Here is a blog post from another blog of mine, expressing a different perspective on atheism than is perhaps typical for a Christian.
It is primarily a rhetorical analysis of a website I consider flawed, but it's conclusion provides some insight into just how one might employ a Christist critical method when dealing with moral atheists.
Here is the significant paragraph that, I think, lends insight into a Christist critical frame:
"from one perspective, it could be argued that the atheist who ethically follows that "light" of right and wrong within, choosing good over evil simply for the sake of good's goodness, already worships God through faith in the rightness of that unseen light (faith is "the evidence of things not seen," after all); from a Christian perspective, this Light is "the Light, which lights every man which cometh into the world" (John 1:9), and in responding to that Light, from a Christian perspective, the atheist ignorantly responds to the call of Christ; so the Christian's declaration to the ethical atheist should not be "believe in Christ or go to hell," but, rather, "he whom ye ignorantly worship declare I unto you" (Acts 17:23)."
As I suggested in earlier posts: if we are to critically engage the world from a Christist perspective, we must be able to accurately see the "gods" or ideas that are active in the world so that we can see more clearly the object of worship, and thus see if we are dealing with God or mammon.
Sometimes, those who appear to be Christ's aren't--wolves in sheep's clothing--and sometimes, those whom we would decry as not Christ's may, in fact, be worshiping him unwittingly.
http://robertsonian.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-many-many-fallacies-of-carm.html
Monday, May 18, 2015
On Personal Revelation
Saturday, May 16, 2015
I was reading a blog post that was shared on facebook—it
emphasized the importance of personal revelation to those who might be
struggling in the church with some church members. (http://dinosaursarefun.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-to-stay-mormon-when-youre-tired-of.html).
The writer argued that personal revelation is more important than anything—even
than the revelations that come through the prophets themselves.
This term “personal revelation” is probably unique to LDS
culture. Conceptually, it is an outgrowth and fusion of multiple doctrines—the
idea that God answers prayers (James 1:5); that He will reveal the truth to
honest seekers (Moroni 10:4-5), that the Holy Ghost bears witness of the Father
and the Son and that he will teach us all things that we need to know (John
14:26), among other things—however, I think the concept is terribly
misunderstood and often misapplied by Saints.
It is very important that we get this right, not only
because it is so central to our doctrine—if the truth is established in the
mouth of two or three witness, how much more will it be established in the
mouths of multitudes of witnesses? (and are we not commanded to be one, and if
we are not one we are not Christ’s? And such unity comes through the
ministration of the Holy Ghost, through personal revelation—D&C 50:22-23.
Undoubtedly, we can be led astray: the Lord revealed to
Joseph Smith that “there are many false spirits”, which have gone forth in the
earth, deceiving the world” and that the influence of such false spirits can
lead to “abominations” even among the saints (D&C 50:1-4). Certainly such
“spirits” (or ideas, or whatever) can be misinterpreted as messages of the Holy
Ghost, if for no other reason, I would think, than that they speak to our
prejudices, to our “carnal” minds—indeed, this is what led Korihor to preach
his devilish doctrines (Alma 30:53).
D&C 50 teaches that if a man preaches by the Holy Ghost
and the listener listens by the Holy Ghost, then the two are edified: they grow
together, and the unity and brotherhood that is supposed to be the hallmark of
the Saints is achieved (at least in that thing). So how, then, do we preach and
listen by this Holy Spirit, by the Spirit of the Lord? To do this, we must
first be “sincere,” as Moroni says, or we must have “faith, nothing wavering”
as James says. And what does that mean? What does that look like?
Here, as in all things, Jesus is the model to follow: when
he went to pray before performing his atoning sacrifice, he asked God to remove
the cup, to not make him have to go through what he was being asked to go
through—but then, he said: “Not my will, but thine be done.”
He was willing to submit to all things that his Father saw
fit to inflict upon him; he trusted his Father unwaveringly. And this must be
our attitude as well: what the Lord tells us may not agree with popular opinion,
may not be “pleasing unto the carnal mind,” but we must be willing to accept
the will of the Lord no matter what.
