Seeking the truth?
I had an interesting conversation late one night with a very close friend a few months ago. He's a Christian and has been struggling to understand my departure from theism. It was a very good, passionate discussion that we left well.
In response to one of his questions I said something like "I'm just trying to find the truth. I've finally honestly asked some hard questions and the answers I'm finding are far more credible than the ones I was told I had to blindly accept before." His response was "EVERYONE is seeking the truth." It took me about a nanosecond to declare his statement patently false. I'm sure he still disagrees with me on this point.
This portion of the conversation has stuck with me. As I look back on the 40+ years I spent as a Christian, I think I thought I was seeking truth then too - with vigor. I even considered leaving my profession to go to seminary to continue this quest. But was I really seeking truth? I no longer think so. What I see now is decades of my life spent trying to piece dogma together. I was trying to find truth in it, but continually coming-up empty then trying other pieces. No matter what I tried, it wouldn't come together to portray the picture that had been fed to me; it didn't look like the picture on the box. Scripture didn't support what family, clergy, and other Christians told me was true. History didn't support much of scripture. Science didn't support much of scripture and was usually directly contradictory. And finally, once reason was applied, it all fell apart...very quickly. I didn't have all the pieced I needed. The real problem was that I was strongly discouraged from looking at or using the pieces that led to a more accurate and complete picture of how things are - the heretical pieces. If a historian, theologian, religious professor, biologist, neuroscientist, or philosopher offered information counter to the conservative Western Christianity view of anything, it was dangerous and to be avoided.
I used to say "I'd like to think________." No matter how much I'd like to think certain things about the universe and a particular notion of god, the notions so often articulated are not supported by the text and the notions that are supported in text often defy reason and are often completely immoral. As I've written previously, coming to understand what primitive people believed and why they believed it is interesting anthropology, but we have more and better information now that I find much more helpful.
No. The answer for me is that I was living in delusion, attempting to justify preconceived (and ill-conceived) assumptions that I initially inherited through indoctrination at a young age. I added to the pile completely on my own in an attempt to get it all to hang together. I spent an enormous amount of time every day feeding the delusion - building on it - and making huge life decisions according to it. But this wasn't honest truth-seeking, it was rationalizing, and there's a huge difference.
Humanism is a philosophy that I now find much more helpful. Now that I've given-up on the rationalizing and focused more on what we know (and can know), my life is getting better again. I see things more clearly and my decisions are better. We live in an amazing world, full of wonder, mystery, and beauty. There's plenty of bad stuff to deal with, for sure, but leaning on myths is no longer helpful to me. I'm finding that scraping away fictitious muck from my lens is clarifying and peace-giving; your mileage may vary, but I sincerely doubt it. Give honest inquiry a try and be open to all of the knowledge that's out there. The truth should never be feared.
Peace my friends,
Allen
In response to one of his questions I said something like "I'm just trying to find the truth. I've finally honestly asked some hard questions and the answers I'm finding are far more credible than the ones I was told I had to blindly accept before." His response was "EVERYONE is seeking the truth." It took me about a nanosecond to declare his statement patently false. I'm sure he still disagrees with me on this point.
This portion of the conversation has stuck with me. As I look back on the 40+ years I spent as a Christian, I think I thought I was seeking truth then too - with vigor. I even considered leaving my profession to go to seminary to continue this quest. But was I really seeking truth? I no longer think so. What I see now is decades of my life spent trying to piece dogma together. I was trying to find truth in it, but continually coming-up empty then trying other pieces. No matter what I tried, it wouldn't come together to portray the picture that had been fed to me; it didn't look like the picture on the box. Scripture didn't support what family, clergy, and other Christians told me was true. History didn't support much of scripture. Science didn't support much of scripture and was usually directly contradictory. And finally, once reason was applied, it all fell apart...very quickly. I didn't have all the pieced I needed. The real problem was that I was strongly discouraged from looking at or using the pieces that led to a more accurate and complete picture of how things are - the heretical pieces. If a historian, theologian, religious professor, biologist, neuroscientist, or philosopher offered information counter to the conservative Western Christianity view of anything, it was dangerous and to be avoided.
I used to say "I'd like to think________." No matter how much I'd like to think certain things about the universe and a particular notion of god, the notions so often articulated are not supported by the text and the notions that are supported in text often defy reason and are often completely immoral. As I've written previously, coming to understand what primitive people believed and why they believed it is interesting anthropology, but we have more and better information now that I find much more helpful.
No. The answer for me is that I was living in delusion, attempting to justify preconceived (and ill-conceived) assumptions that I initially inherited through indoctrination at a young age. I added to the pile completely on my own in an attempt to get it all to hang together. I spent an enormous amount of time every day feeding the delusion - building on it - and making huge life decisions according to it. But this wasn't honest truth-seeking, it was rationalizing, and there's a huge difference.
Humanism is a philosophy that I now find much more helpful. Now that I've given-up on the rationalizing and focused more on what we know (and can know), my life is getting better again. I see things more clearly and my decisions are better. We live in an amazing world, full of wonder, mystery, and beauty. There's plenty of bad stuff to deal with, for sure, but leaning on myths is no longer helpful to me. I'm finding that scraping away fictitious muck from my lens is clarifying and peace-giving; your mileage may vary, but I sincerely doubt it. Give honest inquiry a try and be open to all of the knowledge that's out there. The truth should never be feared.
Peace my friends,
Allen
"it is interesting anthropology"- a very good turn of phrase.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!