell is trying to say. Christians focus too much on what is irrelevant in today's world. There is much more emphasis on ridding ourselves of our sexual impulses than on cheating, especially in serious cases such as politics. I agree. We get more outraged by Bill Clinton's incident than by the Afghanistan war in many cases! But it must be pointed out that Jesus would not find this the case. He would clarify that both are bad and different sins that need to be dealt with in unique ways. But I can trace Russell's train of thought and it is good to give him that much. There is a lot to agree with in that statement, it just misses the mark.

“The world, we are told, was created by a God who is both good and omnipotent. Before he created the world He foresaw all the pain and misery that it would contain; He is therefore, responsible for all of it. It is useless to argue that the pain in the world is due to sin. In the first place, this is not true; it is not sin that causes rivers to overflow their banks or volcanoes to erupt. But even if it were true, it would make no difference, If I were going to beget a child knowing that the child was going to be a homicidal maniac, I should be responsible for his crimes” (29)


This is a beautiful argument I would say. There is not an argument in the Bible, to my knowledge, explaining how sin caused volcanoes and rivers overflowing, or any other natural disaster. One argument against could be used that the Garden of Eden was the place of paradise and once sin was introduced into the story of Genesis, Adam and Eve were forced out of the Garden and into this “normal” world that God had created outside of the Garden (?). For what reason he created this other world is unknown to me. It is possible that it was to make Adam and Eve suffer for their rebellion(?). But then that goes against the gracious account of Jesus in the New Testament. It is as if God was very much aware that they would fall into sin if he created this separate world, or was ready to create it. Which forces the question, why did you not tell them to avoid that tree more desperately. We do not know exactly how God tried to persuade them. It is left quite ambiguously, which is very frustrating. Mainly because this is the central point in the biblical narrative. It is not redemption from the fall, but the fall. The fall is the most interesting and has the most questions raised against it. Why was Satan in the garden? Why was he in the form of a snake? Where was God? Is he all-knowing, omnipotent in this setting? Or is he walking around the garden not knowing that they would taste the fruit that particular day (and yes there was time in Genesis 1-3). These are all just a couple of questions that I would raise myself.

It remains a mystery. Why build a religion based off of this mystery?

“Monks have always regarded Woman primarily as the temptress; they have thought of her mainly as the inspirer of impure lusts.” (p.27)

I need to repeat the fact that this is the monks. This is not Jesus. Russell like to do this a lot, he takes a teaching of the church, or opinion of the church and imposes it on the founders of that religion. But what if it wasn't Jesus' intent to demonize women? However, as was argued in the first blog, My Problem With Bertrand Russell and Faith-Based Religion (you can read it below), if we take the opinion that there are no God-given laws and that all is constructed by man, you can argue that Jesus does not fit in a special category and it is precisely his fault that he did not communicate these clarifications to doctrines effectively. If you are God you know the problems that will be raised in the future. If you know how much problems the virginity of Mary will raise for centuries to come, why not point out that acceptance is not found in chastity, but rather in the eye of the beholder, in this case God? If it is indeed a grace-based and faith-based religion, this would be true. But it most likely and unfortunately is not. So back to the point, if we are arguing against Christianity as an institution, particularly Roman Catholic monks than I would say yes indeed, I agree. Jesus is only to blame for not expanding on this during his reported 30 years on planet Earth.
I will now expand on the Christian position on woman-hood and try to argue why I respect much of what Christianity has proposed, but failed to apply for centuries. CHRISTIANITY AND WOMEN
It is interesting to see that Jesus was first to appear to Mary Magdalene once resurrected. And not to a male. She was to bring the testimony of Jesus’ resurrection. Anyone who knows a little bit of background on the value of the voice of a woman had in Roman-conquered Israel 2000 years ago would be able to say that this would not be the wisest business plan.

Also very interestingly, the closest circle of Jesus consisted of 3 different women, Mary (Jesus’ mother), Mary Magdalene, and Mary Salome, wife of Zebedee. Jesus let women sit at his feet (Luke 10:39).  And of course you had other such women in his closest circles. Paul’s close financial supporter on his missionary journeys was Lydia, a female that had a business with fabric, her own clothing line. Then of course there were other such women in the New Testament and prominent characters in the Old Testament that were very instrumental to the redemption story of Jesus. Such as Esther, Ruth, Rachel, Rebekah, etc.

It is not a Christian doctrine that women are “primarily” the temptress of impure lusts. Originally, it could be argued, that it was not the intention of Jesus to demonize women. Maybe of Paul, yes, for some do argue that. But not the intention of the founder.


I will like to address a couple more of the statement Russell made in my last blog about this book and then summarize them in a review of the book.

Sunday, May 21, 2017

A Conversation with Sarah Haider and Dave Rubin

I have decided to start doing these summaries of conversations that I listen to. Mainly to my own benefit. I want to actually learn from these conversations. I have spent a lot of my time listening to them, while I have been doing different things. The only problem is that I have not been processing the information I listen to. These will serve as a helpful introduction to these conversations for other readers as well.

I know that I’d personally like to have summaries like this one underneath the youtube videos that I listen to.


So I hope this is helpful to someone. Also it serves to keep a track of what I have learned and what I listen to. All in all it seems like a very beneficial thing for me to do.  