This is why it is so important to follow the prophets: they
can help ensure that we do not follow our own way, that we are not deceived. This,
I think, is what it means to “doubt you doubts before you doubt your faith,” as
Pres. Uchtdorf advised: that we be willing to submit our will to God’s. Such
submission is an act of humility; it is a recognition that we don’t know
everything, that we aren’t perfect. If our own beliefs are in conflict with the
words and ideas of the Apostles, that should, at the very least, suggest that
we re-evaluate our ideas, that we go to the Lord and ask Him for revelation,
that we seek personal revelation—but that we do it with this humble,
Christ-like attitude: not my will, but thine be done.” We must be willing to
recognize that we don’t know everything, and that He does, that our most deeply
held ideas could be incorrect, and that He can clarify—if we submit our will to
His.
This way of doing things flies in the face of the received
wisdom of modernity: modern thought would have us “think for ourselves”—and yet
does anyone really think for themselves? Reason only works if there is a
framework of reason upon which to organize one’s ideas “rationally”—a framework
of assumptions that allows us to “rationalize” (with all the ultimately
circular reasoning that this term implies). The ideas that form the frameworks
of reason are in constant flux from a broad historical perspective, but in the
myopicness of our immediate historical moment, “reason” appears to be so
“rational,” so “true.” Despite the fact that we know every generation has
believed it’s “truth” to be THE truth, its reasons to be THE reasons, we still
fall into the same hubristic trap, thinking that this time, in our time, OUR
generation has finally figured it out.
But we haven’t. Every moment in history thinks its rational
framework is the best, the only, the “truth,” and every historical moment is
wrong.
Does this mean that the words of former prophets were
“wrong” when they told not to believe in the theory of evolution, or not to
support the equal rights amendment, or not to use birth control—or even that
blacks couldn’t hold the priesthood because God didn’t want them to? Well,
no—at least, not necessarily. And, at the same time, yes. I cannot help but
think of the Jerusalem saints who had ben told by Christ that he had other
sheep not of that fold, and they misinterpreted that to mean the Gentiles (they
didn’t ask for clarification, and Christ didn’t give it to them). Sometimes
prophets are commanded to prophesy, and the words of that prophecy are limited
by the limitations of time and place of the audience and orators (which is why
we constantly need divine guidance, ever-evolving divine guidance).
This may be one reason why the Lord says that his ways are
not our ways: we, by our very nature, lack eternal perspective; we are
literally trapped in our times and places, and it is almost impossible for us
to be otherwise (we cannot even imagine what we cannot imagine!). Perhaps this
is also why we have been commanded not to judge (a commandment that was,
interestingly, directed at “hypocrites” specifically: those who were more
concerned with the reactions of their human audiences than the Divine audience,
something each of us is guilty of): we are ignorant, blind, so we need to be
careful who we condemn and why. The beams of the framework may so block our
vision that we cannot see clearly the difference between right and wrong.
In the Old Testament we read about one of the kings’ who
sacrificed in the name of a different god because that god was the god of the
place he was invading (dang--where was that? I was just reading this story with the kids? Was it in Chronicles?); that made perfect sense in the
framework of rationality that existed at the time: gods were thought to be localized. Today, idols and false gods
aren’t so much made from stone and wood as from ink and ideas, but they are
just as parochial as they have ever been. As the Lord told Joseph Smith: there
are many “spirits” or ideas abroad in the world, and they are false, and, more
often than not, thinking for one’s self is really think like you’ve been taught
to think, reasoning as you’ve ben taught to reason—thinking, in other words,
like others want you to think.
Personal revelation is exactly the opposite of this: it is
seeking to think as the Lord thinks, seeking to know the mind and will of God so
that we can do that (not my will, but
thine be done); personal revelation should place one’s own will in unity with
the Father’s, and with the Son’s, and with their servants, so that we become
one as they are one. And if it is for any other reason, it will ultimately lead
to darkness, disunity, and apostasy.
It is still a kind of personal revelation; we just need to
realize that the revelation isn’t from the true source.
If we don’t like what our leaders—whether that’s our
parents, our bishop, the RS president, the stake president, or the Apostles
themselves—have asked us to do, before we just dismiss them outright for
challenging our preconceptions, we need to ask ourselves: is my reticence because
this thing is against the laws of God, or because it offends my carnal mind?
