RELIGIOUS SINGULARITY

THINGS THAT POP INTO MY BRAIN

In my last post, I ended by mentioning the possibility of there being such a thing as a "Religious Singularity."   After I published that post, I thought to myself, "Norm, just exactly where did that come from?  Why did that pop into your head, and what do you even mean by that?"   To be honest, thoughts like that do just pop into my brain and then I begin to think about what I said.  In that sense, my posts are more often than not an opus of intuition or what one might call informed intuition.   So with these questions still in my mind, I thought I would pause to explain or try to explain what religious singularity means. 

By now any regular reader of my posts understands that my use of the term "religion" is extremely broad; so broad in fact that it encompasses almost every aspect of human activity whether one is of a theistic or secular mindset.  I believe humans are prone to be religious, homo religioso,  to systemize whatever ideological belief they share with others, whether it be theistically based or secularly based.  In fact, I would say we all posses both a secular and theistic religious perspective with a preferential emphasis on one or the other as being what one means by religion.  We humans tend towards discrimination; that is, separating out what it is we believe or don't believe, what it is we have in common and don't have in common, what makes us unique and or what makes us similar. This ability  is as old as human intelligence. 

The term "singularity" may seem a bit misplaced when talking about religion, as singularity frequently refers to a mathematic or scientific term or of things being distinct or possessing a unique nature.  Singularity is also a term used by  Ray Kurzweil and his prediction that there will come a time, in the not too distant future, where the merger of mankind with mankind's creations, machines, trans-humans will occur.  It is perhaps, in Kurzweil's concept of merger or crossing into a new way of being that is similar to what I have in mind when talking about a religious singularity.  Let me be clear, however, that I'm not talking about man and machines, but rather a much different merger of sorts, a merger of the vast array of human experiences, ideas, perspectives and thoughts as defining the complexity of what it means to be human in a way that does not diminish or violate the uniqueness and distinct character of those experiences, ideas, perspectives and thoughts. 

THE PARADOX OF ONE

In all religion, secular or theistic, there runs a thread that talks about oneness or one.  Almost every theistic religion, regardless of the number of gods or divinities ultimately gets to the one in which everything resides; that being in which we live, move and have our being as the  apostle Paul quoted in the Book of Acts.  In secular religion, such as found in the United States, this is expressed in the  expression, "Ex Pluribus Unum," "From the many one."  That this phrase was put in the Latin gives it that theistic feel, but it should be understood as a secular creed or aspiration rather than a theistic one. It is, nevertheless, rightly understood to be a religious creed or aspiration. Above all, religion is about paradox whether one is talking about secular or theistic religion.  E. Pluribus Unum is an expression of paradox.  While the differentiating paradigm is found in all religions, religion ultimately moves towards oneness, towards what it is we have in common.  In my opinion, religion as a whole must move away from the perennial questions of "Why" and "What happens next"  to the more urgent questions, "What now" and "How."  Each theistic religion in its own way has answered the why question and the what next question that are dependent on belief.  What is desperately needed now are acts of faith in seeking to answer the what now and how questions.


A CHANGING WORLD

My wife and I have just returned from a Mediterranean vacation that lasted roughly three weeks. Every time we travel long distances, I am mindful of how much our world has changed, how much smaller it has become, how much more in focus it is becoming.  What would have taken weeks and months to get to where we travelled took us only hour from our home in middle of the United States to Venice, Italy.  I suffer jet lag because my body has not had the time to adjust to the time changes that occur so quickly when traveling by air.  In some ways my jet lag serves as a metaphor for the fact that our technology exceeds our ability to mentally catch up to it. 

Our world is smaller, and in its becoming smaller, we encounter both diversity and similarity on a scale that is breathtaking.  The world is a changing place, a place of many crossroads interlinked by travel both real and virtual, not to mention our ability to communicate with others around the world at the speed of light.  Technology is advancing at an extremely fast pace and we are utilizing devices and innovations our great grandparents would have thought as sheer fantasy.

