Skepticism, Spirituality, and Doubt
As I said in a previous essay, I’ve been thinking a lot about the stories we tell ourselves. Along with that, I’ve been considering the way we see other people’s stories. How we watch then, listen to them, and if they have something we feel we need, how we try to adapt their stories to fit into our own.
This is a useful exercise. When we see a person’s life through the lens of history, such as a personal hero from the past, we do not see all their failings, all their personal struggles. We see an idealized version of them, and we take the qualities of their life that we seek to emulate and attempt to graft them on to our own psyches. We learn and grow this way, trying on stories as we would garments, and when they do not suit us, casting them off.
These days, we live in an information-rich climate. The stories surrounding us, bombarding us at times, all seem to carry something that we’d like to make part of ourselves. I’ve found this to be especially true with the people I’ve met through my work in the podcasting community, where tales of individual drive, perseverance, and passion have turned normally shy people into the writers, musicians, and broadcasters we know and love. There’s much that’s worthy of being emulated there.
There are times that we select beliefs or qualities that make sense to us, only to have them cause dissonance with other, more deeply-rooted attitudes. In my life, that’s been Skepticism vs. Spirituality.
To explain: I know a number of atheists and skeptics. I’ve had a number of discussions with them, and to a great degree, their arguments make a great deal of logical sense to me. My own belief in a God (capital G) has been wavering for years now, and as I make my professional life in a world of logic, the arguments put forward by my skpetic friends are appealing to me. Facts make sense, and believing in things you cannot prove makes none.
However, on a deeper level, my inner life has always been one of mysticism, symbol, and faith. I was raised Catholic, and when I hit the point in my life when I wanted to break out of the Church, I gravitated toward other mystical beliefs: neopaganism and the occult being a major part of that. In retrospect, I can see that I moving from one ritual-based practice to another because it was the motion and poetry of the rituals that I fell in love with, not the actual theology.
In the past three years, these two systems have been causing me some serious internal dissonance. In trying to find a way to make these things work together, I’ve worked myself into a cycle of doubt that has been crippling. One side, the logical side, tells me that all my beliefs that I cannot prove with facts are bollocks, and the other side reminds me that humans work on a deeper level than mere logic, and that Significance is not fact-based, but instinctual and symbolic. It’s a battle that is deeply troubling.
The effect of all of this is that, when I take the skeptical path, I tend to be bitter and angry, and when I take the spiritual, I’m insecure and full of doubt. I do not like the way my life tastes when I am purely skeptical, but I worry that I will float away into a never-neverland if the spiritual should take over.
I do not know where the balance point in my own life lies, but I’m reasonably certain that I’m not the only person fighting this internal fight. If you are one of those people with this same inner turmoil, how do you balance it? What beliefs have influenced you, shown you where your strength lies, and how did you come to your decision?
January 4th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Chris, I’m (again) in awe of how you’ve constructively and masterfully captured the beating heart of your struggle. You’re absolutely not alone; I have the very same doubts.
Also raised Catholic (and Baptist), I have a great appreciation for the poetry of people and the living world around us, and the delightful — and sometimes Spiritual — meanings I can glean from them. There is wonder in this world view … and more than scripture, rules, or afterlife incentives, that wonder is what I cherish most about it.
I’m also a rationalist, on a quest for logical meaning in the world — and reasonable, logical explanations for the illogical behaviors of myself and others. There’s a hearty chunk of a Skeptic beating in this chest. It’s a very attractive world view to have. Things are in boxes, easily archived.
I live a very secular life.
However, I feel both perspectives are necessary — at least for me. And both can peacefully co-exist — at least for me.
I choose to view religion/spirituality — regardless of sect or belief system — as a gathering of philosophies. This is the only way I can make sense of the disparate messages. I remove the medium (God, church, scripture, whatever) from the message, and take what I can from the message itself. There is great wonder and delight to be found here, and provides a resonant “hum” to the world around me.
This “pick and choose” flexibility is frowned upon by religious zealots. That’s fine. I can live with it. We all need a cause.
I choose to view the movement of Skepticism — and other social movements, such as Objectivism — with the same flexibility. I appreciate the rationality, the sense-making, the focus on self: self-determination, responsibility, accountability.