Sunday, May 17, 2015
The Foundation of Christic Criticism
Sunday, May 17, 2015
In order to make the teachings of Jesus a method of critical
engagement similar to feminism, Marxism, etc., we need to lay the
foundations—foundations which are definitely moral, but which essentially focus
the attention, providing a lens through which to look at the world.
I think those foundations begin by seeing everything as
religion: as the ancient Hebrews were surrounded by false gods that distracted
them from worshipping the Lord of Creation, so today we have many ideas—false
gods—which distract us from worshipping the true source of moral authority, the
Creator.
Sometimes the worship of these ideas supplants the worship
of the Creator; sometimes, the worship becomes a fusion, a cooperative form of
worship that might best be described as a “pantheon”
However, as Christ declared, no man can serve two masters.
This, then, is point one of a Christic Criticism: seeing the way that ideas
become an “god principle” in modern discourse, god principles that one must
serve with all one’s heart, might, mind, and strength. Where does one’s loyalty
lie?
The second principle of a Chrisitic criticism would be
following Christ’s example in gethsemane: when he wanted to avoid the pain of
his atoning sacrifice, rather than allowing the “natural man” to inform his
decision and avoiding what needed to be done, he submitted to the will of God.
Now, everyone submits to the will of some god or other—even if that god is only
an idea, a “god principle”—but a Christic criticism will attempt to sift
through the variety of ideas—the spirits that have gone abroad in the earth—to
discover what gods are being worshipped in a given case so that a person can
see more clearly how to choose between God and mammon.
Christic Method
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
While reading in Kenneth Burke today, I read the following:
When Christ said “I am the way” (hodos), we could translate, “I am the act,” or more fully, “I
represent a system, or synthesis, of the right acts.” Tao and yoga are similar
words for act. And we see how readily act in this sense can overlap upon agency
when we consider our ordinary attitude towards the scientific method (met-hodos) which we think of
pragmatically, not as a way of life, or act
of being, but as a means of doing.
(GoM 15)
This led me to consider the term “method” from its
etymological origins in the Greek. Met means “following” while hodos means “a way.”
If we look at a religion, then, as a hodos, a “way” for acting, and being, and living, then we see how
thoroughly the “scientific method” is a religion.
We also see a way for addressing the teachings of Jesus
Christ as a “method” of its own, a method for acting and doing and being, and
how it can be worked into a critical method (“way of going”).
Ritual as Method
I was thinking about this idea that I had during the "Rhetoric as Equipment for Living" conference in Ghent, Belgium, where I presented a paper on Kenneth Burke's use of the concept of "role" throughout his works; I thought about the relationship between proverbs and "forms" or "genres," between "law" and the spirit of the law, between the method for making laws and he method for making proverbs.
In post-Enlightenment, post-Protestant Christian thought, ritual is too often dismissed as superfluous, as mere "law," as unnecessary performance and as a left-over of a bygone age before Man's spiritual maturity in Christ--however, those who dismiss ritual in this way are, I think, only seeing specific rituals without treating the idea of ritual in essence, ritual as a method for knowing or experiencing.
God has always used rituals when he has revealed truths. He employed rituals when he revealed the old covenant to Moses; he employed ritual when he revealed the new covenant to his Apostles (holy supper; baptism; laying on of hands; washing of feet).
Be they as mundane as one's "morning ritual" or as significant as the investiture of authority that comes with swearing in a President, rituals are engaged in not only by every human being, but by every human society. What is it that makes this method we call "ritual" so universal? What causes us as human beings to return to ritual again and again? And if the ritualizing of action is so universal, so natural to human beings, doesn't it make sense that God would continue to talk to us and teach his children through this method as he has in the past? Modernist man thinks he has grown beyond the need for such silly things, and post-Enlightenment religion has been especially dismissive of ritual. But what manner of knowledge are we dismissing with our dismissal if this ancient, and apparently universal, human methodology?
Seeing ritual as more than merely primitive and magical, but as another method for acquiring knowledge, should change our perspectives on ritual: the specifics of ritual are not as important as the idea of ritual as a method of knowing and experiencing. The specifics or particular rituals may belong to particular places and times and situations, but while these specifics can themselves become parts of a larger tradition that connects human beings across generations (we are doing the exact same thing that the ancients did), these specifics are also malleable as the need for change arises (consider the Christian appropriation and revision of the ancient submersion ritual, and the ancient laying on if hands ritual by which royal authority and approbation and grace was transmitted). But people--both critics and adherents of ritual--become overly focused on the specific rituals and not on the idea of ritual as a method itself.
