Spiritual or Corporeal . . . Reason or Faith?

Humanity has at last arrived at an interesting junction in our development and search for understanding. More and more people have come to distrust or altogether write off spirituality, especially archaic and irrelevant organized faiths. This shift has been the logical conclusion of thousands of years of scientific studies into the unknown; we’ve at last come to understand, more or less, how the universe operates, how it began, and the laws that govern and produce life itself. Myths, it seems, no longer have a practical purpose in a world of knowledge.

Interestingly, that shift has in many ways led to a movement toward different, alternative forms of spirituality. We somehow crave it, even if we find it illogical. The drive to discover a sense of meaning and purpose in life is integral to the human condition. As a result, a revival of pagan religions has been especially strong, as well as an interest in Eastern religions. This shift is natural, considering that these belief systems typically do not attempt to proscribe a “literal” answer for the more earthy questions (such as, How did the universe form? or How did humans come to be?). As a result, they are, in many ways, a perfect fit for humanity in its current state of having knowledge about the physical world we inhabit but very little concrete information (if such a thing is possible) about our spiritual existence.

In perfect concurrence has been an increased interest in psychoactive drugs. With organizations such as NORML (http://norml.org/) and the push toward medical marijuana laws working tirelessly to correct a century of lies and propaganda about cannabis, we can undoubtedly expect major reform by the end of the next decade . . . perhaps even sooner. Once people begin to view cannabis in a new, more level-headed light, it will be natural to begin accepting other psychoactive drugs as legitimate, too. Psilocybin would likely be the next drug considered, and eventually, I posit, DMT. I do not expect to see much conversation surrounding legalization and regulation of addictive or habit-forming drugs anytime soon (such as methamphetamines or opiates), because they do not offer the same types of experiences as the three mentioned above (and others) do, plus, they are potentially very dangerous to consume.

So, what is a psychoactive drug, exactly, and how does it work?

Unfortunately, that question is difficult to fully explain with our current scientific understanding. Yes, we understand that they are substances that cross the blood-brain barrier and thereby significantly alter how our brains receive and perceive information. But at the end of the day, that’s about all we have for scientific, factual knowledge—how they interact chemically, but not what’s going on “behind the scenes,” so to speak.

Some scientists have tried to study these substances, but their studies often get marginalized by the academic science community or shut down by the government. Timothy Leary’s studies into LSD are now famous, and Rick Strassman’s studies into the nature of DMT are well known to drug-enthusiasts. Many other scientists are looking, often secretly, into the effects of other psychoactive substances. And I think it goes without saying that plenty of would-be scientist college students have experimented with the mental effects of cannabis.

Recently, a respected neurosurgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander, wrote a piece for Newsweek Magazine titled “Heaven Is Real: A Doctor’s Experience with the Afterlife” (read it here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/07/proof-of-heaven-a-doctor-s-experience-with-the-afterlife.html). In it, he details his own shift from skeptic to believer while placed in a coma set on by an infection of E. coli bacteria in his brain. In the fascinating article, he details an out-of-body experience where he came into contact with what he’s interpreted to be angels and, apparently, a deity. Near-death experiences have been well-documented and discussed ad nauseam by the scientific community, debunked by skeptics, and turned to by believers as indisputable, if anecdotal, evidence.

Ever quick to join a reason/faith fray, PZ Myers posted a response a few days ago on his blog, Pharungula (read it here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/09/newsweek-panders-to-the-deluded-again/). In his typical and often justifiably-dismissive tone, he explains that, at best, Dr. Alexander is struggling with confabulation, a phenomenon wherein the human mind constructs artificial memories to fill in gaps, especially common in cases of trauma. At worst, he suggests that the doctor is simply brain-damaged.

But then, what of the near-death type experiences often described and sought by users of DMT? The most common response to this powerful psychoactive drug is a sense of having had an out-of-body, spiritual experience. Even taking for granted that the religious texts we hold today are bogus, or that an E. coli-induced coma could be a traumatic experience leading to confabulation, isn’t it possible that there’s something to these experiences brought on by experimentation with psychoactive drugs? Is it possible that there is “something” more, but we just haven’t been able to grasp it yet?

In short, I don’t have an answer. As an atheist with a profound interest in consciousness and a curiosity into whether humans do have a spiritual side that we’ve simply misinterpreted for so many millennia, it occurs to me that maybe we need to start opening our minds a bit more to alternative forms of consciousness and scientific research simultaneously in order to start answering some of the big questions humanity is left with. Then we can finally shake off our undying need for systems of faith to provide us with meaning and purpose. Because I don’t think the answers are going to come from reviving old religions, but I also don’t think they’ll come from closed-mindedness, either. They’ll come from humanity finally venturing into that next frontier of understanding our brains, our consciousness, and—perhaps most exciting of all—our humanity itself.

