More Thoughts on Religion

This post builds on my view of the human condition presented here.

Is it possible to find yet another reason to turn away from religion, organized or not?

I think my initial, basic reason was the attraction of skepticism, which always seemed to me a necessary frame of mind for a scientist. I don't suppose I have ever been a "real" scientist, but they seemed to me to be the ones on the track of genuine insights about reality. This frame of mind goes all the way back to my earliest memories at about age 5.

More recently, I have despaired about the role of authority in religion. Surrender of one's own common sense and will to an authority seemed to be the core of religion and a special case of many of the problems that beset humanity in general.

After spending a year or so studying psychology, neuroscience and especially neuroanatomy, I have gained some confidence in my understanding of how the brain (and, by extension, humans) work. This lead me to yet another source of discomfort with religion. It's just wrong. This is more than rejections of the fantasies underlying religion (God, heaven and hell, the moral underpinnings of the universe, karma, reincarnation). It's about the nature of the "soul", which is assumed by all religions I know about but rarely explicitly discussed.

A close look at the structure of the human brain does not, of course, discover anything like a "soul" or a connection to a higher realm. What it does discover is a deep connection between humans, human bodies and the world we find ourselves inhabiting. It is therefore sensible to work with a world view that:

• Does not look for a "higher reality" but seeks meaning in relationships, the human experience, and the "real world"
• Does not assume an immortal "soul", but assumes a rather ephemeral, ever changing "self" whose reality depends deeply on relationships with other "selves".

The Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity and Islam, place a heavy emphasis on the eternal soul - the idea that we will pack up everything that's important to us and migrate to a better world at death. Of course, this is all made worse by the untenable idea of God, but the core problem is a misconception of who we are. No amount of theological tinkering can fix this.

Buddhism makes a different error. Different schools of Buddhism differ in whether or not they regard the "self" as real. At most, they regard the atman to be "kinda" real.

But the goal of Buddhism seems to be to separate the believer from the world - at least as much as possible. This runs counter to the way the brain is constructed. It's like rigorous training to avoid walking. Buddha himself abandoned his wife and child to sit under a tree for months to find "enlightenment", which, it turns out, basically justified his decision to abandon the world. Interestingly, in the long run, he gave in to his need for human contact by establishing bands of panhandlers who had, like him, abandoned the world except for depending on regular folks to feed them.

It's only by acceptance of authority, generation after generation, that such absurdities can take root. Fundamentally, humans are always perfectly aware of their real nature. They live in a constant state of "double think". Knowing the truth, knowing the dogma and somehow believing both at the same time.

Assimilation and Atheism 101

Interesting discussion between leading atheists 
Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali

A wide-ranging discussion of subtle issues with atheism, including an unusually subtle treatment of why people accept religion - the process of assimilation and the difficulty in freeing people from assimilation.

• Risks associated with criticizing Islam;
• When to take the gloves off - being polite to people who have been indoctrinated;
• Vetting the authorities;
• How liberal kids get assimilated to radical Islam;
• Sam Harris speaks eloquently about the powerful meme of Islam;
• Dawkins doesn't understand that everyone doesn't think like he does;
• Dennett refers to the "narrative arc" in TV shows and movies, which primes a person for assimilation;
• The appeal of Islam to intelligent, liberal women;
• Ali calls Islam a form of madness;
• Dennett compares crime committed for religious reasons with drunk driving
• Harris points out that religious delusion is excluded in DSM 
• Are religious people just lazy;
• Dennett makes the important point that religious people "just go along", they are not intellectuals;
• Harris makes the point that theologians are not lazy. Making sense of religion is hard work;
• Dawkins is unsympathetic - regards believers has having their ears stopped up;
• Harris points out that crazy Christians understand crazy Muslims better than atheists do. Atheists don't take belief seriously;
• Ali points out realization of individual identity as a core challenge to Islam. "Submission to Allah" is basically surrender of individuality;
• Dawkins makes a similar point about the depth and scope of the "bossiness" of religion, far beyond reason. Why do religions make things so hard for believers?
• Dennett points out the parallel between religious hokum and "viral" memes - "infectious stupidity". 
• Dawkins- quotes Chesterton- when people stop believing in religion, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything;
• Harris makes the point that, for example, there is nothing in Science to fill the "Santa Clause Hole";