Before I get into the particular parts of the interview, I have never listened to Sarah Haider previous to this video and I knew nothing about her. So I did not come into the video with pre-conceived bias against or for what she was saying. I also try to be as impersonal as possible when writing about this, it serves more as a summary than a personal response from me to Sarah Haider. When I do want to comment with my own opinion I state it clearly within that paragraph.


6:25 - 18:04
Background of Sarah Haider


Dave Rubin, a political commentator and former stand up comedian sits down with the up and coming Ex-muslim activist, Sarah Haider. They start the conversation with a brief introduction to Haider’s past and why she is so outspoken about Islam.

She says she likes the format of America’s government: the separation of power, Bill of Rights, individual liberty. This was also as she said one of the main reasons she came to the US from Pakistan.

She states that she began to have doubts about her faith at the age of 15 or 16. Mainly because Islam was foul to “women and women’s rights”.


Haider after taking issue with how mistreated she was went to her family to debate over these issues. She says that she was truly lucky that she has a “liberal” father. He was liberal in the sense that she could read whatever she wanted. She couldn’t wear shorts around the house or have boy friends. She says that she calls him liberal because she wasn’t necessarily forced to wear the hijab, however she did wear it by choice at certain times in her life. Rubin and Haider spend some time talking about the definition of liberalism and how we tend to use it within context of a more extreme conservative approach to politics or social life. MY OWN PERSONAL NOTE: this was an interesting part.


She then proceeds to addressing the issue of how western feminism did not speak to her defense. Rubin points out how if she was of the Jewish or Christian religion she would be treated very differently. She would of been celebrated by leaving that dogmatic sect. And the treatment of the religion would be condemned. Some even go so far as calling a “right wing show”. People question her agenda and she came to much personal cost at the expense of talking about what she witnessed as a female islamist with what she described as little to gain in response.


18:04 - 26:50
Reza Aslan and Charlie Hebdo


They start talking about Reza Aslan a muslim who speaks out against ex-islamists such as Sarah Haider or other atheists who are prominent on their critique of religion, like Sam Harris. She says that Aslan acts dishonestly and supposedly even calls himself a “scholar”. Which she finds laughable.  


She points out how little scholarly pursuit on Islam has been achieved due to people’s fears of being seen as a bigot or racist. People haven’t revealed the knowledge they have had or even looked into it further.  


26:50 - 29:30
Colonialism


Once again, they point out that the left is to blame for for not being able to do research on some religions because of fear of bigotry. Rubin says that this is where “the left fail us” (his personal opinion). An interesting observation is that this is why some no longer call themselves the left, but lean towards a more centrist political arena. This was something that they believe is important for a country that has free speech in their constitution.

Sarah Haider comments, that she is “sick” of hearing that colonialism is to blame for violence within Islam and that it has nothing to do with the religion. She said that it doesn’t make sense when you look into it. Not to say that it was not abhorrent, also not to say that it wasn’t a contributing factor; she also expressed that any scholar would agree that Islam was justifying violence way before colonialism.


If I can add a personal comment to this section I would just say that I did not like how they did not reference particular scholars. I would prefer them to be a little bit more specific because I know that they have done the research in the past so why not give us some references of why they have these opinions?  


29:30
ISIS  


Small section about ISIS. There was not much discussion.


30:40
Distinguishing between Atheist X Muslims and Progressive Muslims


There’s two brands of people. There are X Muslims, and atheists. And then there are Muslims that are trying to persuade their own religion. It would be intellectually dishonest to work together. She respects them tremendously, but disagrees with them. It’s hard for her to find any beauty or compassion in the text.


She described atheism as Internally coherent and ethically coherent. And hence there is, in her reasoning, a strong case to be made against Islam.


34:26
Being a Woman in this Space + True Liberalism and Bill Maher


Feminism was a big part of her leaving the religion - she left the religion because of the treatment of women. She expected a rally of feminists to come to her side. Code Pink stands for women’s rights and anti-war, doesn’t stand against the violence against women in Gaza, for example.


What are liberal principles? As she has looked into it, she says that she believes that she is the real liberal.


39:15
Ben Affleck  


When talking about the incident on Real Time with Bill Maher with Ben Affleck’s famous outrage against a calm Sam Harris, Haider acknowledges that Ben Affleck thinks that he’s standing up for the minority. But she believes that he is very wrong in his approach and later assumptions about the religion.


40:48
What can Secular people do, then?


Be intellectually honest. Say what others can not say. It is important for liberals to stand up for this, because “we are the compassionate”, originally that is.


You see no one on the news apart from Fox news that are talking about this. You need to make sure that “we,” she is speaking about liberals talk about this.

There are others such as Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin that talk about these topics. But it is not a popular stance by no means.


44:35
Paris Attack


A little bit about this issue. They didn’t give too much commentary on the specifics.


47:14
How do we move forward?


This section was related to the Syrian Refugees. The only long-term way of proceeding is that we don’t allow them to build isolated communities. We pull them into the Western culture.


Multi-cultural narratives are harmful.


I repeat this was Haider’s view and is expressed in her tone not mine.


49:58 - Final Positive Thought

The tide is turning. With the internet everything feels smaller. And so we can reach people that are continents apart within seconds.

All this are reasons to celebrate.

I hope you enjoyed this conversation between Sarah Haider and Dave Rubin and I wish to make many more summaries such as this one.