9 June 2013
In preparation for partaking of the sacrament of the holy supper in the Glendale ward of the LDS church, we sang a hymn: "God Loved Us, So He Sent His Son." There is one line from a verse of the hymn that we rarely sing, that suggests a direction for this line of thinking about ritual as a method for learning and knowing:
"Partaking now is deed for word/ That I remember him, my Lord."
Ritual is an attempt to convey knowledge by employing the whole body; the Enlightenment (as with many ancient philosophical traditions) attempted to dis-embody knowledge. Ritual is an embodied and participatory language, an opportunity to practice or perform belief and thus acquire or reinforce knowledge in an embodied sense, not through mere communication of ideas, but by participation in acts.
Perhaps there is something necessary to the human soul about engaging physically with ideas in this way.
Be they as mundane as one's "morning ritual" or as significant as the investiture of authority that comes with swearing in a President, rituals are engaged in not only by every human being, but by every human society. What is it that makes this method we call "ritual" so universal? What causes us as human beings to return to ritual again and again? And if the ritualizing of action is so universal, so natural to human beings, doesn't it make sense that God would continue to talk to us and teach his children through this method as he has in the past? Modernist man thinks he has grown beyond the need for such silly things, and post-Enlightenment religion has been especially dismissive of ritual. But what manner of knowledge are we dismissing with our dismissal if this ancient, and apparently universal, human methodology?
Seeing ritual as more than merely primitive and magical, but as another method for acquiring knowledge, should change our perspectives on ritual: the specifics of ritual are not as important as the idea of ritual as a method of knowing and experiencing. The specifics or particular rituals may belong to particular places and times and situations, but while these specifics can themselves become parts of a larger tradition that connects human beings across generations (we are doing the exact same thing that the ancients did), these specifics are also malleable as the need for change arises (consider the Christian appropriation and revision of the ancient submersion ritual, and the ancient laying on if hands ritual by which royal authority and approbation and grace was transmitted). But people--both critics and adherents of ritual--become overly focused on the specific rituals and not on the idea of ritual as a method itself.
9 June 2013
In preparation for partaking of the sacrament of the holy supper in the Glendale ward of the LDS church, we sang a hymn: "God Loved Us, So He Sent His Son." There is one line from a verse of the hymn that we rarely sing, that suggests a direction for this line of thinking about ritual as a method for learning and knowing:
"Partaking now is deed for word/ That I remember him, my Lord."
Ritual is an attempt to convey knowledge by employing the whole body; the Enlightenment (as with many ancient philosophical traditions) attempted to dis-embody knowledge. Ritual is an embodied and participatory language, an opportunity to practice or perform belief and thus acquire or reinforce knowledge in an embodied sense, not through mere communication of ideas, but by participation in acts.
Perhaps there is something necessary to the human soul about engaging physically with ideas in this way.
25 June 2013
Obedience as Method
Obedience is an interesting concept. In our age, disobedience has emerged as a principle virtue, but disobedience is, ironically, only obedience on disguise. As the proverb goes: there is nothing new under the sun (I know that's in Ecclesiastes and not proverbs, but it is a proverb nonetheless).
There is often the critique that obedience (often dismissed as "blind obedience" no matter how conscientious it may be) makes one an automaton, but the negative industrial connotations of that metaphor notwithstanding, one of the things obedience can teach us is to make action automatic, to make virtue automatic--that is, natural. There is a level of thoughtlessness that might go along with that, but such thoughtlessness need not be negative (and let's be honest, even the most conscientious person does many, many things everyday thoughtlessly, in obedience to this or that ingrained virtue or vice).
I think the real tragedy of the villainization of the virtue of obedience is what might be lost, is how we have replaced thoughtless obedience with thoughtless, reactionary disobedience, to our possible detriment. What was obedience meant to teach us? What knowledge does the act of obedience impart?
This same thing could be asked of ritual.
I was thinking of Elisha and Naaman. Naaman was told to go wash in the Jordan and his leprosy would be healed. The ritual itself seemed ridiculous, but what did it teach him? What insight did it give him into the ritual of obedience? What did he learn that he would not learn in any other way?
