Musings on Greenwood

Since this is Easter, I will wrap up my bloggings on religion and return tomorrow to the federal election which is definitely going to be interesting down the stretch.

The video I have included is from the YouTube sensation known as Thunderfoot. I don’t always agree with everything he says on politics but when he talks about science and its impact on humanity, compared to the influence of religion, he’s right on the money.

This video addresses my fundamental criticism of all religion, superstition, spirituality and mysticism in the world.

They all have two things in common. 1) They try to convince people that they aren’t going to die. 2) They remove from one’s quest for meaning the burden of rational thought and scepticism.

The negative consequences on mankinid are self-evident.

Embracing one’s mortality, as the video suggests, gives life a sense of urgency and focus. Immortality is achieved in this life, not the next one. So, get moving. There is no second chance.

There are two types of people in this world; those who are depressed by this reality and those who are emboldened by it.

Yesterday, I posted a clip from a Sam Harris lecture. Harris is excellent in his critiques of Western religion but he goes off the rails when he talks about Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and the Dalai Lama.

This is a common problem in the West even amongst so-called non-believers. There is great hostility towards Christianity and Islam but a disturbing level of deferance towards Eastern religious traditions.

I simply can’t get my head around this. There are relaxation benefits from the contemplative practices of Easter Culture. In the stress-filled Western society, taking a few minutes to clear and focus the mind can do nothing but good.

It’s when people like Harris start praising the spiritual aspects of these superstitions that my head begins to spin.

Nobody can quantify, measure, prove or disprove the existence of the human soul. We do know it manifests itself in everything from the goosebumps one feels when sitting along a peaceful river, to someone thinking God just telepathically communicated his desire to see an abortion clinic incinerated.

This is the problem with mystical claims. Neither scenario listed above, or anything else in between these two extremes, can be refuted. I can’t prove to you that the person along the riverbank didn’t achieve “oneness” with nature or that the psychopath didn’t hear a celestial voice instructing him to murder.

Thus, when someone claims to have had a spiritual experience, what are you supposed to say in return?

And that’s the whole point. Mysticism, spirituality and all the other remanants of humanity’s infancy are conversaton stoppers. They crush rational dialogue and critical thought.

If someone says the earth is 6000 years old, that can be refuted very easily with the scientific method.

If someone says they went into the woods for a week, fasted, meditated and prayed and saw an archangel at the end of their experience, how do you disprove that experience?

We all know instinctively that the person making the latter claims is insane. Yet a billion people follow a religion that’s inception supposedly mirrored this pattern.

This is why, in some ways, the new age spiritualism is even more dangerous than the outright absurd claims of the Religious Right. When science and religion square off, science always wins in the arena of ideas. Always.

It may not win in the political arena where vultures and demagogues thrive, but it always prevails intellectually.

Mysticism and science don’t have the same conflicts because mystics and spiritualists are far more loosey-goosey with what they can glean from their practices.

Sure, sometimes people will be induced towards goodness but that’s true of any religion.

And sometimes not…

I’ve already blogged about the Dalai Lama. I resubmit it here for all of you: http://rabidoux.tumblr.com/post/1373778112

Here’s a brilliant essay by Meera Nanda called Breaking the Spell of Dharma: A Case for Indian Enlightenment. She talks about the rising tide of religious fanaticism in secular life in India.

http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/MeeraNandaJuly2001.html

Nanda also penned an excellent critique of Sam Harris’ book The End of Faith.Her criticisms are the same as mine; he rails against the Abrahamic religions then praises the most damaging aspects of Eastern tradition.

http://newhumanist.org.uk/973

If you read nothing else, read this. Nanda not only lists the complicity of Eastern religion in various monstrous acts (i.e. Zen Buddhisms role in Japanese barbarism up to the end of World War II) but she also points out that the desire to lose one’s “I-ness” as she puts it, is a recipe for authoritarianism.

Just read the article. It’s a goody.

Meditation can achieve relaxation but it has never and will never achieve enlightenment. Enlightenment is achieved through science, research, knowledge, education and critical thinking.

Spirtualism didn’t cure polio or put a man on the moon. Science did. Prayer didn’t triple life expectancy rates in the West over the last 100 years. Science did. Meditation hasn’t unlocked any secrets of the natural world. Every revelation we’ve had into nature has been done by science and will continue to be done by science.

Stack the legacies of Dr. Jonas Salk, Thomas Edison, Ben Franklin, Charles Darwin or any other free thinker with the legacies of all the religious leaders combined and see who comes out on top.

One provides technology, medicine, innovation and knowledge. The other provides “comfort.”

And this brings me full circle. On this Easter Sunday, embrace logic, science and your own mortality. The latter creates focus, the other two create everything that makes modern life worth living.

Happy Easter!

Ethan Rabidoux