I'm an ardent worshipper of Amazon, because it brings me so much inspiration. My current object of literary worship is a compelling little (204 pages) book by Lesley Hazleton, Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto.
Now, I don't see much difference between atheism and agnosticism, but Hazleton does, so I'm good with that. I'd still argue that at times she views atheism as excessively certain God doesn't exist, because every atheist I know (including myself) would be pleased to acknowledge the existence of God if there was good reason to do so.
Which, there isn't.
But this is a minor quibble with the book. So far I've read three of the eight chapters and I'm liking it a lot. Hazleton is an excellent writer. And I agree with almost everything she says about the need to embrace mystery and the unknown, not a rigid fundamentalism marked by rigid conviction that the Truth about the cosmos already is known.
Here's some passages from the "In Doubt We Trust" chapter I read this morning. In the passage below Hazleton addresses why people are so fond of belief and so distrustful of uncertainty.
Sociobiologists have argued that humans have an innate bias toward belief as a matter of physical survival. A prehistoric hunter would have been wiser to take a rustling in the forest as ominous than to blithely trust it was not. Or, in more familiar terms, better safe than sorry. If this theory means that I would not have lasted long in a prehistoric forest, I can live with that.
But it may also go some way toward explaining why so many people long for certainty: why they experience uncertainty as an unpleasant state of being, as though a saber-toothed tiger were waiting to pounce, and why, despite the occasional criticism of someone as credulous and thus liable to believe anything at all, the idea that belief is good seems built into the way we think.
Someone may be praised as being true to his beliefs, for instance, as though the act of belief were a value in itself, a moral stance, no matter the content of the belief in question. In matters of religion, belief can even develop into something of a full-time occupation -- a profession, in both senses of the word.
You don't simply believe; you become a believer. You are defined by living in the state of belief, both in the eyes of others and in your own.
Belief can then develop into an impassioned state of being where the act of believing is more important than its content, which is why the most ardent fundamentalists can turn into the most vehement atheists, flaming red socialists into deep-blue conservatives, hedonists into ascetics (and all, by the same token, potentially vice versa).
Conviction is deadening, in Hazleton's view. No one should be certain of their convictions, because there's a reason "conviction" and "convict" are so similar. Rigid convictions keep us confined in a mental jail of fundamentalist self-righteousness.
The more firmly I hold a belief (and note that word hold, that sense of possession, of its being mine), the more liable it is to fossilize into conviction, as tightly constricted as that army cot, or as a convict in his cell. And when my belief is so adamantly held that it becomes central to my identity, your disbelief then undermines not only the assumed truth of what I believe, but me.
This is no mere schoolyard "I am right and you are wrong."
Instead, it is "I am right and you are wrong, and your wrongness is a threat to my identity." Or even to my existence. As Samuel Johnson put it in rather more elegant terms: "Every man who attacks my belief diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy."
To be secure in one's convictions is thus to be absurdly oxymoronic, since conviction is really a state of insecurity. If you know something for a fact, you have no need to believe in it or to be convinced of it. You need belief only when you are not sure. Belief is thus the product not of knowledge, but of uncertainty. It contains within itself the possibility of disbelief.
If I gird myself in the psychic armor of righteousness, it is precisely because on some level, conscious or not, I am aware of my vulnerability. Why else would I need any kind of armor?
As with the stiff gait of an elderly arthritic person, the tenacious rigidity of conviction indicates not strength, but frailty. Or perhaps it is an evasion of a deeper, more complex, and far more challenging response to uncertainty, which is to embrace it.
For Hazleton (as for Alan Watts), faith is an open-minded pursuit of understanding and knowledge that has no guarantee of success. Thus faith is founded on doubt, on unknowing, because without doubt there is no fuel to power the engine of faith.
Those I know of deepest faith are not convinced. "Perfect faith" is a cruel and absurd oxymoron so far as they are concerned. Their minds are not made up, and their faith offers anything but smug self-satisfaction. Indeed they have faith not only despite their doubts, but precisely because of them.
They have made a commitment to faith, not in the assurance that they are right and that they have found or possess the truth -- the consumerist approach to religion -- but in the acknowledgment of how much cannot be known, and how presumptuous it is to imagine that everything can be.
They do not claim to have all the answers, or worse, the answer. Instead, they have a deep sense of unknowability, of the ineffable mystery of existence referred to in metaphysical shorthand as God.
Here Hazleton says that doubt is what makes religion, or any other aspect of life, human. Indeed, people who lack doubt generally are insufferable: self-righteous, full of themselves, lacking in humility. The #1 criterion of spirituality is the willingness to honestly say, both to oneself and others, "I could be wrong."