The discussion is continued without Ayann, adding Christopher Hitchens

• doubt - the idea that doubts are "normal";
• faith - nice discussion of how belief without evidence becomes evidence and a barrier to further evidence;
• Dennett calls it all a "bag of tricks" - cons could be used to sustain anything;
• Harris points out how easy it is for Christians to spot the "bag of tricks" in other religions;
• Theology is like stamp collecting - theologians "take in each other's laundry";
• Dawkins again displays his lack of appreciation of myth;
• Dennett confusing myth with metaphor;
• Harris points out the pride of religious people when they maintain their faith in spite of the "hammer blows" that destroy all its premises;
• Dennett complains that the professionals "know better" but the problem with the flock is that they have ceded authority to the professionals. The buck stops with the professionals. The pastor's job is to know what he's talking about;
• How is scientific authority different from religious authority? Competitiveness, structure of the discipline, predictions, puzzles vs. mysteries, glorification of "mystery";
• giving up the demand for intuitive understanding; 
• religious moves are not allowed in debates. For example, if you say this is just what I believe, you disqualify yourself from the debate;
• Harris: "Is there a single sentence in the Bible or Koran that shows it's not a work of a human author?" If these are not "magic books", Christianity and Islam collapse.

Notes on:

Authority: The Core of Religion

The issue of authority did not come out of the blue. It's a recent baby step in the process of "cleaning house" - organizing the clutter left after decades of thought.

I've had a lot of time to read lately, including Buddhist, Taoist and Christian writings. I've been increasingly annoyed at the tone of these writings: "This is the way things are". Content either comes directly from the source (such as Jesus or Buddha) or from "authoritative" commentator, such as St. Paul. The validity of these writings depends completely from authority of the writer or the authority he quotes. There is much ancient wisdom to be found in the "scriptures", but also a lot that is plainly unacceptable to the modern mind. And, of course, there is the elephant in the room. The fundamental assumptions underlying all of these writings - so fundamental to be not worth questioning or even mentioning - is the existence of God. This an offence to reason and we are constantly left with the job of finding something valuable in the writings of people who would regard us as dangerous heretics.

Another factor was Asimov's commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Mathew uses logical back-flips, mis-quotes and fallacies to make his case that Jesus is the Messiah foretold by the Old Testament prophets. I happen to know quite a bit about this issue, having written a term paper on the subject back in my University days. The Messiah of the prophets is clearly a mythological creation, what I call "Everything that Israel Stands For"-the Super Jew. Connection to the person of Jesus  (or any real person) is risky at best, but I didn't appreciate how flimsy until I read Asimov tear Matthew to bits, verse by verse. Asimov (a jew by birth and an atheist by choice) is careful to point out that the Jews at the time violently opposed Matthew's logic and happily stoned its advocates to death. While the penalty seems extreme, their objections seem quite reasonable. If you take the Old Testament seriously, the New Testament is heresy. If you don't take the Old Testament seriously, the New Testament is irrelevant.

Asimov does a similar job with Mark and the life story of Paul, as told in Acts. I had always felt that the personality and character of Jesus somehow "shone through" all this hype, interpretation and glorification. Once Asimov was through with me, I wasn't so sure. Did I know anything at all about Jesus? This is not the first time such a thing has occurred to me. I wrote about it in "Monkey Boy", one of the most popular posts in this blog.

So, If I have lost that feeling of connection with Jesus, which was more about liking the man rather than the teachings, what is left? If we set aside all the politics of the Zealot, the theology of John and the Messianic hype of Matthew, what's left?

Not much.

And then, the inevitable question arises: suppose you did have a collection of the actual, unfiltered sayings of Jesus (once I thought I had such a thing in the Gospel of Thomas)? Why would I take it as more authoritative than any other writing? The answer inevitably depends on whether I believe that Jesus is divine. Obviously I no longer consider this to be a possibility.

I was influenced further by Asimov's commentary on the Old Testament, which reveals that what we regard as "orthodox Judaism" was relatively new in the time of Jesus. For example, it did not exist in the time of David or Solomon. Like much of the rest of the Old Testament, Priestly religion is read back into everything from Genesis onward -- something I knew already but it had not "sunk in". Bottom line is that you see Judaism still in flux during the time of Jesus, with Jesus quite likely stepping in as a reformer of Judaism, preaching mainly (or exclusively) to Jews with a message that is not likely to be intelligible, let alone relevant to modern readers. To believe that Jesus had a message for non-Jews, you need to accept Paul's "spin" on Jesus, which was vigorously resisted by the original disciples, all of whom were Jews.

