Post Category → Religion & Spirituality

Ape and Essence

In was recently reminded of one of my favourite books from my late teens – Aldous Huxley’s “Ape and Essence” (1948).

Here are some quotes:

Vertical stripes, horizontal stripes, noughts and crosses, eagles and hammers. Mere arbitrary signs. But every reality to which a sign has been attached is thereby made subject to its sign. Goswami and Ali used to live in peace. But I got a flag, you got a flag, all Baboon-God’s children got flags; and because of the flags it immediately became right and proper for the one with the foreskin to disembowel the one without a foreskin, and for the circumcised to shoot the uncircumcised, rape his wife and roast his children over slow fires.

…

“Love casts out fear; but conversely fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth. What remains in the bum or studiedly jocular desperation of one who is aware of the obscene Presence in the corner of the room and knows that the door is locked, that there aren’t any windows. And now the thing bears down on him. He feels a hand on his sleeve, smells a stinking breath, as the executioner’s assistant leans almost amorously toward him. “Your turn next, brother. Kindly step this way.” And in an instant his quiet terror is transmuted into a frenzy as violent as it is futile. There is no longer a man among his fellow men, no longer a rational being speaking articulately to other rational beings; there is only a lacerated animal, screaming and struggling in the trap. For in the end fear casts out even a man’s humanity. And fear, my good friends, fear is the very basis and foundation of modern life. Fear of the much touted technology which, while it raises out standard of living, increases the probability of our violently dying. Fear of the science which takes away the one hand even more than what it so profusely gives with the other. Fear of the demonstrably fatal institutions for while, in our suicidal loyalty, we are ready to kill and die. Fear of the Great Men whom we have raised, and by popular acclaim, to a power which they use, inevitably, to murder and enslave us. Fear of the war we don’t want yet do everything we can to bring about.”

…

“The leech’s kiss, the squid’s embrace,
The prurient ape’s defiling touch:
And do you like the human race?
No, not much.

Wikipedia

Everything2 entry on “Ape and Essence”

Avoiding Secularocity

The word religiosity means “excessively religious”. I would like to coin the term secularocity, a companion word that means “excessively secular”.

Now you might wonder why a secularist, agnostic and sceptic like myself is coining words that arguably have a negative connotation regarding secularism?

It is a good question, and I think the answer is balance.

I have a theme – explored a bit in my post on The Orthosphere – about the role of religion in society (the beneficial role) and my dislike of radical atheism.

Just like David Sloan Wilson and Alan De Botton,  I think that religion and religious thinking have contributed immense good to humanity. I think that religious thinking is inexorable or perhaps inalienable from the human mind, it is an emergent property of the way in which our brains evolved. I think religions have tremendous power to organise society, more often than not for the good. The author Aldous Huxley explores this very same in his book “Ape and Essence” about a post-nuclear California with the church is now entirely satanic but just as it was in the dark ages, it is the guardian of knowledge and in its own twisted way, civilization.

As a non-theist I still have tremendous respect for my religious fellows. I genuinely enjoy watching and listening as moderate religious people address the important questions in life.

Just as one should read newspapers that do not share your political outlook I think it is wise to expose oneself to philosophies and beliefs that I disagree with you or in which you do not believe.

I have absolutely no time for radicals and extremists, be they Islamists, the Christian far right or radical atheists.  I do however thoroughly enjoy hearing, seeing and talking to religious moderates.

My strongest religious sympathies lie with Buddhism. It is the least supernatural of the major religions, it is open to science and its practices like meditation are proven to be mentally and physically beneficial.

That said, the more I learn about religion and philosophy, the more I see that many of the distinctions are false distinctions.

Ultimately I am devoting of the perennial philosophy.

There seem to be threads of truth that bind all of these religions. Aldous Huxley again in his eponymous book “The Perennial Philosophy“, does a masterful job of showing the themes and essential truth as promulgated by the major religions are all pretty much identical. Even Norse mythology and African animist beliefs map against the perennial philosophy.

For any atheists, agnostics, non-theists or otherwise anti-religious people out there may I recommend some sources of religious thought and discussion where I think you might learn a lot from our religious brothers and sisters?

