Implications, Relationships, Symbolism

March 1st, 2012   by   Andrew

Part of the Series God: From Magic to Motivation

 

Many moons ago I put up a post on the Effectiveness of Prayer? It prompted a conversation where a believer-friend of mine expressed some amazement at how atheists he worked with seemed just as concerned about morality as the Christians he worked with. As he put it, “I find that fascinating and more than a little bit puzzling.” (note – Disqus is still not playing nice. The comments are there, but not always showing under the post for some reason. I’m working on it…)

I got running with a line of thought. I quoted for him Jordan Peterson’s description of the function of a god:

God’s very being has to have implication for actions, for motivation, and for how we feel about things. Otherwise, He’s no God.

For a deep believer, I think this is almost intuitively understood, goes without saying. But at the same time, I think non-believers are finding things in their lives to put in that place through the process of recognizing others as important parts of  our selves.

I got substituting a few things in place of God to suggest where atheist morality is coming from (I’m going to add a few more things to flush out the idea):

My spouse’s very being has to have implications for actions, for motivation, and for how I feel about things. Otherwise, they’re not my spouse.

My children’s very being has to have implications for actions, for motivation, and for how I feel about things. Otherwise, they’re not my children.

My community’s very being has to have implications for actions, for motivation, and for how I feel about things. Otherwise, it’s not my community.

My world’s very being has to have implications for actions, for motivation, and for how I feel about things. Otherwise, it’s not my world.

In Christianity (and to some extent, Judaism as well), the mythological symbolism of God got flipped. Instead of God being Father, God became Son. Imagery, as reminders of what we were to be motivated by, came from vulnerable things – baby, young pregnant woman, lamb, dove, etc.

As an aside, my home province of Ontario initiated a new holiday a few years ago – Family Day. We now have government-coordinated holy days for Father, Mother and for Family.

Our planet Earth is often portrayed as a Mother. Ideas like the Gaia hypothesis borrow imagery from ancient mythology to tap into the poetic zeal and richness.

The success of Christianity has a lesson on the value of upending our institutionalized, symbolic imagery. Maybe our association between the planet and our mother isn’t the best imagery anymore. Our role has changed and how we see ourselves has changed. Maybe instead, we could symbolically see it as our daughter.

After all:

My daughter’s very being has to have implications for actions, for motivation, and for how I feel about things. Otherwise, what kind of parent would I be?

What do you think?


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Posted in Behaviour, Beyond Belief, empathy, ethics, god, irony, myth, poetry, psychology, Religion, story | 3 Comments »

Atheists are Copy-Cats!

November 5th, 2011   by   Andrew

Chapter 18 of the series Myths and Dragons

What’s up with atheists mimicking the religious groups they usually love to criticize?

A. C. Grayling has published “The Good Book: A Humanist Bible“. It’s an impressive tome of over 600 two-columned pages. Separate books with names like Genesis, Parables, Acts and The Epistles each have chapters and numbered verses.  Grayling has borrowed from many sources from around the world, some older and some younger than those found in Hebrew and Christian Bibles.

The author makes no claim that his work is authoritative in any way. In one interview, Grayling suggests the book is a “gentle teasing” rather than a defiant strike against religion. And some of that gentle teasing seems to be pointed at himself as much as anyone else that might take their beliefs too seriously:

“How can you be a militant atheist? It’s like sleeping furiously.”


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James Dunbar has put together Bang! The Universe Book, and It’s Alive! These  graphic novels convey the origins of the universe and life through accessible stories and illustrations.

It’s quite the challenge to combine scientific explanations with rhyming couplets, but Dunbar has made something really fun and remarkable. And his characters look oddly familiar. Who would you say they look like?

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In an earlier post, I looked at P.Z. Meyers’ creed for atheists. I don’t seriously think many non-believers would religiously adopt and recite Meyers’ creed. However, if someone were to live by it, I think I’d have a pretty good idea about what they were like and how they would behave.