Added to this is my previous decision to stop identifying myself as a Christian, mainly as a protest about all the mayhem that has been committed in the name of that religion since New Testament times.

So I wind up with a total rejection of Christianity, pulled up by its roots.

But then, why is Christianity so popular? Why have others not followed my train of logic? The answer, it seems to me, is authority. Acceptance totally relies on authority - ultimately in the divine authority of Jesus Himself. Seen from this perspective, assuming there is no such thing as "divine", you see the divine aspect of Jesus as a necessary pre-condition to claiming Him as the ultimate authority and, less plausibly, for those who claim to inherit the same authority by mystical means.

Rejection of all religion on the same basis is just one step further.

I then turn to ask if there is any human authority. Could there be such a person? I'd say that authority comes (if at all) from what the person is saying, not the reputation of the person. For example, we regard Euclid's theorems on geometry as authoritative but don't feel obligated to know anything about Euclid or his political opinions (in fact Euclid may not have existed at all). Einstein said a lot of things that were profoundly true and a few things that were plausible but wrong. If a previously-unknown paper by Einstein turned up, it would get special attention because of its famous author but it would not be simply accepted without question. We have grown up enough to think for ourselves and respectfully disagree with any human being, even the wisest among us.

Does character count for nothing? I'd say only in a negative sense. Someone who is known to be a liar or a con-man deserves to be totally ignored even if what he says seems reasonable. This that we are entitled to ask about not only the content of what a person is saying but to ask why he's saying it. Life is short. We don't have time to carefully weigh the evidence for every crack pot conspiracy theory, "proof" of God or revolutionary theory of everything.

But we also don't need to be right about everything. It's OK to be wrong and OK to trust no authority at all.

Authority: The Core of Religion

There are many reasons why humans are attracted to the idea of a spirit-filled Universe.

"Theory of mind", which gives he brain a perception (not just a "theory") that other beings are conscious and act with intent just as we do. These days, we see this as a brain function that does not reflect reality, just as the illusion that things get smaller as they move away from us. Even our modern, scientifically-trained minds make us see life where there is movement.

Another consequence of they way we are built is a survival strategy that involves manipulation of the environment (tool use being the most obvious aspect of it). We expect to control the world around us and we are frustrated at the limitation of our power to do so. It is easy to imagine that the world can be (or actually is) controlled by a mind and a mind can be persuaded to help us do things we can't do for ourselves.

The illusion of time is strong in the human brain. We don't remember the past as well as we think but we're pretty good at using what we do remember to sharpen our survival skills. Almost by accident, in combination with our language skills, this gives us a "racial memory" that we fill with a mythical past that stretches beyond what we remember as individuals.

We are also dimly aware of the future, which is full of peril, especially to our own lives, which seem to be pre-ordained to end as mysteriously as they began. Quite naturally, we think about this a lot and wrap our thoughts with myths and stories.

Finally, language us a curse as well as a blessing. Language is unable to effectively describe its own limitations. We are always susceptible to the fallacy of confusing words with the things they stand for or, in the big picture, confusing stories with life itself.

But all this doesn't explain the role of what we refer to as a "religion". It doesn't explain the idea of "heresy" or our willingness to kill those who tell different stories, perceive different spirits behind reality and expect a different future. What I have said about human psychology is far from controversial, yet "religion" uniquely sets itself against Science, vigorously and sometimes violently defending the view that the alternate reality it constructs is not a mere product of human creativity but an account of reality itself. To the "believer", the world we live in is the illusion.

Religion is a byproduct of "civilization". We generally date the rise of civilization (literally, people living in cities) from the approximately 4000 BC, where we start to see fortified towns, kings, armies and writing to tell us what was going on. For thousands of years, the story of civilization is a chronicle of endless war and destruction as the number of "civilizations" dwindled and their power grew, along with the destructive power of their armies. People started dying in these wars by the tens of thousands. Hereditary Kings started to loot their neighbors to increase the wealth and power of their families.

But still, the people in these city-states had the same psychological needs as they had had for at last 30,000 years. They still saw their fortunes controlled by spirits, often the local god of a city or town. Sometimes the spirit behind natural forces (such as the storm or the sea).  Reading the Old Testament, perhaps the oldest volume of ancient history in popular use, we see a new role of God: He is responsible for victory in war (along with the slaughter of the enemy) and, conversely, defeat in war is when we fail to please God by following priestly law. This is a neat equation that keeps the priests in business no matter what happens.