Misc 

Buddhism 

The Orthosphere

Even though I am not a believer myself I have a tremendous respect for religions and religious people. For example, I absolutely love the spiritually themed On Being radio show.

I have noticed an upsurge in interest on the theme of the “positives” of religion,  beyond those of faith and avoiding hell.

David Sloan Wilson, for example, has long argued that religion plays an important role in social organising and other eusocial matters. His book Darwin’s Cathedral was a fascinating exploration of this topic.

I recently heard an interview with Alan De Botton on the On Being radio show. He has an organisation called “school for atheists”. The idea is to take the very best of religion and make it available to the non-religious. I like this idea. I used to complain to my wife that I wished there were a secular church, somewhere I could go on a Sunday morning to sing hymns speak to like-minded people and enjoy all the benefits of a community of faith – but without the faith. My father, who was a lifelong atheist, used to regularly attend church because he loved the hymns and he loved the people who went to church, Even though he did not believe in the articles of faith or in god.

Like father like son I suppose?

Maybe this is why I don’t like the militant atheists like Richard Dawkins. They fervour is as repulsive to me as the zeal of the religious bigot.  There is something frothy and unseemly about Mr Dawkins anti religious diatribes.

Don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no time for religious bigotry in any form. But if you do give any year to religious folks, you will be very surprised to find that the vast majority have very well thought out positions that are consistent with having a considered life and, I suppose, faith.

There is also something refreshing about the sincerity that I so often see in the writings and speaking from religious people. They make no apology for believing what they believe. There is a quality of knowing what you’re getting.  Okay this all sounds deeply patronising and in some ways obviously ludicrous. Perhaps I should modify what I’m saying to apply not to “religious people”, but to the religious people that I tend to encounter on my travels both across the Internet and in real life.

This post actually started out as an entirely different post. I was going to write about The Orthosphere, but that  was sidelined by my long-winded pean for the faithful.

What is the The Orthosphere?

Who We Are and What We Believe

Ortho: Right, correct, straight. As in orthodoxy (right teaching), orthogonal (literally, right-sided; thus, right angled; so, perpendicular, independent) and orthognomon (right knowledge, right indicator (as of a carpenter’s square or a sundial)).

Sphere: A domain, especially of influence. Thus,

Orthosphere: A domain of Christian orthodoxy independent of conventional conservatism.

We are Christians: Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox. We believe our religion is true, and we take the Bible and the Church Fathers as our guides to the faith. We do not innovate religiously, for that is folly.

We affirm our respective traditions where they disagree with the other branches of Christianity, but we do so respectfully, for we have much in common (catholic or mere Christianity) and our enterprise has as much to do with society as with religion.

Socio-politically, we can be called “traditionalist conservatives” or “Christian reactionaries.” Since we agree that Modernity—the fundamental principle of contemporary Western Civilization—is radically defective, we are branded “far-right.” In truth, we affirm what was regarded as self-evident by the vast majority of mankind until well into the Twentieth Century: Religion is true, authority is valid and good, man and woman differ in essential ways, and so on. If affirming reality puts us at the rightmost end of the political spectrum, as the world construes politics, then so be it.

We recognize that the societies of the West are radically disordered, and it is our desire that they move toward a more proper order, one which acknowledges Christianity. Although we are Christians, our primary concern here is not with how individual souls are to be saved from the wrath of God, but rather with how society ought to be ordered. Therefore both Christians and friendly non-Christians are welcome at the Orthosphere.

I cannot sign up to the belief in the Bible or many of the other things that members of this sphere believe, but I do follow this blog because I do believe that there is something valuable to learn from these traditionalists. I am a classic Western liberal who has spent his life fighting for, and arguing in support of, the Western Enlightenment  and all that it entails. I am a Democrat, I believe in women’s rights, I believe in gay rights,  I question all authority, I am a sceptic and doubter  to the point of disbelief in God. That said, I’m open to learning and challenging myself by listening to and reading what the authors here The Orthosphere has to offer.

More: The Orthosphere