Mimicry seems to play a big part in in the make-up of human nature. What’s really intriguing though is why we copy so much around us. Psychologists have put together some interesting studies in order to understand things like social rejection and acceptance. Some studies suggest the more someone feels rejected, the more they might actually copy (unconsciously) other people.  (Follow this link for a summary, or this link for the original research article from Lakin, Chartrand and Arkin, or this link about the Chameleon Effect as Social Glue.)

There is also some evidence to suggest that (unconsciously) copying someone else with behaviour, posture and language style tends to make that someone else feel closer and more empathetic towards others. When we are accepted (or at least copied) and when we feel we belong, we might even be more willing to help and listen to others.

Mimicry might not be the only motivation for Grayling’s good book or Dunbar’s creation stories or even Meyers’ creed, but it makes me a little more hopeful for the future, actually. By rejecting or excluding certain groups, religious people have by their very nature brought this upon themselves.

Maybe these stories and artistic efforts and bold declarations aren’t made with intentions to separate non-believers from believers, but instead to bring people closer together. In a sense, these writers are using the body language of story. By copying the frame of sacred books or creation stories or holy creeds,  Grayling, Dunbar and Meyers are building bridges to help us face what we don’t know and who we don’t understand. And those bridges might lead us to where we should be, together.

It’s remarkable what a good story can bring together.

What do you think?

Are atheists just copy-cats?

Would you read Grayling’s Bible, or Dunbar’s creation stories?

Would you live by Meyers’ creed?

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Posted in art, Beyond Belief, book review, education, god, humour, irony, myth, poetry, psychology, purpose, Religion, Science, story | Comments Off

It is a Strange Thing to Write in Harmony

April 19th, 2011   by   Andrew

This weekend I attended a funeral. It was held in an Anglican church that looked small on the outside but vast and spacious on the inside. One part of the service, The Commendation, used the following passage:

Yet even at the grave we make our song.

This reminded me of the draft below and made me think of editing it a little.

Last week Leah posted a TED talk from John Lloyd about the invisible. Basically, he says:

The more you look at something, the more it disappears. But, the most important things in life are things you can’t see.

This made me think of my unfinished draft also. Our use of sight, and our addiction to sight, means we analyze and cut and segment things until they disappear. However, the presence of sound stirs at us, tugs at something within our very core. With sight, we disappear and things become more complex; with sound, we are present and we listen or join in.

So I got to editing again.

The title and first draft came a few months ago while I was going through Rifkin’s The Empathic Civilization.

Due to later conversations with George and with Joshua, I had returned to it and edited it. I think at this point I better hit publish, or else I might just edit it down to nothing at all…

It is a Strange thing to Write in Harmony

by Andrew Gilchrist


It is a strange thing to write in harmony.

Twin pens poised,
Scratching away at syncopated counterpoints.

But to strum or sing or beat a rhythm
Together,
That is not a strange thing.
That is the point. That is the defiant song against still life.
Call to others to listen and experience,
To join and participate,
Embrace,
Become one with song,
Echo the great moment
Together, hold it amongst ourselves as long as we can,
For such rebellions, such rejoicing,
Should not die.
Sound fills.
Sound breathes.
Sound embodies.

But to write is to dissect, to disarticulate.
Knowledge comes by the cut.
To put subject first
Then separate
From object.
Sight extends,
Exacting the subtle knife.
Remove and reflect
In isolation.
Distance the one from the all,
Cling righteously to an unpossessive point
of view,
And decline the enchantment of communion.
Sight is singular, diminishing because of it.
Sight cuts.
Sight separates.
Sight withdraws.

Should we try and hold back that abyss?
With sensory delusions, chemical mockeries, mechanized phenomena,
we can refute and collapse, all and one,
in that all too persistent vanishing point.

And you lose us in the periphery.

What would sound say of periphery?

It is a strange thing to write in harmony.