In this context, what was going on in the mind of the citizen - a mind that has not changed since the days when "philosophy" was stories you shared with close relatives around a fire?

"Theory of Mind" has evolved into a complex system of theology.  The alternate universe is populated with an "official" pantheon, including gods who need to be flattered into sponsoring human activity by paying a new class of citizen: the priesthood. Vocabulary expands, the stories are written down and assume the status of what we would now call "history" and "Science". Cultural "memory" is collapsed and simplified, creating the illusion that current mythology is what it has been "forever", obscuring the role of human creativity.

Ability to control the world has expanded in some ways but narrowed in others. Weapons of war have improved to the point where they are more of a threat to the average citizen than a guarantee of survival. While agriculture has provided more calories per person, it has also made the city-state far more vulnerable to natural forces, such as drought and flood. Concentration of wealth has made the city-state attractive plunder for neighbors. Plundering neighbors has become an attractive alternative to finding new "raw" agricultural land. And yet, the illusion of control along with the expectation of control has grown. The fortunes of the city state seem to be in the hands of Kings and Priests. Compared to the freedom of the hunter-gatherer, the control of the individual over his own life has been reduced to the vanishing point.

In these civilizations, we begin to see an alliance between the priesthood and the Kings, which ties the political fortunes of the ruling class to the mythology of the culture. Failure to observe religious rites becomes treason. Acceptance of priestly authority becomes equivalent to acceptance of Kingly authority. For dissenters, it is no longer possible to just pack up and leave, since the whole world is chopped up into territory controlled by Kings.  Challenge to this arrangement is relatively recent. It dominated world politics for the last 2,000 years at least, but the system is still with us. A visit to 21st century Saudi Arabia will provide a modern experience of this kind of culture. No time machine is required.

But the strange thing is that the ordinary citizen has lost his natural relationship with the "spirit world". He still craves some measure of control. He still has a deep urge to influence the future and is still in full possession of the illusion that the spirits may be bribed or flattered into bending he normal course of history. How can this urge be satisfied? Well, you go to the experts: those who claim to know the mind of God. Those who know the rituals that are effective to bend the sympathy of God your way. Why just one God? The reason is simple. More than one God would imply competition for the priests. Even so, minor competition is allowed through the proliferation of thousands of local "saints", who stand in for the ancient Gods who ruled the territory of a single city. You can pick your Saint to make your case before the "one" God. If you can't shake your instinct to plead your case before an idol, you can still get your "fix" by praying to the saint of your choice. Donations appreciated of course.

But how does this work? Why do people accept the dry formulae and wordy constructions as substitutes for their in-bred passion for spiritual experience? The simple answer is "authority". They go to someone who is guaranteed to have the right answer. Not surprisingly, this authority will make sure that you distrust your own judgment, even convincing you that following your own mind is a mortal sin. Priesthood is not a good choice for a small business start-up.

Where does the priest get his authority? The answer (ludicrous as it may seem) is that he got it by "laying on of hands" by priests who had the authority, who got it from other priests, going all the way back to Peter, who got is authority from Jesus. Assuming that "being right" can be passed on like a virus this way, we are left with the obvious question of why we should think Jesus was definitely right about everything.

For Jesus to be right about everything, he needs to be "divine", a God. For this to work, you need to believe in gods, specifically this god and particularly not other gods. That's a huge leap and, historically, it has been opposed literally as soon as it arose. It was heresy punishable by death in Judea (it's why Jesus was crucified) and the "Christians" were being put to death for treason and/or heresy for centuries. Eventually, the divine status of Jesus was decided by committee and enforced by the time-old alliance between the priesthood and the King (Roman Emperor Constantine in this case).

It is important to understand that Jesus needs to be divine so He can claim ultimate authority, not the other way around (i.e. Jesus is not "right" because he's God). Before the era of political religion, the Gods were much more fun. "Infallibility" was not among their powers.

A similar story can be told about Islam, where the authority of Mohammed comes directly from Allah, but requires frequent slaughter of dissenters to this very day.