In some ways it remains illusionary in that it too is sucked into the differentiating paradigm that exists between real and virtual, that our minds have not yet totally grasped.  In virtual reality, the differentiating paradigm is more pronounced, in my opinion.  I am not just talking about games that allure the juvenile mindset, but the virtual "truth telling," the sound bytes of information that remove the burden of having to think.  This is for me is the greatest challenge that the internet poses for people, the illusion that everything on the net contains a kernel of truth and the allurement that I can find an answer to all my questions, all my needs through an internet search engine.

With all theses advances, however, we have yet to come to grips with who we are and what to do with ourselves.  We are poised to merge with our technological creations without knowing who we are.  Many intelligent and wise individuals are worried that our technology is advancing faster than our ability to understand its ramifications.  Some are quick to dismiss theistic religion as pointless, yet, to my knowledge they have not bothered to consider the void that would be created by its absence.  We are in some sense so worried about the harm that is done by humans on the environment that we sometimes fail to take time to understand our environment, our human nature, that in my opinion is best examined through the lens of theism. Until we come to grips with the human environment and the diversity it offers, we are ill suited to save anything else. 

BRIDGING THE GAPS

It is easy to point out the flaws of theistic religion, but secular religions is just as flawed if not more so in its supposed rationalism that negates the need of an outside other, the need for a mechanism to observe ourselves objectively in the light of the paradox that is represented in the concept of the divine. The go-it-alone mentality that is evident in some secular religions exposes a lack of understanding the need for objective observation. Apart from psychoanalysis, secular religion has no lens by which to examine the human environment. It's denigration of theism strikes me as an act of willful ignorance, if not arrogance.

I recently read an article in Huffington Post by Joey Savoie, entitled "What makes the New Atheists So Charitable?"  In this article, he discussed Effective Altruism (EA) that is a charitable movement amongst the New Atheists.  What struck me in this article is that what they are defining as EA is nothing new and can be found in almost every theistic religion.  The article quoted Sarte that morality, 'comes from within and grow outwardly.'"  This is something I can readily agree with, but it is hardly something new or something that Sarte came up with.  This concept is well established in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures and it serves to remind me and others that what New Atheists are trying to promote as a new way of seeing things is rather saying something that's been around for ever without the need for the concept of god.

I agree with the article that goodness is part of what we humans are very capable of on our own, that that there no longer exists a need for a god concept for humans to be good.  Ironically, Jesus taught the same thing some two thousand years ago.  Goodness has always been a human capability, but I would remind New Atheists or any other form of atheism that the god they do not believe in, most sincere and informed theists don't believe in either, and it is why I consider atheism a theistic religion.

As I said in other posts, I have an appreciation for atheistic thought, but am far from convinced that they are offering anything new, and in fact I find them limited in their perspective and appreciation of diversity of thought and perspective offered by other theistic religions.  What I do appreciate is their willingness to try find a moral path without the rigid control of some theistic religions, to remove the training wheels, as it were, that many theistic religions impose as being necessary to ensure morality and proceed in a more liberated fashion.  Frankly, I don't think "God" objects.
 
Ancient theistic religions have provided us with various answers to the perennial question, "Why?" and have attempted to define "Who" we are.  Secular religion, for the most part has ignored these perennial questions and have contented themselves that answering the question "how" we got to be here and "what" we're made of as sufficient - that science and technology is all that is needed to improve our world.  Atheism, by and large, tends to look secular in this regard, but I still maintain that lingering behind the question of how to be moral is the perennial questions why, who are we and the merging questions that all religions must face, "What next" and "How."

I am hopeful that in our current, very violent world this awareness is growing; that there is a greater need for dialogue; the sharing of diverse thoughts and perspective than at any other time in our history; that there is a need for a paradoxical merger and blending of thought, idea, and perspective that permits adaption while maintaining the uniqueness and distinctness of their origins.  This is what I mean by Religious Singularity.