However, I resent the zealotry of many popular skeptics. The mission — to provide a logical framework in which to live — is sullied by relentless and uncompromising pooh-poohing of the wonder I cherish so. Skepticism has become its own religion. I’m fine with that, too. We all need a cause.
I rely on not one guidebook for my personal journey, but many. I’ve found that the more guidebooks I read, the more informed I am — and the more informed my decisions can be. Most of the noteworthy things I encounter daily can be easily processed through a reasonable skeptic’s perspective, and that’s how I interpret them. There are other things in my life — my writing, where it comes from, the unearthing of something alive and significant — that I cannot fully explain rationally. These things fall into the spiritual/wonder part of myself, and I appreciate them the very best I can.
My personal consistency lies in a breed of inconsistency. I do not evangelize this world view, do not heap it upon others, and don’t give a damn what others — religious or skeptical zealots, especially — think of it. It’s the best system for me; a personal “live and let live” that accommodates both the rational and irrational. I pick and choose what works best for me, and I’m fine with this. We all need a cause.
The world — and the stories and lives surrounding us — is far too uncertain to clutch upon one established philosophy with too much certainty. To do so often crushes the poetry found in ourselves, and the world around us.
January 4th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Well said, sir, and you are not alone in trying to reconcile these two aspects.
One of the things that makes humans unique is the use of symbols, hence not just language but in particular the use of metaphor as a means of understanding ourselves, the universe and our place within it. A need for ritual is part and parcel of our nature as symbol making and using creatures.
For my part, having an early grounding in Eastern mysticism helps reconcile the conflict. Zen and Taoism very clearly focus on the dichotomy between symbol and thing. There is the wonderful Zen image of pointing at the Moon’s reflection in a bowl of water. We understand that the pointing finger and the reflection are neither the moon, the moon is figuratively unreachable. We can comfortably accommodate the dissonance of being forced to use symbol whilst knowing it is nothing but a symbol for an absolute we cannot directly know.
Working with computers has actually re-inforced that for me. At their lowest level, computers deal with the physical reality of current and resistance to model binary logic. Humans don’t parse and generate such logic easily so we invent higher level symbols that reliably map to the physical implementation. Studying machine architectire, lower level languages and higher level languages has helped develop the ability to hold simultaneous abstractions in mind without conflict.
For me, the risk of mysticism without grounding is losing the underlying connections of the symbols to reality. Conversely, skepticism at the expense of symbol denies our natures and the way we communicate with others and our surroundings. I don’t have a particular recipe for the balance, but have developed a good instinct for systems and practices, like the ones I already mentioned, that help keep these seemingly mutually exlusive models in mind. Spiritualism invites subtlety, nuance, creativity and exploration. Skepticism invites rigor, grounding and self awareness. It keeps the symbol tied to the concrete when kept in balance without denuding the inner life of art and play.
I hope that makes some sense and helps. I’d be happy to discuss the idea, more, as I find it fascinating. For me, it brushes up against the work of Godel and the incompleteness theorem. By pure logic, there are systems and symbols inexpressible by internally consistent rules. Something about the human mind allows us to model and usefully work with such paradoxes like the statement, “I always lie.”
January 4th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Christopher, this post speaks so directly to many of my own thoughts and feelings, that I could very well have written it myself, though likely not as elegantly as you have here.
I was raised with no particular religious belief system, and have always been interested in examining life’s mysteries.
To wit, why so many people have such deep belief and faith in completely unprovable or unseen forces to the degree that their faith literally dispenses with their own personal worth, as all things are attributed to the unseen hand of their God.
To observe the world of the deeply faithful, and feel outside of that apparent comfort and community can be a very lonely thing. To be one of the doubting minority that questions can feel liberating but more often than not, also very isolating. This is a big motivating factor behind the recent push by so many skeptics and atheists to create that sense of community through un-conferences like Skepticamp and regular meetups like Skeptics in the Pub, which have proliferated all over the world.
