Saturday, June 25, 2016

Learning to live without Gods

Believing in greater than human spirit entities and being superstitious are two sides of the same coin: one cannot exist without the other!  Superstition and religious faith are, in short, opposite ends of a spectrum that meet in the middle.  What some define as faith, others describe as superstition, which dictionaries define as:
 
1a: a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation; 1b: an abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition; 2: a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary.
 
Until the Renaissance of the 17th century and the Enlightenment of the 18th century, a common person would not have been prepared to live without recourse to God and other spiritual/mythical entities to explain self and the world.  The Western world was dominated by the thinking of the Medieval Catholic Church. Until the Enlightenment no rationale existed that permitted an average human being even to conceive of such a possibility.
 
With the dawning of the "Age of Reason" in the 18th century the church's hegemony over human thinking was finally broken, and human reason became a serious competitor to religious faith as a way of organizing one's life and understanding of the world.  Human reason and religious faith/superstition have since been competitors for primacy in the human mind.
 
Theoretically, people today can learn to live without recourse to God. Since everything we think we know about God, we learned from someone else.  Therefore we can simply continue learning, for since the time of the Enlightenment people have come up with answers to questions that were once the exclusive prerogative of the church to answer.
 
For example, science has developed a theory for the origin of the universe; it is described as "the Big Bang"—think of the explosion of a dense cosmic egg the size of a tiny mathematical decimal point containing all matter and energy in the universe.  Such an event is at least as plausible as the poetic explanation found in the biblical creation myth (Genesis 1).
 
Science, through the diligence of Mr. Darwin, has given to posterity a plausible theory for the origin and development of the human species, which is, again, at least as plausible as the mythical story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:4-24).  In his theory human beings are classified as evolving mammals (at our present stage we are homo sapiens; intelligent man), rather than being created at one instant in the image of God (Genesis 1:26).
 
The natural world has in the main already been de-divinized (or better, naturalized) to some extent. In the Western world we are more conditioned to seek answers from biologists and meteorologists (who use satellite imagery) to explain anomalies in nature than to consider that matters out of the ordinary are caused by spirit entities of various sorts.  For example, we follow television weather reports and consult our weather apps.  With such assets for resources praying about the weather becomes a "hail-Mary pass," rather than our first resort.
 
The most difficult adjustment in the shift from faith to reason, however, has been the persistence of the idea that an invisible spirit world "exists" parallel to the world of matter.  All of the spirit entities in current fashion (they do change with time and from religion to religion) reside in the spirit world, but because the borders between the material and spirit world are thought to be permeable to these entities, they can emerge in the material world at any time either to do good or evil in accord with their nature, and then they return to the spirit world until their next trip to the material world.
 
I personally have never experienced the "visit" of a spirit entity—whether the night demon Lilith (Isaiah 34:14), or a satyr (Isaiah 34:14), or a spirit that causes muteness or deafness (Mark 9:25), or a spirit causing jealousy (Numbers 5:14), or an evil spirit from the Lord (1 Samuel 16:14), or an angel (Matthew 4:11), or a spirit causing infirmity (Luke 13:11), or any of those other spirit "critters" that all religions seem to number among their pantheons of good and evil spirits to explain things they don't understand.  I have always been told about demon possession, but have never actually known for certain that a demon caused the reaction (Mark 5:1-5)—how could one possibly know for certain?  Is it a demon that causes obscene language suddenly to erupt from an individual, or is it an aspect of Tourette's syndrome—specifically coprolalia?
 
Personally, I look to natural causation in order to explain such things—if you don't "believe" in invisible spirits, how could they possibly affect you?  They are after all invisible and are not even "there" in the way we usually think of things being "there."  Physical scientists also deal with unseen things, quarks for example, but a quark even though unseen is still material, while demons and Gods are really not part of the physical cosmos—unless you believe they are.
 
Will human beings ever learn to live without recourse to the Gods?
 
Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

12 comments:

Jim said...

Charlie,

Re: Will human being ever learn to live without Gods?

Excellent treatise on the subject!

In response to your question, humans already have done so. Science has called attention to the lack of evidence of the Gods as interpreted by the various religions and science has begun to answer man's questions about our natural world.

Jim

Anonymous said...

Hi Charlie,

I probably disagree some with your characterization of the historical role of reason. From Plato to Aquinas to Tillich, the attempt to reasonably understand deity seems not to have waned.

Jim has pointed out that reason in one of its forms is science. But science, more specifically, is truth by means of experimental design.

I personally cannot put together in my head the search for deity and experimental design. Neither can I put together in my head the search for deity and the abstractions of philosophy and theology.

Human beings, as I perceive it, will never learn to live without deity (gods) because reason does not satisfy our longing for holistic belonging and completion. Do we need "spirits" to do that, probably not.

Gene Stecher
Chambersburg, Pa.

Elizabeth said...

Charlie, I completely agree with Gene that reason does not satisfy our longing for holistic belonging... In fact, I would argue that reason doesn't satisfy our longing for anything at all. So I have to ask myself- do I believe I contain a living spirit inside my body because I came to that conclusion on my own? Or do I believe it because 99.9% of everyone I know also believes humans have an unseen spirit that survives after death? I honestly have never met another person in my entire life who believes that we are born without a soul. Now what happens to our soul may vary from belief system to belief system... But to think we don't even have a soul at all, that's really going against the grain in a big way.

