Finding the foundation when earthbound truths fail
What religion is supposed to do.
A couple of days ago. I was discussing politics with a friend. Specifically, the conflict in the Middle East. While she did not overtly say so, it was obvious she didn’t support Israel. I did [still do] and gave her my reasons. With all of the information coming in from both sides, she maintained it was impossible to know the truth.
In Plato‘s Allegory of the Cave, he explained that we are chained below ground seeing only shadows of the real world. The Hindus have the concept of Maya, which is that reality is nothing but a warped mirror. Given the amount of social media and screens that dominate our days, such an allegory seems legit.
With both Platonic and Hindu practice, the goal is to wake up and see what is real. Why would the goal be different in the embodied world? The issue that keeps us from seeing is the same. We want to see ourselves in a particular way and back that up with rationalizations. Plato taught that with the use of philosophy that reason we would learn to be ruled by reason rather than emotion and thus be able to step out of the cave and see what was real and commune with the gods.
He was mostly wrong.* Studies in neuroscience demonstrate that our brains lean in one direction or the other long before our cerebral cortex - our thinking brain - jumps into action to find rationales for that lean. We don’t easily escape our preferences and native moral leanings and those leanings are shaped by what surrounds us.
The Anabaptist Christians who were a big part of my childhood didn’t encourage me to ask questions or look for truth. My friend grew up about 50 miles away and was in a place where there was a denser concentration of Amish and Mennonites [Anabaptists] than in my area. She became an atheist and has far more antipathy for Christianity than I do. She’s a relatively new friend and I haven’t yet asked her why. As I’m Pagan, she has less of an issue with my religion.
But it’s not like Christians as a whole eschew the search for truth and there’s nothing in the words of Jesus that demands that one stay in one’s lane and not think. Judaism - the foundation on which Christianity rests - has a long tradition of scriptural interpretation and discussion. A tradition that’s so strong that the majority of Nobel Prize winners are Jews.
Two things allow one to head off the immediate emotional lean that keeps us in the familiar lane we’re used to. The first is liking the person who offers the new information. If we don’t already like the person we’re talking to, anything new they present will be ignored before our conscious mind even registers it. The second thing is a pause before being able to respond. This short gap can allow us to calm a strong emotional response if we’re able, and examine truths that might be unpalatable.
My friend is a therapist and she’s very good at pausing before responding. That’s a necessary tool in her profession. We talked politics a little on this visit [not just about the Middle East], and I count that as a win since it was entirely civil. We should be able to talk about this stuff. If we can’t talk about it, we can’t ever get to what is true and real.
Yes, we have to take some things on faith. That’s one of the benefits of religion. I have faith that the gods have my best interests at heart and that I have an immortal soul that reaches upward toward the transcendent and downward into the stunning beauty of embodied, time-limited creation. I know they’re there for me no matter what. Certainly, Plato believed this or he wouldn’t have written works that have endured for thousands of years, and were incorporated into Christianity.
While Plato was wrong in that reason cannot rule emotion, it’s still a valuable practice to take that step back and try to respond with less emotion. For Plato and his students, philosophy was a necessary precondition for reaching toward the gods, much as meditation is for Buddhists. For Pagans, this is one of many possible paths up the mountain.
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But, like meditation, philosophy is useful for more than religious practice. Philosophy gave us science and engineering and is still a tool for taking some emotion out of our thought process. Science has greatly expanded what we can know. So has technology. which has provided us with the greatest knowledge-seeking tool in history: the internet.
Admittedly, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. But my friend is wrong, With the availability of history and endless commentary on any given issue, the idea that we can’t determine a closer approximation of truth makes no sense.
Perhaps because she’s ten years older than me, she’s not as adept at finding information. But perhaps it’s emotion-mediated blindness. Learning facts that contradict our worldview can kill a little part of who we believe ourselves to be.
That hurts. A lot.
Especially if we’ve held that belief for a long time.
Religion can do two things in this situation. First, it can deny facts and demand adherence to doctrine. If that’s a majority position that’s also supported by people in power, then facts become irrelevant until the truth becomes so loud - as it tends to do - that doctrine is overwhelmed.
That’s not good for religion.
However, there is an alternative. A strong faith in something greater than ourselves provides a foundation that earthbound truths cannot. Faith in that greater thing makes it feel less like death when a cherished belief is challenged or broken. Faith lets us see how to adapt to the new reality. We need that if we’re going to step out of the cave.
My friend is willing to talk about Israel, and other points where we disagree. She has questions [lots] and I’m prepared to answer them. I have some for her too. That’s how it should be: Two adults communicating rationally. I want her to like me so I’ll be polite. She wants me to like her, so I’m confident there will be no name-calling. If nothing else, we will both understand each other better. We’ll never completely agree and that’s fine We’re human. That’s the commonality that matters.
*I’m not just talking out of my bellybutton here. Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind has an excellent breakdown of the current science on emotion, reason, and moral thinking.
If you’re curious about Paganism/Heathenism/Wicca/Druidry, please feel free to message me and I’ll be happy to answer questions.
Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been Pagan since she was 14 [which was a long time ago] and been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. She has direct communication with her gods and they’ve always given her answers when she asks. [One does have to ask.] Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. Be warned.
Pagan Organizations
When you speak of the gods. Which do you mean? There's so many pagan gods and I find it confusing. X