Within the skeptic community there is still a measure of controversy, whereby the strong atheist contingent seeks to strip the word atheist of the stigma that has led to associations with words like subversive, communist and nazi. The move to “out” atheists is not dissimilar from the call for homosexuals to be “out” in all parts of their life. I have argued with my contemporaries that it would be more difficult for me to be “out” as an atheist in the conservative South where I live, than to be “out” as a homosexual. To that end, I rarely discuss my affiliation with both groups (as a gay atheist) among those outside of my family, or the skeptic community.
One of the concerning aspects for me, as I observe the changing socio-political climate, is that while many groups have been able to find camaraderie by creating their own social networks, this does little to integrate these diverse peoples into society as a whole. While I feel acceptance when among those who share my world-view, they are not the people I see on a regular basis and they do not make up the majority of the population with whom I regularly interact. The pull to only stay within the group dynamic where I feel safety and comfort, is in it’s own way more isolating.
But then I am reminded of the accomplishments of human beings on the planet earth, the pale blue dot that is in relation to the whole of the universe so very small, that are nothing short of miraculous. To help highlight these human achievements and the people who have made it their life’s work to explore, and innovate and question is what helps me to feel that I can contribute toward breaking down the stereotype of the non-believer.
Despite the call by many in the skeptic and atheist community to use the word atheist in as many positive ways as possible, and remove the negative connotations associated with the word – I remain a dedicated Humanist. Where the atheist stands for something that does not exist, I find comfort in the absolute truth of humanity. For that is the common ground that all people, in any social group undeniably share – we are humankind, and throughout our evolution we have accomplished, and should continue to strive to accomplish amazing things under our own power, and not that of any supernatural being or force. That is where I find personal strength and hope – in the power of people.
January 4th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
I was raised in a household that was fairly secular. My dad was a Lutheran and went to church regularly; my grandmother was a member of the religion-of-the-month club, and my mom had a pick-and-choose, kind of new-agey spirituality.
I was a neopagan, and very secure in my faith, until 1999. I had a coworker at my office who was a born-again Christian but had been raised an atheist. He felt that the only two options for ANYONE were to be a born-again Christian or an atheist. He used the logic of atheism to demolish my beliefs in an attempt to convert me to born-again Christianity. He succeeded in the former, but not in the latter.
My dad died shortly thereafter. Even if my neopagan beliefs were wrong and illogical, they were comforting. I think I would have dealt with my dad’s death better had I not also been going through an existential crisis at the time, triggered by the aforementioned unwilling conversion to atheism. I’d love to say I’ve worked through it and achieved a balance, but hooooo boy, I haven’t. Moving where I live has helped some, although I can’t put a finger on why.
I like what J. C. Hutchins wrote above: “Skepticism has become its own religion.” He’s not wrong. I have to wonder whether I’ve just fallen into another religious trap with my current beliefs.
Two incidents in my life that make me believe that skepticism may be the wrong path:
1. In my last grasping attempts at neopaganism before I fell full-on into atheism, I worked with someone who taught me how to “send energy.” (It is embarrassing to even write this; I feel like a new-agey freak.) While my dad was in the hospital (before they sent him home to die), I went to visit him. I sat on the edge of the bed and held his hand, and while he was talking to someone else, I focused on sending him energy, just like I’d been taught. I didn’t tell him I was doing anything, didn’t do any wacky new-age things. I just sat there and focused. He suddenly turned to me in surprise, and said, “What did you just *do*? I *felt* that!” I told him (very hesitantly) that I was doing a new-agey thing. He was really startled (my dad had NO patience for ANYTHING new age) and said, “That really worked!” For the next several hours, he was noticeably more energetic and healthier; it was like having my dad back.
2. When my dad was dying, he told my mom he didn’t believe there was anything after death. (This shocked the heck out of me; I’d always thought of him as a pretty believing Christian.) My mom said she thought that there was something after, and told him that he should send her a message from the other side. He agreed, skeptically. Then she said, “After you die, you should make me win the lottery.” He laughed and laughed at this, and said he would.
My mom buys the same lottery tickets every week. One number is “her” number (based on her birthday), and one is “my dad’s” (based on his birthday). She’s been doing this for at least 20 years. About two months after he died, she discovered that “his” number had won!
No, it hadn’t won the jackpot. It had won $75.
