While scholars argue about the numerical and social significance of NRMS, I like the book because it demonstrates that contrary to the expectations of secularism, and whatever its origins, the religious impulse is not just alive but positively thriving. I find the sheer breadth of human ingenuity in response to the matter of meaning oddly comforting. We just won’t give up.
Of course, when presented with so many religions, each with its own ideas about what makes a spiritual life and each convinced that theirs offers the only way (else what would be the point?), it becomes hard to privilege one’s own set of preferences (in my case a sort of non-aligned, ad hoc, shamanistic, animistic, psychedelic paganism). Why mine and not yours? The kind of atheist who cares about this sort of thing (and is therefore, paradoxically, as likely to be as fervent as the most zealous religionist) could easily seize upon the sheer diversity of religions as evidence for their collective falsehood. Religions can’t all be right so obviously they are all wrong.
Myself, as I’ve wobbled between belief and disbelief, acceptance and despair, I’ve actually reached a rather similar conclusion – that all religions are equally wrong (if we can leave the Aztecs & Co. aside for simplicity’s sake). For me this is a profoundly optimistic position.
On a good day, like today, I think that there is a sacred or divine or spiritual or self-organising or transcendent or whatever-you-want-to-call-it dimension to the world (the truth of which cannot be proved or disproved but must be accepted or rejected on faith) but the act of so-naming it reduces it to that which it is not. Every worldview (and yes, I include science here) touches a facet but cannot grasp the whole. Language is simply not equipped to do so. (In case you’re interested I’ve arrived at this position from Henri Bergson’s writings about time and Ian McGilchrist’s work on the divided brain, about which I’ll say more at some stage).
What religions do, therefore, is provide a set of metaphors and extended metaphors (rituals, prayers, myths, hymns, gestures, dispositions, techniques – all the stuff that makes a religion a religion) by which the Other might be apprehended, indirectly, from the side, as it were. So I call myself a pagan because nature and the sherds of certain pre-Christian religions provide me with effective and personally resonant metaphors that literally ‘carry me over’.
My position is a kind of revision of the perennialism advocated by Aldous Huxley and others. Far from being different paths up the same spiritual mountain I see religions as different mountains, whose peaks offer a unique but limited perspective on what there is to see.
Accepting that all religions are equally wrong encourages humility in oneself and tolerance of others. For while it will jar with those, atheists or religionists, whose need for certainty is paramount, a position in which all religions have something to say means, at the very least, we ought to do them the courtesy of listening. Chris Partridge’s book provides an excellent place from which to begin.
I've come to much the same conclusion, though without the academic background reading (having never heard of McGilchrist or Bergson, I'll now have to add them to my 'one day' reading list!) There is no way we can EVER understand what it all is, what it's all about. It's too big, too vast, too utterly unknowable. It's an instinctual thing for me, as vague and amorphous and 'unpin-downable' as whatever it is I believe IS, it's what make my heart sing. And I think that's all we can do, find what makes our hearts sing and makes us try and be better people. If that's angels, or aliens, or faeries or whatever, who cares, there will be a kernal of the great truth there. I like to think of atheists as a kind of baseline/default position...you can always check back to see how far you've come, and whether you've entered the realms of utter silliness yet!
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of science, religion and atheism I warmly recommend Chris Hedges "I don't believe in Atheists" wherein he strongly argues that the atheism sweeping through the world (especially the US) is yet another ugly face of the fundamentalism it so strongly opposes.
ReplyDeleteI cannot but agree with your position and it has somethimes made me the black sheep among the neo-pagans/magicians/etc I used to dwell among when I was younger and not living where I live today. Their way of treating christianity I never liked, especially as that religion contains metaphors/stories and especially an approach to ethics that nourishes my soul. This last part, ethics, I see as a very important part of each and every religion but somehow you managed to leave it in your definition of religion (or did I just not see it?). Religion is about rituals and myths, yes, but also how we treat each other and the world around us.
BTW: The book you recommend in this post is translated to swedish and can be found in my local library. Not bad!
ReplyDeleteI very much liked Christopher Partridge's The Re-enchantment of the West, too. I might have to get this book.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea that all religions are equally wrong. A good starting premise. Also the image of different mountains.
Another couple of images that I like: Forrest Church's image of the cathedral of the world (where each religion is looking through a different window); and the idea of a many faceted crystal, with each religion looking at a different facet.