What about Buddha, who is so innocently portrayed to Western readers as "just a man". Anyone serious about Buddhism will quickly discover that a "real" Buddhist or Zen master traces his authority all the way back to Buddha by a process that's not very different from laying on of hands. The "Dharma", the teachings of Buddha have been elaborated and expanded by these hereditary authorities to create enough variation to fit just about any lifestyle. The Dharma itself is claimed to be eternally true (i.e., not subject to discussion or verification), very much like the "Word" of the Gospel of John, which effectively claimed he teachings of Jesus to be on par with, say, the law of gravity. Buddhist masters don't tend to go around making war on dissenters, but they don't spare scorn for "Westernized" versions of Buddhism that sell books in the West. At least according to the Buddhist masters, heresy is still possible in Buddhism, even though Buddha himself told his followers to be skeptical of everything, including his own teachings.

But what if we reject "religion" wholesale? Are we then able to jettison the workings of our brains that make us see spirits behind every tree and impose "meaning" on every experience.

No.

Our propensity for religion is primary. We invented Gods to satisfy our need to make sense of the world and feel some slight measure of control. Especially for those not blessed with a creative mind, nation states, political leaders and political philosophy will do as well. Even Science can be twisted into a source of authority by those who say things like "the majority of Scientists agree ..." or "Science says ...".

In fact, "Science" only tells us what is not true. Science is perpetually in the business of overturning authority. Attempts to co-opt Science for political reasons tend to come to a bad end, as do political movements that systematically deny Science.

What Science has done is to shoot down all support for any particular version of "God" put up by endless defenders of the concept.  Beginning with the Greeks, philosophy has provided us with an impressive tool kit to defend ourselves against fallacy. We are now able to use language more carefully than ever before if we chose to do so. World Religions, based as they are on a vast tissue of fallacy, cannot survive logical analysis, let alone "real world" verification.

Perhaps for the first time in human history, we can enjoy a complete divorce between what we know about the real world and what is claimed by human authority, especially what is claimed by political authority. We are also more aware than ever about the difference between what we "know" and what is actually happening in the Universe. Paradoxically, this can free our creativity, enjoy our lives and deal with our fears without paying a tax to priests for the privilege. There is no longer a need to judge the fantasies of other people as "false" or worthy of suppression.

In spite of the official claim of Science to provide only negative information, it turns out that we know an incredible amount about the world. So much, in fact, that we are amused by the world view of the "ancients" who, somehow, are regarded as authorities on everything except what turned out to be observably false. What is noticeably different about what we know now is that our knowledge is so impersonal. It's not as useful or apparently relevant as what, for example, the authors of the Bible thought they knew about creation (Genesis is a moral fable. The Big Bang is disturbingly impersonal). For example, astrology pretends to tell us about ourselves and our future but astronomy is almost entirely irrelevant. This illustrates my point that we have divorced knowledge from human fantasy. We are no longer in a position to determine truth by decree or authority.

Truth is now discovered "out there", not in the mind of some creative theologian. But there is also a uniquely human "truth" about our shared hopes and experience. It's important to know and appreciate the difference.

What, if Anything, is Christianity?

See also, "What, If Anything, Is a Christian?"

To most people who identify themselves as Christians, their religion is "based" on the life and teachings of the historical Jesus Christ which, in turn, are a continuation of the story told in "The Bible", viewed as one "book".

This view is incorrect for many reasons.

The life and teachings of Jesus are based on Christianity, not the other way around. We know absolutely nothing of the life and teachings of Jesus except from the point of view of the early Christian Church.

The accounts in the New Testament are written to illustrate specific interpretations of His life and acts. For example, Mathew is concerned to show Jews of his time that Jesus is the Messiah. His arguments make no sense to a modern reader and they were vigorously denied by Jews at the time ("Christians" advancing this view were pursued as criminals by the Jewish authorities of the time and stoned to death as heretics. Indeed, Jesus Himself was executed by he Romans and/or the Jewish authorities for precisely his claim). Modern Christians systematically ignore the fact that what they call the "Messiah" has nothing whatever to do with the Messiah the Jews were expecting, nor the Messiah that Matthew claimed Jesus to be. The modern Messiah is as a creation of modern myth like Santa Claus -- not even the mythical super-Jew of the Bible. This isn't a simply an academic distinction. The key belief of he evangelical Christian is that Jesus is his personal saviour. The Biblical Messiah was supposed to free Israel and restore it to the glory. Obviously, Jesus did not fit the bill, so the myth needed a vigorous re-write, a process that is well under way in the early Church and is still a "work in progress".