My mom looked up at the sky and said, “What, that’s it?”
And every year since then, sometime between October and December (and ONLY then), my mom wins $75 on his number in the weekly lottery.
Anyone who knows my dad says that this sounds exactly like his sense of humor (that she would win every year, but never a big prize).
I want to believe it’s not just a coincidence, but it’s hard.
January 4th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
By the way, I’m finding the comments here very inspiring. I’m looking forward to reading more.
January 4th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Make a clean cut with all religion. Be a responsible grown up.
January 4th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Chris,
I completely understand your conflict between your logical self and your spiritual self–at times it seems that there is no reconciling the two.
My greatest criticism of churches today is that, while their intentions are good and righteous, they appeal wholly to an individual’s emotions and not to the great intellect that God has bestowed upon us. We are frequently asked to believe and never to question what it is that we believe, to understand on an intellectual level why our faith is not foolishness.
To this end, I recently read a book that helped me out immensely titled ‘Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul.’ Basically it talks about how God bestowed upon man a great intellect and it was therefore right that we use that intellect to understand Him. It’s an attack against the anti-intellectualism of the modern church and incredibly helpful for heady guys such as ourselves to articulate the truth behind faith. I heartily suggest you check it out.
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Your-God-All-Mind/dp/1576830160
January 5th, 2009 at 12:42 am
At the risk of sounding like the prototypical arrogant atheist I’ll throw in my two cents. It seems understandable that once we as a species reached that higher plane of self awareness that we would strive to understand the unknowable. Upon failing to figure it all out right away we naturally resorted to just explaining everything unknown with glib stories that put our minds at rest so we could stop fretting and get back to productive living.
Alas even after so many years it seems little has really changed.
While we collectively understand orders of magnitude more than our ancient ancestors there is still much out there we do not and it still terrifies us. Death of course is the big one and without our mystical stories it scares many of us right back into the churches of our parents in our continuing quest for solace through an artificial sense of control over the unknown.
Unfortunately for the skeptical and thoughtful seeking god those original old myths don’t work as well as they used to. Without herculean levels of faith and suspension of disbelief those hollow tales, even selectively chosen, cannot stave off the inevitable feelings of insecurity and doubt.
So while I recognize that Atheism frequently sounds overly self certain and strident to those of faith it is perhaps ironic because it is the very embracing of the unknown that brings (for me at least) the most comfort. Being allowed to concede that we don’t know everything means there is always more that we can learn. If there is more we can learn then there is more we can change, more we can do, more that we can become. When we force ourselves to believe the stories of a creator we are constrained by the rules and perceived limitations that come with such mystical beliefs. We pray for things instead of working harder to figure it out and do it for ourselves.
Happily we are not controlled by the stars nor our fate destined by the lines on our hands. We are free to make this word better if we can muster up our collective courage, shed the limitations and biases of the multitude of ancient myths that constrain us and instead choose to move forward together instead of fighting progress every step of the way.
And I don’t feel that I am bitter or angry when I’m skeptical (but I don’t doubt that the faithful often view me that way). But like evangelicals I do have the very best intentions at heart. So while the faithful slave to save my soul and I in turn strive to free their minds.
PS: I can tell you miss Socrates’s Cafe.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Great post, great comments, great discussion.
I was raised in a very strict, Christian religion, but left freely when I was 20. Since then I have been very hesitant to join another spiritual community or church and found that most (as JIM notes) appeal solely to emotionality. They don’t even teach their own doctrine, for the most part.
This was NOT what I was looking for.
On the other hand, atheism isn’t a philosophy, it’s a negative statement. “There is no god.” What people are calling atheism and skepticism is really an adherence to Scientific Materialism. Now, that’s a philosophy! And while it works and has lead to more advancement and better lives, SM is ill suited for all spheres of human experience. And that’s where the rub is. Part of ‘hard’ SM is that not only is it the best way to rationally explore the physical world, but that is the ONLY world. Further, the proof is a tautology. “SM can only addresses issues that are physically provable & grounded in the material world. The material world is the only world that exists, everything else is empty symbolism or meaningless myths. The proof that everything else is empty symbolism or meaningless myths is that they cannot be verified via SM.”