Obedience is an interesting concept. In our age, disobedience has emerged as a principle virtue, but disobedience is, ironically, only obedience on disguise. As the proverb goes: there is nothing new under the sun (I know that's in Ecclesiastes and not proverbs, but it is a proverb nonetheless).
There is often the critique that obedience (often dismissed as "blind obedience" no matter how conscientious it may be) makes one an automaton, but the negative industrial connotations of that metaphor notwithstanding, one of the things obedience can teach us is to make action automatic, to make virtue automatic--that is, natural. There is a level of thoughtlessness that might go along with that, but such thoughtlessness need not be negative (and let's be honest, even the most conscientious person does many, many things everyday thoughtlessly, in obedience to this or that ingrained virtue or vice).
I think the real tragedy of the villainization of the virtue of obedience is what might be lost, is how we have replaced thoughtless obedience with thoughtless, reactionary disobedience, to our possible detriment. What was obedience meant to teach us? What knowledge does the act of obedience impart?
This same thing could be asked of ritual.
I was thinking of Elisha and Naaman. Naaman was told to go wash in the Jordan and his leprosy would be healed. The ritual itself seemed ridiculous, but what did it teach him? What insight did it give him into the ritual of obedience? What did he learn that he would not learn in any other way?
A Beginning For a Christist Criticism
[NOTE: So, I've spent the last couple of years teaching, researching, and writing my dissertation. I have written things down and continued developing this method, but I haven't posted anything in the last couple of years. I've decided its time to start doing so again in case anyone stumbles across this blog and is interested in using Christ to center their critical engagement with the world. . .
I've dated the next couple of posts with the date that I wrote them, and I will try to post them in the order of composition.]
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the
one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the
other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Matthew 6:24 (see also Luke 16: 13; 3 Nephi 13:24).
And if it seem evil unto you to serve
the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve;
whether the gods which your fathers served that were
on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye
dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
(Joshua 24:15)
This is a good beginning: the fact that there are many gods in the world,
whether we call them gods or not. A Christist criticism, then, would first and
foremost seek to find the things that are gods and give them their proper name,
and discover their modes of worship, to be sure that our ideas and our object
of worship is God, not mammon.
Burke and Weaver and their concept of “god terms” and “devil
terms” is a good, initial guide or critical lens for this kind of inquiry.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Merry Christmas Eve!
Today in The New York Times there is a very interesting article by Johnathan Sacks on why, contrary to what Darwin's theory would suggest about altruism and morality, religion not only survives but thrives. While "At first glance religion is in decline," Sacks writes (especially when we consider polls throughout the West that suggest people are abandoning organized religion), "Yet after a series of withering attacks, most recently by the new atheists, including Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, still in Britain three in four people, and in America four in five, declare allegiance to a religious faith. That, in an age of science, is what is truly surprising."
Darwin himself, Sacks writes, "was puzzled by a phenomenon that seemed to contradict his most basic thesis, that natural selection should favor the ruthless. [. . .] Yet religion is the greatest survivor of them all."
Sacks suggests that the answer might be found within evolutionary science: all "social animals" can be shown to "value altruism"--the implication being that morality and religion are merely by-product or manifestations of that biological impulse towards community. Sacks argues that religion "strengthens and speeds up the slow track. It reconfigures our neural pathways, turning altruism into instinct, through the rituals we perform, the texts we read and the prayers we pray. It remains the most powerful community builder the world has known. Religion binds individuals into groups through habits of altruism, creating relationships of trust strong enough to defeat destructive emotions. Far from refuting religion, the Neo-Darwinists have helped us understand why it matters."
Aside from this article being yet another example of a non-expert invoking the relatively new and still very theoretical discipline of neuroscience in a way that the science probably isn't designed for (something several scientists have criticized, as Alissa Quart's op-ed argues), Sacks' determination to show a biologic component--an evolutionary rationale--for religion unfortunately ignores what religion itself has to say about the existence of religion, and, in doing so, misses the mark, the point of religion.
Religion itself has struggled to understand the difference between the animals and humanity. Clearly they are meat and we are meat; they are spirit and we are spirit. And, while different religio-philosophical traditions have addressed this in different ways, the question is always there, knocking quietly at the doors: what makes us humans different? There is something. . .