I suppose it's worth questioning. How much of what we believe about the soul comes from human/societal conditioning and how much comes from our own independent conclusions derived by scientific study? What about you Charlie- how did you come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as spirit and how confident are you that that conclusion is correct?

Elizabeth
St. Louis, MO

Elizabeth said...

PS: Charlie I just wanted to quickly clarify something I mentioned previously... When I said that I've never met another human being who does not believe we have a "soul," I did not mean to imply that I go around interrogating individuals about their religious beliefs... I just meant that in the course of meeting different people from all different backgrounds throughout my life- when the subject comes up of its own volition, the existence of a soul is usually something we both have in common... From there, things may vary from person to person. But I never bring up the subject unless someone else brings it up first. In fact, I stay away from religious conversations entirely these days. I agree with Abraham Lincoln's modus operandi: "Lincoln did not belong to any church, and avoided religious discussions even with his best friends." Dale Carnegie, "Lincoln the Unknown"

Charles Hedrick said...

Good Morning Elizabeth,
The short answer to your question is that I am not certain whether or not spirit entities surround us.
Here is the longer answer. Reason aids us in sorting our emotions, feelings, and causations of one sort or another. You have heard the statement: "in the cold light of reason . . . Through reason and logic we learn to sort out probable causes and emotions. Reason is not a facet of our psyches that gives us the warm fuzzies. It is an ability all of us have of not lying to ourselves, but a way of thinking that leads us to be coldly honest.
For example as to spirits: I find no evidence for unseen spirit critters that prey on our psyches--other than what experiences people claim to have had. When it comes to the Holy Spirit I am unable to sort out my own emotional response from what I was taught is God's touch from the divine beyond. Hence I must withhold judgment . The Holy Spirit may be the stroke of some greater consciousness on me but it may also be my own emotional response to the influence of some who want me to surrender to their way of thinking. We are emotional creatures after all.
Charlie

Jim said...

Elizabeth and Gene appear to have little familiarity with Science. Science would not undertake a search for Gods as there is no observable evidence one way or the other for the Gods-at least evidence that science could examine to prove or disprove such beliefs. Rather Science is studying the human mind to answer questions about why human believe in Gods as well as witches, ghost, spirits, devils, and other such creations of the human mind that cannot be observed by any of the human senses. For thousands of years to this day, humans reasoned that insane human action was caused by spirits or devils existing in the minds or "spirit" of humans. Science has determined insanity is merely biological imperfections in the human brain. These abnormal brain imperfections are numerous and now partially understood. Science is beginning to understand the human desire/need to believe in Gods along with numerous other human psychological needs. After all, the world in which we humans exist is a hostile and dangerous one. Who among us have no need for psychological assistance in order to cope with our environment? This psychological need seems greatest for those humans who have the least understating of the real world in which they live.

Jim

Anonymous said...

Hi Jim, you wrote:

"...Science is studying the human mind to answer questions about why humans believe in Gods as well as witches, ghost, spirits, devils, and other such creations of the human mind that cannot be observed by any of the human senses."

For further discussion, please point us to a scientific study where the null hypothesis states: there is no difference in the evidence for why it is that humans do or do not believe in gods, witches, ghosts, spirits, devils, and other such creations of the human mind."

Gene Stecher
Chambersburg, Pa.

Elizabeth said...

In addition Gene's question- I would also like to know how exactly do scientists study the human "mind" since it cannot be observed by any of the human senses? In other words- are the terms "brain" and "mind" interchangeable? Or is there a difference between the two terms? If so, why? Where exactly is the mind located and has its location been proven scientifically?

I don't see much difference between the terms "mind" and spirit- they are both invisible to the human senses. Elizabeth

Charles Hedrick said...

Good Morning Gene,
I have pondered your question for several days now (not all day long of course) and I don't understand precisely what you mean to communicate by "null hypothesis." Sorry! Could you ask your question again without using that expression?
Cordially,
Charlie
Cordially,
Charlie

Charles Hedrick said...

Good Rainy Morning Elizabeth,
This is not my area, but I will attempt an answer and wait to be corrected: the brain is the muscle in the head; the mind is the product of the firing of the synapses in the brain, and is thought of in part as that which reasons or that which is the doer of the intellectual work of a person.
Cordially,
Charlie

Anonymous said...

Hi Charlie,

To my understanding as a clinical psychologist (retired), the null hypothesis is the foundation of all good science. In its general form: There are no significant differences between condition A and condition B. Then one designs an experiment or conducts an investigation to try to disprove the hypothesis. Therefore, my request of Jim to point to a scientific study that disproved the null hypothesis regarding minds which believe in spirits, etc. and those which don't.

To put the matter in terms of biblical studies, a null hypothesis might be stated as follows: there are no significant differences in the evidence for and against the assertion that Mark was written after the fall of Jerusalem. Then one sets out to try to disprove the hypothesis.

Gene Stecher
Chambersburg, Pa.

Jim said...

Charlie,

Perhaps the attached article in Psychology Today magazine will assist Elizabeth. She can also Google her particular question.

Jim

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/obesely-speaking/201403/your-mind-does-not-care-what-your-brain-thinks