So, much of human experience get’s ignored or trivialized. Does SM have much to say about why some pieces of art touch me and others don’t? Why some works of fiction drive me to greater ambitions and others ring hollow? Why do people like seeing sunsets and listening to the sound of moving water? Where does the sense of destiny and a divine plan come from? How does the power of belief empower ordinary humans to do great and amazing things, or terrible and horrifying things?
There is an internal realm of meaning and feeling that is either poorly explored, ignored, or trivialized by SM. Often, that is why people turn to religion, or spiritual traditions, or to something else. It’s not immaturity and it’s not ludditism. One can fully drive a car, program a computer, and believe in the moon landing while STILL feeling that SM has only addressed a portion of ones experience and not the entirety of it.
And that, is what is frustrating to me. It’s like an itch which is very hard to scratch. I don’t need a religious person telling me that by showing up in church and singing hymns and trying to ‘feel’ spiritual while in the building is the answer because it does not address any of the questions of meaningfulness or my sense of being part of a greater whole or my experience of life as being more then the collection of physical realities. I also don’t need a scientific materialist telling me that there is nothing else and that I don’t actually experience what I do and that I’m a weak, faulty person for wanting to know and experience more. One is telling me that “there is nothing more, stop asking” and the other is telling me “this empty platitude is all you need, so stop asking,” So, who is saying, “there is something there, I have no easy answers, so keep asking?”
January 6th, 2009 at 12:40 am
I will concur with Runester that “science” does not yet explain everything, but I happily think it never will. That said his above description of scientific materialism is a straw man that I do not recognize as the art of science and discovery practiced by real scientists. Science is the systematic method of understanding that which is unknown.
For example, Dark matter is hardly “real” in the tangible “I can touch it” materialistic sense and yet the scientific method has come to show that it is there. We’re not quite sure what it is of course, but its presence is still observable and real.
Art that moves, poetry that inspires, and music that soothes may forever remain areas of scientific study where we can only hope to better understand their influence on us and our minds. That said I must respectfully disagree that any religious explanation tacitly amounting to “God did it” explains absolutely nothing. To accept any religious explanation for anything is to cede to authority, ignore any evidence to the contrary, and to accept a forgery of understanding that only serves to keep those who accept it from more fully exploring those mysteries themselves.
I most certainly am not saying “stop asking”. Far from it. I would however beg you to consider that in our entire existence, every mystery that has ever been solved has been found to be:
Not magic…and not God.
Every. Single. Time.
The only places we continue to see “evidence” for God is in that which we don’t yet understand. If real evidence for God shows up then I will happily concede you were right all along but based on the past pattern I’m willing to bet that won’t happen.
January 6th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
I’ve struggled with this topic for years. I had a Catholic upbringing, but it wasn’t all that strict, looking back. We didn’t go to church every single week, we were encouraged to explore and ask questions, my dad was clearly *not* religious and only attended church for Christmas, Easter and family-related functions (weddings, funerals, baptisms…).
At church, however, sermons were dogmatic, at Sunday school, questions were not answered.
And yet I kept faith in God. There were times I went through some really hard struggles, and I prayed very hard for my doubt to go away. But it didn’t, and I had to trust in myself and friends to get through. And I did overcome. And though my faith that God could “fix” things changed, I still believed in God. But also in the adage “God helps those who help themselves.”
Also, I met a dear friend who changed my beliefs by her very existence. She is the best person I know, but she is not really any religion. If anything, she’s sorta Jewish. And though many of the Christian denominations these days tend to downplay it, anyone with critical thinking skills can parse that “Jesus is THE way” means that every other way is NOT the way. (Except the Mormons…)
There was no way I’d even consider condemning this friend, so I suppose that’s when I stopped being a Christian. But even today, I still believe in God.
But I don’t believe in a fire-and-brimstone god who promotes the just and punishes the wicked. Seen too much for that to make sense to me, and after many years, I think I’ve finally rejected it.
I think it’s a fool’s errand to try to prove God exists, in something like Creation Science, for example. But I also don’t see God at odds with science or the natural world.
Don’t tell anyone, but I believe in Intelligent Design.)