Until next time, stay faithful.


     

MONOTHEISTIC MELTDOWN

In my last post, I posited a possible merger between humanistic and theistic ideologies.  Before doing so, however, I would like to give my reasons for doing so.

Consider the world's two largest theistic religions, Christianity and Islam.  It is estimated that there are over two billion Christians and a little over one and one half billion Muslims. The third largest group related to the study of religious categories is called the unaffiliated or the "nones" with over one billion people and growing.  What is significant is that neither Christianity nor Islam are growing numerically.  In fact, they are bleeding members to the unaffiliated.

This may not strike some as reason for concern, but I would contend that it is.  It is clear that large swaths of the world's nations are considered secular, where organized theistic religion does not appear to play a major social role as it once did.  I think such assessments are misleading.

For example, Europe is largely secular. Yet, monotheism is present at every turn.  People might not attend places of worship, but churches, temples and Mosques are everywhere.  In such a theistic atmosphere, it might be considered fashionable to act unaffected, but I would suggest such displays of being unaffected expose a troubling lack of awareness or disenchantment with the foundations these cultures have been built upon.

People may not like theistic religions, think them silly and see them as an anachronism.  Yet, I would say most would likely experience a sense of disorientation if theistic religion was completely gone or relegated to museum status.  In what other places could we gather to express a sense of gratitude or express such personal or collective despair, that would permit a cry for help, a reason to hope when no one on Earth seems to be listening?  What would serve to remind us there is more to us than merely the sum of us currently living?

In the United States, the first truly secular nation in the world, religion is protected by The Constitution's First Amendment.  Monotheism, particularly Christianity, has flourished since Europeans first settled here.  It is in the United States, however, that I feel the meltdown is happening in dramatic ways.

Religious freedom is front and center of public debate due to the Supreme Court's decision on same-sex marriage.  The more people are becoming ardent about their right to practice their beliefs by discriminating against others in the name of God or as a matter of conscience, the more likely there will be a repulsive reaction to theism and monotheism in particular.

It is my contention that the largest and youngest monotheistic religions , Islam and Christianity, are poised to experience a rapid meltdown.

What do I mean by a meltdown?

Both of these religions have reached what I would describe as a saturation point.  They've grown about as big as they can grow, both in regard to adherents and theological expansion.

SATURATION POINT

Let's look at numbers to start with.  I read somewhere that there is estimated to be over thirty thousand different Christian denominations in the United States alone.  This may sound like an exaggeration, but walk down any street in Brooklyn, New York and start counting just the storefront churches and you'll get the idea.  In my hometown of less than fifteen thousand residents, here on the plains, there are twenty-four different churches listed, two of which are Roman Catholic and four Lutheran. I know there are probably a few more that aren't listed.

While these numbers might be viewed as indicating a robust interest in Christianity and an expansion of its theological implications, I would suggest quite the opposite; that what it represents is a rapidly advancing meltdown of not just Christianity, but monotheism as a whole. 

Try to think of it in terms of climate change or global warming where the two polar caps and the glacial fields are fragmenting into pieces before our very eyes.  These ice fields have not grown for a long time and have been shrinking perhaps for some time, but within the past couple of decades they have seen rapid meltdown due other environmental factors.  The same is true with the largest monotheistic religions, Christianity and Islam.

In Islam, for example, any growth it is experiencing has been linked to a robust birth rate amongst Muslim families rather than to people converting to Islam.  The most notable converts to Islam are those who are joining radical Islamic terrorist groups.  Christianity, for the most part, is stagnant and is not seeing real growth.  There may be some who are re-converted back into Christianity, but its highpoint for evangelism was over one hundred years ago, during European colonization in Africa, Asia and elsewhere.  The reality is that there is no appeal for people to join these two religions, as they continue to be mired in conflict with their own denominations and with each other.