There were several claimants to the office of "Messiah" during the time of Jesus and they all met the same fate. Their claims were treason from the point of view of the Romans and heresy from the point of view of the Jews. The messianic hopes of the Jews evaporated with the sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD, but such hopes were still alive in the time of Paul and there are numerous claims put into the mouth of Jesus that seem mysterious today. Re-working these claims (especially those in the Revelation of John) is still a 21st century cottage industry. For a few die-hards, the end of the world and the "kingdom of God" (whatever that is) is just around the corner. However, in the New Testament, what was expected was the defeat of Rome by the Messiah, something that was seen as preposterous even at the time by the great majority of Jews. Once it was taken seriously and the Jews rose up in revolt, Israel came to a catastrophic and perfectly predictable end.

Matthew invents a geology for Jesus and fabricates a birth story (the virgin birth, Bethlehem etc.) solely to connect Him to the line of David and Old Testament prophecies of he Messiah. These stories don't appear in the other three gospels. The whole argument makes no sense anyway, but it is why this particular Gospel was written. Connecting Jesus to David is a bit weird to the modern reader. David was notable as a war lord, who expanded the borders of Israel, putting Israel locally "on top" for a less than a century. David wasn't even a follower of "Judaism", which did not really exist until later. In the thinking of Old Testament prophets the Messiah was to save Israel as a nation. For those writing after David,  the Messiah would need to be a descendent of David. Oddly Jesus wasn't such a descendent, even though his father was. The father of Jesus was (according to Matthew) God. Quite typically, the theology of Matthew winds up tripping over itself.

Like Matthew, the Gospel of John is a piece of early Christian theology, featuring Jesus going around and making claims for Himself that make sense only from the point of view of the early Christian church. The main point is that Jesus is/was a pre-existing god, but at the same time a son of God. The difficulties with this idea were not yet fully worked out in the first centuryand indeed were never worked out except at the point of a sword.

John's Jesus is not plausible on His own but makes perfect sense if you know the other side of the argument, which was (a) Jesus was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem (b) Jesus was not of the "house of David" (c) Jesus was executed by the Romans and therefore did not save Israel from anything so (d) Jesus was not the Messiah. Because of all this, we are more than willing to stone you to death as a heretic, so get the f*k out of town. The book of Acts is the story of Paul being run out of one town after another from Jerusalem to Rome and all points in between, mostly by angry and murderous Jewish authorities.

The Gospels also go to great length to downplay the moderately successful religion founded by John The Baptist. From what we see in Acts, it's plain that the followers of John were not themselves convinced that John endorsed Jesus in a way that the New Testament portrays. Again, you can understand the "Biblical" John the Baptist best by understanding what the opposing view was.

The early Church split into (at least) two warring factions over the issue of whether Jesus was the "Messiah" just for the Jews (as the Old Testament clearly indicates) or for everyone. Should "Gentile" converts be required to follow the burdensome practices of the Mosaic code (such as circumcision)? "Conservative" Jews (especially those in Jerusalem) saw it necessary to convert to Judaism to be a Christian (even though they would still be considered heretics by orthodox Jews). Paul, being a "civilized" Roman Jew (from Tarsus, far from Judea), was willing to compromise. Eventually, his view won out by the simple fact that Israel was destroyed in 70 AD. The "liberal/Gentile" wing of Christianity prevailed by default. What we have in the New Testament (writings selected by this "pro-Gentile" school of thought) are dominated by Paul and his companions, especially Mark and Luke, who prevent a rather sanitized and tolerant view of Jesus (as opposed to the Jewish Jesus of Matthew, who claims to have come to "fulfill" the law of Moses and not to replace the law in any way).

Overlaying all of this is two millennia of further interpretation, theology and open warfare. The modern "Christian" reads the New Testament through goggles that take for granted (for example) the doctrine of the Trinity, an awkward political compromise between sects of "Christianity" that papers over the lively dispute over what Jesus was (A normal human? A separate God? An aspect of God (the "word")?). Ironically, these debates were shackled by Old Testament monotheism, which (from the point of view of the Jews) viewed all the claims of the Christians as heretical (punishable by death). Early Christians couldn't simply put up Jesus as an additional God, nor could they put Him up in place of the Old Testament God. According to the Greek way of thinking, he had to be a god of some sort. The divorce between the Jews and the Christians was not an amicable one, even to this day. Christians claim the Old Testament (parts of it anyway) but the Jews read the Old Testament in a radically different way. Millions of Jews have met their death at the hands of Christians for their stubborn but perfectly reasonable rejection of the arguments presented in Matthew. Unlike Christians, Jews have an annoying tendency to carefully read and debate their Bible.