Not the way it’s normally presented, though. I do not understand why evolution is thought to be at odds with intelligent design. Or why the set of circumstances that caused the Big Bang and the laws of the universe are incompatible with a creator. It seems silly to me when people try to minimize the amazing features of life, the universe, and everything when they ignore the science and say “god did it.”
I like to think “god did it” BY science. To me, God is the ultimate scientist. Maybe he’s knowable. Maybe not.
I guess you might call me a deist. I’ve coined the term “theistic agnostic,” when I wrote about a similar topic on my blog.
I don’t ever think we will know what happened “before” and we can’t find out what happens “after” until we are gone, and we can’t come back and tell anyone.
What matters the most, I think, is what matters to everybody, Christian or Atheist, Democrat or Republican. And that’s doing the best we can in this world to make a good living, take care of ourselves and our family members, and maybe try to contribute to humanity and make the world a better place in some small way, using our God-given talents (irony intended).
Everything else is just gravy. whether we do that through teaching public school science, working at a soup kitchen, or praying at someone’s bedside who is gravely ill but a believer.
Which is why it is sooo important to try to engage with other people and get their perspectives, IMHO. This blog post and responses are a great start.
And moderates need to speak up more! Most people are neither vehement atheists, or fundamentalist Christians, but that’s most of what you see out there.
I’m still a very symbolic person. I go to church on occasion. I’ll argue with athiests who believe that atheism is the only way, and anything else is to be intellectually dishonest. But I’ll also argue with people who call me an “evolutionist” and say that a believer in evolution cannot be a Christian. I’ll try to gently inject a little critical thinking into a friend’s wholehearted acceptance of alternative medicine. But I’ll also respect her right to seek the alternatives (to a certain extent).
But mostly I’ll try to listen to people with different beliefs, try to find common ground, and try to share my perspective in the hopes that we can learn from each other.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
I like your essays, Chris. I think these issues haunt a ton of people in our age group especially…and especially those people who tend to think with a more open mind. I feel much the same way you do about skepticism vs. spirituality and when I’m too much in either camp I don’t feel good about myself. I too, look for that balance.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Sorry, I hit send and I wasn’t done.
Balance…all I know is to put it in simple terms. When I start to feel too skeptical, I feel removed so I then know I need to do something to bring me back to feeling a connection to the spiritual, or “what is good in people.” That can be something as simple as a phone call to a friend or a walk in the park. When I start feeling too immersed in spirituality, I also start to feel removed, like none of it is real or it starts not to feel like it’s a good “fit” for me. I then step back from that too, and let logical thinking set in for awhile. It’s balance, it works, but truth be told, it still leaves me floating around somewhere in the middle. That used to scare me, a lot. Now I’ve claimed the middle as my space and I’ve let my sense of “what feels right” take over and guide most of mt decisions. Not what I “should” or “should not” do or what is logical or what is “best for the common good” but what feels like it’s right for me. Scary, different, can’t define it, but it works (so far anyway). Cheers!
January 13th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Read Ayn Rand…
August 7th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
“They have great topics like this one on http://www.energytalkradio.com and donate 30% to charity! Check them out.”
January 24th, 2010 at 11:53 am
I was going to post my own opinions, but what “husnain” said above completely changed my life.
Chris, once again, you have hit the nail on the head. This post encapsulates for me the struggles I’ve dealt with, being a spiritual person working in a field I’ve found to be dominated by skeptics (sci-fi fandom).
I can’t ignore the the reasoned, logical side, nor can relinquish the feeling of “something more” we can’t yet understand.
In this case, I feel like Occam’s Razor cuts both ways: what’s more likely? That all of the symmetry, patterns, and natural rhythm we see around us was created by a yet-unknown progenitor, or that it all came to pass through sheer chance and the outgrowth of inexplicable forces of nature?
To me, they both sound equally likely (or unlikely, depending on your point of view).
What I find is most people fall on one side of the argument or the other, not based upon the actual argument, but based upon their experiences with the people representing it.
For me…as much as I prize reasoned thought, I can’t shake the feeling like I’ve been dropped in someone else’s house, and I’m going through their cabinets, eating their food. So a little humility, and appreciation for what I take, seems in order.