I think it's time to get serious about the role God plays in human affairs, and evaluate whether it's appropriate to let everyone in on the bad news: God doesn't exist, never did, and the closest thing we'll ever see to God will emerge from our own collective efforts at making meaning.
Maybe I'm just getting old, but I no longer see the real value in being tolerant of other people's beliefs. Sure, when beliefs are relegated to the realm of pure entertainment, they pose no real danger. So, a kid believes U2 is really a supergroup on par with The Beatles or The Who. That's *his* problem, and it doesn't really do a lot of harm to anyone except those of us who still stop by MTV occasionally to see what might be playing.
When religions are practiced, as they are by a majority of those in developed nations, today, as a kind of nostalgic little ritual - a community event or an excuse to get together and not work - it doesn't really screw anything up too badly. But when they radically alter our ability to contend with reality, cope with difference, or implement the most basic ethical provisions, they must be stopped.
Like any other public health crisis, the belief in religion must now be treated as a sickness. It is an epidemic, paralyzing our nation's ability to behave in a rational way, and - given our weapons capabilities - posing an increasingly grave threat to the rest of the world.
He just goes on from there. He doesn't really make a well-reasoned argument, which led me to the realization that many, if not most, atheists are actually quilty of the mythic thinking they condemn in religious believers. It's an all-or-nothing way of looking at the world, and anyone who disagrees is just wrong. That is not rational thinking. It's as Blue as any other authoritarian worldview.
This is the response that I left in the comments section:
Doug,
Atheism is a belief no more verifiable than the belief in God. All such beliefs, including scientism (Sam Harris is the best example here) belong to the same developmental level of human consciousness.
You see, humans (and the cultures they create) move through developmental stages (think Piaget, Kohlberg, Gilligan, Erikson, and so on). With each of these developmental levels comes certain values and beliefs. The belief in one true God, one holy book, one way of understanding the world -- with the assertion that all other ways are just plain wrong -- is indicative of the "mythic order" level of development. It is defined by black and white thinking, a need for absolute truths, and rigid rules and laws.
This level includes all the major religions in the world in their fundamentalist versions, as well communism, atheism, and scientism. No matter which "religion" you hold to be true, all others are wrong. The funny thing about this level, like all levels, is that it can't be skipped. We move through a developmenal hierarchy and we must pass through each stage in succession. It just happens that we are living through a period in human history where we are struggling with the transition from mythic thinking to rational thinking.
Atheism is not rational. Agnosticism is the next step for an atheist because the existence of God cannot be rationally proven or disproven. Rational thinking requires an open mind.
For Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and so on, the next stage doesn't require the abandonment of their religion, only that they understand that science and religion are separate domains (the great gift of the Enlightenment) and that God and evolution are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Many people are already at this stage (scientific-rational), it's just that those who aren't are fighting so hard against the transition they see happening all around them.
You cannot eradicate mythic religion. And even if you could, many people would regress to the egocentric/exploitive stage that comes before it. We need religion to act as a container for the egoic power quest of the previous stage (witness the tribal warfare in Iraq or in many African nations). Organized religion, with its guilt-based system of rewards and punishments, is one of the few ways to tame the power hungry ego.
It's fine to be annoyed, but take a big picture view, Doug. Don't be as narrow-minded as the fundamentalists you deride.
Peace.
[UPDATE]
Here is Douglas Rushkoff's response to my comments:
Peace to you, WH. And that's a well thought-out response (I've checked out your blog, as well). But I don't feel that I'm espousing atheism, here. Certainly something closer to the Brights than Evangelicals, but a decidedly spiritual outlook, nonetheless. Just one that doesn't flip religions on their heads, utilizing them as passivity traps instead of doorways.
In this sense, as a Jew, I'm not abandoning Judaism at all, but rebooting it or, at the worst, continuing its tradition of innovation.
