thread: 2005-08-09 : The New Open House 2: Religion
On 2005-09-26, Iskander wrote:
Neither of my parents is particularly religious, although I was christened in the Church of England, and for ten years at boarding school I attended Anglican (~Episcopalian) services daily. I love giving King James bible readings, OT or NT, although anything with a jawbone of an ass or someone pissing against the wall naturally gets bonus points; Jericho, too. I found some sense of peace in evensong services and considered confirmation in the Anglican church, but realised that, when it came down to it, I simply did not believe in God, and backed out.
I travelled for a while, and had my first real encounter with Buddhism in Thailand where I lived briefly, teaching English. Nowadays, if asked, I will usually say that I'm Buddhist, but that's not strictly true either: Buddhist values come closest to the external expression of my view of the universe, so it's the most convenient handle when I'm not at leisure to talk about faith in full, and I've used it often in the fifteen or so years since then.
Three years ago I yearned for some understanding of what I was doing with my life, and its apparent purposelessness. By chance, I read an article (in Time Out, NY of all places) about
, and the ten day introductory course. The challenge of going ten days without communicating or reading, and spending most of the waking day in meditation was deeply frightening, but I reasoned that I would learn something about myself, even if it was only that I was incapable of going ten days without reading. The course is, in essence non-sectarian: there were muslims, hindus, catholics, christians, Buddhists, atheists, spiritualists... a very wide variety of faiths represented. The techniques taught are described as being the techniques that the Buddha taught, carefully preserved for centuries in Burma. The experience was wonderful, and indeed revealed a lot to me. While giving me great tools to find peace in myself, the teaching reaffirmed and helped crystallize how I view the world. Again, I found that I simply could not give credence to the supernatural aspects of the faith; it just doesn't fit in my head, and no matter how hard I try, I can't honestly say I believe in anything supernatural.
In fact, I find I believe positively in nothing, and that:
- De facto, life is utterly and absolutely meaningless.
- There is no God, gods, spirits, architect, motive force, ghost, afterlife, gaia, Nature, earth mother, sprite, pixie, soul, or anything except the cold hard material, the void, and the weirdness of the physical universe, which is mostly explicable, and science tells us where it is not.
- When we die, we are as dust. No more.
- Humans are sentient meat.
For some time, this filled me with despair and ennui. After all, if life is meaningless, why bother? Suicide is as valid a choice as murder or not-suicide. I then realised that choice itself was key for me, as the hallmark of sentience. We have the capacity (possibly unique on this planet, but probably not) to choose how we act. Given that choice, it behooves us as sentients to act morally and ethically; for me there is no alternative. What those morals and ethics are for an individual cannot be proscribed, but as a self-aware society, we can consensually agree on some fundamentals, but probably not that many. Here are some of mine:
- Don't harm other people deliberately, especially don't kill them. This covers stealing, too.
- Don't add to the misery of the world.
- Be nice to people, it can make your and their lives better.
- Look out for the defenceless and weak. Help where you can.
- If you disagree with something, say so. Demonstrate if necessary.
- Look after the world around you or face the consequences of inimical parasitism; notice that ecosystems route around damage, too.
- Respect knowledge, try to increase it.
- Have fun. If you're not having fun, you're wasting your life. Try to maximise the fun you have by sharing it with like-minded people. (Deferring fun now for more fun later is a reasonable choice, but can suck, as I know from bitter, bitter experience).
- Be mindful.
The key to life, for me, is choosing to live it, and to live well. Our sentient choice gives our universe the only meaning it needs. The bleak truth of the absolute void is only bearable if we choose to live, and choose to live morally.