Twinned pens synchronized,
Scratching only a promise of consummation.

I resent your promise,
I miss your presence.

Yes,
I would love to hear your song.

[softly edited, Sept. 5 - still a little worried about that middle part]

What do you think?

I might make an audio version of this and include it.

How can the point come across in the visual medium?

*Sigh. *

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Posted in art, Beyond Belief, poetry, psychology, writing | 5 Comments »

The Rack of Lamb

October 11th, 2010   by   Andrew

I wrote this maybe more than ten years ago and never really finished it. There were some problems with the rhythm. It’s very tempting to just call it a song and be done with it. Music has all these wonderful, creative cheats built into it like ghost notes and pick-up notes and triplets, so you can pretty much make anything work in some way, shape or form.

It’s very much a male story, and I was going for a juvenile male voice. In many ways now I look at the Jewish-Christian-Muslim tradition as a long narrative of men trying to figure out or justify their place in society. I thought it might be a good contrast to my work with Bruce Sanguin, since he makes the call for Sophia, Lady Wisdom, to take a place of high importance in his own Christianity.

My dad used this once in a sermon for an illustration. I probably should have gone to hear what he had to say. Typical son, not listening to Father when he should…

The Rack of Lamb

by Andrew Gilchrist, 1999-ish, edited 2010

Barabbas was our ram
But even he was not enough
We had to have the lamb
Only that would be enough

Even Adam lost a son
To a sacrifice and sin
Cain said now I’m the only one
What suffering did I win

God came and put his mark
Sacrifice the face of Cain
All could see who did this work
And who suffered the pain

Abraham went up the hill
With Isaac and tears in tow
Committed to this mighty will
Abe, how were you to know

Abe was willing to sacrifice
And Isaac would have to suffer then
But it was said that ram will suffice
And they’d try not to sin again

Go and suffer if you please
With pride sacrifice your son
For country, god, highest duty
I’m sure salvation will be won

Barabbas was our ram
But our suffering so grim
That we had to have the lamb
A sacrifice for giving him

Only seeing sacrifice
Won’t end the suffering then
How could I think it would suffice
When I want to sin again

If I expect the son from father
But only sacrifice will I make
Then I’ll be damned and I’ll suffer
As much as I can take

Sacrifice, we think, we need
And so we look the other way
Suffering, the victims plead
I smile, it wasn’t me today

And so I suffer joyfully
And savour this roast of lamb
The meat is tender, truthfully
I’ve never tasted ram

If I am only but a child
Then that is how I’ll act
Father make me hungry while
We put more lamb on the rack

So, what do you think?


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Horizontal Transcendence

September 19th, 2010   by   Andrew

At the end of my last post I mentioned horizontal transcendence. In my attempts to better understand this phrase I have found two things I want to highlight.

One is an interview with biologist Ursula Goodenough, in which she discusses her views of spirituality, her meeting with the Dalai Lama, and her views on where theists, pantheists and non-theists can all come together.

The interview can be found here. She does not discuss horizontal transcendence in word so much, but the interview is a good primer all the same.  (The phrase itself seems to be earlier tied to Luce Irigaray, though I can confidently say very little about her at this point. Hence my focus on Goodenough, for now.)

The other is the poem by Robert Charles Howard below. He hails from Belleville, IL. Now, I only mention this because I live about 5 minutes outside Belleville, ON. I don’t know if it is a small world, but it can be a fun, connected world all the same. And I think it’s important that as many eyes see and read this as possible.


Horizontal Transcendence

by Robert Charles Howard
for Dr. Ursula Goodenough

To better view the fairest stars of
Genesis, Keats or Kepler,
learned priests and lectors
of vertical transcendence
built towers over clouds
beyond the touch of worldly toil.

Standing below in soiled boots,
newer prophets citing
the universal brotherhood of
mitosis, chromosomes and DNA
urge a new transcendence
spread on a horizontal plane
where bridges are preferred to ladders.

