In the theory of non-overlapping magisteria, people argue that religion and science both have value because the two cover different domains. The argument is that while science is good for explaining hows and whats, it does not — cannot — explain why.
And there’s the value of religion.
To me, this dichotomy fails because the two subject so often overlap. In explaining the why, religions often assert the “hows” and “whats”. In addition, the “hows” and “whats” of science challenge our conceptions of the “whys,” and some folks would love to create a scientific “why”.
I’m not entirely sure if the dichotomy is useful. These days, I’m not sure what “how” means and what “why” means. It all seems…less than real. But there is one thing that strikes me when I read some religious literature: the sheer arbitrariness of much of it.
A while ago, I read a book over and over. My father had recommended it, and although my father and I do not see eye to eye on religious matters, I read it dutifully to see if maybe it would click. The book, like most religious books, seeks to describe why things are. It internally ascribes to the idea that both religion and science are incomplete, and while it doesn’t use the exact terms, I inferred that one of the book’s reasons to be is to describe why its brand of spiritual-but-non-religiosity can explain the inadequacy.
Here’s how it tries:
In the beginning, we all were in the World of Answers. God, like a light, radiated light constantly and fully. We could not help but receive the light of his goodness at all times every time.
And we were not pleased with this.
Because we had not earned this light, and we could not earn this light, we requested that he give us the opportunity to earn light for ourselves.
God complied by creating a World of Questions, in which we would be veiled off from light by our five senses, and by the Adversary.
(…as I’ve read this book, I’ve found many things in common with Mormonism, although the book is definitely not Mormon. [Years later, I discovered that the reason for the similarities was because Joseph Smith had studied Kabbalah at some point in his life.])
I imagine that many Mormons take for granted that the Adversary is this external being in opposition to God and humans from reaching their goal. Even if Mormons also believe that there must be opposition in things.
But in this book, the M. Night Shyamalanian twist is that the Adversary is Doubt. And Doubt is Ego. Our egos, however, are not really about preventing us from reaching our goal. I mean, yes, they are, in the sense that they prevent us from seeing the light. They are a curtain over the light that obscures that light.
But for us to “earn” the light, we need that light to be hidden, and Ego/Doubt/the Adversary is the way that that happens. That Adversary is necessary.
Truth: Literal and Metaphoric
As I read this book, I think, “OK, so this is an interesting story, but is it true?”
The book preempts my thoughts: “Your ego has programmed you to doubt every word this book says.”
I wonder if my question wasn’t premature or immature. I mean, when I ask if it is “true,” I’m thinking of truth as a literal matter of factual accuracy. But doesn’t that stick to hows and whats? Aren’t whys something categorically different?
Metaphoric or allegorical truth doesn’t seem as…inspiring, however.
The thing that strikes me is that the answer to this question (is it allegorical or literal?) is never really clear. It seems like a joke I’m not getting: the joke-teller doesn’t want to explain the punchline because it’ll ruin the joke. From my perspective, however, I’m already not getting the joke, so how could explaining it ruin it for me? So just tell me: is this something I’m supposed to literally believe or is it just a metaphor?
One thing that bothers me about “why” answers is their arbitrariness. It seems to me that these answers are 1) actually “how” answers in disguise and/or 2) things that regress until ultimately you reach an answer that is arbitrary, axiomatic, or taken-for-granted.
Think of a little kid who asks, “Why?” And think of how he can keep on asking why to everything you say. At some point, you get frustrated and answer with something arbitrary like, “Because I said so” — even if you wanted to be one of those good parents who doesn’t resort to something so crude.
It’s interesting that kids eventually stop asking why incessantly…even though the incessant why never actually resolves.
That’s what strikes me about religions…and what struck me about this book. It is asserting all these things with confident as an answer to why things are, when it doesn’t really suffice for me.
Ritual: Literal and Metaphoric
In the end of the book is a ritual to be practiced. A Prayer or meditation, of sorts. It’s basically the only concrete thing I have. I don’t have any understanding of why this works (or even how, despite this book insisting that it would give at least the former, if not both the former and the latter). I just have blanket statements that it works.