The ancient Hebrew revelations (and I do consider them revelations; to consider them otherwise is merely biased in the other direction) suggest one reason:
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." (Gen. 1:26)
Humans were made in the image of God; God animated us with his own breath (that is to say, "spirit"--Gen. 2:7).
So, we are like God, and God made us that way on purpose; that's a key difference between us and the animals. We were specifically made to be different, and part of that difference, as other scriptures have suggested, is our moral insight--our knowledge of good and evil, so to speak, by which we have died to our animalistic innocence and now must either to continue forward and finish being made divine, like our Maker, or choose not to and risk the everlasting Hell of unfulfilled destiny (read Genesis 2-3, and read it closely; then read Revelations 1-3 and 20-22, looking closely at the imagery of the Tree of Life as the finishing component in human redemption; consider the fact that, in Genesis, by God's own admission, humans needed 2 things to be like God: knowledge of good and evil and the ability to live forever [Gen. 3:22]).
John, in his discussion of who Jesus Christ was, called Jesus "the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9). Jesus is the full expression of this "truth," and came to show it to men--"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God"(John 1:12). (in fact, in the Book of Mormon, the Tree of Life is revealed to be a symbol of Jesus Christ in 1 Nephi 11:21-23).
"21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the aLamb of God, yea, even the bSon of the Eternal cFather! Knowest thou the meaning of the dtree which thy father saw?
Joseph Smith expressed the relationship between light and Christ and morality like this:
D&C 50:24 "That which is of God is light; and he that recieveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day."
But it was perhaps most clearly stated by the Book of Mormon prophet Moroni (Moroni 7:15-16):
It is the rejection of our internal Light, our knowledge of good and evil, that is the cause of humanity's condemnation ("And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil"); we suffer because we choose darkness rather than light and evil rather than good.
Ironically, both Sacks and Hitchens are right about religion--but they are only partially right each, and where they are right they are right for the wrong reasons. Religion, then, is an enshrinement of our moral intellect; it is also a great evil because, like so many things, humans, when they choose evil over good, invariably pervert good things--religion, government, sex, business, art--for their own selfish purposes. They reject the Light of Christ that shines within them; they choose evil rather than good; and the world suffers for it.
Here I will not speak about how a true organized religion is a revelation from God and not a socially evolved construct, that it exists because our God knows we need it, that we need a social structure through which to help each other become the best moral creatures that we can and to help each other on the path back to the Tree of Life; nor will I discuss how perverted, false religion (whether they be political parties or actual churches built up merely to aggrandize and enrich those who organize them) are merely another example of humans not heeding the light within them, but choosing, once again, evil over light (there are many who would argue that Mormonism falls into this latter category; there are many who would argue that Catholicism does; there are many who would argue that Protestantism does); instead, I will simply suggest that religion is an expression NOT of evolutionary accident but of God.
Morality and religion are not evolutionary by-products; they are what separate us from the animals; they are what will, if we let them, make us like God.
Christ is the Light of the world; and we are better creatures for having his Light within us.
That is what we celebrate this holiday season. That Light that cannot be comprehended, that cannot be snuffed out, by the darkness.
Today in The New York Times there is a very interesting article by Johnathan Sacks on why, contrary to what Darwin's theory would suggest about altruism and morality, religion not only survives but thrives. While "At first glance religion is in decline," Sacks writes (especially when we consider polls throughout the West that suggest people are abandoning organized religion), "Yet after a series of withering attacks, most recently by the new atheists, including Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, still in Britain three in four people, and in America four in five, declare allegiance to a religious faith. That, in an age of science, is what is truly surprising."
Darwin himself, Sacks writes, "was puzzled by a phenomenon that seemed to contradict his most basic thesis, that natural selection should favor the ruthless. [. . .] Yet religion is the greatest survivor of them all."
Sacks suggests that the answer might be found within evolutionary science: all "social animals" can be shown to "value altruism"--the implication being that morality and religion are merely by-product or manifestations of that biological impulse towards community. Sacks argues that religion "strengthens and speeds up the slow track. It reconfigures our neural pathways, turning altruism into instinct, through the rituals we perform, the texts we read and the prayers we pray. It remains the most powerful community builder the world has known. Religion binds individuals into groups through habits of altruism, creating relationships of trust strong enough to defeat destructive emotions. Far from refuting religion, the Neo-Darwinists have helped us understand why it matters."
