I wonder if anyone will read this, considering its been so long since I posted, but here goes anyway.
A conversation with a friend over the weekend threw up a few points I found myself disagreeing on with her completely. I'd like to discuss here three of her main theses. The first point she made was this - there is nothing absolute in this world, and one can never be 100% sure of anything at all. Therefore there is nothing that can be considered objective truth, as everything involves taking leaps of faith, however tiny. This, she contended, included rationality, logic and such, commonly considered beyond subjective opinion.
Assuming the above point is true, this leads us to her second contention - that as there is no way to prove, beyond doubt, the existence of an absolute reality, there is no basis for suggesting that one person's beliefs about the nature of reality are any more correct than another's.
The third and final claim was this - to truly accept and love another person, we necessarily need to accept all their beliefs to be true. Putting the above three statements together, we come to the particular argument she made - given the multiplicity (and seemingly glaring contradictions) of religious faiths in the world today, the only way to really reconcile them and accept everyone without question was to accept that each of those claims about the nature of reality is actually true. In particular, she believed that attempts to unify religions by claiming they come from a common source, but attributing their apparent contradictions to historical corruptions/misinterpretations (as claimed, for example, by the Baha'i faith), were both hypocritical and unfair to those holding these beliefs, and just a convenient gesture to find some minimum common ground.
Phew, that took me a while to write - and its probably still not clear. Anyway, lets go ahead and dissect each of the above claims, and maybe things will get less murky and confusing as we go along.
Lets tackle the first claim - that of the inherent subjectivity in theorizing about the world. In general I think skeptical arguments about the nature of reality - such as the one she presented - are impossible to refute due to their very nature. While, in the strictest sense, one can be absolutely sure of nothing, for all practical purposes, one can be sure of many things. There is, for example, some finite probability that at this very moment, all the atoms in my body will suddenly, due to their quantum uncertainty, rearrange themselves into an elephant - but that probability is so infinitesimally small that I can basically assume it to be zero. I could wake up tomorrow to find the world completely changed, and realize that the last 25 years of my life were actually a dream - but the possibility is so remote that I can basically ignore it. The earth might not be revolving around the sun - but given the wealth of data and analysis that show it is, the chances are very remote that it isn't. I could give many other examples - but the point I'm really trying to make here is that based on our experiences (both personal and communal), there are a lot of things that can basically, for all practical purposes, be assumed to be absolutely true.
Taken to the extreme, her argument really degenerates into solipsism - the belief that one can be sure of nothing except one's own thoughts, and the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist. As I said earlier, such theories are of course impossible to disprove - but the critiques of such a viewpoint would fill a book, so let me not even get into it. One thing you can muse about, though, is whether you can ever convince someone about solipsism - for that would involve convincing them either that they are a figment of your imagination and aren't real, or that you are a figment of their imagination (which of course, you yourself don't believe!). If you go down that line for a while, you'll come up with all sorts of interesting philosophical contradictions.
Getting back to the point, apart from just the surety one can have in certain things based on probability, there are also certain realms that I do believe to be beyond subjective opinion, such as rationality, logic, mathematics etc. Of course, there is no way to prove this from first principles - but I must admit that it does seem obvious to me that 2+2 equals 4 whether or not I believe it is. It seems obvious that if A=B, and B=C, then A must equal C - irrespective of my subjective opinion. And therefore I believe there is an absolute nature to these realms that goes beyond just human comprehension. It is true that we are limited by our subjectivity - but I don't see why that should necessarily mean that reality cannot be absolute. Our subjectivity would only mean that we have a limited access to reality - not that reality itself is subjective.
I think one can also avoid the trap of solipsistic views of the world by not undervaluing some of these:
1. Human experience: I think there is great value in human experience that is often neglected. True, our perceptions are limited and can sometimes be fooled - nevertheless, rejecting all the sensory input we get from the world as flawed and possibly all wrong is taking things a bit too far. Much of what we see, hear and sense in the material world can be taken at face value.
2. Occam's razor: Very often the simplest theory that fits the data is the right theory. If I see what looks like an elephant, it probably is an elephant. So why come up with an elaborate theory that rejects all the observations I make about the world?
3. Rationality: Humans have access to rational thinking and reasoning which I also believe to be quite valuable. Something that seems to inherently be irrational/illogical is probably irrational/illogical and untrue.
To conclude this section, I do believe there are things we can say absolutely about the world around us, based on rational thinking and unbiased observation of the world around us. These, in the strictest sense, might be challenged, but only with a viewpoint that borders on solipsism.