Muffled distant drums,
beating somber warnings
of poisoned waters and global heat,
summon us down
from our lofty towers of denial.

Murmuring rhythms of forests and streams
and all species of flora and fauna
line out the same life beats
as the engines in our chests.
The God without is the God within -
nested in our nuclei.

With global death within the grasp
of our reckless finger tips,
and bullet fever
infesting our earthly villages,
are we ready yet
to yield a measure of our trust
to the healing power
of horizontal transcendence?

May, 2007



What do you think?

Is there a place for horizontal transcendence in your spirituality?


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Posted in Beyond Belief, ethics, poetry | 5 Comments »

Returning to Leonard Cohen

May 14th, 2010   by   Andrew

Last night I was eating my rice and salmon and flipping through channels when I stumbled upon Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen. It is a kind of documentary/interview with the man in the grand ol’ time of the mid-60s. (45 minutes of black and white! And not just for effect!)

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It’s funny, you know, but we used to stumble upon stuff all the time, but now when we do it there is an official sanctioning in place because of interwebbing. We used to dig things, if you dig, but again that’s the old form, daddy-o. Today, we digg.

I’m just saying that we haven’t changed the meaning so much. We are just starting to change the ritual.

Anyway, I was really happy to get this little reminder from the old tech tv (does it even get capitalized anymore?) because I didn’t really know what to do for Friday’s post. That’s how I remembered  Leonard is always there for me.

Some time ago I posted Curing, a mash-up of some my ideas over a Cohen song. Today I present for your view and commentary, another mash-up. And as I asked before, what song do you figure this is inspired by?

Crossing

By Andrew Gilchrist, with cred to Cohen

And you want to travel with him
you want to travel blind
and you think maybe you’ll trust him
For he’s touched your perfect body
with his mind
-  Leonard Cohen

I was born like this, I had no choice.
- Leonard Cohen

I hear you now, a strong voice from the tower,
I sit in the alley, patient head bowed lower.
Desperation, longing, I want to understand,
The practice is over and you excuse the band.

Says one man from his lonely tall tower,
You see a drowning man but I can see a sailor.
But down the track there stands another tower,
Where a woman and a memory can make of you a singer.

The angels tied you down to a table you say,
Or was it at the crossroads of a Holy Roman Causeway?
You see there is something I feel I need to know:
How do you speak so sweetly from your window?

That Sistine sailing ship called Bounty, State or Splendour,
Has saved a man or two from the drowning water.
This Sistine oil tanker with righteousness in tow,
Stains like a bug smeared on the reflection of a window.

Tower of the Broken G-d and Tower of Song,
What did you get from suffering so long?
I guess you already know, anyone could have told you,
It can get pretty lonely if you’ve got that kind of view.

She is still, she is longing, holding up that mirror,
Telling you it’s taller than any vaulted tower,
You can see the bridges burning deep in the reflection,
And the poor keep selling off the license to their station.

Can you build a bridge that makes a cross over the water,
High enough to let pass any sailing ship or tanker?
Could anyone direct such a traffic jam from above,
The water and the mirror, the causeway and the tower?
Did you see this coming like lovers too close together?
Can you see the crossroads being built by love?

Then you ached and your hair turned grey.
Have you travelled too long on your Holy Roman Causeway?
You see there is something I feel I need to know:
Is this why your voice sounds so sweet from your window?

This Sistine sailing ship can glorify the water,
That Sistine oil tanker can make a mess of the mirror.
On reflection that bridge better be built on something strong,
To hold the traffic of a causeway and a mighty tower of song.

Sail on, sail on, sail on…
- Leonard Cohen

When you’ve fallen on the highway
and you’re lying in the rain,
and they ask you how you’re feeling
of course you say you can’t complain-
- Leonard Cohen

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All blessings! Have a good weekend!

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Posted in Beyond Belief, music, poetry, Religion, writing | Comments Off

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