An Atheist Perspective on Morality

Conversations with Christians:

“I am an atheist.”

“So, you don’t believe in sin then?”

            Morality is a human construct. It has no absolute, tangible reality; it is purely a fabrication of the human mind, crafted and honed after generations of experience and emotive development. Fortunately, it is a rather useful human construct that does much to maintain peace and order. It’s hard to imagine anybody who would disagree—even psychopaths acknowledge its power. Indeed, it is their love for promulgating chaos that leads them to defying morality all together. Because morality is catholic (although unique and relative, to some extent, to every individual), it is a tempting bit of evidence to point to the existence of a creator, a deity, a god. However, I intend here to lay that temptation to rest once and for all by explaining an alternative source for morality. I base it on my own experience and welcome responses from anyone who may agree or disagree.

            The key to understanding how a human comes to label any action as moral or immoral, oddly enough, lies within the so-called “Golden Rule.” This “rule” that is so ubiquitous throughout the religious/mythological world—“treat others as you would like to be treated”—need not come from a deity (or a group of deities, for that matter) in order to be explained. Indeed, it is no stretch of the imagination to posit that the same minds that have come to untangle the mysteries of gravity or evolution were able in more primitive forms to discover a sentiment universally felt and accepted. It did not need to be (and it indeed was not) revealed to humanity through divine intervention but through rationalization, emotions, reflection, and empathy.

            To start, it is useful to consider what is often cited as the quintessential moral issue: murder. No rational, emotionally-developed human being will make the case for the virtues of murder, precisely because it is so atrocious on even a global scale. But murder is not bad because Yahweh, Zeus, Allah, or Vishnu says it is so. Murder is bad, immoral, because of how it makes people feel.

            The human imagination is a remarkable vessel for compassion and for manifesting glimpses of purely fabricated situations. In fact, the latter skill is a particularly potent one humans possess, as demonstrated in our ability to experience dreams while we sleep, recall from memory rather vividly a loved-one’s face, or even just imagine the taste of a vanilla ice cream cone. How these processes occur is not yet fully understood, but that it does occur is obvious and has been one of life’s great mysteries for millennia.

            To prove my overarching point, let’s devise a brief thought experiment. Unpleasant though it may be, close your eyes and try to imagine a scenario where someone whom you love very much has been killed. It need not even be from murder. Or, if this is an experience you’ve had already, you may try to recall the precise feeling you had when you were first broken the news and the subsequent sentiment that no doubt lingered on your mind for a very long time after. The feelings you are presently experiencing are not unique. Our human faculty of empathy allows us to powerfully experience in our minds both things we’ve never encountered and events we have already met with in our lives. This fact is central to understanding my conception of how morality arose and how I as an atheist have shaped my own understanding of morality.

            I do not kill people precisely because I would not want someone else to kill me or someone I care about. Although I suppose I would not be aware of my own death if someone were to kill me, I can consider now, while still alive, how the murderer would have cut short my small sliver of allotted time to live, experience, and love. The very notion of my murder thus affects me deeply due to the sheer ignorance and cruelty of the committer. Moreover, when I consider (selfishly, I admit) the pain I would experience upon having anyone important to me wrenched from my life, it exacts a visceral response deep within me. My sense of empathy prevents me from doing anything I would not want done to myself.

            It’s pretty easy to see, then, how even a primitive human mind could arrive at such basic moral understandings as the wrongness of murder, rape, or theft, purely through reflection upon one’s own feelings. That is not to say that all primitive humans stumbled upon this understanding, but at least one human did and likely shared it with his or her peers. What’s important to grasp is that this knowledge did not come from some outside force but from humanity itself. Very likely, it came from real experience and empathy, not from imagination at all. With the human mind’s impressive ability to assimilate facts into knowledge and comprehension, it seems very probable indeed that the first person to acknowledge the wrongfulness, the immorality of any action, was a victim of that very action.

            Beautifully, empathy does not merely restrain one from committing heinous acts. To the contrary, it encourages benevolent behavior. If one avoids bad deeds out of fear of reciprocation, then it follows that one also will actively share good deeds in hope of reciprocation. It may be simple to make the case then that all good deeds are committed selfishly in order to promulgate an economy of good deeds in the hopes that some will spring back upon the self. However, the same argument could easily be made (and rather frequently has been made) that religious morality and charity are simply the carrying out of duty in hopes of reward from a deity. It’s impossible to get around this conundrum, for even if one should say that good deeds are inherently good, it is really the good feeling that comes along with them that makes them occur at all.

