Gnosis

One of the things upon which my liberal brethren and I often stand apart is the issue of religion. From my days as a myopically conservative Jesus freak to my militant agnosticism to my flirtations with Islam and Sikhism that continue even as we speak, my spirituality has always remained the most easily-debatable aspect of my rampant contrarianism. My refusal to accept religious fundametalism has kept me from completely espousing any religion wholeheartedly; however, just as my lack of faith in “god” (or at least its followers) obstructs me from religion, my lack of faith in my fellow humans obstructs me from the kind of aggresive atheism many of my fellow liberals cling to with the kind of militancy they criticize the religious for employing.

A thing I probably ought to have expected (yet didn’t) as par of my aging process has been the ease with which I now respect and understand religion. When I ran from Christianity and the monstrosity it became, I mistakenly (and, perhaps, youthfully) assumed I’d never find a space in time in which I could find it or people who espouse it acceptable. I’ve had the good fortune of being able to engage Christians, conservative, dogmatic Christians whom non-Christians (including myself) are quick to stigmatize as “intolerant,” who not only have eschewed the kind of proselytization that gives all religion a bad name, but also expressed the kind of universal acceptance, tolerance, and love I’ve always associated with Christ regardless of whether or not I considered myself one of his followers. These “true” Christians join a long list of likewise-tolerant-yet-still-enthusiastic Muslims, Jews, and otherwise-religious folk I know whose spiritual journeys have been profound, interesting, and—most importantly—entirely personal.

On the other hand, The population in which I’m finding an increasing amount of obstinate intolerance is the supposedly “enlightened,” liberal non-religious folk, a matter made all the more tragic because these are the people who, in the interest of maintaining open-mindedness and inclusivity, have effectively sealed their own minds in a cycle of myopic, self-important exclusiveness. I’ve long distrusted atheism for the same reason most atheiss profess to distrust religion: I hate it when anyone professes to “know” anything. Atheists and agnostics who throw their lot behind science often purport to do so because they can’t see any “proof” of the existence of divinity; while that alone isn’t illogical, they often take it one step further by using their logic to explain things religious people take as a matter of faith in a condescending, dismissive tone not unlike religious proselytizers.

I can take the explanations, and the persistent need of these science-supremacists to supposedly debunk the “myths” of religion, were they not so smugly assured of their own correctness that they completely overlook the very nature of science—that it is, once you strip away all the canonized, self-congratulatory academic bullshit, simply another desperate attempt by humans to feel as if they are in control of their own destiny.

Even that would be tolerable, were these people willing to factor into account the subjective nature of all forms of classfication. All quantification is intrinsically biased in favor of those capable of perceiving it in the first place, and even the unassailable things upon which we as humans can reach a general concensus are still defined according to our own limitations as a species. It’s a lingering testament to the hilarity of existence that, by developing the capacity to articulate and quantify perception in order to transcend previous notions of reality, humanity effectively confines itself to one reality. And yes, I recognize that saying that in first place exemplifies that statment, but therein lies my point: regardless of who’s doing the explaining, the vast majority of people on this planet are so desperately in need of an ideological paradigm shared by others that they invariably buy into the very thing that limits us.

I think all of that is the reason why I find myself increasingly respecting and appreciating religious people. Those who subsist on faith without the need for empirical data are at least upfront about their need to exist within a given philosophical paradigm, and don’t feign impartiality while being just as full-of-shit as anyone else. Moreover, the ambiguous/lazy/malleable nature of religion means it and science aren’t mutually exclusive. One of my favorite things to do to piss off science supremacists is to point out that rigid adherence to scientific dogma is, in essence, espousing religion; watching them scramble to come up with various and sundry equations and theories declaring secular science to be impartial and unreligious is akin to watching a conservative white person try to prove they aren’t racist. It’s a lot easier to find a person who espouses a faith that also understands and respects the information science is able to tell us about our world than it is to find an atheist who is willing to admit that everything we as humans supposedly “know” could be bullshit.

And that’s where most atheists completely lose me: pretense of objectivity aside, their unwavering faith in humanity’s ability to know and understand the very nature of reality is as myopic and misguided as people that think stem cell research and abortion are sins or that forty virgins will be given to you if you crash an airplane into a building. The really tragic and fucked-up part about it all is that all this needlessly complicated bullshit stems from the same thought every human being has at some point in time, that moment of panic once articulated by the late Admiral James Bond Stockdale: “Who am I? Why am I here?”

Anyway, this is just a thought that burrowed into my brain, which I typed out on my phone in idle moments; really, I don’t know shit.