Enlightenment as Opposed to "The Enlightenment"

In the modern Western European tradition, we consider knowledge to be the result of the scientific method and inductive reasoning.  These are the process of questions and answers that follow logic.  This Enlightenment tradition is well and good, for it freed us from becoming mired in superstitions and unfounded ideas.  However, contrary to common belief, it does not result in a true understanding of things. 

Why?  Because it logical reasoning is only half the picture.  Allow  me to quote someone far more studied than I -- Idries Shah, who is widely considered to be a world-scholar on Sufism.  In his introduction to The Sufis he says:

"There are two modes of knowledge, through argument and experience. Argument brings conclusions and compels us to concede to them, but it does not cause any certainty nor remove doubts in order that the mind may remain at rest in truth, unless this is provided by experience."

This Sufi doctrine is known in the West as the scientific method of inductive proceeding, and subsequent Western science is largely based upon it.

Modern science, however, instead of accepting the idea that experience was necessary in all branches of human thought, took the word in its sense of "experiment," in which the experimenter remained as far as possible outside the experience.

From the Sufi point of view, therefore, Bacon, when he wrote these words in 1268, both launched modern science and also transmitted only a portion of the wisdom upon which it could have been based.

"Scientific" thinking has worked continuously and heroically with this partial tradition ever since. In spite of its roots in the work of the Sufis, the impairment of the tradition has prevented the scientific researcher from approaching knowledge by means of itself -- by experience, not merely experiment."

The point of this passage is that reliance solely upon the Enlightenment value of objective reasoning as a means of seeking truth is only half the picture. We may read any manner of logical argument we wish, but unless we experience it to be true, we can never truly know it as such.

The reliance of atheists upon only logical, rational arguments and their disregard of the validity of intuitive (or as Shah would call it, experiential) knowledge will never lead to a true understanding of things because it sees only half the picture. One cannot understand the nature of reality unless one views the whole.

This is not to say that viewing the whole and accepting the validity of intuitive/experiential knowledge results in theism. I am not arguing for or against any particular conclusion; that is, by defnition within my argument, the sole province of the individual. I am only saying that reliance solely on cold observation and logic can never result in an understanding of the true nature of the universe. Prior to the rise of patriarchal religious and political institutions, intuitive knowledge was valued. It is only when patriarchy rose to dominance that intuitive knowledge came to be disregarded and devalued as "emotional" or "feminine" (and therefore characterized as weak).

As many of the world's traditions profess, one requires balance.  Yin requires yang;  the Jedis sought to restore balance to the Force.  And so true knowledge requires balance as well.  This is the difference between the knowing of facts and the understanding of truth.  Knowledge as opposed to wisdom. 

To disgregard experiential or intuitive knowledge is just as egregious as disregarding logical reasoning.  We need both, otherwise the movement we know as the Enlightenment will only leave us in the dark.

If This is God's Plan, then God is a Jerk

(Note: this piece is satire.  It is not an attack on anyone's beliefs.)  

Everything happens for a reason.  It's part of God's plan.  God works in mysterious ways.  These are things people say to cope when something bad happens.  Sure, it helps lessen the pain to think there's some Greater Purpose behind it -- but not if you take a look at what such words really mean.

If God has a plan, why doesn't He just get on with it?  Why the games, the subterfuge?  Does he enjoy His Cosmic game of cat and mouse, swatting us with His paw as we struggle? 

And what of these Mysterious Ways?  If the idea is that we just don't understand because we are peon humans and He is a god, well that has some merit -- but then why is He so much like us in other aspects?  Is He our Heavenly Father,  or a mysterious, unknowable Being?  Not that God can't have a multifaceted personality, but if your human father subjected you to blind obedience to a plan he refused to reveal to you, you would resent it. 

