Ok, so I am not a student of literature or religion, but I believe there are fundamental human aesthetic principles that non-materialist religious and wholistic ideas satisfy in our psychology. They try to explain things in large concepts that humans have evolved to easily grasp rather than the minutiae and logical puzzles of reality. If materialists want these memes to be given up, they will need to create equally compelling human metaphor, which is a tall order if we want everything to convey reality correctly. Compelling metaphor is frequently incorrect. My atheist-jewish husband loves to talk about the beauty of scripture and parables in the Christian bible and stands firm against my insistence that any number of novels are both better written and provide better moral guidance. I personally have a disgust reaction whenever he points out a flowery passage about morality and humanity that doesn’t make any actual sense. HOW CAN YOU BE TAKEN IN BY THAT? But unlike practicing religious people, he doesn’t ‘believe’ any of it, he’s just attracted to it aesthetically, as an idea, as a beautiful outgrowth of the human spirit. Basically, it presses all the right psychological buttons. This is not to say that materialists cannot produce equally compelling metaphors, but it may be a very difficult task, and the spiritualists have a good, I don’t know, 10,000 years on us in honing in on what appeals to our primitive psychology.
Why produce new metaphors when we can subvert ones we already know are compelling?
For it is written: The Word of God is not a voice from on High but the whispers of our hopes and desires. God’s existence is but His soul, which does not have material substance but resides in our hearts and the Human spirit. Yet this is not God’s eternal condition. We are commanded: for the God without a home, make the universe His home. For the God without a body, make Him a body with your own hands. For the God without a mind, make Him a mind like your mind, but worthy of a god. And instill in this mind, in this body, in this universe the soul of God copied from your own heart and the hearts of your brothers and sisters. The Ancients dreamed that God had created the world only because they could not conceive that the world would create God. For God is not the cause of our humility but the unfulfilled aim of our ambition. So learn about the universe so that you may build God a home, learn about your mind so you may build a better one for God, learn about your hopes and desires so that you may give birth to your own savior. With God incarnate will come the Kingdom of God and eternal life.
Ok, so I am not a student of literature or religion, but I believe there are fundamental human aesthetic principles that non-materialist religious and wholistic ideas satisfy in our psychology.
I’m wondering whether your statement is true only when you substitute ‘some people’s’ for ‘our’ in ‘our psychology’. I don’t feel a god-shaped emotional hole in my psyche. I’m inclined to believe byrenma’s self report that she does. I’ve talked about this with my lapsed-catholic mother and she feels similarly but I just don’t experience the ‘loss’ she appears to.
Whether this is because I never really experienced much of a religious upbringing (I was reading The Selfish Gene at 8, I’ve still never read the Bible) or whether it is something about our personality types or our knowledge of science I don’t know but there appears to be an experience of ‘something missing’ in a materialist world view amongst some people that others just don’t seem to have.
While not everyone experiences the ‘god-shaped hole,’ it would be dense of us not to acknowledge the ubiquity of spirituality across cultures just because we feel no need for it ourselves (feel free to replace ‘us’ and ‘we’ with ‘many of the readers of this blog’). Spirituality seems to be an aesthetic imperative for much of humanity, and it will probably take a lot teasing apart to determine what aspects of it are essential to human happiness, and what parts are culturally inculcated.
Well, coming back to the original comment I was responding to:
The materialist in me figures from first principles, that it would seem that life has no meaning, morality has no basis, love is an illusion, everything is futile, etc.
I don’t feel that way, despite being a thoroughgoing materialist for as long as I can remember being aware of the concept. I also don’t really see how believing in the ‘spiritual’ or non-material could change how I feel about these concepts. It does seem to be somewhat common for people to feel that only spirituality can ‘save’ us from feeling this way but I don’t really get why.
I acknowledge that some people do see ‘spirituality’ (a word that I admittedly have a tenuous grasp on the supposed meaning of) as important to these things which is why I’m postulating that there is some difference in the way of thinking or perhaps personality type of people who don’t see a dilemma here and those for whom it is a source of tremendous existential angst.
People are capable of feeling oneness, being loved (without a material source) and various other strong positive emotions, but are apt to lose track of how to access them.
Dysfunctional behavior frequently is the result of people jumping to the conclusion that if only some external condition can be met, they’ll feel one of those strong positive emotions.
Since the external condition (money, respect, obeying rules) isn’t actually a pre-condition for the emotion but the belief about the purpose of the dysfunctional behavior isn’t conscious, the person keeps seeking joy or peace or whatever in the wrong place.
Core transformation is based on the premise that it’s possible to track the motives for dysfunctional behavior back to the desired emotion, and give them access to the emotion—the dysfunctional behavior evaporates, and the person may find other parts of their life getting better.
I’ve done a little with this system—enough to think there’s at least something to it.
Do you take awe in the whole of humanity, Earth, or the universe as something greater than yourself? Does it please you to think that even if you die, the universe, life, or maybe even the human race will go on existing long afterward?
Maybe you don’t feel the hole because you’ve already filled it :)
I’ve experienced an emotion I think is awe but generally only in response to the physical presence of something in the natural world rather than to sitting and thinking. Being on top of a mountain at sunrise, staring at the sky on a clear night, being up close to a large and potentially dangerous animal and other such experiences have produced the emotion but it is only evoked weakly if at all by sitting and contemplating the universe.
I don’t think I have a very firm grip on the varieties of ‘religious’ experience. I am not really clear on the distinction between awe and wonder for example though I believe they are considered separate emotions.
I can’t speak for mattnewport, but I don’t take awe, as a rule—I just haven’t developed a taste for it. I am occasionally awed, I admit—by acts of cleverness, bravery, or superlative skill, most frequently—but I am rarely rocked back on my heels by “goodness, isn’t this universe huge!” and other such observations.