Aside from this article being yet another example of a non-expert invoking the relatively new and still very theoretical discipline of neuroscience in a way that the science probably isn't designed for (something several scientists have criticized, as Alissa Quart's op-ed argues), Sacks' determination to show a biologic component--an evolutionary rationale--for religion unfortunately ignores what religion itself has to say about the existence of religion, and, in doing so, misses the mark, the point of religion.
Religion itself has struggled to understand the difference between the animals and humanity. Clearly they are meat and we are meat; they are spirit and we are spirit. And, while different religio-philosophical traditions have addressed this in different ways, the question is always there, knocking quietly at the doors: what makes us humans different? There is something. . .
The ancient Hebrew revelations (and I do consider them revelations; to consider them otherwise is merely biased in the other direction) suggest one reason:
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." (Gen. 1:26)
Humans were made in the image of God; God animated us with his own breath (that is to say, "spirit"--Gen. 2:7).
So, we are like God, and God made us that way on purpose; that's a key difference between us and the animals. We were specifically made to be different, and part of that difference, as other scriptures have suggested, is our moral insight--our knowledge of good and evil, so to speak, by which we have died to our animalistic innocence and now must either to continue forward and finish being made divine, like our Maker, or choose not to and risk the everlasting Hell of unfulfilled destiny (read Genesis 2-3, and read it closely; then read Revelations 1-3 and 20-22, looking closely at the imagery of the Tree of Life as the finishing component in human redemption; consider the fact that, in Genesis, by God's own admission, humans needed 2 things to be like God: knowledge of good and evil and the ability to live forever [Gen. 3:22]).
John, in his discussion of who Jesus Christ was, called Jesus "the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9). Jesus is the full expression of this "truth," and came to show it to men--"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God"(John 1:12). (in fact, in the Book of Mormon, the Tree of Life is revealed to be a symbol of Jesus Christ in 1 Nephi 11:21-23).
"21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the aLamb of God, yea, even the bSon of the Eternal cFather! Knowest thou the meaning of the dtree which thy father saw?
22 And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the alove of God, which bsheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the cmost desirable above all things.
Joseph Smith expressed the relationship between light and Christ and morality like this:
D&C 84:45-46 "For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light, and whatsoever is light is Spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And the Spirit giveth light to every
man that cometh into the world; and the Spirit enlighteneth every man
through the world, that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit."
But it was perhaps most clearly stated by the Book of Mormon prophet Moroni (Moroni 7:15-16):
"For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge,
that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that
ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark
night. For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil [. . .]"
It is the rejection of our internal Light, our knowledge of good and evil, that is the cause of humanity's condemnation ("And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil"); we suffer because we choose darkness rather than light and evil rather than good.
Ironically, both Sacks and Hitchens are right about religion--but they are only partially right each, and where they are right they are right for the wrong reasons. Religion, then, is an enshrinement of our moral intellect; it is also a great evil because, like so many things, humans, when they choose evil over good, invariably pervert good things--religion, government, sex, business, art--for their own selfish purposes. They reject the Light of Christ that shines within them; they choose evil rather than good; and the world suffers for it.
Here I will not speak about how a true organized religion is a revelation from God and not a socially evolved construct, that it exists because our God knows we need it, that we need a social structure through which to help each other become the best moral creatures that we can and to help each other on the path back to the Tree of Life; nor will I discuss how perverted, false religion (whether they be political parties or actual churches built up merely to aggrandize and enrich those who organize them) are merely another example of humans not heeding the light within them, but choosing, once again, evil over light (there are many who would argue that Mormonism falls into this latter category; there are many who would argue that Catholicism does; there are many who would argue that Protestantism does); instead, I will simply suggest that religion is an expression NOT of evolutionary accident but of God.
Morality and religion are not evolutionary by-products; they are what separate us from the animals; they are what will, if we let them, make us like God.
Christ is the Light of the world; and we are better creatures for having his Light within us.
That is what we celebrate this holiday season. That Light that cannot be comprehended, that cannot be snuffed out, by the darkness.
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