As Graham Greene indicated in his novels of those struggling with faith, doubt is the heart of the matter. It is what keeps religion human, because when doubt is banished, faith is rendered moot. Abolish all doubt, and what's left is not faith but absolute, heartless conviction, a blind and blinding refuge from both thought and humanity.
You are certain that you possess "the Truth" -- inevitably offered with that that uppercase T -- and this certainty easily devolves into dogmatism and righteousness: a demonstrative, overweening pride in being so very right. You occupy this assumed truth, stake it out as your exclusive territory, and see all who live beyond its borders as a threat.
Then you add insult to injury by loudly insisting that in this, you and you alone are, as fundamentalists say, "the faithful."
...But faith -- and the vulnerability and humility that come with it -- is the most important thing lacking in fundamentalists of all religious stripes. Indeed, their absolutism is the opposite of faith, and this makes them the real infidels. By insisting on absolute belief, they have found the perfect antidote to thought, and the ideal refuge from the hard demands of faith.
They don't have to struggle with it like Jacob wrestling through the night with the angel, or like Jesus in his forty days and nights in the wilderness, or like Muhammad -- not only that night on the mountain but throughout his years as a prophet, with the Quran constantly urging him not to despair, and condemning those who most loudly proclaim that they know everything there is to know, and that they and they alone are right.
Terrified of what existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard famously called "the leap of faith," fundamentalists cling to conviction.
Faith and believe are two different things idd.
The Art of 'not knowing' is great..
It's silly to think we can know the ''Unknown''..
<3
Posted by: s* | March 01, 2020 at 05:26 AM
There is great strength in confidence. And great weakness in conviction.
Confidence leads us forward. We are confident enough to learn and grow, make course corrections, because we have faith in the fundamental belief in our development. We move in a direction towards a general but undefined objective, and take a few turns along the way, like the surfer allegory. We think we're going along side the shore, but we are moving closer to the shore all the time. And then the road leads us. The wave leads us. And when it subsides we find another, and ride that. Discovery is our guide. Discovery, our perfect Master.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | March 01, 2020 at 05:54 AM
Faith in our development and in Discovery means a number of things.
1. If we've done our job of being mindful, considerate, inclusive of new people and their perspectives, we won't think the same things we think today. There will be growth.
2. So long as we remain honest students, we will make progress.
"God have you two ears and one mouth, son. Listen, learn, twice as much as you speak."
Dad
Posted by: Spence Tepper | March 01, 2020 at 06:00 AM
"Good doesn't need me to pray to him with my issues. He's busy."
Dad
Posted by: Spence Tepper | March 01, 2020 at 06:03 AM
It's silly to think we can know the ''Unknown''..
<3
Posted by: s* | March 01, 2020 at 05:26 AM
What's the 'Unknown'? At a scientific level the creation and it's constituents or anything beyond this?
Knowing the creator and you know all about the creation and it's constituents.
And it isn't silly to think we cannot know the creator i.e. go far beyond faith and beliefs.
Posted by: I don't believe, I know | March 01, 2020 at 06:50 AM
People might think that ferocious and poisonous animals only live in forests etc; that there are no cobra's in the USA and europe. But they are …. not as physical appearance but as socio- cultural creatures.
Those who have faught their battle with the wild animals in their surroundings have overcome that innate fear of survival, inplanted in creatures as instincts.
The same holds for those who had their fight with the cultural, mental, spiritual powers and survived. They lose that fear of extinction, inplanted in all.
The rest can only overcome that fear by believing on powers that do that fight for them …
the saviours.
The more neurotic inclined will tend to hold onto believes more rigidly than others.
Who is there to blame??
Nobody can stand up against that power of the instincts.
Probably only those who can focus on what is at hand, in every moment of the day, can free them selves of that fear
Posted by: Um | March 01, 2020 at 07:15 AM
Yayyy! You got the book. I love it too! Hazelton is an amazing writer. She has a unique ability to shine the light on long worn out phrases helping you to see them in 3D... so to speak. 😊
Posted by: Sonia Taylor | March 02, 2020 at 02:28 PM
...or worn out ideas I should say. Language has to be “refreshed” to communicate an idea more effectively as time goes by. If we keep repeating the same old thoughts and ideas and beliefs in the same rote manner, we will soon lose our understanding and/or true appreciate of the real messages those “strings of words” are meant to convey.
And if we don’t understand what we’re actually saying then we’re just parroting dogma.
Posted by: Sonia Taylor | March 02, 2020 at 02:36 PM
Like the absurd belief in an eternal lake of fire. Most Christian faiths still have that written into their set of beliefs. And since people hear these terms from the time they’re born, they never stop to think about how insane that belief is. It’s like “accept Jesus or burn for all of eternity”. Seriously?! If that’s one of the main pillars of your belief system, then you should probably be questioning your faith.