And I hear you, 'nobody,' when you say that faith can be so deep it's a "no matter what" that's felt to be so deep inside it is unchangeable. Still, I wonder: for beings who are alive, that might not be the best thing have in there. For Buddhists, such a "no matter what" would have to be the first thing to go...
rushkoff • 05/01/06 05:50pm
And this is my reply to Rushkoff:
Douglas,
Thanks for the reply. As a Buddhist, I know how religion can have different manifestations at each successive level of development. Based on a comment from you that I missed earlier, I think you tend to agree.
You said: "I think both the institution described by the word "religion" and the emergent order known as "God" have been corrupted and usurped by those who mean to impose ignorance and passivity on their followers."
Much of organized religion as it currently exists is a diseased variation of the mythic order meme. But not all of it. There are very progressive lines in all of the world's religions. Rather than seeing religion as an illness, we should seek to support the healthy manifestations of the associated meme.
God is indeed an emergent order. All of the world's great mystics have found that God is not a thing but an experience, a state of nonduality. Makes no difference which faith, at the ultimate level the "truth" looks the same.
This is a verifiable experiment that anyone can undertake. The world's religions provide a set of injunctions, we can pick one and follow its path. Either we will verify the findings of those who have attempted the same experiement or not.
We need not assert that God does not exist, but rather that how we currently define God no longer serves humanity's best interests.
Even if we can do this, we cannot eliminate organized mythic religion. We can try to make the religion meme more healthy (less fundamentalist), but we need that meme to have a healthy Spiral of human development (see any of the Spiral Dynamics links on my sidebar for more on this).
Peace.
Technorati Tags: Douglas Rushkoff, Atheism, Religion, Developmental levels, Mythic thinking, Rational thinking, Authoritarian, Egocentric, God
Del.Icio.Us Tags: Douglas Rushkoff, Atheism, Religion, Developmental levels, Mythic thinking, Rational thinking, Authoritarian, Egocentric, God
9 comments:
Hi,
followed you here from Doug's blog.
You ever find that spiral dynamics is this kind of "once you see it, you can't unsee it" thing, like a cheesy cult pamphlet on a bus seat that just happens to explain everything, that gives you this patronising "trapped on a playground" feeling? The first thing that leapt to mind when I read Doug's post was "oh, it's a yellow/orange deconstruction of blue: first tier food fight, no voices heard, must use humour to defuse tension ..."
But doesn't Doug's objecting to blue on rational grounds make him Orange? And doesn't his viral media-tinkering make him yellow (he invented the media-virus meme: surely that's credit for yellow-meme status, at least)? And doesn't your tendency to quote Wilber 'n' friends make you blue (ish)?
I dunno ... spiral dynamics is great, but seems kind of alienating/patronising: once you get it into your head that someone's responses are characterisable by these prefab systems, people's actions seem less meaningful and more "symptomatic".
Anyway ... I liked your posts at Doug's blog, and wondered what you'd say to some SD questions. Peace out.
I mistakenly assumed Doug was an atheist based on his original post -- his later comments cleared that up -- so I thought he was working from a Blue meme in his worldview. His attack on religion was partly Orange, but it had the tone of a Blue authoritarianism. Having read Doug's stuff since the early 90's, I know he is capable of higher level thinking.
I don't know if his discovery of the media virus meme marks him as yellow -- and I think Marshall McLuhan discovered the media virus (the term meme wasn't invented until the 1970's) quite some time before (1964) Doug began writing about it. Others were working with the same idea in the 80's and early 90's, including Beck & Cowan.
I don't mean to use SD in a reductionist way. I differ from Wilber (who sees SD as only a values line within his integral system) and from Beck (who doesn't recognize developmental lines) in that I feel there are distinct developmental lines running through the Integral Spiral so that a person may be all over the place on the various (Wilber says about 24) developmental lines, yet have a center of gravity within a two or three meme range.
I find that it provides a framework for discussion, but I recognize that one must never confuse the map with the territory.
Does citing Wilber & Beck make me Blue-ish? I don't think so. I certainly am not Yellow, though I think I can conceptualize in the Yellow/Turquoise range. I am not a "blind follower" of the Great Wilber as some might be (though I have been in the past). I use some Wilber ideas, some Beck ideas, some Jung ideas, some Gebser ideas, some Kegan ideas, and on and on. I attempt to integrate what feels most useful from the sources I've read -- as best as I can.