            Fortunately, this age-old paradox isn’t that troubling at all. In fact, it helps further my suggestion that morality is based on emotions. The same primitive minds that conceived of the pain caused by murder that decided to not murder in order to avoid reciprocation likely stumbled upon the truth that kindness often propagates kindness. Over time, these two basic truths—cruelty begets cruelty, benevolence begets benevolence—came to be expressed in various mythologies the world around via the Golden Rule. Consequently, I believe that humanity does not possess morality because of religion, but that religion possesses morality (albeit, often perverted) because of humans. This question is no “chicken or the egg” paradox, but a very easily-understood anthropological phenomenon. Humans invented morality, and then they invented religion as a source of higher authority for that morality. Religion was likely invented, at least in part, as a safeguard to maintain and enact this economy of kindness and agreement to avoid immorality.

            Interestingly, I posit that it is precisely this introduction of religion to enforce morality that both spread basic moral codes and ultimately corrupted the essence of morality. The threat of punishment by a supreme deity or by supreme deities would certainly keep a less-sophisticated mind from committing so-called “immoral deeds,” and it did a fine job of doing so for a very long time, I admit. In some respects, it continues to do so today. But various other rules became introduced over time that lack any moral basis—kosher laws and circumcision are perfect examples from the Judeo-Christian tradition. These laws, some suggest, were introduced in response to legitimate dangers in the world (for example, shellfish may have been banned as a result of food poisoning, and a circumcised penis is much healthier for both genders in a society lacking sophisticated hygiene techniques). Moral code thus became a useful survival tool, but something much less founded on morality (Richard Dawkins suggests that this use of religion as a survival tool is precisely why religion itself has survived—the tribes that had religious laws preventing them from harm were more likely to survive than those without it, and thus, more likely to reproduce and pass on their moral codes). Worse, political groups eventually grew to recognize how easily religion could be exploited to maintain order and control; the Roman Empire’s adoption of Christianity is a clear, famous example.

            When government became involved in religion, moral law began to lose its utility. The cause is a tendency of politicians to line their own coffers while “representing” the people, as can still be seen today in pork-barrel laws or accommodations politicians make for powerful lobbyists. I see no reason to believe that such a practice is new, nor to deny that it had a hand in crafting many of the more bizarre laws found in various religious codes. Moreover, scientific advancements and fuller medical/anatomical understandings have done much to render many old religious laws obsolete. Unfortunately, many have survived on tradition alone, not on logic or emotion at all. Often, this survival can be dangerous to a society.

             In closing, it’s time humanity bind together to produce a universal moral code based on empathy alone. No more should we tolerate a world that incites religious wars and acts of terror. No more should we tolerate a world that punishes a woman for revealing too much flesh. No more should we tolerate a world that challenges the importance of rational thought and skepticism in favor of blind faith instead. It’s time to shake off the clingy stain of religion-based morality in lieu of something progressive, logical, and based entirely on empathy alone. Such a change would lead to impressive, desperately-needed social and political changes. The only path to a truly moral world is to finally give up on the gods.

The Problem with Faith

           I spend a lot of time arguing with religious people. As I live in North America and am a United States citizen, that typically means I argue with Christians. And I love it. Really. Every time I plant even the smallest seed of doubt, every time I deconstruct a worldview based on tradition and faith rather than reflection and reason, I get an indescribable feeling of satisfaction. It isn’t because I’m sadistic or even because I simply believe that life should be about enlightenment, constant improvement, and discovery of the truth. It isn’t because I have a vendetta against religion. It’s because, and I say the following without reservation, I have never met a religious person whose religion actually improved his or her life. I have always found the precise opposite to be true.

            The facts are painfully straightforward. Religion essentially is the imposition of a given worldview upon an individual. One’s conception of morality becomes rules, dogma, law. As such, it is unshakable, unerring, and unavoidable. Even in cases of doubt. I don’t need to get into the ways religion has spawned fanaticism, bigotry, and violence. The events of September 11 in New York City, the murders of doctors who perform abortions, and the oppression of homosexuals, among other crimes against humanity, are well known catastrophes religion has engendered. Discussing these issues all over again would be redundant (although I cannot stress enough the value of restating the truth again and again; the more places it is in print or in the air, the more places people will become exposed to it).