Which makes God kind of a jerk.  At best He's an autocrat; at worst He's a sadist on a power trip.  This isn't all that inconsistent with the Old Testament -- God was indeed vengeful and ruled with an iron fist in those days.  But I thought He was supposed to have mellowed with age and fatherhood?  Wasn't the whole point of Jesus to usher in a new era, one of forgiveness and love?  If so, then why these Old Testament games?  Maybe Old Dog God is having a hard time learning new tricks.  Maybe He's a crotchety old geezer set in His ways.  Wouldn't that make Jesus His apologetic son?  Is God the cantankerous Grandpa we tolerate but mostly ignore on Thanksgiving?  Feed him turkey till he falls asleep and shuts up?

Now, I'm all for the idea that struggle makes us stronger, that something crappy that happens today can make us better prepared for something else down the road.  But to say that God intentionally subjects us to such trials?  If a parent did that to a child, it would be called abuse.  A god that subjects me to endless tirals in the same of some Mysterious Purpose doesn't really earn my respect.  And if that's the way God rolls, then I'd rather go to Hell.  At least you know where Lucifer stands on things. 

Whether God made us in His image or we made Him in ours, the idea that "shit happens" as part of His grand scheme is childlike at best.  What kind of god gives his creations such big, fabulous brains only to demand that they shut them off in blind acceptance of his "plan"?

Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius expressed it well:

If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. 

A god that subjects me to the recent events of my life as part of some grand plan is pretty unjust in my book.  That's not the kind of god I want to believe in.  So, I refuse to believe that it's part of some mysterious scheme.  And if I turn out to be wrong, well, then I guess I'll be hangin' with Marcus in hell.

God has a Purpose....Or does Shit just Happen?

It is human nature to wonder at the purpose of life's events.  Especially the bad ones.  Few stop to consider why good things happen -- they simply rejoice and enjoy them.  But when bad things happen, we lament, "why?"

Why must there be a "why"?  Perhaps in a world full of cause and effect, it is only logical to assume the pattern holds true for ourselves.  Or perhaps we simply can't bear the idea of pure randomness, that things happen for no reason.

That ill befalls us for no cause violates our concept of justics, of fairness.  But as your mother might say, "who said life was fair?"  But in a world so full of beauty and symmetry, perhaps fairness just seems right.  Or maybe "reason" is a better word;  in nature, nothing happens without reason.  A lion kills a zebra calf because the lion is hungry and the calf is weak.  The "reason" for this seemingly brutal act is not only to feed the lion but to keep the zebra species strong.  It is nature's balance, her symmetry.

So it is only logical to apply such balance to ourselves.  If something bad happens, it must be for some reason.  But what?  So we make up tales to explain the inexplicable: God is punishing us for some sin;  God has some mysterious and divine purpose; that it's karmic payback for some past wrong committed in this life or one past.

The aspiritual among us will call this hogwash and say there's no reason.  Shit happens, period.  No reason, no purpose -- it is what it is, to no particular end.  And maybe they're right -- who's to know?  But if they are, then our lives would be the sole exception to nature's machinery.  How likely is that?  How could it be that among the vast and complex relationships in our world, that we are the only beings free from it?

Let us examine things from this framework then -- not one of Divine Purpose but of nature.  If the purpose of killing the zebra clf is to ensure the strength of the species, then might not our suffering be similar?  It would be a weak species indeed that curled up into a ball of self-pity and depressed inactoin every time tragedy struck.  That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger, after all.

This is not to say there is an Intent behind things that happen, for that would just replace God or karma with a personnified Mother Nature.  There is no intent behind the lioin and zebra, but merely a system of checks and balances that naturally arose.  As part of the natural world, we would be subject to the same balances.  While we have largely removed ourselves from the basic checks of the environment (though not for much longer), might not we, with our large brains and self awareness, be subject to a psychological version of the same?

Personally, I have gone beyond wondering why.  You may know that Shit Happened in my life recently, and rather than lament on the reason I find I am just numbly accepting it.  Allowing myself a little leeway for withdrawing into a little ball, but also carrying on with life.  Yes, friends are full of comforting assertions that there must be a reason for it, that something better will come of it.  And typically I would agree, but not this time.  Did god send me lemons because he wants me to make lemonade? Hardly.  It's not the lesson I "should" learn (intent) but what I "could" learn (opportunity).