Thanks for coming over to my blog to discuss this further.
Peace,
Bill
*I mistakenly assumed Doug was an atheist based on his original post
Yeah, that clears it up: I just thought your post was kind of dry and "quotey", but guess you were just spreading the word. Was also wondering if you found SD (and similar ideas) annoyingly far removed from consensus reality, but admit they do seem pretty solid.
*I think Marshall McLuhan discovered the media virus
Really? The idea of a catchy meme that lodges in the mind and carries other, hidden agendas that seep in without the host's knowledge? I thought McLuhan laid the groundwork, but that the specific "virus" idea was Rushkoff's main contribution.
Anyway,
Have a good one,
RL
RL,
I think McLuhan first talked about how media can have virus like qualities, without using those terms.
The concept of ideas as viral memes is from Richard Dawkins, who created the word meme in The Selfish Gene. He was riffing on the way genes carry covert info and have built in "virus protections," a feature he also attributed to memes.
I think Rushkoff innovated a combination of the two seed ideas.
The SD/Integral language can be dry, but the application can be exciting and revelatory. The more I study both, the more expansive becomes my understanding, especially when combined with the heart-centered practice of Buddhism.
Peace,
Bill
Bill,
I genuinely appreciate your point of view and especially your comment that science and religion are in separate domains. I agree with that wholeheartedly and feel that far too often people make the mistake of trying to replace religion with science when the two answer completely different questions.
I have yet to read a lot of Ken Wilbur (which I think is where the developmental colors you u sed come from), but I did read "The Marriage of Sense and Soul" which really explained things pretty well for me.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
Bill, I'm not convinced that an atheist is likely to be coming from the same developmental level as is a fundamentalist monotheist. For while both the atheist and fundamentalist Christian or Muslim may champion absolutist beliefs about a particular concept of God, it seems to me that the theist is likely to be doing it from slavish adherence to a bluish mythical structure, whereas the atheist is likely to be working from a rational examination and rejection of these myths and of the teachings stemming from them. That is, if the fundamentalist monotheist is more likely to be at the blue level, it seems to me that the atheist is more likely to be at orange or higher.
Namaste,
Steve
Just got over to your new blog and enjoyed your discourse on thiesism and athiesism and, of course the rather interesting discourses of your commenters.
BTW, it sounds like you're not angry anymore.
MJS: The colors I used come from Spiral Dynamics by Beck & Cowan. Wilber used their system for a while, but has since devised his own color system (see "What Is Integral Spirituality?" on the sidebar).
Steve: I'm not sure that all atheists are Blue, but I'm beginning to think most are. I think that atheism, like theism, can be a Blue variation of authoritarianism.
Don Beck has argued that not all Blue constructs are theistic. He gave communism as an example. I think atheism and scientism can also be classed as Blue systems in that they are pre-rational, authoritarian, and order driven.
Rational Orange does not demand clear answers -- it is comfortable with some ambiguity. It is also willing to entertain "we don't know" as an answer and then continue to seek more information. Atheism and scientism do not share these values.
I could be wrong, of course, and I am willing to be persuaded that I am. But when I read the comments on Doug's blog, what struck me the most was that most of the professed atheists sounded as pre-rational as the theists they deride.
Porchwise: Welcome to IOC. Giving up Raven's View was the best decision I have made in quite some time. Hope you'll come back often. Your flash fiction is good. Do you publish?
Peace to you all,
Bill
Bill, I guess I just don't see why you consider most atheists as "pre-rational." It seems to me that they are often dismissing particular, fundamentalistic versions of theism on very rational grounds. But then, maybe I'm not acquainted with the same atheists you are. :-) Of course, one could say that most atheists are thinking of a narrow conception of God when they categorically insist that God does not exist, and one could, I suppose, argue that there is something not entirely rational or, at least well-informed in seeing God this way. But it still seems to me that their rejection of the theism that they reject is generally much more rational than is the fundamentalistic theism that they reject.
Namaste,
Steve
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