LOCKED IN A THEOLOGIC BOX

Theologically, Christianity, for example, hit its apex with Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. By the sixteenth century, Western Christianity was starting to fall apart in what is now known as the Reformation and the process continues to this very day.   Eastern Christianity largely became reduced by the conquests of the Ottoman Empire and later by the Russian Revolution.

The Protestant Reformation did nothing to change or advance theological thought in Christianity.  If one is a Lutheran or Calvinist, you will likely argue that it represented a seismic shift in theology, a return to Christianity's original message, but the reality is it didn't do anything of the sort.  What the Protestant Reformation established was a pattern of ever increasing reformations; seismic shifts in the structure rather than the substance of Western Christianity.  Christianity remained as it always was and is, salvation-based.

Some scholars are saying the current violent events in Muslim nations are comparable to the aftermath of the Protestant reformation.  Perhaps, but in the context of our modern, increasingly secular world, it does nothing to support the notion that Islam or any monotheistic religion is about peace.  What the rest of us see is the increasing disintegration of Islam into smaller fractious groups devoted to their version of Jihad.

PEOPLE OF AND BY THE BOOK

Monotheism is largely centered on subscribing to a scripture-based belief system.  In general, monotheists share a common title, "People of the Book,"   a term first coined by Muslims to describe their fellow monotheists, Christians and Jews.  This term then found acceptance by all.  For Judaism, it is the Hebrew Scriptures.  For Christians, it is the Holy Bible, and for Muslims, it is the Koran.

Evolution

What heated things up for monotheism; in particular Christianity, was evolution and the continuing advances in the various fields of science, anthropology, and historical research.  That evolutionary theory demonstrates there is no need of a deity to explain our existence flies directly in the face of theism as a whole.

If our existence is not reliant on a deity, does any deity exist? This becomes an extremely crucial question for monotheistic religions. If there is no God, what about everything that has been premised on God existing? What is the meaning of their sacred scriptures?

Polytheists, I feel, are less affected by evolutionary theory.  Polytheists are more likely to see their theism  in a metaphorical and mythological light.  Monotheists, for the most part, abhor the idea of mythology and insist that God is a transcendent being beyond the reach of our ken; that God is a being separate from other beings; that God knows us, but that we cannot know God apart from what sacred scriptures tells us.

In polytheism, to commune with the divine is to enter into ritual, into experience.  In monotheism, it is getting to know things about God and to intellectually believe in what the monotheistic scriptures say.  Therefore one of the greatest weaknesses of monotheism is its insistence that the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament, and the Koran are all directly inspired by God, and herein lies the challenge posed by evolution.

Evolution does not disprove the existence of God and a number of monotheistic scholars and theologians in all three major branches of monotheism have come to accept or claim to accept evolutionary theory as a possibility or as valid theory.  They have accepted that their scriptures are not inerrant, in the sense, that they must be taken literally.

Many have taken the view that the more unsavory portions of there scriptures by today's standards  be interpreted metaphorically, while sticking to the premise that a transcendent God created our universe and that their holy scriptures are what they are; holy, and are to be revered unlike other literary works.  In other words, they remain the Word of God.

This sounds like a suitable compromise on the part of monotheists, but I'm not sure who they are compromising with: atheists, agnostics, scientists, or other monotheists?
This crisis of faith, so to speak, has resulted in increasing amount of truth telling.

For example, in an effort to back away from the inerrancy of scripture issue in Christianity, religious scholars will cite sources; such as, the  first century apologist, Origen and the fourth century bishop Augustine as having made statements that the creation story in Genesis were not to be taken as historical fact.

Such attempts, however, have done little to address the problem monotheism is confronting.  Sticking by or with the "Book" is taking a toll on the relevancy of monotheism.