There are more examples from other faiths. Things that people should really think about.
Posted by: Sonia Taylor | March 03, 2020 at 08:14 AM
It sounds to me that Lesley Hazelton has identified our most urgent problem. She mentions how Samuel Johnson sees an attack on his beliefs as an attack on his identity. I recall reading of a clergyman who similarly said that any criticism of his beliefs feels like an actual physical attack. This is interesting and a clue to how we experience much of our anxiety, confusion and conflict.
Evidently, our beliefs and opinions are part of the knowledge and information we have accrued since birth. Simply put, this information is mind and is where we derive our identity from. Known as the 'self', 'me', 'I' or ego, to criticise any of this mind content is to attack the very core of who I (believe) I am.
As humans we find it hard to live with uncertainty. Most creatures strive for physical security but we have taken it to the mental level. To maintain the 'I', the 'ego', we seem to have invested greatly in the stories we tell ourselves about who I am – the illusory 'me'. The ego then is perpetually at war with anything (or one) that questions or criticises it.
Hence we live in a state of conflict and insecurity, not only with others but with ourselves. Apparently, our only escape from this mental 'merry-go- round' is to see this mind – with all its contents – for what it is.
Posted by: Turan | March 03, 2020 at 09:35 AM
@ Turan
Those who do sports like Judo etc know that one should not lean on others but stand firmly on ones own legs, grounded.
Those who are commited, have sound faith and hold on to their chosen goal might not teach that goal as that goal doesn't exist … but on their way to finding out for themselves, they are calm inside…. need not to advocate their [spiritual]goals nor defend it.
Posted by: um | March 03, 2020 at 12:12 PM
Beliefs can not be out-stretched, in particular reference to God till the last breath. It requires inner conviction at some point in time in a life cycle and if the God provides it through some means as by means of a living Master or ones firm reverence of God and His creation or else regularly or only sometimes or even once it is suffice to accept the belief as Truth.
If God does not help out then one can do nothing.
We are just helpless either in disbelief or half beliefs or 99.999.. percent beliefs about Him but surely not 100 % due to inner non conviction.
But His power is immense. He may end a life cycle on a pleasant note despite our curtailed beliefs for obvious reasons and this is that never lets us shed our beliefs, which may be near firm or accurate.
Lets be obsessed with doing good, thinking good than God belief alone. The path to reach Him also goes through our love and lovable actions for fellow travellers. It does not matter if one is an atheist or a believer.
Posted by: Meditator | March 03, 2020 at 12:31 PM
Soren Kierkegaard never used the term "leap of faith" but referred to a qualitative leap. About it, he said: “Thinking can turn toward itself in order to think about itself and skepticism can emerge. But this thinking about itself never accomplishes anything." The term was about taking positive action rather than stewing over religious ideation and doing nothing.
I get it that Hazleton wants to condemn fundamentalism, but in rallying Kierkegaard to his defence he seems off the mark. Anyway what the heck does "embrace an openminded faith" mean?
Posted by: j | March 03, 2020 at 05:05 PM
Evidently, our beliefs and opinions are part of the knowledge and information we have accrued since birth. Simply put, this information is mind and is where we derive our identity from. Known as the 'self', 'me', 'I' or ego, to criticise any of this mind content is to attack the very core of who I (believe) I am.
Posted by: Turan | March 03, 2020 at 09:35 AM
This is probably the 'as is' position of every individual being. Is this the reality as well? Am I the Mind? Am I just an 'information bank' ? How does intuition / sixth sense fit in? What is the other voice that we often hear within us?
Posted by: Trevor Smith | March 04, 2020 at 06:43 AM
"If God does not help out then one can do nothing.
We are just helpless either in disbelief or half beliefs or 99.999.. percent beliefs about Him but surely not 100 % due to inner non conviction.
But His power is immense. He may end a life cycle on a pleasant note despite our curtailed beliefs for obvious reasons and this is that never lets us shed our beliefs, which may be near firm or accurate.
Lets be obsessed with doing good, thinking good than God belief alone. The path to reach Him also goes through our love and lovable actions for fellow travellers. It does not matter if one is an atheist or a believer."
Posted by: Meditator | March 03, 2020 at 12:31 PM
One day after Satsang I got the chance to meet a famed satsangi by the name of David Lane. I had visited one of his websites on the fly and randomly just like finding this one. It was a pleasure to be in the company of another heir to the Great Maharaj Ji.
Mr. Lane embraced me as a newcomer, and just before I left a stranger by the name of Colin told me he too was familiar with the Great Maharaj Ji. I quickly asked him if any other heirs were vocal on the World Wide Web. As Church of the Churchless was the last known site I found with others.
