Religion of the Mountain

It may be helpful to read my first post on God if you haven't yet in order to understand more fully some of the points I make in this post.

Glossary:

Category error - an error in which things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to a different category

Metaphysics - a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being

Naturalism - the doctrine that scientific enquiry and discovery is adequate to account for all phenomena

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Envision a mountain. A ginormous, beautiful mountain flourishing with green at the base and dazzling white snow at its peak. Now picture two men - because of the lack of apparatus at the disposal of the first man, he's only able to look at the top three inches, the very peak of the mountain. All he sees is snow and a tiny portion of rock. He picks at it, analyses it, ponders its mysteries, and quickly comes to the conclusion that it is quite useless, contains little value, and it should be considered a marvel that it ever came to be at all. A few hundred metres off in the distance, the second man stands on a viewing post. This man is able to view the mountain in its entirety. He first looks towards the bottom, the foundations with its greenery, slopes, trails, streams and humungous scale, his eyes gradually move upwards to the middle portion with its sharp, jagged and imposing facade, until his sight reaches the top of the mountain. Finally, he's able to take in the entire mountain as one great spectacle.

These two men's notions of this same mountain are insurmountably different. The first man is left dangling complaining of the banality and idleness of the top three inches of snow, and judges the entire mountain from this viewpoint, meanwhile the second man takes in the mountain for all that it is, and appreciates it thusly. So it is with religion in the modern world. Many of us have become so blinded by what we think we know based on modern assumptions that we have failed to lift the veil and understand the essence of religion - we only see the top three inches of snow because of our lack of awareness, rather than taking in the mountain for all that it is. I used to believe that all religion was toxic and an utter hinderance to human progress. I failed to begin with the foundations in order to come to the fullest and most truthful view of religion, rather I began with unchecked assumptions. It is these 'lack of awareness' attitudes that, as a religious person, I inevitably come up against, and hope to address here.

Religion is almost a dirty word for many modern people, one that reeks of judgement, oppressive authority, and superstition. First I should make clear that I am going to be speaking about religion in a very general sense (with reference to the Abrahamic faiths) and how it should be properly understood, as opposed to any particular organised religion. What then, are the assumptions that I warned of above? There are many, but the popular, default assumption I shall focus on for the purpose of this post can be summarised as the following: 'religion is meaningless superstition made up by ancient people in order to explain their existence'. This is why you hear of so many people speaking of their spirituality, but rejection of formalised religion. For millennia, spirituality and religion were not two separate concepts - religion is spirituality, and vice versa. The assumption that I summarised above may ring true to you, you may outright reject it, or you may not be sure. Whatever your position at this point, I hope to present something new and positive that makes you think, even if it challenges your current worldview. The summary used above is very general and by no means exhaustive, I could go on to talk about related things such as the prevailing naturalist metaphysics of the 21st century, or the perceived oppressive authority of organised religion, however these are topics that deserve a post each in their own right.

First, religion as superstition. Superstition can be defined as 'a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation' (from Merriam Webster). You could argue that religion came about as a result of a lack of scientific understanding. Certainly, much of late-pagan religion falls into this category, and modern people would be right to point out the absurdity of palm reading, astrology and other superstitious practices. But what about the Abrahamic faiths, what makes them so different? The beliefs of pagans and the beliefs of the Abrahamic faiths are quite distinct, and the Bible is extremely hostile towards pagan religion. This is not because of a sudden and foolhardy trust in a new god and a kind of 'we've definitely got it right this time' attitude, it is rather because of the fundamental difference between worshipping something of the world - a creature (the meaning of idolatry), and worshipping the absolute ground of all existence - God, the base of all monotheistic faiths. This is because God is no object in the world, but is rather the Absolute from which all comes.