Now let's take the second claim - that there is no way we can say one person's views of reality are any more right than another's. Now based on our rejection of the first claim, we can go ahead and challenge this one as well. As there are things we can say absolutely about the world, we can most certainly reject at least certain kinds of beliefs about reality with almost complete certainty. This is also confirmed by our own experiences - most things that we sense in the world have an essential nature to them - and we can usually say what they are, and what they aren't. I know that this is a computer, and not an elephant. And so I can attach a definite truth value to the statement "This is a computer". And consequently I can reject as at least partially false, a theory of reality that says that this is actually an elephant. Note that when I talk of computers and elephants, I'm talking not of the words, but the concepts - I could create a language where elephants were called computers and computers elephants, but they would conceptually still be what we think of today.
When considering theories of reality, we also have access to other criteria of judgment - ethics, for one. A claim about reality that allows for rampant killing of other humans is clearly false. Fundamentalist terrorist claims about the will of God are clearly false. And so I think there are enough examples of situations where one can reject certain views of reality as false on the basis of common sense, reason, morality and observing the world.
Finally moving to the third claim - that to truly accept someone you need to accept as true all their beliefs - this, just based on our own experiences, seems false. After all, do we ever agree completely with anyone? And yet we love our families, our friends, we accept them for who they are, and agree to disagree with them, right? So there is no reason to believe that this could not be extended to everyone in the world. You can of course disagree with people and still accept them for who they are, as part of the same reality that is yours - and there really is no contradiction/hypocrisy in that.
So now, what can we say about different religious claims about reality? If we were to take all these claims as they are made today, there appear to be blatant contradictions amongst them. Now what are the different possible cases that could exist?
1. None of them are true
2. All of them are true, as they are today
3. Only one(some) of them is(are) true
4. All of them have some grain of truth to them, but a lot of what they say is junk too
I think that is the complete set of possibilities. Lets examine these separately.
1. None of them are true - the Atheist stance: I think there are enough reasons why I believe this position to be false, a lot of which can be found in previous posts. Of course, one cannot prove this with certainty (for if one could, why would there be atheists in the first place?!).
2. All of them are true as they are today - the Relativist stance: All these contradictory theories being true at the same time seems to defy logic. If the fundamentlist Christian stance is right, all non-Christians should go to hell. If the fundamentalist Muslim stance is right, all non-Muslims should go to hell. And therefore the Christian should go to hell because he is non-Muslim, and the Muslim should go to hell because he is non-Christian. Makes no sense, right?! So the only way out here is to say that all theories are true because each person has his own reality, that exists independent of others'. Therefore to the Christian, his belief is his reality.
This approach at least prevents imposition of one's theories on others - each of us just lives our own separate realities, and there is no one common reality. But this still has numerous problems. What of someone, for example, who converts from Christianity to Islam - does his reality suddenly change to match that of another Muslim? And what about historical facts - at one point, there was just one Church, and so all Christians had similar realities. Then the Protestants and Catholics split - and now we have numerous denominations, each with minor variations on the Christian theme - so now do they all have their own realities? And when do you develop a reality - when you are born into a family espousing a particular religion, or when you become old enough to develop a set of beliefs? And if the former, what of families where parents believe in different things?
I could go on, but I think the point is made.
3. Only one of them is true - the Fundamentalist stance: Just one or some of the religious stances could be true - but such a reality would be so unfair, wouldn't it? Let's assume, for example, that only Christianity is true - what then, of all those people who lived and died before Christ ever came on earth? And even after he did, what of all those people who never even heard of him as there was no global communication network? Shouldn't absolute truth (assuming there is one) be accessible to everyone at all times and places?
4. All of them have some grain of truth to them - the Baha'i stance: This, really, is the only one that seems to make sense to me. And it fits the data available too - it seems reasonable that at all points in time there were Prophets who came down with the word of God to give humans access to knowledge and truth. It also seems reasonable to believe that over time these truths get eroded, as we are all imperfect beings, and prone to selfishness and carelessness. And therefore it seems reasonable that this truth needs to constantly be renewed and reinforced. Additionally, as we evolve, it also makes sense that things that made sense at some point in humanity's evolution no longer make sense.
The final stance, therefore, makes sense to me logically - and I hardly see it as trying to create some convenient common minimum ground. It is not that a group of people came together to decide that for the sake of unity, they would try to come up with a set of teachings that were common to all religions - rather, an individual who claimed to be a Prophet came and gave a set of teachings for today - and then went on to show how the essence of those teachings was actually available in every religion.
If you actually got to this point, and understood everything I said, you must be both incredibly patient, and a genius.
Of course, all this could be an illusion, and reality and truth could be something totally different.
But do you really believe that???