            Instead, I want to discuss some of the crimes against humanity religion yields against its own followers, and then I want to discuss the major roadblock in making these believers see their oppression—faith. Again, this subject is a mammoth one, and it has been well documented. Catholic priests molesting little boys and the unparalleled cover-up from the Vatican down to the President of the United States is no secret. If you don’t know the facts, you’ve never used Google properly. Or the recent spread of fundamentalist Christianity, predominantly in the southern United States (the dreaded “Bible Belt”), which encourages a literal reading of the Bible and an outright rejection of virtually all scientific studies, is another fairly mainstream issue. Evolution isn’t real—an “intelligent designer” made everything and everyone in six days somewhere around five thousand years ago. Dinosaur fossils were either put here to test peoples’ faith, or dinosaurs coexisted with humans not too long ago and current scientific methods for dating fossils are incredible inaccurate. Or my favorite: The Grand Canyon was formed, not over centuries of natural erosion, but during the Great Flood. Yes, the Grand Canyon is frequently cited as proof that Noah actually produced an ark in the not-too-distant past and saved the future of all life from God’s wrath during the deluge.

            Let’s talk about the more personal issues that we may encounter with religious people in daily life. For me, the most destructive aspect of the religious worldview on the worshipper is how it corrupts the natural order of love, relationships, and sexuality. Imagine for a moment a perfect human being, of either gender. Well-rounded, intelligent, affluent, physically attractive, athletic, charming, artistically talented. The ideal mate, many would say. Now couple within this Übermensch the Christian religious tradition toward relationships. I’m no expert, but I’m at least informed. So here’s more or less how our sex drive works within the framework of God’s divine plan.

            When we see fellow humans, we almost immediately determine whether they are physically attractive or unattractive, based on our preferences. This phenomenon is one we have all experienced on a daily basis since a young age. A normal, rational person will then either determine to pursue this individual for the sake of mating and perhaps long-term courtship, or they will instead decide they are not interested and will move on (granted, plenty of grey area exists within this process, but more or less, that is how it works). In the former scenario, they will be subjected to the same scrutiny as already applied to the other member of this relationship; if selected, the common social practice of dating will ensue. If rejected, then the individual will have to deal with rejection and perhaps learn to alter their approach. In the latter scenario, the individual simply moves on from the very start.

            Unfortunately, Christianity (and most of the world’s other religions, especially the religions of Abraham) teaches that objectification is a terrible sin. God wants us always to see people for who they are under the flesh. Purely determining interest in relationships based on physical attraction, especially at the start, is wrong and must be avoided. The logic is that the relationship would develop out of lust from the start, not love. But this system is inherently flawed; aside from the rules of nature, which insist that we absolutely need attractive mates, it leads to a paradox. In order to avoid entering a relationship based on lust, the good Christian should presumably only woo people he or she finds, believe it or not, unattractive. After all, how else can lust ever be written out of the equation? Based on the logic of Christianity, we should all be going after the people we have no interest in physically. But isn’t this just a form of objectification, in and of itself? The person is being reduced to an object suitably distasteful to one’s sex drive, so much so that sex becomes entirely not an issue. Which leads to the next problem, of course. Hypothetically speaking, if somehow this damp green wood is properly kindled into the flames of a romance, what will the effects of these sidestepped laws of attraction be on mating? If the end of relationships is procreation (at least Biblically), shouldn’t we all really be going after the most attractive people we can find, as a way to entice us to, well, procreate?

            But the fun doesn’t stop there. The whole sex thing is an issue in and of itself. Two major forms of sexual release are forbidden under Catholic tradition: masturbation and premarital sex (we won’t even talk about sodomy . . . ). That may be all good and fine for some people, but frankly, you show me a man who is not sexually active, and I’ll present you with a habitual masturbator. Plain and simple, it is healthy. Our bodies inevitably need release. What happens, unfortunately, is that men and women alike are taught that auto-eroticism, as some would call it, is sinful, abhorrent in God’s eyes, and just plain wrong. Can it really be healthy to attach such a perverted stigma to a perfectly natural, universal sexual practice? What happens to a person’s self-image when he or she is constantly fearing God’s judgment for the sin of self-pleasure? Especially in a pre-marital world where no alternative exists! Because God wants us all to save our chastity for marriage. He wants purity, he wants cleanliness, and he wants the act of devirginization to be a holy event. Maybe he’ll even be spiritually present somehow to celebrate that big moment.

