Like what you believe, believe what you like

On big religious days like Easter, the faithful get to hang out with other believers and enjoy a pleasing group validation of shared beliefs.

Today our local newspaper had a story about how 70 Christians turned out for a sunrise service in the Oregon rain and cold. A woman was quoted:

This is a good way to start Easter – with other believers.

Sure, why not?

If I could find 70 other people who agreed with whatever the heck it is I believe in – an amorphous faithless faith that changes frequently – I'd love to hear them tell me, "Brian, you're so absolutely right!"

Ah, music to my ears. But the reality is that I have to sing my own tune to myself if I want to enjoy a hymn that trumpets the power and glory of Brian'ism.

This can be a dilemma for the churchless.

Humans are social beings. We like to associate with people who validate us. Religions offer a time and place for the faithful to come together and tell each other, "We've got the truth that other deluded souls lack."

Problem is, on the next block there's another religious gathering taking place where the same thing is being said. And the truths contradict each other.

So I've concluded that spiritual truth isn't what we should be looking for. Rather, it is spiritual like. (In an earlier post I talked about the difference between "I'm right" and "I like.")

I like raspberries.

For breakfast today I had a bowl of oatmeal with some Oregon raspberries on top. I didn't need anyone else to tell me that I liked what I ate. And no one could have talked me out of my sensation of Yum, good.

Conversely, sometimes my wife – who believes I should be eating more different types of vegetables – will ask me, "Why don't you like brussels sprouts?" (or turnips, or cooked cabbage, or…)

I never know what to say, other than "Because I don't like them."

I like what I like because I like it. I don't like what I don't like. Sure, I like it when others like what I like. But if someone else doesn't like what I like, I still like it.

Yesterday a woman told me about an Easter service where mesh was put over a cross and members of the church brought flowers to stick into the display. "Sounds lovely," I said. "It was," she agreed.

Terrific. I've got no problem with people liking religion. There's a lot to like about the music, the atmosphere, the feeling of community, the volunteerism, the uplifting messages.

When it comes to like, no reasons are required. Everyone should feel free to like what they believe and to believe what they like, just as we all should like what we eat and eat what we like.

In "The Tao is Silent" (which I like a lot), Raymond Smullyan quotes some poems.

The fiddler plays.
Though no one listens,
The fiddler plays.

Although not consciously trying to guard
the rice field from intruders,
The scarecrow is not after all
standing to no purpose.

Most people hate egotists.
They remind them of themselves.
I love egotists.
They remind me of me.

You ask me why I live in
these blue hills.
I smile, but do not answer.

Admirable is he, who when he
sees lightning, does not say
"Life goes by like a flash."

Life, and religion, and relationships, and philosophy – everything becomes much simpler when we realize that I like what I like, and so do you.

Once we try to go beyond, into whys and wherefores, we enter complex territory. Stumbles abound. Stammering predominates. Explain yourself! bounces off a brick wall of What can I say?

I'm a defender of truth. But not of like, which doesn't need defending.

I consider that there's a shared reality, the province of science, where good reasons need to be given. Once religion crosses the border into "I know…" rather than "I like…" it needs to be prepared to justify its truth claims.

So if you enjoyed the love of Jesus yesterday, bless you. If you didn't, bless you. More importantly, bless yourself, whatever your religious inclination (or lack thereof) may be.

If the only thing we like is to like what others like, will we ever like anything for longer than the time it takes to move from one other to another other?

A better approach is to like what we like just to like it. Especially when it comes to religion and spirituality, because there aren't any reasons to be found here – just likes disguised as "because's."

Comments

[tAo]

Yes, that makes a whole lot of sense. Not intellectual sense, but feeling sense. I liked what you said.

And I agree, its really ok for other people to like whatever they like, just as long s they don't go telling me (or you) that we should or must like what they like, or that what we like is wrong.

I liked what you said. And I think I'll start liking that other people like what they like, even if they don't always like what I like. But if someone tells me that what I like is wrong, or that what they like is better than what I like, well then I am going to smile and just tell them that I did not ask them to like what I like or to judge what I like, and they should just attend to whatever they like and not worry about what others like.

A year or two ago, there was a woman, an acquaintence of ours in my local area, who began to say that she did not like me. In doing this, she caused some various problems around the community. Many of our mutual friends wondered and started asking her "What did he actually DO that makes you not like him?" She always answered "Nothing. There is nothing that he actually did. I don't know, I just don't feel comfortable about him."

Other people who liked me and had no problem with me then told her that if she had no legitimate or concrete reason to dislike me, then she should look at herself and find out why she had such ill feelings. She indignantly refused and continued on making the alienation and estrangement worse.

After almost two years, at a party, someone finnally told her that she had caused much bad feelings in the community over nothing, and that she had been very wrong to dislike and bad-mouth me for no reason at all, and that she should go and personally apologise to me for all the troubke she had caused.

Finally she began to see that it was all her own probem, and so she left the party and came over to my house and admitted to me that it was no fault of mine. But when she came to see me, she did not really and truly apologise.

Then, oddly, she started to blame others for supposedly exaggerating the whole situation. She still would not take full responsibility for her feelings and tried to put the blame on others as she had done to me before.

So I told her nicely that she did not have to like me if she did not want to, but that she was wrong to try and blame me or others. I told her that she should just live and be satisfied with her likes and dislikes, and if she did not like to feel her ill feelings towards other people (like me), then she should simply let them go and just think about what she does like and attend to that, and not to worry about other people.

She finally went away somewhat relieved, and I think underneath it all she never really disliked me, but rather she felt uncomfortable around me because she was immature and did not understand someone like me, and my very presence was like a mirror reflecting her own negativity, and that made her uncomfortable to be aware of her own ill feelings that were already there in herself and had nothing to do with me.

I don't expect to be socializing with her in the future, but at least now she is off living her own life with her husband and kids, and is not projecting her dislikes upon me (and hopefully not on other people either) anymore.

[Adam]

But Brian, what about the age old argument against moral relativism, against subjective ethics? Don't we need the golden rule in there somewhere?

[Brian]

Adam, I wrote about "believing," not "acting." Ethics involves actions, not beliefs or thoughts. (Is there such a thing as a bad thought? If so, we're all bad.)

I just read about research showing that people whose meaning in life comes from helping others are happier than those who primarily are in the "eat, drink, and be merry" category.

So this means that doing what you like includes acting in accord with the golden rule, because almost everyone feels better when they're helping others to feel better (aside from a few psychopathic sadistic weirdos).

[Adam]

Brian, point taken. But I think there's a fine line between thought and action, the main trait of this line being awareness. Identification with thought leads inevitably to action, while watching thoughts of many forms, including "bad thoughts" is a different thing. To illustrate, W. Bush "likes" protecting the world from terrorists...

You write that evidence shows that those with a less self-centered outlook on life are happier, but does this mean that the majority or a great number of people actually live this way?