God Hates Figs
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3 comments:
I think you are pretty well thought out. I can add some dimensions/refinements to your analysis.
First consider that what is know of thing can be:
a)What the accepted source of the thing says
b)What others say about the source
c)The establishment's view of what the source.
With respect to religion
a) means reading the books themselves, minding they were translated but with a good-faith presumption that people who care about the words would not change them, however they interpret the meaning of the words.
b) means talking to people, reading commentaries
c) means talking to the "right" people - the experts, the authorities.
But comparing a/b/c can lead to a confusing mish mash of issues. How do you decide which to beleive. But there is a way to some clarity. First is to note that what people say of the source is to be entirely distinguished from the source. This is most easily seen with the case of violent terrorists who claim to be following a religion. No religion orthodoxy accepts such associations and the vast majority of the believers also reject them. Next it is important to note that religion has a distinguished place for faith - personal faith - what *you* believe matters and not just to you. So you need to pick carefully.
The pattern of history of religion is then available to illumine the issue. But to do so requires reading those sources. Here's the suggestion (borrowed from the Book of Certitude - rather the topic - eh? Certitude?) There's a pattern to the early phase of each of the lives of the prophets - not that every single thing repeats but the challenges often repeat even if the answers vary. And this is as true in Judeo-Christian-Islam as it is in Hindu-Buddhism (mix Zoroastrianism in there anywhere.)
A prophet is promised, a prophet is raised up and by circumstances is opposed by the political and religious systems of the day - because there is something wrong about the political and religious systems of the day. There are many attacks on the person and character of this prophet. Often the prophet dies at the hands of the system in which they live but not 'till after they have attracted individuals so impressed by the teachings and example of the prophet that they are wiling to live lives somewhat as outcasts suffering some of the same privations and character assassinations. But they also have a new challenge - to deal with eachother well even after the prophet has died whether "untimely" or not. Think of this pattern as another social paradigm, another path, of the requirements of humanity - like the path of the Hero analyzed in a couple of fairly well known folks. Some think the situation of the prophet - since religions often preach peace and love - aught to be ones of harmony and joy when in fact they are harrowing and painful. But why are they so hard? I think the answer is clear. And for the general public of the day it takes hundreds of years for the new religion to be vindicated and seriously begin to affect the social norms of the day - indeed the making of a new day!
Now it's easy to stop the story there - and many important themes covered and enough to get the ball rolling I think.
But the pattern continues and I think there's something important about that too - it's too easy these days to become just cynical of orthodoxy and "the system". We live on the hind end of 1000 years of the dominant expression of Christianity - vastly different from it's first thousand years. We also live on the hind end of well publicized failures of politicians.
But each of the religions went through a period of flowering - when arts and education and sciences and the ending of mutual hatreds and wars and so on. When the system is hard pressed, not to be the problem but to hatch solution after solution to numerous wrongs that take time to work out. When accomplishments mount upon mountains of accomplishments and a civilization gains envy from neighboring regions and then they are emulated.
Only in successive centuries do things become stuck and needing to become unstuck. 'Course now we're aware of the pattern. Are we fated to repeat it despite our growing awareness? That is part of the new challenge....
also in the investigation of what is knowable/known consider some examples...
Consider the world through diverse senses and scientific alternatives. What would your daily life seem like if your primary perception was sonar - or through nutrinoes. And yet ultimately they have to resolve to the same world, the same life.
Now go a more radical step and examine what is knowable/known if you work with dimensions - read things like "Flatland" where the case is viewed a step down in dimensions. Then just try to extend the example to more dimensions. Now there's room for thought!
(sorry about the deleted comment - hit publish and waited and it didn't come back so I hit publish again.... what is knowable about comments - and then trying to fix the mistakes....?) :-)
Smk - thanks for your detailed commentary. What you say is totally true. Some of the commonalities are, as you talked about, quite striking - especially if you consider the fact that different schools of thought started at different times in history and different places completely independently. And of course one can clearly see much commonality even in teachings - emphasis on morals, values such as prayer, discipline, detachment and fasting, the fact that they all talk about God and so on - which again, considered historically and geographically, seems remarkable if they all really do come from different sources.
What you alluded to at the end - about whether we are fated to repeat our mistakes - is an interesting question. I guess only time will answer that one - but I think i can say with certainty that as humans evolve and progress, there will still be a need for the renewal of spiritual thought, as much of today's teachings (the ones tht relate to society, not the essential spiritual ones) will cease to be valid say a thousand years hence. And so even if we manage to preserve everything correctly, and don't corrupt/misinterpret, we would still need a different set of teachings at some distant time in the future.
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