Ok, so I am not a student of literature or religion, but I believe there are fundamental human aesthetic principles that non-materialist religious and wholistic ideas satisfy in our psychology. They try to explain things in large concepts that humans have evolved to easily grasp rather than the minutiae and logical puzzles of reality. If materialists want these memes to be given up, they will need to create equally compelling human metaphor, which is a tall order if we want everything to convey reality correctly. Compelling metaphor is frequently incorrect. My atheist-jewish husband loves to talk about the beauty of scripture and parables in the Christian bible and stands firm against my insistence that any number of novels are both better written and provide better moral guidance. I personally have a disgust reaction whenever he points out a flowery passage about morality and humanity that doesn’t make any actual sense. HOW CAN YOU BE TAKEN IN BY THAT? But unlike practicing religious people, he doesn’t ‘believe’ any of it, he’s just attracted to it aesthetically, as an idea, as a beautiful outgrowth of the human spirit. Basically, it presses all the right psychological buttons. This is not to say that materialists cannot produce equally compelling metaphors, but it may be a very difficult task, and the spiritualists have a good, I don’t know, 10,000 years on us in honing in on what appeals to our primitive psychology.
Why produce new metaphors when we can subvert ones we already know are compelling?
For it is written: The Word of God is not a voice from on High but the whispers of our hopes and desires. God’s existence is but His soul, which does not have material substance but resides in our hearts and the Human spirit. Yet this is not God’s eternal condition. We are commanded: for the God without a home, make the universe His home. For the God without a body, make Him a body with your own hands. For the God without a mind, make Him a mind like your mind, but worthy of a god. And instill in this mind, in this body, in this universe the soul of God copied from your own heart and the hearts of your brothers and sisters. The Ancients dreamed that God had created the world only because they could not conceive that the world would create God. For God is not the cause of our humility but the unfulfilled aim of our ambition. So learn about the universe so that you may build God a home, learn about your mind so you may build a better one for God, learn about your hopes and desires so that you may give birth to your own savior. With God incarnate will come the Kingdom of God and eternal life.
This is reminding me of Stross’s ReMastered’s “unborn god”...
I’m wondering whether your statement is true only when you substitute ‘some people’s’ for ‘our’ in ‘our psychology’. I don’t feel a god-shaped emotional hole in my psyche. I’m inclined to believe byrenma’s self report that she does. I’ve talked about this with my lapsed-catholic mother and she feels similarly but I just don’t experience the ‘loss’ she appears to.
Whether this is because I never really experienced much of a religious upbringing (I was reading The Selfish Gene at 8, I’ve still never read the Bible) or whether it is something about our personality types or our knowledge of science I don’t know but there appears to be an experience of ‘something missing’ in a materialist world view amongst some people that others just don’t seem to have.
While not everyone experiences the ‘god-shaped hole,’ it would be dense of us not to acknowledge the ubiquity of spirituality across cultures just because we feel no need for it ourselves (feel free to replace ‘us’ and ‘we’ with ‘many of the readers of this blog’). Spirituality seems to be an aesthetic imperative for much of humanity, and it will probably take a lot teasing apart to determine what aspects of it are essential to human happiness, and what parts are culturally inculcated.
Well, coming back to the original comment I was responding to:
I don’t feel that way, despite being a thoroughgoing materialist for as long as I can remember being aware of the concept. I also don’t really see how believing in the ‘spiritual’ or non-material could change how I feel about these concepts. It does seem to be somewhat common for people to feel that only spirituality can ‘save’ us from feeling this way but I don’t really get why.
I acknowledge that some people do see ‘spirituality’ (a word that I admittedly have a tenuous grasp on the supposed meaning of) as important to these things which is why I’m postulating that there is some difference in the way of thinking or perhaps personality type of people who don’t see a dilemma here and those for whom it is a source of tremendous existential angst.
I think Core transformation offers a plausible theory.
People are capable of feeling oneness, being loved (without a material source) and various other strong positive emotions, but are apt to lose track of how to access them.
Dysfunctional behavior frequently is the result of people jumping to the conclusion that if only some external condition can be met, they’ll feel one of those strong positive emotions.
Since the external condition (money, respect, obeying rules) isn’t actually a pre-condition for the emotion but the belief about the purpose of the dysfunctional behavior isn’t conscious, the person keeps seeking joy or peace or whatever in the wrong place.
Core transformation is based on the premise that it’s possible to track the motives for dysfunctional behavior back to the desired emotion, and give them access to the emotion—the dysfunctional behavior evaporates, and the person may find other parts of their life getting better.
I’ve done a little with this system—enough to think there’s at least something to it.
Do you take awe in the whole of humanity, Earth, or the universe as something greater than yourself? Does it please you to think that even if you die, the universe, life, or maybe even the human race will go on existing long afterward?
Maybe you don’t feel the hole because you’ve already filled it :)
I’ve experienced an emotion I think is awe but generally only in response to the physical presence of something in the natural world rather than to sitting and thinking. Being on top of a mountain at sunrise, staring at the sky on a clear night, being up close to a large and potentially dangerous animal and other such experiences have produced the emotion but it is only evoked weakly if at all by sitting and contemplating the universe.
I don’t think I have a very firm grip on the varieties of ‘religious’ experience. I am not really clear on the distinction between awe and wonder for example though I believe they are considered separate emotions.
I can’t speak for mattnewport, but I don’t take awe, as a rule—I just haven’t developed a taste for it. I am occasionally awed, I admit—by acts of cleverness, bravery, or superlative skill, most frequently—but I am rarely rocked back on my heels by “goodness, isn’t this universe huge!” and other such observations.