Notions of the Abrahamic religions as superstition in the proper sense of the word are a rather new post-englightenment phenomena, which are largely the result of an overemphasis on the powers of the natural sciences. These notions arise from the idea that science contradicts all that religion proclaims. You'll find many people nowadays saying that they are not religious because they believe in science - a good example of a category error. Let's make this clear, the vast majority of religious people also 'believe' in science, if that is the correct term. I am aware of those groups who are more extreme and fundamentalist in their views however thankfully these are a minority, and as with any ideology things can be taken to irrational extremes based on a misplaced zeal. The fact that the big bang happened does not conflict with God as Creator, or with any religious belief for that matter, because every natural event within the big bang is completely contingent and depends on the absolute. Naturalism, as a metaphysical worldview, is utterly devoid of any coherency. As theologian David Bentley Hart once said beautifully during a lecture (many of which you'll find on YouTube), 'naturalism would be a coherent view of the universe if the universe didn't exist. Unfortunately, it seems to be doing just that.' More on this in my next post.

Of course, religion can fall into superstition. Many mainstream religions have veins of piety that are quite unorthodox, however these have risen, as true superstition does, out of a lack of scientific and logical understanding of the universe. Orthodox religious belief, such as the belief in the one God and other philosophical concepts such as the afterlife, the soul, the abstract concepts of justice, beauty, morality and so on are all perfectly valid, and are based on logic, the erudite nature of philosophy, and our own human experience. The other half of the assumption I summarised above has to do with modern persons feeling superior and more intelligent than their ancient counterparts, another prejudicial assumption. Some of the finest minds to have ever lived are decidedly ancient. I'm not claiming of course that the average person living in the time of Jesus was as intelligent as Socrates or Stephen Hawking, however to label the entirety of religion as 'wrong' because you think you're more intelligent than ancient people is nothing but an ill-informed prejudice. I'll concede again that there are many examples of superstitious practices that people have obviously made up in order to find comfort, however Christianity is not among them. The lives of the saints are sobering reminders of the sheer difficulty of transforming one's life for God. It is much easier (trust me, I've experienced both sides of the coin) to claim that all truth is relative and that I can live as I please with no consequences because I say so, rather than seek for genuine truth.

What other reasons are there for people mistrusting religion? One of the major reasons I see people leaving or rejecting Christianity specifically is their view of the Bible, and what it is. The Bible is a collection of around 72 (depending on your tradition) books, songs, poems, letters, fiction, history, allegories, parables, metaphor, works of philosophy...this list goes on and on, and these works were all written over a period of about three thousand years by different authors in different societal and historical settings wanting to convey a different message for different purposes. Would you approach a piece of poetry from second century Iraq in the same way you'd approach a British text book on the Second World War? Obviously not. The former is an expression of a moral truth through art, the latter is a recording of history, both from completely distinct times and places, and you would approach them as such. They're not even in the same ballpark, sceptics would do well to stay away from blanketing the entire Bible (or any other religious text for that matter) as 'untrue'. It's like walking into the British Library and proclaiming 'the British Library is untrue'.

As with my mountain metaphor above, the best view we can have of the religion is the most complete one. We must scale down the mountain in order to perceive the great spectacle in its entirety, and so we come to our assumptions and our presuppositions. From here, we begin with logic over emotion and prejudice. We keep travelling up the rich and plentiful mountain to find the lives of holy men and women, the development of spiritual practices, religious music, art, psychological development, cultural growth, charity, and so on until we reach the peak - union with God. How are we, modern persons, supposed to comprehend and respect religion for what it truly is and for what it gives us, if our own baseless assumptions only allow us to see three inches of snow?

To conclude then, I've demonstrated a general method for coming to a more truthful view of religion - questioning assumptions through logic and philosophy. From this, we can make a more rational judgement of the place of religion and whether it should have any impact on our lives. Religion is perhaps the single most difficult phenomenon to place into a category or box. It is so multi-faceted and stretches across the entire human experience. However, if I was forced to define the word, I would state something like the following - 'religion is the formulation of all human experience. It gives us meaning on the basis of philosophy and our own experience, its gives us moral codes, rituals, creeds, and cultures, all with the aim of connecting us to that which is higher than ourselves. Religion is reflective of the fullness of humanity, and its practices and guidance are the living out of that humanity,'