He could tell me of none but did state that even though the well known writer of the book Life is Fair seemed distant, he once knew him to be a more ardent follower than any, even himself.
That reminded me of a RSSB teaching I had just read:
(paraphrasing) "Maharaj Ji may allow the strings to lengthen or even seeming allow the disciples to go astray, but the inner hidden form whether seen or not is always pulling them closer, and closer, to eventually reach the goal."
Posted by: Karim W. Rahmaan | March 07, 2020 at 01:44 AM
@ Rachmaan
If one is not a Christian there is no heaven for them in the afterlife
That is more or less the same for Muslims.
If one believes these things then there is no nirvana of the Buddhists
If one is not following that one and only guru, teacher etc one is following a false with all the consequences.
etc etc.
Who is to find the truth of all these claims of followers of all these religions and mystic paths in one life time?
Posted by: um | March 07, 2020 at 09:21 AM
(paraphrasing) "Maharaj Ji may allow the strings to lengthen or even seeming allow the disciples to go astray, but the inner hidden form whether seen or not is always pulling them closer, and closer, to eventually reach the goal."
Posted by: Karim W. Rahmaan | March 07, 2020 at 01:44 AM
@Karim,
Can't recollect who posted it but it was the following
From the time of initiation, when the Master takes over the charge of a soul, he is more anxious than the soul to see it installed on the throne of bliss and peace. Even if the devotee, through some chance, leaves the Master or loses faith in him, he, on his part, never leaves. He will someday bring the devotee on the path again. His mission is to take souls up, and a soul once initiated is never deserted. This is the law."
Maharaj Sawan Singh, The Dawn of Light
Sd/-
Sath_Path
Posted by: 🌜🌞💥💖🦸🦂🐸🤶😈 | March 07, 2020 at 09:48 AM
"Who is to find the truth of all these claims of followers of all these religions and mystic paths in one life time?"
Posted by: um | March 07, 2020 at 09:21 AM
I did read in one of Maharaj Ji's master's books on how a disciple can reach Sach Khand within 4 human births. Then later I heard someone ask Shri Gurinder Singh Ji Dhillon the same question, and master replied that "anyone willing to partake the science of surat-shabd yog could complete it all in but 1 human birth -right here and now in the present" (again paraphrasing).
I try to keep the faith that I did hear him right.
Posted by: Karim W. Rahmaan | March 07, 2020 at 08:11 PM
@ Mr Rahmaan
English is not my mother tongue so things can go wrong.
What I intended with "in ONE life" was, that in this short span of life, the possibilities in terms of different paths of spirituality etc, that are offered, is so enorm that it is difficult, if not impossible, to sift the true ones from the false ones. And …. A true path can also be preached by a false teacher.
What you wrote is something else.
It is the answer to the question about how long it takes for the goal of this particular path to be reached. You are right, it is indeed the point of view of this master and his predecessor.
If you have faith in it, that problem of finding the truth lies behind you; you have found your path. Having found it, MCS advised to practise it faithfully and devotedly, to the complete exclusion of everything else. If the mind keeps wavering between this and that form of meditation, keeps studying and making researches here and there then it lacks faith and has not become still and motionless.
An wise advise, probably one that every teacher of any genuine path would give.
Posted by: Um | March 08, 2020 at 03:28 AM
"Having found it, MCS advised to practise it faithfully and devotedly, to the complete exclusion of everything else. If the mind keeps wavering between this and that form of meditation, keeps studying and making researches here and there then it lacks faith and has not become still and motionless.
An wise advise, probably one that every teacher of any genuine path would give."
Posted by: Um | March 08, 2020 at 03:28 AM
Yes, life is short and life is fair. Two great concepts.
Faith, or absolute open-minded faith is core to Islam the religion I was born of. Faith in Allah or Kun His ability to give or take His graces as taught by Sufis such as Rumi are very difficult I think. The Koran gives emphasis on developing faith every day.
By prayer, right living, right diet, and continuous remembrance helps to increase faith.
In Sant Mat, books like Spiritual Letters help to remind me on the importance of meditation in Simran, Bhajan on Shabd and why Satsang also helps to remind me to learn stillness, forgiveness, generosity, and cooperation.
Posted by: Karim W. Rahmaan | March 08, 2020 at 09:19 PM
From my pov, agnosticism is a description of knowledge. Strictly speaking , we are all "agnostics" metaphysically speaking. Sure, one can say that say with certainty that the physical is all that exists or vice versa. But it really wouldn't be "knowledge" or justified true belief. Metaphysics, wherever you are with that, is a matter of belief or "faith" if you prefer.
Posted by: Chris | March 17, 2020 at 12:08 PM