Putting Religion and Spirituality In Their (Healthy) Place

I’m an atheist committed to science as the best method for understanding reality. Still, I have respect for religion and spirituality. Though I don’t have a use for them myself I understand why people do and if my situation were different I bet I would be religious or at least spiritual. I was spiritual during my hippie years. And growing up, I had eight years of Yeshiva, Hebrew Orthodox day school, three hours of religious training five days a week and Shul on Saturday.

I think it’s wonderful that people find meaning in religion. I’m no less drawn than religious or spiritual people to beautiful epic stories that give meaning to my life, by association.

I’ve also taught history. I recognize the problems that stem from religious and spiritual exceptionalism. Though they often present themselves as humble in the presence of a supernatural power, they rarely stay humble. Instead, their become what I’ll call wild, trump, get out of doubt cards:

Wild Cards: About the supernatural, you can believe anything. Science and logic can never prove you wrong about supposed miracles and the unknown beyond our senses.

Trump cards: You can always claim that your supernatural beliefs beat science and logic. You have a superior path to truth. Revelation.

Get out of doubt cards: A wildcard, trump card frees you to claim you know the absolute final truth about something big and important. You have faith, a supposedly pious commitment to an idea that no other idea could ever shift. Given the stresses of life, freedom from doubt about big things is an irresistible relief. And an indulgence.

I know many religious and spiritual people who think that these wild, trump, get out of doubt cards are fine to use so long as it’s for a good cause. They believe in a good God or higher power that wants us all to love each other.

Many spiritual people are very proud of their rejection of God as a man with a white beard even though they still personify their higher power. A higher power is not a mere voltage. It’s still a being in that it wants things. And it’s still a wild, trump, get out of doubt card, even if it’s a supernatural being that wants nothing but tolerance and love and kindness.

I get it about wanting to use religion and spirituality for a good cause. Still, if you allow yourself use them for a good cause, what’s to stop others from employing them for a bad cause? Who gets to decide what’s a good or bad cause? Every religious or spiritual person I’ve asked just doubles down on their faith.

“We know what’s good and bad. We get to decide. Our faith is obviously good.”

I, therefore, reject the use of these wild, trump, get out of doubt cards, for any cause but then, given my nature and good fortune, that’s relatively easy for me to do. I might have reached for one of these cards if my life had ended up being harder.

I’m an atheist, but don’t get me wrong. I assume I’m about as delusional as the next guy. It’s not like I think I’ve got the real truth and people who disagree with me are obviously wrong because I’ve checked with myself and my scientific tribe many times and we all agree with ourselves.

I know I fool myself lots. I’m into what I call “optimal illusion” trying to kid myself where it helps and not where it harms.

I’m sure I belong to cults I’m not even aware of. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t live in a bubble. I’m no exception.

I don’t begrudge any of us our delusions. Go ahead, knock yourself out. I do, intoxicated by my delusions of grandeur.

Still, we’ve got to figure out how to put a leash on the asshole behavior that results from taking wild, trump, get out of doubt cards too seriously.

Natural reality is still reality. It trumps all faiths. We can fantasize all we want but only if we stay clear about the difference between fantasy and reality. The better we get at telling the difference the safer, we are indulging in fantasy.

And we have plenty of practice telling fantasy from reality.

Spirituality Essential Reads

The Spiritual Path to Nowhere

How to Alchemize a Desire for Destruction Into Connection

If you’ve ever watched a movie, read a novel or masturbated, you know well how to savor fantasy and after, return to reality. That’s how I think religion and spirituality are held most healthily.

I get practice with fanntasy as a local pop musician. I toss my head back and shred as though I'm Jimi Hendrix, knowing full well that I’m not. I’m just a guy who likes to play.

Music is my hobby. By now I play it for many reasons, but I don’t discount the way it makes me feel like a guitar hero. It’s still a childish folly I’ve carried into late middle age. I’m happy to indulge it. It’s a way I throw this old ego-dog a bone.

Wild, trump, get out of doubt cards are just a strangely socially sanctioned way to do it. People get faith for lots of reasons but I’m convinced that at core it’s just a hobby, a way to throw our ego-selves a bone. What’s strange about it is the wide swath we grant to people who chose it as their hobby. It would be like people being forced by social norms to humor me whenever I insist that I’m as hot as Jimi Hendrix or else they’re being sacrilegious and insulting, and shame on them.

I expect to get pushback from religious and spiritual folk who take umbrage that I would insinuate that their absolute faith is standard-issue human puffery. I’ll hear their pre-recording rationalizations for why their faith is pure and true, and for a good cause and should be taken seriously by more people not less. I’ll hear “it’s them, not us,” or more pointedly “it’s your kind, not ours.”

I predict it because I get it like clockwork when I write articles like this. I end up being part of someone’s playtime fantasy at the end of their hard working day, an opportunity to wield their wild, trump, get out of doubt card to escape their humanness for a moment. I don’t take it any more seriously than I take anyone’s hobby because that’s what faith is. It’s like my guitar masturbation, a fun fantasy.

I just think we need to remember that it’s fantasy. We’re all trying to figure out what’s right and no one knows for sure. You can’t know for sure. Everything we think implies predictions with consequences for the future. The future is uncertain.

You can pretend you’ve found a direct channel to an omniscient higher power who reveals what’s best for the future. Go ahead, knock yourself out. But don’t expect respect for your feigned authority. It’s just another hobby high horse. We’ve all got em. We all need to learn when to get off them and ground ourselves in natural earthbound reality.

Afterword: Political ideology is another source of faith-based hobby high horses similar to religion and spirituality, and often linked to it, just variations on the know-it-all fantasy fad.

Samantha Bee made this point this week, comparing the NRA to Scientology. I think she's right with implications for all sorts of fads, from the Alt-Right to Eckart Tolle, from absolute conservativism to absolute tolerance, from Libertarianism to Communism. Same swagger of authority; different flavors. It's not what you claim to believe but how you clutch and strut it.