Fear

It is telling that religious leaders of major branches of monotheistic churches, synagogues, and mosques are expressing concern about losing members.  What their fears tell me is that such leaders are admitting a problem without naming it and forcing themselves to be content with stabilizing the silent exit that is taking place within all monotheistic faiths without having to address its theological roots.

Being People of the Book has placed monotheism in a textual box, if not a contextual box.  All of these monotheistic religions have volumes of other books based on a few holy books, but most are written as commentaries  or applications on what is found in them.

At one time these sacred scriptures appeared to address all that was necessary for living a good life now, with the added hope of receiving a better life, hereafter - At one time.  The result of keeping one's nose always in the Book, seeing everything through that Book, and reacting to what's happening by that book has proven to be nothing more than theological navel gazing.

MILITANCY

This sort of theological navel gazing frequently misses what's happening; especially the good things that take place, like medical and other scientific advances, which are usually treated with a degree of skepticism.  They tend to be reactive by focusing on the potential negative uses such innovations can bring about as opposed to finding the good. A case in point would be the issue of medical advances in women's health care; such as, birth control.

In fact, monotheism (particularly Christianity) has fomented what could be described as militant mission to fight such advances.  In addition, Christianity's major denominations, while promoting themselves as peacemakers, have a history of being complicit with the national interest in which they reside. If the said nation goes to war the churches are to bless them on their way.

There is no better illustration of this than the inscriptions placed on the army belt buckles of the Third Reich, "Gott mit uns" - "God with us."  To my mind, monotheism, more than any other type of theism is prone to exonerate the causes of war, and this fact has also taken a toll on its credibility of its role in peacemaking.  History haunts the monotheistic places of worship. Militancy appears readily embraced by fundamentalists as demonstrated in the Middle East and by Christians fundamentalists in the United States.

Another sign of meltdown is the feeling of being oppressed or persecuted.  This in turn allows adherents to feel besieged and acquire a militant mindset.  Again, this is currently evident in Muslim nations, who are fighting not only a geopolitical war but theopolitical war amongst each other.

Christians are no less prone to this mindset.  We certainly are seeing it amongst fundamentalists evangelicals who feel oppressed by the Supreme Court's decision on same-sex marriage, who have a commitment to Christian Zionism and the protection of Israel against Muslim states, and who also can't wait for the end of the world.

A LATE AWAKENING

Like the world's increasing acceptance of global warming, Monotheistic religions are waking to its own meltdown, but as yet, this has not led them to do some sincere soul searching regarding the role and relevancy of their salvation-based theologies.  As yet, they have not directly taken a sincere look at finding a truthful approach with regard to their scriptures as being purely human works that attempt to explain the ineffable, works that were written long ago and do not apply to many of the situations faced today.

Until monotheism is capable of moving beyond its scriptures as the only functional resource for basing their theologies on, until it comes to understand that a theological emphasis on salvation in terms of having a chance at a blissful hereafter, it will continue to experience a meltdown and this will not be just a problem for them, it will be a problem for humanity as a whole.

I don't believe that monotheism will disappear, but I do see it being greatly reduced both in terms of adherents and its relevancy in addressing the problems facing the world if it cannot or will not move beyond its theological box.  The problem this poses for the world is that it will likely create a huge theopolitical void and a sense of social and cultural disorientation, which is evident in the religious rights distortion of history in the United States.

The biggest fear of this meltdown is that it could create a heightened sense of apocalyptic fervor in a nuclear age by those who feel threatened by the realization of their own irrelevancy. This, in turn, could bring about  an insane, self-destructive mindset bent on proving these holy books as inerrant by serving as an agent or agency to bring about a self-fulfilled prophecy aimed at ending it all on a global scale; in the concrete belief that it is  hastening the day of judgment and full salvation of the faithful.

In future posts, I plan on taking a look at the "nones," ritual, the religion of militarism, the intuitive side of science, and so on as means of setting the stage to discuss religious singularity.

Until then, stay faithful.