            To summarize, religion promotes hasty marriages by sex-starved young people who find each other unattractive. Any union but one of that nature will presumably be sinful, or at least inferior. Which really doesn’t leave much room for love, does it? After all, isn’t a big part of love the physical side? You don’t have to be dating a supermodel to find your partner indescribably attractive, and you should look for the person who fits that protocol. If they catch your eye the first time you ever see them enter a room, their presence will undoubtedly ravish you every time from then on. Furthermore, having time to develop one’s sexuality with a partner, ideally a few partners even, before settling down is immensely important. Taking it on faith that you and your partner will have a fulfilling sex life without ever giving it a practice run, so to speak, is as foolish as buying an expensive house in an undisclosed location that you’ve never seen or even gotten a description of, but agreeing to live in it for the rest of your life, for better or for worse. But I suppose if that were in the Bible, it would be a virtuous practice also.

            Sex and love are far from the only aspects of one’s life religion disrupts and corrupts. Indeed, the ego is perhaps the worst-hit part of the devout one’s being. What I’m talking about now are pride and righteousness. Having a precise list of certain rules one is supposed to follow in life always leads to a “holier than thou” attitude. Without exception. If you don’t believe me, talk to a Christian someday about the value of being Christian, and I guarantee you’ll hear the word “perfect” an awful lot. I always do. Granted, it takes an especially deluded person to claim perfection outright, but many will proclaim a devotion to perfection. They’ll explain how they ask God forgiveness for their mistakes and work hard to get back on track when they are led astray by their worldly desires. Overall, the idea is that God has this perfect spotlight of morality shining down upon the world, and those lucky enough to have read his word can see it and follow it into perfection. But wait . . . isn’t this entity the same one that teaches humility, that has even punished angels for the worst sin of all, that of pride? Religion discourages the objectification of others for personal pleasure, plus the rejection of any worldly possessions, really, while essentially encouraging an objectification of the self. No greater foppery exists than religion.

            The end result of all this corruption of human nature is a life that feels shallow, unfulfilling, and even somewhat dead. Which is, of course, the goal: we all want basically to live good lives, but hurry up and die so we can be blissfully at one with God in Heaven. In Christianity, at least. Well, that rather takes the joy out of life—not all of the joy, but a huge range of enjoyable experiences. Experiences that go deeper than mere masturbation, for all its incontrovertible charm. I mean the experiences of discovering right and wrong for oneself, which can be difficult, but are truly essential to the human condition.

            So, to the main point, at last, of this little piece: the problem with faith. Although it is impossible to say for certain whence religion originally sprung, many unbiased anthropologists and theologians concur that it began during the earliest days of human civilization as a byproduct of the development of the human brain. At some point during the evolution of human consciousness, we became self-aware. This self-awareness led to an awareness of opposition—mainly, humans realized that they were different from the animals. Humans carried the bleak awareness of death and were incredibly preoccupied with understanding why they alone stood out from the rest of the animal kingdom. Not surprisingly, certain stories began to spring forward. Two that have carried on through various incarnations are the Genesis creation accounts in the Old Testament. The second account, when read allegorically, is truly a masterpiece of world literature and a touching portrait of the early human psyche attempting to find its place in what must have been a frightening, hostile world. They reasoned that they were created by the same being that created the animals and that they once lived harmoniously with them. However, upon choosing to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, humankind became enlightened and was thus rejected from Paradise (Eden) by the creator (God). In many ways, this story is actually true—what separates humanity from animals is, in a sense, knowledge. Rational powers. Reason. But it isn’t literally true; it is true in the sense that a great work of literature can express universal ideas, sometimes ideas that cannot even be readily summarized in words, but still be, at the end of the day, a work of fiction. Which is precisely what every creation account from every religion or mythology ever to exist has been: fiction.

            So the next time you argue with a person of faith and come to that most dastardly roadblock of faith, so frequently used as justification for any far-fetched notion or simply as a cop-out to avoid an uninformed discussion, offer this idea. Humans are unique in our ability to reason; it is the one power that truly separates us from the animals, and we are indeed such weak, pathetic creatures, that without that power, we’d really have no chance of keeping separate from the bigger, hungrier animals. Evolution at work. So if reason is our highest faculty, our greatest gift, we should cherish it, especially if it came from God, if we must use that silly idea as a starting point. Faith, on the other hand, is the opposite of reason. It’s essentially instinct, taking an idea as the truth based solely on a gut feeling, not on any real evidence or observations. Animals use their instincts, but humans use their reason. So we must never be content to use faith as our justification for anything, for faith alone can be used to legitimize the greatest of evils. If you can convince a Christian that faith is truly inferior to reason, and that reason was actually God’s greatest, defining gift to humankind, if we are to look to Genesis allegorically, then you have done enough. The rest of the argument will logically take hold in his or her brain with further careful consideration.

            After all, it’s the very train of thought that initially led me to atheism. I know it works.