Church leaders continued to debate (and still debate) just how Jesus and God are related. The question was supposedly settled by The Third Counsel of Constantinople in 680 AD, which condemned all dissenting opinions as heresy and is officially rejected by many large segments of Christianity to this day. Yet, most Christians consider this type of question to have been settled (in the Bible, no less!!) or irrelevant. If nothing else, this particular controversy should show that there is not now, nor ever has been a unified interpretation of the life of Christ. The seeds of disagreement are glaring in the New Testament and they have only grown with time.

(While this is not terribly relevant to my point, I should state my own view on his issue, best documented in "The Zealot". I think Jesus was a real human being who may or may not have believed himself to be the Messiah. Others around him probably did believe him to be he Messiah, enough to guarantee his unfortunate end. Along with others with similar claims, he was executed by the Romans for treason and/or the Jews for heresy. Based on a bit of logic and careful reading, we can offer a few negative guesses. He was not born in Bethlehem. His mother was not a virgin. He did not think of himself as divine, nor, of course, was he. He was not the Messiah for the simple reason that the Messiah is a mythical person, but also because he wasn't the "real" Messiah people were expecting. He did not come back from the dead, nor did anyone else of whom this claim was made at the time. He was an orthodox Jew, preaching to Jews. Evidence of his ministry to those outside of the Jewish faith is slim and unconvincing. Theologically, he probably represented a rather mildly liberal, reformist view of Judaism but certainly not a wholesale rejection of Judaism as the only true faith. I'm confident that most of this is wrong but I have no idea how any of it could be settled once and for all.)

Modern "evangelicals" cling enthusiastically to the Old Testament while shredding it into proof texts to support modern "take" on Christianity, which is at odds with "official" Christianity as taught by the Catholics. Evangelicals are remarkably ignorant of the Bible that they claim to have been somehow inspired by God. Ironically, it is the Catholic and "liberal" branches of Christianity that require their pastors to have a professional competence with Biblical criticism, even to the extent of a passing familiarity with Greek and Hebrew. Such familiarity creates a view of "Christianity" in a historical context which may or may not make sense of the idea of one true God acting in history. In any case, such training fosters a deep appreciation for the Bible that comes from actually reading it, not having read for you. Discussions among professionals are remarkable for the absence of "proof texts".

For one reason or another, modern Christians basically dump the Old Testament while still claiming it as part of their history and authority. This allows them to overlook the tangle of controversies within Judaism itself.  In the time of Jesus, Judaism was itself split into warring factions (Sadducees and Pharisees). Paul himself was a Pharisee and many Pharisee doctrines (such as the resurrection) find their way into Paul's version of "Christianity". To a modern eye, the split between Pharisees and Sadducees has more to do with politics than theology, since one party or another controlled the temple and (subject to Roman approval) the money. This will be familiar to those who look for real differences between Republicans and Democrats.

All religion is based on claims of authority. Lacking any grounding in reality, such claims reach into an alternate universe, the creation of the human mind. It is not surprising that we wind up with competing and contradictory doctrines. Historically, these disagreements over what is "true" in the alternate universe have lead to centuries of warfare and destruction.

The alternative to religion is to ground belief on observable fact and experience. This still leaves us open to misinterpretation and even doctrinal disputes. But such disputes can be resolved in the theatre of actual, current, personal experience. If we believe that we all inhabit the same physical universe, it would seem that we have a better chance to stop killing each other on orders from the alternate worlds of religious authorities.

In the real world, we are faced with many who still take their orders from the invisible lords of the alternate universe. Tolerance is the only practical path to take. We should be willing to agree on what to do and put aside disputes on why we should do it.

In a cosmopolitan society, there is a broad consensus between modern Atheists, Agnostics, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists over what constitutes a just society. People need to be free to call their personal philosophy by whatever name that seems right to them. It is by their actions we should know them.

Much Ado About Nothingness (Rev 2013 July 29)

"Zen is not a philosophy or mysticism. It is simply a practice of readjustment of nervous activity .. Here we encounter the purest form of existence. It is the hushed silence of the snow-clad Himalayas. Or it can be likened to the eternal silence of the fathomless depths of the sea"

KATSUKI SEKIDA

"Guide to Zen"

OSHO 

"Creativity"

You can also watch Osho for hours on you-tube. You can download all you have time to read in PDF form here.