OK, well maybe I just need to try it to see for myself. It’s harmless, unlike many things.
But then the same questions from before arise about ritual. Are rituals literal or metaphoric? And if they are literal, then must I legalistically follow them? What if I mess up? What if I mess up inadvertently, because I did not understand properly? I don’t even read Hebrew!
I asked a friend who is into this kind of magical stuff, and he pointed out that if you don’t believe it, if it doesn’t “go” with you, then it’s not going to be effective.
Religion as Brain Software
I was intrigued by my friend’s comment. If it doesn’t go with you, then it’s not going to be effective.
I asked him: what do you mean, if it doesn’t go with you? Can the truth not go with someone?
He shrugged (at least, in the way you shrug over an internet connection mediated through text.) Traditions are something you have to feel. You have to have a taste for one or another. If you don’t, then it’s not going to work.
Interestingly, even the book suggested something like this. While it labeled religion as corrupting truth, it simultaneously pointed out that the major traditions also all transmit truth. The reconciliation is that they each are incomplete. The book made an analogy to parts of the body (something that will also be familiar to Mormons and non-LDS Christians as well)…but it also made an analogy to colors. One religion might be “red” and one might be “green,” and seeing that red and green are opposites on the color spectrum, the two might think the other is diametrically opposed to the truth that it has.
But when you take all the colors together, you get pure white light. That is the complete truth.
I can buy that, outside of the particular baggage of each religion, most of them tend to be saying the same thing deep down. It’s just that people get bogged down on the minutia, and sometimes the minutia contradicts the deeper underlying core message. (For example, for a religion that says, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” different adherents come up with really funny values for “love” and “neighbor.”)
In this way, I can also buy that different religions can be like different flavors…and it may be that we have different appreciations for different flavors…sticking to a flavor we dislike can be not only counterintuitive, but limiting or destructive to our development.
I have thought of another analogy, however…of religion, spirituality, “why answers” (whatever and wherever those come from) as being like brain software or operating systems.
If you try to install an operating system on hardware that it is not designed for, you won’t get very far. If you try to install an operating system without right drivers, kernel modules, what have you, you won’t get very far. But not only that, it will frustrate your attempts to do stuff…and possibly even make you really upset with the OS itself.
I know people who flash new ROMs on their smartphones multiple times a day. I know people who install new Linux distros every week. 
I also know people who never upgrade anything. They complain about how sluggish their computer has gotten, but they are stuck with a hopelessly outdated OS that doesn’t even suit their needs.
I have dabbled in installing linux distros. I have dabbled in flashing custom Android ROMs. I’m not a huge fan of the process…I would rather someone tell me: given x, y, and z requirements, what is the best distro? What is the best ROM?
But not only are these answers forthcoming, but it seems a given as if the question itself is stupid. There is no best distro. Three is no best ROM. People can’t really suggest things to you as if there is an objective one-to-one correspondence between what things you’re looking for, and what ROMs are available.
You have to get a feel for things.
Did this post seem familiar? It was originally posted at my solo blog, Irresistible (Dis)grace.
Your software analogy seems like an updated Parable of the Sower. The seeds don’t bear fruit when the ground is too hard or rocky just as the software doesn’t work without the proper drivers or OS updates.
You are absolutely right that traditional religion simply doesn’t work with many modern brains. We’ve been wired differently by virtue of a ubiquitous scientific culture of skepticism and material evidence. Premoderns never questioned why 12 different English churches all claimed to have John the Baptist’s head. Superstition and dogma were the only things available, and science was inseperable from religion.
Now, people of a more skeptical nature have many more options, and would never knowingly choose something as arbitrary as the book your father gave you. You have to be “called” to that, meaning you have some unique hardware in your brain that responds to it.
Not that we’re wired for religion, rather we are wired for belief. Many religious people are just as skeptical as atheists, they are just skeptical of different things, like evolution. But real believers will accept both science and spirituality.
Things like this remind me of being careful of how I interpret my feelings. There is a great warning in Nephi’s dream that I have come to appreciate as the world gets more diverse in the offers it makes. 1ne8:31-33 tells us what happens when we use our feelings incorrectly.
I agree with Nate #2 that humans appear to be wired for belief. Each individual’s “hardware” is influenced by tons of factors, though: biological, cultural, experiential, etc. I know people whose “hardware” in their early life wasn’t really working well with the religion thing, but later in their lives it clicked.
With my husband’s mission, the people who he taught had no problem “believing” things, in fact they pretty much went with whatever you told them. Now, trying to get them to grasp that there was only *one* true religion was a bit more difficult (why couldn’t both Joseph Smith and Muhammed be prophets?). In Western cultures, the impetus will be on proving why you need religion at all. Culture has a big influence on what we’ll accept.
I think the hardware analogy works pretty well. In medicine, docs are quickly figuring out that the same medications will work differently in people just because of basic genetic differences. This is why some people have crazy awful reactions while the other 99% of the population are totally fine. The hope is that as they learn more about the relationship between these genetic factors and meds, they’ll be able to accurately determine which medications will be effective for that person’s condition with their genetic makeup without having to wade through months of trial and error. I see a similarity with the hardware analogy: some things that are productive with one type of system may not work so well with others.
Getting back to the beginning of the OP, I’ll often try to get religious people to rethink dismissal of science by using the different domains tactic. It’s a simple distinction that even the most hardline creationist can grasp. But like Andrew says, the deeper you go, the more the lines blur. To me, science and religion are two sides of the same coin – the pursuit of ultimate truth. An atheist arguing to me that religion is useless is equivalent to a religious person arguing to me that science is useless – my personal observations are that both pursuits are spiritually and intellectually uplifting. So, how do I explain it… that I have a testimony of science? Or that I’ve proven empirically, to myself at least, that religion has observable truths? Those sound completely idiotic.
I’m not sure that I agree with Nate’s statement that “real believers accept both science and spirituality.” It works for me, but I’ve learned enough to know that there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know. I’m not sure that it really does work for everyone, and I’ve had enough well-meaning members view me with suspicion to recognize my view definitely doesn’t work for them.
Nate,
Great comments. I think one difficulty between the two analogies is that I think a lot of people would resist the thought that the Parable of the Sower absolves us of personal responsibility. With my brain software analogy, I would say that if you don’t have the right hardware, there’s no way you’re installing that software — you simply don’t have the right instruction set, the right drivers, etc., etc., But I think the way many people interpret the parable of the Sower, they would say that if the ground is too hard, that was our fault for hardening our hearts, etc.,
I think there is something to say for culture impacting what sorts of ideas we find reasonable or unreasonable, but I am also interested in the ways that we break out against culture. I mean, our culture is certainly more skeptical and secular than any other culture, but still, many people perceive spiritual experiences despite what a pure cultural upbringing would suggest. Even people “raised atheist” can become religious (and vice versa.)
I think the idea of “calling” is very interesting, and also the idea that many people are wired for belief. I hear some people say that they find atheism to be a miserable prospect. I hear some people say that they don’t find their faith to be reasonable, logical, etc., but the thing that holds them back from atheism is that they despair at the prospect of atheism.
But to me, I despair at the prospect of faith. It doesn’t make sense, doesn’t seem right. It feels like a profound lie to say I believe (when I know I don’t). The sorts of things people ascribe to atheism, I experience when I consider theism. So, I think that some people are hardwired for theism in that sense — that going against theism is going against their hardwiring…and other people differ.
Nevertheless…there are people who convert between the two, so that’s another complexity…
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ron,
I’m wondering if you could extrapolate? What do you think is a better way to interpret your feelings? And what would be the way to avoid?
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Mary Ann,
These are all good points, especially the point on different medical efficacies based on genetics.
As a side note, one thing I find very fascinating is the placebo effect. Some people say, “Well, placebo effect means it didn’t work.” But that’s not really what it means — the placebo effect is well-documented, and differs depending on the person. It’s just bad whenever your *other treatment* doesn’t work *more* than a placebo.
My father is a hypnotist. I colloquially refer to hypnosis as kinda sorta relying totally on the placebo effect (although it’s not that simple). And truly, different people have different susceptibilities to hypnotism.