SHUNRYU SUZUKI

"Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"

JAMES H. AUSTIN

Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness

Sekida gives us a more traditional guide book, 50% concerned with how to sit and breath and 50% concerned with a pretty detailed analysis of "samadhi" -- the state of mind to be achieved in Zen meditation.

With great reluctance, I will steer clear of the easy jokes about the professors of nothingness like Osho and Sekida.  While it's easy to get bogged down in the vague and pedantic style of Sekida or the endless chatter of Osho, there is certainly something real behind all the sales talk. Austin's book combines massive detail on mind/brain function from the point of view of a neurologist who also happens to be a Zen practitioner. See the You-Tube video for a taste ...

As a total amateur, it seems to me that we need to distinguish between "zazen" (Zen mediation) and "mindfulness". Zen has a lot to say about clearing the junk out of your mind but you don't need to sit and stare at a wall for 20 minutes a day to find it. Or so it seems.

Osho caught my attention by making a distinction between "activity" and "action". An activity is a habit or pastime that basically keeps you from being alone with yourself. He provides the very useful and relevant examples of smoking, snacking and chatter. This is where his advice to "shut the fuck up" comes in. Typically, he chatters on for a few pages of "Creativity" -- telling a person how to shut his mouth.

According to Osho, an "action" is meaningful and purposeful. Examples might be cooking a meal or planting a tree. Osho seems to be saying that we need to devote ourselves in a single-minded way to actions and clear our minds of "activity". This advice alone has made me a better and safer driver. You could almost say the advice is to pay attention (duh), but the Zen literature gives you a lot of tips on the how and why of simply paying attention.

Beyond paying single-minded attention to tasks and pushing out the clutter of thoughts that prevent us from doing so, Zen speaks of an additional step. If there is no task at hand and no need to pay attention, push out all thought: Do and say nothing. "Zazen" or Zen meditation takes this to the extreme (more on this below) but the idea seems to be useful in many common situations, especially those where the usual behaviour would be to fire up some kind of activity such as lighting up a cigarette, finding a snack, pouring a drink, turning on the TV, picking up a magazine or engaging in mindless chatter. Activity seems to be the remedy to boredom -- the state of affairs where you are left with nothing but your own company and a jumble of thoughts about wasting time, meaningless what is going on around you etc. Zen provides an alternative to boredom. Just shut down. Open up to sensation without judgement. Experience the moment. In a nutshell, just sit still and shut the fuck up. Chase out your own thoughts that are boring you. Just "be". In my brief experience of trying this strategy, nothingness does seem to be an alternative to boredom -- just a way to take an opportunity to rest the mind and enjoy the simple pleasure of mere existence. Of course, I need to take care to be sitting up straight or I'll drift off to sleep.

The idea of chasing out mental garbage is extremely useful. When driving, I imagine a rabbit running across the road. I mentally pin a thought to it's tail (like worry about finances, what I should have said or what I planned to say ...). The rabbit and the thought scamper out of sight and I have a moment to pay attention to driving before the next piece of mental garbage commands my attention. Things like the radio and chatter with the passenger are seen as "activities" to be avoided. Special, specific effort to pay attention was devoted to situations like parking, passing, busy intersections etc.

Of course the Zen "master" would point out that I need to also stop thinking of the rabbits or how clever the rabbit idea is or even how well I'm doing at paying attention. Ok ok ok. I get it!!

It turns out that more advanced Zen theory can improve on my rabbit habit. Sedika's advice is to breathing to settle the mind. Even though it's mainly intended for the serious meditator (sitting zazen), just counting 10 breaths in a row seems to be a pretty good way to settle the mind. Of course the Zen goal is to improve alertness and focus, but the technique of actively taking a broom to mental garbage also works in the opposite situation where the goal is to chase out distracting thoughts and go to sleep. The difference seems to involve mainly posture.

While Sedika teaches the "right" way to pursue Zen, Osho and Suzuki emphasize the importance of remaining open, de-emphasizing theory in favour of practice and, above all, creating your own individual version of Zen.

Austin's approach seems more palatable  a "Western", Skeptical mind such as my own. All the chatter about "nothingness" is gone. The contempt for Science and things of the mind is replaced by massive quantities of information on everything from the history of Zen to the neurological study of "attention" . For me at least, it makes sense to know the facts before running off to create my own private version of "Zen".

It seems that we all need to know a lot more about nothing.