The more I read Augustine, the more I see that statements like this are just totally disconnected from reality. The notion that we in the 21st century are somehow uniquely sophisticated is absurdly presentist myopia.
Kullervo, I wouldn’t say we are uniquely sophisticated, just that we are more skeptical. And I’m not talking about people like Augustine, I’m talking about the 99%.
Andrew S., its true that most religious people interpret the scriptures, like the Parable of the Sower as being prescriptive rather than descriptive. But elsewhere in the scriptures God takes full responsibility for “shutting their eyes and stopping their ears.” Of course if one hears the call, they should make an effort to follow it. But if one does not hear the call, there is no condemnation. “To him whom there is no law, there is no sin” as Paul says.
People who hear “the call” are converts. They respond to the call from whatever background or culture they happen to be in. But most Mormons are born in the church, so they get the call from the teachings of their parents and the church, and that teaching may or may not be particularly conducive to their personality and “wiring.”
I tell myself that I would never choose to join the church. It’s just too crazy, and I don’t think it particularly matches my personal wiring. But I’m called by virtue of my heritage, covenants, and spiritual experiences of having been raised a Mormon. This is the case for lots of Mormons, and I think that is why there is so much inactivity. Its not just doubts about truth claims and such, its also the fact that subconscious values differ from the values taught in church, and so people find themselves drifting away, almost imperceptibly. They just aren’t “saints.”
Mormons have a way of defining these people as “lost,” as having rejected the covenant, and ultimately as not being candidates of the Celestial Kingdom. But the reality of their situation is much more complicated than that. Personal choice to do evil is only one of many factors that influences one’s distance from the church.
Nate, I’m also not talking about people like Augustine. I’m talking about the 99% who lived in Augustine’s world. They were every bit as jaded and skeptical as we are. You’re buying a presentist myth.
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Kullervo,
Isn’t our presentist myopia kinda the point? Presentism alienates us from ideologies of the past — even if upon a deeper glance, those ideologies might seem more broadly applicable or speak to deeper human truths.
re 8,
Nate,
I was reading a post (or series of posts) on New Cool Thang from Geoff J, who had had a faith crisis and left the church, but then who had rejoined. He described his reasons for leaving (and reasons that people leave in general) as basically being a values mismatch.
But the question I had was: how does anyone get Mormon values when most of us (I mean, even in majority-Mormon Utah) live in a culture that is mostly non-Mormon? How do we even distinguish Mormon values from other cultural values confused with Mormonism (e.g., how do we know that Mormonism is truly political conservative vs it just being the case that political conservatives read their values into Mormonism?) Being a convert obviously means coming from a different value system…but being raised in the church doesn’t guarantee that one will have a “purer” Mormon value system. So, it seems no one avoids the risk of faith crisis from values mismatch.
I didn’t really think he had a great answer for that.
I’m not sure I understand your last question. Mormonism is a value structure that is influenced and shaped by outside cultures, and continues to evolve and have various manifestations more or less related. It’s core doctrines are heavily influenced by Joseph Smith’s 19th century religious culture and his unique spiritual personality. But still, compared to the rest of the world, it is quite cohesive compared to most other religious traditions. Therefore , it is “a strait and narrow way that few find.” “That few find” it is precisely the point I believe. It is not meant to be universal and self-evident for all.
But I believe individually, all have “a strait and narrow way” that they could find if they sought for it, though it might be different for each individual. To restrict oneself and to submit to an authority outside one’s own mind is a universal principle. Keirkegaard said: “The principle of limitation is the sole saving principle in the world…Here is the extreme boundary of that principle that seeks relief not through extensity but through intensity.”
We will probably be guided to that strait and narrow way we seek based on the divine hardware of our brains, and the software our parents downloaded into it.
Nate,
My last question gets to the thought that there are a lot of values that many people (especially inter-mountain west Americans) would associate as clearly being Mormon, but which would probably best fit as coming from secular sources. E.g., the emphasis on American political conservatism, the emphasis on 1950s America gender roles, etc.,
I would agree that they come from secular sources.